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World Worries as Trump Set to Dump Paris Climate Deal
Trump has called climate change a "hoax." Tweeted: "This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop."
May 07, 2017
The world is worried as Decision Day nears.
At a April 29th rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump said he would make a "big decision" on Paris within the next two weeks and vowed to end "a broken system of global plunder at American expense."
Now the Trump administration has a meeting scheduled this Tuesday to decide whether to drop out of the Paris Agreement.
During last year's campaign Trump called the Paris climate agreement, COP21, a "bad deal" for the U.S. and promised more oil drilling and to revive the fading coal industry. He's also called climate change a "hoax."
Trump's senior strategist Steve Bannon, White House counsel Don McGahn, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are leading the climate deniers urging Trump to officially pull the United States from the accord. But, sources say, they are clashing with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and First Daughter Ivanka Trump.
Trump's scorched-earth approach to environmental protections has shocked current and former government officials overseas who are waiting nervously to see whether the US will destabilize the agreement by pulling out of the deal, the Guardian reports.
- Izabella Teixeira, the former Brazilian environment minister: "Trump's actions on the climate are worrying. Although it is still too early to be sure what his strategy is for the US, the signs so far of backsliding are a concern to anyone who was involved in the long process that lead up to the Paris agreement. We certainly could not have imagined this political picture when we signed the agreement in Paris. It is a concern because we saw a similar situation when George W Bush came to power and backed away from the Kyoto protocol."
- Erik Solheim, UN environment chief: "There is no doubt where the future is and that is what all the private sector companies have understood. The future is green. Obviously if you are not a party to the Paris agreement, you will lose out. And the main losers of course will be the people of the United States itself because all the interesting, fascinating new green jobs would go to China and to the other parts of the world that are investing heavily in this."
- Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji: "Climate change is not a hoax. it is frighteningly real. Billions of people are losing the ability to feed themselves. Don't let the whole side down by leaving, just when we have a game plan."
- Hilda Heine, the president of the Marshall Islands: said she was "extremely disappointed to see the United States seeking to roll back its efforts to reduce emissions. My country's survival depends on every country delivering on the promises they made in Paris. Our own commitment to it will never waiver."
- Ramon Mendez, former head of Uruguay's climate policy: "I'm very worried by what is happening in the US regarding climate change. It was an extraordinarily strong shock to hear that Trump has signed a decree to revise the clean power plan. Of all of Trump's policies, this is the one with the worst consequences for the world. If an important country like the US, which has the second biggest emissions after China, doesn't abide by the Paris agreement, then the Paris agreement is broken. It will make it harder for other countries to maintain their ambitions."
"If the U.S. pulls out, it will be a pariah," said Andrew Light, a climate adviser at the World Resources Institute. "It will be on the sidelines, and that's going to hurt American businesses."
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Ticking Carbon Clock Warns We Have One Year to Avert Climate Catastrophe
Under the most pessimistic scenario, the planet has just one year until the carbon budget for global temperatures surpass 1.5ºC of warming
Jan 10, 2017
Our window of time to act on climate may be shrinking even faster than previously thought.
We may only have one year remaining before we lock in 1.5oC of warming--the ideal goal outlined in the Paris climate agreement--after which we'll see catastrophic and irreversible climate shifts, many experts have warned.
That's according to the ticking carbon budget clock created by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). The clock's countdown now shows that only one year is left in the world's carbon budget before the planet heats up more than 1.5o over pre-industrial temperatures.
That's under the most pessimistic calculations. According to the most optimistic prediction, we have four years to kick our carbon habit and avert 1.5o of warming.
And to limit warming to 2oC--the limit agreed upon in the Paris climate accord--we have nine years to act under the most pessimistic scenario, and 23 years to act under the most optimistic.
"So far, there is no track record for reducing emissions globally," explained Fabian Lohe, spokesperson for MCC, in an email to Common Dreams. "Instead, greenhouse gas emissions have been rising at a faster pace during the last decade than previously--despite growing awareness and political action across the globe. Once we have exhausted the carbon budget, every ton of CO2 that is released by cars, buildings, or industrial plants would need to be compensated for during the 21st century by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere again. Generating such 'negative emissions' is even more challenging and we do not know today at which scale we might be able to do that."
(Climate activists and environmentalists have also long warned of the potential negative consequences of geoengineering and other carbon capture schemes, as Common Dreams has reported.)
"Hence, the clock shows that time is running out: it is not enough to act sometime in the future, but it is necessary to implement more ambitious climate policies already in the very short-term," Lohe added.
"Take all of the most difficult features of individual pathways to 2oC--like fast and ambitious climate action in all countries of the world, the full availability of all required emissions reduction and carbon removal technologies, as well as aggressive energy demand reductions across the globe--the feasibility of which were so heatedly debated prior to Paris," Lohe said. "This gives you an idea of the challenge associated with the more ambitious 1.5degC goal."
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Top Climate Stories to Watch in 2017
2016 was something of a mixed bag for the global climate. On the one hand, renewable energy use has never been higher -- but on the other hand, 2016 brought with it news of record fossil fuel consumption, as well.
Jan 01, 2017
2016 was something of a mixed bag for the global climate. On the one hand, renewable energy use has never been higher -- but on the other hand, 2016 brought with it news of record fossil fuel consumption, as well.
Meanwhile, the Paris Climate Agreement went into force on November 4, far sooner than anyone ever expected, signaling a new era of international climate action -- but just a few days later, the U.S., the second-largest emitter in the world, elected a new president who has called global warming a hoax and pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as possible.
Needless to say, 2017 is likely to be a pivotal year in the fight to halt global climate change and all of its impacts. Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories to keep an eye on in the new year.
1. Will Trump withdraw U.S. from Paris Climate Agreement and kill clean energy funding?
More than 90 countries had ratified the Paris Climate Agreement when it entered into force on November 4, 2016. Just 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions needed to formally adopt the pact in order to trigger its entry into force, and that threshold was reached far quicker than anyone anticipated.
When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency a few days later, Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso reported from the UN climate talks in Marrakesh, Morocco that delegates were "aghast and shaken, with emotions ranging from defiance to wishful encouragement."
All 195 countries party to the Paris Agreement are obligated to achieve their voluntary pledges to reduce carbon emissions and abide by all provisions of the agreement for three years before they can seek to withdraw. The withdrawal process itself is likely to take another year. But news quickly broke that Trump's transition team was already seeking ways to bypass the four-year procedure for exiting the pact.
The whole world will, of course, be watching closely to see whether or not Trump makes good on this pledge and his other anti-climate action stances, such as his proposal to end all federal funding for clean energy development and climate science research. The fact that Trump has chosen Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is perhaps a sign that he does indeed intend to follow through.
Pruitt is a close ally of the fossil fuel industry and a staunch climate denier with ties to the Koch Brothers. The confirmation process for Pruitt is shaping up to be quite contentious, and is well worth watching as an indication of how U.S. climate action will fare in 2017, as well.
2. How will countries and others respond to a climate-denying US administration?
Responding to the election of Trump and the news that he was seeking a speedy exit from the Paris Climate Agreement, Katherine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University, said in a statement that "The bright light of hope the Paris Agreement shone on the bleak and discouraging landscape of climate change has been dimmed but not extinguished."
Numerous other responses were forthcoming. For instance, a letter signed by nearly 400 companies and investors urged Trump not to withdraw the U.S. from the Agreement and to continue "investment in the low carbon economy at home and abroad" specifically because they see climate action as good for business.
As Justin Catonoso reported for Mongabay, the U.S. could face a serious backlash above and beyond the loss of standing on the world stage that would result from a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. That backlash might take the form of faltering trade agreements, failed military cooperation, economic sanctions, or even a carbon tax levied on the U.S. for not reaching its emissions-reduction pledges.
One thing that's clear is that, at this point, no one country can put climate action back in the bottle, so to speak. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made this point during the UN climate talks in Marrakesh: "This is bigger than one person, one president. We have to figure out how we're going to stop this [Trump's plan]... No one has the right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input."
The rest of the world, especially China, India, and the European Union, plans to continue rapidly decarbonizing their economies with 21st-century technologies, no matter what route the U.S. takes. China is widely expected to step into the power vacuum created by Trump's failure to carry on in the climate leadership role adopted by the Obama Administration, according to Catonoso, who added that withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement "could have far-reaching negative implications for future US foreign policy, and for the US economy."
3. China, the world's largest emitter, and coal consumption.
In order to be a world leader on climate action, China will have to get its own house in order. And that will mean aggressively phasing out the use of coal more than anything else.
As of July 2016, China had 895 gigawatts of existing coal capacity, another 205 gigawatts under construction, and plans for a further 405 gigawatts, according to a report by the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative. The report also found that the country's 895 gigawatts of installed coal capacity was being utilized less than half the time -- meaning China could be planning to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on coal-fired power plants that it doesn't even need.
"China's coal power investments have reached an important juncture: keep pouring capital into increasingly unviable projects and put the financial system under additional pressure from the risk of large-scale defaults, or stop investing and promote efficiency," the Carbon Tracker Initiative said. If China completes all of the coal-fired projects that are currently in the works or in the planning stage, the country would blow through its carbon budget for limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius by 2036, the group added.
Two years ago, the U.S. and China -- the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters on the planet -- signed a joint agreement to combat climate change in which China pledged to generate 20 percent of its electrical power from renewable sources by 2030 and to hit peak emissions that same year (some experts have estimated that China has already hit peak emissions, but the data is inconclusive). The joint leadership shown by the two countries is widely believed to have been a significant factor in making the Paris Climate Agreement possible in December 2015.
Of course, it made sense for China to take such a strong public stance regarding its future use of coal. Air pollution from burning coal is so bad that it caused 366,000 premature deaths in China in 2013 alone, researchers have found.
If China, a country with a rapidly growing middle class that is heavily reliant on coal for energy production, is to meet its emissions-reduction targets, that would have huge implications for major coal producers in Australia and the U.S. as well as for the global coal industry as a whole. If it doesn't meet those goals, particularly because of not phasing coal out of its energy mix aggressively enough, that could have a serious impact on its ability to lead the rest of the world towards a sustainable, low-carbon future.
4. Will Arctic Sea ice continue to decline, opening up the fabled Northwest Passage once and for all?
In almost every summer since 2007, the southern route of the Northwest Passage, which connects the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, has been nearly ice-free. In 2016, the luxury cruiseliner Crystal Serenity became the largest passenger vessel to ever travel through the route, which was considered nearly impassable just over a century ago.
As Mongabay staff writer John Cannon reported earlier this month, higher-than-normal water and air temperatures coupled with shifts in wind patterns led to record-low sea ice extents in both the Arctic and the Antarctic in November 2016. "It looks like a triple whammy - a warm ocean, a warm atmosphere, and a wind pattern all working against the ice in the Arctic," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Dropping temperatures in the months leading up to winter usually lead to increases in Arctic Sea ice, a process that typically starts in September and peaks in March. But at one point in mid-November, the extent of Arctic sea ice had actually shrunk by about 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles). In some places, air temperatures were 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the November averages recorded between 1981 and 2010. As a result, Arctic Sea ice extent was just 9.08 million square kilometers (3.51 million square miles), 18 percent lower than the November average. That made November the seventh month of 2016 with record-low levels of Arctic Sea ice.
We won't really begin to know what 2017 will bring for the Arctic until late March, when the melt season returns. But it doesn't look good: For the second year in a row, scientists forecasted ice-melting December temperatures for some parts of the Arctic.
5. Renewable energy getting cheaper and cheaper vis a vis fossil fuels.
As Bloomberg reported earlier this month, "A transformation is happening in global energy markets that's worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity."
In mid-2015, the world hit an important turning point, entering an era in which we're building more capacity for clean energy each year than for coal and natural gas combined. It's now predicted that the world could reach peak fossil-fuel use for electricity generation within the next decade.
Coal and natural gas -- and the CO2 they emit when burned for energy -- are likely to continue playing key roles in the global energy mix for years to come, however. According to a report that came out in June, in fact, global consumption of fossil fuels is at an all-time high. Even though consumption of renewables is also at a record-high level, 2015 was still the sixth year in a row that a new record for total global emissions was set.
We can probably expect lots of confusing and contradictory stats to emerge in 2017 as the global energy mix continues to experience drastic growth and changes. For instance, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that, after declining by 2.6 percent in 2015, energy-related CO2 emissions in the U.S. will have declined by another 1.3 percent in 2016 but will increase by 0.9 percent in 2017.
Still, there are undeniable signs that a clean energy economy is fast approaching. Look for wind and solar to continue getting cheaper and supplying an ever-larger share of the world's energy needs in the new year.
6. Climate change, forests, and REDD+.
According to some estimates, deforestation is responsible for as much as one-fifth of all global greenhouse gas emissions -- more than all of the world's planes, trains, and automobiles combined.
That means that curbing deforestation is not only good for forests and the people and wildlife that depend on them (which is pretty much everybody and every creature on Earth), but it's also good for combating climate change.
In acknowledgement of this reality, the nearly 200 countries that adopted the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015 included the UN's mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, known as REDD+, as a standalone article in the pact.
In 2015 alone, governments and companies from around the world committed a record $888 million in new funding to projects aimed at keeping forests and other carbon-absorbing landscapes intact, through REDD+ initiatives and other mechanisms such as carbon markets. This is an encouraging sign that large-scale financial flows might be starting to materialize for forest protection efforts.
Nonetheless, late 2016 brought news that deforestation in Brazil had jumped 29 percent over 2015 levels. That means that, even though destruction of the Brazilian Amazon continues to occur at historically low rates, deforestation is at the highest level recorded since 2008. (We also learned in late 2016 that Brazil was planning to restore 22 million hectares (about 54 million acres) of land in what the World Resources Institute called "the largest restoration commitment ever made by a single nation.")
Deforestation is a large and complex issue, so it's no surprise that there should be setbacks even as the world is making great strides in dealing with the issue. For example, agricultural commodities like beef, palm oil, pulp & paper, and soy have become an increasingly important driver of tropical deforestation, which is why hundreds of companies have now made "Zero Deforestation Commitments" in order to root out the deforestation in their supply chains. But according to recent analyses, even many of the companies that have made these pledges are underestimating the extent to which they are exposed to the risk of their operations contributing to deforestation, and are therefore unlikely to achieve their time-bound targets for severing their ties to forest destruction.
The good news is that many tropical countries are committed to only promoting sustainable production of agricultural commodities, and we're pouring more resources than ever into understanding exactly which forest conservation strategies are most effective.
7. Ongoing global coral reef bleaching event and other climate impacts on Earth's oceans.
2016 saw a lot of action to protect Earth's oceans and its inhabitants. In August 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama expanded the world's largest protected area, the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, which provides important habitat for monk seals, sea turtles, sharks, and several other species of at-risk marine wildlife. Then, in October, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), an international organization that represents 24 countries and the European Union, one-upped Obama by establishing a larger, 1.55-million-square-kilometer (598,000-square-mile) marine protected area in the Ross Sea, off Antarctica.
More than 3.6 million square kilometers or 1.39 million square miles were protected in 2016, bringing the total amount of protected ocean to five percent -- which still represents just half the amount called for by the Convention of Biological Diversity.
There's no way to protect marine biodiversity from the impacts of climate change, however. Thankfully, an obituary for Australia's Great Barrier Reef that went viral this year was inaccurate -- but, as Mongabay staff writer Shreya Dasgupta reported at the end of November, scientists have confirmed that the Great Barrier Reef suffered the worst coral bleaching event on record due to higher than normal water temperatures in 2015 and 2016.
It's not just the Great Barrier Reef, either -- a global coral reef bleaching disaster that started in 2015 is ongoing today, and corals around the world have been effected.
Meanwhile, an octopus was found in the parking garage of a seaside condo complex in Florida in November after flooding associated with unusually high tides carried it up through the garage's drainage pipes. As University of California, Santa Barbara scientists Douglas McCauley and Caroline Jablonicky wrote for Mongabay, "Projections for sea level rise suggest this may be just the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Climate change is causing ocean waters to expand and melting land ice is adding more volume to the oceans, which are projected to rise about two feet by the end of this century. Much more alarming than marine wildlife in parking garages is the potential for trillions of dollars in damage that sea level rise may cause to coastal communities if climate change goes unchecked."
Amidst all of the climate change-induced pressures on marine wildlife, mankind is about to start mining the seabed in search of copper, gold, manganese, nickel, and other minerals. Canadian company Nautilus Minerals is hoping to open the world's first deep sea mine off the coast of Papua New Guinea in the Bismarck Sea in early 2018.
8. Citizen-led climate action.
While major protests in the U.S. against the Keystone XL tarsands pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline have targeted specific infrastructure projects that would lock us into decades of continued fossil fuel use, they have also shown the power of a united climate movement to effect real policy changes.
The global divestment movement is another example of citizen-led climate action that is making a real impact. As of December 2016, investment funds worth more than $5 trillion have now committed to divesting their fossil fuel assets. As ThinkProgress reports, "while the push for divestment began originally as a grassroots campaign on college campuses, the movement has gone mainstream, with 80 percent of the divested funds coming from commercial investment funds or pensions." Even a number of cities, from Sydney, Australia to Washington, D.C. are getting in on the divestment action.
As the divestment movement and opposition to projects like Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline continue to grow, it will make it more and more expensive for oil, gas, and coal companies to finance new development projects -- and stigmatize their product in the process.
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2017: Trump Peddles Climate Doubt in a World Sold on Action
Dec 30, 2016
President-elect Donald Trump may dismiss the Paris Agreement and pack his cabinet with climate deniers, but once he takes office, he will face a world that takes the climate crisis as seriously as he does not.
He will enter a complex web of diplomatic relations, where issues like trade, finance, migration, security, poverty, food aid and disaster relief are all intertwined and all have important links to the climate agenda. It's a world already dealing with significant climate impacts and sold on climate action.
"I am struck by the shift over the last few years in how the global community puts climate change on its agenda," Jonathan Pershing, President Obama's special envoy on climate, told InsideClimate News. "It is now virtually everywhere."
Since the signing of the Paris Agreement a year ago, addressing climate change has remained a major imperative for most of the world's nations. Enough countries quickly ratified the accord so that it entered into force early, in November. Shortly after Trump's surprising election, delegates from virtually every country in the world gathered in Marrakech to start putting the Paris treaty immediately into action.
Most countries also signed on to two other agreements this fall: one to reduce potent greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and another to cap emissions for the aviation industry.
Whatever the U.S. does under Trump, other countries "will move whether or not we are moving forward," Pershing predicted.
Read the rest at Inside Climate News.
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Memo to Trump: US Interests in the Era of Climate Change
During the US presidential campaign, President-elect Trump argued that global efforts to address climate change, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, were a "bad deal" that posed an unnecessary burden for business. Although he initially indicated he could withdraw from the Paris Agreement, he has more recently suggested that he has an open mind. I would urge him to reconsider his opposition to climate change cooperation.
Dec 20, 2016
During the US presidential campaign, President-elect Trump argued that global efforts to address climate change, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, were a "bad deal" that posed an unnecessary burden for business. Although he initially indicated he could withdraw from the Paris Agreement, he has more recently suggested that he has an open mind. I would urge him to reconsider his opposition to climate change cooperation. As more than 300 US businesses recently argued in an open letter, failing to invest in a more energy efficient and green future will be a "bad deal" for long-term US interests.
The global economy is undergoing profound changes. It is moving, inexorably, toward a green economy. Last year's Paris Climate Agreement, while by itself far from enough to limit the increase in global warming to a desired target, has become an important catalyst for global economic cooperation and integration regardless of whether or not one believes in global warming. The 21st century economy, including America's very own, will be rebuilt on a new, high-tech, climate-safe, and low-carbon system.
The United States is already invested in this new system--it cannot disconnect from the new rules of the game. As we saw during the 2016 COP22 Conference in Marrakesh, regardless of the claims of climate change deniers, the overwhelming majority of countries on the planet are marching on toward a more green and sustainable economy. Ultimately, US businesses and the economy will lose by disengaging from this progress. And, in turn, US disengagement means that everyone loses--even China is warning the United States against abandoning the Paris Agreement.
President-elect Trump may also find that climate change is not just an economic issue, but an important national security agenda. The consequences of climate change, such as storms, extreme heat, droughts, and floods, impose serious threats to the United States and other countries. Domestically, the effects of climate change can overwhelm disaster-response capabilities; internationally, they cause humanitarian disasters that contribute to political violence affecting multiple countries. Beyond these threats, there is also a strategic dimension to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Working together with countries such as China and India to reduce emissions can help the United States integrate those countries into the global rules-based order; it can also help facilitate a more stable development trajectory for countries such as Indonesia. It can potentially be applied in facilitating changes in deadlock situations like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The Asian region is still dealing with volatile economic, military, political, and demographic transitions, from China's economic slowdown and increasing tensions over the South China Sea to environmental degradation and demographic problems throughout the region. Climate change affects almost all of these problems, both directly and indirectly. It serves as a threat multiplier that significantly intensifies the region's instability.
Asia will need bold actions and closer partnerships with other countries to tackle these complex challenges. Partnership on climate change and environmental issues can provide a relatively safe entry point for political cooperation that can keep bilateral channels open even in the midst of ongoing friction. In some cases, such cooperation may provide a way out of conflict or may even offer ideas for innovative institutional and governance mechanisms. As we recently saw, China's partnership with the United States on the Paris Agreement helped to keep open a channel for both nations to work together regardless of intensifying tensions on issues such as the South China Sea.
Unlike many other global threats, in terms of climate change, we have a clear understanding of the limited time frame for intervention. The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity for global leaders to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic consequences. The broad international consensus that is building around this issue is helping to generate concrete policy proposals to prevent these outcomes. President-elect Trump and his administration should harness this growing cooperation, and the opportunity it provides to advance US political and economic purposes. The march toward a greener future is underway; I hope the United States will continue to stay on this path.
This post originally appeared in The Asia Society Policy Institute briefing book, Advice for the 45th US President: Opinions from across the Pacific.
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Home Truths about the Climate Emergency
COP22 again highlighted the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold a vision of global cooperation and economic sharing as the only path towards a sustainable future.
Dec 08, 2016
As 2016 draws to a close, we appear to be living in a world that is increasingly defined by its illusions, where the truth is a matter of subjective interpretation or argumentative debate. Indeed, following the United States election and Brexit referendum there is much talk of a new era of post-truth politics, in which appeals to emotion count more than verifiable facts. But there are some facts that cannot be ignored for much longer, however hard we may try. And the greatest of all these facts is the escalating climate emergency that neither mainstream politicians, nor the public at large, are anywhere near to confronting on the urgent scale needed.
This was brought home once again at the latest Conference of the Parties held in Morocco last month, following the so-called 'historic' Paris Agreement of November 2015. Dubbed the 'implementation' or 'action COP', the main purpose of the summit was to agree the rules for implementing the new agreement, as few countries have set out concrete plans for how they will achieve future emissions reductions post-2020. Far from justifying its nickname, however, the almost 200 nations participating in COP22 decided that the overarching goals and framework for international climate action will not be completed until 2018, with a mere review of progress in 2017.
"What remains central to achieving an effective programme of action... is a degree of international cooperation and economic sharing that is unprecedented in human history."
Before the talks even commenced, the latest 'emissions gap' report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlighted the continued divergence between political and environmental/scientific reality. According to UNEP's analysis, the non-binding pledges made by governments in Paris could see temperatures rise by 3.4degC above pre-industrial levels this century, far beyond the 2degC considered a minimally safe upper limit. To hit the more realistic 1.5degC target--which in itself will only mitigate, rather than eliminate severe climate impacts--the world must dramatically step up its ambition within the next few years before we use up the remaining carbon budget.
Yet this reality was not even a key focus of the COP22 discussions, where most delegates from developed countries spoke mainly of their post-2020 commitments, as if the deadline for an emergency mobilisation of effort can be postponed by another few years. Ironically, several developed countries have not even ratified the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which comprises the pre-2020 period. So after 24 years of negotiations, we are still heading towards a future that is "incompatible with an organised global community", with no sign that the mismatch between rhetoric and action is near to closing.
As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold the real hope and vision for how nations can begin traversing a path towards 1.5degC. In an updated report for COP22, a coalition of campaigning organisations outlined the last chance we have of halting our race to environmental disaster, which will require massive emissions reductions before 2020 and major shifts in the real economy. All of these transformations are technically viable and economically practicable, despite their apparent political infeasibility--such as a fossil energy investment and development moratorium; a necessary shift to agro-ecological farming practices; and a planned global transition to 100% renewable energy.
What remains central to achieving an effective programme of action, however, is a degree of international cooperation and economic sharing that is unprecedented in human history. Such is the implicit message of both the 2016 and 2015 civil society equity reviews, which give a compelling justification for integrating the principle of 'fair shares' into a global effort-sharing framework. Using an equity modelling approach based on domestic mitigation pledges and indicators for capacity and historical responsibility, the reports show how developed countries are offering a share of effort that is markedly less ambitious than developing countries.
Moreover, both reports demonstrate how developed countries have fair share obligations that are too large to be fulfilled solely within their own borders, even with extremely ambitious domestic actions. So there is a moral, political and economic case for the wealthiest nations to vastly scale up their help to poorer countries in terms of international finance, technology sharing, and capacity-building support.
Put simply, campaigning organisations have used the most up-to-date scientific data to back up the argument that there cannot be hope for limiting global warming unless the principles of sharing, justice and equity are operationalised in a multilateral climate regime. But it is also an argument based on common sense and fundamental notions of fairness, given the urgency of drastically cutting global emissions within the context of interdependent nations at starkly disparate levels of economic and material development. As the civil society review for COP22 concludes, reiterating a basic truth of the climate justice movement: "Many of the changes needed to address the climate crisis are also needed to create a fairer world and better lives for us all. ...Climate change affirms the urgency and necessity to shift to an equitable and just pathway of development."
Of course, there is no sign that those countries with a higher capacity to act than others are facing up to their obligations to redistribute massive technological and financial resources to developing countries, thus enabling them to leapfrog onto rapid, low-carbon development paths. Activists at COP22 used the slogan "WTF?" to ask "Where's The Finance?", as only between $18 billion and $34 billion has been granted of the $100 billion per year that developed countries committed to find by 2020. A supposed "$100 Billion Roadmap" from the OECD was roundly debunked by both developing countries and civil society for using misleading numbers and various accounting tricks. All the while, new analysis shows that the true needs of the world's poorest countries is in the realm of trillions of dollars, if they are to plausibly meet their Paris pledges by 2030 and help avoid catastrophic warming. But no increases in public financial contributions were forthcoming in Morocco, pushing any substantive decisions on the issue back for another two years.
So once again, we are left to wonder at the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. 2016 broke all previous records for being the hottest year, while military leaders warned that climate change is already the greatest security threat of the 21st century, potentially leading to refugee problems on an unimaginable scale. Yet developed countries continue to evade and postpone their responsibilities for mobilising an appropriate response, while often making decisions on national infrastructure and energy that directly contradict their putative climate change commitments. Whether or not the United States withdraws from the Paris accords or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether, the prospect of global carbon emissions beginning to decline before 2020 currently remains dim, to say the least.
Still none of this changes the core reality, which has remained the same ever since the UNFCCC negotiations began in the early 1990s. For there can be no hope of real and meaningful progress on tackling climate change, without a major commitment to North-South cooperation based upon a fairer sharing of global resources. The simple truth is unavoidable, but time is running out before the world finally embraces its momentous implications.
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Giving "Snapshot of What's Possible," One Island Abandons Fossil Fuels
'This is part of making history'
Nov 28, 2016
Near the end of what may "very likely" be the hottest year on record, a bright spot in the battle to address climate change has emerged more than 4,000 miles from the U.S. West Coast.
The island of Ta'u, located in American Samoa, will now be able to ditch its diesel reliance and run almost entirely on renewable energy thanks to "a large solar panel array, microgrid, and batteries installed by SolarCity and Tesla," as UPI reported.
SolarCity was acquired this month by Elon Musk's Tesla.
Up to now, as the Guardian reports Monday,
Ta'u has depended on over 100,000 gallons of diesel shipped in from the main island of Tutuila to survive, using it to power homes, government buildings, and--crucially--water pumps.
When bad weather or rough seas prevented the ferry docking, which was often, the island came to a virtual stand-still, leaving Ta'u's 600 residents unable to work efficiently, go to school, or leave their usually idyllic paradise.
But with the new system, which boasts over 5,000 solar panels and Tesla Powerpacks capable of 6 megawatt-hours of energy storage in place, the island will be able to replace 109,500 gallons of diesel per year--and forgo the risks that posed.
"Ta'u is not a postcard from the future, it's a snapshot of what is possible right now," Peter Rive, SolarCity's co-founder and chief technology officer, wrote last week.
For local resident Keith Ahsoon, "This is part of making history. This project will help lessen the carbon footprint of the world. Living on an island, you experience global warming firsthand. Beach erosions and other noticeable changes are a part of life here. It's a serious problem, and this project will hopefully set a good example for everyone else to follow."
Indeed, it speaks to the kind of action a group of countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change called for earlier this month.
The Climate Vulnerable Form (CVF)--which includes Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands, and Yemen--outlined at the end of the United Nations climate change conference known as COP22 a vision that includes achieving 100 percent renewable energy by no later than 2050.
Edgar Gutierrez, environment and energy minister of Costa Rica, said, "We don't know what countries are still waiting for to move towards net carbon neutrality and 100 percent renewable energy. All parties should start the transition; otherwise we will all suffer."
Their initiative drew praise from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said it marked "the type of bold leadership by example the world needs right now on climate change. If countries that have done the least to cause climate change can take such strong steps, so can others. We need action by all, on behalf of all."
Click below to see a short video from SolarCity and Tesla on the Ta'u microgrid:
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With UN Climate Deal Trump's Chopping Block, Climate Hopes Turn to States, Cities
'The fate of the world quite literally hangs in the balance'
Nov 21, 2016
As the possibility lingers of climate change-denier Donald Trump making the United States a "rogue country" by following through on his promise to ditch the Paris climate accord, some say that cities and states in the U.S. can--and must--take the reins for climate action.
Trump could very well make good on that promise, argues climate activist and author Bill McKibben, as "he's surrounded by climate-change deniers and fossil-fuel insiders who will try to ensure that he keeps his word."
Amidst a "climate emergency," a re-committment to the goals of the Paris deal took place last week in Marrakesh, Morocco, with global leaders noting the "urgent priority" of climate action.
"Indeed, this year, we have seen extraordinary momentum on climate change worldwide," the proclamation signed by nearly 200 countries states. "This momentum is irreversible--it is being driven not only by governments, but by science, business, and global action of all types at all levels."
Yet, as StateImpact Pennsylvania writes, the real estate mogul's election "turned the rock-star U.S. climate delegation into lame ducks." It continues:
The U.S. is a major player at these talks. It's the second largest carbon emitter in the world. And it's also one of the wealthiest. Obama had made tackling climate change a top priority for his diplomatic corps. He pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund last year to help poor countries adapt to climate change.
But no one in Marrakech would admit this landmark achievement could fall apart with a U.S. exit.
Instead, they're now looking to American cities, like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, and to American states like California, to carry the climate torch if Trump acts on his promise to pull out.
London-based activist Adam McGibbon writes that the U.S. climate movement should fan the flames for such action, noting that
[c]urrently only U.N. member states are signed up to the Paris agreement's parent treaty, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, but observer members are permitted (the Vatican is an observer), and when it comes to the most important fight in human history, no quibbles should be made around technicalities.
There is precedent for this kind of state-level action--after the U.S.'s failure to sign the Kyoto protocol in the 2000s, a student group called Kyoto Now had similar objectives, calling for university campuses to draw up their own climate action plans in line with the Kyoto agreement. The difference between then and now is that the U.S. climate movement is a hundred times stronger, and ready for this fight.
It appears that California is ready to take on the challenge. Reuters reports that the Golden State and Vermont
are leading the low-carbon charge, and say they will not back down, whatever policies the White House will pursue from January.
California--which would have the world's fifth largest economy if it were a country--is on track to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, said its environment secretary Matt Rodriguez.
He and California Senate president Kevin de Leon told journalists in Marrakesh that the state's economy has grown faster than the rest of the country, largely thanks to its clean technology sector.
"California will not go backwards," said de Leon. "California will move forward with our (environmental) policies, together with like-minded states."
StateImpacts adds that Robert Stavins, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School and director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements,
says California, Washington, Oregon, and the Northeast states could not make up for an overall federal policy, but could at least keep the Paris Agreement alive.
"Those jurisdictions rather than falling back because of what happened in the election, they're actually going to become more aggressive [with their climate goals]," he said. "If their actions could be recognized within the structure of the Paris climate agreement, that's going to be more than a placeholder for the United States. That could prevent that unraveling that is such a risk."
According to McGibbon, "pushing individual states to lead on climate action could set achievable goals for the movement, allow them to go on the offensive, and demonstrate to the world that America isn't a rogue state on climate--it just has a rogue president."
"Their actions and success in doing this could mean the difference between winning or losing for the climate change movement globally," he adds. "The world is counting on the climate movement in the U.S. to keep climate action going. The fate of the world quite literally hangs in the balance."
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Meet Donald the Climate Clown
Later today in Stockholm, a conference organized by the business group, the International Chamber of Commerce, examines "Bridging the Climate Change Policy Gap."
The conference flier asks the question, that post the historic Paris climate change agreement "where do we go from here?"
Nov 21, 2016
Later today in Stockholm, a conference organized by the business group, the International Chamber of Commerce, examines "Bridging the Climate Change Policy Gap."
The conference flier asks the question, that post the historic Paris climate change agreement "where do we go from here?"
In moving forward, the conference flyer notes there "appears to be a policy gap" with a lack of clear direction on legal and policy frameworks.
There is also a fundamental problem with perception.
In nearly 30 years of working on oil and climate change, I believe that never has the bridge been greater between the science which is demanding urgent action and a President-elect of the US, who not only believes there is no need for action, but believes that climate change is a hoax.
If it was not so scary it would nearly be laughable that a multi-billionaire businessmen and soon to be most powerful man on the planet can have such fundamentally flawed views on climate change. How can we expect the US to enact coherent climate change policies on an issue the new President doesn't even believe exists?
Interestingly, long term critic of the establishment, Noam Chomsky, has argued that the biggest news on 8 November this year was not so much the Trump victory, but a report issued by the World Meteorological Organization at the COP22 in Morocco that the past five years were the hottest on record.
This is empirical evidence that cannot be ignored.
Chomsky says: "It is hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most important question in their history--whether organized human life will survive in anything like the form we know--and are answering it by accelerating the race to disaster."
They note that "in fall of 2016 -- which has been a zany year for the region, with multiple records set for low levels of monthly sea ice -- something is totally off. The Arctic is super-hot, even as a vast area of cold polar air has been displaced over Siberia."
One Arctic specialist, Jennifer Francis, from Rutgers University, told the paper: "It's about 20C [36 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than normal over most of the Arctic Ocean, along with cold anomalies of about the same magnitude over north-central Asia ... The extreme behavior of the Arctic in 2016 seems to be in no hurry to quit".
The news continues to get worse from both polar extremes: Yesterday, CNN reported that "For what appears to be the first time since scientists began keeping track, sea ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic are at record lows this time of year."
CNN quoted Walt Meier, a research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who has tracked sea ice since 1979: "It looks like, since the beginning of October, that for the first time we are seeing both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice running at record low levels".
Again this is all empirical evidence that cannot be ignored.
And if Trump cannot take climate change seriously then how can we take him seriously as President?
What we have learnt again over the weekend is that this is a man who does not like criticism. He gives it but cannot take it. Over the weekend, the President-elect demanded an apology from the cast of the Broadway hit "Hamilton", after one of the actors, Brandon Victor Dixon, directly addressed Vice President-elect Mike Pence after the show to "uphold our American values". Trump took to Twitter to demand an apology.
We have a President-elect who does not believe in climate change; we have a President-elect who does not like criticism. We have alarming news from both the Arctic and Antarctic that the climate crisis is getting worse.
We have to fight back and use all the tools of nonviolent social change at our disposal.
And in these dark times, one of those must be humour. As one British commentator pointed out last month, "With his painted face and propensity for nonsense, is Donald Trump not the ultimate clown?"
Tragically for many concerned about environmental issues, he may be the ultimate climate change clown.
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Unified Against Trump Threat, World Vows To Push Ahead on Climate Action
"Climate change is not going to wait for U.S. action and the rest of the world is clear it is moving forward," said campaigner
Nov 18, 2016
Underscoring the "climate pariah" that the United States is expected to become under a President-elect Donald Trump, world leaders concluded the United Nations climate talks on Friday by re-committing to the goals of the Paris accord and vowing to take swift action to reduce global emissions.
"We call for the highest political commitment to combat climate change, as a matter of urgent priority," reads the Marrakech Action Proclamation (pdf), which was signed by 196 countries.
"Indeed, this year, we have seen extraordinary momentum on climate change worldwide," it states. "This momentum is irreversible--it is being driven not only by governments, but by science, business, and global action of all types at all levels."
The declaration calls for "strong solidarity with those countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change," as well as efforts to "eradicate poverty" and "ensure food security" as global warming takes its toll on agriculture, particularly in the Global South. The document further calls on "all non-state actors to join us for immediate and ambitious action and mobilization" to reduce emissions and transition to sustainable development and energy sources.
Additionally, 47 of the world's most climate vulnerable nations pledged to "meet 100 percent domestic renewable energy production as rapidly as possible."
Holding up the pledge from the Climate Vulnerable Forum as "demonstrat[ing] what government leadership needs to look like," Payal Parekh, 350.org global program director, said: "The world is finally seeing the urgency for collective climate action."
And there is good reason for the urgency. Delegates wrapped up the conference in Marrakech amid another warning about the "climate emergency" upon us, as record-breaking temperatures continued for the third year in a row.
Further, the widespread show of solidarity occurred in the face of the recent election of Trump, who denies the reality of man-made global warming and has pledged to pull the United States from the Paris agreement.
Benjamin Schreiber of Friends of the Earth U.S. said at the conclusion of the talks, "Climate change is not going to wait for U.S. action and the rest of the world is clear it is moving forward. Trump's election must unify the world in treating the U.S. as a climate pariah, and respond to his Presidency by redoubling ambition."
And it seems it has. In an op-ed this week, environmental representatives from Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Costa Rica wrote that "the recent outcome of the U.S. elections cannot stop those of us dedicated to battling climate change."
"No country has said it will walk away from global action," said Ethiopia's minister of environment and climate Gemedo Dalle; Sen. Loren Legarda, chair of the Philippine senate's Permanent Committee on Climate Change; and Edgar Gutierrez, Costa Rican minister of Environment and Energy.
"To the contrary," they continued,
countries including China, members of the European Union, Japan and Saudi Arabia have all reconfirmed their commitment to implement the Paris Agreement. Others, such as Australia, Pakistan and Italy, have even joined the agreement in the days since the U.S. elections. French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have called on President-elect Trump to drop his campaign pledge to cancel the Paris Agreement; Ban called the Paris Agreement "unstoppable."
Together they send a resounding message: The countries of the world will forge on. Those that do will be better off by skipping all the downsides of a 19th century development model characterized by the burning of fossil fuels to achieve economic growth, while cashing in on more jobs, more growth and a higher quality of work and life.
"While the U.S. election could have derailed the negotiations, what's happened in Marrakech has given hope that global action on climate change will not be deterred by isolated politicians," said David Turnbull, campaigns director for Oil Change International.
However, Turnbull and others noted that, given that studies have shown that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5oC will be far surpassed under nations' current reduction targets, the negotiations still "failed to meet the urgency of the climate crisis."
But, Turnbull added, "countries and social movements came together to keep pushing forward at a time when resolve is essential."
"The lessons of Marrakech are clear," he continued. "Don't look to bureaucrats or climate-denying Presidents to take the lead on global climate action. Look to the people in the streets and in communities around the world. These are the people-powered movements resisting fossil fuels and building a renewable energy future, and this is the path to victory."
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