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Tag: Climate change

  • Big Oil has engaged in a long-running climate disinformation campaign while raking in record profits, lawmakers find | CNN Politics

    Big Oil has engaged in a long-running climate disinformation campaign while raking in record profits, lawmakers find | CNN Politics

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    Big Oil companies have engaged in a “long-running greenwashing campaign” while raking in “record profits at the expense of American consumers,” the Democratic-led House Oversight Committee has found after a year-long investigation into climate disinformation from the fossil fuel industry.

    The committee found the fossil fuel industry is “posturing on climate issues while avoiding real commitments” to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers said it has sought to portray itself as part of the climate solution, even as internal industry documents reveal how companies have avoided making real commitments.

    “Today’s documents reveal that the industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come,” House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney told CNN in a statement.

    For example, lawmakers reported, BP has stated it strives to “be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner,” but the committee found internal BP documents that show the company’s recent plans do not align with the company’s public comments.

    In a July 2017 email between several of the company’s high-level officials about whether to invest in curbing emissions from one of its gas projects off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, BP’s vice president of engineering stated that BP had “no obligation to minimize GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions” and that the company should only “minimize GHG emissions where it makes commercial sense,” as required by code or if it fits into a regional strategy.

    The committee said documents uncovered also showed the fossil fuel industry has presented natural gas as a so-called “bridge fuel” to transition to cleaner sources of energy, all while doubling down on its long-term reliance on fossil fuels with no clear plan of action to full transition to clean energy.

    A strategy slide presented to the Chevron Board of Directors from CEO Mike Wirth and obtained by the committee states that while Chevron sees “traditional energy business competitors retreating” from oil and gas, “Chevron’s strategy” is to “continue to invest” in fossil fuels to take advantage of consolidation in the industry.

    In a 2016 email from a BP executive to John Mingé, then-Chairman and President of BP America, and others, about climate and emissions, an employee assessed that the company often adopted an obstructionist strategy with regulators, noting, “we wait for the rules to come out, we don’t like what we see, and then try to resist and block.”

    “The fossil fuel industry has of late been involved in extensive “greenwashing”—misleading claims in advertisements, particularly on social media, claiming or suggesting that they are “Paris aligned,” and that they are committed to meaningful solutions,” Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who has studied the fossil fuel industry’s rebuke of climate science, told CNN. “Numerous analyses shows that these claims are untrue.”

    BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were the focus of Democratic lawmakers’ investigation. The companies have denied engaging in a disinformation campaign surrounding climate change and the role the industry has played in fueling it for decades. CNN has reached out to the companies and organizations for comment on the committee’s findings.

    Todd Spitler, a spokesperson for Exxon, said in a statement the committee took internal company communications out of context.

    “The House Oversight Committee report has sought to misrepresent ExxonMobil’s position on climate science, and its support for effective policy solutions, by recasting well intended, internal policy debates as an attempted company disinformation campaign,” Spitler said. “If specific members of the committee are so certain they’re right, why did they have to take so many things out of context to prove their point?”

    Democratic lawmakers had hoped the committee’s hearings would be the fossil fuel industry’s “Big Tobacco” moment — a nod to the famous 1994 hearings when tobacco CEOs insisted that cigarettes were not addictive, triggering accusations of perjury and federal investigations.

    The impact of House Oversight’s investigation into Big Oil will not be as immediate, but Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat and the chair of Oversight’s environmental subcommittee, said the findings have added to the historical record for the industry and its role in global warming.

    “These hearings and reports have been historic because we succeeded in bringing in the heads of Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to testify under oath for the first time ever about efforts to mislead the public on climate and forced them to provide explosive internal documents” Khanna told CNN in a statement. “I have no doubt that this work will be analyzed for years to come and help deepen our understanding about the entire industry’s role in funding and facilitating climate disinformation.”

    Democratic lawmakers said the oil and gas industry obstructed their investigation throughout the more than year-long process. Many of their requests for internal documents were heavily redacted by the companies, which did not specify reasons for withholding the information.

    In other cases, documents were heavily redacted because companies like Exxon said the information was “proprietary and confidential,” though the lawmakers noted that is not a valid reason to withhold information in a committee subpoena.

    “These companies know their climate pledges are inadequate but are prioritizing Big Oil’s record profits over the human costs of climate change,” Maloney said. “It’s time for the fossil fuel industry to stop lying to the American people and finally take serious steps to reduce emissions and address the global climate crisis they helped create.”

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  • Dugong, coral, abalone face extinction threat, IUCN says

    Dugong, coral, abalone face extinction threat, IUCN says

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    Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday.

    The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, conference in Montreal. The union’s hundreds of members include government agencies from around the world, and it’s one of the planet’s widest-reaching environmental networks.

    The IUCN uses its Red List of Threatened Species to categorize animals approaching extinction. This year, the union is sounding the alarm about the dugong — a large and docile marine mammal that lives from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.

    The dugong is vulnerable throughout its range, and now populations in East Africa have entered the red list as critically endangered, IUCN said in a statement. Populations in New Caledonia have entered the list as endangered, the group said.

    The major threats to the animal are unintentional capture in fishing gear in East Africa and poaching in New Caledonia, IUCN said. It also suffers from boat collisions and loss of the seagrasses it eats, said Evan Trotzuk, who led the East Africa red list assessment.

    “Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” Trotzuk said.

    The IUCN Red List includes more than 150,000 species. The list sometimes overlaps with the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, such as in the case of the North Atlantic right whale. More than 42,000 of the species on the red list are threatened with extinction, IUCN says.

    IUCN typically updates the red list two or three times a year. This week’s update includes more than 3,000 additions to the red list.

    IUCN uses several categories to describe an animal’s status, ranging from “least concern” to “critically endangered.” Pillar coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean, was moved from vulnerable to critically endangered in this week’s update.

    The coral is threatened by a tissue loss disease, and its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range since 1990, IUCN said. The IUCN lists more than two dozen corals in the Atlantic Ocean as critically endangered.

    Almost half the corals in the Atlantic are “at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other impacts,” Beth Polidoro, an associate professor at Arizona State University and red list coordinator for IUCN.

    Unsustainable harvesting and poaching have emerged as threats to abalone, which are used as seafood, IUCN said. Twenty of the 54 abalone species in the world are threatened with extinction according to the red list’s first global assessment of the species.

    Threats to the abalone are compounded by climate change, diseases and pollution, the organization said.

    “This red list update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea,” said Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

    ———

    Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • COP15: Super Reefs Offer Hope for Ocean Recovery Ahead of Biodiversity Summit

    COP15: Super Reefs Offer Hope for Ocean Recovery Ahead of Biodiversity Summit

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    • Opinion by Enric Sala (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Dec 09 (IPS) – Delegates from more than 190 countries are donning thick coats and winter boots to attend the long-delayed UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada—the land of caribou, beluga whales and wolverines.

    They are gathering there to iron out the final details of a global deal for nature that seeks to curtail the extinction of one million species and the destruction of the ecosystems they help create.

    I’ll join the delegates next week. As I trudge through the cold to speak with them about the urgent need to protect nature, I’ll be thinking of the distant southern Line Islands, a remote archipelago in the Republic of Kiribati, a nation known for its desperate battle against rising ocean levels.

    Their islands could be among the first to disappear if we don’t phase off greenhouse gas emissions. But what is less known is that the southern Line Islands provide the strongest evidence that nature protection can foster ocean resilience to global warming.

    In 2009, a team of scientists and I first surveyed the marine ecosystems surrounding the uninhabited southern Line Islands. What we saw was like a world from centuries ago. Fish abundance was off the charts; on every dive, we saw abundant large predators, such as sharks—an uncommon sight for even a seasoned diver. Thriving, living corals covered up to 90 percent of the ocean floor.

    We thought the pristine and untouched corals were saved forever in 2015, when the government of Kiribati protected 12 nautical miles around the islands from fishing and other damaging activities in what is now the Southern Line Islands Marine Protected Area.

    But then disaster struck. The same year, warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures killed half of the corals in the Southern Line Islands. The news discouraged many. If the most pristine reefs were to succumb so rapidly, then all hope is lost. Would they be able to recover?

    To answer that question, we returned to the islands five years after the coral died off. I was terrified before the first dive—unsure if we’d see dead or recovering corals. But when I jumped in the water, I could not believe what I saw.

    Amid massive schools of fish, the corals were back to their former richness – they had recovered completely. If we hadn’t known that half of the corals had recently died, I would have thought that nothing had changed since my first visit. They recovered faster than ever witnessed before, with millions of new coral colonies per square mile taking over the space left by dead corals.

    This miracle was only possible because the reefs were fully protected from fishing. As a result, the fish biomass was enormous. Large parrotfish and schools of hundreds of surgeon fishes kept the reef healthy and seaweed-free by grazing and browsing continuously on the dead coral skeletons. Without seaweed smothering the dead corals, new corals could grow and restore the reef.

    Our discovery on this expedition clearly showed that, when granted full protection from fishing and other extractive activities, marine ecosystems can bounce back. Strong protection yields resilience and replenishes our overfished ocean. We have seen this again and again, in Mexico, Colombia and the United States.

    The Biden administration has pledged to protect more of the ocean under its jurisdiction, and even created a new Special Envoy for Biodiversity, currently held by Monica Medina. But there is more that countries around the world can do at a global and national level.

    That is why I am carrying a strong message to Montreal: we must protect at least 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030, and we must hurry. Protecting a third of the planet is critical for biodiversity and all the benefits we obtain from it, such as oxygen, clean air and water, and food.

    But it is also essential for mitigating climate change. Protecting vital areas in the ocean – and the land – will turn the tide against biodiversity loss and buy us time as the world phases out fossil fuels and replaces them with clean energy sources.

    Ocean health hangs in the balance at COP15 in Montreal. But we’re already running out of time, with the summit delayed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now, less than 8% of the ocean is under any kind of protection, and only 3% is highly protected like in the southern Line Islands.

    We have eight years to quadruple all ocean protections ever achieved in human history. Some countries have announced new ocean protections, but we need a global action plan that targets the top priorities for conservation of the ocean—for the sake of biodiversity, food and climate.

    This means that delegates must roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of ironing out a strong global agreement that doesn’t water down protection goals. There is no more time for podium pledges and empty speeches.

    The only acceptable outcome of COP15 is a strong nature agreement including a serious commitment to protect at least 30% of our ocean by 2030.

    Enric Sala is the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and the founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas. You can listen to an extended conversation about the Southern Line Islands expedition with Sala on the latest episode of the Overheard at National Geographic podcast.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Energy Efficiency Is Law in Chile but Concrete Progress Is Slow in Coming

    Energy Efficiency Is Law in Chile but Concrete Progress Is Slow in Coming

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    The Municipal Theater building, the main artistic and cultural venue in Santiago, the capital of Chile, was lit up with LED bulbs in order to show local residents the benefits of energy efficiency to reduce costs and provide bright lighting. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
    • by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
    • Inter Press Service

    SANTIAGO, Dec 08 (IPS) – The Energy Efficiency Law began to gradually be implemented in Chile after the approval of its regulations, but more efforts and institutions are still lacking before it can produce results.

    In Chile, the energy sector accounts for 74 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, producing 68 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. For this reason, energy efficiency is decisive in tackling climate change and saving on its costs.

    The law passed in February 2021 and its regulations were issued on Sept. 13 of this year, but full implementation will still take time. The law itself states that its full application will take place “gradually”, without setting precise deadlines.

    For example, the energy rating of homes and new buildings is voluntary for now and will only become mandatory in 2023. In addition, only practice will show whether the capacity will exist to oversee the sector and apply sanctions.

    The aims of the law include reducing the intensity of energy use and cutting GHGs.

    According to the public-private organization Fundación Chile, energy efficiency has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 44 percent – a decisive percentage to mitigate climate change in this long, narrow South American country of 19.5 million people.

    “For the first time in Chile, we have an Energy Efficiency Law. This is a key step in joining efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, since energy efficiency has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases by 35 percent,” the Foundation’s assistant manager for sustainability, Karien Volker, told IPS.

    The law sets standards for transportation, industry, mining and the residential, public and commercial sectors. Land transportation accounts for an estimated 25 percent of the energy used in Chile and the 250 largest companies operating in the country consume 35 percent of the total.

    Volker underscored that the law incorporates energy labeling, the implementation of an energy management system for large consumers and the development of a National Plan.

    “Upon implementation of the law, a 10 percent reduction in energy intensity, a cumulative savings of 15.2 billion dollars and a reduction of 28.6 million tons of CO2 are expected by 2030,” she said.

    She also argued that the law will push large companies to meet minimum energy efficiency standards, which will change the way they operate.

    “New homes with energy efficiency certifications will raise the standard of construction in Chile and push builders to innovate,” said Volker.

    She added that “the transportation sector will also be positively impacted by establishing efficiency and performance standards for vehicles entering Chile.”

    Buildings with the new standards will consume only one third of the energy compared to the current ones.

    In Chile, 53.3 percent of electricity is generated with renewable energy: hydroelectric, solar, biomass and geothermal. The remaining 46.7 percent comes from thermoelectric plants using natural gas, coal or petroleum derivatives, almost all of which are imported.

    The refrigerators currently sold in Chile must have a mandatory label indicating their energy efficiency, where the highest A++ and A+ levels are labelled in green to demonstrate the savings they provide. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
    The refrigerators currently sold in Chile must have a mandatory label indicating their energy efficiency, where the highest A++ and A+ levels are labelled in green to demonstrate the savings they provide. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

    Negative track record on energy efficiency

    But in the recent history of this South American country the experience of energy savings has not been a positive one. There was total clarity in the assessment of the situation and concrete suggestions of measures to advance in energy efficiency, but nothing changed, said engineer and doctor in systems thinking Alfredo del Valle, a former advisor to the United Nations and the Chilean government in these matters.

    Del Valle told IPS that between 2005 and 2007 he acted as a methodologist for the Chilean Ministry of Economy’s Country Energy Efficiency Program to formulate a national policy in this field.

    “With broad public, private, academic and citizen participation, we discovered almost one hundred concrete energy efficiency potentials in transportation, industry and mining, residential and commercial buildings, household appliances, and even culture,” he explained.

    However, he lamented, “Chilean politicians fail to understand what politicians in the (industrialized) North immediately understood 30 years earlier: that it is essential to invest money and political will in energy efficiency, just as we invest in energy supply.”

    Although a National Energy Efficiency Agency was created 12 years ago, “nothing significant is happening,” said Del Valle, current president of the Foundation for Participatory Innovation.

    To illustrate, he noted that “the public budget for energy efficiency in 2020 is equivalent to just 10 million dollars compared to an investment in energy supply in the country of 4.38 billion dollars in the same year.”

    According to the expert, “we need a new way of thinking and acting to be able to carry out social transformations and to be able to create our own future.”

    Boric’s energy policy

    The Energy Agenda 2022-2026 promoted by the leftist government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March, states that “energy efficiency is one of the most important actions for Chile to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.”

    The document establishes actions and commitments to be implemented as part of the National Energy Efficiency Plan. Published at the beginning of this year, it proposes 33 measures in the productive sectors, transportation, buildings and ordinary citizens, according to the Ministry of Energy.

    “With all these measures, we expect to reduce our total energy intensity by 4.5 percent by 2026 and by 30 percent by 2050, compared to 2019,” the Agenda states.

    The plan announces an acceleration of the implementation of energy management systems in large consumers to encourage a more efficient use in industry, “as mandated by the Energy Efficiency Law that will be progressively implemented.”

    According to the government, by 2026, 200 companies will have implemented energy management systems.

    The authorities also announced support to micro, small and medium-sized companies for efficient energy use and management and will support 2000 in self-generation and energy efficiency.

    “Although as a country we have made progress in the deployment of renewable energies for electricity generation, we have yet to transfer the benefits of renewable energy sources to other areas, such as the use of heat and cold in industry,” the document states.

    Cambia el Foco is the name of the program promoted by Fundación Chile that included educating students to raise awareness about the need for energy efficiency. CREDIT: Fundación Chile
    Cambia el Foco is the name of the program promoted by Fundación Chile that included educating students to raise awareness about the need for energy efficiency. CREDIT: Fundación Chile

    Improvement in housing quality

    In Chile there are more than five million homes and most of them do not have adequate thermal insulation conditions, requiring a high use of energy for heating in the southern hemisphere winter and cooling in the summer.

    The hope is that by making the “energy qualification” a requirement to obtain the final approval, the municipal building permit, the quality of housing using efficient equipment or non-conventional renewable energies will improve. This will allow greater savings in heating, cooling, lighting and household hot water.

    In four years, the government’s Agenda aims to thermally insulate 20,000 social housing units, install 20,000 solar photovoltaic systems in low-income neighborhoods, recondition 400 schools to make them energy efficient, expand solar power systems in rural housing, improve supply in 50 schools in low-income rural areas and develop distributed generation systems up to 500 megawatts (MW).

    In recent years, the Fundación Chile, together with the government and other entities, has promoted energy efficiency plans with the widespread installation of LED lightbulbs along streets and in other public spaces. It also promoted the replacement of refrigerators over 10 years old with units using more efficient and greener technologies.

    One milestone was the delivery of 230,000 LED bulbs to educational facilities, benefiting more than 200 schools and a total of 73,000 students, employees and teachers.

    The initiative made it possible to install one million LED bulbs, leading to an estimated saving of 4.8 percent of national consumption.

    Meanwhile, the campaign for more efficient cooling expects the market share of such refrigerators to become 95 percent A++ and A+ products, to achieve savings of 1.3 terawatt hours (TWh – equivalent to one billion watt hours).

    That would mean a reduction of 3.1 million tons of CO2 by 2030.

    An old refrigerator accounts for 20 percent of a household’s electricity bill and a more efficient one saves up to 55 percent.

    There are currently an estimated one million refrigerators in Chile that are more than 15 years old.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Airlines Finally Get Serious About Contrails. What Are They?

    Airlines Finally Get Serious About Contrails. What Are They?

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    What are those puffy white plumes trailing jets high up in the sky? They’re called contrails, and scientists have long said they contribute to climate change.

    Now some major airline companies are getting on board. Carries such as American, Southwest, United, Alaska, and Virgin Atlantic, and tech companies like Google, are working with the Rocky Mountain Institute to figure out which of these contrails are bad for the environment and what they can do about it.

    “Air travel has almost a double-sized impact on global warming than what we thought it was before,” said Andrew Chen, an aviation specialist with the Rocky Mountain Institute, told The Dallas Morning News. “The most interesting dynamic is that the airlines are not shying away from contrails.”

    Related: ‘The Fumes Are Unbelievably Bad:’ Residents Complain About Kyle Jenner’s Private Jet

    What are airplane contrails?

    Conspiracies abound about how the lines of clouds following jets are “chemtrails” released by the government in a secret program to add toxic chemicals to the atmosphere.

    But scientists say that these clouds are, in fact, water vapor trails or condensation trails (contrails, for short) created by airplane engines. The hot, humid exhaust mixes with the colder atmosphere, causing a cloud similar to what you see when you breathe on a cold day.

    Climate scientists believe contrails can trap heat in the atmosphere contributing to global warming.

    Carbon emissions from jets have long been the target of environmentalists, leading many airlines to retool their planes to use alternative energy. But the industry is now getting serious about contrail pollution, as well.

    “The science around contrails has become more clear in just the last few years,” said Jill Blickstein, vice president of sustainability at American Airlines told the DMN. “For example, we’ve known for some time that some contrails formed in the morning can have a cooling effect and that contrails formed at night were more likely to be warming. But we didn’t have a good sense of the net impact of all contrails. That warming impact has become clearer recently.”

    Not all contrails have the same impact. The worst seems to happen at night when the earth is cooler, but the contrails block heat from escaping.

    The good news is that airlines can avoid making contrails, but doing so may require changing flight patterns and burning more fuel, thus creating more carbon dioxide.

    To read more about this, head on over The Dallas Morning News.

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  • We Indigenous Peoples are Rights-Holders, not Stakeholders

    We Indigenous Peoples are Rights-Holders, not Stakeholders

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    Places where Indigenous tenure is secure are where lands and waters are best protected. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
    • Opinion by Jennifer Tauli Corpuz, Stanley Kimaren Ole Riamit
    • Inter Press Service

    Dec 08 (IPS) – After four failed rainy seasons, the land of the Maasai has withered. The worst drought in 40 years is a slow-motion storm of devastation in the Greater Horn of Africa, ruining the livestock, the communities, the Maasai way of life. Their cattle have been their greatest source of wealth and nutrition, but with grazing lands shriveled from the dry heat and their livestock emaciated, the entire region is in peril.

    In contrast, the storms that smash the Philippines bring intense rains and devastating winds. The Igorot communities on the Island of Luzon have a front-row seat for these storms, and they are hard pressed keeping their way of life intact.

    Super-Typhoon Haiyan may have made the biggest impression, hitting south of Luzon during the UN climate change talks in 2013, but in 2018 Luzon was hit directly by Super-Typhoon Mangkhut. Three months ago, Super-Typhoon Noru hammered the same area.

    As a Maasai from Kenya and an Igorot from the Philippines, we Indigenous Peoples wake up every day to realities that are a world apart. Our peoples, however, share a deep attachment to our ancestral territories and to the flora and fauna we depend on for spiritual, cultural and physical needs.

    The Maasai and the Igorot, as Indigenous Peoples all over the world, also have in common a colonial history that has caused unimaginable loss to our communities and damage to ecosystems that are vital to the global battles against biodiversity loss and climate change.

    We have lost and been damaged by the actions of the past. And we can see that governments negotiating this year at the UN’s talks on climate change and biodiversity failed to protect our peoples and our ecosystems from present and future loss and damage.

    There was an agreement in principle that there should be a fund to compensate for losses and damages due to climate change, but no specifics or actual funding emerged. Our survival and that of our lands, our cultures, and our traditional knowledge, all of this is at risk.

    In the UN negotiations, Indigenous Peoples are not just stakeholders. Instead, we are rights holders. There has been ample conversation about how the tropical forests and peatlands present both climate and biodiversity solutions. These are our lands that contain these carbon sinks and are teeming with life.

    Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage half the world’s land and care for 80% of Earth’s biodiversity, primarily under customary tenure arrangements.

    Looking at tropical forests in particular, our stewardship has been shown to be the most effective at keeping them intact—better than government run “protected areas” and better than management by other private interests. Places where Indigenous tenure is secure are where lands and waters are best protected.

    In its most recent report on climate change this year, the UN’s scientific panel, said: “Supporting Indigenous self-determination, recognising Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supporting Indigenous knowledge-based adaptation are critical to reducing climate change risks and effective adaptation.”

    Yet a 2021 study showed, however, that Indigenous communities and organizations receive less than 1% of the climate funding meant to reduce deforestation. Of the $1.7 billion pledged at COP 26 to support the tenure rights and forest guardianship of Indigenous peoples and local communities, only 7% of the funds disbursed have gone directly to organizations led by them, representing only 0.13% of all climate development aid.

    There is very little money available for economic and non-economic loss and damage from the climate change induced extreme weather that tears through us. And the UN’s science panel report notes that “Climate change is impacting Indigenous Peoples’ ways of life, cultural and linguistic diversity, food security and health and well-being.”

    The transformation that scientists are calling for to meet both climate and biodiversity crises requires just and effective responses, and can only be led by us. At the same time, we need assistance in coping with this extreme weather.

    These crises have taken away the middle ground, that quixotic search for compromise that has inevitably delayed effective action. With limited funds available, we face a paradox. The wealth of past exploitation could help alleviate the damages that climate change has caused, or more of this money could be used for adaptation and mitigation, to reduce the worst impacts of what climate change will throw at us—now and in the future.

    The urgency of funding both needs has yet to take hold, while the carbon in our lands continues to be viewed as a climate solution, a theoretical commodity to be bought and sold in markets run many thousands of miles away. Profits are made by people and entities who have no role in how we manage and protect our lands, yet very little of the proceeds—like the climate development aid—comes our way.

    Ensuring and respecting land rights represents a risk reduction strategy for all of humanity, not just for the people seeking to invest in lands inhabited by the peoples who manage them best. Bringing us to the table in planning and implementing conservation and development solutions—both globally and locally—has never been more important.

    We welcome those who want to work with us and provide assistance and resources as we strive to keep our lands and our community wellbeing intact. If we are to escape the worst of what climate change has in store for us, the time for grabbing land, money and power—and clinging to material wealth—has to be relegated to the past.

    Instead, all parts of humanity must learn to work together and share equitably, in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. The environmental problems of our planet threaten us all.

    Jennifer Tauli Corpuz, from the Kankana-ey Igorot People of Mountain Province in the Philippines, and a lawyer by profession, is the Global Policy and Advocacy Lead for Nia Tero.

    Stanley Kimaren ole Riamit is an Indigenous peoples’ leader from the Pastoralists Maasai Community in southern Kenya. His is the Founder-Director of Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners (ILEPA) a community based Indigenous Peoples organization based in Kenya.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Yellen to unveil first U.S. currency with her signature

    Yellen to unveil first U.S. currency with her signature

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    Faith in the U.S. dollar has often hinged in part on what Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says. On Thursday, the focus will be on what she writes, as the government churns out its first currency bearing her signature.

    Yellen loops her capital “J” and “Y,” with the rest of her name flowing in a haste that suggests handwriting might not have been the top priority for this pathbreaking economist.

    She made her reputation as a stoic chair of the Federal Reserve and a shrewd forecaster, and now she’s at the forefront of far-flung efforts to use economic levers to help stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, employ tax policy to protect the planet from climate change and oversee a massive effort to strengthen the beleaguered IRS.

    That puts her at the center of domestic and global politics, inviting new levels of pressure and second-guessing by friends and foes. She is tackling this challenge as the United States is suffering from inflation that hit a 40-year high this summer and sowed fears of a coming recession.

    Even as Yellen plans to watch the fresh bills carrying her signature roll out at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s Western currency facility in Forth Worth, Texas, her celebratory remarks were to dwell on Biden administration policy accomplishments rather than her status as the first woman to serve as treasury secretary.

    On the Ukraine conflict instigated last February by Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said in prepared remarks, “Together with over 30 countries, we have denied Russia revenue and resources it needs to fight its war.”

    As for the domestic economy, she said, pandemic relief and a new law to boost production of semiconductors have positioned the U.S. “to capitalize on a wave of economic opportunities for the American people, including in communities often overlooked.”

    Now, two years into Joe Biden’s presidency, Yellen has put to rest rumors she might be ready to leave the administration early and is strapping in for more economic — as well as political — battles ahead.

    Along with managing Treasury’s role in the Ukraine war, she faces the Herculean task of revitalizing an IRS that is getting a $80 billion funding boost, and enforcing an anti-money laundering effort that requires documenting the beneficial owners of tens of millions of U.S. businesses in hopes of crushing corruption around the world.

    She occupies an increasingly politicized role in which Congress and foreign governments matter as much as the financial markets.

    Her Treasury Department is seeking to hobble the Russian economy with an oil price cap, as Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy of California is questioning the level of U.S. support for Ukraine. The Treasury is also putting together tens of billions in tax incentives, to address climate change, that have rankled some European allies and proved controversial with Republicans. And the wage gains in the most recent U.S. jobs report suggest the economy might have to endure more pain than expected to bring inflation back to the Fed’s target of 2% annually.

    Along the way, Yellen has not shied away from controversy or speaking her mind on issues that many Americans look at solely through a cultural lens.

    When Sen. Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, at a May congressional hearing told Yellen she was “harsh” for speaking about the positive economic impacts of abortion access for women, she replied, “This is not harsh, this is the truth.” She also has challenged the view that havens for hidden cash lie outside the U.S., instead arguing that the U.S. has become the “best place” to hide illicitly obtained money.

    Yellen generated some tension with the White House this year when she veered somewhat from Mr. Biden’s insistence that his $1.9 trillion in coronavirus aid package did not contribute to inflation. Republican lawmakers have drawn on analyses by major economists such as Harvard University’s Larry Summers to say that the sum was excessive and sparked inflation. Breakages in the global supply chain and a jump in food and energy costs after Russia invaded Ukraine also have contributed to boosting prices to uncomfortable levels, putting the economy at heightened risk of a recession.

    Yellen acknowledged on CNN in May that she had been “wrong then about the path that inflation would take.” Biden said he had been apprised of the possible risks of inflation when putting together the relief package, but he told The Associated Press in an interview that “the idea that it caused inflation is bizarre.”

    Yellen’s predictions at the Treasury about financial markets on other points have been proved accurate.

    Her warnings about the risks of a deregulated cryptocurrency market foresaw the recent chaos. Crypto markets have seen at least two major crashes, dozens of scams, Ponzi schemes and hundreds of billions of dollars made and evaporated overnight.

    Yellen has also used her platform as a top government official to warn that despite women’s advancements in the workplace, a glass ceiling prevents many from advancing to the very top positions.

    Yellen, who is the only person ever to lead the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and White House Council of Economic Advisers, still gets flak from members of both political parties for not being more dynamic and politically savvy at times and for being too direct at other times.

    Anusha Chari, an economist who chairs the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, calls Yellen’s signature on U.S. currency “a huge milestone, but it also shows us how far we have to go.”

    The Treasury Department was created in 1789, and until Yellen only white men had led it.

    Chari said “it’s an occasion we should celebrate — seeing Janet Yellen’s name on currency — but I wish it weren’t such a unique event for women.”

    Yellen’s signature will appear alongside the name of U.S. Treasurer Lynn Malerba, the first Native American in the role. The bills are expected to be delivered to the Federal Reserve in December and will be in circulation next year.

    Yellen says of the moment: “This is really not about me or Treasurer Malerba. To me, these notes represent the hard, ongoing work of the Treasury Department to strengthen our economy and advance our economic standing around the world.”

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  • UK government greenlights first new coal mine in three decades | CNN

    UK government greenlights first new coal mine in three decades | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The UK has greenlit a controversial plan to open the country’s first new coal mine in three decades, a little more than a year after the nation tried to convince the world to ditch coal at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

    Michael Gove, the UK housing and communities secretary, on Wednesday approved the plan to open the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria, a county in northwestern England that is home to the World Heritage-listed Lake District.

    The controversial mine is expected to create more than 500 jobs. But the environmental trade-off is steep: The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent group that advises the government, has estimated the mine and the coal it will produce will emit around 9 million tons of planet-warming emissions every year.

    Supporters of the mine argue the project will create jobs and secure the fossil fuel for British steelmaking; however, 85% of the coal mined is due to be exported.

    The CCC has criticized the decision. Committee chairman Lord Deben said in a statement: “Phasing out coal use is the clearest requirement of the global effort towards Net Zero. We condemn, therefore, the Secretary of State’s decision to consent to a new deep coal mine in Cumbria, contrary to our previous advice. This decision grows global emissions and undermines UK efforts to achieve Net Zero.”

    The mine’s approval was also met with fierce criticism from scientists and environmentalists.

    “A new coal mine in Cumbria makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, in a statement. “It will add to global CO2 emissions, as the new supply will not replace other coal but divert it elsewhere, and it will become stranded in the 2030s as the steel industry globally moves away from coal.”

    Ekins also said that the mine’s approval “trashes the UK’s reputation as a global leader on climate action and opens it up to well justified charges of hypocrisy – telling other countries to ditch coal while not doing so itself.”

    The government initially approved the project, but then put it on hold after a wave of protests, including a 10-day hunger strike by two teenage activists.

    It came under intense pressure to reject the plan in 2021, the year it hosted the COP26 talks in Glasgow.

    Alok Sharma, the COP26 President and a lawmaker for the governing Conservative Party, campaigned against the mine.

    “Opening a new coal mine will not only be a backward step for UK climate action but also damage the UK’s hard-won international reputation, through our COP26 Presidency, as a leader in the global fight against climate change,” he said ahead of the announcement on Wednesday.

    The decision comes a little more than a year after the conference, and after lengthy discussions between the UK government, local authorities and the public.

    The Cumbria County Council had also approved the plan three times, but it backtracked its decision last February and called for a planning inquiry, effectively shifting the decision to the national government.

    The Whitehaven mine, also known as the Woodhouse Colliery, is scheduled to operate until 2049, which is just a year before the UK’s self-imposed deadline to slash greenhouse gas emissions to net zero (emitting as little greenhouse gas as possible, and offsetting any emissions that cannot be avoided).

    According to the International Energy Agency, investment into new fossil fuels infrastructure must stop immediately if the world wants any chance of achieving net zero by 2050. The latest climate science shows that achieving net zero by mid-century is necessary to keep temperatures from rising well above 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial times. Beyond that threshold, the world will face climate crisis impacts that could take millennia to correct, or could be irreversible altogether.

    Climate activists have protested against the project, while West Cumbria Mining, which is developing the mine, said the project would bring hundreds of new jobs into a struggling region. Its opponents argue these jobs may not be secure, given the huge momentum in Europe to phase out coal.

    “Opening a coal mine in Cumbria is investing in 1850s technology and does not look forward to the 2030s low carbon local energy future,” Stuart Haszeldine, a professor at the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement.

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  • COP15: We are Losing Nature Biodiversity at the Fastest Rate in Human History

    COP15: We are Losing Nature Biodiversity at the Fastest Rate in Human History

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    COP15 will focus on protecting nature and halting biodiversity loss around the world. The Government of Canada’s priority is to ensure the COP15 is a success for nature. There is an urgent need for international partners to halt and reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity worldwide. Credit: Government of Canada
    • Opinion by Amy Fraenkel, Marco Lambertini (bonn / gland)
    • Inter Press Service
    • The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international meeting bringing together governments from around the world, will set out new goals and develop an action plan for nature over the next decade. The conference will be held in Montréal, Quebec, the seat of the UN CBD Secretariat, from December 7 – 19, 2022.

    BONN / GLAND, Dec 07 (IPS) – While climate change dominates the environmental headlines, quieter, startling changes are taking place in nature across the planet – whether in forests, oceans, deserts, rural landscapes, cities and other places where nature is found.

    We are losing nature – biodiversity – at the fastest rate in human history. Around a million species of plants and animals are heading towards extinction. As human activities destroy and degrade more natural places, nature is becoming more and more fragmented.

    Nature provides freshwater, supports food systems and underpins major industries such as forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. Yet our efforts to protect our precious biodiversity have been flawed and woefully inadequate.

    Conservation of nature over the past decades has largely involved the creation of numerous dots of protected areas, which have undoubtedly helped to slow the loss of biodiversity.

    But there are also limits to this approach. Many protected areas are not effectively or equitably managed, some types of ecosystems are underrepresented, and – perhaps most importantly – protected areas are carved out like islands in the middle of otherwise modified, industrial, agricultural and urbanized landscapes.

    In many countries, the majority of wild species of animals live outside of protected areas. Just 9% of the world’s migratory bird species are adequately covered by protected areas across all stages of their annual cycle. Nature simply cannot survive let alone thrive in this deeply compromised and compartmentalized way.

    This December, thousands of representatives of government, scientists, and other stakeholders will descend on Montreal, Canada (December 7-19) for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), where they will try to agree on commitments to address this growing crisis.

    By all accounts, the negotiations have yet to live up to what is desperately needed to correct our current path. If we are to successfully address the biodiversity crisis, we must adopt an approach that can meet conservation goals and also provide food, water, security and livelihoods for a global population of 10 billion people by 2050.

    A key to achieving this lies in what is known as ecological connectivity – which simply put, is about ensuring that our landscapes, seascapes, and river basins allow the movement of species and the flow of natural processes.

    Ecological connectivity is essential to ensure the health and productivity of ecosystems, the survival of wild animals and plant species, and genetic diversity.

    It contributes to climate resilience and adaptation, productive lands and effective restoration. And it is indispensable for the thousands of migratory species of wild animals which need to seasonally move from one habitat to another.

    One of the most talked about ideas in the Montreal negotiations that is gaining significant political traction is the so-called “30 by 30” target, which calls for a minimum of thirty percent of the earth’s lands, freshwater and oceans to be protected or conserved in some form by the year 2030.

    But this numerical target will be far from ambitious unless connectivity is placed at the center of its implementation, and the role and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are recognized.

    Currently, connectivity is captured in the draft target in two small words: “well-connected”. These same words were part of previous global biodiversity targets which by all accounts have failed us.

    To succeed, connectivity must be a litmus test for all area-based conservation measures at the national level. The choice of which areas to protect and conserve needs to be guided by whether they contribute to connectivity – along with appropriate environmental and social safeguards.

    Likewise, urban growth, infrastructure development and other human activities must be planned in ways that achieve social and economic needs while preserving connectivity. And governments need to measure and report their progress in implementing this commitment on connectivity.

    There is one other essential element for achieving ecological connectivity: governments need to cooperate across national borders to protect and conserve shared natural areas and species.

    In 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a remarkable resolution urging all member states to increase international cooperation to improve connectivity of transboundary habitats, avoid their fragmentation and protect species that rely on connected ecosystems.

    Yet alarmingly, the draft to be negotiated in Montreal does not, as yet, include any such commitment for governments to work together to implement the transboundary aspects of the framework.

    The good news is we have the knowledge and ability to turn the current trends around, and to achieve a sustainable relationship with nature. There is enormous momentum on achieving connectivity by governments, companies, the financial sector, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities.

    For instance, the government of Canada is launching a CAD $60 million program for ecological corridors, a company in Sabah Borneo is completing a 14 kilometer reforested wildlife corridor within its plantation.

    Local community citizen scientists in Nepal have found that a corridor they restored is now abuzz with wildlife. It is time to work together to connect nature at a scale that will deliver what we all need – a healthy planet.

    Amy Fraenkel is Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS); and Marco Lambertini is Director General, WWF International.

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Governments gather in Canada in bid to boost biodiversity

    Governments gather in Canada in bid to boost biodiversity

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    BOSTON — Amid warnings that biodiversity is in freefall, environmental leaders will gather in Montreal to hammer out measures aimed at shoring up the world’s land and marine ecosystems and coming up with tens of billions of dollars to fund these conservation efforts.

    Delegates from about 190 countries will assemble for nearly two weeks, starting Wednesday, at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, to finalize a framework for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    The proposed framework also calls for reducing the rate of invasive species introduction and establishment by 50%, cutting pesticide use in half and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste.

    The goals — more ambitious than earlier ones that have mostly gone unmet — are expected to be at the heart of the meeting debate. But not far behind will be the issue of finance, with developing countries likely to push for significant monetary commitments before signing onto any deal.

    The draft framework calls for raising $200 billion or 1% of the world’s GDP for conservation by 2030. Another $500 billion annually would come from doing away with the politically-sensitive issue of subsidies that make food and fuel cheaper in many places.

    “The world is crying out for change, watching if governments seek to heal our relationship with the nature, with the planet,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, said at a November news conference. “The current state of biodiversity is dire with the loss of biodiversity at unprecedented levels in our history.”

    The United Nations conference comes less than a month after countries gathered to tackle climate change, agreeing for the first time to pay poor countries for the damage being caused by a warming planet.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    “We’re clearly losing biodiversity all around the world. Our ecosystems — that’s our forests, our grasslands, our wetlands, our coral reefs — are all degrading,” said Robert Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports on climate change and biodiversity loss. “We’re losing species; some are going extinct and others where the population numbers have even halved. We’re losing genetic diversity within species. So we’re clearly affecting biodiversity badly.”

    Brian O’Donnell, the director of the conservation group Campaign for Nature, noted how he had lived during a time of “climate stability and natural abundance” but fears that won’t be the same for his daughter and her generation.

    “We have to ask, ‘Will they be able to have well-functioning natural areas to sustain them? Will they benefit from what nature has given us — storm protection, pollination, clean water, food, abundant wildlife? Or will they face the remnants of a once thriving natural system?’” O’Donnell said.

    “Will the burden of climate breakdown and nature degradation be placed on the young people of the planet, the vulnerable, and the poor, those least responsible for creating the crises?” he asked.

    The challenge, though, will be convincing governments that they should do more to preserve and protect biodiversity and to follow through on their commitments. It will be especially challenging to make the case for cash-strapped developing countries who often need to spend money on more pressing concerns.

    “It would be a big deal if a lot of nations commit to 30%,” said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, referring to the draft goal to protect 30% of the planet for conservation. President Joe Biden has already laid out a vision to conserve 30% of U.S. land and waters by 2030, and then-United Kingdom prime minister Boris Johnson pledged to protect 30% of its land by 2030.

    The track record of this convention is not great.

    Governments agreed to a set of targets back in 2010 but only six of the 20 were partially met by a 2020 deadline. Some experts argue delegates should be exploring why the world fell short on so many targets rather than setting even more ambitious ones.

    “You can agree inside your environmental bubble … and that’s probably what happened back in 2010,” U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press. “But we actually need to have agriculture as part of the conversation. We need to have the financing system as part of the conversation.”

    Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy at Wildlife Conservation Society, said part of the problem is that, so far, there hasn’t been “sufficient accountability and monitoring” of the goals.

    “It’s really important to put in place a monitoring framework,” she said. “Countries need to report. There needs to be accountability … and the targets need to be clear enough that governments can monitor and report on them.”

    Among the goals is to close the estimated $700 billion a year gap in what is spent on biodiversity. Part of the problem, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Monica Medina said, is that the world not putting a sufficient price on nature.

    “We’re desperately trying to change people’s mindset about nature, and the fact that the things that we take for granted really aren’t free and we need to start actually accounting for their value and for the loss of their value … when development happens,” said Medina, who is leading the U.S. delegation at the conference.

    The funding hopes hinge heavily on whether countries reform their subsidies for industries that pollute or otherwise damage the natural world. Delegates face stiff opposition from parties, such as the fossil fuel sector, that would lose out if the reforms were enacted. Environmental ministers also have little influence over whether their countries take this risky step — one that’s been known to spark unrest and bring down governments.

    Watson, who has chaired past U.N. science reports, said reform is needed. “We need to get rid of subsidies. We need to draw down the subsidies on agriculture, fisheries, mining, energy, transportation, and we need to use that money for sustainable activities,” he said. “There’s probably over a trillion dollars a year in what we call direct subsidy, direct subsidies on fossil fuel, on fisheries, agriculture, etc. There’s also about $4 trillion of indirect subsidies.”

    ———

    Associated Press science writer Christina Larson contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey in Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Renewables to overtake coal and become world’s biggest source of electricity generation by 2025, IEA says

    Renewables to overtake coal and become world’s biggest source of electricity generation by 2025, IEA says

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    Wind turbines in the Netherlands. A report from the International Energy Agency “expects renewables to become the primary energy source for electricity generation globally in the next three years, overtaking coal.”

    Mischa Keijser | Image Source | Getty Images

    Renewables are on course to overtake coal and become the planet’s biggest source of electricity generation by the middle of this decade, according to the International Energy Agency.

    The IEA’s Renewables 2022 report, published Tuesday, predicts a major shift within the world’s electricity mix at a time of significant volatility and geopolitical tension.

    “The first truly global energy crisis, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has sparked unprecedented momentum for renewables,” it said.

    “Renewables [will] become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, surpassing coal,” it added.

    According to its “main-case forecast,” the IEA expects renewables to account for nearly 40% of worldwide electricity output in 2027, coinciding with a fall in the share of coal, natural gas and nuclear generation.

    The analysis comes at a time of huge disruption within global energy markets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

    The Kremlin was the biggest supplier of both natural gas and petroleum oils to the EU in 2021, according to Eurostat. However, gas exports from Russia to the European Union have slid this year, as member states sought to drain the Kremlin’s war chest.

    Read more about energy from CNBC Pro

    As such, major European economies have been attempting to shore up supplies from alternative sources for the colder months ahead — and beyond.

    In a statement issued alongside its report, the IEA highlighted the consequences of the current geopolitical situation.

    “The global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years,” it said.

    “Energy security concerns caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have motivated countries to increasingly turn to renewables such as solar and wind to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, whose prices have spiked dramatically,” it added.

    In its largest-ever upward revision to its renewable power forecast, the IEA now expects the world’s renewable capacity to surge by nearly 2,400 gigawatts between 2022 and 2027 — the same amount as the “entire installed power capacity of China today.”

    Wind and solar surge ahead

    The IEA expects electricity stemming from wind and solar photovoltaic (which converts sunlight directly into electricity) to supply nearly 20% of the planet’s power generation in 2027.

    “These variable technologies account for 80% of global renewable generation increase over the forecast period, which will require additional sources of power system flexibility,” it added.

    However, the IEA expects growth in geothermal, bioenergy, hydropower and concentrated solar power to stay “limited despite their critical role in integrating wind and solar PV into global electricity systems.”

    Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

    Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said the global energy crisis had kicked renewables “into an extraordinary new phase of even faster growth as countries seek to capitalise on their energy security benefits.”

    “The world is set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the previous 20 years,” Birol said.

    The IEA chief added that the continued acceleration of renewables was “critical” to keeping “the door open to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.”

    The 1.5 degree target is a reference to 2015′s Paris Agreement, a landmark accord that aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”

    Cutting human-made carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050 is seen as crucial when it comes to meeting the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.

    Earlier this year, a report from the International Energy Agency said clean energy investment could be on course to exceed $2 trillion per year by 2030, an increase of over 50% compared to today.

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  • Rich Nations Doubly Responsible for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    Rich Nations Doubly Responsible for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Hezri A Adnan (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
    • Inter Press Service

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 06 (IPS) – Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.

    Yet, in multilateral fora, strategies to address climate change and its effects remain largely national. GHG emissions – typically measured as carbon dioxide equivalents – are the main bases for assessing national climate action commitments.

    Hezri A AdnanAssessing national responsibility
    Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das have critically considered how national climate responsibilities are assessed. The standard method – used by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – measures GHG emissions by activities within national boundaries.

    This approach attributes GHG emissions to the country where goods are produced. Such carbon accounting focuses blame for global warming on newly industrializing economies. But it ignores who consumes the goods and where, besides diverting attention from those most responsible for historical emissions.

    Thus, attention has focused on big national emitters. China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and other large developing economies – especially the ‘late industrializers’ – have become the new climate villains.

    China, the United States and India are now the world’s three largest GHG emitters in absolute terms, accounting for over half the total. With more rapid growth in recent decades, China and India have greatly increased emissions.

    Undoubtedly, some developing countries have seen rapid GHG emission increases, especially during high growth episodes. In the first two decades of this century, such emissions rose over 3-fold in China, 2.7 times in India, and 4.7-fold in Indonesia.

    Meanwhile, most rich economies have seen smaller increases, even declines in emissions, as they ‘outsource’ labour- and energy-intensive activities to the global South. Thus, over the same period, production emissions fell by 12% in the US and Japan, and by nearly 22% in Germany.

    Jomo Kwame SundaramObscuring inequalities
    Only comparing total national emissions is not just one-sided, but also misleading, as countries have very different populations, economic outputs and structures.

    But determining responsibility for global warming fairly is necessary to ensure equitable burden sharing for adequate climate action. Most climate change negotiations and discussions typically refer to aggregate national emissions and income measures, rather than per capita levels.

    But such framing obscures the underlying inequalities involved. A per capita view comparing average GHG emissions offers a more nuanced, albeit understated perspective on the global disparities involved.

    Thus, in spite of recent reductions, rich economies are still the greatest GHG emitters per capita. The US and Australia spew eight times more per head than developing countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil.

    Despite its recent emission increases, even China emits less than half US per capita levels. Meanwhile, its annual emissions growth fell from 9.3% in 2002 to 0.6% in 2012. Even The Economist acknowledged China’s per capita emissions in 2019 were comparable to industrializing Western nations in 1885!

    Several developments have contributed to recent reductions in rich nations’ emissions. Richer countries can better afford ‘climate-friendly’ improvements, by switching energy sources away from the most harmful fossil fuels to less GHG-emitting options such as natural gas, nuclear and renewables.

    Changes in international trade and investment with ‘globalization’ have seen many rich countries shift GHG-intensive production to developing countries.

    Thus, rich economies have ‘exported’ production of – and responsibility for – GHG emissions for what they consume. Instead, developed countries make more from ‘high value’ services, many related to finance, requiring far less energy.

    Export emissions, shift blame
    Thus, rich countries have effectively adopted then World Bank chief economist Larry Summers’ proposal to export toxic waste to the poorest countries where the ‘opportunity cost’ of human life was presumed to be lowest!

    His original proposal has since become a development strategy for the age of globalization! Thus, polluting industries – including GHG-emitting production processes – have been relocated – together with labour-intensive industries – to the global South.

    Although kept out of the final published version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, over 40% of developing country GHG emissions were due to export production for developed countries.

    Such ‘emission exports’ by rich OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries increased rapidly from 2002, after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). These peaked at 2,278 million metric tonnes in 2006, i.e., 17% of emissions from production, before falling to 1,577 million metric tonnes.

    For the OECD, the ‘carbon balance’ is determined by deducting the carbon dioxide equivalent of GHG emissions for imports from those for production, including exports. Annual growth of GHG discharges from making exports was 4.3% faster than for all production emissions.

    Thus, the US had eight times more per capita GHG production emissions than India’s in 2019. US per capita emissions were more than thrice China’s, although the world’s most populous country still emits more than any other nation.

    With high GHG-emitting products increasingly made in developing countries, rich countries have effectively ‘exported’ their emissions. Consuming such imports, rich economies are still responsible for related GHG emissions.

    Change is in the air
    Industries emitting carbon have been ‘exported’ – relocated abroad – for their products to be imported for consumption. But the UNFCCC approach to assigning GHG emissions responsibility focuses only on production, ignoring consumption of such imports.

    Thus, if responsibility for GHG emissions is also due to consumption, per capita differences between the global North and South are even greater.

    In contrast, the OECD wants to distribute international corporate income tax revenue according to consumption, not production. Thus, contradictory criteria are used, as convenient, to favour rich economies, shaping both tax and climate discourses and rules.

    While domestic investments in China have become much ‘greener’, foreign direct investment by companies from there are developing coal mines and coal-fired powerplants abroad, e.g., in Indonesia and Vietnam.

    If not checked, such FDI will put other developing countries on the worst fossil fuel energy pathway, historically emulating the rich economies of the global North. A Global Green New Deal would instead enable a ‘big push’ to ‘front-load’ investments in renewable energy.

    This should enable adequate financing of much more equitable development while ensuring sustainability. Such an approach would not only address national-level inequalities, but also international disparities.

    China now produces over 70% of photovoltaic solar panels annually, but is effectively blocked from exporting them abroad. In a more cooperative world, developing countries’ lower-cost – more affordable – production of the means to generate renewable energy would be encouraged.

    Instead, higher energy costs now – due to supply disruptions following the Ukraine war and Western sanctions – are being used by rich countries to retreat further from their inadequate, modest commitments to decelerate global warming.

    This retreat is putting the world at greater risk. Already, the international community is being urged to abandon the maximum allowable temperature increase above pre-industrial levels, thus further extending and deepening already unjust North-South relations.

    But change is in the air. Investing in and subsidizing renewable energy technologies in developing countries wanting to electrify, can enable them to develop while mitigating global warming.

    Hezri A Adnan is adjunct professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

    Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

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    BOSTON — Prince William capped a three-day visit to Boston by meeting with President Joe Biden to share his vision for safeguarding the environment before attending a gala event Friday evening where he sounded an optimistic tone about solving the world’s environmental problems through “hope, optimism and urgency.”

    The Prince of Wales paid homage to the late President John F. Kennedy, saying his Earthshot Prize was inspired by Kennedy’s audacious moonshot speech in 1962 that mobilized the nation to put astronauts on the moon. That same sense of urgency and scale is needed now to protect the environment, William said.

    “In the same way the space effort six decades ago created jobs, boosted economies and provided hope, so too can the solutions borne of tonight’s Earthshot Prize winners,” William said.

    The second annual Earthshot Prize offered 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to each of the winners in five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists will receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.

    The winners, announced at Boston’s MGM Music Hall, were:

    — A female-founded startup that’s providing cleaner-burning biomass stoves in Africa

    — A United Kingdom company making biodegradable packaging from seaweed

    — A “greenhouse-in-a-box” concept created to increase yields on small farms in India

    — A technique for transforming atmospheric carbon into rock in Oman in the Middle East

    — A woman-led effort to create a new generation of indigenous rangers in Australia.

    Providing the star power for the glitzy show were Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle live in Boston, and Billie Eilish performing remotely. The event also featured videos narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett. Prizes were presented by actor Rami Malek, comedian Catherine O’Hara, and actor and activist Shailene Woodley.

    The entertainers were eager to help.

    “It’s the greatest crisis of our lifetime, and I appreciate what Prince William is doing,” Malek said before heading into the venue. “And in the next 10 years I think the impact will be staggering. And we can really effect change in the greatest way with these innovators who are being awarded this evening.”

    Before the event, William met privately for 30 minutes with Biden after the two shook hands and spoke briefly in the cold near the water outside of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum. As William walked down the steps in his suit, Biden, wearing in a black winter coat, shouted: “Where’s your topcoat?”

    William also met Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Australia and the late president’s daughter. William toured the museum with Kennedy and told her that her father was “the man who inspired our mission.”

    William and his wife, Kate, earlier attended a welcome Wednesday at City Hall and then a Boston Celtics game before the royal couple spent much of Thursday hearing about the threats of climate change and solutions in the works.

    William became heir apparent less than three months ago with the death of his grandmother, the queen, but he already has been crowned Britain’s chief environmentalist. That was apparent during the Boston visit, which earned praise for drawing attention to pollution and climate change and the need to scale up solutions.

    “I just appreciate that they are using platform and publicity to bring attention to meaningful climate work,” said Joe Christo, managing director of Stone Living Lab, which researches nature-based approaches to climate adaptation and was among those who met the royal couple at Boston Harbor on Thursday.

    “I do know his dad is a big environmentalist,” he said. “He seems to be doing a great job continuing that legacy.”

    William is following in the footsteps of his environmentally minded grandfather Prince Philip — the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II — and more recently his father and Elizabeth’s successor, King Charles III.

    William’s father, in his former capacity as prince, was for decades one of Britain’s most prominent environmental voices — blasting the ills of pollution. Last year, he stood before world leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Scotland and suggested the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss were no different than those posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

    Now that he is king, Charles is expected to be more careful with his words and must stay out of politics and government policy, in accordance with the traditions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. This year, he did not attend the U.N. climate conference, which was held in Egypt.

    The caution presents an opportunity for William to step into that role as the royal family’s environmental advocate and speak more forcefully about the issues once associated with his father.

    There is no better example than the Earthshot Prize.

    “It’s a huge deal to Prince William,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “He knows he can attract attention from the most important people. That really is the core of the Boston trip.”

    William and Kate got a firsthand look at some recent innovations at a green technology startup incubator called Greentown Labs, in Somerville. Among them were solar-powered autonomous boats and low-carbon cement.

    “Climate change is a global problem, so it’s so important to have global leaders talking about the importance of taking action,” said Lara Cottingham, vice president of strategy policy and climate impact for Greentown Labs.

    The couple’s first trip to the U.S. since 2014 is part of the royal family’s efforts to change its international image. After Elizabeth’s death, Charles has made clear that his will be a slimmed-down monarchy, with less pomp and ceremony than its predecessors. William and Kate arrived in Boston on a commercial British Airways flight.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report in Boston.

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  • Global Risks in 2022: The Year of Colliding Consequences

    Global Risks in 2022: The Year of Colliding Consequences

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    • Opinion by Jens Orback (stockholm, sweden)
    • Inter Press Service

    STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 02 (IPS) – As 2022 draws to a close, we are confronted with an unprecedented collision of global risks, interacting and reinforcing each other in dangerous new ways.

    The impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are still rippling outwards, colliding and combining like waves on a sea. The heightened threat of nuclear conflict, the global energy crisis, the rising cost of food, deepening poverty and inequality: these consequences are interacting with the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change.

    This confluence of global risks has led to unwelcome new terms entering the dictionary, such as ‘polycrisis’ and ‘multicrisis.’

    In the face of such complex challenges, it’s easy to feel helpless and paralyzed. And yet, if this year has shown us anything, it’s that we need an urgent upgrade of our systems of cooperation to tackle them.

    It starts with making sure we have the right knowledge. Climate scientist Johan Rockström, a board member of our foundation, has written powerfully on the need for an international consortium of scientists to provide shared insights on the emerging interactions between risks.

    At the Global Challenges Foundation, we’ve just released our annual review of global catastrophic risks, risks that threaten the survival of more than ten per cent of humanity. This year’s report shows how, more than ever, our systems and structures for preventing and managing these risks are both outdated and inadequate.

    Whether it’s climate change, environmental breakdown, nuclear conflict, pandemics or artificial intelligence, we have a systemic problem with processing and acting on the complex challenges that lie in the intersections.

    Of course, there is no one magic solution, given the multilateral system that we inhabit. However, there are many existing proposals to improve the mechanics of global governance that could be immediately fast tracked.

    For example, there are several important proposals in the United Nations Secretary-General’s 2021 report, Our Common Agenda. These include the idea for an Emergency Platform that would be triggered by a major crisis such as the use of a nuclear weapon and coordinate the global response.

    The report also proposes reviving the UN’s Trusteeship Council, inactive for many years, as a multi-stakeholder body to tackle emerging challenges and to act to preserve the global commons on behalf of future generations.

    The failure of the COP27 climate talks in Egypt to agree strong measures to curb fossil fuel production has demonstrated how intergovernmental negotiations are not producing rapid enough action on climate change.

    On top of this, the global energy crisis has led to some countries slowing or shelving their green agendas, in a year of extreme temperatures and climate-related crises.

    We urgently need to find alternative ways of collaborating to prevent catastrophic climate change. One key proposal is a carbon tax – administered at both global and national levels – with the proceeds going to the communities who are most affected.

    The International Monetary Fund concluded that, of all the various recognised strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, implementing a carbon tax would be the most powerful and efficient.

    Of course, this may not be the easiest ‘sell’ politically during a cost-of-living crisis but evidence from countries like Canada shows that it can be done gradually and sensitively.

    The spread of COVID-19 around the world since 2020 has highlighted the linkages between environmental destruction and pandemics. COVID-19 is unlikely to be the last pandemic that humanity faces.

    As renowned epidemiologist and public health expert Professor David Heymann writes in his pandemics chapter in our report, as well as tackling the root causes of new pathogens coming into contact with humans, we need to upgrade the international frameworks that govern how countries report on new disease outbreaks.

    This means enacting a stronger enforcement mechanism to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations, and a Pandemic Treaty.

    When it comes to nuclear risk, looming ever larger over Ukraine, it’s now more likely than ever that nuclear weapons will be used in either military actions, miscalculation or by accident than at any time since the beginning of the nuclear age.

    The international community must treat all threats to use nuclear weapons very seriously. Even ‘small’ or ‘tactical’ weapons can cause terrible damage and their use would undermine the nuclear taboo in place since their use at the end of the Second World War.

    Nuclear expert, and contributor to our report, Kennette Benedict says there is still much more we can do to prevent a nuclear disaster. IAEA Director General Raffael Grossi and his colleagues are doing heroic work to prevent nuclear plant disasters in Ukraine.

    The international community must continue to support the agency and provide more funding for IAEA’s work. Explicit protection of nuclear plants in violent conflicts and war should be codified in international law.

    Only with a clear understanding of each of the greatest risks facing humanity can we move forward to rethink how we could better manage them. And only with new kinds of global cooperation can we deal with today’s complex web of interlocking and reinforcing global risks to ensure a habitable, safe and peaceful future.

    As we say goodbye to this year of global risks, this should be top of our ‘to do’ list for 2023.

    Jens Orback is Executive Director of The Global Challenges Foundation

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

    French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

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    BATON ROUGE, La. — French President Emmanuel Macron will head to Louisiana on Friday to celebrate longstanding cultural ties and to discuss energy policy.

    Macron’s office said he will meet with political leaders and is scheduled to see the historic French Quarter, the heart of the city. The Advocate reported that the visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

    Macron is planning to go to Jackson Square in New Orleans, where he will be welcomed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell. He will then head to the Historic New Orleans Collection to discuss climate change impacts with Gov. John Bel Edwards. Macron is also scheduled to meet with energy company representatives.

    Edwards, a Democrat, has been outspoken about the perils of climate change, in a state where tens of thousands of jobs are tied to the oil and gas industry. This makes the stop to New Orleans “very emblematic” of climate-related efforts, French officials stressed.

    In addition, Macron and Edwards will sign a memorandum of understanding “to further expand and enhance the strong cultural connections between France and Louisiana in the areas of the economy, clean energy and the environment,” according to the governor’s office.

    During Macron’s visit to Washington on Thursday, he and President Joe Biden released a joint statement expressing “their deep concern regarding the growing impact of climate change and nature loss” and said they “intend to continue to galvanize domestic and global action to address it.”

    In New Orleans, Macron is expected to announce plans to expand programming to support French language education in U.S.

    “We want the French language to be a language for all and therefore give a fresh image of the French in the United States,” Macron said Wednesday in a speech to the French community in Washington D.C.

    New Orleans is where the Louisiana Purchase was finalized, transferring Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803. The state’s most populous city is also home to the French Quarter, the more than 300-year-old historic heart of New Orleans. First settled in the 1700s, ravaged by fire twice, it is 13 blocks long and roughly six blocks wide. It is best known as a tourist spot and commercial district where reimagined French Market, fine restaurants, antique shops and art galleries coexist alongside T-shirt shops, strip joints and bars blasting live music by cover bands.

    The visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976, The Advocate reported. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

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  • Q&A: Jacob Harold creates philanthropist ‘toolbox,’ guide

    Q&A: Jacob Harold creates philanthropist ‘toolbox,’ guide

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    Jacob Harold believes philanthropy needs more “strategic promiscuity” – battling the world’s problems using a variety of approaches.

    It’s an idea that mirrors his wide-ranging career. Harold was president and CEO of GuideStar before it merged with Foundation Center to form the even larger nonprofit information source Candid, which he co-founded. He worked with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to make its giving more effective and with The Bridgespan Group, he helped philanthropists and foundations donate more intentionally. As a strategist for Greenpeace USA and Rainforest Action Network, he deployed those donations.

    “We can’t afford as a field and as a species to leave great ideas on the table right now,” Harold said. “If that great idea is born in some small organization, we have to figure out what is its pathway into government policy. What is its pathway into the marketplace? We can’t predict that, but we can equip people to have a better chance of getting there.”

    To boost those chances, Harold wrote “The Toolbox: Strategies for Crafting Social Impact,” which hit bookshelves Thursday. “The Toolbox” offers nine strategies, or tools, philanthropists can use on a problem – from storytelling to behavioral economics to community organizing.

    “I hope people who have only one lens — all they have is a hammer, so the whole world looks like a nail – read this and just sort of pause and see that there’s other stuff out there,” Harold said. “And I want people feeling discouraged and hopeless in this strange moment to be reminded of the abundance of options and the abundance of learning and resources that are out there.”

    Harold, 45, recently spoke with The Associated Press about his new book and how he hopes it helps nonprofits reach more donors. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

    Q: Why did you want to write this book?

    A: It goes back to my time at the Hewlett Foundation a decade ago where I’m sitting there in the fancy office of a $10 billion dollar foundation and the smartest social entrepreneurs in the world are coming to us pitching big ideas. Then, for lunch, we’ll have a great philosopher or a brilliant psychologist come in and give a talk. Or we’ll go across the street to Stanford and hang out at the design school. We were just so privileged to see all these different ways of thinking about social change. And I realized no one else had that level of privilege. So the first point of the book is “Let’s just share that abundance of ways of thinking about social good.” Over the centuries, people have put so much thought and time into figuring out how to do it and we’ve actually learned a lot.

    Q: You said that’s your hopeful reason. What’s the less hopeful reason?

    A: Part of me was kind of angry because so many people are so convinced that their one approach was the only way to succeed. So many of the failures we’ve seen in the social sector over the last 20 years come from people so obsessed with a particular framework that they don’t acknowledge the complexity of the world.

    Q: How do you want readers to use this book?

    A: I think most everyone is going to come to this with one of these tools as a framework that they’re already using. Maybe they come from the business world and use a market mindset. Or they come from journalism and they bring a storytelling mindset. I hope first they would see some affirmation in what they already have, but then seed their mind with these other ways of thinking… I would also expect that someone will read this book and say, “Seven of these tools make sense to me and two of them made no sense at all.” That is OK. It’s not that everyone has to master every way of thinking. It’s just that we have to recognize that the world’s too complicated for any one way to be enough.

    Q: Why is it important for this book to come out now?

    A: Right now, so many of us feel emotionally overwhelmed. There’s a lot of anxiety. We need to act in the face of all these challenges, but we also need to have confidence that we actually can succeed.

    Q: To what extent can philanthropy get things done when compared to governments, especially in a global issue like climate change?

    A: That’s one thing that I struggled with in this book that the classic reader of this book would be a nonprofit manager or a foundation staffer. But there are lots of people in the business world and in government working full time to make a better world. And they need tools too. The people in government trying to figure out the right policies to address climate change need to have frameworks in their minds as well. And we actually need every sector applying every lesson to address a question like climate change. Climate change, to me, is the perfect example of a problem that can’t be solved with a single solution.

    —————

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate

    In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate

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    BENGALURU, India — India officially takes up its role as chair of the Group of 20 leading economies for the coming year Thursday and it’s putting climate at the top of the group’s priorities.

    Programs to encourage sustainable living and money for countries to transition to clean energy and deal with the effects of a warming world are some of the key areas that India will focus on during its presidency, experts say. Some say India will also use its new position to boost its climate credentials and act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones.

    The country has made considerable moves toward its climate goals in recent years but is currently one of the world’s top emitters of planet-warming gases.

    The G-20, made up of the world’s largest economies, has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group’s agenda and priorities each year. Experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G-20 presidency to drive forward its climate and development plans.

    The country “will focus heavily on responding to the current and future challenges posed by climate change,” said Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF will be anchoring the T-20 — a group of think tanks from the 20 member countries whose participants meet alongside the G-20.

    Saran said that India will work to ensure that money is flowing from rich industrialized nations to emerging economies to help them combat global warming, such as a promise of $100 billion a year for clean energy and adapting to climate change for poorer nations that has not yet been fulfilled and a recent pledge to vulnerable countries that there will be a fund for the loss and damage caused by extreme weather.

    He added that India will also use the presidency to push its flagship “Mission Life” program that encourages more sustainable lifestyles in the country, which is set to soon become most populous in the world.

    When outgoing chair Indonesia symbolically handed the presidency to India in Bali last month by passing the gavel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the program, saying it could make “a big contribution” by turning sustainable living into “a mass movement.”

    The impact of lifestyle “has not received as much attention in the global discourse as it should,” said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi. He added that the issue “may get some prominence” at the G-20 which would be a success for the Indian government, but critics say the focus on lifestyle changes must be backed by policy to have credibility.

    India has been beefing up its climate credentials, with its recent domestic targets to transition to renewable energy more ambitious than the goals it submitted to the U.N. as part of the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they plan to limit warming to temperature targets set in 2015.

    Analysts say nations’ climate ambitions and actions — including India’s — are not in line with temperature targets.

    Many of India’s big industrialists are investing heavily in renewable energy domestically as well as globally, but the Indian government is also preparing to invest in coal-based power plants at the cost of $33 billion over the next four years.

    At the U.N. climate conference last month, India — currently the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases — proposed a phaseout of all fossil fuels and repeatedly emphasized the need to revamp global climate finance. The country says it cannot reach its climate goals and reduce carbon dioxide emissions without significantly more finance from richer nations, a claim which those countries dispute.

    Navroz Dubash, author of several U.N. climate reports and professor at the Centre for Policy Research, said that a key question for many countries is how “emerging economies address development needs and do it in a low carbon pathway” with several in the global south, like India, pointing to a need for outside investment.

    As the chair of the G-20, India is a good position “to say what it will take for us to develop in ways that don’t lock up the remaining carbon budget,” Dubash added, referring to the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still containing global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels.

    “Developing countries are making a convincing case that green industrial policies are actually quite dependent on having public money to throw at the problems,” said Dubash. Some experts say more than $2 trillion is needed each year by 2030 to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of a warming climate, with $1 trillion from domestic sources and the rest coming from external sources such as developed countries or multilateral development banks.

    “This public money can also be a way of getting in private money, which is what the U.S. has done in its Inflation Reduction Act,” Dubash added. The U.S.’s flagship climate package that passed earlier this year includes incentives for building out clean energy infrastructure.

    The G-20 will also be looking closely at alternative means to getting climate finance, experts say. The group could potentially take a leaf out of the Bridgetown initiative proposed by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, which involves unlocking large sums of money from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner energy.

    ORF’s Saran said that as G-20 chair India can help move forward the conversation on the initiative. Developing countries are often charged higher rates of interest when borrowing from global financial institutions. Rejigging global finance to make renewable energy more affordable in the developing world is key to curbing climate change, Saran said.

    The idea has recently gained traction amongst developed nations, with France’s Macron recently vocalizing his support.

    “A large share of emissions will come from the developing world in the future,” Saran said. “If we make it easier for them to shift to clean energy, then these emissions can be avoided.”

    ———

    Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • COP 27: A Global COP-Out

    COP 27: A Global COP-Out

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    Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran
    • Opinion by Robert Sandford (hamilton, canada)
    • Inter Press Service

    HAMILTON, Canada, Dec 01 (IPS) – Last year’s climate COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, was billed as the most important conference in the history of humanity. But it failed to deliver. If anything, that failure added urgency for global climate action at COP 27 in Egypt last month.

    Now that it this year’s COP is over, it is useful to reflect on a few excerpts from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s opening day remarks:

    • “These climate conferences remind us that the answer is in our hands and the clock is ticking.”
    • “We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing.”
    • “Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing, global temperatures keep rising…and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”
    • “We are getting dangerously close to the point of no return. And to avoid that dire fate all countries must accelerate their transition now, in this decade.”
    • “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish.”
    • “It is either a climate solidarity pact, or it is a collective suicide pact.”

    Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran

    Sadly, COP27’s outcomes make very clear that the world signed on to the one the global fossil fuel sector wanted: the suicide pact.

    COP 27 did not deliver. In fact, it has been labelled by many as the worst COP ever.

    What happened in Egypt puts a whole new spin on the term COP-out. But how could it have been otherwise?

    COP 27 was held in a country aligned with surrounding petrostates ruled by a ruthless dictatorship and was sponsored by one of the world’s largest plastic polluters: Coca-Cola.

    It did not seem to register with organizers that the company’s relentless bottled water production is widely held in the global water science and policy community as a triumph of marketing over common sense.

    Did the organizers not see that Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of COP 27 was an open invitation to blatant global greenwashing?

    The obvious should not be missed here: Capitalism is not out of control, capitalism is in control – and COP 27 offers clear proof of that truth.

    As society’s reliance on petroleum grew and our energy demands expanded, the global fossil fuel cartel quietly evolved into a superpower unto itself. There were more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP 27. What, one might reasonably ask, could possibly go wrong? Lots, evidently.

    The oil and gas lobby completely corrupted the COP process. The proceedings and outcomes of COP 27 make it clear that the fossil fuel sector now owns the COP agenda. The sole aim of their presence there was to prevent, not promote, progress on dealing with the global climate threat. And they succeeded.

    None of the agreements negotiated in Egypt are binding. Like the national emissions reductions target put forward by UN Member States under the Paris Climate Accord, the commitments made at COP 27 are all merely aspirational.

    There is no penalty for failing to achieve them. There have been 27 COPs since 1995 and still no formal binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning.

    Except for a small blip during the pandemic, fossil fuel burning globally continues to rise, not fall.

    As one participant pointed out, the aspirational scheme agreed upon in Sharm el Sheikh is a down payment on disaster. No one expects anyone to actually compensate developing countries that contribute little to the climate threat for the catastrophic impacts climate breakdown is now having on them.

    With COP 28 scheduled to be held next year in the United Arab Emirates – one of the most notorious petrostates of them all – the only thing COP 27 accomplished was to expose what the COP summit process has become – a pointless travelling circus set up once a year out of which little but platitudes emerge.

    The entire COP process is no longer fit for purpose. It is a bloated, corrupted process too moribund to come up with any measures effective enough, and binding enough, to bring about the changes we need to make to avoid climate catastrophe.

    Voices calling for change get louder and louder. The COP process must be replaced with something more efficient that does its work largely hidden from the glare of the media.

    It can no longer be allowed to be contaminated by corporate sponsorship. The process can no longer be allowed to be owned and corrupted by the global fossil fuel cartel and oil and gas sector lobbyists.

    One suggested way of doing this is to establish an IPCC-like structure of smaller bodies, each addressing key issues, notably energy transition, restorative agriculture, transportation and issues related to damage and loss.

    Each such body would be made up of representatives of majority-world countries empowered to negotiate legally binding agreements that are workable and achievable, whether it be halting and reversing deforestation, cutting carbon dioxide and methane emissions, drawing down coal use and addressing other threats to our future such as ocean acidification and deoxygenation.

    These agreements can then be signed off by world leaders without the need for the hype, grandstanding and false hope now associated with COP process pronouncements.

    We are witnessing a great bonfire of our heritage. Things are being lost that have not yet been found. We need to find them before they, and we, are gone.

    Robert Sandford holds the Global Water Futures Chair in Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, based at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano continues to spew lava after historic eruption

    Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano continues to spew lava after historic eruption

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    Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano continues to spew lava after historic eruption – CBS News


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    Residents and tourists are flocking to Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, which erupted earlier this week. While the surrounding community is not currently in danger, the flow of cars is creating a safety hazard along the highway. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

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  • Three Letters That Will Make Your Company More Successful

    Three Letters That Will Make Your Company More Successful

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In September 2022, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard gave away his entire $3 billion company to ensure all of its profits would be used to combat climate change. The bold and generous decision represents a corporate shift toward environmental, social, and governance, better known as ESG.

    What is ESG? The term refers to increasingly important company standards in which decision-makers look not only at the company’s balance sheet but also its environmental, social, and governance policies.

    ESG advocates say this approach helps safeguard the planet, paves the way for more diversity in the workplace, and protects fair wages.

    But ESG also makes good business sense. According to PWC, 80% of consumers make sustainability-based purchase choices, while 83% of buyers believe companies should actively shape ESG best practices.

    Because consumers are using their dollars to support responsible businesses, business leaders consider implementing an ESG strategy. Here are five ways.

    1. Be intentional in pursuing ESG operations

    Lots of companies do good things without explicitly aiming to be ESG-focused. But deliberately choosing ESG processes offers a framework for your business’ legacy.

    Take a look at Patagonia. Chouinard decided to make sustainability central to the brand at the outset, mainly by focusing on renewable and recycled materials. Giving away the business to a climate-centered trust and non-profit organization is the capstone of that original purpose.

    Intentionally embracing ESG in your vision and policies means you’ll have a compass to consistently direct your projects, strategies, materials, and goals, which will build employee and buyer trust.

    Related: 3 Steps for Making a Positive Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Impact

    2. Move to electric vehicles

    Think about how you get your packages. Fleets of vehicles typically shuttle your stuff from the store or warehouse to your door. Other vehicles are responsible for transporting materials through the supply chain or getting workers to the office and other work events.

    All these vehicles on the road translate to a big chunk — 28% — of total greenhouse gas emissions. Using electric vehicles (EVs) is a simple way to reduce your carbon footprint, even when you can’t shift much else.

    Light-duty vehicles are the worst offenders and account for 59% of vehicle emissions. So, if it makes sense for your business, focus on switching out those vehicles first.

    Another bonus: EVs can function as mobile billboards for your business. Every time you or an employee takes a company-branded EV for a spin, the vehicle pulls extra weight by advertising for you. That’s significantly more visible — not to mention easier to scale and reassign — than your office building certified in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) but doesn’t have any customers who visit.

    Related: 3 Changes You Should Expect To See in Transportation in 2022

    3. Assess your supply chain

    The supply chain connects everything from your raw materials to distribution. ESG means taking ownership of as many links as possible and asking yourself what you can do to apply it at every point.

    Be transparent as you examine how inventory gets from Point A to Point B. Even though 81% of companies still need complete supply chain visibility, 75% of consumers consider transparency helpful in strengthening customer-business trust.

    When consumers feel like a business has violated that trust, they take action. In 2020, 38% of Americans boycotted at least one company. Communicate whatever you’re doing to keep your operations squeaky clean on your website, in your marketing emails, on your packaging, and anywhere else you can display your messages.

    4. Clean up your power

    Every business uses power to some degree, but the kind of energy you use can impact the environment. Because traditional fossil fuels like coal and petroleum contribute to global warming, companies are looking to transition to cleaner energy sources, such as solar and wind power.

    Yes, clean energy can be expensive. But the costs of green energy were already at record lows in 2019. In 2021, almost two-thirds of new renewable power added was less expensive than the cheapest coal-fired power plants in G20 countries.

    Government assistance can also cut the financial sting. Look into tax credits available through the Build Back Better bill. You may qualify at the local, state, and federal levels.

    5. Bring your employees into the fold

    Your team members are your best brand advocates. But they can’t share what they don’t know. Your first responsibility is to work on your culture so that people feel comfortable asking what you’re doing in different ESG areas. Start conversations about where you’re at and where you’d like to be.

    Then, get creative about how you can make ESG visible in ways that are practical for your business — even beyond the environmental space. At our company, to support diversity and gender equality within ESG, we partnered with an organization that features male and female drivers. We also intentionally ensure half of our leadership team consists of women, and we feature female employees on panels.

    Related: Why You Need to Build Sustainability Into Your Business Strategy

    Customers have moved past the days when a good product or service was enough. Now more than ever, the marketing axiom that consumers buy from brands they trust rings true. Your purpose and values count. Bringing ESG into your business meets people where they are and help you make a lasting difference.

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    Brendan P. Keegan

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