Māori climate activist India Logan-Riley speaking on the indigenous challenge to the “colonial project” at the COP26 opening … “In the US and Canada alone, indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.” Image: COP26 screenshot APR (at 1:00.26)
A young Māori activist has told delegates at a massive UN summit in Scotland the world’s climate crisis has its roots in colonialism and that the solution lies in abandoning modern-day forms of it.
India Logan-Riley was asked at the last minute to speak at today’s opening session of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
They said indigenous resistance to resource exploitation, corporate greed and the promotion of justice had led the way in offering real solutions to climate chaos.
Addressing delegates today, the young activist fearlessly linked imperialism’s lust for resources and its destruction of indigenous cultures centuries ago, to modern-day enablement by governments of corporate giants seeking profit from fossil fuels at any cost.
Logan-Riley said the roots of the climate crisis began with imperialist expansion by Western nations and reminded Britain’s leader Boris Johnson of the colonial crimes committed against subject peoples, including those in Aotearoa.
Māori and other indigenous people had been forced off the land so resources could be extracted, Logan-Riley said.
“Two-hundred-fifty-two years ago invading forces sent by the ancestors of this presidency arrived at my ancestors’ territories, heralding an age of violence, murder and destruction enabled by documents, like the Document of Discovery, formulated in Europe.
Land ‘stolen by British Crown’
“Land in my region was stolen by the British Crown in order to extract oil and suck the land of all its nutrients while seeking to displace people.”
Logan-Riley said the same historic forces continued to be at play in Aotearoa, citing the example of the government’s “theft of the foreshore and seabed” and subsequent corporate drive to extract fossil fuels.
They expressed frustration that after being lauded at the Paris talks five years ago for relaying climate warnings of wildfires, biodiversity loss and sea-level rises, nothing since had changed.
“The global north colonial governments and corporations fudge with the future,” they added.
India Logan-Riley … world leaders need to listen to indigenous people. Image: COP26 screenshot APR
Logan-Riley said world leaders needed to listen to indigenous people as they had many of the answers to the climate crisis. Their acts of resistance had already played a part in keeping emissions down, they added.
“We’re keeping fossil fuels in the ground and stopping fossil fuel expansion. We’re halting infrastructure that would increase emissions and saying no to false solutions,” they said.
“In the US and Canada alone indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.”
‘Complicit’ in death and destruction
Failure to support such indigenous challenges to the “colonial project” and acceptance instead of mediocre leaders means you too are complicit in death and destruction across the globe, Logan-Riley warned.
The comments come as other climate activists have criticised the G20 summit on climate action ahead of the COP26 meeting.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who chaired the G20 gathering in Rome, today hailed the final accord, saying that for the first time all G20 states had agreed on the importance of capping global warming at the 1.5C level that scientists say is vital to avoid disaster.
As it stands, the world is heading towards 2.7C.
G20 pledged to stop financing coal power overseas, they set no timetable for phasing it out at home, and watered down the wording on a promise to reduce emissions of methane — another potent greenhouse gas.
The final G20 statement includes a pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year, but set no date for phasing out coal power, promising only to do so “as soon as possible”.
This replaced a goal set in a previous draft of the final statement to achieve this by the end of the 2030s, showing the strong resistance from some coal-dependent countries.
G20 set no ‘phasing out’ date
The G20 also set no date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, saying they will aim to do so “over the medium term”.
On methane, which has a more potent but less lasting impact than carbon dioxide on global warming, leaders diluted their wording from a previous draft that pledged to “strive to reduce our collective methane emissions significantly”.
The final statement just recognises that reducing methane emissions is “one of the quickest, most feasible and most cost-effective ways to limit climate change”.
“I just wanted to really convey that the negotiations are the same age as me and admissions are still going up and that needs to stop right now,” they said.
Logan-Riley had opened their address in te reo Māori before telling delegates they resided on Aotearoa’s east coast, where the sun had turned red in February last year because of smoke from wildfires in eastern Australia.
The activist relayed a story about supporting their brother in hospital being told by the doctor there staff were seeing higher numbers of people presenting with breathing problems because of the smoke.
“In that moment our health was bound to the struggle of the land and people in another country. In the effects of climate change are fates intertwined, as our the historic forces that have brought us here today,” they said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Global climate talks have started in Glasgow, Scotland, but most Pacific leaders cannot get there.
While the leaders of four Pacific nations are attending the United Nations’ COP26 summit, covid travel restrictions are preventing the leaders of 10 Pacific nations from attending with their delegates.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown is one, and he said it was verging on hypocrisy that Pacific countries are denied a voice unless they attend in person.
“I would have been committed to go to Glasgow as one of the climate change champions for finance for the Pacific, but the situation, of course, with the outbreak in New Zealand – the travel restrictions meant that I could possibly be locked out of my own country for a period of time that wasn’t acceptable,” he said.
Brown said COP26 organisers should allow virtual voting.
“We’ve come through two years of attending virtual meetings with the covid situation, the inability to travel.”
Brown said the Cook Islands’ Europe-based representative would go to COP26 while he and his team would be pushing their climate messages hard from home.
Four Pacific leaders attending
Leaders from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tuvalu and Palau are attending the summit.
But covid-19 travel restrictions have grounded the leaders of 10 Pacific nations — the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Niue.
Meanwhile, travellers heading to Glasgow have been left stranded by major rail disruption caused by “intense storms”.
Hundreds of people were left waiting at London’s Euston station after fallen trees caused all trains to be suspended.
At the G20 summit in Rome, which would up on Monday morning, the leaders of the world’s richest economies have agreed to pursue efforts to limit global warming with “meaningful and effective actions”.
But the agreement made few concrete commitments, disappointing activists.
‘Little sense of urgency’
Oscar Soria, of the activist network Avaaz, said there was “little sense of urgency” coming from the group, adding: “There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action.”
Host nation Italy had hoped that firm targets would be set before COP26.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said leaders’ promises without action were “starting to sound hollow”.
“These commitments… are drops in a rapidly warming ocean,” Johnson said.
The G20 group, made up of 19 countries and the European Union, accounts for 80 percent of the world’s emissions.
The communiqué, or official statement released by the leaders, also makes no reference to achieving net zero by 2050.
Net zero means reducing greenhouse gas emissions until a country is absorbing the same amount of emissions from the atmosphere that it is putting out.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi did, however, say in his closing statement that all of the G20 countries are committed to reaching the target by the mid-century.
Scientists have said this must be achieved by 2050 to avoid a climate catastrophe, and most countries have agreed to this.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
And of course, Australia’s scientists have long, long, long been demanding urgent climate action. Here is one of the billion or so expert calls for the Australian federal government to act responsibly on climate: https://t.co/k4XY01E9uV
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was briefed yesterday on Fiji’s priority areas ahead of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) which includes keeping 1.5 degrees alive, scaling up support for adaptation and loss and damage, oceans climate nexus, increased climate finance and finalising the Paris Agreement rule book.
Bainimarama is adamant that Fiji must stand its ground on keeping the 1.5 degrees target alive alongside its Pacific Island neighbours — a stand if not enforced would mean disaster for the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS).
At COP26, Fiji and SIDS must push for greater climate ambition from all G20 members — regardless of their development status — as low-lying nations in the Pacific are likely to become completely uninhabitable under the current emissions settings by 2050.
The COP26 is starting today in Glasgow where Bainimarama alongside other world leaders will deliver a national statement at the World Leaders Summit among other climate-related engagements.
Convened by the United Kingdom, the World Leaders Summit signifies the importance for world leaders to deliver concrete action and credible plans aimed at achieving successful COP goals and coordinated action to tackle climate change.
The Summit is also a vital opportunity for Bainimarama in his capacity as chair of the Pacific Island Forum (PIFs) to provide a voice not only for Fiji but for Pacific Island countries, particularly those which are unable to attend in person because of lockdown and challenges caused by covid-19.
The COP26 meeting is held this year with in-person attendance by leaders. No leader will attend virtually.
Bainimarama will also be meeting other heads of government to discuss issues of mutual concern along the margins of COP26.
Talebula Kateis a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.
The Pacific Islands are in grave danger and at the frontline of global climate change and the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, known as COP26, in Glasgow this week is vitally important for islanders, says Reverend James Bhagwan.
The general secretary of the Suva-based regional Pacific Conference of Churches visited Geneva last week on his way to COP26 in Scotland’s largest city taking place from today until November 12.
“COP26 is important because if this doesn’t work, then we’re in serious danger. It’s already obvious that many of the targets set during the Paris Agreement in 2015 have not been met,” says Reverend Bhagwan with passion and sadness tinging his voice.
“We’re in danger of going well beyond the 1.5C limit of carbon emissions that we need to maintain where we’re at.”
The Pacific Conference has a membership of 33 churches and 10 national councils of churches spread across 19 Pacific Island countries and territories, effectively covering one-third of the world’s surface.
Some progress on countering the effects of climate change have been made in global awareness, says Reverend Bhagwan, a Methodist minister.
The return of the United States to the treaty around it helps.
“And even though there is significant commitment to reduce carbon emissions by countries to as much as 26 percent of those countries that have committed, globally we’re going to see an increase of carbon emissions by 19 plus percent by 2030, which isn’t far away—that’s nine years away,” rues Reverend Bhagwan.
Greenhouse gases warning On October 25, the World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Dr Petteri Taalas, releasing a report on greenhouse gases, confirmed Reverend Bhagwan’s worries in a warning:
“We are way off track. At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”
Reverend Bhagwan said his churches’ group covers from the Marshall Islands in the northern Pacific across to Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia) in the eastern Pacific, down to Aotearoa New Zealand in the southern Pacific.
The conference also has member churches in West Papua and Australia, and it serves a population of some 15 million people.
For the members of the Pacific region churches, climate change is not an abstract issue.
‘Frontline’ of climate change “We are on the frontline of climate change; we have rising seas we have ocean acidification which affects our fish and the life of the ocean,” says Reverend Bhagwan.
“We have extreme weather events now regularly, and the category five cyclones which, in the past, would be the exception to the rule for us, now are the baseline for our extreme weather events. During the cyclone season, at least one cyclone will be category five.
“And so, you just pray that either it goes past, or it drops enough when it reaches us, and usually these systems do not affect just one country.”
Reverend Bhagwan notes that the churches in the Pacific region play a much more integral role in society than they do in some of the secular nations.
Because of the covid-19 pandemic, “we’re not getting as many Pacific Islanders attending COP26 as we would like, both in governments and in civil society.
“And so, it’s important that those who can come do so. We, the church, play a very significant role in the Pacific. The Pacific is approximately 90 percent Christian, particularly within the island communities.
“And so, we have significant influence within the region, working with governments. But we also recognise ourselves as part of the civil society space,” said Reverend Bhagwan.
“And so, we have that ability in the Pacific to walk in these spaces, because leaders, government leaders, ministers, workers, civil servants — they’re members of our churches.
“So, we are providing pastoral care and engagement with those in leadership and government leadership, but also that prophetic voice.”
Peter Kenny is a journalist of The Ecumenical.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
A new study shows rising sea levels in the Marshall Islands will endanger 40 percent of buildings in the capital Majuro, with 96 percent of the city likely to flood frequently.
As COP26 begins in Glasgow, the new visualisations demonstrate the existential threat the Marshall Islands faces.
If existing sea level rise trends continue, the country will confront a series of increasingly costly adaptation choices to protect essential infrastructure.
World Bank senior municipal engineer and the leader of the study, Artessa Saldivar-Sali, said these visual models give insights that have not been available before.
She said these will be critical for decision-makers to understand the potential benefits of adaptation options, such as sea walls, nature-based solutions and land raising.
Saldivar-Sali said the modelling paints a clear picture of the need for significant investment in adaptation for, and by, atoll nations like Marshall Islands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
As the UN climate summit in Glasgow kicks off tomorrow, it marks the deadline for countries to make more ambitious pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The meeting is the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and is being heralded as the last best chance to avoid devastating temperature rise that would endanger billions of people and disrupt the planet’s life-support systems.
New Zealand will be represented by the Climate Minister and Green Party co-leader, James Shaw, along with a slimmed-down team of diplomats.
Shaw, who described climate change as the “most significant threat that we face for decades to come”, will take part in negotiations aimed at achieving global net zero, protecting communities and natural habitats and mobilising finance to adequately respond to the climate crisis.
This is the time for New Zealand to commit to delivering on its fair share of what is necessary to avoid runaway global warming.
To understand why COP26 is so important we need to look back to a previous summit, COP21 in 2015, which resulted in the Paris Agreement. Countries agreed to work together to keep global warming well below 2℃ and to aim for no more than 1.5℃.
They also agreed to publish plans to show how much they would reduce emissions and to update these pledges every five years — which is what should be happening at the Glasgow summit. Collectively, current climate pledges (known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) continue to fall a long way short of limiting global warming to 1.5℃.
Many countries have failed to keep pace with what their climate pledges promised. The window to limit temperature rise to 1.5℃ is closing fast.
Time to raise climate ambition On our current trajectory, global temperature is likely to increase well above the 2℃ upper limit of the Paris Agreement, according to a UN report released last week.
New Zealand has agreed to take ambitious action to meet the 1.5℃ target. But its current pledge (to bring emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030) will not achieve this.
If all countries followed New Zealand’s present commitments, global warming would reach up to 3℃. The government has committed to increase New Zealand’s NDC — after receiving advice from the Climate Change Commission that its current pledge is not consistent with the 1.5℃ goal — but has not yet outlined a figure.
The effects of the growing climate crisis are already present in our corner of the world. Aotearoa is becoming more familiar with weather extremes, flooding and prolonged drought.
Many of our low-lying Pacific island neighbours are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Some are already looking to New Zealand to take stronger regional leadership on climate change.
A perception of New Zealand as a potential safe haven and “Pacific lifeboat” reminds us of the coming challenge of climate refugees, should global warming exceed a safe upper limit.
More work to do New Zealand’s emissions have continued to rise since the Paris summit but our record on climate action has some positives. The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, enacted in 2019, requires greenhouse gas emissions (other than biogenic methane) to reach net zero by 2050.
Only a handful of other countries have enshrined such a goal in law.
The act also established the Climate Change Commission, which has already provided independent advice to the government on emissions budgets and an emissions reduction plan for 2022-2025. But much more needs to be done, and quickly, if we are to meet our international commitments and fulfil our domestic targets.
Climate Change Commission recommendations around the rapid adoption of electric vehicles, reduction in animal stocking rates and changing land use towards forestry and horticulture provide some key places to focus on.
As COP26 begins, New Zealand should announce a more ambitious climate pledge, one stringent enough to meet the 1.5℃ target. Announcing a sufficiently bold NDC at COP26 will provide much-needed leadership and encouragement for other countries to follow suit.
It will also act as a clear signpost for what our domestic emissions policies are aiming for, by when and why. But, no matter what New Zealand’s revised NDC says, much work will remain to ensure we make good on our commitments and give the climate crisis the attention it demands.
Cardinal Soane Patita Mafi has a message for the politicians who will soon gather for next month’s COP 26 conference, regarded by many as the last chance to avoid the worst that climate change has to offer.
The Tongan-based prelate’s message is simple: Listen.
“We want those big nations to really see and to really hear,” he said in an interview with the British Catholic magazine, The Tablet.
“Not to pretend. Not to turn away. We want them not to be deafened to the cry of reality by other agendas. Can they turn an ear of love, not of political expediency? Are they prepared to hear the voice of the voiceless?”
For the senior Catholic church leader in the Pacific, it is important that peoples of the Pacific are not overlooked in Glasgow.
The islands are among the most vulnerable in the world and Cardinal Mafi has emerged as one of their most eloquent advocates
Mafi told The Tablet that when young Tongans question their role in the church and ask “Who are we?” their question is bound up with questions about the fragility of the environment.
Rebirth of spirituality
Cardinal Mafi was consecrated just three months before the publication of Pope Francis’ widely influential encyclical, Laudato Si, which calls for a widespread rebirth of spirituality and social and environmental awareness to combat climate change and redress the horrendous imbalance of power and wealth in society.
The cardinal is a member of the executive of Caritas Internationalis and, since March 2021, the president of Caritas Oceania, which has seven member organisations: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga.
Across the Pacific he sees climate change-induced problems in many Island states, including deforestation in Solomon Islands, people in Kiribati losing their homes, villages in Fiji forced to relocate owing to rising sea waters, vanishing foreshores and erosion.
He is worried about the effects of climate change, which have brought severe cyclones more often. His own house floods on a regular basis.
However, he believes it is important that the huge challenges facing the Pacific do not reduce people to fear and passivity.
He told The Tablet that he visited people after storms and was always lifted by their resolve to help each other.
“They are always smiling. But when you visit them privately in their homes, they will share their real emotions. There is a lot of pain and many tears,” he said.
He fears that the loss of a traditional communal lifestyle would deprive people of the one resource they had to cope and prosper.
“This is worth more than so-called economic development and foreign-owned infrastructure.”
This is an abridged and edited version of an article by Michael Girr, which appeared in The Tablet on October 21, 2021.
Another election came and went. In many ways it seems like not much was accomplished – or not much changed. Yet I’m ready to greet Canada’s 44th Parliament with higher hopes for ambitious climate action than ever before.
At a time where multiple crises are converging globally, this was a crucial election for Canadians. We are in a climate emergency. And Canadians voted accordingly.
Canadians voted for climate action and environmental protection
While no party won a majority mandate this week, the environment did. Canadians voted for more ambitious and urgent climate action: Millions of Canadians cast ballots for parties that put forward strong policies to confront the climate emergency and advance environmental protection.
A Parliament of Climate Champions
The federal parties must now put aside their differences and work together to do what is needed to tackle the environmental crisis we face. An unprecedented amount of serious climate and environmental policy was put on the table this election period. If all of the ambitious climate proposals from all of the parties were implemented, Canada would be well on its way to doing its fair share to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.
With a Parliament composed of climate champions from across all of the parties, it shouldn’t be hard to pass new and ambitious climate initiatives. But it means that we need all party leaders to step up, put party politics aside and work together, across party lines, to protect our communities and our planet.
No more delays
As the polls show, a majority of Canadians know there is no time to waste. We need a government that can deliver at the scale and pace required by science. Canada’s new government will need to get to work as soon as possible to make good on the promises made during the election. During the first months of this new administration, Canadians expect to see the rapid and bold action their communities require.
Environmental Priorities for this Parliament
The election is not the end of the road, it is only the beginning. It is up to us to hold our newly elected representatives to account.
We call on the new government to work quickly to implement the important promises that were made during the election campaign, including:
Bringing a swift end to fossil fuel subsidies and supports, including public finance provided through crown corporations such as Export Development Canada.
Ending the export of Canadian and American thermal coal through our ports.
Establishing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector that ensures no expansions to the sector, and aligns with a plan to wind down production of oil and gas over the next two decades.
Ensuring Canada’s transition to a decarbonized economy is based upon a just transition for workers and communities.
Developing a strategy to address environmental justice by examining the link between race, socio-economic status, and exposure to environmental risk.
Immediately implementing the promised bans on single-use plastics.
Prioritizing freshwater by working with all stakeholders to modernize the 50-year-old Canada Water Act.
Bringing forward a strong bill to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to better protect Canadians from toxic chemicals.
Canada has a history of achievements under minority governments, including the adoption of healthcare and universal pension plans. Tackling the climate and ecological crises should become part of that list.
Leading climate scientist professor Chris Rapley has resigned from the Science Museum’s advisory board over fossil fuel sponsorship. Rapley was director of the the Science Museum from 2007 to 2010.
Sponsorships
His resignation comes ahead of November’s COP26 climate talks. Campaigners have also been protesting over the museum’s decision to work with companies such as the energy giant Shell.
The Science Museum reopened to the public in May with a new exhibition called Our Future Planet. The exhibition counts Shell as a major sponsor.
The Science Museum Group (SMG) has worked to raise climate awareness through its public programmes. And the exhibition is a key part of its current work.
Demonstrators during a protest by Extinction Rebellion near the Science Museum (James Manning/PA)
Disagreement
Rapley says it’s “a pity” he has to resign. But he decided to do so because he disagrees with the “ongoing willingness to accept oil and gas company sponsorship”.
In a letter explaining his resignation, he states that there are powerful arguments for influential bodies such as the SMG to work with oil and gas companies towards a transition to a carbon-free global energy system.
Rapley says that demonising them can be “simplistic and counterproductive”, but he adds:
Given the reality of the climate crisis, the need to abolish fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and analyses such as the recent Carbon Tracker Report which bring into question the commitment of the oil and gas companies to do so, I disagree with the Group’s ongoing willingness to accept oil and gas company sponsorship.
With that in mind I have decided to resign from the Science Museum’s Advisory Board.
A protest inside the Science Museum in London (Isobel Frodsham/PA)
Rapley hopes the SMG will “reconsider its position” in the future.
He added:
The Museum has much to be proud of in terms of its programme of emissions cuts and sustainability actions, as well as its ongoing track in engaging the public on the topic and on the ways in which science and technology and illuminate the path forward.
‘A brave and principled move’
A Shell spokesperson said:
Shell and the Science Museum have a longstanding relationship, based on a shared interest in promoting engagement in science – which will be a key enabler in addressing the challenge to provide more and cleaner energy solutions.
Thousands of visitors have spent time at the museum this summer, learning about and discussing carbon capture and storage. We’re pleased to have supported such an important and successful event.
The museum has also been the target of Extinction Rebellion protests during the summer.
Rapley is a professor of Climate Science at the University College London (UCL). He was awarded the Edinburgh Science Medal in 2008 for his significant contribution to the understanding and wellbeing of humanity.
Jess Worth, a co-director of the Culture Unstained, a group which campaigns for arts and cultural organisations to cut their ties to fossil fuels, described Rapley’s actions as “a brave and principled move”.
Extinction Rebellion activists claim to have blocked all major entrances to a private airport in protest against emissions from private jets.
As part of the protest, a stretched limousine has been parked at the gates to Farnborough Airport in Hampshire.
‘Stop private flights now’
The protesters, including a former airline pilot, are raising awareness of the emissions caused by private flights.
An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson said:
As world leaders gather for the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this month, protesters are calling on the world’s super-rich elite of celebrities, oligarchs and business leaders to ditch private flights.
These private flyers, just 1% of the world’s population, cause half of aviation’s global emissions. Extinction Rebellion is also demanding the Government stops private flights now.
The 30,000 private flights to and from Farnborough Airport each year carry an average of just 2.3 passengers, with each passenger responsible for the emission of nine times as much carbon as an economy flight to the US and 20 times that to Spain.
‘Wanton level of pollution by the super-rich’
Moreover, the spokesperson went on to describe the protest planned for Saturday 2 October:
The airport has permission to increase flight movements to 50,000 a year.
In protest at this wanton level of pollution by the super-rich, Extinction Rebellion has today blockaded three key airport entrances, with activists locked on top of a three-metre high steel tripod at one gateway and to fuel barrels at a second.
The third entrance is barricaded by a stretch limousine, with the driver locked on to the steering wheel and a protester dressed as a media mogul glued to the roof.
The protesters are highlighting the emissions caused by private jets (Extinction Rebellion/PA)
Greenwashing
A spokesperson for the airport spoke to the PA news agency. But there was no mention of the issue protesters were raising or the airport’s contribution to carbon emissions. They said:
Farnborough Airport is aware of a number of unauthorised persons gathering at the entrance to the airport. The airport is still fully operational. Authorities are continually monitoring the situation.
Protester Todd Smith, a former airline pilot from Reading, Berkshire, criticised Farnborough Airport’s move to offer sustainable aviation fuel as an alternative fuel.
The protesters have targeted Farnborough Airport in Hampshire (Extinction Rebellion/PA)
Smith said:
The term ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ was coined by the aviation and fossil fuel industry to deceive the public and greenwash the utterly destructive nature of biofuels.
Biofuels result in land grabs, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, rising food prices and land-use emissions which can be worse than the fossil fuel they are replacing.
Police have arrested more than than 500 people during Extinction Rebellion’s protests in London.
The environmental group began their ‘Impossible Rebellion’ action on 23 August. The Metropolitan Police said since the action began, as of 6.30pm on Saturday 4 September they had arrested 508 people.
In a tweet that almost seemed to brag about the number, the Metropolitan Police Events account said:
As of 6.30pm, 10 people had been arrested today in connection with the Extinction Rebellion protests. That number may increase.
The total number of arrests since the protests began on 22 August currently stands at 508.https://t.co/q5yLWkpoXY
It comes after another wave of demonstrations from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion at Trafalgar Square on Saturday.
The groups ‘stand in solidarity’ with Extinction Rebellion. They met at the London landmark during the afternoon for a “March For Nature”.
Protesters could be seen in colourful costumes. And they held signs such as “The Amazon Rainforest Is At Tipping Point”, “Indigenous Emergency” and “Act Now”.
Speeches took place, campaigners chanted, while a large pink octopus creation was paraded around.
A colourful protest took place on Saturday (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Extinction Rebellion also shared clips on social media of campaigners sitting in the road and holding signs to block traffic across the capital.
Heavy police presence
Deputy assistant commissioner Matt Twist said nearly 2,000 officers have been involved in policing the activists every day.
Twist told Times Radio on Friday 3 September:
It’s not the numbers of protesters but it’s the level of serious disruption that they’re looking to cause, which is impacting on other Londoners.
We’ve said right from the start, we know that Extinction Rebellion have the right to protest and the right to assemble.
But what we also made clear is these are qualified rights and they have got to be balanced against the rights of the rest of London and Londoners, the people, the businesses, the communities who want to lawfully go about their business.
Where we’ve seen cases of both very serious and totally unreasonable disruption looking to be caused, we have to take action and move in and make arrests.
The University of Canterbury and the University of the South Pacific are partnering in a unique research project that will explore the impact of climate change in the Pacific, and the role indigenous ecological knowledge can play to help communities to adapt.
A statement from the USP said the project would address a lack of research into community resilience and response mechanisms, and how indigenous knowledge could work with Western scientific approaches to inform a range of responses — from government policies to community plans.
It stated the research would support Pacific academics and take a Pasifika approach to research, including talanoa and culturally relevant methodologies.
It would also capture indigenous approaches and local responses to changes in climate being experienced.
In the statement, University of Canterbury team leader Professor Steven Ratuva said the “trans-disciplinary innovation is needed to explore the multi-layered impacts of the climate crisis on the environment and people in the Pacific and beyond”.
“The project is a unique opportunity to weave science, social science, humanities and indigenous ecological knowledge in creative and transformative ways,” said Professor Ratuva, who is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies.
USP’s professor of Ocean and Climate Change and director of the Pacific Centre of Environment (PaCE-SD), Dr Elisabeth Holland, said the project responded to increasingly urgent calls from Pacific leaders and peoples to address the climate crisis.
‘First of its kind’
“It is truly a first of its kind of synthesis of research on both climate change and the ocean in the Pacific,” she said.
“This ‘by the Pacific for the Pacific’ project provides the opportunity to amplify community voices in the ongoing national and international discussions.”
According to the statement, the research will contribute to the global understanding of climate change in the Pacific region, contributing to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Global Stocktake in 2023.
It will also provide valuable information to Pacific governments and civil society groups and Pasifika peoples.
It will highlight Pacific solutions to Pacific experiences, sharing these experiences across the region and the world.
The project is funded by the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Timoci Vulais a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Nearly two years since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, its global socioeconomic “headwinds” have blown many countries far off course from the aims of the climate 2030 Agenda, says the Fiji prime minister.
But fierce as those winds may be, they are “a whisper” next to the intensifying crisis brought by changing climate.
Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama made these remarks in his official opening address at the Virtual SIDS Solution Forum yesterday.
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a distinct group of 38 UN member states, including Pacific countries.
Bainimarama referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Saying that without drastic cuts to emissions, the prime minister noted how the report had stated “we are on track to blow past the 1.5-degree temperature threshold, confirming our worst fears that our low-lying neighbours in the Pacific, Kiribati and Tuvalu, face an existential threat over the coming decades”.
“And it means all of us must brace for storms and other climate impacts unlike anything we or our ancestors have ever endured,” Bainimarama said.
“That is why, when we go to COP26 together, our rallying cry must be to keep 1.5 alive.
Temperature threshold
“It remains the only temperature threshold that guarantees the security of all SIDS citizens, and we must leverage every ounce of our power and moral authority to fight for it.”
Bainimarama said the terrifying scale of those global challenges “give us no recourse but collective action”.
“I believe we can meet this moment with innovation — indeed, we already are. Just one week ago, Fiji launched a micro insurance scheme for climate-vulnerable communities.
“We are supporting local farmers with climate-resilient crops and funding adaption efforts through creative financial instruments.”
He said that by harnessing the hope that such innovation offered, small island states could recoup the economic losses of the pandemic and reset course towards zero hunger, clean oceans, quality education, and sustainable cities.
The states could also realise the other noble aims of the 2030 Agenda, towards more sustainable agri-food systems, and more resilient societies.
Timoci Vulais a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
A suicide bombing near Kabul airport on Thursday added another dimension to the chaos in Afghanistan as Western forces rush to complete their evacuation.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts that killed at least 175 people, including 13 US soldiers, challenging the Taliban’s hold on the capital.
Either group is bad news for Afghan women and girls, and anyone with links to the former government or exiting armies.
Taliban officials are on a charm offensive in international media, with one suggesting to Newsweek the group could contribute to fighting climate change if formally recognised by other governments.
Don’t expect the Taliban to consign coal to history any time soon, though. The militant group gets a surprisingly large share of its revenue from mining — more than from the opium trade — and could scale up coal exports to pay salaries as it seeks to govern.
Afghan people could certainly use support to cope with the impacts of climate change. The UN estimates more than 10 million are at risk of hunger due to the interplay of conflict and drought.
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate assessment report, released on August 9, has finally stated in the most absolute terms that anthropogenic emissions are the cause behind global warming, and that we have no time left in the effort to keep temperature from crossing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. If we fail to take immediate action, we can easily exceed 2 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that while the IPCC report underscores the point that the planet is warming faster than expected, it does not directly mention fossil fuels and puts emphasis on carbon removal as a necessary means to tame global warming even though such technologies are still in their infancy.
In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s greatest scholars and leading activists, and Robert Pollin, a world-leading progressive economist, offer their own assessments of the IPCC report. Chomsky and Pollin are co-authors of Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (Verso, 2020).
C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, the new IPCC climate assessment report, which deals with the physical science basis of global warming, comes in the midst of extreme heat waves and devastating fires taking place both in the U.S. and in many parts around the world. In many ways, it reinforces what we already know about the climate crisis, so I would like to know your own thoughts about its significance and whether the parties that have “approved” it will take the necessary measures to avoid a climate catastrophe, since we basically have zero years left to do so.
Noam Chomsky: The IPCC report was sobering. Much, as you say, reinforces what we knew, but for me at least, shifts of emphasis were deeply disturbing. That’s particularly true of the section on carbon removal. Instead of giving my own nonexpert reading, I’ll quote the MIT Technology Review, under the heading “The UN climate report pins hopes on carbon removal technologies that barely exist.”
The IPCC report
offered a stark reminder that removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be essential to prevent the gravest dangers of global warming. But it also underscored that the necessary technologies barely exist — and will be tremendously difficult to deploy…. How much hotter it gets, however, will depend on how rapidly we cut emissions and how quickly we scale up ways of sucking carbon dioxide out of the air.
If that’s correct, and I see no reason to doubt it, hopes for a tolerable world depend on technologies that “barely exist — and will be tremendously difficult to deploy.” To confront this awesome challenge is a task for a coordinated international effort, well beyond the scale of John F. Kennedy’s mission to the moon (whatever one thinks of that), and vastly more significant. To leave the task to private power is a likely recipe for disaster, for many reasons, including one brought up by The New York Times report on the idea: “there are risks: The very idea could offer industry an excuse to maintain dangerous habits … some experts warn that they could hide behind the uncertain promise of removing carbon later to avoid cutting emissions deeply today.” The greenwashing that is a constant ruse.
The significance of the IPCC report is beyond reasonable doubt. As to whether the necessary measures will be taken? That’s up to us. We can have no faith in structures of power and what they will do unless pressed hard by an informed public that prefers survival to short-term gain for the “masters of the universe.”
The immediate U.S. government reaction to the IPCC report was hardly encouraging. President Joe Biden sent his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to censure the main oil-producing countries (OPEC) for not raising oil production high enough. The message was captured in a headline in the London Financial Times: “Biden to OPEC: Drill, Baby, Drill.”
Biden was sharply criticized by the right wing here for calling on OPEC to destroy life on Earth. MAGA principles demand that U.S. producers should have priority in this worthy endeavor.
Bob, what’s your own take on the IPCC climate assessment report, and do you find anything in it that surprises you?
Robert Pollin: In total, the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report on the physical basis of climate change is 3,949 pages long. So there’s a whole lot to take in, and I can’t claim to have done more than initially review the 42-page “Summary for Policymakers.” Two things stand out from my initial review. These are, first, the IPCC’s conclusion that the climate crisis is rapidly become more severe and, second, that their call for undertaking fundamental action has become increasingly urgent, even relative to their own 2018 report, “Global Warming of 1.50C.” It is important to note that this hasn’t always been the pattern with the IPCC. Thus, in its 2014 Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC was significantly more sanguine about the state of play relative to its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. In 2014, they were focused on a goal of stabilizing the global average temperature at 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, rather than the 1.5 degrees figure. As of 2014, the IPCC had not been convinced that the 1.5 degrees target was imperative for having any reasonable chance of limiting the most severe impacts of climate change in terms of heat extremes, floods, droughts, sea level rises and biodiversity losses. The 2014 report concluded that reducing global CO2 emissions by only 36 percent as of 2050 could possibly be sufficient to move onto a viable stabilization path. In this most recent report, there is no equivocation that hitting the 1.5 degrees target is imperative, and that to have any chance of achieving this goal, global CO2 emissions must be at zero by 2050.
This new report does also make clear just how difficult it will be to hit the zero emissions target, and thus to remain within the 1.5 degrees of warming threshold. But it also recognizes that a viable stabilization path is still possible, if just barely. There is no question as to what the first and most important single action has to be, which is to stop burning oil, coal and natural gas to produce energy. Carbon-removal technologies will likely be needed as part of the overall stabilization program. But we should note here that there are already two carbon-removal technologies that operate quite effectively. These are: 1) to stop destroying forests, since trees absorb CO2; and 2) to supplant corporate industrial practices with organic and regenerative agriculture. Corporate agricultural practices emit CO2 and other greenhouses gases, especially through the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizer, while, through organic and regenerative agriculture, the soil absorbs CO2. That said, if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels to produce energy, then there is simply no chance of moving onto a stabilization path, no matter what else is accomplished in the area of carbon-removal technologies.
I would add here that the main technologies for building a zero-emissions economy — in the areas of energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources — are already fully available to us. Investing in energy efficiency — through, for example, expanding the supply of electric cars and public transportation systems, and replacing old heating and cooling systems with electric heat pumps — will save money, by definition, for all energy consumers. Moreover, on average, the cost of producing electricity through both solar and wind energy is already, at present, about half that of burning coal combined with carbon capture technology. At this point, it is a matter of undertaking the investments at scale to build the clean energy infrastructure along with providing for a fair transition for the workers and communities who will be negatively impacted by the phase-out of fossil fuels.
The evidence is clear that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide are behind global warming, and that warming, according to the IPCC report, is taking place faster than predicted. Most likely because of the latter, the Sixth Assessment report provides a detailed regional assessment of climate change, and (for the first time, I believe) includes a chapter on innovation and technology, with emphasis on carbon-removal technologies, which Noam, coincidentally, found “deeply disturbing.” As one of the leading advocates of a Global Green New Deal, do you see a problem if regional climate and energy plans became the main frameworks, at least in the immediate future, for dealing with the climate emergency?
Pollin: In principle, I don’t see anything wrong with regional climate and energy plans, as long as they are all seriously focused on achieving the zero emissions goal and are advanced in coordination with other regions. The big question, therefore, is whether any given regional program is adequate to the requirements for climate stabilization. The answer, thus far, is “no.” We can see this in terms of the climate programs in place for the U.S., the European Union and China. These are the three most important regions in addressing climate change for the simple reason that these three areas are responsible for generating 54 percent of all global CO2 emissions — with China at 30 percent, the U.S. at 15 percent and the EU at 9 percent.
In the U.S., the Biden administration is, of course, a vast improvement relative to the four disastrous years under Trump. Soon after taking office, Biden set out emissions reduction targets in line with the IPCC, i.e., a 50 percent reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. Moreover, the American Jobs Plan that Biden introduced in March would have allocated about $130 billion per year in investments that would advance a clean energy infrastructure that would supplant our current fossil fuel-dominant system.
This level of federal funding for climate stabilization would be unprecedented for the U.S. At the same time, it would provide maybe 25 percent of the total funding necessary for achieving the administration’s own emission reduction targets. Most of the other 75 percent would therefore have to come from private investors. Yet it is not realistic that private businesses will mount this level of investment in a clean energy economy — at about $400 billion per year — unless they are forced to by stringent government regulations. One such regulation could be a mandate for electric utilities to reduce CO2 emissions by, say, 5 percent per year, or face criminal liability. The Biden administration has not proposed any such regulations to date. Moreover, with the debates in Congress over the Biden bill ongoing, the odds are long that the amount of federal government funding provided for climate stabilization will even come close to the $130 billion per year that Biden had initially proposed in March.
The story is similar in the EU. In terms of its stated commitments, the European Union is advancing the world’s most ambitious climate stabilization program, what it has termed the European Green Deal. Under the European Green Deal, the region has pledged to reduce emissions by at least 55 percent as of 2030 relative to 1990 levels, a more ambitious target than the 45 percent reduction set by the IPCC. The European Green Deal then aligns with the IPCC’s longer-term target of achieving a net zero economy as of 2050.
Beginning in December 2019, the European Commission has been enacting measures and introducing further proposals to achieve the region’s emission reduction targets. The most recent measure to have been adopted, this past June, is the NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan, through which €600 billion will be allocated toward financing the European Green Deal. In July, the European Commission followed up on this spending commitment by outlining 13 tax and regulatory measures to complement the spending program.
But here’s the simple budgetary math: The €600 billion allocated over seven years through the NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan would amount to an average of about €85 billion per year. This is equal to less than 0.6 percent of EU GDP over this period, when a spending level in the range of 2 to 3 percent of GDP will be needed. As with the U.S., the EU cannot count on mobilizing the remaining 75 percent of funding necessary unless it also enacts stringent regulations on burning fossil fuels. If such regulations are to have teeth, they will mean a sharp increase in what consumers will pay for fossil fuel energy. To prevent all but the wealthy from then experiencing a significant increase in their cost of living, the fossil fuel price increases will have to be matched by rebates. The 2018 Yellow Vest Movement in France emerged precisely in opposition to President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to enact a carbon tax without including substantial rebates for nonaffluent people.
The Chinese situation is distinct from those in the U.S. and EU. In particular, China has not committed to achieving the IPCC’s emission reduction targets for 2030 or 2050. Rather, as of a September 2020 United Nations General Assembly address by President Xi Jinping, China committed to a less ambitious set of targets: emissions will continue to rise until they peak in 2030 and then begin declining. Xi also committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2060, a decade later than the IPCC’s 2050 target.
We do need to recognize that China has made major advances in support of climate stabilization. As one critical case in point, China’s ambitious industrial policies are primarily responsible for driving down the costs of solar energy worldwide by 80 percent over the past decade. China has also been the leading supplier of credit to support clean energy investments in developing economies. Nevertheless, there is no getting around the fact that if China sticks to its stated emission reduction plans, there is no chance whatsoever of achieving the IPCC’s targets.
In short, for different reasons, China, the U.S. and the EU all need to mount significantly more ambitious regional climate stabilization programs. In particular, these economies need to commit higher levels of public investment to the global clean energy investment project.
The basic constraint with increasing public investment is that people don’t want to pay higher taxes. Rich people can, of course, easily afford to pay higher taxes, after enjoying massive increases in their wealth and income under neoliberalism. That said, it is still also true that most of the funds needed to bring global clean energy investments to scale can be made available without raising taxes, by channeling resources from three sources: 1) transferring funds out of military budgets; 2) converting all fossil fuel subsidies into clean energy subsidies; and 3) mounting large-scale green bond purchasing programs by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China. Such measures can be the foundation for tying together the U.S., EU and Chinese regional programs that could, in combination, have a chance of meeting the urgent requirements for a viable global climate stabilization project.
Noam, I argued recently that we should face the global warming threat as the outbreak of a world war.Is this a fair analogy?
Chomsky: Not quite. A world war would leave survivors, scattered and miserable remnants. Over time, they could reconstruct some form of viable existence. Destruction of the environment is much more serious. There is no return.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book that opened with biologist Ernst Mayr’s rather plausible argument that we are unlikely to discover intelligence in the universe. To carry his argument further, if higher intelligence ever appears, it will probably find a way to self-destruct, as we seem to be bent on demonstrating.
The book closed with Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on whether there will ever be peace on Earth: “After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.”
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
The world is on the brink of a climate catastrophe, with just a narrow window for action to reverse global processes predicted to cause devastating effects in the Pacific and world-wide, says the leader of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum.
Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said a major UN scientific report released on Monday backed what the Blue Pacific continent already knew — that the planet was in the throes of a human-induced climate crisis.
Puna said a major concern was sea level change; the report said a rise of 2 metres by the end of this century, and a disastrous rise of 5 metres rise by 2150 could not be ruled out.
The report also found that extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.
To put this into perspective, these outcomes were predicted to result in the loss of millions of lives, homes and livelihoods across the Pacific and the world.
The IPCC said extreme heatwaves, droughts, flooding and other environmental instability were also likely to increase in frequency and severity.
Governments cannot ignore voices
Puna said governments, big business and the major emitters of the world could no longer ignore the voices of those already enduring the unfolding existential crisis.
“They can no longer choose rhetoric over action. There are simply no more excuses to be had. Our actions today will have consequences now and into the future for all of us to bear.”
The call urged the UN to do more to persuade industrial powers to cut their carbon emissions to reduce contributing to climate change.
However, Puna said the factors affecting climate change could be turned around if people acted now.
“The 6th IPCC Assessment Report shows us that the science is clear. We know the scale of the climate crisis we are facing. We also have the solutions to avoid the worst of climate change impacts.
“What we need now is political leadership and momentum to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Pacific’s coral reef systems and coastal fisheries are set for extinction if wealthy nations don’t drastically and immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions.
An Intergovernmetal Panel on Climate Change report released on Monday night pegs temperatures hitting as much as 3.9 degrees above industrial times, twice the 1.5 degree target.
Anything above 2 degrees is viewed as a death-knell in the Pacific.
A New Zealand climate scientist is one of the IPCC report’s lead authors and said it provides more certainty about our dire climate trajectory
Professor James Renwick of Victoria University … “The length of time we’ve got left to really take action to stop from the warming … is shorter than we were thinking.” Image: RNZ
“1.5 degrees is likely to be reached and possibly exceeded within the next 20 years, between 2030 and 2040 let’s say, so the length of time we’ve got left to really take action to stop from the warming at something like 1.5 degrees or certainly below 2 degrees, is shorter than we were thinking,” he said.
Dr Renwick said immediate and drastic action needed to be taken to ensure a pathway to zero emissions by 2050 and to be half way there by 2030.
He said only then will we get close to the 1.5 degree target.
A senior adviser at the regional science agency, the Pacific Community’s Coral Pasisi, said it was looking grim and the next 10 years were critical.
“All of the assessments done to date suggest that anything above 1.5 degree warming is going to be dire. And up until recently, even with the best commitments made by countries, within the next 10 years we’re likely to exceed the 2.5 degrees in warming.”
Pasisi said Pacific Community assessments on coastal fisheries and coral reef systems showed warming above 1.5 degrees cuts by 80 percent the ability of those systems to maintain good health.
She said a total collapse would be likely.
“We know that above 2 degrees, we are going to see 99 percent, up to 99 percent coral reef death rates which affect the whole ecosystem on which Pacific populations depend for their food security.”
Greenpeace Pacific’s Joseph Moeono-Kolio said the latest report indicated temperature rise is on a trajectory that could reach 3.9 degrees. He said despite ongoing warnings, emissions were getting worse and so were the prospects for the planet.
“If things don’t translate into actual implementable policies that are in line with the one-point-five target of the Paris Agreement, we’re actually headed towards warming of about 3.9 to 4 degrees which suffice to say would be absolutely catastrophic for the Pacific and the world at large,” Moeono-Kolio said.
He said the flooding in China and Europe, record temperatures across the northern hemisphere and wildfires raging out of control — was with a temperature rise at 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial times.
Moeono-Kolio said nations must commit to meaningful reductions at November’s global climate conference the COP26 in Glasgow.
“We need oil, gas and coal completely out of the electricity system by 2030 and then going net-zero by 2035 which places us at the best possible chance of reaching, of not superseding the 1.5 threshold.”
Reading the latest IPCC report due for release tomorrow and…I think I’m gonna be sick.#ClimateEmergency
— Auimatagi Joe Moeono-Kolio (@JoeMoeonoKolio) August 7, 2021
The Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege agrees.
She said the droughts, worsening storms and rising seas should be a clarion call to the wealthiest 20 nations that produce 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands … “targets alone aren’t enough.” Image: Twitter / Tina Stege
“And of course targets alone aren’t enough. We need to see changes in the real economy, and governments making decisions that encourage markets to shift with the times. Two very obvious things that come to mind: phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and ending coal – steps that could drastically reduce emissions and enable a transition to a green economy.”
If the rhetoric is not met with political action, the world will remain on track for a temperature and sea-level rise that has not even been modelled.
For low-lying Pacific countries, it would likely mean their complete disappearance.
Brianna Fruean of the Pacific Climate Warriors … “There’s no time left for empty promises.” Image: RNZ
“There’s no time left for empty promises and world leaders need to work harder to cut emissions,” according to a Pacifc climate change activists.
Brianna Fruean from the group Pacific Climate Warriors told Morning Report the findings were alarming but not unexpected and there’s no time left for inaction.
“We are past the time of our leaders saying “oh yep, this is existing, we aim to do this in in the far future, I think we don’t have time for that and we don’t have any space for those types of empty statements anymore.”
The IPCC report said deadly heatwaves, powerful hurricanes and other weather extremes happening now, are likely to become more severe.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The climate is changing, faster than we thought – and humans have caused it. Last night, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the most comprehensive report on climate change ever – with hundreds of scientists taking part.
It says human activity is “unequivocally” driving the warming of atmosphere, ocean and land. The report projects that in the coming decades climate changes will increase in all regions.
Lead author on the paper, Associate Professor Amanda Maycock of Leeds University, told RNZ Morning Report the study gave governments a range of scenarios on what the world would look like with action and without it.
“The new scenarios that we present in the report today span a range of different possible futures, so they range all the way from making very rapid, immediate and large-scale cuts in greenhouse gas emissions all the way up to a very pessimistic scenario where we don’t make any efforts to mitigate emissions at all.
“So we provide the government with a range of possible outcomes. Now in those five scenarios that we assess in each one of them, it’s expected that the 1.5 degree temperature threshold will either be reached or exceeded in the next 20-year period,” she said.
“However, importantly, the very low emission scenario that we assess — the one where we would reach net zero emissions by the middle of this century — it reaches 1.5 degrees, it may overshoot by a very small amount, possibly about 0.1 of a degree Celsius, but later on in the century the temperature would come back down again and it would start to fall and it would stabilise below the 1.5 degree threshold.
“So based on the scenarios that we present, there is still a route for us to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, to limit temperature (rises) to 1.5 degrees Celsius (on average).
“The publication of today’s report is extremely timely ahead of the COP 26 [climate change conference in Glasgow] meeting because it really does set out in starker terms than ever before that climate change is not a problem of the future anymore. It is here today. The climate is already changing and its impacts are being experienced everywhere on on the planet already.
‘Climate change is not a problem of the future anymore. It is here today. The climate is already changing and its impacts are being experienced everywhere on on the planet already.’
— Dr Amanda Maycock
“So that serves, I think, as very good motivation for the negotiations that will happen at COP 26. We’ve seen in recent years several countries making commitments in law to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, including New Zealand, and so we will see in November when the meeting takes place, how the other countries react to what the is presented in the working group one report today.
“It’s a fact that climate change is happening and it is affecting every region of the world already today. So we’re seeing, you know, every year in different parts of the world we see record breaking heatwaves taking place.
“We see increasingly severe events that are connected to climate change. You know, high rainfall events and flooding, wildfire events, which are often associated and exacerbated by extreme heat and drought, and these are happening all around us all of the time now.
“So this was what was predicted by the IPCC over many decades, the IPCC’s been saying for a long time now that climate change is happening but the impacts will become more severe as the warming continues to increase and that is what we are now seeing today.
The New Zealand context Climate scientist and report co-author Professor James Renwick of Victoria University told Morning Report “the so-called real time attribution science — being able to use models to look at events pretty much as they happen and work out the fingerprint of climate change — has advanced so much in the last five to 10 years now, this information is incorporated into the report.
“So yes, we know that a lot of these extreme events that have been happening lately have been made worse by the changing climate.
“We’ve had just over a degree of warming so far, and you know, we see the consequences of that. Add another half a degree or another whole degree. It’s actually hard to imagine just how bad it could get it.
“I think the message is we need to work as hard as we can to get the emissions to zero as quickly as we can.
Recent flooding in Westport … “There’s no hedging around that climate change is definitely happening. Human activity is definitely the cause is driving all of the change.” Image: RNZ/NZ Defence Force
“This report is the most definite of any of the IPCC reports. There’s no hedging around that climate change is definitely happening. Human activity is definitely the cause is driving all of the change.
“The messages in a way the same as we’ve had from the IPCC for 20 years, 30 years even and yet the action hasn’t come through at the political level – we really are at the sort of last gasp stage if we’re going to stop the warming at some kind of manageable level, we need the action now.
The best technologies for avoiding the impact of climate change were still reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by switching to renewable energy and planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide, Dr Renwick said.
“So the faster we can reduce our use of oil and coal, the better everyone is going to be and hopefully some of these new [geo-engineering] technologies will prove useful. But there’s nothing on the table right now that looks particularly promising.”
The challenge … “The problem for New Zealand is that we are still using a climate target that was set two governments ago. It doesn’t meet the Paris Agreement.” Image: RNZ
How we should respond University of Canterbury’s Professor Bronwyn Hayward, a member of the IPCC core writing team, told Morning Report there would be “huge pressure on large and developed countries” ahead of the Glasgow climate change conference in November.
“I think the problem for New Zealand is that we are still using a climate target that was set two governments ago. It doesn’t meet the Paris Agreement,” she said.
“If the rest of the world did what we were doing, we’d be well over 3 degrees warmer. So we really just need to not wait to November to make a nice speech in Glasgow. There’s nothing stopping the government.
“They’ve had their Climate Commission report. We need the debate in Parliament. Now we need to commit to a realistic target and then we need some big action.
“The Climate Commission has said that we should be saying at least 36 percent cuts or much more, actually if we can, on the amount of emissions we were making back in 2005.
“But we also need a covid-like response. I think now we could really do with a popular public servant like Bloomfield to lead it, but we need a whole of government response where we are having regular reports where we’re bringing together what we’re doing on our emissions reduction and to protect people.
“So we need to see some big cuts [in emissions]. For example in transport and to be bold about this, like what would stop the government from actually supporting Auckland to provide all free public buses and congestion charging?
“I mean, make some big bold steps…
“At the moment we’re kind of keeping on treating climate as if it’s something about reducing climate through carbon changes, but it’s social actions as well, so investing in new jobs.
“So bring the thinking together, bring our Ministry of Social Development in with our Ministry for the Environment and really start thinking ‘what does a new lower carbon economy actually look like that works for people?’.
“There’s always a place for an Emissions Trading Scheme, but we have relied on that only for 30 years and we actually have to also, at the same time make real and concrete and rapid changes where we can … we need to be really planning, not just changing our market systems, but actually planning for concrete infrastructure and housing and city changes that are real on the ground and actually doing them now.
‘A catastrophe unfolding’
Minister for Climate Change and Green Party co-leader James Shaw said the key takeaway from the report was that the effects of climate change were happening now.
“It’s not something that’s going to be happening in the future somewhere else to somebody else. It is happening to us, and there’s a catastrophe that’s unfolding here in Aotearoa as well as to our nearest neighbours in Australia. And we can see that in that kind of wildfires and so on that they have every year and in the Pacific, where the rate of sea level rise is higher than just about anywhere else in the world,” he said.
“It just underscores the incredible urgency and the scale with which we need to act.
Even then, it will be at a 95 percent discount – but Shaw said that was the “backup plan”.
“So what we’re doing is we’re building a farm level measurement management and pricing scheme for agriculture, and we’re actually the first country in the world to put in place a way of pricing agricultural emissions… you know, just because the pricing isn’t kicking in until the 1st of January 2025, people need to be reducing their emissions now.”
As for transport – which contributes 20 percent of Aotearoa’s greenhouse gas emissions – a shift to electric cars was important but so was mode shift, Shaw said.
“We need people to be able to access opportunities for walking, cycling, public transport and so on as well. And we know that our existing fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles is going to still be used for quite a long time because we hold on to our cars for a long time.
“That’s why we’re bring in a biofuels mandate to make sure that every litre of petrol sold has a biofuels component to it that will increase over time.
“But transport is the one area in our economy that has just been growing relentlessly for decades and we have to turn it around.”
“Our country has deferred action on climate change for the better part of 30 years. And what that means is that there is a much steeper curve that we are facing in front of us and [it is] much harder to do, given that we’ve waited so long to get started.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
On Saturday, July 24, 2021, residents in communities near the proposed route of two controversial new highways are holding a Day of Action to demand “No More Highways.” If built, Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass would pave over farms, forests, wetlands and a portion of the Greenbelt and cost Ontario taxpayers upwards of $6-10 Billion. Highway 413 alone would also add over 17 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, at a time when cutting emissions is more urgent than ever.
WHAT: “No More Highways” Day of Action, featuring rallies, demonstrations and flyer distribution, in 8 communities across southern Ontario
WHEN: Saturday, July 24, 2021 – times vary by location
WHERE:
Brampton: Rallies outside the offices of MPP Prabmeet Sarkaria (Unit 412A, 7700 Hurontario St.), followed by MPP Amarjot Sandhu (Unit 309, 10 Gillingham Dr.)
Start time: 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Contact: Rosemary Keenan, Sierra Club Peel, prmkeenan@gmail.com
Bolton, Caledon: Rally at the Gore Road and Healey Road intersection
Start time: 2 p.m.
Contact: Dan O’Reilly, danoreilly@sympatico.ca, 905-857-3743
Holland Landing, Simcoe: Rally outside Transport Minister Caroline Mulroney’s office at Unit 8, 45 Grist Mill Road, Holland Landing, L9N 1M7
Time: 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Contact: Margaret Prophet, Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, margaret@simcoecountygreenbelt.ca, 705-718-1383
King Township: Information drop near the King City OnRoute: Service Center 400 Northbound
Start time: 1 p.m.
Contact: Sherry Draisey, Concerned Citizens of King Township: sdraisey@gmail.com
Kleinberg and the Nashville Conservation Reserve: Flyer drop at Huntington Road and Kirby Road, the McMichael Art Gallery, and the intersection of King Vaughan Road and Weston Road
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Contact: Irene Ford, ireneford@rogers.com, 647-881-2151
Mississauga: Bike tour of the 413 route, including stop at the offices of MP Iqra Khalid’s and MPP Sheref Sabawy, beginning in Tom Chater Memorial Park.
Time: 2 p.m. -5 p.m.
Contact: Rahul Mehta, Sustainable Mississauga, rahulmclimate@gmail.com, 647-462-1235
Oakville: Rally at the Intersection of Trafalgar and Cornwall
Time: 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Contact: Aki Tanaka, Oakville Climate Action, akitanaka1983@gmail.com, 416-333-5623
Orangeville: Sign wave and information drop at the Orangeville Farmers’ Market at 90 Broadway
Start time: 10 a.m.
Contact: Laura Campbell
For more information about the Day of Action, please visit: https://environmentaldefence.ca/no-more-highways-day-of-action-july-24/ For background information about Highway 413, please visit: stopthe413.ca
-30-
For more information or to arrange an interview please contact: Barbara Hayes, Environmental Defence, bhayes@environmentaldefence.ca
500+ Organizations Call on US and Canadian Leaders to Reject Carbon Capture and Storage as a False Solution to Climate Crisis
Washington, DC / Ottawa, ON — In an open letter sent today to leaders in the United States and Canada, more than 500 US, Canadian, and international organizations called on policymakers in both countries to reject carbon capture and storage (CCS)and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) as dangerous distractions and to end the “carbon capture of climate policy.” To raise public awareness of the growing threat of CCS at a time when lawmakers in both countries are proposing massive subsidies for a sweeping buildout of carbon capture technologies, key messages and demands from the letter were published as full-page advertisements in the Washington Post and Ottawa’s Hill Times newspapers.
The organizations’ message is clear: carbon capture is unnecessary, ineffective, exceptionally risky, and at odds with the needed energy transition and the principles of environmental justice. “Carbon capture and storage is not a climate solution,” the groups say. “It is a dangerous distraction driven by the same big polluters who created the climate emergency.”
“We don’t need to fix fossil fuels; we need to ditch them,” signatories said. Sinking public funds into CCS technology, they warn, only prolongs reliance on fossil fuels and delays their replacement with cheaper renewable energy alternatives. Worse still, captured carbon drives more oil production through enhanced oil recovery, contributing to the very climate crisis the technology purports to solve.
“CCS just makes dirty energy more expensive and energy-intensive,” the groups assert, and “more dangerous for frontline communities.” Echoing the conclusion of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council that CCS will not benefit communities, the groups warn that carbon capture presents significant environmental, health, and safety risks, particularly for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities targeted for CO2 pipelines and storage.
The groups call on policymakers to: “Stop subsidizing CCS. Stop permitting CCS. Stop using CCS to justify climate inaction.”
“Instead of bankrolling CCS,” the letter declares, “public funds should be boosting sustainable, job-creating solutions to the climate crisis, for fossil-dependent workers and communities: phasing out oil, gas, and coal; investing in energy efficiency and non-combustion renewable energy sources; and protecting forests and other ecosystems that naturally capture and store carbon.”
Organizations among the more than 500 signatories include 350.org, Center for International Environmental Law, Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Environmental Defence Canada, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth US, Global Witness, Greenpeace USA, Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation, and hundreds more representing grassroots, environmental health, climate activists, Indigenous Peoples, labor groups, faith communities, and businesses from across Canada and the United States.
Ottawa, Ont. – We are disappointed that the Canadian government has decided to not do its fair share of the action needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. Our research shows that a more ambitious domestic target of 60 per cent reductions by 2030 would have benefited most Canadians, by improving the health of our communities and lowering our energy costs. Recent catastrophic climate events, like heat waves and wildfires that have killed hundreds, show the suffering caused by inaction.
Instead, the government failed to reign in the oil and gas industry, by continuing to ignore the most important measure: the phase out of oil and gas production in Canada. We can’t meaningfully tackle climate change while expanding the industries that cause it. Worse, the Canadian government reiterated its pledged subsidies for destructive industries such as oil and gas and for equipment that turns our forests into wood pellets.
Another glaring omission in today’s announcement is around the assistance Canada should be giving to developing countries to address climate change. Recent announcements have committed Canada to less than 25 per cent of its fair share of US$4 billion per year in climate financing.
Before the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland in November, the Canadian government needs to go back to the drawing board and make the bolder commitments needed to tackle the climate emergency and create a better quality of life for Canadians.
For more information, please see “Towards Canada’s Fair Share: New research on achieving a stronger climate target“: https://environmentaldefence.ca/report/fair_share_canada_model/
About ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
-30-
For more information or to arrange and interview please contact: Barbara Hayes, Environmental Defence, bhayes@environmentaldefence.ca
Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, has announced plans to ask the CEOs of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to testify before the committee about their role in blocking congressional action to address the climate emergency. Khanna made the request after Greenpeace UK released a video of two lobbyists discussing Exxon’s secretive efforts to fight climate initiatives in Washington, revealing how the oil giant supported a carbon tax to appear proactive about climate change while privately acknowledging that such a tax has no chance of being passed. We feature the complete video and speak to one of the activists involved with it. “The reality is that almost nothing has changed in the Exxon playbook,” says Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK. “This has been going on for decades.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, has announced plans to ask the CEOs of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to testify before the committee about their role in blocking congressional action to address the climate emergency. Congressmember Khanna made the request after Greenpeace UK released a stunning video, where two top lobbyists discussed Exxon’s secretive efforts to fight climate initiatives in Washington. This is the video produced by Unearthed, an investigative journalism unit at Greenpeace UK.
DANEASLEY: You know, the wins are such that it would be difficult to categorize them all.
KEITH McCOY: Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing — there’s nothing illegal about that.
NARRATOR: This is Keith McCoy, one of ExxonMobil’s top Capitol Hill lobbyists. And this is Dan Easley. Until February this year, he was Exxon’s leading White House lobbyist. Unearthed posed as recruitment consultants and told them we had a client who admired their work. Then we interviewed them on Zoom and asked them to tell us what they and the other lobbyists at Exxon have been up to.
ExxonMobil is so powerful that the management suite at its global headquarters is known as the “God Pod.” Until recently, it was the biggest, richest corporation in the history of the world. For decades, critics have claimed Exxon deploys cynical, aggressive lobbying techniques to pull the strings of government, while running clandestine campaigns to block action on climate change, discredit its opponents and distract attention from its polluting activities. But not one of its serving senior executives has ever come clean about the Exxon playbook — until now.
Here’s what Dan Easley and Keith McCoy told us. Mr. McCoy revealed that, behind the scenes, the company has been working hard to undermine President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The White House proposal included spending hundreds of billions on clean energy and transport as part of the most ambitious clean energy legislation ever proposed by a U.S. president, and it would have been paid for by higher taxes on corporations like Exxon. But these ambitious proposals are on the verge of being defeated. According to Mr. McCoy, Exxon has been working to scale back the legislation and stop Exxon paying more tax. He told us which United States senators the company sought to recruit to their lobbying campaign — and they’re not all Republicans.
KEITH McCOY: We’re playing defense because President Biden is talking about this big infrastructure package, and he’s going to pay for it by increasing corporate taxes. You stick to highways and bridges, then a lot of the negative stuff starts to come out, because —
REPORTER: Right. For you guys.
KEITH McCOY: — there’s a germaneness, right? That doesn’t make any sense for a highway bill. Why would you put in — why would you put in something on emissions reductions on climate change to oil refineries in a highway bill?
REPORTER: Who’s the crucial guys for you?
KEITH McCOY: Well, Senator Capito, who’s the ranking member on environment and public works. Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week, and he is the kingmaker on this, because he’s a Democrat from West Virginia, which is a very conservative state. And he’s not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate. So, on the Democrat side, we look for the moderates on these issues. So it’s the Manchins. It’s the Sinemas. It’s the Testers.
NARRATOR: Exxon is even trying to get through to President Biden through his friend, Senator Chris Coons.
KEITH McCOY: One of the other ones that aren’t talked about is Senator Coons, who’s from Delaware, who has a very close relationship with Senator Biden. So we’ve been working with his office. As a matter of fact, our CEO is talking to him next Tuesday.
Then you take it out a little bit more, and you say, “OK, well, who’s up for reelection in 2022?” That’s Hassan. That’s Kelly. And then, obviously, the Republicans. We have a great relationship with the senators where we have assets. I can’t worry about the 2027 class, because they’re not focused on reelection. The 2022 class is focused on reelection, so I know I have them. Those are the Marco Rubios. Those are the Senator Kennedys. Those are the Senator Daines. So, you can have those conversations with them because they’re a captive audience. They know they need you, and I need them.
NARRATOR: Dan Easley left Exxon earlier this year, after nearly eight years lobbying for the corporation. He described just how big a problem Biden’s original proposal posed for oil and gas companies.
DANEASLEY: Oh, it’s going to be replete with provisions that will be difficult for oil and gas. Take away tax — you know, favorable tax treatment. You know, they’re going to raise the corporate rate, and then a whole host of environmental — new environmental requirements.
REPORTER: Right.
DANEASLEY: And procurement requirements — the requirements for the federal government to purchase, you know, green energy and renewable technologies, and, you know, retrofitting federal buildings, and all of — I mean, it’s going to accelerate the transition to the extent that, I think, four years from now, it’s going to be difficult to unwind that. So, we’re all living in a different world.
NARRATOR: For years, Exxon has claimed it supports a carbon tax. When they came out for the policy, it surprised a lot of people. But does Exxon really believe in a carbon tax? Or is it a ploy to make the company look responsible while giving them cover to aggressively oppose climate regulations that would hit their bottom line?
KEITH McCOY: Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side of me says, “Yeah, we kind of know that.” But it gives us a talking point, that we can say, “Well, what is ExxonMobil for? Well, we’re for a carbon tax.”
REPORTER: What you said was just really interesting. So, it’s basically never going to happen, right, is the calculation?
KEITH McCOY: Yeah. No, it’s not. It’s not going to — a carbon tax isn’t going to happen.
REPORTER: So, this helps me understand a little bit why suddenly a lot of U.S. oil majors are talking about a carbon tax, because it sounds pretty, uh —
KEITH McCOY: Well, I — the cynical side of me, they’ve got nothing else. It’s an easy talking point to say, “Look, I’m for a carbon tax.” So that’s the talking point. That is a — in my mind, an effective advocacy tool.
NARRATOR: Until February, Dan Easley was Exxon’s main man lobbying the White House. He gave us an insight into the relationship between Exxon and the previous administration when he detailed the successive lobbying victories the company secured under Trump. This includes issuing thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits, which critics argue are incompatible with efforts to tackle climate change.
DANEASLEY: The executive branch and regulatory team for Exxon had extraordinary success over the last four years, in large part because the administration was so predisposed to — you know, to helping.
REPORTER: What were the big wins you got out of Trump?
DANEASLEY: You should google “ExxonMobil announcement and Donald Trump.” So, he live-Facebooked from the West Wing our big drill in the Gulf project. He mentioned us in two States of the Union. We were able to get investor-state dispute settlement protection in NAFTA. We were able to rationalize the permit environment and, you know, get tons of permits out.
I mean, you know, the wins are such that it would be difficult to categorize them all. I mean, tax has to be the biggest one, right? The reduction of the corporate rate was — you know, it was probably worth billions to Exxon. So, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of wins.
NARRATOR: Mr. McCoy then told us how Exxon aggressively fought to discredit climate science. He also told us how, even now, talking down solutions to global warming, like renewable energy and electric vehicles, is critically important to the work Exxon does in Washington, D.C.
KEITH McCOY: Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing — there’s nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders. And you’re not going to be able to just switch to battery-operated vehicles or wind for your electricity. And just having that conversation around why that’s not possible in the next 10 years is critically important to the work that we do. And that’s at every phase. That’s in the Senate. That’s in the House. That’s with the administration. On something like climate change, there’s some forest fires. There’s an increase of, you know, 0.001 Celsius. That doesn’t affect people’s everyday lives.
NARRATOR: For decades, the decisions made in Exxon’s “God Pod” have had an impact on the lives of every American — maybe every human being on the planet. They held back action on climate change and used their power and money to ensure Washington politicians were working for them, not us. Now we have a better idea of what they did and how they did it. And crucially, now we know they’re still doing it. ExxonMobil released this statement.
EXXONMOBILSTATEMENT: The report “contained a number of important factual misstatements that are starkly at odds with our positions … including on climate policy and our firm commitment to carbon pricing. Our lobby efforts on the infrastructure bill are related to a tax burden that could disadvantage US business. … We have supported climate science for decades. Our lobbying efforts comply with all laws and are publicly disclosed.”
AMYGOODMAN: That video produced by Unearthed, an investigative journalism project of Greenpeace UK, which spoke to the two Exxon lobbyists, Keith McCoy and Dan Easley, after posing as corporate headhunters.
We go now to London, where we’re joined by Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK.
Quite something to get them so clearly putting all of this on the record, Charlie. Can you talk about what surprised you most and what you think is most significant about their revelations as they try to sell themselves over the effectiveness of how they’ve captured so many U.S. senators, key among them, Joe Manchin?
CHARLIEKRONICK: I think the most amazing and surprising thing about these revelations is that: Is anybody still surprised at what Exxon is doing? You know, I think that the reality is that almost nothing has changed in the Exxon playbook in terms of their appearance to want to be seen to be credible on climate change, while at the same time spending an amazing amount of time, resources to slow down progress on climate change, at a time when we just simply have zero time left for delay, obfuscation or debate on what should be done when. It’s absolutely clear what needs to happen now. And they seem to be, up until Darren Woods’ apology last week, committed to carrying on slowing things down and stopping action, doing everything they can to do that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Charlie, how do these revelations from these interviews compare to previous exposés of Exxon and its lobbying efforts? There have been many over the years.
CHARLIEKRONICK: Well, I think — there has been. I mean, this has been going on for decades, Juan, and I think it’s really important to highlight that this is the ongoing activity of a company that’s been trying to slow down progress on climate change for decades. What’s different about it is, literally, it is from the horse’s mouth.
As both lobbyists said earlier in the interviews, they were quite comfortable using front groups. They were quite comfortable in hiding behind — whether they were sort of think tanks, you know, sort of what would describe themselves as right-wing or free market think tanks who would espouse these views, which were supported and funded by Exxon, or whether it was groupings like the American Petroleum Institute, which is a trade association, which always presents the lowest common denominator in terms of ambition for an industry. But the API, American Petroleum Institute, is seen as respectable, certainly has a huge presence in D.C. And that kind of lobbying has been known for decades.
I think what’s unusual about this situation is that they were just absolutely — they weren’t even — I mean, I was going to say unapologetic. They were gloating at the level of success that they were having on slowing down progress on the biggest challenge that we’re facing as a country, as a generation, as a world.
AMYGOODMAN: Well, Charlie Kronick, we want to thank you so much for being with us, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK.
Next up, we go to Colombia, where an international human rights commission has arrived to document the right-wing government’s deadly crackdown on protesters following the general strike in April. Stay with us.
5Mins Read According to new research, none of the major G7’s stock indexes are anywhere close to a 1.5°C or 2°C pathway with activists and scientists urging the largest listed G7 companies to immediately set emissions reduction targets and increase their climate action. Titled ‘Taking the Temperature: Assessing and Scaling-Up Climate Ambition in The G7 Business Sector’, […]
4Mins Read By: Oliver Milman Wealthy countries risk an “unforgivable lost opportunity” by not emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic with newly green economies to address the climate crisis, the United Nations secretary general has warned. Ahead of meeting with the leaders of the world’s major economic powers at the G7 summit in the UK, António Guterres said […]
Ottawa, Ont. – We applaud Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson for listening to Canadians and taking the bold step of unequivocally recognizing that thermal coal mining has no role in Canada. The dangerous impacts of coal – on health, on water quality, and on the climate – are clear, and the Minister has rightly chosen to ensure a brighter, safer future.
Thermal coal mining belongs in the past. With this decision, the door is finally shut on Coalspur’s plan to expand their Vista thermal coal mine – already Canada’s largest thermal coal mine.
Canada has already committed to phase out coal-powered electricity, and as it does so, production from existing mines is expected to wind down. However, to fully power past coal, the final step is for Canada to end its practice of exporting Canadian and US thermal coal around the world.
About ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE CANADA: Environmental Defence Canada is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
-30-
For more information, or to request an interview, please contact:
3Mins Read The city of Lahti in Finland is “giving nature a seat at the table” by inviting scenes of wilderness to their video meetings during the pandemic. After being named the European Green Capital of 2021 by the E.U. commission, the city has come up with a new service to allow its employees to bring nature […]
3Mins Read The city of Lahti in Finland is “giving nature a seat at the table” by inviting scenes of wilderness to their video meetings during the pandemic. After being named the European Green Capital of 2021 by the E.U. commission, the city has come up with a new service to allow its employees to bring nature […]
Critics have hammered the Climate Change Commission’s agriculture goals in New Zealand, saying it has missed the mark on methane targets.
In a final 419-page report handed to Parliament yesterday, the commission urged the government to get tough on the way New Zealanders live, move and work, through implementing 33 recommendations.
To help keep global warming below 1.5C it said there should be no more new or used petrol or diesel cars imported, made or assembled in New Zealand by 2035.
The commission asked for substantially more government investment in cheap, accessible public transport, cycle paths and walkways, and no more coal boilers “as soon as possible”, with at least 95 percent renewable electricity used by 2030.
Greenpeace head of campaigns Amanda Larsson said it was all a bit disappointing because the report missed a major weak spot.
“Despite thousands of submissions in favour of climate action, despite huge public mandate out there for climate action, the commission has failed to really take responsibility for the industry that is causing the most climate pollution in New Zealand – and that is the dairy industry,” she said.
“There’s been no real change in its recommendations and the dairy industry still gets basically a free pass to pollute.”
Mechanism to reward farmers
The commission wants the government to decide next year on a pricing mechanism for rewarding farmers who reduce emissions.
It suggests technologies including methane inhibitors – vaccines which can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide burped by cows into the atmosphere – could reduce the country’s biogenic methane emissions by more than 50 percent.
It also sets an overall biogenic methane reduction target of 10 percent by 2030 – which Dairy NZ called “incredibly challenging” and a “big ask” for farmers, saying New Zealand milk already had the lowest carbon footprint in the world.
“We do remain concerned agriculture may be asked to do the heavy lifting if we don’t see urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions. We are all in this together and we must have a fair and balanced plan that requires our communities to contribute equally,” its chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said.
Dairy NZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle … “We are all in this together and we must have a fair and balanced plan.” Image: RNZ/Victoria University of Wellington
However, Larsson said there could have been strict limits on stock numbers, among other measures.
“We need to cut synthetic fertiliser and we need to cut imported feed and we need to support farmers to transition to regenerative and organic ways of farming.”
Hard-line approach in other sectors
Oxfam New Zealand campaign lead Alex Johnston said the commission was already taking more of a hard-line approach for other sectors.
“The pathways for reducing emissions in agriculture are simply not consistent with keeping to 1.5 degrees,” he said.
“Even if we go as hard as we can on transport and other sectors, if we don’t directly regulate emissions from agriculture and step up our actions in that area, then we’re not going to be able to do our fair share to contribute to this global problem.”
Forest & Bird spokesperson Geoff Keey agreed that agriculture was still getting “a bit of an easy ride” and the measures should be stricter, but he believed there was another blind spot in the report.
He wanted kelp and shellfish beds re-established on coastlines, and measures to stop wetlands drying out, to ensure more carbon did not go into the atmosphere.
“One of the big things that comes out of the report is once we start looking beyond 2030 and 2040, we’re going to need to protect our carbon stores in forests, in the sea and in wetlands. Right now the rules are not strong enough to allow that to happen,” he said.
Someone who felt more optimistic about the report was Niwa chief scientist Dr Sam Dean, who called it “a breath of fresh air”.
Traction on policies
He said there was finally traction on a more “comprehensive” range of climate policies.
“Up ’till now we’ve based our response on the emissions trading scheme, which is incentivised plantation and forestry. Moving away from that to a broader range of policies that are going to actually reduce emissions, especially carbon dioxide, is especially important. It’s something we’ve not managed to do, to date. And it’s something we’re going to have to do really quickly,” he said.
Dean said the difficult part was not writing the report – it was up to the government to rise to the challenge.
He said his plea for the government was to embrace all the recommendations with urgency and he challenged all New Zealanders to show their support and willingness to make changes.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
(@JoeMoeonoKolio) 
