One million of the estimated eight million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction. Human actions have driven at least 680 vertebrate species to extinction since 1500, with global vertebrate species populations dropping by 68% in around the last 50 years. The abundance of wild insects has fallen by 50%. We Hug the Trees Because the Trees Have …
Common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm from climate change
By Adam Morton, The Guardian. Eight teenagers and an octogenarian nun had sought an injunction to prevent Ley approving a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to expand the Vickery coalmine in northern New South Wales, arguing the minister had a common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm from climate change. Justice Mordecai Bromberg found the minister had a duty of care to not …
Why is it when you destroy property it’s considered vandalism, but when we destroy nature it’s called progress? How is it that some people, or corporations, can knowingly perpetuate the damage? Or, as people routinely ask me, `Don’t they have grandchildren?’
May-June 2021 Bill McKibben: The Particular Psychology of Destroying the Planet << The New Yorker: “How is it that some people, or corporations, can knowingly perpetuate the damage? Or, as people routinely ask me, `Don’t they have grandchildren?’” Bernie Sanders: What Happens Next in Congress Will Determine Future of Country << CNN: “In this pivotal moment in American history, Democrats …
A case for transparent net-zero carbon targets and risk management: rate of emission reduction over this decade is key. Ensure temperature limits are not breached by enacting stringent near-term targets.
Nature, Published: 04 February 2021, Stephen M. Smith, Communications Earth & Environment volume 2, Article number: 24 (2021) Cite this article https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00095-w Perceived risks from carbon dioxide removal have led to calls for net zero targets to be split into separate goals for removals and emissions. A better approach is to accompany net targets with ambitious near-term action, disclose measures to achieve them and closely monitor and …
Emissions are still rising. Global fossil fuel use is similar to a decade ago.
Reuters, June 2021: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/global-fossil-fuel-use-similar-decade-ago-energy-mix-report-says-2021-06-14/ The share of fossil fuels in the world’s total energy mix is as high as a decade ago, despite the falling cost of renewables and pressure on governments to act on climate change, a report by green energy policy network REN21 showed in its Renewables 2021 Global Status Report Fossil fuel use has persisted amid rising …
Joeri Rogelj: Net-zero emissions targets are vague: three ways to address their limitations
Nature, 16 March 2021. To limit warming, action plans from countries and companies must be fair, rigorous and transparent. By Joeri Rogelj, Oliver Geden, Annette Cowie & Andy Reisinger Five years ago, the United Nations Paris climate agreement set a ceiling for global warming at well below 2 °C, ideally 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial levels. World leaders also agreed to balance greenhouse-gas emissions …
Undoing Equivalence: Rethinking Carbon Accounting for Just Carbon Removal
Front. Clim., 16 April 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.664130 by Wim Carton1*, Jens Friis Lund2 and Kate Dooley3 – 1Lund University Center for Sustainability Sciences (LUCSUS), Lund, Sweden; 2Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO), Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark; 3Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2021.664130/full Concerns are increasingly raised over the centrality of carbon removal in climate policy, particularly in the …
Carbon unicorns and fossil futures. Whose emission reduction pathways is the IPCC performing?
Excerpt from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim-Carton/publication/345992520_Carbon_unicorns_and_fossil_futures_Whose_emission_reduction_pathways_is_the_IPCC_performing/links/5fb4d0b245851518fdb0926e/Carbon-unicorns-and-fossil-futures-Whose-emission-reduction-pathways-is-the-IPCC-performing.pdf The possibility of future negative emission technologies (NETs/CCS) appears to suggest that more of the same incremental policies will eventually get us there; that there is no need for drastic or economically “irrational” actions. As such it helps preserve a sense of normality against increasingly dire warnings – and observations – of an unfolding climate emergency, against …
Carbon Offset Scams Facing Broad Opposition
Ahead of the reintroduction of Growing Climate Solutions Act, farmers join with environmental justice, worker and clean energy advocates to oppose false climate solution Week of January 14, 2021 – Jim Walsh, Washington, DC — As the Biden Administration gears up for a global climate summit and Congress begins negotiations on an infrastructure package, agricultural-based offsets for polluters are attracting …
Methane is responsible for about 25% of the climate change we’re experiencing today. IEA has clarified: no new wells! For existing ones, we need an enforcement system that responds to community concerns with definitive, timely action to reduce harmful emissions.
It’s time to recommit to controlling methane emissions to combat climate change: We need urgent action to curb oil and gas pollutants that threaten our health, especially for those living closest to development. Dan Grossman, Colorado Sun, May 15, 2021. latest IEA report (confirms we need zero new fossil fuel investments to reach net zero by 2050), “It’s Time to …