Dewsbury man who took part in M25 Just Stop Oil protests defends action

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https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-11-30/convicted-grandad-says-just-stop-oil-m25-protests-absolutely-necessary

A grandfather from West Yorkshire who took part in environmental protests which caused chaos on the country’s busiest motorway has defended the action as “absolutely necessary”.

Just Stop Oil supporters brought the M25 to a standstill over a number of days earlier this month by climbing onto overhead gantries during rush hour, forcing the police to close large sections of the motorway.

Anthony Whitehouse, 71, from Dewsbury, was among 63 people arrested. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of public nuisance and was due to be sentenced at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Whitehouse said: “We did it for the very necessary reason the government are not acting according to what is needed to prevent the climate emergency that is happening all around us.

“So unless we do take strong action to make people aware of what is coming down the tracks, then my children and my grandchild are going to suffer immensely.”

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-11-30/convicted-grandad-says-just-stop-oil-m25-protests-absolutely-necessary

Continue ReadingDewsbury man who took part in M25 Just Stop Oil protests defends action

Just Stop Oil activist jailed for 6 months

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Climate campaigner Jan Goodey jailed over M25 protest

A Just Stop Oil protester has been jailed after a protest which saw “mile after mile” of tailbacks on the M25.

Jan Goodey, 57, of Brighton, admitted causing a public nuisance and was given a six-month prison sentence at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

On 7 November he climbed up an overhead gantry at Junction 16 for the M25/M40 turn-off during the morning rush hour.

The judge told Goodey, who had carried out the protest with a high-visibility jacket and climbing equipment: “You deliberately set out and equipped yourself to cause the disruption that you did.”

Goodey was also told to pay a £187 statutory surcharge by 31 July.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil activist jailed for 6 months

Because ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges

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Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets warned.

JAKE JOHNSONNovember 28, 2022

The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.

“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York TimesThe GuardianLe MondeDer Spiegel, and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”

The letter comes as Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him to face charges of violating the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. If found guilty on all counts, Assange would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice.

Press freedom organizations have vocally warned that Assange’s prosecution would pose a threat to journalists the world over, a message that the five newspapers echoed in their letter Monday.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the letter reads. “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

The “Cablegate” leak consisted of more than 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that offered what the Times characterized as “an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world.”

Among other revelations, the documents confirmed that the U.S. carried out a 2009 airstrike in Yemen that killed dozens of civilians. Cables released by WikiLeaks showed that then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus that the Yemeni government would “continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”

The media outlets’ letter notes that “the Obama-Biden administration, in office during the WikiLeaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too.”

“Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences,” the letter continues. “Under Donald Trump, however, the position changed. The [Department of Justice] relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War One), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.”

Despite dire warnings from rights groups, the Biden administration has decided to continue pursuing Assange’s extradition and prosecution.

In June, the United Kingdom formally approved the U.S. extradition request even after a judge warned extradition would threaten Assange’s life.

Assange’s legal team filed an appeal in August, alleging that the WikiLeaks founder is “being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions.”

Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Additional video is a little dated: Jun 17, 2022 and refers to former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Continue ReadingBecause ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges

11-month High Court injunction granted to deter M25 protests

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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/m25-high-court-mark-harper-justice-britain-b1043300.html

A new injunction granted by the High Court and lasting almost a year could see Just Stop Oil activists face fresh penalties for demonstrating on the M25.

National Highways said it secured the civil order to “prevent unlawful protests” on the country’s busiest motorway after a series of stunts during which members of the environmental group scaled gantries and caused major traffic disruption.

The injunction, granted on Monday before Mr Justice Soole, will remain in place until just before midnight on November 15 2023 or until further order.

It means that anyone entering, remaining upon or affixing themselves to any object or to any structure on the M25 may have civil proceedings launched against them for contempt of court.

They could face imprisonment, an unlimited fine, the seizure of assets or a combination of these sanctions.

Continue Reading11-month High Court injunction granted to deter M25 protests

Just Stop Oil restart London protests

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Just Stop Oil have restarted protesting in London today with protests at Shepherd’s Bush in West London and Aldwych / The Strand in central London this morning. Just Stop Oil: “Just Stop Oil is a coalition of groups working together to ensure that the government commits to ending all new licenses and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK.”

https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil/status/1597173649832046594?s=20&t=JMd06TsBWyj1fy0Urb3whQ
Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil restart London protests

I’ve been an NHS nurse for 15 years. Here’s why I’m going on strike

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NHS sign
NHS nurses have voted to go on strike for the first time in their history

Original article republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence

OPINION: As nurses announce strikes in December, the Tories must start paying them fairly to save the NHS from collapse

Holly Turner

25 November 2022, 12.00am

The first-ever national strikes of NHS nurses will take place on 15 and 20 December, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced.

The RCN, whose members made history by voting for direct action across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has accused the government of “choosing strike action” by refusing to negotiate on pay.

Other health unions, meanwhile, continue to ballot their members across both England and Wales, while strike mandates have been achieved across Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Direct action will now take place in all corners of the NHS, including ambulance services. These ballot results are evidence that there has been a dramatic shift in mood among health workers over the last year.

In 2021, I wrote for openDemocracy about a general feeling of despair among colleagues. By contrast, everyone now appears angry and focused, a feeling that I think has been encouraged by the recent wave of strike and trade union activity across other industries.

We hear reports of the NHS in crisis, hospitals running at capacity and dangerously low staffing levels. But without working within these services, it’s impossible to truly understand what this looks like for staff, and the patients these staff are doing their best to care for.

What staff are witnessing first hand is a catastrophic breakdown of services that has left us with vacancies hitting 135,000 and patients in danger. We desperately need to focus on retention of staff: without addressing that, we have no chance of tackling the backlog of seven million patients. Sadly, neither the government or opposition ever bring retention into the conversation, because that would mean putting pay restoration on the agenda.

In a recent survey by the GMB union, one in three ambulance staff said they had been involved in a delay that had resulted in a person dying. This is a terrifying statistic, and just one of many that the government should be taking far more seriously.

Staff are not prepared to stand with their hands behind their backs while the NHS is ripped apart in front of our eyes

What we are now witnessing are increasingly extreme attacks from the right-wing press and commentators attempting to demonise us, and to guilt us into abandoning our fight for what we are owed.

However, as I commented to a colleague, nothing they can say about us will be as bad as what staff are witnessing day in, day out. Things cannot continue as they are, and staff are not prepared to stand with their hands behind their backs while the NHS is ripped apart in front of our eyes.

I have worked as an NHS nurse for 15 years. I love my job. But my pay, and that of my colleagues, has been deliberately eroded for over a decade, with some workers up to 29% worse off in real terms. What we are left with is a group of workers carrying the entire burden of keeping patients safe, while the government washes its hands of any responsibility or accountability for the state of the service within which they work.

These are the staff who find themselves skipping breaks, working overtime for free, selling back their annual leave to make ends meet, sleeping in their cars as they cannot afford fuel to and from work – and ultimately quitting, as the moral injury of delivering substandard care is not sustainable.

We should all be united in our outrage. While this is an industrial dispute about pay, the fight is about so much more. During the pandemic we witnessed the devastating impact of dramatically increased demand on an NHS that has been stripped to the bone. We cannot let this happen again.

This is why we are taking our fight to this government and standing up not only for ourselves, but for our families and communities, and for the future of the NHS. So when the time comes, and it will, please join NHS staff on the picket lines.

Without action now, there will be no NHS left to fight for.

Original article republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence

Continue ReadingI’ve been an NHS nurse for 15 years. Here’s why I’m going on strike

Climate Crisis Reality Check (2)

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The Paris Agreement 2015 is the latest international treaty on climate change.
  
Quoted from wikipedia 
 
...
The Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), recognizing that this would substantially reduce the effects of climate change. Emissions should be reduced as soon as possible and reach net-zero by the middle of the 21st century.[3] To stay below 1.5 °C of global warming, emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030. This is an aggregate of each country's nationally determined contributions. 
...
According to the 2020 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the current climate commitments of the Paris Agreement, global mean temperatures will likely rise by more than 3 °C by the end of the 21st century.
...
Countries determine themselves what contributions they should make to achieve the aims of the treaty. As such, these plans are called nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
...
In 2021, a study using a probabilistic model concluded that the rates of emissions reductions would have to increase by 80% beyond NDCs to likely meet the 2 °C upper target of the Paris Agreement, that the probabilities of major emitters meeting their NDCs without such an increase is very low. It estimated that with current trends the probability of staying below 2 °C of warming is 5% – and 26% if NDCs were met and continued post-2030 by all signatories.
...

The message from the above quotations is
1. The Paris Agreement is an attempt to limit climate change effects by keeping global mean (average) temperatures below 1.5C or 2C.
2. We are likely looking at global temperature rises between 2C and over 3C by the end of the century. 


We are currently at 1.1 or 1.2C global mean temperature above pre-industrial levels. There are extreme climate events now never mind at 1.5, 2 or over 3C. 

2022 saw record-breaking heat in UK while there were heatwaves and vast wildfires in North America, record-breaking temperatures and huge wildfires across France and Western Europe, huge drought followed by severe flooding in Pakistan, repeated flooding in Eastern Australia and currently East Africa is suffering the worst drought in decades.  

We are in a climate crisis at 1.2C. The crisis is now. 

The main cause of global warming is the use of fossil fuels. The best response to the climate crisis is to stop the use of fossil fuels as much as we possibly can and to transition to renewable sources of energy instead. This would also involve a programme of insulation to reduce the use of fossil fuels. 

Politicians worldwide are neglecting to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way. The protest group Just Stop Oil is calling for no new development of fossil fuels. Grant Shapps, UK's Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is so totally out of touch that he's not even familiar with Just Stop Oil's objectives: “I’ve no issue with people arguing for lower levels of petrol, gas or whatever other thing they want to campaign for usage, that is fine, that is one thing. But don’t go disrupting other people’s lives - it’s unacceptable, it’s illegal!”, the Business Secretary said.  

Young people particularly should get active opposing climate destruction because it's fekking their futures and otherwise they're just going to keep on getting totally disregarded, shat on. Extreme weather events at 1.2C are so serious, 3C may well lead to extinction and next to nothing is being done to prevent it.

Some links - try searching for your own e.g. extreme weather events 2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
Met Office: Unprecedented extreme heatwave (UK), July 2022
Analysis: Africa’s unreported extreme weather in 2022 and climate change
Over 20,000 died in western Europe’s summer heatwaves, figures show

16/12/22 Climate Reality Check 2021


Continue ReadingClimate Crisis Reality Check (2)

Scientists take action at DEFRA demanding government halt UK destruction of nature

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November 25 2022

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion protest at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to highlight the state of nature in the UK and the failure of the government to protect it. The scientists who took part in the action and risked arrest included leading experts in ecology and conservation science who have previously worked for or advised Defra. 

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion protest at DEFRA 25 November 2022. Image: Extinction Rebellion

The action comes just a few days before the start of a major UN biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada where leaders will face the fact that the globe has failed to meet a single one of the Aichi goals for protecting nature agreed in 2010. This is at a time when scientists warn the world is facing unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss, with 1 million species now threatened with extinction worldwide.

Posters highlighted scientific evidence showing the dramatic recent decline in species and precious natural habitats like peatlands, wetlands and ancient forests, failure of government to deliver on commitments and the threat posed by new government actions intended to scrap existing protection measures.

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion protest at DEFRA 25 November 2022. Image: Extinction Rebellion

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion made clear that the protest was not directed at DEFRA employees, acknowledging that they are doing a crucial job in difficult conditions. Public funding for nature protection has seen a one third cut in real terms in just the last 5 years. DEFRA employees and their scientific advisors are being prevented by government from doing their job.

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion protest at DEFRA 25 November 2022. NB: Marine-protected areas bottom-trawled. Image: Extinction Rebellion

Quotes from the scientists who took part in the action: 

Professor Jeff Waage OBE, an ecologist and former member of Defra’s Science Advisory Committee, said: “Ours is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. The Government has made commitments to address this dire situation, based on excellent scientific advice, but it is failing profoundly to deliver on these. 

“Further, it is misleading the public, claiming for instance that it is close to its target of protecting 30% of England for nature by 2030, when the true level is currently about 5%. Adding to this its recent failure to meet legal deadlines to set targets for clean water and nature recovery, it is clear to me that this Government is not taking its commitments seriously. Critical nature recovery in the UK is being actively delayed, avoided and undermined. Habitat- and species-loss looms large, and nature-loving citizens need to hear the truth. That is why I am here today.

Dr Laura Thomas-Walters, a conservation social scientist, said: “I left my job as a senior analyst at Defra this year because I felt I had no opportunity to make real change. I worked with wonderful colleagues, smart scientists, but we were stymied by a lack of ministerial support. Civil servants are there to serve at the discretion of their ministers, and without buy-in from the Government we couldn’t work on vital issues. 

“Biodiversity loss is just as big a threat as climate breakdown – we are racing at breakneck speed into an environmental catastrophe, and the ministers are the ones cutting the brakes. I left Government so I could speak up, to finally demand the change we need.

Dr Ryan Walker, an ecologist and conservation biologist, said: “During my lifetime I have watched the decline of once numerous species such as lapwing, curlew and hedgehogs, descend to critically low numbers in this country. Tragically, our government’s response to this biodiversity crisis is a proposal that threatens 570 pieces of legislation specifically protecting nature and our natural environment. Our habitats and environmental legislation desperately needs strengthening, not disregarding as this Government is proposing. Healthy, and functioning ecosystems are essential to our food security and the clean water and air that we all depend upon. 

“We are here as a coalition of scientists, to demand unequivocally that this Government takes its commitments to nature protection seriously, this is now a matter of survival, without nature there is no future”

[Extinction Rebellion press release]

Continue ReadingScientists take action at DEFRA demanding government halt UK destruction of nature

Indigenous People Push Back Against US ‘Thanksgiving Mythology’

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Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

“We will not stop telling the truth about the Thanksgiving story and what happened to our ancestors,” says Kisha James, whose grandfather founded the National Day of Mourning in 1970.

JESSICA CORBETTNovember 24, 2022

The United American Indians of New England and allies gathered at noon Thursday at Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts for the 53rd National Day of Mourning—an annual tradition that serves as “a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest against the racism and oppression that Indigenous people continue to experience worldwide.”

“It has continued for all these years as a powerful demonstration of Indigenous unity and of the unity of all people who speak truth to power.”

“We don’t have any issues with people sitting down with their family and giving thanks,” Kisha James—who is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and is also Oglala Lakota—told BBC. “What we do object to is the Thanksgiving mythology.”

In a Thursday speech, James—whose grandfather founded the National Day of Mourning in 1970—challenged the lies of “mythmakers” and history books, instead highlighting “genocide, the theft of our lands, the destruction of our traditional ways of life, slavery, starvation, and never-ending oppression.”

“When people celebrate the myth of Thanksgiving, they are not only erasing our genocide but also celebrating it. We did not simply fade into the background as the Thanksgiving myth says. We have survived and flourished. We have persevered,” she declared.

“That first Day of Mourning in 1970 was a powerful demonstration of Native unity,” she said, “and it has continued for all these years as a powerful demonstration of Indigenous unity and of the unity of all people who speak truth to power.”

James noted that “many of the conditions that prevailed in Indian Country in 1970 still prevail today,” pointing to life expectancy, suicide, and infant mortality rates—along with the rising death rate for Native women—and taking aim at racism and “the oppression of a capitalist system which forces people to make a bitter choice between heating and eating.”

“And we will continue to gather on this hill until we are free from the oppressive system; until corporations and the U.S. military stop polluting the Earth; until we dismantle the brutal apparatus of mass incarceration,” James vowed.

“We will not stop,” she said, “until the oppression of our LGBTQ siblings is a thing of the past; until unhoused people have homes; until human beings are no longer locked in cages at the U.S. border despite the fact that no one is illegal on stolen land; until Palestine is free; until no person goes hungry or is left to die because they have little or no access to quality healthcare; until insulin is free; until union-busting is a thing of the past; until then, the struggle will continue.”

Writing about the annual event for The Lily last year, James explained that “my grandfather was heroic, and I am proud to be his granddaughter and help lead UAINE as we continue our work. But I also have noticed over the years, and especially while going through old newspaper clippings, that for decades the media often focused solely on the men as spokespeople and organizers of National Day of Mourning.”

She continued:

In recent years, my mother and I have worked to ensure that women’s voices, as well as those of two-spirit and LGBTQ people, are amplified at the National Day of Mourning. When I look at the Line 3 struggle or at the Indigenous people who were on the streets in Glasgow demanding climate justice, I see Indigenous people of all ages, and especially women and two-spirit leaders, as part of a continuum of resistance leading into the future.

Women have long been at the center of Indigenous activism, and are respected and revered within many traditional Indigenous cultures as leaders and culture-bearers—even if they were silenced by settlers. That’s why it’s crucial for our voices to be amplified within modern-day movements, especially because settler-colonial violence continues to disproportionately impact women, as evidenced by the ongoing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the United States and Canada.

James pledged that “we will not stop telling the truth about the Thanksgiving story and what happened to our ancestors.”

https://twitter.com/ndncollective/status/1595793573622210560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595793573622210560%7Ctwgr%5Edc03bd9e0375e17d63d3b3e4e4dd31326bea1b85%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2022%2F11%2F24%2Findigenous-people-push-back-against-us-thanksgiving-mythology

The gathering in Massachusetts was not the only annual Indigenous-led event held Thursday.

Lakota historian Nick Estes—a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, co-founder of the Red Nation, and author of the book Our History Is the Future—tweeted: “On the East Coast, there is the National Day of Mourning. On the West Coast, today is marked by a sunrise ceremony to commemorate the Alcatraz Island takeover by the Indians of All Tribes in 1969.”

“The reclaiming of Alcatraz… I call it one of the original ‘land back’ movements,” Morning Star Gali, the community liaison coordinator for the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), told Axios. “Alcatraz represented the lack of housing, the lack of education, the lack of having access to healthy food and clean water. None of that existed on the island.”

The purpose of the 43rd annual Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz Island, Ohlone Territory—hosted by IITC—is “to celebrate our resilience, resistance, and survival and to affirm truth in history,” Gali wrote earlier this week for the San Francisco Examiner.

According to Gali:

Many Americans prefer a skewed retelling of Thanksgiving over the painful and shameful truth, because viewing the Day of Mourning through the lens of tribal people challenges their role in the continuing colonization of Native people in the United States and around the world. This includes appropriation of lands and resources, strategic disempowerment, and dehumanization of Indigenous people.

During the fall-themed holiday, the average American consumes 3,000 calories in celebration of an abundance of resources, while at the same time a recent study by the Native American Agricultural Fund found that 56% of Native people reported food insecurity during the pandemic. Many tribal nations in rural reservations have been designated as “food deserts” with lack of access to affordable, healthy, and traditional foods, resulting in diabetes and other poor health outcomes. Thanksgiving is the embodiment of Eurocentrism, overindulgence, and complete disregard for the trauma and lived experiences of Indigenous people.

“Today, Native people are disproportionately incarcerated in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups—double the incarceration of whites. Criminalization and confinement of Native people, Native women and youth in particular, is as American as apple pie,” she added. “To gather diverse people and cultures in Indigenous-led prayer and solidarity on the island turns the notion of colonial Thanksgiving on its head and asserts the interconnection and resilience of Indigenous people, cultures, and lands.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Continue ReadingIndigenous People Push Back Against US ‘Thanksgiving Mythology’

‘Deeply Depressing’ Study Shows Planet-Warming Emissions Continue to Rise

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Wcmax1 20220717 20220723 Europe

“If current emissions levels persist, there is now a 50% chance that global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded in nine years.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

JAKE JOHNSONNovember 11, 2022

Rapid and drastic cuts to global greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to curb warming and prevent the most dire climate scenarios from becoming reality.

But a new study released Friday by the Global Carbon Project finds “no sign of the decrease that is urgently needed” as emissions remain at record levels this year, with fossil fuel giants and governments plowing ahead with new extraction efforts that could push critical climate targets out of reach.

Scientists with the Global Carbon Project estimate that total CO2 emissions will reach 40.6 billion tonnes this year—driven by rising pollution from fossil fuels—and will likely continue to rise in 2023 without bold action from policymakers worldwide.

“If current emissions levels persist, there is now a 50% chance that global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded in nine years,” the researchers note. “Projected emissions from coal and oil are above their 2021 levels, with oil being the largest contributor to total emissions growth.”

“The 2022 picture among major emitters is mixed: emissions are projected to fall in China (0.9%) and the E.U. (0.8%), and increase in the USA (1.5%) and India (6%), with a 1.7% rise in the rest of the world combined,” the report finds.

Professor Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, the lead author of the new study, lamented in a statement that “we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions” in 2022 “when we need a rapid decline.”

“There are some positive signs,” Friedlingstein added, pointing to the slowing growth of fossil fuel emissions over the long term, “but leaders meeting at COP27 will have to take meaningful action if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming close to 1.5°C.”

That increasingly imperiled warming target remains a focus as world leaders gather in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for the annual United Nations climate conference, a key opportunity for nations to commit to collective action against a climate emergency that is wreaking havoc worldwide.

Climate campaigners warn the opportunity is at risk of being squandered as Big Oil lobbyists swarm the conference and gas producers use the event to push their dirty energy source as a “transition fuel.”

Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, a co-author of the Global Carbon Project study, said that if governments respond to worsening climate chaos “by turbocharging clean energy investments and planting, not cutting, trees, global emissions could rapidly start to fall.”

“We are at a turning point and must not allow world events to distract us from the urgent and sustained need to cut our emissions to stabilize the global climate and reduce cascading risks,” Le Quéré warned.

Allowing planetary heating to exceed 1.5°C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century would spell disaster for large swaths of the planet as trends already seen around the world—from increasingly extreme weather events to species extinctions to rapidly melting sea ice—would accelerate, potentially locking in irreversible climate damage.

Professor Mark Maslin of University College London told The Guardian that the Global Carbon Project study is “deeply depressing.”

“It sends a clear message to the leaders at COP27—the world needs to have significant cuts in global emissions in 2023 if we are to have any chance to keep climate change to 1.5°C,” said Maslin.

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Continue Reading‘Deeply Depressing’ Study Shows Planet-Warming Emissions Continue to Rise