Warning: the UK government’s hydrogen plan isn’t green at all, it’s another oil industry swindle

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Kevin Anderson and Simon Oldridge

Membrane type LNG tanker Puteri Firus Satu in Tokyo Bay. Author Tennen-Gas shares under GNU Free Documentation License.
Membrane type LNG tanker Puteri Firus Satu in Tokyo Bay. Author Tennen-Gas shares under GNU Free Documentation License.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/04/uk-government-hydrogen-plan-oil-industry-taxpayer-blue-hydrogen-climate-crisis

A taxpayer-funded drive for ‘blue’ hydrogen is good news for fossil-fuel lobbyists, but bad news for the climate crisisMon 4 Dec 2023 12.25 CET

With the impacts of the climate crisis so apparent for all to see, it is becoming ever harder for governments to fob off voters with promises of action tomorrow. At Cop28 we’ll see increasingly overt action by fossil fuel companies and petrostates to preserve their traditional power. But it is just as important to scrutinise emerging so-called green or low-emission solutions, which sound plausible, but are often simply big oil’s business-as-usual in a new guise.

The UK’s much touted low carbon hydrogen standard (LCHS) is an example of this. While hydrogen can be a low-emission fuel, the UK’s plan is quite clearly a fig leaf for “blue” hydrogen – which is made from fossil fuels – and according to one study, is even more at odds with our commitment to limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C than burning coal.

Today, the vast majority of the UK’s hydrogen production is made from natural gas (the marketing term for methane) in a very carbon-intensive process. Blue hydrogen would also be produced from methane, but with promises that the resulting CO2 emissions would be captured and buried underground. But even if most of the CO2 can be safely captured (a very big “if”), blue hydrogen’s full life-cycle emissions are likely still to be high.

That is in part as a consequence of methane leaks across the vast North Sea supply chain. Methane is a very powerful warming gas, so even with relatively low leakage rates, blue hydrogen will be bad news for the climate. Currently, 84% of the UK’s misleadingly named “low carbon” hydrogen capacity under development is of this blue variety.

Companies will be awarded substantial taxpayer funding for blue hydrogen plants that are certified compliant with the new LCHS – and here, the hallmarks of lobbying are only too apparent. The LCHS method for calculating life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions appears rigged to greenwash blue hydrogen.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/04/uk-government-hydrogen-plan-oil-industry-taxpayer-blue-hydrogen-climate-crisis

Protest placard reads Greenwash detected
Protest placard reads Greenwash detected
Continue ReadingWarning: the UK government’s hydrogen plan isn’t green at all, it’s another oil industry swindle

UK likely to miss Paris climate targets by wide margin, analysis shows

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/05/uk-miss-paris-climate-targets-emissions

Exclusive: Under current policies, Britain could fall short of internationally agreed goal of 68% cut in emissions by 2030

The UK government is likely to miss its targets under the Paris climate agreement by a wide margin, analysis shows, dealing a devastating blow to Britain’s standing on the international stage.

Under current policies, the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be 59% lower in 2030 than they were in 1990 – but the country’s internationally agreed target is for a 68% reduction by the end of this decade. The gap is likely to leave Britain in breach of these commitments.

The 2030 emissions goal was agreed at Cop26, the UN climate summit hosted by the UK in Glasgow in 2021, and has been reaffirmed at Cop28, taking place in Dubai this week.

Failure to meet the UK’s commitments would hinder international efforts to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.

The estimate comes from analysis of publicly available and government data carried out by Friends of the Earth. It found that current policies would achieve just over half the emissions cuts needed by 2030.

The gap had grown significantly under Rishi Sunak’s leadership, Friends of the Earth found.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/05/uk-miss-paris-climate-targets-emissions

Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER
Continue ReadingUK likely to miss Paris climate targets by wide margin, analysis shows

More than 1,000 climate scientists urge public to become activists

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Scientists protest at UK Parliament 5 September 2023.
Scientists protest at UK Parliament 5 September 2023.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/04/more-than-1000-climate-scientists-urge-public-to-become-activists

‘We need you,’ says Scientist Rebellion, which includes authors of IPCC reports on climate breakdown, as diplomats meet for Cop28

Wolfgang Cramer’s first involvement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was in the 90s. He worked on the second assessment report, delivered in 1995, which affirmed the science of anthropogenic climate breakdown. At that point, no one could say they did not know what was happening.

Almost three decades on, Cramer was part of the international scientific team that prepared the sixth IPCC report. Its conclusion, delivered in March, issued human civilisation a bleak “final warning” – the biosphere stands on the brink of irrevocable damage.

Now, as diplomats meet in Dubai for the 28th round of the Cop climate talks, in a year predicted to be the hottest on record, and as carbon emissions continue to rise, Cramer is one of 33 IPCC authors among 1,447 scientists and academics in signing an open letter calling on the public to take collective action to avert climate breakdown.

“We are terrified,” they warn. “We need you.”

“Wherever you are, become a climate advocate or activist,” the letter, published on Monday by Scientist Rebellion, a climate activist group, implores. “Join or start groups pushing for policies that help secure a better future. Contact groups that are active where you are, find out when they meet and attend their meetings.

“If we are to create a liveable future, climate action must move from being something that others do to something that we all do.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/04/more-than-1000-climate-scientists-urge-public-to-become-activists

Continue ReadingMore than 1,000 climate scientists urge public to become activists

Chris Packham launches legal challenge over UK’s watering down of climate policies

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Chris Packham by Garry Knight from London, England - People's Walk for Wildlife 2018 - 04, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76235680
Chris Packham by Garry Knight from London, England – People’s Walk for Wildlife 2018 – 04, CC BY 2.0.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/04/chris-packham-launches-legal-challenge-over-uks-watering-down-of-climate-policies

Chris Packham has filed a high court legal challenge to the UK government over its decision to weaken key climate policies.

The broadcaster and environmental campaigner has applied for a judicial review of the government’s decision to ditch the timetable for phasing out petrol and diesel powered cars and vans, gas boilers, off-grid fossil fuel domestic heating and minimum energy ratings for homes.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said it rejected Packham’s claims and would “robustly” defend the challenge. The measures and their schedule had been set out in the government’s carbon budget delivery plan, which was put before parliament in March this year.

In September, Rishi Sunak announced he would delay the ban on selling new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035 and that 20% of households would be exempt from a new gas boiler ban among other changes, arguing that he did not want to burden ordinary people with the costs.

Following the announcement, Packham wrote to Sunak, the energy secretary and the transport secretary to challenge the decision, arguing that the prime minister did not have the legal right to change the timeline of carbon budget pledges at will, since the actioning of the carbon budget delivery plan was governed by statute.

Packham said he did not receive a satisfactory response to his letter and therefore filed the judicial review application.

Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/04/chris-packham-launches-legal-challenge-over-uks-watering-down-of-climate-policies

Continue ReadingChris Packham launches legal challenge over UK’s watering down of climate policies

COP28 president is wrong – science clearly shows fossil fuels must go (and fast)

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John Hanson Pye/Shutterstock

Steve Pye, UCL

According to the president of COP28, the latest round of UN climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, there is “no science” indicating that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to restrict global heating to 1.5°C.

President Sultan Al Jaber is wrong. There is a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a fossil fuel phase-out will be essential for reining in the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. I know because I have published some of it.

Back in 2021, just before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, my colleagues and I published a paper in Nature entitled Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5°C world. It argued that 90% of the world’s coal and around 60% of its oil and gas needed to remain underground if humanity is to have any chance of meeting the Paris agreement’s temperature goals.

Crucially, our research also highlighted that the production of oil and gas needed to start declining immediately (from 2020), at around 3% each year until 2050.

This assessment was based on a clear understanding that the production and use of fossil fuels, as the primary cause of CO₂ emissions (90%), needs to be reduced in order to stop further heating. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that net zero CO₂ emissions will only be reached globally in the early 2050s, and warming stabilised at 1.5°C, if a shift away from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources begins immediately.

Hands lowering solar panels into place on a roof.
Humanity has figured out how to cheaply capture and use the Sun’s energy.
Tsetso Photo/Shutterstock

If global emissions and fossil fuel burning continue at their current rates, this warming level will be breached by 2030.

Since the publication of our Nature paper, scientists have modelled hundreds of scenarios to explore the world’s options for limiting warming to 1.5°C. Many feature in the latest report by the IPCC. Here is what they tell us about the necessary scale of a fossil fuel phase-out.

Fossil fuel use must fall fast

A recent paper led by atmospheric scientist Ploy Achakulwisut took a detailed look at existing scenarios for limiting warming to 1.5°C. For pathways consistent with 1.5°C, coal, oil and gas supply must decline by 95%, 62% and 42% respectively, between 2020 and 2050.

However, many of these pathways assume rates of carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal that are likely to be greater than what could be feasibly achieved. Filtering out these scenarios shows that gas actually needs to be eliminated twice as fast, declining by 84% in 2050 relative to 2020 levels. Coal and oil would also see larger declines: 99% and 70% respectively.

In fact, oil and gas may need to be eliminated even quicker than that. A study by energy economist Greg Muttitt showed that many of the pathways used in the most recent IPCC report assume coal can be phased out in developing countries faster than is realistic, considering the speed of history’s most rapid energy transitions. A more feasible scenario would oblige developed countries in particular to get off oil and gas faster.

A fair and orderly transition

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has added to evidence in favour of phasing out fossil fuels by concluding that there is no need to license and exploit new oil and gas fields, first in a 2021 report and again this year.

This latest IEA analysis also estimates that existing oil and gas fields would need to wind down their production by 2.5% a year on average to 2030, accelerating to 5% a year from 2030 (and 7.5% for gas between 2030-40).

A separate analysis of the IPCC’s scenarios for holding global warming at 1.5°C came to the same conclusion. Since no new fields need to be brought into development, global production of oil and gas should be falling.

This message was reinforced by the UN’s recent production gap report, which concluded that producer countries including the United Arab Emirates need to be moving towards a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, not expanding production. Instead, the report estimated that in CO₂ terms, planned fossil fuel production in 2030 is projected to be 110% higher than the required phase-out trajectory to meet 1.5°C.

The evidence for a fossil fuel phase-out is clear. The debate should now turn to executing it.

A fair and orderly transition from fossil fuels must acknowledge the differing capacity of countries: developing countries are more economically dependent on fossil fuels and have less money to switch to cleaner technologies. Some investment in oil and gas will be needed for existing infrastructure. This would maintain the minimum level of production necessary for a carefully managed transition. Overall though, fossil fuels should now be in rapid decline.

Rich countries need to phase out fossil fuels now and raise the funding to help developing countries make the transition.


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Steve Pye, Associate Professor in Energy Systems, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingCOP28 president is wrong – science clearly shows fossil fuels must go (and fast)

COP28 Head Claims There’s ‘No Science’ Behind Fossil Fuel Phaseout

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Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“This dismisses decades of work by IPCC scientists,” said one expert. “Disgraceful.”

Scientists and climate advocates responded with outrage Sunday to COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber’s claim that there is “no science” behind the push to rapidly phase out planet-warming fossil fuels, which Al Jaber’s company is extracting on a large scale .

Al Jaber’s comments, first reported by The Guardian on Sunday, came in response to questioning from Elders chair Mary Robinson during a virtual She Changes Climate discussion. Robinson told Al Jaber that “we’re in an absolute crisis that is hurting women and children more than anyone… and it’s because we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuel.”

The COP28 chief and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) CEO responded dismissively, saying he “accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation” and not to take part in “any discussion that is alarmist,” according to audio published by The Guardian .

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5°C,” Al Jaber added. “Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phaseout of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

That position runs directly counter to the outspoken stance of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who said Friday that “the 1.5°C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels,” arguing that “the science is clear.”

Joelle Gergis, a climate scientist and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report , called Al Jaber’s remarks “disgraceful.”

“This dismisses decades of work by IPCC scientists,” Gergis wrote on social media.

“‘Sending us back to caves’ is the oldest of fossil fuel industry tropes: it’s verging on climate denial.”

The IPCC, which has synthesized the research of hundreds of climate scientists from around the world, has argued that any successful effort to prevent catastrophic planetary warming “will involve a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use.”

“More than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use has led to global warming of 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels,” the IPCC said following the release of its latest report earlier this year. “This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.”

Other recent research has warned that rich nations must completely halt oil and gas production by 2034 to give the world a 50% chance of limiting warming to the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement.

Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, told The Guardian that Al Jaber’s response to Robinson was “extraordinary, revealing, worrying, and belligerent.”

“‘Sending us back to caves’ is the oldest of fossil fuel industry tropes: it’s verging on climate denial,” said Hare.

Al Jaber’s comments, which he says have been misrepresented , were seen as further confirmation that he is ill-suited to lead a climate summit given his simultaneous role as the top executive at one of the world’s largest fossil fuel firms. A Global Witness analysis released over the weekend found that ADNOC is on track to become the second-largest oil producer in the world by 2050, and Al Jaber has been accused of using his position as COP28 president to pursue oil and gas deals.

“ADNOC plans to produce more oil than any of the ‘Big 5’ supermajors—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies,” Global Witness found. “In fact, its projected output will positively dwarf that of the European majors; ADNOC’s 35.9 billion barrels is 49% higher alone than the projected 24.1 billion barrels production of Shell, BP, and Total combined.”

On Monday, the COP28 presidency published a summary of the World Climate Action Summit, a gathering of more than 150 heads of state aimed at facilitating coordinated climate action.

The document states that world leaders “highlighted the opportunities to cut emissions in every sector and to accelerate the technology innovation to address scope 3 emissions, as well as the phase-down of fossil fuels in support of a transition consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.”

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at Oil Change International , said in a statement that “strong support from the leaders’ summit to address fossil fuels in the final COP28 agreement is a promising sign, but it is just good enough.”

“Leaders must raise their ambition above a phase-down, and agree to immediately stop new fossil fuel expansion, and build a fast, full, fair, and funded phaseout of all fossil fuels while rapidly phasing in renewables,” said Ioualalen. “Contrary to the COP28 president’s assertions, the science is abundantly clear that warming will continue as long as we keep producing and burning fossil fuels.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingCOP28 Head Claims There’s ‘No Science’ Behind Fossil Fuel Phaseout

Report Details ‘Toxic’ Fossil Fuel Pollution in COP28 Host UAE

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The sun sets amid heavy air pollution in Dubai. (Photo: Forbes Johnston/flickr/cc)

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“Nobody will ever hold the government to account publicly,” said one climate campaigner. “We do not have the privilege of speaking out against the government.”

Despite greenwashing efforts like hosting the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference, the United Arab Emirates—the world’s seventh-biggest oil producer and sixth-largest exporter—is contributing heavily to toxic air pollution, creating a “devastating impact on human health.”

That’s according to a Monday report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) report—entitled ‘You Can Smell Petrol in the Air’: UAE Fossil Fuels Feed Toxic Pollution —which “documents alarmingly high air pollution levels in the UAE” and how toxic air caused by oil and gas production creates “major health risks” for the country’s 9.4 million people.

As the report details:

The UAE government says that the country has poor air quality but mainly ascribes this to natural dust from sandstorms. However, academic studies have shown that natural causes are not the single, or in some cases even the major, factor in air pollution. A 2022 academic study found that, in addition to the dust, emissions including from fossil fuels contribute significantly to the problem in the UAE. Air pollution and climate change are directly linked, as the extraction and use of fossil fuels are the sources of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The report’s researchers analyzed levels of PM2.5 —fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller that can penetrate human lungs and blood—at 30 UAE government monitoring stations and found that they were, on average, three times higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) daily recommended exposure.

According to the latest available data from the World Bank, the UAE’s mean annual PM2.5 exposure is over eight times higher than what the WHO says is safe .

The WHO estimates that approximately 1,870 people die each year from outdoor air pollution in the UAE.

“Fossil fuels pollute the air people breathe in the UAE,” HRW environment director Richard Pearshouse said in a statement . “But the obliteration of civil society by UAE’s government means that no one can publicly express concerns, let alone criticize the government’s failure to prevent this harm.”

The report explains:

Those in the UAE wanting to report on, or speak out about, the risks of fossil fuel expansion and its links to air pollution face risks of unlawful surveillance, arrest, detention, and ill-treatment. Over the last decade, authorities in the UAE have embarked on a sustained assault on human rights and freedoms, including targeting human rights activists, enacting repressive laws, and using the criminal justice system as a tool to eliminate the human rights movement. These policies have led to the complete closure of civic space, severe restrictions on freedom of expression, both online and offline, and the criminalization of peaceful dissent.

“Nobody will ever hold the government to account publicly,” said one climate activist interviewed by HRW. “We do not have the privilege of speaking out against the government.”

Pearshouse argued: “Air pollution is a dirty secret in the UAE. If the government doesn’t allow civil society to scrutinize and speak freely about the connection between air pollution and its fossil fuel industry, people will keep experiencing health conditions that are entirely preventable.”

Most of those affected by air pollution in the UAE are migrant workers, who make up nearly 90% of the country’s population. In addition to enduring widespread serious labor abuses, these workers—many of whom hail from some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries—face deadly dangers from air pollution.

Migrant workers interviewed by HRW said they breathe air that burns their lungs, are often short of breath at work, and suffer from skin and other ailments they believe could be caused by pollution. However, migrant workers told HRW that they were given no information about the risks of air pollution or how to protect themselves.

One migrant worker told HRW: “Sometimes, the environment becomes dark and murky. We discuss among friends why it is that way… The conversation ends there. During such times friends also fall sick.”

While the UAE government has submitted a recently revised domestic climate action plan as required by the 2015 Paris agreement, the plan has been criticized for its continued reliance upon fossil fuel production.

“Sometimes, the environment becomes dark and murky. We discuss among friends why it is that way.”

The choice of the UAE and the CEO of its national oil company— Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber —as host and president of the U.N. Climate Change Conference also stunned and angered many climate campaigners around the world. In the United States, climate activists were also outraged after U.S. climate envoy John Kerry glowingly endorsed Al Jaber as “a terrific choice” for the COP28 presidency.

Late last month, internal records leaked by a whistleblower showed that Al Jaber used meetings about COP28 to push foreign governments for fossil fuel deals. In response to the allegation, former Marshallese President Hilda Heine resigned from COP28’s advisory board.

Al Jaber stoked further controversy over the weekend when he insisted there is “no science” supporting the effort to rapidly phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingReport Details ‘Toxic’ Fossil Fuel Pollution in COP28 Host UAE

Climate Coalition Says ‘Stop Carbon Offsetting Now!’

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Environment technicians gather on a sample plot at the Kasigau corridor in Kenya on August 9, 2023. (Photo: Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)

“Carbon offset trading is reckless and irresponsible,” said one campaigner.

A coalition of climate groups had a message for world leaders on Monday, Finance Day at the United Nations Climate Change Conference: “Stop carbon offsetting now!”

The conference, COP28, is hosted in Dubai by the United Arab Emirates—which, as the coalition highlighted in a joint statement, is set to “hold numerous promotional thematic events,” despite two decades of negative impacts from carbon offset schemes.

“Carbon offset trading is reckless and irresponsible,” declared Jutta Kill of the World Rainforest Movement—part of the coalition that includes ETC Group, Focus on the Global South, GRAIN, Indigenous Environmental Network, Just Transition Alliance, and the Oakland Institute.

“Throughout 2023, academic research media , and civil society investigations have exposed how these projects routinely generate phantom offsets and result in land grabbing and human and Indigenous rights violations,” the organizations noted, pointing to “the forced relocation of Ogiek Peoples in Kenya’s Mau Forest” and “extensive sexual abuse at a Kenyan offset project.”

“Over the past months, Kenya, along with Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, have signed deals with Dubai-based Blue Carbon covering a total of over 24 million hectares of community lands,” the coalition continued. “Carbon offset project developers, standards bodies, auditors, and credit providers have pocketed millions from churning out carbon credits that have failed to reduce emissions and exacerbated the climate crisis.”

One “damning” probe from September found that nearly 80% of the top carbon offset schemes be deemed “likely junk or worthless.” Another study from that month, focused on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) projects, similarly concluded that reductions were dramatically exaggerated.

“At COP28, world leaders and climate negotiators need to recognize once and for all that carbon markets are a failed source of climate finance. They are volatile and unstable, marked by fraud, incapable of reducing emissions, and actually harm communities,” Oakland Institute executive director Anuradha Mittal said Monday.

The coalition pointed out that in addition to impacts such as relocations and abuse, “these projects, many of which are repackaged as so-called ‘nature-based solutions’ or ‘natural climate solutions’ or, when done at coastal and marine areas, as ‘blue carbon,’ have also drawn peasant and Indigenous communities into costly and complicated legal battles in their effort to affirm their rights and reclaim community territories and in their fights to resist the projects.”

The Kichwa communities in the Peruvian Amazon, Dayak communities in Indonesia, and Aka Indigenous communities and Bantu farmers in the Republic of Congo’s Bateke Plateau are among those negatively affected by carbon offsetting schemes.

“Over 20 years of history with offsets have resulted in the rights of Indigenous peoples being violated, increased land grabbing, and disproportionate impacts on Indigenous environmental defenders,” stressed Indigenous Environmental Network executive director Tom Goldtooth. “The false solutions will become a crime against humanity and Mother Earth.”

GRAIN’s Devlin Kuyek said that “they prop up a system that has enabled corporate polluters and rich countries to delay action and profit from the crisis. Whether unregulated or with a U.N. seal of approval, carbon offsetting in all its shapes and forms, including REDD or so-called ‘nature-based solutions’ and ‘blue carbon,’ is a fraud that must be immediately scrapped.”

The coalition asserted that rather than carbon offsetting, “what is urgently needed is renewed focus on keeping fossil fuels in the ground and commitments to real climate action based on equity and justice.”

As Friends of the Earth International’s Kirtana Chandrasekaran put it: “What we need are real emissions reductions and real climate finance. Anything less is failure.”

The coalition’s demands contrasted sharply with Sunday comments from Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, COP28 president and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company CEO, who claimed there is “no science” behind the push to rapidly phase out planet-heating fossil fuels—which one leading expert said “dismisses decades of work” by global scientists.

Going into COP28, a U.N. analysis warned that countries’ currently implemented policies put the world on track for 3°C of warming by 2100, or double the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C target. Already, the planet has warmed about 1.1°C relative to preindustrial levels.

Even though the international community is way off track in terms of meeting its climate goals, Bronwen Tucker, global public finance lead at Oil Change International , pointed out Monday that “on Finance Day at COP28, instead of rich country governments committing to pay their fair share for a fossil fuel phaseout, they tried to shirk their responsibilities.”

The biggest historical contributor to planet-heating pollution, the United States, and foundation partners on Sunday announced the Energy Transition Alliance. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and a lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy Program, said the offset initiative “is still very much a work-in-progress, and the details shared thus far raise a fair degree of skepticism about its ability to meaningfully contribute to addressing the climate crisis.”

“Richer nations and large corporations should have no claim over monetizing the scarce remaining carbon budget and yet this program is premised on that unjust idea,” Cleetus added. “At COP28, the primary focus should be on securing an agreement among nations for a fast, fair fossil fuel phaseout and ramping up public finance.”

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingClimate Coalition Says ‘Stop Carbon Offsetting Now!’

Oil Change International’s Reaction: Al Jaber’s science-denying statements are alarming

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Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

https://priceofoil.org/2023/12/03/reactive-al-jabers-science-denying-statements-are-alarming/

In response to COP28 President Al Jaber’s science-denying comments at the She Changes Climate Event, as reported by The Guardian, Romain Ioualalen, Oil Change International’s Global Policy lead, said: 

“COP28 President Al Jaber’s science-denying statements are alarming and raise deep concerns about the Presidency’s capacity to lead the UN climate talks, at a time when leadership and a clear vision are most needed. Of course, denying science has been part of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook for decades. But science is not up for debate: we must phase out fossil fuels to have a livable planet. 

“The science is clear. Not only do fossil fuels need to be phased out, but the phaseout needs to start now. The latest reports from the IEA and the IPCC show that maintaining a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires an immediate end to investments in new oil, gas, and coal production and hazardous liquid fossil gas infrastructure.

“Instead of casting doubt on climate science, we expect the COP28 president to facilitate an outcome on a full, fast, fair, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels at COP28. Over 100 countries have now called for a phase out of fossil fuels and science is clear that limiting warming to 1.5°C without relying massively on dangerous technological distractions such as CCS requires eliminating fossil fuels from the global economy.”

https://priceofoil.org/2023/12/03/reactive-al-jabers-science-denying-statements-are-alarming/

Image contains protest banner readng You will die of old age, our children will die of climate change - Melbourne climate strike
Craig Bennett says the way recent and current older generations have allowed environmental degradation will be viewed harshly by people in the future who will have to live with consequences that, in many cases, will be increasingly devastating. Image: A1Cafel Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic via wikimedia.
Continue ReadingOil Change International’s Reaction: Al Jaber’s science-denying statements are alarming

Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

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Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/03/back-into-caves-cop28-president-dismisses-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels

Guardian Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’

The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.

The comments were “incredibly concerning” and “verging on climate denial”, scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on 21 November. As well as running Cop28 in Dubai, Al Jaber is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company, Adnoc, which many observers see as a serious conflict of interest.

[Video at the Guardian article. It’s disappointing that his reality is so different from actuality, that he is so prejudged and narrow-minded.]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/03/back-into-caves-cop28-president-dismisses-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels

Continue ReadingCop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels