‘Not Reduce. Not Abate’: UN Chief Calls for Total Fossil Fuel Phaseout at COP28

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

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres.

“Humanity’s fate hangs in the balance,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at second day of global climate conference.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres repeated the call for a global phaseout of fossil fuels during his remarks at the opening of the World Climate Action Summit as the U.N. Climate Change Conference entered its second day on Friday.

Guterres delivered a dire warning to the 260 world leaders gathered for the two-day summit taking place within the two week COP28 conference in Dubaias heurged them to ramp up their climate ambitions in the name of the future of human civilization.

“The science is clear,” Guterres said. “The 1.5°C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phaseout—with a clear timeframe aligned with 1.5°C.”

“Make this COP count. Make this COP a gamechanger. Make this COP the new hope in the future of humankind.”

Guterres began his remarks on a positive note, congratulating COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber for a day-one agreement to operationalize the long-awaited “loss and damage” fund for developing nations. However, he quickly took a somber tone as he described recent visits to Antarctica and Nepal where he had seen ice and glaciers melt.

Guterres began his remarks on a positive note, congratulating COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber for a day-one agreement to operationalize the long-awaited “loss and damage” fund for developing nations. However, he quickly took a somber tone as he described recent visits to Antarctica and Nepal where he had seen ice and glaciers melt.

He said the ice loss was “just one symptom of the sickness bringing our climate to its knees. A sickness only you, global leaders, can cure.”

“Earth’s vital signs are failing: record emissions, ferocious fires, deadly droughts, and the hottest year ever,” Guterres continued. “We can guarantee it even when we’re still in November. We are miles from the goals of the Paris agreement—and minutes to midnight for the 1.5-°C.”

The cure could come, Guterres said, with a successful “global stocktake.” The global stocktake is a mechanism of the Paris agreement whereby world leaders assess their progress to date and set new goals. The first global stocktake concludes with the current conference in Dubai, and the process will repeat every five years from here on out.

Guterres made three main recommendations for the first stocktake:

  1. Drastically” reducing emissions: Guterres pointed out that countries’ current nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement put the world on track for around 3°C of warming and urged them to update their pledges in line with the 1.5°C goal. He said that G20 countries, which are responsible for 80% of emissions, should take the lead on this, and that richer nations should aim to reach net-zero by 2040 while less wealthy ones shoot for 2050.
  2. Speeding a “just transition”: In addition to phasing out fossil fuels, Guterres said countries should agree to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and ensure everyone has access to renewable energy by 2030.
  3. Ensuring “long overdue” climate justice: Guterres called for a “surge in finance” to help poorer, climate vulnerable nations adapt to climate impacts they did little to cause and compensate for loss and damage. He also said that leaders should recommend reforms of the multilateral development banking system so that developing nations could access funds without increasing their debt burden. Finally, he said that wealthier nations must fulfill their promises to provide $40 billion a year in adaptation finance by 2025 and $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020.

In his remarks on fossil fuels and clean energy, Guterres also addressed fossil fuel executives directly.

“Your old road is rapidly changing,” he said, quoting Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin.'”

Guterres cited International Energy Agency (IEA) figures finding that oil and gas companies provide only 1% of all clean energy investments.

“Do not double-down on an obsolete business model,” Guterres said, addressing fossil fuel CEOs and the hundreds of industry lobbysists in attendance at the conference. “Lead the transition to renewables using the resources you have available. Make no mistake—the road to climate sustainability is also the only viable pathway to economic sustainability of your companies in the future.”

Guterres ended his speech with a call to leadership.

“Humanity’s fate hangs in the balance,” he said. “Make this COP count. Make this COP a gamechanger. Make this COP the new hope in the future of humankind.”

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

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan

Continue Reading‘Not Reduce. Not Abate’: UN Chief Calls for Total Fossil Fuel Phaseout at COP28

Met Office: Climate change making heatwaves more intense

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https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/southern-asian-heatwave-attribution-study-2022

A Met Office attribution study, produced this week, has estimated the chances of exceeding the record-breaking temperature witnessed in April and May in 2010 – which saw the highest combined average April and May temperature since 1900.

The study shows that the natural probability of a heatwave exceeding the average temperature in 2010 is once in 312 years. In the current climate – accounting for climate change – the probabilities increase to once in every 3.1 years. And by the end of the century, the study – incorporating climate change projections – shows this will increase to once every 1.15 years.

Dr Nikos Christidis produced the Met Office attribution study. He said: “Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region’s pre-monsoon climate during April and May. However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making record-breaking temperatures 100 times more likely. By the end of the century increasing climate change is likely to drive temperatures of these values on average every year.”

Climate change swells odds of record India, Pakistan heatwaves

Climate change makes record-breaking heatwaves in northwest India and Pakistan 100 times more likely, a Met Office study finds.

The region should now expect a heatwave that exceeds the record temperatures seen in 2010 once every three years.

Without climate change, such extreme temperatures would occur only once every 312 years, the Met Office says.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres described the report as “a dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption.”

Continue ReadingMet Office: Climate change making heatwaves more intense

COP26 News Summary day 0

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Sir David Attenborough’s call to arms for ambitious nature recovery at COP26

Sir David Attenborough has today appeared in a new video calling for “bold action” at COP26 to help nature recover.

In the short film, released by The Wildlife Trusts to coincide with the start of the global climate summit, Sir David highlights the role of wildlife in addressing the climate emergency.

He says: “Nature has extraordinary powers to lock up carbon dioxide; to provide clean air and water; to help protect us from flooding and extreme weather; and to provide the food which sustains us.”

But Sir David comments on the decline of wildlife, saying that nature has reached “breaking point”.

COP26: Rainbow Warrior plots a course for Glasgow in defiance of river ban

Greenpeace said it had been warned by port authorities not to sail up the River Clyde to the global climate conference, but added the vessel would still attempt the journey.

If the voyage is successful, the four youth activists on the Rainbow Warrior plan to meet fellow members of the Fridays for Future climate strike movement on Monday afternoon outside the summit to deliver their message.

Nicola Sturgeon on Cop26: There are turning points in human history. This must be one of them

The stakes could hardly be higher. The consequences of the world failing to agree on the action needed are potentially catastrophic. Already we are seeing the devastating effects of the climate crisis.

Those impacts are no longer distant or theoretical. They are being experienced now. Just this year we have witnessed wildfires in Greece, massive flooding in Nigeria and Uganda, a food crisis in Madagascar – as well as devastating flooding in western Europe.

The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could not have been clearer about the necessity of action. Compared to pre-industrial times, global temperatures have already risen by more than one degree on average.

And, as the UN Secretary General made clear last month, the definite promises made by member states at that stage – assuming they were all delivered – were sufficient only to keep temperature increases to 2.7°C. He said that would create a “hellscape” on earth.

Humanity faces ‘stark choice’, UN chief warns at COP26 opening

At the formal opening of the conference, Patricia Espinosa, UN climate chief, told delegates that humankind was at a “pivotal point in history”.

The message was wholeheartedly endorsed by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said she “couldn’t agree more”.

The summit kicks off this weekend before world leaders attend the summit for an official opening ceremony on Monday.

Speaking to delegates earlier, Epinosa warned: “Humanity faces stark but clear choices. We either choose to achieve rapid and large-scale reductions of limiting emissions to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C or we accept that humanity faces a bleak future on this planet.”

Last seven years hottest on record, UN experts say as Cop26 kicks off

The last seven years have been the hottest on record – with sea levels rising to new highs and climate-related destructive weather extremes in 2021, UN experts have said.

In its annual state of the global climate report launched as the UN Cop26 summit gets under way, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that 2021 is likely to have been the fifth to seventh hottest year on record.

While it is not quite as hot as some recent years, due to a “La Nina” weather phenomenon in the Pacific – which has a cooling affect on global temperatures, it still averaged 1.09C above pre-industrial levels, the WMO said.

The last seven years since 2015, when countries secured the Paris Agreement to curb temperature rises to 1.5C or well below 2C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, have been the hottest in records dating back to 1850.

And the UK’s Met Office warned the world’s temperature has reached an average exceeding 1C above pre-industrial levels for the past two decades, the first time a 20-year period has been at that level since the records began.

Extinction Rebellion march through Edinburgh in COP26 protest

Extinction Rebellion activists marched through Edinburgh in solidarity with protests taking place across the world during the COP26 climate summit.

The demonstrators walked from George IV Bridge, Bank Street, North Bank Street, Market Street, Jeffrey Street and Canongate to reach the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood at about 1pm.

A rally was then held, with short speeches by representatives from charities and action groups addressing issues contributing to the climate crisis.

Participant Mike Grant, 61, from Rosewell, Midlothian, said: “I am marching today to make clear to those gathering for Cop26 that the people demand far bolder and far faster action now.

Children’s hospital staff arrive at Cop26 after 800km cycle journey

A group of cyclists who work in children’s hospitals and as medical bosses arrived at Cop26 after cycling 800km (500 miles).

The 39 activists, members of Ride For Their Lives, cycled from London to Glasgow to raise awareness of the health damages air pollution can cause, particularly in children.

The group have carried with them the Healthy Climate Prescription letter, a document signed by organisations representing 45 million health professionals around the world.

The letter says “the climate crisis is the single biggest health threat facing humanity”, with air pollution at the top of the list of deadly impacts.

It calls for a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels, the cause of both problems.

Scapegoating China over climate change is craven – and inaccurate

FORMER business secretary Alok Sharma, Boris Johnson’s appointee to chair Cop26, sought to put China in the dock today with his widely publicised comments “we expected more” — hardly the best way to win consensus ahead of a critically important conference.

There are two issues here. One is truth. The other is the contrast of approach between two different social systems.

In terms of carbon emissions per head, China today stands at 7.3 tonnes and the US at more than double that at 15.2.

More striking, however, is the speed of China’s development of zero-carbon technologies. In 2016 the EU generated 101 gigawatt of solar power and China 78.

Today the figures are reversed: China 204 and EU 134. Equally with wind power. In 2014 the EU generated 128 gigawatt and China 114. Today China produces 281 and the EU 201.

And in terms of relevant technologies China is well ahead. It produces 80 per cent of the world’s solar panels. It has over two-thirds of the world’s high-speed electric trains. It has as almost as many electric cars as the US and the EU combined — and 57 percent of its Belt and Road energy investments are for renewables as against 28 per cent two years ago.

Continue ReadingCOP26 News Summary day 0