Climate Change

The host of Cop26 needs to be a master of diplomacy. Unfortunately, it’s Boris Johnson. The Queen is not amused. “We only know about people who are not coming,” the monarch was overheard saying. “It is very irritating when they talk, but they don’t do.” It is not the turnout for a Buck House party that is exasperating her, but the unanswered invitations to the Cop26 climate summit that will meet in Glasgow in November. With just a fortnight to go, it is still not clear whether the leaders of China, India or Russia will even turn up, never mind agree to do anything meaningful to address the climate crisis.

Observer 16th Oct 2021 read more »

The riskiest time in Insulate Britain’s road block protests is before the police arrive, their activists say. When they targeted a busy junction of the A1090 in Thurrock, Essex, on Wednesday morning, just outside the eastern edge of London, the police didn’t appear for nearly an hour. No serious injuries were reported, but it was close. The first lorry, hurtling towards the T-junction, did not look like it was going to stop: it ground to a halt inches from the faces of three activists. Cars and vans mounted kerbs and central reservations to evade them. Motorists emerged from their vehicles, pink with rage, snatched protesters’ banners and dragged them from the road like ragdolls.

Guardian 17th Oct 2021 read more »

Insulate Britain’s use of civil disobedience to fight the climate catastrophe was a catastrophe in itself. Search for the pressure group on YouTube and you see clips of delighted rightwing journalists taking apart its leaders. Sympathisers will say that a right wing that has barely recovered from its climate change denial was always going to lay into the activists. But Insulate Britain did not have to make life so easy for its foes. The UK could still be insulated. Indeed, the government is promising to do just that. We switched from town gas to natural gas. Why can’t we switch from natural gas to heat pumps and from draughty to warm homes? Yet as soon as you start believing that change is possible, pessimism creeps over you like a chill. Countries all over the world have net-zero pledges but no routes to get there. Governments have not prepared their public for the changes to come. The details are not there. The hard work has not been done. Stay with the image of men and women darting on to a motorway as the fumes rise and traffic thunders. Now picture Johnson, Biden, Macron and the other Cop26 leaders linking arms across the carriageway. They are taking a stand, just as the Insulate Britain protesters did. But like the doomist demonstrators, they have no idea how to win the battle they say they want to fight.

Observer 16th Oct 2021 read more »

Climate change will alter the world as much as the internet transformed society 20 years ago, the former governor of the Bank of England has warned. Mark Carney, who is now the UN special envoy on climate action and finance, was backed by John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate, in a new documentary. “Climate change is the internet circa 1999, it will change everything,” Carney said.

Times 16th Oct 2021 read more »

Not a politician naturally inclined towards caution, Boris Johnson set the bar on expectations for the climate change conference in Glasgow characteristically high last month. Addressing world leaders at the United Nations, he said the gathering would be a critical test of whether “humanity could grow up”. “In just 40 days time we need the world to come to Glasgow to make the commitments necessary . . . to restrain [temperature] growth to 1.5 degrees,” he said. “And that means we need to pledge collectively to achieve carbon neutrality — net zero — by the middle of the century.” With little over two weeks until the meeting starts, there are fears in the government that Johnson may have set the bar too high. He is already resigned to the absence of President Xi amid fears that China will come to Cop26 with no commitments to go further and faster than it has already.

Times 16th Oct 2021 read more »

With the opening of this year’s United Nations climate change conference, COP 26, less than 1,000 hours away, the world’s poorest, most vulnerable countries are facing down a six-year, US$75-billion shortfall in the international climate finance that rich countries have been promising since 2009, Oxfam estimates in a report released Sunday. The analysis landed just two days after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said international climate pledges only increased 2% between 2018 and 2019, to about $80 billion, after rising by 11% in 2018 and 22% in 2017, Climate Home News reports. Much of the new money was in the form of loans, not outright grants, and the OECD data showed countries and private financiers falling short on their commitments while multilateral development banks began to step up. “Based on current pledges, Oxfam estimates that wealthy governments will continue to miss the $100-billion goal and reach only $93 to $95 billion per year by 2025, five years after the goal should have been met,” Oxfam Canada writes in a release. “The shortfall means that climate-vulnerable countries will have missed out on between $68 billion and $75 billion in total over the six-year target period.”

Energy Mix 14th Oct 2021 read more »

The UK government is pushing for an ambitious agreement among world leaders at Cop26 to halt and reverse forest loss and degradation, the Guardian can reveal. Big producers and consumers of deforestation-linked commodities such as soya, cocoa, coffee and palm oil have been asked to commit to halting land clearances, the second largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. A coalition of world leaders is expected to announce the initiative on the second day of the climate summit in Glasgow alongside new funding to protect forests.

Guardian 15th Oct 2021 read more »

The COP 26 climate change summit will ultimately be a failure because its target of limiting global warming to 1.5C is too unambitious, former government chief scientist Professor Sir David King warns. He believes there is a good chance that world leaders will agree significant actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions in Glasgow next month. But he is concerned that the main goal of the summit is too weak to avert catastrophic climate change because Arctic ice is melting so much faster than had been forecast.

iNews 15th Oct 2021 read more »

Businesses have expressed frustration that they cannot make preparations for next month’s climate change conference in Glasgow because of a lack of clear plans from the government. Several large financial institutions said that with two weeks to go before Cop26 they still had no certainty about what access they or clients would have, making it difficult to organise events.

Times 16th Oct 2021 read more »

Insulate Britain protests: Why the climate change group’s methods might work, explained by experts. Insulate Britain’s protest tactics have alienated some of the public but highlighted their cause. So can confrontation initiate change?

iNews 15th Oct 2021 read more »

The climate disaster is here. Earth is already becoming unlivable. Will governments act to stop this disaster from getting worse?

Guardian 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Cop26 climate change summit: Governments shouldn’t think the public are daft about what needs to be done – Dr Richard Dixon. A new public attitude survey on climate change shows that the public aren’t as daft as governments sometimes like to think. Research commissioned by People’s Postcode Lottery asked people who they thought should act to reduce climate change. The results came back pretty evenly balanced between individuals, government and business. This summer a UK government spokesperson on climate change got in hot water for suggesting a good way to reduce emissions was not to rinse your plates before you put them in your dishwasher. Ministers were reported to be furious. Quite apart from the fact that most people don’t have a dishwasher, this is the kind of suggestion that governments use to try to imply that it is individuals who have to solve the climate crisis, making different choices and changing their behaviours. Of course individual choices can be important and they can certainly add up. If every person thinking of buying a new car bought an electric one, this would make a big difference to climate emissions and urban air pollution, as well as hastening the end of oil. But for individuals to make this choice governments need to support a good network of charging points, energy companies need to supply electricity from renewables and car companies need to offer a range of electric models at reasonable prices. If everyone thinking of buying a car bought a bicycle instead and joined a car club for the times they might actually need to use a car or van, this would be even better, but again they need the government to make this choice easy by funding a network of safe cycling routes and making sure public transport is cheap, reliable and widespread. People’s Postcode Lottery is one of Friends of the Earth’s biggest funders and we were pleased to be invited to help define the questions in the survey. Levels of concern about climate change are high across the UK, with more than 90 per cent expressing concerns about impacts on future generations, danger to wildlife, and the threat of floods and storms. The results challenge the stereotype that climate change is mainly a concern for middle-class young people. A really important finding is that older people are pretty much as concerned as young people about solving the climate crisis. And people from all social groups want urgent action to tackle climate change.

Scotsman 13th Oct 2021 read more »

US climate envoy John Kerry has conceded that the Cop26 summit will likely will end without nations agreeing to the carbon emissions cuts needed to stave off devastating levels of climate change. Boris Johnson is hoping the UK – as host nation of next month’s crucial talks in Glasgow – can encourage countries to sign up to reductions that would keep global warming within 1.5C.

Independent 14th Oct 2021 read more »

China and Saudi Arabia have failed to make written UN climate commitments ahead of COP26, i can reveal, punching a major hole in the UK’s ambitions to reduce global carbon emissions. Both countries, which are among the world’s biggest polluters, declined to submit updated pledges in time for the UN’s deadline this week to further reduce emissions ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow next month. The move means COP26 will begin without fresh pledges from some of the biggest emitters on the steps they will take to slash their carbon output.

iNews 14th Oct 2021 read more »

One is not amused: Queen irritated by those who ‘talk but don’t do’ ahead of Cop26. Monarch’s unguarded comments, which would normally remain private, were broadcast on a livestream at the opening of the Senedd in Cardiff.

Telegraph 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Scotsman 15th Oct 2021 read more »

Cop26: Xi Jinping ‘set to miss climate summit’. Boris Johnson has reportedly been told the Chinese president will not attend, in a setback for the summit’s ambitions.

Telegraph 15th Oct 2021 read more »

Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Insulate Britain has said it is pausing its roadblock campaign for 10 days, in a letter to the prime minister calling on him to “get on with the job” of insulating Britain’s homes. A spokesperson for the group said the decision was taken midway through last week, to give the government time to consider its demands. Its five-week campaign of direct action has caused disruption on motorways and busy roads in and around London.

Guardian 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »

TED countdown conference: Climate activists storm stage during talk with Shell boss. Climate activists disrupted an event at the TED Countdown conference in Edinburgh during a panel discussion with the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.

Scotsman 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to come to Scotland to hold an “alternative COP26”. Corbyn, through his Peace and Justice Project, will hold four events, three in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, between November 8 and November 11.

The National 15th Oct 2021 read more »

A wildfire raging through southern California coastal mountains threatened ranches and rural homes and kept a major highway shut down on Wednesday, as the fire-scarred state faced a new round of dry winds that raise the risk of infernos. The Alisal fire covered more than 15,000 acres (24 square miles) in the Santa Ynez Mountains west of Santa Barbara, and the number of firefighters was nearly doubled to 1,300, with more on the way. Containment remained at 5%.

Guardian 13th Oct 2021 read more »