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Environmental activists urge governments and companies to start acting, not only to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, but to achieve restoration as well
The climate crisis is here now. No matter how quickly we reach zero emissions, the terrible impacts of the climate crisis will not just go away. They will continue to cause millions to suffer for centuries to come, even in the most ambitious scenarios. As such, no matter how quickly it is done, solely cutting emissions is not enough.
This is why we believe the ideal solution to the climate crisis would be to go beyond net zero, and start to restore the climate. This would be done by, on top of reducing emissions to zero, removing huge amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere. As such, we aim to restore the climate to as close to a safe climate as possible.
Continue reading...US dropped the environmental ball under Trump, but Biden victory means the two countries can work together for a green recovery, says campaigner
Ma Jun experienced a strange role reversal during Donald Trump’s presidency. Over more than two decades as one of China’s top environmental campaigners, American encouragement for Beijing to cut carbon emissions and temper the damage of rapid industrialisation had been part of the background music. Ma never imagined he would see the US renege on environmental commitments while China began to face up to the challenge.
“It’s been frustrating,” says Ma of the past four years as we speak on the phone, the bustle of Beijing audible in the background. “When it comes to environmental collaboration between the governments, it has been hard to do anything.”
Related: Five post-Trump obstacles to a global green recovery
Continue reading...A US president who recognises the threat will make a huge difference, but environmentalists must push hard
There is no question that Joe Biden’s win will make a big difference to international efforts to deal with the climate emergency. A US president who recognises global heating as an “existential threat” will be a vital extra pillar propping up the teetering edifice of climate diplomacy. Four years of Donald Trump have done huge damage to the US’s reputation. But the world’s biggest economy, and second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China), remains vastly influential. With President Biden in charge, the prospects for next year’s Cop26 talks in Scotland, when drastic emissions cuts must be agreed if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding catastrophic heating, are already brighter.
President Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement was a key plank of his nationalist “America first” agenda and an act of sabotage against both the UN climate process and the principle of a rules-based international order. It also gave cover to the world’s other climate vandals: Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia and Australia. With Mr Biden, that cover is gone, and ecocidal policies such as Amazon rainforest destruction and coal-power expansion should come under renewed and relentless pressure. It is striking that the president-elect put climate at the heart of his phone calls with foreign leaders.
Continue reading...Climate agencies say fossil fuel burning is driving the increase of dangerous bushfires and days of extreme heatwaves
Australia’s climate has entered a new era of sustained extreme weather events, such as dangerous bushfires and heatwaves, courtesy of rising average temperatures, a new report by the nation’s two government climate science agencies has found.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel burning, has driven more dangerous bushfires, rising sea levels and a rapid rise in the days where temperatures reach extreme levels, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO said in Australia’s latest State of the Climate Report.
Related: Australian PM says net zero climate target not brought up in first call with Joe Biden
Continue reading...Key goals include powering city buildings on renewables and curbing urban sprawl
It was another scorching summer this year in Tucson, Arizona, the second hottest city in the United States, where even plants adapted to the desert’s harsh conditions wilted amid record-breaking temperatures and scant rainfall.
This summer was the state’s hottest on record, and in August the city clocked four days that were 43C (110F) or hotter and 26 that were over 37C (99F). Tucson temperatures are on average 2.5C (4.5F) warmer now than in 1970, a greater increase than in most other American cities, according to analysis of weather data by Climate Central.
Continue reading...Report identifies 935 firms finance industry needs to blacklist to meet Paris goals
Almost half the companies involved in the thermal coal industry are expected to defy global climate commitments by deepening their coal interests in the coming years, according to a report.
The study, by the green campaign group Urgewald, revealed that almost 1,000 companies should be blacklisted by investors because they remain tied to the thermal coal value chain almost four years after the Paris climate agreement came into effect.
Continue reading...The leaders of America’s closest allies have eagerly welcomed the incoming presidency of Joe Biden as a crucial opportunity to face down the unfolding climate crisis, following four years of dislocation under Donald Trump.
Related: 'Buddha would be green': Dalai Lama calls for urgent climate action
Continue reading...Cambridgeshire project trials plants that thrive in more extreme weather, including sphagnum moss and bulrush
A road deeply rutted by tractors and trucks winds its way across the Fens in Cambridgeshire, a flat, expansive landscape where trees are the exception, not the rule, and ditches rather than hedges divide the fields. This is England’s breadbasket, a huge food-producing region where the rich, dark soil nurtures potatoes, carrots, sugar beet and wheat.
In among these intensively farmed fields are a handful of bare, black strips of land which are part of a unique trial to introduce paludiculture, or wet farming, to the UK. The Water Works project is testing new crops that could suit a future UK climate, when weather events are expected to be more extreme and rain arrives in a deluge. Using plants that thrive in saturated soil, it is setting out to show the commercial benefits of re-wetting these peatlands, a process that will also lock carbon into the ground.
We're not pretending we're farmers. This is just a shop window, a conversation starter
Related: Scotland's bogs reveal a secret paradise for birds and beetles
Continue reading...Exclusive: Chris Stark says cost is surprisingly low but criticises government for absence of a plan
Reaching net zero carbon emissions in the UK is likely to be much easier and cheaper than previously thought, and can be designed in such a way as to quickly improve the lives of millions of people, a senior adviser to the government has said.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, the UK’s independent statutory adviser, said costs had come down rapidly in recent years, and past estimates that moving to a low-carbon economy would cut trillions from GDP were wrong.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison says the US president-elect expressed he was looking forward to ‘working closely’ with Australia on global challenges
Scott Morrison has congratulated US president-elect Joe Biden on his election victory in a call that canvassed mutual challenges including Covid-19 and climate change.
On Thursday, Morrison told reporters in Canberra that although the “specific matter” of a target of net zero emissions by 2050 was not discussed, he had raised the similarity of their policies on emissions reduction technology.
I’ve just spoken to President-elect @JoeBiden to congratulate him on his election. There are no greater friends and no greater allies than Australia and the US. pic.twitter.com/eZm7I4p7Ih
Related: The US election and what a Biden win would mean for Australia
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