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Asked by the New York Times whether he would pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, the president-elect wavered on his previously stated position
Donald Trump has said he has an “open mind” over US involvement in the Paris agreement to combat climate change, after previously pledging to withdraw from the effort.
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Continue reading...With the US president-elect threatening to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Beijing is to ready to lead world’s climate efforts, reports Environment 360
In one of the more entertaining moments of COP22, the global climate conference held in Marrakech last week, the Chinese vice-foreign minister Liu Zhenmin, gave the absent US president-elect a short lesson in the history of climate diplomacy. Climate change, he explained, was not a Chinese hoax. In fact, long before the issue had been discussed behind the high vermillion walls of Zhongnanhai, China’s contemporary Forbidden City, it had been put on the global agenda by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the 1980s, supported by Ronald Reagan and George Bush (senior).
Mounting international concern led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol, the first global agreement to try to limit climate change, signed by President Bill Clinton subsequently rejected by the US Congress. When President Obama’s administration formally entered the successor Paris Agreement in September this year, the president knew better than to try to seek endorsement from a hostile Congress. Yet the US has been present throughout, as the world grappled with how to distribute the burden of global action to ward off climate catastrophe, although its leadership has been, at best, intermittent. It has tended to resemble a temperamental adolescent, periodically playing the game, but intermittently flouncing off the field, its ball firmly under its arm.
Continue reading...Danish and US researchers say warmer air and sea surface could lead to record lows of sea ice at north pole next year
The Arctic is experiencing extraordinarily hot sea surface and air temperatures, which are stopping ice forming and could lead to record lows of sea ice at the north pole next year, according to scientists.
Danish and US researchers monitoring satellites and Arctic weather stations are surprised and alarmed by air temperatures peaking at what they say is an unheard-of 20C higher than normal for the time of year. In addition, sea temperatures averaging nearly 4C higher than usual in October and November.
Related: Record-breaking temperatures 'have robbed the Arctic of its winter'
Continue reading...UK universities are helping lead the world on environmental research – but when it comes to their own back yard they appear to be falling behind.
Only a quarter are on track to meet their carbon reduction targets by 2020. Teams leading environmental initiatives are being cut and sustainability strategies have not been renewed, according to the results of the 2016 People & Planet University League, published on Tuesday (see below).
Related: Sustainable development goals: changing the world in 17 steps – interactive
Related: UK solar power installations plummet after government cuts
Continue reading...ExxonMobil and Chevron among worst in terms of CO2 emissions and investment in renewables, according to research
Oil and gas companies in North America are lagging behind their European counterparts in cleaning up their operations, new research has found, with higher greenhouse gas emissions and less investment in clean alternatives.
ExxonMobil and Chevron of the US, alongside Canada’s Suncor, ranked lowest in a review conducted by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) of 11 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. At the top of the table came Statoil of Norway, Italy’s Eni and the French company Total.
Related: The Guardian view on climate change: Trump spells disaster | Editorial
Continue reading...The singer reveals what Emily St John Mandel, James Bradley and Naomi Klein taught her about facing the future
I looked down at my son, playing with an old plastic aeroplane we’d found on the side of the road. Its propellers rusty and brown, its wings cracked and bent.
“Why did I bring you into this world?” I thought. “How could I possibly have thought that was a good idea?” A surge of tears pushed against my throat. I swallowed and turned away.
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Continue reading...Environment minister’s goal to make 90% of Canada’s electricity come from sustainable sources starkly contrasts Trump’s pledge to revive US coal industry
Canada has announced plans to phase out the use of coal-fired electricity by 2030.
The move is in stark contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to revive the American coal industry.
Related: Canada gives $3.3bn subsidies to fossil fuel producers despite climate pledge
Related: UK energy from coal hits zero for first time in over 100 years
Continue reading...The world is counting on the climate movement in the US to keep action on fossil fuel going. Here is one way we can do that
Related: Trump’s dilemma: to please his friends by trashing the Paris climate deal, or not? | Bill McKibben
There’s no point hiding from it – Donald Trump’s election should give us all concern for our future and the future of our children.
Continue reading...The 2016 US election was a bad sign for climate policy, but galvanized grassroots organizations
Because America is entirely governed by two political parties, passage of legislation usually requires bipartisan support in US Congress. However, the Republican Party is the only major political party in the world that denies the need to tackle climate change. Therefore, for several years any hope of passing climate legislation hinged upon breaking through the near-universal opposition among Republican legislators. A number of groups have focused on doing just that.
In the wake of the 2016 US election results, I contacted these groups to assess their feelings about the prospects of US government action on climate change in the near future. The general sentiment was understandably one of discouraged pessimism, but each group identified glimmers of hope.
Our path to legislation has always gone through the Republican Party.
A carbon tax would be a possibility in the context of broad tax reform and if such reform moves forward as it may, I suppose there is some chance it could be part of a package … A carbon tax per se is not highly likely and is not something we plan to push ourselves right now but it is not impossible either.
We’re focused on streamlining regulatory barriers to entry to electricity markets, an obstacle that plagues emerging and advanced technologies with characteristics quite different from their predecessors. We also think we can make major strides in updating the way the federal regulatory machine works, given that the underlying legislation is outdated and insufficiently flexible ... If politics is the art of the possible, we’re really going to see some interesting things happen -- for governance and for the climate.
Continue reading...Painful encounter with a hardy woodland colony raises questions about the effects of climate change
Fear of wasps has always seemed to me irrational, but since inadvertently standing on a wasps’ nest two weeks ago my opinion has been revised. Deep in a local wood and stopping to admire a fungus on a log pile, I was alerted by a deep buzzing to the fact that both trouser legs were filling up with wasps.
Not content with stinging both legs, the workers also attacked my face and neck, as well as the dog. They were still stinging both of us when we reached the car half a mile away and followed us into the vehicle.
Related: Of mists, mellow fruitfulness, mortality and conkers
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