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Climate Change: Researchers Study Ways Individuals’ Actions Can Reduce Emissions
Labour appoints Rachel Kyte to climate envoy role axed by Sunak
Appointee was a climate chief at the World Bank and will lead UK’s return to high-level environmental diplomacy
A former climate chief of the World Bank has been appointed to lead the UK’s efforts to forge a global coalition on climate action, the Guardian can reveal.
Rachel Kyte, who previously served as special representative for the UN and a vice-president of the World Bank, will take up the role of climate envoy to lead the UK’s return to the front ranks of global climate diplomacy.
Continue reading...Study Finds Climate Change Doubled Likelihood of Recent European Floods
Global heating ‘doubled’ chance of extreme rain in Europe in September
Researchers find climate crisis aggravated the four days of heavy rainfall and deadly floods
Planet-heating pollution doubled the chance of the extreme levels of rain that hammered central Europe in September, a study has found.
Researchers found global heating aggravated the four days of heavy rainfall that led to deadly floods in countries from Austria to Romania.
Continue reading...‘We’re getting rid of everything’: floods destroy homes and lives in Czech Republic
Study shows extreme rainfall made twice as likely by planet-heating pollution as EU promises €10bn in aid
Jarmila Šišmová did not know what to expect when rain began to pound the small town of Litovel in the Czech Republic, and she was not prepared for the nightmare that would await her once it stopped.
The authorities told Šišmová to leave her home, so she took her children to their grandmother to wait out the storm. As the water level rose, a neighbour – one of the few on her street who stayed behind – checked the front of the house and saw the sandbags holding firm. But from the back, Šišmová would soon find out, the flood had burst into the building, drenching her belongings in dirty brown water.
Continue reading...Renewables rebound after slump but must speed up to hit Labor’s 2030 energy goals
Narrative that transition has stalled ‘demonstrably not true’, researcher says, but investment and construction must accelerate
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Large-scale renewable energy investment and construction in Australia is rebounding this year after a slump, but will need to accelerate to reach the pace needed to meet the Albanese government’s goal for 2030.
The country could add more than 7 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, up from 5.3 GW last year, according to data released by the Clean Energy Regulator.
Continue reading...Biden Boasts of Climate Wins and Warns of Reversals Under Trump
Send Us Your Questions About Climate Change
Guterres Urges World Leaders to Act on ‘Whirlwind’ of Crises
Clothes piling up in your closet? A landmark California bill would mandate brands recycle them
California could become the first state to tackle the fast fashion waste overwhelming consumers and landfills
Let’s say you bought a new pair of jeans and wore them for a few years before deciding it was time to part ways. You could throw them away, or, if you wanted a more environmentally friendly option, you might try to sell or swap them or donate them to a local thrift store.
Either way, the onus is on you to pass those jeans on, and hope for the best. But a new California bill that tackles the growing problem of fashion and textile waste could change the way we get rid of our clothes, putting the burden on clothing producers to implement a system for recycling the wares that they sell.
Continue reading...Swing states in US election are biggest winners in Democrats’ landmark climate bill
Seven states received almost half of funds for clean energy manufacturing, though there is little evidence it will deliver electorally for Democrats
The seven swing states that will decide the upcoming US election have received nearly half of the torrent of clean energy manufacturing dollars unleashed by a landmark 2022 climate bill, a new analysis shows, amid stuttering Democratic efforts to translate new factory jobs into political support.
Since the passage of clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a bill called the “most significant climate law in the history of mankind” by Joe Biden, nearly $150bn has been announced for a flurry of new American facilities producing electric cars, batteries and components for renewable energy.
Continue reading...The speech Keir Starmer should give: our economic model is broken – and I’ll pay for my own Arsenal tickets | Owen Jones
The PM will today deliver his leader’s speech to Labour conference. This is what he should say instead
Conference, I stand here ready to bury Britain’s age of decline and usher in the age of ambition. For years, politicians have offered this nation a daily diet of pessimism, demanding ever greater sacrifice from those with nothing left to give. And they have delivered on that pessimism – from stagnant growth to falling wages, from crumbling infrastructure to disintegrating public services, from our declining town centres to a mounting housing emergency.
But that ambition begins with some humility. Our nation expected change, and so far it has seen yet more politicians on the take while imposing hardship on the already struggling. It is far better to change course than double down on mistakes. Our democracy has long been corrupted by those with bottomless pockets, and let’s be candid: they’re not splashing their cash out of generosity. That ends here. If you’re a wealthy individual or private company, invest your money elsewhere, because all such donations to political parties and politicians will now be banned. No more hospitality or freebies: and yes, I will pay for my own Arsenal tickets.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Norway is shying away from tourism – here’s what other countries could learn | Shazia Majid
Norwegians are putting their natural environment (and weekend activities) ahead of tourism’s economic benefits
In Norway, nature is something of a national obsession. Norwegian children are taught that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”, and Norwegian babies are packed into thermals and overalls and taken on day trips to the woods. Cross-country skiing, hunting for wild mushrooms or cloudberries, or huffing and puffing up a mountain are standard weekend activities.
The recent decision to scrap a campaign that aimed to attract more foreign tourists to the country’s rural landscapes was a stark reminder of this: rather than encouraging tourists and the income they provide, many Norwegians would prefer to protect their natural environment.
Continue reading...Rich countries could raise $5tn of climate finance a year, study says
Simple measures could raise five times more money than poorer countries are asking for, research claims
Rich countries could raise five times the money that poor countries are demanding in climate finance, through windfall taxes on fossil fuels, ending harmful subsidies and a wealth tax on billionaires, research has shown.
Developing nations are asking for at least $1tn (£750bn) a year of public funds to help them cut greenhouse gases and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.
Continue reading...Low-lying Pacific islands pin hopes on UN meeting as sea rise threatens survival
UN general assembly to hold special session this week as experts say rises already locked in by climate change mean disappearance of many atolls
The Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil.
“Our waters have been infected,” climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. “Those who are affected, they now can’t survive with the water that changed after sea level rise.”
Continue reading...Kerry gives scathing rating on climate action: ‘Is there a letter underneath Z?’
Former secretary of state accuses oil and gas companies of ‘business as usual’ at major climate summit in New York
Countries are ignoring commitments they made less than a year ago to shift away from fossil fuels and to provide aid to those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a host of leading figures have admitted during a gloomy start to a major climate summit in New York.
Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, have led the condemnation of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, led by China and the US, for failing to follow a UN pact signed in Dubai by nearly 200 countries in December to “transition away” from oil, coal and gas.
Continue reading...Hurricane John poised to slam Mexico’s Pacific coast with 100mph winds
Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero brace for impact as ‘life-threatening’ category 2 storm to make landfall Tuesday
Mexico’s southern coast was bracing for flash floods and storm surges as Hurricane John quickly intensified into a category 2 storm on Monday afternoon.
Originally forecast as a tropical storm, Hurricane John “rapidly strengthened” into a category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100mph (160kmh), according to the US National Hurricane Center, which warned of “damaging hurricane-force winds, life-threatening storm surge and flash flooding”.
Continue reading...California Sues Exxon Over Plastics Pollution and Recycling ‘Myth’
Three International Climate Priorities for UNGA and NYC Climate Week
This week, New York City is hosting the UN General Assembly meetings and the annual Climate Week events. With the continued trend of extreme climate-fueled disasters around the world—including deadly and damaging heatwaves, floods, fires, and storms—the urgency of solutions for the climate crisis couldn’t be clearer.
What we hear from world leaders this week will give us an indication of their seriousness in helping to secure an ambitious outcome at the annual UN climate talks, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. Civil society groups will also be at climate week to demand action and remind world leaders of their responsibilities. And business leaders will have the opportunity to show whether they truly want to be part of the solution—or are just engaged in greenwashing while seeking short-term profits from carbon-intensive activities.
Here are three key international climate priorities that I will be paying close attention to this year.
1: Raising the ambition of national emissions reduction commitments, aka nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
The latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EU’s Copernicus climate service show that the 2024 January-August period is the hottest ever by far, putting this year well on track to be the warmest ever on record. Meanwhile, the global emissions trajectory is dangerously off track from where it needs to be to meet global climate goals, with heat-trapping emissions continuing to rise.
When countries signed on to the 2015 Paris Agreement, they made initial voluntary commitments (the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) to reduce their heat-trapping emissions, and agreed to revisit them every five years to reflect the “highest possible ambition.” (see Articles 4.2 and 4.3 of the Paris Agreement). By February 2025, the next round of NDCs is due and it’s clear that all countries—especially richer nations like the United States—will need to step up significantly if we are to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In its last NDC, back in 2021, the U.S. committed to cutting its emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. A range of state and federal policies—including the Inflation Reduction Act—currently puts it on track to cut emissions about 32-43% below 2005 levels by 2030. That means we’ll need to quickly add additional clean energy policies and policies to phase out fossil fuels just to meet our 2030 goals.
For the next round of NDCs, the U.S. should commit to cutting its heat-trapping emissions at least 70% below 2005 levels by 2035, a level that UCS modeling shows is possible, but that will require political will and significant new policies to achieve. In this context, the potential increase in energy demand to meet the emerging needs of AI data centers is worrisome and threatens to erode progress unless proactive measures are taken to manage possible impacts on the energy system in line with the pace of the clean energy transition. The next US NDC should also be explicit about commitments to phase out fossil fuels in a fast and fair way and set ambitious sectoral targets for a clean energy transition, while addressing the need to invest in climate resilience as well.
A comprehensive suite of policies is needed to deliver on our NDC goals. For the decade ahead and beyond, we’ve got to think boldly and deploy policies and investments that help cut overall energy demand and enable a thriving lower-carbon economy and healthier lifestyles—including through better land use planning and development; more public transit; and more livable, walkable neighborhoods.
To meet global climate goals, all nations must increase their emissions reduction commitments and enact the enabling policies to meet them—especially richer nations and major emitting countries. In addition to the U.S., that includes the EU countries, Canada, Australia, Japan, Russia, China and India. But we’re not going to get anywhere if each nation tries to dodge its responsibilities and points at the inaction of others. Rather, fostering cooperation and a shared commitment to increased ambition are the needs of the hour as we confront this collective action problem.
2: Increasing international climate finance
This year, at COP29, nations will also have to agree on the quantum of international climate finance that richer nations will provide post-2025 to help lower-income nations cut their heat-trapping emissions and adapt to climate change. These outcomes are being determined through multi-year negotiations on the ‘New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance’ leading up to COP29, which is being billed as the climate finance COP.
Climate action will require considerable resources that low-income nations are unlikely to be able to marshal on their own. Furthermore, countries that have contributed the least to climate-warming emissions are now facing a disproportionate brunt of climate impacts stemming from the failure of richer nations to cut their outsize emissions. Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement calls for “Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.” The latest IPCC report also underscores how crucial this finance is to meet climate goals.
Back in 2009, richer nations committed to a goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, a goal that was reaffirmed in Paris in 2015. That goal was finally met in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The NCQG negotiations are aimed at delivering the next tranche of finance commitments. This time around, it’s clear that much more finance is necessary to meet the moment: funding to dramatically accelerate the clean energy transition and fossil fuel phaseout in lower-income nations, funding to help them adapt to the relentless impacts of climate change, and funding to help address extreme climate loss and damage. Failing to provide this finance not only risks the world’s ability to cut emissions sharply and quickly, it is also imposing an increasingly unjust toll on the least developed nations. A recent report from the World Meteorological Organization shows that, “On average, African countries are losing 2–5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many are diverting up to 9 percent of their budgets responding to climate extremes.”
The U.S. and other richer nations should agree to collectively marshaling climate finance on the order of one trillion per year, starting in 2025. And additional countries in a position to do so should also step up to contribute funding on a voluntary basis. Most of this funding should be grant-based or grant-equivalent to avoid trapping low-income nations in a worsening spiral of indebtedness as is the case currently. Innovative sources of funding—such as pollution taxes and wealth taxes—should be part of the discussion. Reforming international multilateral lending architecture to be fairer and more aligned with climate and sustainable development objectives is also critical.
U.S. contributions to international climate finance have repeatedly fallen short of what’s necessary. Congress, too, must step up since it holds the power of the purse. The United States must also help lead the ongoing negotiations at the OECD to restrict export credit support for all unabated fossil fuel projects, as it committed to do at COP26 in Glasgow, and as we have called for in a recent joint letter to US Treasury Secretary Yellen and US Export-Import Bank Chair Lewis.
3: Defending against bad-faith actions from fossil fuel interests
Fossil fuel interests are a perennial threat to climate progress, at home and abroad. Their presence at the annual climate talks has been increasing alarmingly. Unfortunately, at COP29 in Baku we are likely to see them out in full force again, trying to undermine and dilute global climate agreements. The crucial question is: will policymakers stand up to that pressure from polluters and deliver what people need?
Last year at COP28, nations were finally able reach an agreement calling for a phase down of fossil fuels—the first time the root cause of climate change was addressed in a global climate agreement. The follow-through has been pretty mixed globally thus far. The US, for example, is still enabling surging levels of production of oil and gas. We need domestic policies that explicitly ensure that fossil fuels are being phased down, alongside ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Litigation efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for damage caused by their products and for deceiving consumers and investors are gaining ground in domestic and international courts. These additional avenues to secure climate progress are likely to increase in importance, especially if policymakers’ efforts to curtail heat-trapping emissions and stand up to the fossil fuel lobby continue to fall short.
What does climate ambition mean in 2024?Around the world, wars and extreme disasters are exacting a punishing toll on people and require urgent action from political leaders to seek solutions that bring peace and safety. The climate crisis, too, requires urgent attention. These intersecting crises must be dealt with at the same time and should not be cynically traded off against each other in competing for political attention or funding.
This year has been extraordinarily volatile politically, with “change” elections around the world inserting uncertainty in the future direction of climate policy. One thing we cannot lose sight of is that the measure of climate ambition is not set by politics but by what science shows is necessary to help limit the worst impacts of climate change. Ambition should also encompass justice, to help ensure that the climate outcomes we strive to secure meet the needs of those with the fewest resources on the frontlines of a crisis that is not of their making. Equally, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels must be accompanied by just transition policies and investments for affected communities.
Here in the United States, regardless of the forthcoming election outcomes, we know the climate crisis is set to worsen and that without robust action, people and our economy will suffer as a result. That’s why we must push for policy solutions that increase the pace and magnitude of cuts in U.S. heat-trapping emissions; ramp up investments in climate resilience; and significantly increase our commitments toward international climate finance.
This will likely be the hottest year to date, and maybe one of the coolest in the years to come. Will politicians seize this narrowing window of opportunity to do what is both daunting and necessary for safeguarding the future of people around the world especially our children? Right now, the signs are not encouraging. We must demand much more of our leaders.