Category: Climate

Even as governments set climate targets, they’re working hard to expand the extractive global economy with measures that could deepen the climate crisis. We need to leave more than 80 percent of known oil, coal, and gas reserves in the ground to avoid triggering catastrophic climate change. That means shifting away from an economy driven by digging, pumping, and burning fossil fuels to one that puts people and the planet first. On this the science is simple, but the politics are fraught. The upcoming UN summit in Paris, where governments from almost every country on Earth will meet to hammer out a new global climate deal, would seem the logical place to set that change in motion. These forums are the only place where nations sit together as equals, at least ostensibly, to address what’s truly a global problem. So can these talks deliver an agreement that moves us […]

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AP Photo/Jacques Brinon WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the elephant in the negotiating room that few officials want to acknowledge: Whatever international deal comes out of Paris climate talks, it likely won’t be a treaty that needs ratification by a reluctant Republican U.S. Congress. That’s not the only complication in Paris. China, the U.S. and India don’t want the international community dictating their carbon dioxide emissions, but they do want to do something about ever escalating greenhouse gas levels and the rising temperatures they cause. So they have to come up with an agreement that doesn’t dictate binding, internationally set targets or require U.S. Senate approval – and yet gets the job done. At least partly. To do so, they must reach a pact that has as many twists and turns as a pretzel. "It’s a reality that the world is coming to grips with," former Vice President Al Gore […]

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Hills protruding from the fog near lower Zachariae Glacier. Credits: NASA/John Sonntag As the world prepares for the most important global climate summit yet in Paris later this month, news from Greenland could add urgency to the negotiations. For another major glacier appears to have begun a rapid retreat into a deep underwater basin, a troubling sign previously noticed at Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier and also in the Amundsen Sea region of West Antarctica. And in all of these cases, warm ocean waters reaching the deep bases of marine glaciers appears to be a major cause. The new fast-moving glacier is the Zachariae glacier or Zachariæ Isstrøm, located in the far northeastern part of Greenland. In a new paper in Science , Jeremie Mouginot of the University of California-Irvine and his colleagues find that the ocean-based glacier, which contains 0.5 meters or a foot and a half of potential sea […]

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STREE. REPORTAGE SUR LE SITE DE GAL CONDRUSES DANS LE CADRE DE LIEGE EN TRANSITION. Photo Michel Tonneau STREE. REPORTAGE SUR LE SITE DE GAL CONDRUSES DANS LE CADRE DE LIEGE EN TRANSITION. Photo Michel Tonneau With fewer than three weeks to go until the start of COP21, the UN’s climate negotiations in Paris, a question arises: Will this gathering make the slightest difference? For Rob Hopkins, editor of a new book from Transition Network, 21 Stories of Transition , answer is yes – but a different kind of yes than the global leaders meeting in Paris probably have in mind. He wants decision makers to reimagine their role as being ‘community enablers’ whose task is to deepen, connect and extend initiatives that are already out there. A huge upsurge in transformative local projects is evident around the world, argues Hopkins; the priority is not for global leaders to […]

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The last time this much public attention was focused on the climate talks was in the lead-up to the Copenhagen conference in 2009. We should not forget how that turned out. (Image: via PabloSolon.com ) Ed. note: Portions of Brian’s latest book, Towards Climate Justice , were adapted for this article. From the end of this month through early December, much of the world’s attention will be focused on Paris, the site of the upcoming round of UN climate negotiations. This is the twenty-first time diplomats and heads of state will gather under the umbrella of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a document first put forward at the landmark 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro – the same global conference where the elder George Bush told the world that the “American way of life is not negotiable.” The UNFCCC process has had its ups and […]

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El Nino could have a bigger impact on grain and oilseed markets than drought in Russia and Ukraine, which may be alleviated before the crucial spring growth period, analysts said on Wednesday. "You can’t have a drought problem overnight," David Hightower, president of research firm The Hightower Report, said of conditions in Russia and Ukraine. Speaking at the Global Grain conference in Geneva, he said El Nino, however, could have far-reaching effects if it lowers palm oil output in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia. A 10 percent drop in palm oil exports next year would require 4.7 million tonnes of alternative edible oils to be supplied for the world market, he said. "We don’t know what the impact of El Nino is going to be but China and India are much more significant (consumers) than in the previous El Nino cycle." Tightening supply in oilseed markets could spill over […]

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Smoke is released into the sky at a refinery in Wilmington, California March 24, 2012. This year many of us have increased our advocacy on this issue. And last month, companies responsible for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply in the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) threw their support behind a new global agreement at the forthcoming UN talks in Paris. For oil and gas companies to take such a stance has been described as "unusual" — and even "unprecedented". However, in fact, in BP we have publicly acknowledged the risk and have been working to address it since the 1990s. So why do companies that produce oil and gas want to see more done to tackle climate change? The first reason is simply that we want the planet to be sustainable in the future. We have the same hopes and fears for our children […]

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