Scientists Warn: The Paris Climate Agreement Needs Massive Improvement

http://www.thenation.com/article/scientists-warn-paris-climate-agreement-needs-massive-improvement/

Bill McKibben Speaks on Divestment at Cities & Regions Pavilion at COP21

On 11 December, Bill McKibben – world-renowned author, environmentalist and activist, and co-founder of campaign group 350.org – joined a panel at the Cites & Regions Pavilion at COP21 to discuss the global divestment movement.

350.org is one of the organizations at the forefront of the movement, which urges universities, businesses, cities and nations to stop investing money in companies that produce and distribute fossil fuels.

McKibben described how the divestment movement had grown at an extraordinary rate, with over USD3.4 billion divested since the beginning. He also emphasized the importance of cities, stating:

“Cities are great accelerators as they are smaller than nation states and can move faster, but they are big enough to matter and make a big difference.”

McKibben said that city leaders are increasingly receptive to the divestment argument:

“You’re investing lots in climate change adaptation; why are you investing in companies that are making it all necessary?”

Presentations were also given by May Boeve,­ Executive Director of of 350.org; Dr. Jeremy Legett, founder of Solarcentury; Clara Vondrich, Global Director, Divest­Invest Philanthropy; and Yunus Arikan, Head of Global Policy and Advocacy, ICLEI.

…(read more).

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China’s Emissions Pledges Are Undercut by Boom in Coal Projects Abroad – The New York Times

By MICHAEL FORSYTHEDEC. 11, 2015

Photo

The Duyen Hai complex in Tra Vinh Province is one of several coal-fired power plants that Chinese firms are building in Vietnam. Credit Christian Berg for The New York Times

The plant is one of a pair that have begun operating in the past five years in this village near the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong. A Shanghai firm completed work on a third plant this year by the old border that separated north from south during the Vietnam War. And another major plant financed by Chinese loans is under construction on the Mekong River Delta south of Ho Chi Minh City.

Altogether, Chinese engineering firms have built or signed contracts to build 14 coal-fired plants along the Vietnamese coast over the past five years, most of them with the help of loans from the government’s China Export-Import Bank.

• Glut of Coal-Fired Plants Casts Doubts on China’s Energy PrioritiesNOV. 11, 2015

The building spree here is hardly unique. Since 2010, Chinese state enterprises have finished, begun building or formally announced plans to build at least 92 coal-fired power plants in 27 countries, according to a review of public documents by The New York Times.

…(read more).

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Ban Ki-moon calls Paris climate talks ‘most complicated and difficult’ ever

As summit enters closing stages, UN secretary general urges negotiators to set aside national interests to reach a strong global deal for all

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, with UN climate chief Christiana Figueres (L), at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris, France. Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters

Adam Vaughan in Paris

Friday 11 December 2015 08.23 EST Last modified on Friday 11 December 2015 08.32 EST

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has said the international climate talks that are edging towards a conclusion in Paris have been the most complicated and difficult negotiations he has ever been involved in.

Ban said that differences still remain among the nearly 200 governments searching for a climate deal in Paris but he urged negotiators to set aside their national interests to reach a compromise.

• Live Paris climate conference: Ban Ki-moon tells governments to compromise on deal – live

The latest developments from COP21 as the UN climate summit enters its penultimate day

“This is not a moment of talking about national perspectives. A good global solution will help good local solutions,” he said. “I am urging and appealing to all the state parties to take the final decision for humanity.”

“I have been attending many difficult multilateral negotiations, but by any standard, this negotiation is most complicated, most difficult, but most important for humanity. We have just very limited hours remaining,” he added.

Ban was speaking as a fortnight of negotiations near their end, with governments seeking a legally-binding deal on curbing carbon emissions beyond 2020, when current commitments end. Around 150 leaders including Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, of the world’s two biggest emitting countries, attended the summit at the start but have since made way to politicians and negotiators who kept talking through Wednesday and Thursday nights.

…(read more).

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Will Mining Celestial Bodies Ruin Space? | Cognoscenti

Wed, Dec 09, 2015 by Joelle Renstrom

Joelle Renstrom: “Will wars over resources relocate to space? In the race to turn billions into trillions, will the rich hammer flags into asteroids and planets to claim them?” Pictured: Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. On Wednesday, November 25, 2015, President Obama signed the Asteroid Resources Property Rights Act, clearing the way for mining in space. (NASA via AP)

Last month, President Obama signed into law the Asteroid Resources Property Rights Acts, which means that American citizens can “engage in commercial exploration for and commercial recovery of space resources free from harmful interference.”

The bill defines space resources as non-terrestrial, non-biological assets, including water and minerals. Specifically, it refers to resources found on asteroids, which companies such as Planetary Resources will soon mine. The signing of this bill has been met with applause those whose sights have long been set on making fortunes from cosmic companies. In the long run, this bill may make the ruination of space more likely.

Once the technology and resources are in place, other companies from the U.S. and elsewhere will join them in the hunt for viable, resource-rich asteroids. And then what?

Our solar system has three types of asteroids: C-type (carbonaceous), S-type (silicaceous), and M-type (metallic). Most near-Earth asteroids are S-type, composed primarily of rock, and are probably the least useful for mining. C-type asteroids, the most common type, contain vast quantities of water, which could prove useful both in space and on Earth. Ceres, the largest asteroid yet discovered, may harbor more fresh water than our entire planet.

…(read more).

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Dispatch From COP21: The Convenient Truth About Soil | Cognoscenti

Fri, Dec 11, 2015 by Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann

Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann: “Soil restoration is a necessary second front in our battle against the heating up of Earth’s atmosphere.” Pictured: Drought-stricken land in Iraq in 2009. (Hadi Mizban/AP)

As the climate talks in Paris draw to a close, climate activists have taken note: Soil restoration is our ally in the fight against global warming. It is inexpensive (or even profitable), effective and easy to implement, and it yields multiple benefits. Besides capturing carbon and reversing desertification caused by severe drought, soil restoration enhances regional cooling, strengthens resilience against droughts and floods, and improves food quality. It is a necessary second front in our battle against the heating up of Earth’s atmosphere.

How so? Soil holds carbon — lots of it. Other than the oceans and fossil fuel deposits, soils are the largest reservoirs of carbon on the planet, holding approximately two times the amount in the atmosphere and vegetation combined. The dark color of fertile soil comes from the presence of organic carbon compounds.

Soil restoration is our ally in the fight against global warming.

Unfortunately, over the centuries, a great deal of carbon has been released from soils through agriculture — both primitive and modern. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes that reducing emissions alone will not stop global warming.  Disruptions, it says, are “irreversible” unless there is a “large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period.”

The good news is that what has been lost can be returned. The excess atmospheric carbon creating anxiety would be far more content in cozy soil. Photosynthesis is how it will get there, through the process whereby plants convert carbon in the air into organic molecules exuded by roots to feed hungry microbes underground.

…(read more).

See also

• Climate Change And The Next Genocide | On Point

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ENB Report | UNFCCC COP 21/CMP 11 (Negotiations) | 10 Dec 2015 | Paris, FR | IISD Reporting Services

Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB)

Volume 12 Number 662 | Friday, 11 December 2015

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Climate Justice Movement “Extremely Disappointed” in COP21 Draft’s “Failure to Step Up”

Democracy Now!

Published on Dec 11, 2015

Talks at the U.N. climate summit in Paris have been extended into the weekend as representatives from nearly 200 nations work to finalize a global accord. A new draft text includes the voluntary target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. Including the 1.5 degrees Celsius target meets a key demand of low-lying and vulnerable nations.

See:

• Draft Paris Outcome – Proposed by the President – Draft decision – Version 2 of 10 December 2015…CP.21

But environmentalists and civil society have criticized its voluntary nature along with many other provisions, including a failure to address gender equity; the weakening of access to financial assistance for vulnerable nations; the omission of specific dates for carbon cuts; and the failure to address military carbon emissions. The U.S. military alone uses $20 billion of energy a year—more than any other single U.S. consumer.

We examine what is in the latest draft text—and what has been left out—with a roundtable of women: Chee Yoke Ling, a legal adviser to the Third World Network based in Malaysia; Ruth Nyambura, a Kenyan political ecologist; and Kandi Mossett, an indigenous activist from North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We want to get out of this sinking ship, but countries like the U.S. are holding the lifeboats,” Nyambura says.

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Watch: Ta’Kaiya Blaney, 14-Year-Old First Nations Activist, Sings Her Song ” Turn the World Around”

Democracy Now!

Published on Dec 11, 2015

Ta’Kaiya Blaney is a 14-year-old activist, singer and actress from the Tla’amin First Nation, north of Vancouver, Canada. On Saturday, she sang her song “Turn the World Around” at the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature in Paris, France. “I was told by a Haida elder that to turn the world around, you have to turn it upside down,” Blaney told Democracy Now! after her performance.

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Love in the Anthropocene

“Dale Jamieson and Bonnie Nadzam cause us to think-and to feel-what life will be like in a future where nothing is left that is spontaneous, accidental, or uncontrolled. A beautiful-and frightening-book.” —Naomi Oreskes, professor, history of science, Harvard; author, Merchants of Doubt

“Nadzam’s prose is just gorgeous-she writes about people and skies and mountains and landscapes with incredible precision and appreciation of beauty. A reader can swim in these sentences and soak up the landscape via the prose with great pleasure.” —Aimee Bender on Bonnie Nadzam’s Lamb

“I started reading [Jamieson’s prose] and couldn’t stop… Part of what’s mesmerizing about climate change is its vastness across both space and time. Jamieson, by elucidating our past failures and casting doubt on whether we’ll ever do any better, situates it within a humanely scaled context.” —Jonathan Franzen on Dale Jamieson’s Reason in a Dark Time

An audacious collaboration between an award-winning novelist and a leading environmental philosopher, Love in the Anthropocene taps into one of the hottest topics of the day, literally and figuratively-our corrupted environment-to deliver five related stories (“Flyfishing,” “Carbon,” “Holiday,” “Shanghai,” and “Zoo”) that investigate a future bereft of natural environments, introduced with a discussion on the Anthropocene-the Age of Humanity-and concluding with an essay on love.

The “love” these writer/philosophers investigate and celebrate is as much a constant as is human despoliation of the planet; it is what defines us, and it is what may save us. Science fiction, literary fiction, philosophical meditation, manifesto? All the above. This unique work is destined to become an essential companion-a primer, really-to life in the 21st century.

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