The Rogue Crown Prince & the Dangerous US-Saudi-Israel Alliance

The Heat: UN climate deal

CGTN America
Published on Dec 17, 2018

Success at the UN Climate Conference. Delegates from nearly 200 countries reach an agreement aimed at putting the Paris accord to limit global warming into action. To discuss this, tonight’s panel includes, Ella Wang, China program manager with World Wildlife Fund China; Barbara Finamore, the founder of the China Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council and author of “Will China Save the Planet?”; Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University and Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser with the Progressive Policy Institute and President of Bledsoe and Associates.

190 countries agree to climate change rulebook at UN climate conference | DW News

DW News
Published on Dec 17, 2018

Optimists are hailing a climate agreement reached at the Poland climate conference, but skeptics fear it’s far too reliant on voluntary cooperation and does nothing to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Especially 15-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg caused a stir with her compelling speech

School strike for climate – save the world by changing the rules | Greta Thunberg | TEDxStockholm

Published on Dec 12, 2018
TEDx Talk

Greta Thunberg realized at a young age the lapse in what several climate experts were saying and in the actions that were being taken in society. The difference was so drastic in her opinion that she decided to take matters into her own hands. Greta is a 15-year-old Stockholm native who lives at home with her parents and sister Beata. She’s a 9th grader in Stockholm who enjoys spending her spare time riding Icelandic horses, spending time with her families two dogs, Moses and Roxy. She love animals and has a passion for books and science. At a young age, she became interested in the environment and convinced her family to adopt a sustainable lifestyle.

Ryan Zinke Steps Down as Interior Secretary as Ethics Scandals Mount

Dec 17, 2018

President Trump has ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to step down by the end of the year. Zinke’s resignation came amid at least 17 federal investigations into his suspected ethics violations and corruption, including at least one Justice Department probe that could result in criminal charges. During his less than two years at the Interior Department, Zinke presided over the largest rollback of protections to federal land in U.S. history and opened up vast swaths of U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas drilling. Trump is expected to name Zinke’s deputy, David Bernhardt, as acting interior secretary. Bernhardt is a former fossil fuel and water industry lobbyist who played a key role in weakening endangered species protections to allow for new oil and gas drilling in Western states.

Countries Adopt “Rulebook” to Implement Paris Climate Agreement

Dec 17, 2018

Delegates from nearly 200 countries have agreed to a United Nations deal on climate change that seeks to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius—or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The deal, brokered in a marathon session as two weeks of climate negotiations came to an end in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday, sets a so-called rulebook on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan welcomed the outcome as an important step but said countries still have to do far more to prevent the worst effects of catastrophic climate change.

Jennifer Morgan: “On this rulebook, I think that is a solid outcome. Basically what you now have is that all countries—the U.S., China, Europe, South Africa, etc.—have accepted binding rules and common rules to report and review what they’re doing. And that’s important. But that doesn’t substitute for the need to build ambition and to say, ‘OK, we get it. We’re going to go and increase our ambition,’ because it’s really the very existence of islands and people that’s at stake here.”

President Trump has pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Democracy Now! was at the U.N. talks in Katowice all last week; you can see our coverage archived here.

Typhoon Haiyan Survivor: Fossil Fuel Companies Killed My Family by Hastening Climate Change

Published on Dec 13, 2018
Democracy Now!

https://democracynow.org – As we broadcast from the U.N. climate summit in Katowice, Poland, world leaders and officials from nearly 200 countries are here to negotiate how to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. But three years after Paris, they appear no closer to curbing global emissions and halting catastrophic climate change. New studies show global carbon emissions may have risen as much as 3.7 percent in 2018, marking the second annual increase in a row. As the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe, we speak with Joanna Sustento, who has already felt the harrowing effects of climate change and has dedicated her life to climate activism as a result. Her life was turned upside down in 2013, when Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest cyclones in recorded history, devastated the Philippines, killing five members of her family and thousands of others.

As U.N. Calls for Urgent Action on Climate Change, U.S. Seeks to Dilute Pact to Cut Carbon Emissions

Published on Dec 13, 2018
Democracy Now

https://democracynow.org – U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres issued a dire warning Wednesday that nations must act now to save humanity from devastating climate change. Despite this call to action, talks here in Katowice have been hindered by the United States and the world’s other biggest polluters, who are promoting fossil fuels and focusing on reducing emissions in developing countries but not their own. Talks are supposed to conclude Friday, but negotiators have expressed little hope in meeting the deadline. “It’s really hypocritical that the United States is here, negotiating in what I would characterize as bad faith,” says Meena Raman, of the U.S. role in climate talks at COP24. “[The U.S.] is seeking to dilute further what was a very delicate treaty that was concluded.” Raman is coordinator of the climate change program at Third World Network.

Bangladeshi Scientist: World Leaders Must Take Urgent Action to Prevent Climate Crisis Rise

How Donald Trump Got Involved in a Global Fraud | The New Yorker

Published on Aug 17, 2017
The New Yorker

Adam Davidson follows the money trail in one of President Donald Trump’s past deals all the way to Vladimir Putin.