Around World’s Largest Climate Change Summit

The World’s Largest Climate Change Summit Starts Today. Here’s What’s Happening. Huffington Post 6 Nov 17 It is the first annual meeting of the United Nations group since President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris climate deal. Representatives from nearly 200 countries gather at the United Nations’ 23rd climate change conference beginning Monday, an annual effort to tackle global warming and its impacts already inflicting havoc on the planet.

This year, however, the U.N. faces a new challenge: Addressing the phenomenon after U.S. President Donald Trump, leader of the planet’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, pledged to do nothing to curb emissions.

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change will deal with that question in Bonn, Germany, from Nov. 6 to Nov. 17 as countries work to firm up their commitments to adapt to a warmer world in line with 2015′s landmark Paris Climate Agreement. Scientists say the world should prevent the planet from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a benchmark set by the Paris accord. Meeting the target means dramatic reduction in global emissions, and the Paris pact urges signatories to craft voluntary pledges to do that.

However, the agreement is not legally binding, and Trump followed through on a campaign pledge to withdraw America from what he calls the “draconian” pact in June. It is a multi-year process to do so, and the U.S. cannot leave until Nov. 4, 2020 ― the day after the next presidential election.

The Trump administration announced last week it would actively promote fossil fuelsduring a presentation at the climate conference, also known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP. Delegates sent by the White House will host a talk titled “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation,” which will tout the supposed benefits of coal, natural gas and nuclear power.

A delegation of U.S. negotiators are expected to work in Bonn to help write the rulebook for the Paris agreement, but their presence will be awkward. It’s unclear if negotiators from other countries will be willing to listen to a White House, which, under Trump, would not abide by any rules that emerge.

The summit will feature some U.S. star power, however. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and billionaire activist Tom Steyer are funding a pavilion to showcase climate action by U.S. cities and businesses. The federal government usually pays the $200,000 or so cost of the showcase, but declined to do so this year.

“The American people and American industry are pretty much all behind doing what the Paris agreement is designed to do, and that is to cut the amount of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere so we will slow down and maybe even stop climate change, which has the potential to destroy the world,” Bloomberg told The New York Times last month.

Environmental groups and local governments around the U.S. reacted with fury following Trump’s decision to quit the Paris deal, but pledged to do their part to combat his agenda with or without federal support. Other world leaders have vowed to move forward regardless, and in July, every member of the G20, aside from the U.S., unveiled a detailed policy to abide by the Paris pact in a clear rebuke of the White House. …..

China and India, are on track to meet their emissions-reduction targets years earlier than expected, and both have invested heavily in renewable energy.

The talks in Bonn will be relatively low key compared with prior summits, as countries work to refine guidelines and review procedures to ensure signatories are meeting their commitments. The U.N. has agreed that negotiators will need to have such a framework in place by a 2018 deadline to make sure nations are doing enough to combat climate change. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/bonn-climate-change-conference-united-nations_us_59fff9ece4b0c96530006e05

1.This Month

“Lessons from Fukushima” booklet, available in 14 languages.

of the week

Gender and Radiation Impact Project

Tri-Valley CAREs – Communities Against a Radioactive Environment

3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Terrible! 2/3

Pros and cons of public opinion polls – Jason Robert Jaffe

What About the Ozone Hole | Global Weirding

For First Time, Majority in U.S. Oppose Nuclear Energy, Gallup, BY REBECCA RIFFKIN , March 18, 2016,

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

54% of Americans oppose nuclear energy, 44% in favor
First time in Gallup’s trend that majority oppose nuclear energy
Both major parties less likely to favor nuclear energy than in 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time since Gallup first asked the question in 1994, a majority of Americans say they oppose nuclear energy. The 54% opposing it is up significantly from 43% a year ago, while the 44% who favor using nuclear energy is down from 51%.

Gallup asks Americans as part of its annual Environment poll if they favor or oppose the use of nuclear energy as one way to provide electricity. Each year from 2004 to 2015, a majority of Americans said they favored the use of nuclear energy, including a high of 62% in 2010.

In 2011, Gallup conducted its annual Environment poll a few days before the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and at that time, 57% of Americans were in favor of nuclear energy. The next time the question was asked in 2012, a similar majority still favored the use of nuclear energy.

And although there have not been any major nuclear incidents since Fukushima in 2011, a majority of U.S. adults now oppose nuclear energy. This suggests that energy prices and the perceived abundance of energy sources are the most relevant factors in attitudes toward nuclear power, rather than safety concerns prompted by nuclear incidents.

Lower gasoline prices over the past year are likely driving greater opposition toward the use of nuclear power. As Americans have paid less at the pump, their level of worry about the nation’s energy situation has dropped to 15-year-low levels. This appears to have resulted in more Americans prioritizing environmental protection and fewer backing nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Democrats and Republicans Less Likely to Favor Nuclear Energy

Republicans continue to be more likely than Democrats and independents to be in favor of nuclear energy. Still, support for the use of nuclear energy among Republicans and Democrats has declined in comparison to 2015. A slight majority of Republicans, 53%, are in favor of nuclear energy, down significantly from 68% last year. One in three Democrats, 34%, favor it, down from 42% in 2015. Independents’ support is essentially unchanged from last year, but is down from the high Gallup found in 2010……..

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted March 2-6, 2016, with a random sample of 1,019 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. https://news.gallup.com/poll/190064/first-time-majority-oppose-nuclear-energy.aspx

EVENTS

November-December 2018 International Uranium Film Festival – U.S. Southwest tour

November 29th and 30th and December 1st, Navajo Nation Museum, Hwy 264 & Post Office Loop, Window Rock, Navajo Nation, AZ

December 2nd, Flagstaff, AZ

December 6th, Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave, Albuquerque, NM

December 7th, Grants, NM

December 9th, Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe, NM

PETITIONS

Tell Congress: Stop Trump from ordering a nuclear first strike without a Congressional declaration of war.

PREVENT UNNECESSARY RADIOACTIVE RISKS ACROSS THE USA NATION

Protect Idaho’s water. Stop nuclear waste.

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope