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Financial hypocrisy in Canada – the pretence that nuclear power is green and cheap

A Global First: BMO Supports Bruce Power with World’s First Nuclear Green Financing Framework, Yahoo Finance  TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ – Bruce Power, Ontario’s leading private sector power provider, has taken another industry-leading step in its environmental [?], social and governance strategy by launching the world’s first green [?] finance framework with nuclear use of proceeds.

Acting as Co-Lead Green Structuring Agent, BMO Financial Group (TSX:BMO) (NYSE:BMO), today announced the successful issuance of CAD $500 Million in green [?] bonds under the framework, which is designed to guide future issues of green bonds with a focus on Bruce Power’s Life-Extension Program and investments related to increasing the output of nuclear units and extending the plant’s life beyond 2060.

The framework sets out the guidelines in accordance with the Green Bond Principles issued by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and the Green Loan Principles issued by the Loan Market Association (LMA) and Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA) – ensuring the proceeds are exclusively allocated to green projects and activities that promote environmental sustainability and deliver clear environmental benefits.

CICERO Shades of Green, an internationally-recognized leading provider of independent review and second-party opinions on green financing frameworks, [REALLY?} has given Bruce Power’s Green Finance Framework the highest possible governance score of Excellent, and an overall designation of CICERO Medium Green, acknowledging the role of nuclear power in mitigating climate change and recognizing Bruce Power’s strong risk management processes.

Clean nuclear power is crucial to fighting climate change, and today’s announcement marks another industry-leading step in the company’s environmental, social and governance strategy,” said Mike Rencheck, Bruce Power’s President and CEO…..

“We’re proud to partner with Bruce Power to build a green framework that facilitates the alignment of the company’s business and financing activities to support nuclear power’s critical role in mitigating climate change,” said Jonathan Hackett, Head, Sustainable Finance, BMO Capital Markets. ………. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-first-bmo-supports-bruce-143800875.html

November 23, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate and biodiversity: mapping the irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems

Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires rapid decarbonization and improved ecosystem stewardship at a planetary scale. The carbon released through the burning of fossil fuels would take millennia to regenerate on Earth.

Though the timeframe of carbon recovery for ecosystems such as peatlands, mangroves and old-growth forests is shorter (centuries), this timeframe still exceeds the time we have remaining to avoid the worst
impacts of global warming. There are some natural places that we cannot afford to lose due to their irreplaceable carbon reserves. Here we map ‘irrecoverable carbon’ globally to identify ecosystem carbon that remains within human purview to manage and, if lost, could not be recovered by mid-century, by when we need to reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst climate impacts. Since 2010, agriculture, logging and wildfire have caused emissions of at least 4.0 Gt of irrecoverable carbon.

 Nature Sustainability 18th Nov 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00803-6

November 23, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Austria prepared to sue European Union if it includes nuclear in green finance taxonomy


Austria ready to sue EU over nuclear’s inclusion in green finance taxonomy
, By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.com, 18 Nov 2021

Austria’s energy and climate minister Leonore Gewessler told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview that her country was ready to go to court if the EU decides to include nuclear power into the bloc’s taxonomy on sustainable finance.

In October, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU executive would soon table proposals on gas and nuclear as part of the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy, a set of rules designed to provide investors with a common definition of what is green and what is not.

A group of twelve EU countries, led by France and Finland, want nuclear energy included, arguing it is a low-carbon energy source and that radioactive waste can be handled safely if appropriate measures are taken.

But Austria would be ready to challenge that decision in front of the European Court of Justice said Leonore Gewessler, the Austrian minister for climate protection and energy.

“There is no legal basis for including nuclear power in the EU taxonomy,” Gewessler said adding that, “Yes, if the EU taxonomy includes nuclear energy, we are ready to challenge that in court.”

Austria is at the centre of a five-country alliance bringing together Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal, which seeks to prevent the inclusion of nuclear energy in the EU’s green finance rules. The alliance was launched during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Legal analysis

For Gewessler, “the credibility of the taxonomy is at stake” when deciding how to classify nuclear under the EU’s green finance rules.

The Austrian energy and climate ministry commissioned a legal analysis earlier this year, which found that “that the inclusion of nuclear energy is not compatible with the legal basis of Article 10 of the Taxonomy Regulation,” she said.

“We have a great responsibility here, in terms of taxonomy, to remain consistent and coherent”  with the ambitions of the European Green Deal and maintain trust in the financial markets, she argued.

“The considerable damage caused by nuclear energy is well documented historically,” she explained, citing “the dangers of nuclear power itself” as evidenced by the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters.

The safe disposal of spent radioactive fuel is also a matter of concern. “We have not yet found a global solution for…the question of final storage,” she said.

Besides, nuclear power “is much too expensive and much too slow to make a contribution” to the bloc’s climate goals, Gewessler continued.

The next-generation French reactor currently being built at Flamanville, whose construction started in 2007, has been massively delayed, with completion now scheduled in 2023 while costs have increased fivefold, she remarked.

Earlier this month, leading French EU lawmaker Pascal Canfin proposed letting nuclear energy and gas in the taxonomy as “transition” energy sources while the bloc pursues its long-term switch to renewable energy sources.

Canfin’s suggestion is to label gas a “transition” investment when it replaces coal and provided strict emission thresholds are met.

But Gewessler rejected that proposal too. “Just because something is less bad than coal doesn’t make it good or sustainable. It is still fossil energy,” she said………..

Austria’s neighbour Germany can always be counted on in the fight against nuclear power.

“Nuclear power cannot be a solution in the climate crisis, it is too risky, it is too slow, it is too expensive,” explained her German counterpart Svenja Schulze, caretaker minister of the environment, on 11 November.

“No climate activist should rely on nuclear power,” she added.

 2021

November 22, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, Legal | Leave a comment

Heritage Foundation – murky think tank funded by the nuclear weapons industry, wants weapons-makers to be exempt from climate and pandemic regulations

“Defense industrial base” is a buzzword that has picked up steam during the pandemic: It sends the message that, whatever happens with the economy and pandemic, we need to make sure we are in “fighting shape” — by keeping military contractors afloat. This concept was invoked to explain why, at the beginning of the pandemic, factories that produce bombs and tankers should be allowed to stay open, even amid the outbreak risk to workers. And it was also used to justify subsidies to contractors during the hardship of the pandemic.

Lockheed Martin is just one of numerous weapons manufacturers that has directly funded the Heritage Foundation. According to a report by the think tank Center for International Policy (CIP), the Heritage Foundation ranks ninth among the top think tanks that received funding from military contractors and the U.S. government from 2014 to 2019. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon were two of those major funders, both of which are among the largest weapons companies in the world and would be impacted by the new regulation.

This case provides a window into the murky world of think tanks, which are often viewed as academic and above-the-fray institutions but operate more as lobbying outfits.


Think Tank Funded by the Weapons Industry Pressures Biden Not to Regulate Military Contractors’ Emissions  
https://www.rsn.org/001/think-tank-funded-by-the-weapons-industry-pressures-biden-not-to-regulate-military-contractors-emissions.html

Sarah Lazare/In These Time
s   19 November 21T
he Heritage Foundation has received considerable donations from the arms industry. And now it’s trying to shield that industry from climate regulations targeting military contractors.

The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, is publicly opposing a new Biden administration regulation that would force the weapons industry to report its greenhouse gas emissions related to federal contracts. It turns out the Heritage Foundation also receives significant funding from the weapons industry, which makes the case worth examining — because it reveals how the arms industry pays supposedly respectable institutions to do its policy bidding at the expense of a planet careening toward large-scale climate disaster.

The regulation in question was first proposed in an executive order in May. It would require federal contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and their “climate-related financial risk,” and to set “science-based reduction targets.” In other words, companies like Lockheed Martin would have to disclose how much carbon pollution its F‑35 aircraft and cluster bombs actually cause.

In October, the Biden administration started the process to amend federal procurement rules to reflect these changes. “Today’s action sends a strong signal that in order to do business with the federal government, companies must protect consumers by beginning to mitigate the impact of climate change on their operations and supply chains,” Shalanda Young, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said at the time.The Department of Defense is the world’s biggest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and a bigger carbon polluter than 140 countries. Yet its emissions (and those of other armed forces) are excluded from UN climate negotiations, including the recent COP26 talks. The Biden administration itself supports a massive military budget, initially requesting $753 billion for the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, a number that has since ballooned, with the Senate set to vote on a $778 billion plan. Organizers and researchers argue that, to curb the climate crisis, it is necessary to roll back U.S. militarism and dismantle the military budget.

But according to the Heritage Foundation, even this modest proposal is a bridge too far.

Continue reading

November 22, 2021 Posted by | climate change, politics, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

No greenwashing in Europe to save the nuclear industry!

No “greenwashing” to save nuclear power! While several states of the
European Union support atomic energy, a collective of associations
dismantles clichés on nuclear power and reminds us that in 2020, renewable
energies (excluding hydraulic) have exceeded the nuclear energy production.

 Liberation 19th Nov 2021

https://www.liberation.fr/idees-et-debats/tribunes/pas-de-greenwashing-pour-sauver-le-nucleaire-20211119_NMDHQGAT75HLRHA5ZTQIDUH6W4/

November 22, 2021 Posted by | climate change, France, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

The 2015 Paris climate agreement – a weak ‘treaty’, but it is working up to a point.

 In many ways, the landmark climate accord, agreed to at a U.N. summit in 2015, is a weak treaty. Despite the fanfare that accompanied its signing, the agreement has no binding limits on emissions, relies on countries to set their own goals for slashing pollution, and rests on an assumption that they can be shamed into living up to their promises.

It’s not even a real treaty: To get the U.S. on board, the architects of the accord crafted it as an “executive agreement” — no Congressional approval needed.

And yet, somehow, the Paris Agreement is working. To a point. The most recent U.N. climate conference, which wrapped last weekend in Glasgow, Scotland, showed signs of progress that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. Under the Paris Agreement, nations have to submit pledges (or
promises, or wishful thinking, depending on who you ask) for how much they will reduce emissions every five years.

That’s the core of the agreement:
Voluntary pledges enacted and reviewed in a soup of international peer pressure that, ideally, will push countries to steadily do more and more.The goal is to use this system of “pledge and review” to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius — or, ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius.

 Grist 17th Nov 2021

https://grist.org/cop26/cop26-shows-the-paris-agreement-is-kinda-sorta-working/

November 22, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

COP 27 in Egypt: growing concern that civil society groups will have restricted access

Concern is growing over plans to host a UN climate conference in Sharm
el-Sheikh next year, in what will be a crucial summit if the world is to
limit global heating to 1.5C. Several green experts and human rights
activists have told the Observer they fear the ability of civil society
groups to protest at the summit will be curtailed by Egypt’s
authoritarian regime, reducing the pressure that can be brought to bear on
leaders and ministers from the nearly 200 countries expected to take part.

 Guardian 21st Nov 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/cop27-is-in-egypt-next-year-but-will-anyone-be-allowed-to-protest

November 22, 2021 Posted by | climate change, Egypt | Leave a comment

German banks sceptical about nuclear and gas inclusion in green taxonomy.

German banks sceptical about nuclear and gas inclusion in green taxonomy.
Eight German banks have said there is “limited room” for nuclear and
gas power in the EU’s list of sustainable economic investments, warning
that the ‘green taxonomy’ should only include genuinely
climate-friendly activities.

 ENDS Europe 19th Nov 2021

https://www.endseurope.com/article/1733713/german-banks-sceptical-nuclear-gas-inclusion-green-taxonomy

November 22, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, Germany | Leave a comment

“Rather than contributing to net zero, Bradwell B nuclear plant would be ‘ideally placed’ to become the casualty of climate change.”

CAMPAIGNERS fighting against plans for a new nuclear power station have hit out at claims it is a key asset in the fight against climate change. The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) has refuted a statement saying the Bradwell B power station would be Essex’s “biggest contribution to climate action”. The statement from Bradwell B Power Station came in relation to the COP26 climate discussions in Glasgow and said the project was “ideally placed” to play a “major part” in achieving net zero by 2050 emission goals.

But BANNG has claimed, due to the nuclear power station being on a low-lying site, rising global
temperatures would see it become vulnerable to rising sea levels and other weather events by the end of the century. BANNG’s secretary Varrie Blowers added: “Rather than contributing to net zero, Bradwell B would be ‘ideally placed’ to become the casualty of climate change.”

 Braintree & Witham Times 17th Nov 2021

November 20, 2021 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

Climate change intensifies disastrous floods in Canada

A state of emergency has been declared in the Canadian western province of
British Columbia after a major storm cut road and rail links in the region.
The Canadian Armed Forces have been deployed to help thousands of stranded
residents who have been trapped since the storm hit overnight on Sunday.
Local officials warned on Thursday that the price tag to rebuild could
exceed C$1bn ($790m, £590m). One woman was killed in a landslide, and two
people are missing. Officials expect more fatalities to be confirmed in the
coming days. One man caught up in the storm told the BBC the scenes
afterwards were like “Armageddon”.

 BBC 18th Nov 2021

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59324764

 Canada floods: 18,000 people still stranded in ‘terrible, terrible
disaster’. Alarm grows about climate change in British Columbia after
summer wildfires wiped out vegetation that could have slowed flooding.

 Guardian 19th Nov 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/18/residents-brace-for-torrential-rains-in-already-flooded-western-canada

November 20, 2021 Posted by | Canada, climate change | Leave a comment

Antarctic ice sheet changed alarmingly quickly in past – and may be happening again now

Our findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence suggesting the acceleration of Antarctic ice-mass loss in recent decades may mark the beginning of a self-sustaining and irreversible period of ice sheet retreat and substantial global sea level rise,

“When we might see the eventual stabilisation of the ice sheet is unknown, because it will depend significantly on how much future climate warming occurs.”

Antarctic ice sheet changed alarmingly quickly in past – and may be happening again now, more https://www.miragenews.com/antarctic-ice-sheet-changed-alarmingly-quickly-676904/  19 Nov 21, Patterns of rapid ice loss in the past could predict style of future Antarctic ice sheet retreat.

The melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have already passed a point of no return, a new study has found, and scientists say it could contribute to sea level rise over coming centuries and possibly millennia.

The study, published overnight in Nature Communications and co-authored by Dr Zoë Thomas and Professor Chris Turney from UNSW Sydney, used geological data from Antarctica combined with computer models and statistical analyses to understand how recent changes compare to those from the past going back thousands of years.

Our study reveals that during times in the past when the ice sheet retreated, the periods of rapid mass loss ‘switched on’ very abruptly, within only a decade or two,” says Dr Thomas.

“Interestingly, after the ice sheet continued to retreat for several hundred years, it ‘switched off’ again, also only taking a couple of decades.”

Dr Thomas says the Antarctic Ice Sheet went through many of these on/off episodes, each time contributing to global sea level rise as the world warmed at the end of the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago.

The researchers’ findings confirm computer modelling that had indicated that the diminishing ice sheet had passed a critical tipping point leading to irreversible loss of parts of the ice sheet below sea level.

“We have already observed over the last two decades that the Antarctic Ice Sheet has suddenly started losing ice which has contributed to rising sea levels around the world,” says Prof. Turney.

“But the satellite data showing this speed-up only go back about 40 years, so we needed longer records to put this change in context.”

Looking for clues

The researchers examined the gritty sediments released from melting icebergs that settled into mud on the sea floor for clues to the ice sheet’s history of retreat and growth phases.

By counting the amounts of this iceberg-rafted sediment through the core, the scientists were able to identify eight phases with high amounts of debris which they interpreted as retreat phases of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Each phase showed the same pattern – the ice sheet destabilised within a decade, contributed to global sea level rise for centuries to a millennium, and then subsequently re-stabilised equally rapidly.

Combining the sediment record with computer models of ice sheet behaviour, the team showed that each episode of increased iceberg calving reflected increased loss of ice from the interior of the ice sheet, not just changes in the already-floating ice shelves.

Professor Nick Golledge from Te Puna Pātiotio, the Antarctic Research Centre at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, led the ice-sheet modelling.

“We found that iceberg calving events on multi-year time scales were synchronous with discharge of grounded ice from the Antarctic Ice Sheet,” he says.

Warning signs

Dr Thomas then applied statistical methods to the model outputs to see if early warning signs could be detected for tipping points in the ice sheet system. Her analyses confirmed that tipping points did indeed exist.

“If it just takes one decade to tip a system like this, that’s actually quite scary because if the Antarctic Ice Sheet behaves in future like it did in the past, we must be experiencing the tipping right now,” she says.

Lead author Dr Michael Weber, from the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Bonn, led the team that recovered cores of the sediment from the Southern Ocean.

“Our findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence suggesting the acceleration of Antarctic ice-mass loss in recent decades may mark the beginning of a self-sustaining and irreversible period of ice sheet retreat and substantial global sea level rise,” he says.

“When we might see the eventual stabilisation of the ice sheet is unknown, because it will depend significantly on how much future climate warming occurs.”

November 20, 2021 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, climate change | Leave a comment

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel maintains stand against nuclear power being classified as sustainable

Merkel defends nuclear power exit despite climate challenges,  Euro News,  By Andreas Rinke, 17 Nov 21,

BERLIN -Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her decision to phase out nuclear energy, even though it has made it harder for Germany to wean its economy off fossil fuels.

In an interview with Reuters, the outgoing chancellor also said she was opposed to any plans by the European Union to label nuclear power as “sustainable”.

“It’s true, of course, that we now face the very ambitious and challenging task of completing the energy transition while phasing out coal and nuclear power,” said Merkel, who will step down once a new government is sworn in following an election in September.

“But it’s also true that this will be worth it for our country if we do it right.”

Merkel, who has led her country for 16 years, pushed for Germany to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in Japan a decade ago, a decision that most Germans agree with……..

RENEWABLES

The share of renewables in the energy mix of Europe’s largest economy has been growing steadily since the Fukushima disaster, though energy economists say it has not risen fast enough to help Germany meet its ambitious emissions targets.

Renewables accounted for 45% of Germany’s energy last year, up from 17% in 2010, data compiled by the Agora Energiewende think-tank showed. The share of electricity generated from coal fell to 23% from 42% a decade ago. Nuclear power was halved to 11%.

The EU executive, the European Commission, is drawing up a sustainable finance “taxonomy” setting out which activities meet the environmental criteria to qualify for funding under an EU sustainable investment programme.

A document viewed by Reuters in March indicated experts were preparing to label nuclear power as sustainable because it has none of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by fossil fuels.

Merkel said Germany would continue to oppose the plan but acknowledged that it would be hard to rally 19 other members behind its position to block it.

“It’s difficult to stall the procedure as such once the European Commission has presented an act,” said Merkel.

“We in Germany believe – across party lines – that nuclear energy should not be classified as being as clean as wind and solar energy.”……… https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/11/17/germany-merkel-nuclear-exclusive

November 18, 2021 Posted by | climate change, Germany, renewable | 1 Comment

The consumerism that destroys life is also the cause of the environmental emergency — Hawkins Bay Dispatch — Barbara Crane Navarro

The consumerism that destroys life is also the cause of the environmental emergency, https://hawkinsbay.wordpress.com/2021/11/13/the-consumerism-that-destroys-life-is-also-the-cause-of-the-environmental-emergency/

Decades ago, corporations and governments invented the traits we now call ‘human nature.’ COP26 has shown ‘consumers’ that buying something ‘different’ is not working. 13 November 2021 | Graham Peebles | Euroasia Review The natural environment has been poisoned, vandalized and trashed in accordance with the demands and values of the all-pervasive socio-economic system, and as long as it persists it is impossible to imagine the steps required to save the natural world being taken

The consumerism that destroys life is also the cause of the environmental emergency — Hawkins Bay Dispatch — Barbara Crane Navarro

greed, ownership of things (homes, cars, clothes etc.), and the general accumulation of stuff is insisted upon, for the simple reason that it is consumerism that feeds the monster. This very same consumerism, which is perpetuating unhappiness and fuelling ill health, is also the underlying cause of the environmental emergency.

As COP26 draws to an unimpressive close, governments haggle over emission targets, funding of fossil fuels and money for the global south, and a new poll reports that most people (in the 10 countries polled, including UK, US, Germany, France) say they are unwilling to alter their way of life to save our planet. We must once again ask, what will it take for humanity to wake up and change?

Economic considerations and short term self-interest will continue to be applied and the devastation will continue.

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November 16, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change | Leave a comment

Over 100 European non government organisations urge the European Commission to block nuclear power from being accepted as a clean green investment

NGOs press Germany to block nuclear, gas green status  https://www.montelnews.com/news/1272742/ngos-press-germany-to-block-nuclear-gas-green-status SIOBHAN HALL, Brussels, 16 Nov 2021   

Montel) More than 100 NGOs from across Europe have urged Germany to ensure nuclear and natural gas-fired power plants do not qualify as “green” investments under the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy.

They expressed concern in a letter to future German chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday that the European Commission was finalising the rules for nuclear and natural gas while Germany was focused on forming its new government.

The country has committed to phase out nuclear power by the end of next year and the NGOs urged Scholz to “take an equally clear stance” against nuclear power and natural gas in EU level rules. 
An unofficial draft paper circulating in Brussels recently set out potential criteria for including gas-fired power plants and nuclear as green as part of new taxonomy proposals.

EU pressure

In October, 10 EU countries led by France signed a joint declaration urging the EC to recognise nuclear and natural gas as sustainable activities according to the taxonomy.

Doing so would make it cheaper to finance and build new nuclear power plants, said the Czech Republic’s deputy prime minister Karel Havlicek at the time.

The other countries involved were Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

On Sunday, environmental group Greenpeace attacked the EC over potential plans to define gas and nuclear as green against the backdrop of a “weak” agreement made at the conclusion of COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.  

“Over the last two weeks of climate talks, the European Commission has supported fast-track funding for new gas terminals and pipelines, and labelled gas, nuclear energy and industrial farming as sustainable and eligible for green funding,” said the group. 

November 16, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Action on global heating? Inadequate COP26 kept this possibility alive, by just a thread

The best that can be said about Cop26 is that it has kept the possibility of limiting global heating to 1.5C alive, if only by a thread. The worst outcome of this conference would have been if countries had agreed to next reopen their commitments to reduce emissions only in five years’ time, as was agreed in Paris in 2015. This would have been nothing short of a disaster. It would have firmly put the world on the path to catastrophic and irreversible overheating – involving the deaths of tens of millions of people and the total obliteration of some countries as a result of rising sea levels. It would have thrown away humanity’s last chance of
avoiding this fate.

Instead, countries have agreed to come back to revisit their commitments in a year’s time, and every year after that. Something
radical will need to shift in the next year or two in order to achieve the commitments that are urgently needed to limit warming to 1.5C. Take the UK’s net zero strategy, for example, which falls far short of what is needed in order for it to achieve its stated goal of net zero emissions by 2050. It has been estimated we need to be investing about 1% of GDP to meet this; but the government has committed just a fraction of that, and the strategy is further undermined by the government reneging on its own policy
commitments, including its recent scrapping of the green homes schemes and the delay in the phase-out of gas boilers.

 Observer Editorial 13th Nov 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2021/nov/13/the-observer-view-on-the-cop26-agreement

November 15, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment