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Japan: the next generation of LDP leaders embrace both carbon neutrality and the elimination of nuclear energy.

Nuclear Power and Japan’s 2050 Climate Pledge

Japan’s latest carbon-neutrality pledge puts the spotlight on the challenges facing the country’s nuclear power industry. The Diplomat , By Tom Corben,, November 05, 2020 In his inaugural address to the Diet last month, Japan’s Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide officially announced that his government would revise the country’s carbon-neutrality commitments, aiming for zero emissions by 2050. Suga expressed his intent to “put maximum effort into achieving a green society…..

Importantly, it seems as though the next generation of LDP leaders are embracing both carbon neutrality and the elimination of nuclear energy. Like Abe governments of the recent past, Suga’s cabinet features two particularly prominent politicians and possible future prime ministers who have stated their anti-nuclear preferences before, one of whom – Koizumi Shinjiro – is also the incumbent minister for the environment. Though the Environment Ministry does not officially set Japan’s energy policy, Koizumi has nevertheless been a driving force behind many of Japan’s recent environmental and clean energy initiatives since assuming his post in September 2019, including the revision of Japan’s decarbonization target.

In that respect, Koizumi has also been a vocal supporter both of Japan’s decision to more tightly regulate the country’s exports of coal-fired power stations and of reducing the country’s own reliance on those facilities. Koizumi has also proposed easing restrictions on building solar and wind turbine sites in Japan’s national parks, part of a solution to get around the challenge that Japan’s land scarcity has posed to the mass introduction of renewables. Though he has made no extensive public comment on phasing out nuclear power since his inaugural press conference last year, that silence may in itself may be an indication that Koizumi’s views on a nuclear phaseout remain unchanged even in the wake of more ambitious climate targets.

Of course, the nuclear lobby’s entrenched interests at the highest levels of the government and within the LDP itself will likely continue to frustrate efforts to comprehensively revise Japan’s nuclear energy policies. Indeed, there is every chance that the revised Basic Energy Plan due next year will maintain, if not expand, the share of Japan’s energy mix allocated to nuclear power. Still, without significant changes to the regulatory environment, a more favorable business environment, or a major shift in public opinion or political support, at present it is difficult to see Japan’s nuclear power industry making a major contribution to Japan’s carbon-neutrality goals in the coming decades.

Tom Corben is a resident Vasey Fellow with Pacific Forum. https://thediplomat.com/2020/11/nuclear-power-and-japans-2050-climate-pledge/

November 7, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Putin orders Russian government to try to meet Paris climate goals

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ordering the Russian government to try to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change, but stressed that any action must be balanced with the need to ensure strong economic development.

November 7, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, Russia | Leave a comment

A new nuclear power plant at Sizewell is the wrong choice for a zero carbon Britain

A new nuclear power plant at Sizewell is the wrong choice for a zero carbon Britain, The climate column: The proposed Sizewell C will not produce electricity until about 2040, which it means it cannot reduce the UK’s carbon emissions with the speed necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points The Independent , Donnachadh McCarthy@DonnachadhMc 6 Nov 20,

Just weeks ago, the Climate Assembly set up by parliament rejected nuclear power as an answer to creating a zero-carbon economy. This was due to cost, safety and difficulties with waste storage and decommissioning.

Yet Boris Johnson is reported to be about to commit Britain to buying another hugely expensive nuclear power station.

As this new plant would not be producing electricity until about 2040, it means it cannot reduce the UK’s carbon emissions with the speed necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points, whereas cheaper renewables can be up and running within a couple of years of being commissioned.

Consider the following analogy. Four years ago, you needed to replace your gas boiler and a company came along and offered to sell you the world’s most expensive experimental boiler ever. It’s been trying to build the first four of them for over 20 years but had not yet got any actually working.

The first one it tried to build, in Finland, is already 13 years behind schedule and has more than tripled in price. The second one it tried to build, in France, is 10 years behind schedule, now costs six times the original quote and has encountered monumental safety issues.

They then tell you the boiler was filled with lethal toxins, which if the boiler’s seals broke, could explode and kill everybody in your house. All your neighbours would have to be permanently evacuated immediately without being allowed to collect their lethally contaminated belongings and the area around your boiler would become an exclusion zone for generations.

The sales-person added that the boiler will cost up to twice as much to run as your current boiler. They demanded you sign a 35-year inflation-proofed deal that makes it difficult to switch to a cheaper renewable energy supplier or use energy efficiency measures to reduce your need for the boiler.

Every single bank refused to lend you the money to install your new boiler, as they believed it was a financially insane project to lend money to.

There was another problem. The experimental boiler continuously produces highly-toxic explosive waste that the supplier, after 70 years of trying, still has no idea what to do with. You would have to store it in your cellar, until somebody miraculously comes up with a way to store it safely for millennia.

The salesperson neglected to add that you had to pay for the costs of removing the boiler at the end of its life but that the process takes hundreds of years to complete.

I tell you this imaginary tale to try and explain the utter insanity of what the UK government did when it signed the contract with EDF Energy to build a new Hinkley Point nuclear power plant in 2016. Hinkley is already a year behind schedule and nearly £3bn over budget.

And now imagine this. Despite all of the above and knowing that renewable energy alternatives have already fallen to less than half of the cost of this experimental boiler and that new renewable electricity storage technologies have been likewise collapsing in price, the same contractor comes back to you to persuade you to buy another of these hugely expensive boilers for your second home.

Unlike almost every single government in the world, Boris Johnson’s government is reported to be planning on announcing in the next few weeks that the UK will agree to build a second new EDF nuclear power plant at Sizewell in Suffolk. Why would any supposedly sane country sign such crazy energy contracts? ……… https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nuclear-power-plant-sizewell-boris-johnson-b1622086.html

November 7, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Biden as president would pursue climate ‘cheaters’, such as Morrison’s Australia

Biden as president would pursue climate ‘cheaters’ – and Australia could be among them, Scott Morrison has resisted a call to action from the UK – but the US would be hard to ignore, Guardian, Richie Merzian 4 Nov 20, ”…….. If Joe Biden takes the Oval Office, on the day of his inauguration, 20 January 2021, he can formally ask to rejoin the Paris agreement. It takes one year to pull out but only 30 days to sign up. However, regaining membership to the agreement is just the beginning. The divergence on climate policy between the Democratic and Republican candidates is huge – possibly the widest divide between the two platforms – and while Trump questions global warming, Biden has the most ambitious climate policies of any presidential candidate (exceeding those of Barack Obama).First, Biden will lock the US into net zero emissions by 2050. Not an ill-defined target some time in the second half of the century, like the Australian government’s, but a 30-year target. A target that means putting coal, oil and gas on a downward trajectory, and bringing total global CO2 emissions under a net-zero target to over 60%, including major importers of Australian coal and gas – China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Within his first 100 days, Biden has committed to convene a climate world summit to directly engage the leaders of the major carbon-emitting nations of the world to persuade them to join the United States in making more ambitious national pledges, above and beyond the commitments they have already made. From the US, we could see a new, more ambitious emission reduction target than its underwhelming 26-28% by 2025 (if that sounds familiar, it’s because Australia has the exact same underwhelming target range but for 2030, and without the desire to improve it).

Importantly, Biden will pursue countries seen as “cheating” on climate action, using “America’s economic leverage and power of example”. Given the Morrison government’s insistence on using leftover carbon credits to avoid any credible emission reductions over the next decade – dubbed by the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres as “cheating” and by numerous Australian law professors as legally baseless – Australia may be a target of that pursuit.

Australia and the US might also be at odds over financial support for climate action in developing countries. Biden’s campaign promises include meeting the US climate finance pledge, of which $2bn to the Green Climate Fund is still outstanding. Prime minister Scott Morrison pulled Australia out of the Green Climate Fund in 2018 during an interview with Alan Jones and has resisted calls since from our neighbours in the Pacific to rejoin.

While presidential office is key, if Democrats take a majority of Senate seats their capabilities on climate would grow fast. The president, Senate and key states could see the US move quickly – even this year.

And much like the climate leadership shown by states and territories in Australia that are all signed up to net-zero by 2050 targets, a number of US state governments have already banded together to take climate action under Trump. According to the America’s Pledge report, sub-national action makes it possible for the US to cut emissions by 37% by 2030. And despite Trump’s best efforts to revive the coal industry, more coal capacity (37GW) has been retired under his presidency than during Obama’s second term (33GW). The US consumed more energy from renewables than coal in 2019, for the first time in over a century, setting the stage for Biden’s promise of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.

This 12 December the Paris agreement turns five. The United Kingdom, which will host the next UN climate conference, will mark the occasion with an ambition summit. And while Scott Morrison has resisted calls from the UK to do more on climate, it may be harder to resist similar calls from the US.

Morrison claims, “Our policies won’t be set in the United Kingdom, they won’t be set in Brussels, they won’t be set in any part of the world other than here.” I wouldn’t be so sure. When former president Obama pressured the Abbott government to do more on climate change in 2014, it had an impact. Let’s see what happens when Washington calls again. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/04/biden-as-president-would-pursue-climate-cheaters-and-australia-could-be-among-them

November 5, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

United States under Donald Trump formally exits Paris Agreement on climate change

United States under Donald Trump formally exits Paris Agreement on climate change https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-05/us-formally-exits-paris-climate-change-agreement-trump/12849940
The United States has formally left the Paris Agreement, a global pact forged five years ago to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change.Key points:

The Paris Accord requires countries to set their own voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases
The United States is the world’s second biggest emitter after China
Any rise beyond two degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world

The Trump administration told the United Nations it intends to pull out of the agreement in 2017.

Some 189 countries remain committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Moving forward the agreement aims to keep the global increase in average temperatures worldwide “well below” two degrees Celsius, ideally no more than 1.5 Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

A further six countries have signed, but not ratified the pact.

Scientists said any rise beyond two degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.

The only binding requirement is that nations have to accurately report on their efforts.

The United States is the world’s second-largest emitter of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide, with only China producing more.

In recent weeks, China, Japan and South Korea have joined the European Union and several other countries in setting national deadlines to stop pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

While the Trump Administration has shunned Federal Government measures to cut emissions, some states, cities and businesses in the US have pressed ahead with their own efforts.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he favours signing the US back up to the Paris Accord.

With the United States outside the pact, it will be harder for the rest of the world to reach the agreed goals.

November 5, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The US election is a vote on climate change for the whole world

“Covid will be overcome, the climate crisis cannot be overcome unless we have American leadership.”

The US election is a vote on climate change for the whole world, By Helen Regan, Ivana Kottasová and Drew Kann, CNN, November 2, 2020 The climate crisis has become a key issue not just for American voters in this US election — but people across the world.

What the next president does or doesn’t do over the next four years will have a profound impact on the whether the world is able to avert the worst effects of climate change, scientists, policy makers and activists say.

They say the world needs a US president who cares about climate change, for two main reasons. First, many nations take their cue from US policy, particularly on issues such as the climate crisis, meaning Washington has a unique opportunity to influence. Second, the US is the world’s second-biggest polluter after China, meaning it has a moral obligation to act.

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President Donald Trump, during his current administration, has gutted domestic environmental regulations and policies designed to limit global warming. Internationally, he has pulled the US out of the landmark Paris climate accord, the only global pact that seeks to avoid dangerous heating of the planet. And he’s doubted the reasons for climate change. During the final presidential debate on Friday, Trump falsely claimed said the US has “the cleanest air” and “the cleanest water,” and called India and China “filthy,” a skewered rendition of reality.

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His Democratic challenger former Vice President Joe Biden, said at the same debate that “global warming is an existential

threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it.”

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Biden’s comments echo what the scientists are saying. Global carbon dioxide concentrations — the main culprit warming the planet — are at higher levels than at any time in human history.

It’s too late to stop all the impacts of climate change. They are already happening. Wildfires have torched homes across the Western US this year, unprecedented floods have inundated large swathes of Asia, and the past decade — — featuring deadly heatwaves and droughts — was the hottest ever recorded. The ice caps that bookend our planet are also seeing rapid loss and glacial melt.

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Under a US president who pushes for climate policies, however, the world could work toward “marginal, incremental damages” rather than catastrophic ones, said Jonathan Pershing, program director of environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, who was the former special envoy for climate change at the US Department of State during the second term of the Obama administration.

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Pershing added: “Every succeeding election becomes more and more urgent because the time is shorter to manage those really grievous damages.”

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The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 and infected 9.1 million people in the US, has exposed that Trump’s administration is hostile to science and decades of research. That endangers lives and livelihoods, according to Kim Cobb, a professor and researcher of paleoclimate and climate change at Georgia Tech.

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“It’s not really the planet anymore. It’s really about people. And that’s something that we all have to wake up to. It’s not about saving polar bears and coral reefs, it’s about us,” Cobb said. “We can simply not afford to put our heads in the sand about this other lasting global challenge which is a direct threat to our country.”

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Why Paris matters

The Paris Agreement, a pact signed into effect in 2016 by almost all the world’s countries, seeks to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. To do so, countries need to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

When Trump announced in June 2017 that the US would be withdrawing from the agreement, it signaled that America would no longer lead the global fight against climate change. Studies have shown the so-called “Trump Effect” has made it easier for other countries to renege on their climate commitments.

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“It’s critically important for the entire movement that the US be a part of it,” said Lois Young, Belize’s ambassador to the United Nations. “Other countries that are big emitters are saying, Well if the United States is not accountable, why should I be?”

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At UN climate talks in Madrid last year, Young, who is also head of the Alliance of Small Island States, accused big polluters like the US of “ecocide.” She said the Trump administration’s policies on climate have been “a total disaster.” ………..

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For some nations, like Australia, the outcome of the US election could determine in which direction they move on their own climate policy.

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“What Washington says and wants reverberates very closely in Canberra,” said Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at Australian National University. “If Trump has a second term then we will see a hardening of Australia’s position not to do much, not to take on a stronger targets, not to declare a net zero target for middle of the century,” Jotzo said.

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A Biden presidency, he said, would “put pressure for positive climate change policy on all its allies.”

Australia has seen extreme droughts and water shortages provide the fuel for a devastating bushfire season last year. “For Australia it is really quite fundamental, it’s a question about the viability of our cities and agriculture,” Jotzo said……….

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Global momentum

The US being part of the Paris Agreement doesn’t ensure the world will avoid dangerous climate change.

Many countries that have signed up are behind on their climate goals, few have updated their commitments in 2020, and many big polluters such as the EU need to set more ambitious goals if they want to comply with the accord, according to Climate Action Tracker.

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Indeed, if governments stick to their current targets submitted under the Paris Agreement, the world is set to warm by 2.7°C by the end of the century, according to CAT, bringing more extreme storms, heatwaves, greater sea level rise, and, for many parts of the world, worse droughts and rainfall extremes.

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Jotzo said what is likely to make the biggest difference is investment and innovations in clean energy from the private sector.

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The price of renewable forms of energy, such as solar power, are now cheaper than the price of coal, and electric vehicles are becoming more affordable. Innovations in green tech are finding other ways to deal with other planet-warming gases like methane and refrigerants, and there has been innovation around zero-carbon steel.

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“The long term trajectory is clearly towards very substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” Jotzo said. Zero emission technologies are now cost competitive with polluting technologies and “this creates an incentive for many corporates in many countries to actually push in that direction.”

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Trump may be seen as being pro-business but backing the fossil fuel industry has not created the jobs he promised. There is now an increasing awareness that the choice for policy makers, politicians and businesses is not between solving climate change or having a strong economy. You can have both.

Keeping fossil fuels in the ground, reducing emissions and stopping subsidies for coal and oil, as well as ramping up use of renewables is vital for limiting climate disasters and avoiding economic impacts worse than the coronavirus pandemic has wrought, Young said.

To achieve this, the US needs to be accountable, according to Young: “Covid will be overcome, the climate crisis cannot be overcome unless we have American leadership.” https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/01/world/us-election-climate-crisis-intl-dst-hnk/index.html?utm_source=Energy+News+Network+daily+email+digests&utm_campaign=276e411cd4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_11_11_46_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_724b1f01f5-276e411cd4-89260599

November 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Climate Policy – Scotland

The National 2 Nov 2020 , EXTINCTION Rebellion have walked away from the Scottish Government’s
Climate Assembly, accusing ministers of allowing “vested interests” to
take over. They claim the civil service has tried to water down the urgency
of the summit due to start this weekend.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18838753.extinction-rebellion-quit-scottish-governments-citizens-assembly-climate/

November 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Now climate change, rising seas, swamping Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, victims of nuclear racism

Losing paradise, Atomic racism decimated Kiribati and the Marshall Islands; now climate change is sinking them, Beyond Nuclear https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/2998141589–1 Nov 20, This is an extract from the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland report “Nuclear Weapons, the Climate and Our Environment”.

Kiribati. In 1954, the government of Winston Churchill decided that the UK needed to develop a hydrogen bomb (a more sophisticated and destructive type of nuclear weapon). The US and Russia had already developed an H-bomb and Churchill argued that the UK “could not expect to maintain our influence as a world power unless we possessed the most up-to-date nuclear weapons”.

The governments of Australia and New Zealand refused to allow a hydrogen bomb test to be conducted on their territories so the British government searched for an alternative site. Kiritimati Island and Malden Island in the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in the central Pacific Ocean (now the Republic of Kiribati) were chosen. Nine nuclear weapons tests – including the first hydrogen bomb tests – were carried out there as part of “Operation Grapple” between 1957 and 1958.

Military personnel from the UK, New Zealand and Fiji (then a British colony) and Gilbertese labourers were brought in to work on the operation. Many of the service personnel were ordered to witness the tests in the open, on beaches or on the decks of ships, and were simply told to turn their backs and shut their eyes when the bombs were detonated. There is evidence that Fijian forces were given more dangerous tasks than their British counterparts, putting them at greater risk from radiation exposure. The local Gilbertese were relocated and evacuated to British naval vessels during some of the tests but many were exposed to fallout, along with naval personnel and soldiers.

After Grapple X, the UK’s first megaton hydrogen bomb test in November 1957, dead fish washed ashore and “birds were observed to have their feathers burnt off, to the extent that they could not fly”. The larger Grapple Y test in 1958 spread fallout over Kiritimati Island and destroyed large areas of vegetation.

Despite evidence that military personnel and local people suffered serious health problems as a result of the tests, including blindness, cancers, leukaemia and reproductive difficulties, the British government has consistently denied that they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and has resisted claims for compensation.

Like the Marshall Islands, the low-lying Republic of Kiribati is now bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change. Salt water washed in on king tides has contaminated the islands’ scarce freshwater resources. Pits that are used to grow taro plants have been ruined and the healthy subsistence lifestyle of local people is under threat.

It is predicted that rising sea levels will further impact freshwater resources and reduce the amount of agricultural land, while storm damage and erosion will increase. Much of the land will ultimately be submerged. In anticipation of the need to relocate its entire population, the government of Kiribati bought 20km2 of land on Fiji in 2014.

The UK is set to spend £3.4 billion a year on Trident nuclear weapons system between 2019 and 2070. If Trident were scrapped, a portion of the savings could be provide to the Republic of Kiribati in the form of climate finance (see section 1.2.1). Scrapping Trident would also allow money and skills to be redirected towards measures aimed at drastically cutting the UK’s carbon emissions (see section 1.2.2) – action that Pacific island nations are urgently demanding.

The Marshall Islands. The most devasting incident of radioactive contamination took place 8,000 km from the US mainland during the Castle Bravo test in 1954. The US detonated the largest nuclear weapon in its history at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, causing fallout to spread over an area of more than 11,000km. Residents of nearby atolls, Rongelap and Utirik, were exposed to high levels of radiation, suffering burns, radiation sickness, skin lesions and hair loss as a result.

Castle Bravo was just one of 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the US in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Forty years after the tests, the cervical cancer mortality rate for women of the Marshall Islands was found to be 60 times greater than the rate for women in the US mainland, while breast and lung cancer rates were five and three times greater respectively. High rates of infant mortality have also been found in the Marshall Islands and a legacy of birth defects and infertility has been documented. Many Marshallese were relocated by the US to make way for the testing.

Some were moved to Rongelap Atoll and relocated yet again after the fallout from Castle Bravo left the area uninhabitable.

Rongelap Atoll was resettled in 1957 after the US government declared that the area was safe. However, many of those who returned developed serious health conditions and the entire population was evacuated by Greenpeace in 1984. An attempt to resettle Bikini Atoll was similarly abandoned in 1978 after it became clear that the area was still unsafe for human habitation.

A 2019 peer-reviewed study found levels of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 in fruits taken from some parts of Bikini and Rongelap to be significantly higher than levels recorded at the sites of the world’s worst nuclear accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Compounding the injustice of nuclear weapons testing, the Republic of the Marshall Islands is now on the frontline of the climate emergency. The government declared a national climate crisis in 2019, citing the nation’s extreme vulnerability to rising sea levels and the “implications for the security, human rights and wellbeing of the Marshallese people”.

At Runit Island, one of 40 islands in the Enewetak Atoll, rising sea levels are threatening to release radioactive materials into an already contaminated lagoon. In the late 1970s, the US army dumped 90,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste, including plutonium, into a nuclear blast crater and covered it with a concrete cap. Radioactive materials are leaking out of the crater and cracks have appeared on the concrete cap. Encroaching salt water caused by rising sea levels could collapse the structure altogether. The Marshallese government has asked the US for help to prevent an environmental catastrophe but the US maintains that the dome is the Marshall Islands’ responsibility. Hilda Heine, then President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, said of the dome in 2019: “We don’t want it. We didn’t build it. The garbage inside is not ours. It’s theirs.”

The Runit Island dome offers a stark illustration of the ways in which the injustices of nuclear weapons testing and climate change overlap. Marshall Islanders were left with the toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing conducted on their territory by another state. The country is now being forced to deal with the effects of a climate crisis that they did not create, including the erosion of the Runit dome.

The nations that contributed most to the crisis are failing to cut their emissions quickly enough to limit further global heating, leaving the Marshallese at the mercy of droughts, cyclones and rising seas. A recent study found that if current rates of greenhouse gas emissions are maintained, the Marshall Islands will be flooded with sea water annually from 2050. The resulting damage to infrastructure and contamination of freshwater supplies will render the islands uninhabitable.

If the US scrapped its nuclear weapons programme, it could give a portion of the billions of dollars that would be saved to the Republic of the Marshall Islands to help the country mitigate and adapt to climate disruption (see section 1.2.1 on international climate finance). The US could also use the freed-up funds to invest in its own Just Transition away from a fossil-fuel powered economy. Read the full report.

November 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, environment, history, OCEANIA, Reference, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Surge in fires in Brazil’s Amazon

Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest jump in October, By Jake Spring, BRASILIA (Reuters) 1 Nov 20, – Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged in October and the number of blazes is up 25% in the first 10 months of 2020, compared to a year ago, data from government space research agency Inpe showed on Sunday.

October recorded 17,326 hot spots in the world’s largest rainforest, more than double the number of fires detected in the same month last year. Destruction of the forest has soared since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019.

The president says he wishes to develop the region to lift it out of poverty, while environmental advocates say his policies embolden illegal loggers, miners and ranchers.

The number of fires so far this year remains at a decade high. In only the first 10 months of the year, 2020 has surpassed the total number of fires for full-year 2019, when the destruction spurred international criticism that Brazil was not doing enough to protect the forest…….

Fires in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands, also increased in October compared to a year ago, according to Inpe. The Pantanal, home to many rare species including the world’s densest population of jaguars, has recorded the most fires this year since records began in 1998.

For the year through Oct. 25, 28% of the wetland has burned, according to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, an area nearly the size of Denmark…… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment/fires-in-brazils-amazon-rainforest-jump-in-october-idUSKBN27H1J1

November 2, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Brazil, climate change | Leave a comment

Strong feeling in UK public that the Covid recovery must be a green recovery, too

Centre for Science & Policy 12th Oct 2020, According to Professor Rebecca Willis, the findings from the UK Climate Assembly suggest that the general public feels strongly that covid recovery must be aligned with net zero goals, both in terms of a green economic stimulus and in terms of not giving government money to big polluters. She also noted that the pandemic has create an opportunity space, in which people are more open to lifestyle changes – including those that might be more environmentally friendly.

http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/news/article-understanding-challenges-green-recovery/

October 31, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

UK government’s economic recovery plan funds fossil fuels £3.8bn, but renewables only £121m

Edie 29th Oct 2020, The UK Government has earmarked £3.8bn of stimulus funding for legacy fossil fuel and nuclear generation, compared to just £121m for renewables, a damning new report has claimed. Published by global technology company Wärtsilä’s energy arm, the analysis concludes that the UK Government’s short-term plans for helping the energy sector recover from the financial impacts of Covid-19 are not aligned with the 2050 net-zero target or the interim carbon budgets.

It maps out the benefits to the economy and the climate if the UK were to invest all of its energy stimuli in renewables through to the end of 2025, claiming that this scenario would bring the generation share of renewables up to 60%. In comparison, the share in 2019 was 37%. Wärtsilä Energy believes that wind would account for the majority of renewable generation in this scenario and energy
storage capacity would be scaled up dramatically.

The report also outlines how almost 124,000 jobs could be created or saved in this scenario. Using the same calculations for a scenario in which all energy stimulus is allocated to fossil fuels, it sees the renewable scenario positively affecting 175% more jobs. This finding is in line with recent research from McKinsey, which concluded that for every $10m (£8m) invested by a Government in energy efficiency, 77 jobs could be created. For investment in renewable generation technologies, the figure stands at 75 jobs. In comparison, funnelling $10m into fossil fuels would create just 27 jobs.

https://www.edie.net/news/11/UK-s-Covid-19-recovery-package-for-energy–not-net-zero-aligned—report-finds/

October 31, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, employment, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Putin’s Russia keen to exploit the Arctic for fossil fuels: more nuclear-powered icebreakers on the way

Putin decrees development of Arctic with more nuclear icebreakers – This will help Russia cash flow from fossil fuels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an executive order, On the Strategy for Developing the Russian Arctic Zone and Ensuring National Security until 2035, which foresees the construction of at least five new nuclear-powered icebreakers of the Project 22220 series, and three of the Project 10510 series. The vessels are needed to ensure year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route.

Project 10510, also known through the Russian type size series designations LK-110Ya and LK-120Ya or the project name Leader, will supersede Project 22220 icebreakers as the largest and most powerful in the world…….. https://www.oilandgas360.com/putin-decrees-development-of-arctic-with-more-nuclear-icebreakers-this-will-help-russia-cash-flow-from-fossil-fuels/

October 31, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ARCTIC, business and costs, climate change, politics, Russia | Leave a comment

Release of methane off East Siberian coast has been triggered,

‘Sleeping giant’ Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find

Exclusive: expedition discovers new source of greenhouse gas off East Siberian coast has been triggered, Guardian, Jonathan Watts Global environment editor 28 Oct 20 Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating.

The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.

The international team onboard the Russian research ship R/V Akademik Keldysh said most of the bubbles were currently dissolving in the water but methane levels at the surface were four to eight times what would normally be expected and this was venting into the atmosphere.

“At this moment, there is unlikely to be any major impact on global warming, but the point is that this process has now been triggered. This East Siberian slope methane hydrate system has been perturbed and the process will be ongoing,” said the Swedish scientist Örjan Gustafsson, of Stockholm University, in a satellite call from the vessel.

The scientists – who are part of a multi-year International Shelf Study Expedition – stressed their findings were preliminary. The scale of methane releases will not be confirmed until they return, analyse the data and have their studies published in a peer-reviewed journal.

But the discovery of potentially destabilised slope frozen methane raises concerns that a new tipping point has been reached that could increase the speed of global heating.

The Arctic is considered ground zero in the debate about the vulnerability of frozen methane deposits in the ocean.

With the Arctic temperature now rising more than twice as fast as the global average, the question of when – or even whether – they will be released into the atmosphere has been a matter of considerable uncertainty in climate computer models.

The 60-member team on the Akademik Keldysh believe they are the first to observationally confirm the methane release is already under way across a wide area of the slope about 600km offshore………………

Temperatures in Siberia were 5C higher than average from January to June this year, an anomaly that was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. Last winter’s sea ice melted unusually early. This winter’s freeze has yet to begin, already a later start than at any time on record. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find

October 29, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

Pressure on UK Prime Minister to show strong climate leadership

Business Green 28th Oct 2020, Pressure is mounting on Boris Johnson to come up with an ambitious
decarbonisation plan ahead of COP26 next year, with a major coalition of
health professionals, academics, faith and youth leaders today joining
calls from Conservative MPs and former world leaders for UK to demonstrate
strong climate leadership in the run up to the critical UN summit.

In a
series of letters to the Prime Minister today, various groups representing
millions of people in the UK and overseas urge the government to deliver a
“world-leading” climate plan to the UN in support of the Paris Agreement
“as early as possible this year” or well ahead of COP26 in November 2021.
Such a plan – or Nationally-Determined Contribution (NDC) in UN jargon –
should “at the very least” aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5C by
the end of the century and the UK’s 2050 net zero target, and should be
achieved entirely through domestic action without the use of international
carbon credits, according to the letter from faith groups.

https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4022373/pressure-mounts-pm-ambitious-uk-climate-plan-soon

October 29, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

South Korea to end dependence on coal, switch to renewables

Guardian 28th Oct 2020, South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, has declared that the country will
go carbon neutral by 2050, bringing it into line with other major
economies. In a policy speech in the national assembly on Wednesday, Moon
said South Korea, one of the world’s most fossil fuel-reliant economies,
would “actively respond” to the climate emergency “with the
international community and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”. He vowed
to end its dependence on coal and replace it with renewables as part of its
Green New Deal, a multibillion-dollar plan to invest in green
infrastructure, clean energy and electric vehicles.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/28/south-korea-vows-to-go-carbon-neutral-by-2050-to-fight-climate-emergency

October 29, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, South Korea | Leave a comment

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26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm

29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers

12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY

4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum

Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time

Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.

Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information

14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism

Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.

Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560

To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com

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nuclear-news

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

Japan: the next generation of LDP leaders embrace both carbon neutrality and the elimination of nuclear energy.

Putin orders Russian government to try to meet Paris climate goals

A new nuclear power plant at Sizewell is the wrong choice for a zero carbon Britain

Biden as president would pursue climate ‘cheaters’, such as Morrison’s Australia

United States under Donald Trump formally exits Paris Agreement on climate change

The US election is a vote on climate change for the whole world

Why Paris matters

Global momentum

Climate Policy – Scotland

Now climate change, rising seas, swamping Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, victims of nuclear racism

Surge in fires in Brazil’s Amazon

Strong feeling in UK public that the Covid recovery must be a green recovery, too

UK government’s economic recovery plan funds fossil fuels £3.8bn, but renewables only £121m

Putin’s Russia keen to exploit the Arctic for fossil fuels: more nuclear-powered icebreakers on the way

Release of methane off East Siberian coast has been triggered,

Pressure on UK Prime Minister to show strong climate leadership

South Korea to end dependence on coal, switch to renewables

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