COP 25 – a chance to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Earth has a couple more chances to avoid catastrophic climate change. This week is one of them https://theconversation.com/earth-has-a-couple-more-chances-to-avoid-catastrophic-climate-change-this-week-is-one-of-them-128120 Robert Hales
Director Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University, December 3, 2019 Almost 200 world leaders gather in Madrid this week for climate talks which will largely determine the success of the Paris agreement, and by extension, the extent to which the planet will suffer under climate change.
Negotiations at the so-called COP25 will focus on finalising details of the Paris Agreement. Nations will haggle over how bold emissions reductions will be, and how to measure and achieve them.
Much is riding on a successful outcome in Madrid. The challenge is to get nations further along the road to the strong climate goals, without any major diplomatic rifts or a collapse in talks.
What COP25 is about
COP25 is a shorthand name for the 25th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (or the nations signed up to the Paris agreement).
After Paris was signed in 2015, nations were given five years in which to set out bolder climate action. Current targets expire in 2020. At next year’s November COP in Glasgow, nations will be asked to formally commit to higher targets. If Madrid does not successfully lay the groundwork for this, the Glasgow talks are likely to fail.
The United Nations says the world must reduce overall emissions by 7.6% every year over the next decade to have a high chance of staying under 1.5℃ warming this century.
The 1.5℃ limit is at the upper end of the Paris goal; warming beyond this is likely to lead to catastrophic impacts, including near-total destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
Presently, emissions reduction targets of nations signed up to Paris put Earth on track for a 3.2℃ increase.
A global carbon market
Parties will debate the mechanism in the Paris agreement allowing emissions trading between nations, and via the private sector.
Such mechanisms could lower the global cost of climate mitigation, because emissions reduction in some nations is cheaper than in others. But there are concerns the trading regime may lack transparency and accountability.
Among the risks are that emissions cuts are “double counted” – meaning both the buying and selling nation count the cuts towards their targets, undermining the aims of the agreement.
Help for vulnerable nations
Small island states say COP25 is the last chance to take decisive action on global emissions reduction.
Fossil fuel burning in the developing world is largely responsible for the carbon dioxide that drives global warming. Developing nations are particularly vulnerable to the loss and damage caused by climate change.
Parties will discuss whether an international mechanism designed to assess and compensate for such damage is effective.
Developing nations are expected to contribute to the Green Climate Fund to help poorer nations cope with and mitigate climate change. Some 27 nations contributed US$9.78 billion in the last funding round.
Some nations have indicated they will not contribute further, including Australia, which says it already helps Pacific nations through its overseas aid program.
Arguments about cost
Nations opposed to adopting stronger emissions reduction targets often argue the costs of decarbonising energy sectors, and economies as a whole, are too high.
However, recent cost benefit analysis has found not taking action on climate change will be expensive in the long run.
Realisation is also growing that the cost of emissions reduction activities has been overestimated in the past. In Australia, prominent economist Ross Garnaut recently said huge falls in the cost of equipment for solar and wind energy has created massive economic opportunity, such as future manufacturing of zero-emission iron and aluminium.
The shift in the cost-balance means nations with low ambition will find it difficult to argue against climate mitigation on cost grounds.
Australia’s position at Madrid
At the Paris talks, Australia pledged emissions reduction of 26-28% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. The Morrison government has indicated it will not ramp up the goal.
About 68 nations said before COP25 they will set bolder emissions reduction targets, including Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand. This group is expected to exert pressure on laggard nations.
This pressure has already begun: France has reportedly insisted that a planned free trade deal between Australia and the European Union must include “highly ambitious” action on climate change.
The Climate Action Tracker says Australia is not contributing its fair share towards the global 1.5℃ commitment. Australia is also ranked among the worst performing G20 nations on climate action.
The Madrid conference takes place amid high public concern over climate change. Thousands of Australians took part in September’s climate strikes and the environment has reportedly surpassed healthcare, cost of living and the economy as the top public concern.
Climate change has already arrived in the form of more extreme weather and bushfires, water stress, sea level rise and more. These effects are a small taste of what is to come if negotiations in Madrid fail to deliver.
Johanna Nalau, Samid Suliman and Tim Cadman contributed to this article.
UN chief praises youth leadership on climate action, deplores government inaction
COP25: youth ‘leadership’ contrasts with government inaction, says UN chief, Ahead of Madrid climate change conference António Guterres says political will missing, Guardian, Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent, 2 Dec 19, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, contrasted the “leadership” and “mobilisation” shown by the world’s youth on the climate emergency with the lack of action by governments, which were failing to keep up with the urgency of the problem despite increasing signs that the climate was reaching breakdown.
Before the start of a critical conference on the climate crisis on Monday, he said the world had the technical and economic means to halt climate chaos, but what was missing was political will.
“The technologies that are necessary to make this possible are already available. Signals of hope are multiplying. Public opinion is waking up everywhere. Young people are showing remarkable leadership and mobilisation. [But we need] political will to put a price on carbon, political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels [and start] taxing pollution instead of people.”
Guterres called for further investment from rich countries and support for poor nations to make the changes needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of global heating. Amid rising temperatures, wildfires, heatwaves, droughts and floods, the danger signals were clear and must be acted on without further delay, he said…..
The countries most at risk of deluge from climate chaos have issued an impassioned plea to the industrialised world ahead of crucial negotiations on the Paris agreement that start on Monday in Madrid.
“We see [these talks] as the last opportunity to take decisive action,” Janine Felson, deputy chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) told the Guardian.
“Anything short of vastly greater commitment to emission reduction, a new climate finance goal and tangible support for disaster risk reduction will signal a willingness to accept catastrophe.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/dec/01/island-states-want-decisive-action-to-prevent-inundation
Antarctic ice sheets could be at greater risk of melting than previously thought
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Coal power becoming ‘uninsurable’ as firms refuse cover
Coal power becoming ‘uninsurable’ as firms refuse cover, US insurers join retreat from European insurers meaning coal projects cannot be built or operated, Guardian, Julia Kollewe, Mon 2 Dec 2019 The number of insurers withdrawing cover for coal projects more than doubled this year and for the first time US companies have taken action, leaving Lloyd’s of London and Asian insurers as the “last resort” for fossil fuels, according to a new report.The report, which rates the world’s 35 biggest insurers on their actions on fossil fuels, declares that coal – the biggest single contributor to climate change – “is on the way to becoming uninsurable” as most coal projects cannot be financed, built or operated without insurance.
Ten firms moved to restrict the insurance cover they offer to companies that build or operate coal power plants in 2019, taking the global total to 17, said the Unfriend Coal campaign, which includes 13 environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Client Earth and Urgewald, a German NGO. The report will be launched at an insurance and climate risk conference in London on Monday, as the UN climate summit gets underway in Madrid.
The first insurers to exit coal policies were all European, but since March, two US insurers – Chubb and Axis Capital – and the Australian firms QBE and Suncorp have pledged to stop or restrict insurance for coal projects.
At least 35 insurers with combined assets of $8.9tn, equivalent to 37% of the insurance industry’s global assets, have begun pulling out of coal investments. A year ago, 19 insurers holding more than $6tn in assets were divesting from fossil fuels…… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/02/coal-power-becoming-uninsurable-as-firms-refuse-cover
Climate activists protest Black Friday shopping sprees
Climate Activists Protest Black Friday Around the World https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/11/climate-activists-protest-black-friday-around-the-world/
27 people were arrested in New York City while calling for action to fight climate change. NATHALIE BAPTISTE ON BLACK FRIDAY,
Climate change activists in cities all over the planet took to the streets to decry the biggest shopping day of the year.According to the New York Post, 300 protesters marched down a busy street in New York City then blocked traffic near Herald Square by sitting in an intersection. Police arrested 27 people after they refused to clear the road. Law enforcement said the individuals would be charged with disorderly conduct.
Protests were widespread across Europe. In France, protesters targeted Amazon’s French headquarters. Other climate demonstrators protested at a shopping center in Paris. At a Lyon protest, video captured riot police dragging protesters. In the United Kingdom, protesters chanted outside of shopping centers.
COP25: UN climate conference to tackle global challenges
Global climate tipping point is getting near – researchers say
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By Helen Regan, CNN, November 28, 2019 , The Earth is heading toward a “global tipping point” if the climate crisis continues on its current path, scientists have warned, as they called for urgent action to avoid “an existential threat to civilization.”
The group of researchers, who published a commentary in the journal Nature, say there is growing evidence to suggest that irreversible changes to the Earth’s environmental systems are already taking place, and that we are now in a “state of planetary emergency.”
A global tipping point is a threshold when the planet’s systems go beyond the point of no return — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest, accelerated melting of ice sheets, and thawing of permafrost — the authors of the commentary say.
Such a collapse could lead to “hothouse” conditions that would make some areas on Earth uninhabitable.
“We argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best,” the authors said.
Active problem areasLed by Timothy Lenton, professor of climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter, in southwest England, the team identified nine areas where they say tipping points are already underway.
Those include widespread destruction of the Amazon, reduction of Arctic sea ice, large-scale coral reef die-offs, melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, thawing of permafrost, destabilizing of boreal forests — which contain vast numbers of trees that grow in freezing northern climes — and a slowdown of ocean circulation.
The team claims that these events are interconnected and change in one will impact another, causing a worsening “cascade” of crises………
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The UN Environment Program (UNEP) 2019 Emissions Gap report said at the current rate, temperatures are expected to rise 3.2 C by 2100.
Greenhouse gases reached a record high in 2018 with no sign of peaking, according to a recent World Meteorological Organization report. Carbon dioxide levels reached 407.8 parts per million, a unit used to measure the level of a contaminant in the air.
Hope is not lost, however. Researchers say that mitigating greenhouse gas emissions could still slow down the accumulation of these climate impacts.
What is needed, they say, is urgent international action to cut emissions, slow sea level rise, and to keep warming to 1.5 C.
“A saving grace is that the rate at which damage accumulates from tipping — and hence the risk posed — could still be under our control to some extent,” they said.
“The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril. International action — not just words — must reflect this.” https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/28/health/climate-crisis-global-tipping-point-intl-hnk/index.html?utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2019-11-30T05%3A01%3A06&utm_term=link&utm_medium=social
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Prominent Americans to wage ‘World War Zero’ against climate change
John Kerry Launches Star-Studded Climate Coalition, NYT, By Lisa Friedman, Nov. 30, 2019 WASHINGTON — John Kerry, the former senator and secretary of state, has formed a new bipartisan coalition of world leaders, military brass and Hollywood celebrities to push for public action to combat climate change.
The name, World War Zero, is supposed to evoke both the national security threat posed by the earth’s warming and the type of wartime mobilization that Mr. Kerry argued would be needed to stop the rise in carbon emissions before 2050.
The star-studded group is supposed to win over those skeptical of the policies that would be needed to accomplish that.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter are part of the effort. Moderate Republican lawmakers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, and John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio, are on the list. Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sting and Ashton Kutcher round out the roster of more than 60 founding members.
The star-studded group is supposed to win over those skeptical of the policies that would be needed to accomplish that.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter are part of the effort. Moderate Republican lawmakers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, and John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio, are on the list. Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sting and Ashton Kutcher round out the roster of more than 60 founding members.
“We’re going to try to reach millions of people, Americans and people in other parts of the world, in order to mobilize an army of people who are going to demand action now on climate change sufficient to meet the challenge,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview.
The launch of the new group on Sunday comes as diplomats gather in Madrid on Monday for global climate negotiations aimed at strengthening the 2015 Paris Agreement, from which President Trump has vowed to withdraw next year. Earlier this week the United Nations found that the world’s richest countries, responsible for emitting more than three-fourths of planet-warming pollution, are not doing enough to keep Earth’s temperature from rising to dangerously high levels. Net carbon emissions from the two largest polluters, the United States and China, are expanding……….. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/climate/john-kerry-climate-change.html?smid=tw-nytclimate&smtyp=cur
USA will send no senior government official to COP25 climate conference
US will ‘protect its interests’ at COP25 climate conference, No senior members of Donald Trump’s administration will attend COP25. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-will-protect-its-interests-at-cop25-climate-conference 2 Dec 19, The US will send a diplomatic team but no senior members of Donald Trump’s administration to a global climate change conference starting in Spain on Monday, according to a statement.However, in an effort to raise the US profile in Madrid, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will led a 15-member congressional delegation to “reaffirm the commitment of the American people to combating the climate crisis”.
The US, at Mr Trump’s direction, is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, which set a goal of limiting global temperature rises to well within two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
Spain stepped in to host the COP25 meeting, which seeks to boost commitments to fight climate change, after Chile pulled out due to civil unrest.
“The United States will continue to participate in ongoing climate change negotiations and meetings – such as COP25 – to ensure a level playing field that protects US interests,” the US State Department said Saturday.
The US team will be headed by ambassador Marcia Bernicat, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.
Ms Pelosi, calling climate change “the existential threat of our time,” announced a delegation of Democrats drawn from both the House and the Senate, with no members of Mr Trump’s Republican party.
The president has cast the Paris climate accord as elitist and unfair to the US, saying when announcing his decision to withdraw that he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”.
But scientists say the accord is vital to check the worst damage from global warming, such as increasing droughts, rising floods and intensifying storms.
The US is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, and is the only country to pull out of the Paris agreement.
The final US withdrawal from the landmark accord is scheduled for 4 November, 2020, a day after the next presidential election.
Several Democratic presidential aspirants have said that, if elected, they would immediately return to the agreement.
Catastrophic weather in Australia does not influence its climate denialist government
Time is running out for a climate adaptation plan, Independent Australia
THE POSSIBILITY that the effects of climate change could be more extreme and materialise much sooner than expected was never hypothetical. At the end of the last ice age, it is estimated that temperatures in some regions of the world spiked between five and 15 degrees celsius in just a few decades.
Catastrophic climate conditions have already arrived in Australia. With a growing sense that the events of the last few weeks could be the new normal, dealing with the immediate effects of climate change may take increasing priority over historically unsuccessful emissions reduction efforts.
It is striking that Australia has no unified climate adaptation plan.
Our bushfires are escalating in number and intensity. Given this reality, leaving individuals to enact their own bushfire survival plans again and again seems inadequate. In light of successive governments upholding policies designed to discourage asylum seekers from risking their lives at sea, where is the plan to permanently move residents out of areas surrounded by highly flammable material? …..
These are just a few matters of relevance, before we even get to responses to heat stress (cooler living spaces), or the erratic intensity of droughts (innovative measures to ensure food and water security), storms (systematic storm-proofing of property) and floods (moving communities to higher ground where necessary).
All of this will require a great deal of resources and coordination. While governments, both State and Federal, have been much too slow to act, politicians interested in keeping their jobs could conceivably be motivated to do so by increasingly engaged voters.
At the same time, the market has failed to respond anywhere near adequately and it is hard to see it doing so. The private sector-led installation of the flood-proofing infrastructure Brisbane needs is nowhere to be seen.
When warmer temperatures melt arctic ice, sun-reflecting white layers on that ice disappear, causing more heat to be absorbed by darker surfaces, a further rise in temperature and a further melting of ice. A number of chain reactions operate like this in the climate system. There could be many more that have not yet been discovered and that could behave in unanticipated ways.
Under some scenarios, changes could be so rapid that even attempts to adapt could become impractical. We haven’t a moment to lose. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/time-is-running-out-for-a-climate-adaptation-plan,13365
Sir David Attenborough shocked at Australian government’s disdain for climate action
Sir David Attenborough hits out at the federal government over climate position,
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sir-david-attenborough-hits-out-at-the-federal-government-over-climate-position Sir David Attenborough has taken another swipe at the Australian government’s climate policies, expressing his shock at the government’s hesitation to link recent extreme weather with global warming.
UK’s Labour and Greens parties have highly prioritised climate change action
David Lowry’s Blog 29th Nov 2019, A letter writer in today’s Times newspaper complained that politicians have not prioritized climate change in their manifestos.Your correspondent Lesley Boase asks “why isn’t urgent action climate
change at the top of [political parties’] manifestos”? The day before
the letter appeared, the Labour Party launched its 48-page manifesto for
the environment ‘A Plan for the Environment. At its launch in
Southampton, Mr Corbyn stressed” The reality is this election is our last
chance to tackle the climate and environment emergency,” in setting out
“Labour’s plan for real change to protect our planet and restore our
natural world.” He added: “We have no time to waste…we have a choice.
We can shut our eyes, cross our fingers and entrust our fate to a system
that has already driven our planet to the brink of catastrophe. Or we can
do everything possible to tackle the biggest threat we face.
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/11/political-parties-prioritise-climate.html
The negotiations in Madrid for COP 25 Climate Change Conference
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE UN’S COP 25 CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE, https://ensia.com/notable/cop-25-un-climate-talks/ Andrew Urevig @aurevig November 26, 2019 — In 2015, 195 countries adopted an international treaty aiming to limit global warming to less than 2 °C (3.6 °F) above average preindustrial temperatures in order to avert the worst of Earth’s climate emergency.
How exactly will these countries implement that treaty, the Paris agreement? That’s a key question for the thousands of people set to attend the COP 25 negotiations, the 25th annual Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Despite a last-minute change of location from Chile to Spain, the talks are still slated for December 2–13.
Representatives of countries around the world are preparing to negotiate rules for international carbon markets, finalize details on climate finance and ready the world for the crucial next decade of action on the climate crisis. Chilean environmental minister Carolina Schmidt will preside over the negotiations.
Double Counting Strikes Back
According to Schmidt, “COP 25 will be the COP of implementation.” The main goal is to fill in the legal and technical details of the Paris agreement. That work began at COP 24, which was held last year in Poland.
Left unresolved last year were the rules for voluntary carbon emissions markets, which would let nations meet their pledged emissions cuts by trading reductions with other countries. In a June interview, Schmidt said that these rules, covered under Article 6 of the Paris treaty, would be a major focus of COP25.
Finishing the work of COP 24, this year’s negotiations should finalize the details of the Paris agreement. But consensus could be difficult to reach. During the last climate talks, according to Carbon Brief, draft rules for the carbon markets would have prohibited double counting of emissions, a scenario in which reductions would be counted by both the country that achieved them and the country purchasing those reductions as emissions offsets. But the delegation from Brazil rejected that prohibition, pushing the conversation off to this year.
Other Issues
Other issues will be on the table, too. Countries at COP 25 will discuss details for climate finance to support countries designated as developing as they adapt to climate change and mitigate their carbon emissions.
Outside the halls of power, COP 25 could see street demonstrations and other protests. Last year’s talks coincided with protests worldwide, including 3,000 who marched in Katowice, Poland, where the talks were held.
U.S. diplomats will be among the negotiators — but potentially for the last time. President Donald Trump notified the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Nov. 4, 2019, that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris agreement. The U.S. is scheduled be officially out of the deal by Nov. 4, 2020, less than a week before COP 26 will begin in Glasgow, Scotland. A U.S. delegation will still be invited to attend the conference — but not to negotiate, in an official capacity, the future of the Paris accord.
Global heating: greenhouse gases now at a record high level
Climate-heating greenhouse gases hit new high, UN reports https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/25/climate-heating-greenhouse-gases-hit-new-high-un-reports
Head of World Meteorological Organization says ‘no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline’ Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington, Mon 25 Nov 2019 The concentration of climate-heating greenhouse gases has hit a record high, according to a report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.The jumps in the key gases measured in 2018 were all above the average for the last decade, showing action on the climate emergency to date is having no effect in the atmosphere. The WMO said the gap between targets and reality were both “glaring and growing”.
The rise in concentration of greenhouses gases follows inevitably from the continued surge in global emissions, which was described as “brutal news” for 2018. The world’s scientists calculate that emissions must fall by half by 2030 to give a good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C, beyond which hundreds of millions of people will suffer more heatwaves, droughts, floods and poverty.
But Petteri Taalas, the WMO secretary-general, said: “There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change. We need to increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of mankind.
“It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5m years ago. Back then, the temperature was 2-3C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now.”
Three-quarters of the emissions cuts pledged by countries under the Paris agreement of 2015 are “totally inadequate”, according to a comprehensive expert analysis published earlier in November, putting the world on a path to climate disaster. Another report has found that nations are on track to produce more than double the fossil fuels in 2030 than could be burned while keeping heating under 1.5C.
“The [CO2 concentration] number is the closest thing to a real-world Doomsday Clock, and it’s pushing us ever closer to midnight,” said John Sauven, head of Greenpeace UK. “Our ability to preserve civilisation as we know it, avert the mass extinction of species, and leave a healthy planet to our children depend on us urgently stopping the clock.”
The WMO report, published on Monday, found the global average concentration of CO2 reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5ppm in 2017. It is now 50% higher than in 1750, before the industrial revolution sparked the widespread burning of coal, oil and gas.
Since 1990, the increase in greenhouse gas levels has made the heating effect of the atmosphere 43% stronger. Most of that – four-fifths – is caused by CO2. But the concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide, the two other key greenhouse gases, also surged in 2018 by a higher amount than the annual average over the past decade.
Methane, which is produced by cattle, rice paddies and fossil fuel exploitation, is responsible for 17% of the heating effect. Its concentration is now more than double pre-industrial levels.
Nitrous oxide, which comes from heavy fertiliser use and forest burning, is now 23% higher than in 1750. The observations are made by the Global Atmosphere Watch network, which includes stations in the Arctic, high mountains and tropical islands.
“The record rise in greenhouse gas concentrations is a cruel reminder that for all the real progress in clean technology, we have yet to even stop global emissions increases,” said Nick Mabey, chief executive of think tank E3G. “The climate system cannot be negotiated with. Until we stop new investment in fossil fuels and massively scale up green power the risks from catastrophic climate change will continue to rise.”
When the world’s nations agreed the Paris deal in 2015, they pledged to ramp up their promised emissions cuts by the annual UN climate summit in 2020, which will be hosted by the UK in Glasgow. This year’s summit needs to do vital preparatory work and begins on 2 December in Madrid, Spain. Chile had been due to host but cancelled because of civil unrest.
Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in the UK, said: “This record level of greenhouse gases should act as a sobering reminder to governments that so far they are collectively reneging on the pledge they made at the Paris summit, of attempting to keep global warming to 1.5C. That window is closing, and Chile, Italy and the UK [must] use all the diplomatic tools they have to put emissions on a trajectory closer to what science recommends and the public want.”
USA’s “Senate Climate Caucus” full of climate deniers, funded by dirty industries
New Senate Climate Caucus Is Filled With Climate Deniers and Climate “Delayers”, BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout, 14 Nov 19, What’s climate change to a senatorial non-believer? The new Senate Climate Solutions Caucus might soon answer that question.
Formed late last month, the caucus’s aim is to hold hearings with climate experts, educate fellow senators and introduce unanimously agreed-upon legislation. The caucus’s founders — Delaware Democrat Christopher Coons and Indiana Republican Mike Braun — boast of the mandated bipartisanship of the caucus. For every Democrat, there must be a Republican, and vice versa.
Floridian Sen. Marco Rubio, a former hardline climate denier, is the group’s latest addition. He joins fellow Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney (a former climate waffler) and Lindsey Graham, who once said that greenhouse gas emissions are bad but probably don’t warm the planet all that much.
“In its current state, our national conversation on this issue is too polarized, toxic, and unproductive,” Braun and Coons said in an op-ed about the caucus for The Hill. “Our caucus seeks to take the politics out of this important issue.”
Setting aside that the climate conversation isn’t as polarized among voters as Coons and Braun might think — in fact, an overwhelming majority of voters agree that global warming is happening — it’s strange that they think that bipartisanship on climate can be apolitical. For the last couple of decades, the Republican Party has been nearly united on the climate change denial front, and, in the name of compromise, Democrats have largely been hesitant to move to the left on climate — or make any moves at all.
RL Miller, political director of Climate Hawks Vote, a grassroots climate super PAC, calls bipartisanship in the caucus “a joke.”………
the biggest threat to any progress for the caucus isn’t necessarily the Republicans on it. The biggest threat may be the amount of fossil fuel money accepted by members on both sides of the aisle. Only one member so far has signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge: Colorado’s Michael Bennet, a Democratic presidential candidate, non-supporter of the Green New Deal, and recipient of over $320,000 worth of oil and gas money in his time in Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The other three Democrats in the caucus – Jeanne Shaheen, Angus King and Coons — have received over $200,000 combined. Meanwhile, the Republican members of the caucus have received over $9.5 million combined, $7 million of which went to Romney alone.
the biggest threat to any progress for the caucus isn’t necessarily the Republicans on it. The biggest threat may be the amount of fossil fuel money accepted by members on both sides of the aisle. Only one member so far has signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge: Colorado’s Michael Bennet, a Democratic presidential candidate, non-supporter of the Green New Deal, and recipient of over $320,000 worth of oil and gas money in his time in Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The other three Democrats in the caucus – Jeanne Shaheen, Angus King and Coons — have received over $200,000 combined. Meanwhile, the Republican members of the caucus have received over $9.5 million combined, $7 million of which went to Romney alone.
A starting point for bipartisan legislation would be some sort of carbon fee — an idea legislators on both sides of the aisle have been bouncing around for a while –which environmental experts consider to be a bare minimum requirement for the path to net-zero emissions. Considering all of the members of the caucus have to agree on any policy they write, however, even a carbon fee will likely be an uphill battle. Rubio derides the idea of a carbon tax and conflates it with the Green New Deal in a recent op-ed for USA Today; Murkowski has refused to endorse a carbon tax; and Graham has supported one in the past, but reneged on that view earlier this year. Even Braun says that he doesn’t want a carbon fee to be a focus of the caucus.
To say that the country needs to act on climate and then reject the most basic policy to address climate change appears to be a new form of climate denial among centrists and the right — they may not outright deny the existence of climate change, but refuse to acknowledge the all-encompassing scale of the problem. In March, when a video clip of Sen. Dianne Feinstein shows her dismissing Sunrise Movement activists circulated, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Feinstein was a “climate delayer.”……..
Even if the caucus does produce legislation, “the very existence of something like this, with so many senators that have taken money from the fossil fuel industry — it risks locking us into inadequate policies,” Billings says. For instance, not only would a carbon tax alone be insufficient climate policy, but it may also contain covert fossil fuel riders. There’s a reason that ExxonMobil, BP and Shell have been pushing for the passage of a carbon tax; Exxon’s carbon tax proposal last year contained a liability waiver, granting the company immunity for any climate change lawsuits brought against it.
Most of the Republicans in the caucus and at least one of the Democrats have shown to be susceptible to fossil fuel industry messaging that’s disguised as “climate-friendly.” Climate plans with an emphasis on carbon capture are a dead giveaway on this. In the current political sphere, carbon capture primarily refers to a technology that, yes, captures carbon as it’s emitted, but also sequesters that carbon in depleted oil wells, helping the fossil fuel companies to extract more oil. Funding carbon capture research is bipartisan, too, but as its used currently, it’s as useful for the climate as using kerosene to put out a fire.
Some may hail the bipartisanship of this climate caucus as a step forward. But as long as the majority of the committee is taking fossil fuel money, any supposed progress is dubious at best, and stifling at worst. After all, there’s no way of telling what’s happening behind closed doors. https://truthout.org/articles/new-senate-climate-caucus-is-filled-with-climate-deniers-and-climate-delayers/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=5dfc1357-c5ab-4a92-a995-92190dbe348e
1 This Month
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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