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Cop26 summit at serious risk of failure, says Boris Johnson
UK PM says climate crisis talks at G20 over weekend only ‘inched forward’
Boris Johnson has warned that the Cop26 climate summit is at serious risk of failure, as the target of keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5C is not on track and pledges from countries so far are a “drop in the rapidly warming ocean”.
As the historic conference hosted by the UK opened in Glasgow, the prime minister delivered a blunt message that the 1.5C target is “very much in the balance”, describing the chances of a deal that keeps the goal alive as “six out of 10”.
Continue reading...Climate activists rally in Scottish cities as Cop26 begins
Hundreds in Halloween outfits march in Edinburgh and Cop26 Coalition holds rally in Glasgow
Climate justice campaigners held events in Scotland’s two biggest cities on Sunday as world leaders arrived in Glasgow for the start of the Cop26 summit.
In Edinburgh, hundreds of activists in Halloween costumes marched through the city and held a rally outside the Scottish parliament.
Continue reading...Cop26 day 0: Glasgow prepares – in pictures
From ‘climate trains’ and indigenous ceremonies to pilgrimages and protests, delegates, activists and journalists descend on the UN climate conference
Continue reading...Climate change: Extreme weather events are 'the new norm'
We’re in uncharted territory for the world’s climate, UN says
Report sets out heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc this year
The climate crisis has driven the planet into “uncharted territory”, with far-reaching repercussions for today’s and future generations, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization. It said the Cop26 summit, which started on Sunday, is a “make-or-break opportunity to put us back on track”.
The WMO’s State of the Global Climate report shows that the last seven years are the hottest seven years on record, with accelerating sea level rise hitting new heights in 2021. The report sets out the heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc across the planet this year and is intended to inform Cop26 negotiations.
Continue reading...The west caused the climate crisis – it should now pay to clean up the mess | Lazarus Chakwera
At Cop26 a plan is urgently needed that will allow Africa to develop as well as adapt to global heating
- Lazarus Chakwera is president of Malawi
When will rich countries take responsibility? Last week, ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow, it was revealed that many of them had lobbied against the UN’s climate recommendations – namely that urgent action is needed. At the same time, some questioned the need to fund poorer countries to adapt to the effects of climate change – despite the failure by developed countries to deliver the $100bn (£75bn) they had pledged.
Africa has done little to create the climate crisis. Yet the locust plagues in the Horn of Africa, the first climate change famine in Madagascar and the water crises in southern Africa are all evidence that my continent is already paying the price of others’ emissions. The fund that some would like diminished is not charity, but a cleaning fee that must be paid.
Lazarus Chakwera is president of Malawi, chair of the 46-member Least Developed Countries and chair of Southern Africa Development Community
Continue reading...Politicians talk about net zero – but not the sacrifices we must make to get there | John Harris
Too few leaders will arrive at Cop26 bearing any mandate for serious climate action, because hardly any have tried to get one
To be facetious about it, they only have 12 days to save the Earth. As politicians and officials from 197 countries begin just under a fortnight’s work at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, you can sense a strange mixture of feelings: expectation, cynicism, fatalism, anger and fragile hope.
It will be easy to lose track of what is at stake and who is who – although anyone feeling confused should recall the report issued in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its bracing conclusion: that huge environmental changes triggered by global heating are now everywhere, and avoiding a future that will be completely catastrophic demands “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in carbon emissions. The point is simple enough. But one familiar factor may well weaken the resolve of the key people at Cop26: the fact that too few politicians will arrive in Scotland bearing any mandate for serious climate action, because almost none of them have tried to get one.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Cop26 ‘literally the last chance saloon’ to save planet – Prince Charles
Prince of Wales urges G20 to set aside differences and build sustainable economy
Cop26 is “the last chance saloon” to save the world from runaway climate change, Prince Charles has told world leaders in Rome ahead of the crucial climate summit in Glasgow.
Speaking to an audience including Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the gathering of the G20 group of industrialised nations, Charles said it was the moment to begin a green-led economic turnaround.
Continue reading...Revealed: a third of England’s vital flood defences are in private hands
Some defences are at risk of failure but private owners cannot be forced to make upgrades
A third of England’s most important flood defences are in private hands, an investigation has found, with more than 1,000 found to be in a poor state and some at risk of “complete performance failure”.
Private owners cannot be forced to make upgrades to the defences, which can involve bills of hundreds of thousands of pounds. The government admits it can only “encourage” third-party owners to do maintenance, though the Environment Agency can carry out emergency repairs if there is a risk to people, property or environment, and try to bill the freeholders afterwards.
Continue reading...‘All we can do is ask’: how flood defences depend on private owners’ cooperation
Environment Agency can do emergency work if life is at risk, but it’s hard to make landowners in England carry out repairs
James Mead was out running in January 2017 when he received a call from a colleague at the Environment Agency. A sinkhole had swallowed up two spaces in the car park at Sheffield’s Decathlon store and he needed to get there pronto.
Mead, on call for the Environment Agency as a senior adviser, legged it down to the city centre to inspect the damage. “It happened overnight but just the previous day there would have been cars parked there. The worst-case scenario was very serious,” he said.
Continue reading...Call for world leaders to ‘banish ghosts of past’ with Cop26 climate vows
Conference president, Alok Sharma, says countries must agree on how to tackle crisis
Alok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 climate summit, has called on global leaders to “banish ghosts of the past” and step up with new pledges to lower emissions as the world is running out of time to keep warming below 1.5C.
As leaders prepared to fly in for the conference in Glasgow, Sharma could not say with certainty that the two-week event would end with a deal to keep that prospect alive. As host nation, the UK is responsible for overseeing the negotiations and trying to extract meaningful pledges from the representatives of almost 200 countries in attendance.
Continue reading...Forrest strikes deal with UK billionaires for biggest renewable hydrogen play in UK
Andrew Forrest strikes deal with billionaire Bamford family to become biggest supplier of renewable hydrogen in UK, with focus on heavy transport.
The post Forrest strikes deal with UK billionaires for biggest renewable hydrogen play in UK appeared first on RenewEconomy.
I warn you – this column contains filth | Stewart Lee
In the week we host Cop26, our outmoded sewage system is causing an even bigger stink
The majestic shores and tinkling streams of our island kingdom are engulfed by filth. I am self-constipating to stem the tide of sewage, reducing my own filth output by eliminating fibre and water from my diet, and eating only dairy products, and so should you if you are a true patriot. Laurence Fox has already switched to a diet consisting solely of shirred eggs, baked in his own individual porcelain ramekins, while his Reform UK co-face, Richard Tice, has vowed to eat only bar-snack pickled eggs from “a rightwing pub, with free speech and rightwing comedy, and only British food, and no vaccine passports, and no masks”, until the filth tide retreats.
But mass public self-induced constipation is not a long-term answer to decades of chronic underinvestment in filth infrastructure by privatised water companies. I am, however, already seeing massive personal savings on my toilet roll and Toilet Duck expenditure. In fact, my toilet is so rarely used now I am thinking of encouraging an actual duck to live in it, though gathering the eggs might be a challenge.
Continue reading...‘How can we grow new forests if we don’t have enough trees to plant?’
As nurseries run low on stock and labour shortages grow, industry warns Tory pledge cannot be kept
Pledges to plant trees fall from politicians’ lips like leaves in the autumn, especially during elections and climate summits. Yet ambitious government planting targets are likely to be missed because there are not enough trees or people to plant them, leading forestry figures have warned.
Booming demand means that nurseries are already running out of trees, barely weeks into the planting season, according to the Horticultural Trades Association. And a shortage of workers needed to grow, replant and nurture healthy trees has been made worse by Brexit and under-investment in workforce training, according to the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF).
Continue reading...The Colour of the Climate Crisis – in pictures
The Colour of the Climate Crisis is an exhibition by the environmental social initiative Do The Green Thing. It showcases the work of 24 Black and other artists of colour exploring the relationship between racial injustice and climate injustice.
The exhibition will launch on 31 October and run until 2 November at Pipe Factory in Glasgow, Scotland, with a selection of works to coincide with the start of the Cop26 global climate summit. The works will form a permanent digital display at www.thecolouroftheclimatecrisis.art. Further gallery exhibitions will take place in London and New York in 2022
Huge 2.8GW solar farm proposed for Tiwi Islands in new green hydrogen plan
A 2.8GW solar project has been proposed for the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory, along with green hydrogen hub for exports to Asia.
The post Huge 2.8GW solar farm proposed for Tiwi Islands in new green hydrogen plan appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Eco-anxiety over climate crisis suffered by all ages and classes
Poll finds most Britons believe global warming will have far greater effect on humanity than Covid-19
A clear majority of people believe that climate change will have a more significant effect on humanity than will Covid-19, which has already claimed about five million lives worldwide, according to a new poll conducted ahead of the Cop26 summit being held in Glasgow this weekend.
The survey, carried out as part of a study into “eco-anxiety” by the Global Future thinktank in conjunction with the University of York, also finds that concern about global warming is almost as common among older and working-class people as it is among those who are young or middle-class. Overall, 78% of people reported some level of eco-anxiety.
Continue reading...Mankind is not trapped in a deadly game with the Earth – there are ways out | David Wengrow
As the Cop26 climate summit gets under way, scientists and activists are in broad agreement that our prevailing cultural system has placed us, and our planet, on a course to disaster. They agree that it is time to change course. Yet, at this critical moment, we find ourselves paralysed, with new horizons closed off by a false prospectus of human possibilities based on mythological conceptions of history.
We need only look at the notion that underpins our idea of human development. In this story, our species originated in egalitarian bands of hunters and foragers, at one with their surroundings, only to somehow fall from grace into a state of inequality. In this “coming-of-age” fairytale, we humans began in innocence and then developed by way of a voyage of technological discovery – from foragers to farmers to fossil fuels – that enabled our “advancement”, but saw us relinquish our original freedoms. We became “civilised”, only to find ourselves locked in a tug of war with nature that now threatens the planet.
Continue reading...Reasons to be hopeful: the climate solutions available now
We have every tool we need to tackle the climate crisis. Here’s what some key sectors are doing
The climate emergency is the biggest threat to civilisation we have ever faced. But there is good news: we already have every tool we need to beat it. The challenge is not identifying the solutions, but rolling them out with great speed.
Some key sectors are already racing ahead, such as electric cars. They are already cheaper to own and run in many places – and when the purchase prices equal those of fossil-fueled vehicles in the next few years, a runaway tipping point will be reached.
Continue reading...Macron and Johnson’s preening rivalry keeps lobster pot boiling
While the French and British leaders make political capital out of fishers, the row threatens to spill into crucial Cop26
To publicly accuse a long-time friend and ally of lacking credibility and breaking his word whenever its suits him is disobliging at the best of times. To do so on the eve of a watershed global summit, Cop26, which your “friend” is hosting and where trust is vital, looks like a verbal act of war.
Whether the accuser, Emmanuel Macron, France’s centrist president, deliberately sought to escalate his confrontation with Boris Johnson over fishing licences is unclear. He probably did. He knows his words are potentially deeply damaging as Britain struggles to achieve a breakthrough in Glasgow. But Johnson has become his bete noire.
For him, Johnson is an opportunist, a rightwing nationalist-populist, an anti-European – in short, an unscrupulous, unprincipled bounder. The problem with this latest iteration of perfidious Albion, an abiding theme in French politics, is that, in significant ways, Macron himself is not so very different.
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