Feed aggregator

What happened at Cop26 – day three at a glance

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 04:55

Summary of the main developments on the third day of the UN climate summit in Glasgow

Country pledges at Cop26 would limit global temperature rises to below 2C, the first time the world has been on such a trajectory, according to research from the University of Melbourne.

More than 20 countries and financial institutions have vowed to halt all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and divert the estimated $8bn a year to green energy. The signatories include the US, UK, Denmark and some developing countries, including Costa Rica. The European Investment Bank is one of the financial institutions involved.

Catch up on day two here.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Glasgow activists ‘re-open’ disused building to house Cop26 visitors

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 04:32

Council property has been restored to habitability by locals after reports of activists having to sleep rough

Activists in Glasgow have “re-opened” a disused building to house climate justice campaigners visiting the city for the Cop26 summit, as those forced to camp because of lack of affordable accommodation face plummeting temperatures.

The Glasgow city council property in Tradeston, a former homeless services unit, has been restored to habitability over the past few days by a group of local activists frustrated at reports of visitors forced to sleep rough.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

UK releases 2022 carbon allowance auction calendar

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2021-11-04 04:28
The UK government will auction 80.5 million carbon allowances under its emissions trading system next year, marking an almost 4% drop from this year’s volumes, sale hosts ICE said late Wednesday.
Categories: Around The Web

Insulate Britain’s protests are disruptive, annoying – and justified | Owen Jones

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 03:41

Like the suffragettes, protesters are castigated for taking direct action. But how else will we wake up to the climate emergency?

Few people today would claim not to sympathise with the suffragettes – but this wasn’t true at the time. When parliament debated women’s struggle for the vote in 1914, Lord Robert Cecil – later a recipient of the Nobel peace prize, who was in fact supportive of women’s suffrage – declared that “suffragist outrages” were a “very serious evil” with the aim of “anarchy”. There was only one solution “to prevent them from committing crimes”, he said: “deportation”. When Reginald McKenna, then home secretary in HH Asquith’s Liberal government, offered four options to deal with them – letting them die (“That is, I should say, at the present moment the most popular, judging by the number of letters I have received”); deportation; treating them as “lunatics”; or giving them the franchise – his fellow parliamentarians laughed uproariously at each.

The suffragettes, it should be said, did not sit around singing kumbaya, and were far more militant than contemporary protest movements in Britain. They committed arson, including the burning of several private homes – with five resulting deaths –and smashed up art galleries and museums. They attempted to destroy Glasgow’s aqueduct and attacked churches. Targets for bombing included the extremely busy street outside the Bank of England, although the device was defused, while a train driver was nearly killed by another bomb. Damned at the time as terrorists and anarchists, the militants are today seen sympathetically by history. As the cheerful “soldiers in petticoats” in Disney’s Mary Poppins predicted: “Our daughters’ daughters will adore us, and they’ll sing in grateful chorus: ‘Well done, Sister Suffragette!”

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

2021: A year of wild weather

BBC - Thu, 2021-11-04 03:19
If emissions continue rising, Europe can expect 50C heatwaves every three years, the Met Office says.
Categories: Around The Web

Why activists fear little-known treaty could slow fossil fuel phase-out

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 03:01

Vital rulings on the world’s energy future are being made behind closed doors and others may be unknown

The energy charter treaty (ECT) was signed in 1994 to protect the interests of western investors pouring money into the oil- and gas-rich nations of the former Soviet Union. Entering into force in 1998, the treaty generated few cases and even less attention.

That changed in 2014 when investors in the energy firm Yukos were awarded a record $50bn payout after a tribunal found that Vladimir Putin’s government had expropriated their assets to prevent Yukos’s then chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, from entering politics. The European court of human rights reached a similar verdict in the same week.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Secretive court system poses threat to Paris climate deal, says whistleblower

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 03:00

Treaty allows energy corporations to sue governments for billions over policies that could hurt their profits

A secretive investor court system poses a real threat to the Paris climate agreement, activists have said, as governments taking action to phase out fossil fuels face a slew of multimillion-dollar lawsuits for lost profits.

New data seen by the Guardian shows a surge in cases under the energy charter treaty (ECT), an obscure international agreement that allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that could hurt their profits.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Leatherback turtle nest numbers in south Florida double previous record

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 02:51

Biologists heartened as 79 nests of endangered reptile recorded in Broward county this year after low of 12 in 2017.

The number of leatherback turtle nests found along some south Florida beaches reached record numbers this year, surprising biologists.

The 79 nests laid by endangered turtles along beaches in Broward county this year is nearly double the previous record, according to the South Florida SunSentinel. The previous record was 46 in 2012, and the record low for leatherback nests was 12 in 2017.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Cop26: finance, protest and indigenous voices – in pictures

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 02:40

The Guardian’s picture editors select recent images from UN climate change conference

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

COP26: What do the poorest countries want from climate summit?

BBC - Thu, 2021-11-04 02:30
Rich countries will get most of the attention, but developing countries are on climate change's front line.
Categories: Around The Web

Twenty countries pledge end to finance for overseas fossil fuel projects

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 02:18

UK among countries at Cop26 vowing to divert funds to low-carbon energy from 2022

More than 20 countries and financial institutions will halt all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and divert the spending to green energy instead from next year.

The move marks a significant boost for the transition to clean fuels. The Guardian understands the countries involved include the US, UK, Denmark and some developing countries that would receive such finance, including Costa Rica. The European Investment Bank is one of the financial institutions involved.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Activists interrupt Rishi Sunak's Cop26 speech with fossil fuel questions – video

The Guardian - Thu, 2021-11-04 02:14

Climate activists were removed from a Rishi Sunak photo opportunity after questioning the chancellor on government deals with fossil fuel companies.

Fatima Ibrahim, the co-founder of the UK's Green New Deal movement, posted the moment on Twitter. 'Is he that scared of young people asking him questions?', she wrote

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Galapagos marine reserve: Conservationists hail expansion

BBC - Thu, 2021-11-04 01:17
Conservationists say the move will protect migration routes for many endangered species.
Categories: Around The Web

COP26: What's the climate impact of private jets?

BBC - Thu, 2021-11-04 01:06
World leaders' use of private jets to attend the climate summit has been called into question.
Categories: Around The Web

COP26 climate change summit: So far, so good-ish

BBC - Thu, 2021-11-04 00:36
Three days into the COP26 global climate summit, and the mood is positive.
Categories: Around The Web

Over half of CERs from Indian wind projects non-additional, report finds

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2021-11-04 00:21
As many as 52% of the carbon credits generated by Indian wind farms under the Kyoto Protocol came from projects that would likely have gone ahead even without carbon finance, said a study released Wednesday.
Categories: Around The Web

RGGI prices boomerang after Virginia elects GOP governor, House

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2021-11-04 00:16
RGGI Allowance (RGA) prices see-sawed wildly on Wednesday morning after Virginia Republicans were projected to take control of both the governor’s office and House of Delegates in Tuesday’s election, though it remains uncertain whether the GOP could try to exit the regional cap-and-trade programme without Senate control.
Categories: Around The Web

COP26: Vulnerable countries criticise net zero plans for moving goalposts, emphasising undeveloped tech

Carbon Pulse - Thu, 2021-11-04 00:06
Several developing countries have taken aim at the plethora of public and private net zero plans that rely on new technologies in the future to produce negative emissions while continuing to emit today.
Categories: Around The Web

Euro Markets: Midday Update

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2021-11-03 23:49
EUAs climbed on Wednesday to test a major price level for the fifth time in the last fortnight, while energy prices also built on Tuesday's recovery.
Categories: Around The Web

Cop26: Sharma’s claim bankers are ‘new Swampys’ is appropriation, says activist

The Guardian - Wed, 2021-11-03 23:37

Summit president’s comments on finance day accused of trying to commercialise climate activism

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and president of the Cop26 summit, has been accused of appropriating the climate activism movement after he told conference delegates “you are the new Swampys”.

Opening the summit’s finance day, which aims to channel cash towards transitioning global economies to net zero carbon emissions, Sharma recalled climate protests of the 1990s.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Pages

Subscribe to Sustainable Engineering Society aggregator