The Guardian
Major European carmakers will hit emissions targets too easily, research shows
Report suggests weak targets could push firms to make millions more of the much more profitable petrol and diesel cars
Weak EU vehicle emissions targets could allow Europe’s biggest carmakers to produce millions more petrol and diesel cars than necessary up to 2030 in a “wasted decade” for cutting carbon pollution, according to a report.
Analysis of car industry sales plans for electric vehicles shared exclusively with the Guardian by Transport and Environment (T&E), a thinktank and campaign group, showed that manufacturers could hit their 2030 EU carbon emissions targets with four years to spare.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson plays down weakening of Cop26 coal ambitions
PM says ‘not much difference’ between ‘phasing down’ and ‘phasing out’ of the fossil fuel
Boris Johnson has said it was disappointing that China and India had watered down the Cop26 climate agreement, but claimed there was little difference between “phasing out” and “phasing down” coal usage.
The prime minister declared the summit in Glasgow a historic success, rating it “more than 6/10”, but acknowledged his “delight at this progress is tinged with disappointment”.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on the Cop26 agreement: unfinished business | Editorial
The best thing about the Glasgow agreement is the chance it offers for tougher emissions cuts next year
The anti-global heating movement is not strong enough. With last year’s defeat of Donald Trump, its enemies lost their most powerful figurehead. But the governments of Australia, Brazil, Russia and Saudi Arabia continue to obstruct progress and at Cop26, yet again, they and the other backers of the fossil fuel-powered status quo outgunned supporters of the immediate decarbonisation that is needed, if the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C is to stay within reach. Now the Glasgow conference is over, the most important question for all those seeking to avoid and reduce climate harms is how to speed up the transition.
Ramping up the pressure on polluters – both nations and companies – is the obvious answer. Questions surrounding tactics remain fraught, as the recent debate over protests by Insulate Britain illustrates. But there is no question that civil society has a vital role to play. If people, in a few years’ time, are to look back on Cop26 as a success, it will be because the Glasgow agreement created the mechanism whereby countries must revisit their emissions-cutting pledges every year, and the political conditions changed sufficiently to ensure that existing promises were strengthened.
Continue reading...Cop26 ends with deal, but frustration over watered down coal commitment – video report
The Cop26 climate conference finally came to a close on Saturday evening, as delegates agreed a package after days of tortuous negotiations. However, there was disappointment when a commitment for all 196 signatories to phase out coal was watered down after lobbying from China and India.
In total the pledges will limit global heating to 2.4C – well above the 1.5C required to avert catastrophic environmental consequences – with the biggest polluters required to return next year with improved emissions targets. Cop26 president Alok Sharma, who made an emotional apology for the failure to keep the coal commitment, said: 'We have kept 1.5C within reach, but its pulse is weak.'
- What are the key points of the Glasgow climate pact?
- Glasgow climate pact: leaders welcome Cop26 deal despite coal compromise
- Cop26 ends in climate agreement despite India watering down coal resolution
- ‘Utter betrayal’: civil society groups furious at Cop26 outcome – live updates
Cop26 ends with Glasgow climate pact – in pictures
Inside Saturday’s negotiations as delegates hammer out a deal that makes progress in some important areas
Continue reading...After the failure of Cop26, there is only one last hope for our survival | George Monbiot
It’s too late for incremental change. By mobilising just 25% of people, we can flip social attitudes towards the climate
Now it’s a straight fight for survival. The Glasgow Climate Pact, for all its restrained and diplomatic language, looks like a suicide pact. After so many squandered years of denial, distraction and delay, it’s too late for incremental change. A fair chance of preventing more than 1.5C of heating means cutting greenhouse gas emissions by about 7% every year: faster than they fell in 2020, at the height of the pandemic.
What we needed at the Cop26 climate conference was a decision to burn no more fossil fuels after 2030. Instead, powerful governments sought a compromise between our prospects of survival and the interests of the fossil fuel industry. But there was no room for compromise. Without massive and immediate change, we face the possibility of cascading environmental collapse, as Earth systems pass critical thresholds and flip into new and hostile states.
Continue reading...Murals, street and protest art at Cop26 – in pictures
Photographer Katherine Anne Rose took to the streets of Glasgow during Cop26 to capture some of the art that has been produced during the climate change conference
Continue reading...What are the key points of the Glasgow climate pact?
Analysis: Cop26 delegates made progress on emissions cuts and climate adaptation but fell short on coal
The Cop26 climate conference finally came to an end on Saturday night, having overrun by a day. Here are the main points in the text agreed to by delegates.
Continue reading...‘I am deeply sorry’: Alok Sharma fights back tears as watered-down Cop26 deal agreed – video
The president of the Cop26 climate summit offered an emotional apology on Saturday evening as an agreement was reached with last-minute changes to its wording on coal. A commitment to ‘phase out’ coal, which was included in earlier drafts, was changed to ‘phase down’ after China and India led opposition to it. Sharma said he was ‘deeply sorry’ for how the negotiations had ended
- ‘The pressure for change is building’: reactions to the Glasgow climate pact
- Glasgow climate pact: leaders welcome Cop26 deal despite coal compromise
- Cop26 ends in climate agreement despite India watering down coal resolution
A Cop26 deal was always going to be messy – just look at world trade talks
WTO talks show how hard it is to get everyone on the same page – and what goes for trade, goes for climate too
It was a messy compromise. It wasn’t nearly enough. In many respects it was a classic example of kicking the can down the road. But Cop26 wasn’t the car crash it could have been and, realistically, was always going to end in the way it did, with last-minute haggling over the text.
Why? Because achieving a climate change deal at a meeting of representatives from 197 countries was always going to be tough. While there was general agreement about the need to tackle global heating, there were big differences about how and when to do so.
Continue reading...‘It’s been a rollercoaster’: Glasgow reflects on Cop26 fortnight of change
Influx of delegates has brought excitement and new connections – as well as a little inconvenience – for residents
“I can’t believe how early it gets dark here,” says environmental lawyer Patsy Contardo, who has spent the last two weeks experiencing Scottish culture, from Tunnock’s teacakes and shortbread to the great British weather.
Contardo, a Cop26 delegate from Chile, was staying with Glaswegian hosts Fiona and Matt Hooker, who opened up their home to her as part of the Cop26 Homestay Network aimed at helping foreign delegates faced with sky-high accommodation costs in the city; rates rose to more than £1,000 a night in some hotels.
Continue reading...John Kerry: Cop26 puts us closer than ever to avoiding climate chaos
US climate envoy says many countries have very aggressively increased their ambition
The world is now closer than it has ever been to the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, the US climate envoy John Kerry has said, after the Cop26 negotiations ended in Glasgow with an “imperfect” but widely welcomed deal.
Kerry said: “We are in fact closer than we have ever been before to avoiding climate chaos and securing cleaner air, safer water and a healthier planet.”
Continue reading...Where voters and consumers lead on the climate crisis, businesses will have to follow | Will Hutton
Capitalism has divided opinion violently in Glasgow over the past fortnight. Prince Charles rewarded those global businesses delivering on their commitments to net-zero carbon emissions with his Terra Carta award, declaiming that only the private sector could and would deliver, while Mark Carney, co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, boasted of the $130tn (£97tn) of private investment funds – doubled in six months – committing to invest in companies signed up to net zero. But capitalism, growth, greenwashing and self-seeking lobbying were denounced by activists and NGOs as the root of the problem. Prince Charles and Carney were dismissed as little better than collaborators in our collective downfall.
In truth, a complex but ultimately hopeful dance is being performed before our eyes. The growing conviction of voters and consumers, further intensified by environmental campaigners at Cop26, that the climate crisis is real is forcing change. Last week, rivalling in importance to what was unfolding at Cop26, came the news from New York that electric pick-up truck manufacture Rivian, hardly in production, had floated for more than $100bn, valuing it at more than Ford and General Motors. It’s the kind of mind-boggling welcome Wall Street gave to young companies making petrol-propelled cars a century ago.
Continue reading...Cop26 live: leaders hail Glasgow climate pact but activists say summit failed
Agreement arrived at on Saturday night made progress in some important areas but poor countries say it is not nearly enough. Follow reaction here
- ‘Pressure for change is building’: reactions to the Glasgow climate pact
- Analysis: the goal of 1.5C of climate heating is alive, but only just
- ‘Still on the road to hell’: what the papers say about Cop26
Phillips has been laying various traps for Miliband, but Miliband declines to walk into them. Phillips suggests climate action is not popular with poorer voters, although recent polling has found that is not the case, and Miliband repeats that climate action now is cheaper than not taking action in the long run.
Asked about the upcoming Cumbria coal mine and Cambo oil field going ahead, Miliband says they should be cancelled.
Continue reading...Clothes rental services won’t break our fashion addiction | Eva Wiseman
My relationship with fashion is that of a long-term couple who frequently argue at a pitch that worries the neighbours. It contains passion, guilt, sorrow and frequent spot-cleaning.
I still enjoy the vinegar perfume of glossy magazines and even (as I peer at the price of a coat or boot) the familiar internal screech. I still enjoy a leisurely stroll around the shops, gently fingering a silky sleeve, noting the newer skirt length or ugly shoe index. At its best, getting dressed is an existential pleasure akin to the jolt upon meeting a stranger’s eye across a crowded room; at its worst, like lowering oneself into a cold bath of beans without a single name on your sponsor sheet. I love my clothes, each thing embedded with the sweat of memory, each old dress a welcome surprise.
Continue reading...Battery failures like Johnson Matthey risk leaving British carmakers disconnected
The UK automotive industry will need a large local supply of battery capacity. If it does not get it, it could shrink quickly
The end of the internal combustion engine was one of the goals identified by Boris Johnson before Cop26.
The climate summit in Glasgow has delivered in part – some manufacturers and a few big countries said last week they would end sales of fossil fuel cars by 2040. Neither Volkswagen nor Toyota, the world’s two biggest carmakers, signed up, because of concerns over electric charger availability in poorer countries, but nevertheless the path is clear. Petrol and diesel are on their way out. Battery electric cars are on the way in.
Continue reading...Glasgow climate pact: leaders welcome Cop26 deal despite coal compromise
Watered-down coal pledge and climate financing shortcomings temper optimism over Glasgow deal
World leaders and environmental experts have broadly welcomed a UN climate deal that for the first time targeted fossil fuels as the key driver of global warming, while some criticised the agreement for not going far enough.
While the agreement won applause for keeping alive the hope of capping global warming at 1.5C, many of the nearly 200 national delegations wished they had come away with more.
Continue reading...Five questions the Morrison government must answer now it has agreed to the Cop26 pact
If Australia wants to stop being seen as a climate ‘wrecker’ it needs to increase its 2030 emissions target, phase down coal power and cut fossil fuel subsidies. Will it?
- Greg Hunt refuses to say if government will update 2030 emissions target
- ‘Still on the road to hell’: what the British papers say about Cop26
- Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing
The Glasgow climate pact is not enough to solve the climate crisis but it includes steps that could help bridge the gap between rhetoric and action.
What does it mean for Australia? Here are five key questions the Morrison government must now answer.
Continue reading...‘Still on the road to hell’: what the papers say about Cop26
As the climate summit in Glasgow wrapped up with a last-minute deal, the front pages of Britain’s papers told very different stories
After days of painful wrangling, the Cop26 summit finally delivered a watered-down climate deal on Saturday night. While some activists were firmly unimpressed with the result, Sunday’s papers delivered verdicts ranging from “Still on the road to hell” to a more sanguine “Climate deal for the world”.
The story found its way on to most front pages. The Observer splashed on Boris Johnson offering to help Jennifer Arcuri’s business, with a smaller story on Cop26 reporting that a deal had been struck after last-minute drama.
Continue reading...