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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...COP26 Wrap: Australian and global reactions to the ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’
The "Glasgow Pact" receives mixed reviews; praise for delivering a turning point for coal, while failing to bridge the gap ambition to 1.5 degrees.
The post COP26 Wrap: Australian and global reactions to the ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’ appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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
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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...‘Glasgow Pact’ keeps pressure on climate laggards like Australia, even after watering it down
The 'Glasgow Pact' keeps spotlight on countries going slow on climate action, despite a last-ditch attempt to weaken a call for the end of coal power.
The post ‘Glasgow Pact’ keeps pressure on climate laggards like Australia, even after watering it down appeared first on RenewEconomy.
‘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...CP Daily: COP26 Special
COP26: Reactions to the Glasgow Climate Pact and a summary of other major announcements
Government assumes 90% of Australia’s new car sales will be electric by 2050. But its a destination without a route
The Observer view on the Cop26 agreement
Countries still lack the radical ambition to avert disaster – this accord goes nowhere near far enough
On Glasgow Green, there lies a stone that commemorates the spot where the engineer James Watt in 1765 conceived the idea for a separate condenser for the steam engine. It is Watt’s invention, which revolutionised the efficiency of the steam engine, that means Glasgow can lay claim to be the place from which the Industrial Revolution sprang.
Just over a quarter of a millennium later, delegates from all over the world meeting in the same city have agreed the text of a critical international agreement to try to bind countries into the action required to slow the catastrophic global heating that the Industrial Revolution set in train.
Continue reading...Snake on a boat: 7ft python hitches 100-mile ride round Florida coast
Invasive species that wreaks havoc on land found on vessel after trip from Indian Key to Marco Island
A python sneaked aboard a sailboat in the Florida Keys and lurked undetected until the boat finished a near-100-mile voyage, police said.
The crew found the 7ft snake in the boat’s shower after docking on Friday at Marco Island, on the south-west Florida Gulf coast, after a trip from Indian Key, a distance of about 95 miles around the southern tip of the state.
Continue reading...Maine’s lobster fishers caught up in fierce fight with conservationists over entangled whales
Critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are dying in alarming numbers after getting caught in lobster trap ropes
A fierce fight is being waged in the Gulf of Maine between lobster fishers desperate to maintain their way of life and conservationists who argue that the waters are a vital haven for the threatened North Atlantic right whale.
Last month, a federal judge in Maine rejected a federal ban on lobstering in a section of the Gulf of Maine that is meant to protect the whales.
Continue reading...COP26: UN talks compel nations to revise GHG pledges next year, shy away from coal exit
COP26: New global climate deal struck in Glasgow
Cop26 ends in climate agreement despite India watering down coal resolution
Glasgow Climate Pact adopted despite last-minute intervention by India to water down language on phasing out dirtiest fossil fuel
Countries have agreed a deal on the climate crisis that its backers say will keep within reach the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C, the key threshold of safety set out in the 2015 Paris agreement.
Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and Cop president, said the deal was “imperfect” but showed “consensus and support”. He said: “I hope we can leave this conference united having delivered something significant for people and planet together as one.”
Continue reading...It could have been worse, but our leaders failed us at Cop26. That’s the truth of it.
Countries who take this crisis seriously must seize the initiative, and make the rest pariahs
Where now? Governments have agreed a weak climate deal which gets us a smidgen closer to holding temperatures to a rise of 1.5C. But as regards all the most important pledges to phase out coal, reduce subsidies and protect forests, Glasgow failed.
The fossil fuel lobby, led by India, held its line, dramatically succeeding in watering down – at the last minute and without due, transparent process – the move to ‘phase out’ coal power, pledging instead to ‘phase down’. The poor came away with next to nothing, there was little urgency and we are still heading for catastrophe. Any chance of halving fast-rising emissions by 2030 – the declared aim of the talks – is now negligible.
Continue reading...‘Love song’ lost: the fight to stop Australia’s regent honeyeater from dying out
At least 1,000 long-flowered mistletoe seeds, a key breeding source for the species, will be planted into host trees in the Tomalpin Woodlands
So few of Australia’s regent honeyeaters remain, its distinctive mating song is slowly being lost to its dwindling population.
Its staccato burst of pips and squeaks, a “funny sort of call”, was passed down to young males from “uncles” when honeyeaters, a nomadic species, still travelled in flocks.
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