Feed aggregator
Swiss aviation carbon permit sale clears at record high
Climate optimism is an illusion, UN chief tells Cop26
António Guterres says talks may have to become annual and urges countries to ‘choose ambition’
Optimistic assessments of progress on tackling the climate crisis were “an illusion”, the UN secretary general has said in a scathing critique of world leaders’ efforts so far to cut greenhouse gas emissions and stave off climate breakdown.
António Guterres, greeting leaders gathering for the Cop26 summit, roundly dismissed the suggestion that the climate situation was improving, and he exhorted the more than 120 heads of government to “choose to safeguard our future and save humanity” instead of continuing with the addiction to fossil fuels.
Continue reading...No greenwash and no fudges: Cop26’s success depends on leaders telling the truth | Ed Miliband
The world needs to cut 28bn tonnes of emissions, current pledges only come to 4bn. Leaders cannot shy from this reality
• Ed Miliband is the shadow secretary for business, energy and industry
The defining choice facing leaders in Glasgow this week at Cop26 is whether to sugar-coat reality or be honest about the climate emergency, and demand the action that will be necessary to confront it. If we are to have any chance of preventing catastrophe, we must choose truth and candour.
The most important truth is the maths. For all the millions of words spilled about this summit, not enough has been done to spell out its central task. Many leaders say we need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, but few say out loud what that means.
Continue reading...Euro Markets: Midday Update
With the planet in peril, we religious leaders must speak truth to power | Jonathan Wittenberg
As Cop26 gets under way in Glasgow, I can’t help but reflect on the UK government’s very un-green budget
- Jonathan Wittenberg is rabbi of New North London synagogue
Two thousand years ago, Ecclesiastes taught that even a king is subservient to the soil. That includes prime ministers and chancellors; we are all dependent on and an interdependent part of nature.
Never before has there been a time when it is so urgent to budget for the benefit of the Earth. I am one of millions who imagined that Boris Johnson’s promise last year to “build back greener” was truly intended. I expected that the government of the country, entrusted with hosting Cop26 – the most important gathering ever for the future of our planet – would show that it means what it says and put its money where its slogans are.
Continue reading...COP26 Roundup: Day 1 – Nov. 1
Singapore-based exchange holds pilot portfolio auction of voluntary offsets
UK firm appointed for carbon capture FEED study in Germany
Do not trust Brazil’s ‘greenwashing’ promises, say Amazon activists
Campaigners warn Brazil may make empty promises at Cop26 to gain access to conservation money
Amazon forest defenders are urging delegates at Cop26 not to trust the “greenwashing” promises of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, which has wreaked havoc on the environment over the past three years.
Brazil will field one of the biggest delegations at the UN climate talks in Glasgow and fund a lavish promotional pavilion inside the conference centre. According to the agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias, and the environment minister, Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, the message is that Brazil is “a longtime champion of the environmental agenda and an agrifood powerhouse”.
Continue reading...Children surviving the climate crisis – in pictures
Save the Children has been documenting the stories of children living on the frontline of the climate crisis, sending world-renowned photographers to Cambodia, Australia and Pakistan to learn about their lives
Continue reading...Joe Manchin: who gave you authority to decide the fate of the planet? | Daniel Sherrell
My rage against the senator might consume me if I couldn’t set it down here
Late in the evening on Friday 15 October an alert appeared on my phone that seemed at last to portend the end of the world. Two weeks before the UN climate summit in Glasgow – a make-or-break moment for American leadership and international ambition – Senator Joe Manchin had decided to gut our country’s best, and perhaps last, attempt to save itself. With three decades left to decarbonize the global economy, and a window of Democratic control unlikely to recur for years, Manchin’s benefactors in the coal and gas industry had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, killing the Clean Electricity Performance Program that would finally have brought their lucrative global arson spree under control.
It was hard not to feel like this was game over, a sensation I’d grown accustomed to after a decade working in the American climate movement. It was the same feeling I’d had after the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks, and the defeat of the Waxman-Markey bill, and the election of a president willing to drown the world to buoy his ego. But though each of those moments felt crushing, the news on the 15th felt worse.
Continue reading...Australia releases framework for Indo-Pacific carbon market, eyes Indonesia partnership
Xi Jinping: China’s president sidesteps Cop26 video link for written statement
Address by leader of world’s biggest polluter will be uploaded to conference website
China’s president, Xi Jinping, will address the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow on Monday in the form of a written statement.
An official schedule said Xi’s statement would be uploaded to the conference website following addresses by world leaders, including his US and French counterparts Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...BP hires new head of China carbon trading desk
Cop26 begins as world leaders descend on Glasgow – live
Leaders and delegates from around the world are arriving in Glasgow for a crucial conference on tackling the climate crisis. Follow the latest here
World leaders are beginning to arrive at the SEC, where they are being greeted by UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
Many were disappointed when it was confirmed that the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, would not attend in person, as although he has not left China since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic some feared it might signal a lack of ambition from China.
Continue reading...Australia registers first CCS offset project
COP26: World at one minute to midnight over climate change - Boris Johnson
Is this a watershed moment when it comes to sewage in England’s rivers and seas? | Rachel Salvidge
After a public outcry, the Tories are realising that effluent-dumping water companies need more than a ticking off
The groundswell of disgust over water firms dumping raw human sewage into England’s rivers and seas has grown into a roiling tsunami threatening to overwhelm the government. By their own confession, water companies say they dumped untreated sewage into English water bodies more than 400,000 times last year, for a total of about 3.1m hours.
As shocking as that seems, you can safely assume this figure grossly underplays the true picture because not all sewage discharges are recorded, and because the sector is allowed to self-report its spills, a practice that begs to be abused.
Rachel Salvidge is an environmental journalist and deputy editor of the ENDS Report
Continue reading...