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Australian court cases, fossilfuel phase out alliances, and a vote of confidence in Gold Standards all feature in this week's latest round up of global green business news. Colombia to host hybrid Biodiversity PreCOP.
The world's top diplomat used a speech today at the UN headquarters in New York City to deliver a characteristically stark warning of the impending climate and biodiversity crises facing the world, noting global warming risks "hurtling past" the 1.5C We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossilfuel resurgence."
“The Glasgow COP is going to fail us,” writes Rupert Read in one of the essays in a new collection, Climate Adaptation. Speaking at the launch of the book in Glasgow on 30 October, he shared some of his views on the measures that might constitute a successful COP, or a not-entirely-disastrous-one, at least.
While the total number has dropped compared to the record highs at COP28, the figures show that climate COPs continue to be a top priority for businesses working in agriculture, a sector that accounts for up to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. and at climate summits.
The headline commitment of COP28 was the pledge to transition away from fossilfuels. Many commentators also appeared to believe that the “UAE Consensus” – as the deal was dubbed – leaves plenty of scope to continue burning fossilfuels, while also being woefully short on the financial commitments required to realize its aims.
Fossilfuels get named and shamed. For the first time in 25 years of UN climate talks, coal and fossilfuel subsidies have been singled out in an official document. Here, we've picked out 10 key takeaways for business leaders from the Glasgow Climate Pact and COP26 Summit: 1. Some progress on adaptation finance.
In a communique published at the close of a three-day Energy and Environment Ministerial meeting in Berlin this week, the world's largest economies set out their priorities for tackling the intersecting climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises, and responding to the disruption to energy markets wrought by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Scientists tell us that we’ve pushed the planet beyond its ability to support us in critical areas such as availability of water, biodiversity, and, of course, carbon emissions. Banks are also making more money from loans and underwriting to clean energy than to fossilfuels. Great news all around.
Experts say that failing to reform the sector’s polluting practices – such as by cutting the use of pesticides and polluting synthetic fertilisers – will harm global efforts to curb climate change and reverse biodiversity loss. The sheer scale of the operations of the companies also means they are major emitters in their own right.
Farming also relies on synthetic fertilisers that are both fossil-fuel-based and emit greenhouse gases, and drives deforestation. All these methods work to improve the soil, reduce air and water pollution, cut emissions, and boost biodiversity. We can expect a similar turnout at this year’s COP, too.
The study, which was commissioned by non-profit the B Team, estimates fossilfuels, agriculture and water industries receive more 80 per cent of these environmentally harmful subsidies dished out by policymakers. Nature is declining at an alarming rate, and we have never lived on a planet with so little biodiversity," she said.
The explosive growth of capitalism over the past 200 years has been largely powered by fossilfuel companies and their extraction of humanity’s common resources—air, forests, land, and, most importantly, coal, oil and gas. The document also acknowledges that there is little chance of further economic growth.”.
billion worth of fossilfuels from Saudi Arabia. DeSmog has today revealed that the US-based advertising giant McCann, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), is putting itself forward to continue working for this fossilfuel giant. So what else do we know about this fossilfuel behemoth?
University vows to deliver net zero emissions by 2035 and establish UK's 'most biodiverse campus'. • Create the UK's most biodiverse campus - setting aside up to half of the site for nature. • Reach net zero by 2035 - including both direct and indirect carbon emissions.
Anger is building over the failure to secure much-needed commitments towards phasing out unabated fossilfuels and tackling near-term emissions as part of the final agreement brokered at COP27 over the weekend, with critics warning the chances of limiting global warming to 1.5C target hangs by a thread after this year's summit.
G20 agrees to submit enhanced Paris Agreement plans ahead of COP26, but fails to agree coal power and fossilfuel subsidy phase outs. Under the Paris Agreement, signatories are expected to ramp up their national climate pledges every five years in order to help limit temperature rise to 1.5C goal without the leadership of the G20.
An 'ambitious' new 2030 emissions reduction target, a 2030 phase out date for fossilfuel vehicles, and a major home energy retrofit programme are all on the Climate Coalition's short list, along with a raft of wider proposals designed to accelerate emissions reductions efforts over the coming decade. A ban on fossilfuel finance.
To all but the willfully ignorant there is more than ample scientific evidence to indicate that we are facing a biodiversity crisis and a climate emergency. To do this we need to move quickly away from fossilfuels and this will require massive investments in renewable energy, and sustainable transportation.
International summits to progress a global oceans treaty and mid-year UNFCCC talks have been postponed, while even more crucially COP26 and the much anticipated 'BiodiversityCOP' are now set to take place next year. You want the banks to be saved, then stop investing in fossilfuel expansion.
This increase will push out alternative, fossil-fuel-powered energy sources, supporting a much-needed energy evolution as fossil-fuel reserves begin to deplete. Figures show that the current average will increase from 15% of the global energy mix to 28% by 2050. One such project is Aclymate’s Kariba REDD+ Project.
A significant feature of COP was businesses joining with activists to demand faster progress. We hear most about the climate crisis, but our waste - plastics and e-waste - and biodiversity crises are shocking too. It is a cliché, but whilst states can negotiate with each other, they can't negotiate with physics.
Having officially taken the reins of the COP Presidency in Glasgow, Alok Sharma and his diplomatic team are now tasked with steering global climate discussions over the next year ahead of COP27 in Egypt, and the CCC today urged the UK to lead by example with ambitious climate efforts at home. of warming by the end of the century.
But group of petrostates resist calls to phase down fossilfuels and accelerate decarbonisation efforts. The so-called High Ambition Coalition of nations argued the draft text should include a commitment to phase down all fossilfuels and clearer commitments to accelerate the roll out of renewables.
“For me, intellectually, that always felt like a little bit of a cop-out,” said Jesse Nichols, a video producer at Grist. But when she learned about how biodiverse parasites in fact are, and the often crucial roles they play in ecosystems, it felt like she had discovered a whole new secret world. Watch the full video here.
Farming will be front and centre at this year’s COP. The North American Meat Institute will host a side event at the US COP pavilion on December 11, the summit’s Agriculture Day, for example. We need the animal agriculture equivalent of ‘keep it in the ground’ for fossilfuels,” she adds. “It’s
I heard someone call COP26 the "business COP" I couldn't find any official reference of that sort, but I'm inclined to agree. Moreover, many of these banks continue to finance the fossil-fuel industry, funding coal mines, backstopping debt issuance and lending directly to power producers, as the Financial Times reported.
Biodiversity. Commonly known as soot, it is formed from wildfires and fossilfuel consumption and contributes to climate change. Conference of the Parties (COP). COP is the decision-making body responsible for monitoring and reviewing implementation of the UNFCCC. But they help reduce economy-wide total emissions.
They also all stressed that they wanted to do more to tackle biodiversity loss and water pollution, and a number of candidates floated new policy proposals. What would happen if we moved it to 2060 or 2070? We're not going to be here. Let's be realistic.".
COP talks each year are often fraught and progress remains far too slow, as today's IPCC report on escalating climate impacts will testify. As close observers of global climate diplomacy have long argued, if the COP process and the Paris Agreement did not exist you would have to invent them. "It
Representatives of business and industry groups more than doubled at the UN’s latest biodiversity summit, DeSmog has found, sparking fears over the growing influence of powerful private sector bodies. They were followed by fossilfuel companies, which brought 40 representatives. What you see here are two COPs,” he said.
But it remains significantly longer - and has been published much later - than previous COP cover texts, meaning negotiators have a major task ahead of them in whittling down options to deliver political consensus. We can only really perhaps get the highest ambition on mitigation if we also see a strong breakthrough on loss and damage.
It's hard to think of a greater dereliction of our responsibility as COP hosts.". IPPR Environmental Justice Commission head Luke Murphy said: "Today the Chancellor declared the UK was entering an ‘age of optimism' but instead he used the budget to extend the ages of fossilfuels. But investment alone is not enough.
And then, somewhere along the way, 2022 also found time for two major UN COP summits - one on climate change, the other on biodiversity - both of which proved momentous in different ways. Even British Gas, a company that takes is name from the fossilfuel, began ramping up its heat pump installations this year.
Truss has plenty of high profile supporters who keep attacking a flagship policy she insists she is wedded to and advocating for pro-fossilfuel policies that even the fossilfuel industry thinks make little sense. Where do you stand on farming subsidy reforms and what is your strategy for restoring nature?
What are the big priorities for COP? Its conclusions have since been endorsed with apparent sincerity by the UK government, which announced in June that it was committing to ensuring that more of the UK’s largest new infrastructure projects “leave nature and biodiversity in an overall better state than before development”.
He called for a "Climate Solidarity Pact" between richer and poorer nations geared towards helping climate vulnerable countries ramp up renewable energy capacity and end dependence on fossilfuels, with a particular onus on stopping new coal plants being built. That's why this first agreements with Ecuador is so significant.
In addition, the new net zero strategy must be accompanied by equally ambitious plans for nature - there is no way of managing global warming without preserving the planet's biodiversity, forests and oceans. Overall, the global goal of net-zero by 2050 needs to be matched by an equally clear global goal of net positivity for nature.".
DeSmog’s renewed focus on agriculture comes ahead of a pivotal and eventful year for climate, and food politics, with major summits related to biodiversity, energy and food due over the coming months in Colombia and Azerbaijan this year. The farming industry is also directly imperilling our natural world.
In November, I had the privilege to represent Schneider Electric at the UN's Conference of Parties (COP) on climate change in Glasgow. This COP was unlike the previous 25 iterations, in that it took place during a global pandemic. In reality, the current pledges align more closely to 2.7 Bottom Line for Business.
Leaders of the world's biggest economies have today signalled their continued support for an ambitious outcome from the tense on-going climate negotiations at the COP27 Summit, emphasising their support for capping global warming at 1.5C, ramping up climate finance, cutting back on coal power, and phasing out fossilfuel subsidies.
And by COP in Glasgow we will look to have those types of commitments across the financial sector, right into the private banking sector as well.". It's a net zero COP. That's the objective. That's the expectation.". The decade of delivery. In financial markets, too, confidence in low carbon assets has become more pronounced.
Let's have no illusions: if commitments fall short by the end of this COP, countries must revisit their national climate plans and policies," Guterres said. Our addiction to fossilfuels is pushing humanity to the brink," Guterres warned. "We Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Not every five years. Every year.
Right now, it seems like a long time until summer 2021 (and yes, I'm assuming both biodiversity and climate COPs will be in summer.). But they will be back as soon as Covid-19 allows and COP replacement dates start being bandied around. But the milestones will come round quickly enough.
While NYCW has been around for more than a decade , this year the vibe of ~10x the participants and well-curated mini-conferences alongside official UN programming felt almost like a Davos or a mini-COP (which, depending on your take on the efficacy and impact of COP, could be a good or bad thing).
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