Choose it or lose it - Australia has a last chance to avert climate catastrophe.

Australia has become the “poster-child for irresponsibility on climate change” according to Christiana Figueres, the former head of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, who was instrumental in delivering the Paris Agreement in 2015. Figueres is in Australia on a speaking tour, and in an interview this morning said the world had to halve greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 if it wished to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. “If we are not at that point by 2030,” she says, “we will not be able to control the consequences of unmitigated climate change anymore, and the entire world will see scenarios like the Australian bushfires.” In her co-written book The Future We Choose, Figueres paints a frightening picture of a worst-case 2050, in which huge swathes of Asia, Africa and Australia are uninhabitable. But Figueres is also surprisingly optimistic: she laughs off the suggestion the Paris Agreement is unravelling; she highlights the possibility that global emissions may finally have peaked and will trend downwards after flattening last year; and she insists that if the world can reach net zero emissions by 2050, it is not too late to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

Christiana Figueres.

Figueres says of 189 countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement, only one – the United States – has pulled out, and while both Brazil and Australia have raised serious concerns, neither has indicated an intention to withdraw. More worrying, according to Figueres, is that so far only 80 countries have registered improved national emissions reduction targets ahead of this year’s climate talks in Glasgow – as part of the Paris Agreement, signatories are meant to ratchet up their level of ambition every five years – and mostly those are small economies. “It is really important to see the larger countries doing the same,” she says. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s gambit of taking some form of technology target to Glasgow, rather than a commitment to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, will not suffice, according to Figueres. “I frankly think every industrialised country has to take on an economy-wide target.”

Read the story from The Monthly by Paddy Manning - “Choose it or lose it - Australia has a last chance to avert climate catastrophe.” 

Former UN climate chief says world doesn't need Australia's 'toxic' coal

Former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres has repudiated Australian mining giant BHP for its refusal to stop mining coal, suggesting the decision is uneconomic and poor nations do not need the “toxic” and “expensive” fossil fuel.

BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie says the
 company will continue to mine coal, despite climate change concerns.

BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said this week the company is “not going to move away from coal mining”.

His position comes despite a warning last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that coal must be virtually phased out by 2050 if the world is to keep global warming below the 1.5 degree threshold, beyond which the effects of climate change would be catastrophic and, in many cases, irreversible.

Addressing shareholders on Thursday, Mr Mackenzie said BHP had a moral obligation to combat climate change, but the developing world needed coal to lift citizens out of poverty.

Read the story from The Age by Nicole Hasham - “Former UN climate chief says world doesn't need Australia's 'toxic' coal.”

(What weird reasoning from Andrew McKenzie - mine coal to ensure it helps lift people out of poverty and then plunge them straight back into an even worse circumstance as the mined, and used coal worsens climate change and subjects the now “poverty-free” people to life-threatening circumstances humans have never before experienced and so have no understanding of how to survive in such conditions. Obviously, Mr McKenzie is concerned more about profit than he is about people - Robert McLean)

The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: 'There is reason for hope’

Everybody gets paralysed by bad news because they feel helpless,” says Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who delivered the landmark Paris climate change agreement. “It is so in our personal lives, in our national lives and in our planetary life.”

Solar panel installation. 

But it is becoming increasingly clear that it does not need to be all bad news: a series of fast-moving global megatrends, spurred by trillion-dollar investments, indicates that humanity might be able to avert the worst impacts of global warming. From trends already at full steam, including renewable energy, to those just now hitting the big time, such as mass-market electric cars, to those just emerging, such as plant-based alternatives to meat, these trends show that greenhouse gas emissions can be halted.

“If we were seeing linear progress, I would say good, but we’re not going to make it in time,” says Figueres, now the convener of the Mission 2020 initiative, which warns that the world has only three years to get carbon emissions on a downward curve and on the way to beating global warming. “But the fact is we are seeing progress that is growing exponentially, and that is what gives me the most reason for hope.”

A wind farm off the coast of Sussex.

No one is saying the battle to avert catastrophic climate change – floods, droughts, famine, mass migrations – has been won. But these megatrends show the battle has not yet been lost, and that the tide is turning in the right direction. “The important thing is to reach a healthy balance where we recognise that we are seriously challenged, because we really have only three years left to reach the tipping point,” says Figueres. “But at the same time, the fact is we are already seeing many, many positive trends.”

Read The Guardian  story by Damian Carrington - “The seven megatrends that could beat global warming: 'There is reason for hope’.”.”

UN climate chief: “Urgent requirement to cut emissions.”

Christiana Figueres.

Mission 2020’s Christiana Figueres says a clean energy policy with bipartisan support could have prevented many difficulties.

The former climate chief at the United Nations, Christiana Figueres, has urged the federal government to stop obsessing about the fate of individual power plants and seize the opportunity to recast its power system in line with the urgent requirement to cut carbon emissions.

Read the JP Pratt27 story - UN climate chief: “Urgent requirement to cut emissions.” 

'Grandmother plant': Ex-UN climate chief Christiana Figueres has advice for PM

AGL's Liddell power station is a "grandmother" plant that shouldn't receive funds more usefully invested elsewhere to improve Australia's energy prospects, Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations climate chief, said.

Christiana Figueres is in Sydney to discuss the role
 cities can play in battling climate change as the
 vice chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for
Climate and Energy.

Ms Figueres, who as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change oversaw the Paris climate agreement, said time is running out for Australia to get its energy and carbon policies in order.

"The time is short," Ms Figueres told Fairfax Media during a visit to Australia. "I think 10 years of dithering is enough.”

Her comments come as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull met AGL executives on Monday to discuss the future of Liddell. AGL has said it was committed to shutting the 46-year-old Hunter Valley power plant by 2022, while the government is pressing to extend its life by five years to head off possible electricity shortages.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “'Grandmother plant': Ex-UN climate chief Christiana Figueres has advice for PM.”‘

Climate chief in bid for U.N.'s top job

Christiana Figueres.

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres plans to announce her candidacy to be the next U.N. secretary-general, E&E has learned.

Figueres, who orchestrated a historic global climate change accord in Paris last year, steps down next month as head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. She declined through a spokesman to comment, but multiple sources confirmed that Figueres intends to formally declare her interest in replacing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 7.

"She is definitely throwing her hat in the ring for secretary-general," one person with direct knowledge of Figueres' plans said.

Ban's term ends in December, and so far, 11 candidates are openly vying for the position of the world's top diplomat. Sources say Figueres in floating her candidacy has reached out to the diplomatic community, funders and the CEOs of major companies like Unilever and Ikea that played a major role in delivering climate commitments for the Paris deal.

Read the EandE Publishing story - “Christiana Figueres to make run for U.N. secretary-general.”

Controlling the world economy at the nub of mitigating, adapting to climate change

-      Robert McLean.

Understanding and marshalling the world economy (controlling it) is at the nub of mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Yes, until we can rein back the world’s prolific spending, driven by the idea that unbridled consumption as cherished by the prevailing market economy will resolve the ills of the world’s climate system, our future will be delicate, difficult and disruptive in ways we yet don’t fully appreciate.

The world economy has colonized the climate change conversation and many have fallen in with the idea that it is a dynamic from which profits can be made, rather than work to preserve life on earth.

The United Nations has said that “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, which appears to contradict much of what is presently happening.

The idea that we can invest sustainably will be discussed at a forum later this year in New York City, read about it here - “Sustainable Investment Forum.”

Executive Director, UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, has said ”The finance sector will make the difference... you cannot build what you do not finance- you are the architects of the future”.

The forum organizers said, on their website, “The Paris agreement has now been signed, uniting 193 countries in a binding agreement to limit global warming to under 2C.

“Global governments are now charged with moving further and faster than ever before to tackle climate change, creating an unstoppable transition to a low carbon economy that will ensure the end of the fossil fuel age. $100 billion has been committed to financing such climate action in developing countries, creating new opportunities for sustainable innovation and collaboration.”

The mention of $100 billion excites many for rather rude and brutal mercenary reasons as they see only the chance of immediate personal wealth, rather than being part of a process that ensures the preservation, as much as possible, of our existing way of life.

Figueres has done 'excellent' job, but steps down in July

Christina Figueres - she has headed UN
 climate negotiations for six years, but
she will be stepping down from the role in July.

Critics say the emissions deal Christiana Figueres helped reach in December was "watered down." Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica who has headed UN climate negotiations for six years, will leave her position in July.

"Christiana Figueres had a very unenviable position, and she's done an excellent job in holding the whole edifice together," Kevin Anderson, the deputy director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, told DW following the senior diplomat's decision last week not to seek a new term.

Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica who heads the Bonn-based UN secretariat for the Framework Convention on Climate, will leave her position in July after six years.

("It's very unlikely that her replacement will really grapple with the scale of the increasing void between the rhetoric we hear on climate change and the scale of action that we now need," according to the deputy director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, Kevin Anderson.)

 

Read the DW story - “UN climate boss had 'unenviable job' sealing Paris deal.”

On the brink of a whole new world: Christiana Figueres

Christiana Figueres.

Watch this eight minute video clip and hear executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, declare we are standing in the brink of a “Whole new world.”

“We are ready to embrace renewable energy,” she says.

See the video - “UN Climate Chief: Pen isn't panacea, but deal signals change.”

Christina negotiates her way through the climate conversation

Christina Figueres.

The offices of the UN’s climate change body in Bonn have glorious views over a pretty stretch of the Rhine river, looking out on grasslands and splendid old and new buildings. Just a short distance away is the historic campus most famous for being where the Marshall plan was signed after the Second World War.

That plan, which channelled billions in American aid to rebuild European economies, was instrumental in creating modern Europe, and redrawing the global economy. Instead of the punitive measures and reparations inflicted on Germany in the Versailles treaty, the Marshall plan offered healing and financial support – a message of hope, not fear.

Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate change chief, has a task just as great as the architects of that plan. She is in charge of the world’s response to global warming, a threat potentially more catastrophic than any disaster yet seen, but one which is so slow-burning that governments and the public have been able largely to ignore it for more than three decades since scientists began to prove incontrovertibly the dangers that greenhouse gas emissions pose to our planet’s stability.

Read about this remarkable woman on The Guardian - “Christiana Figueres: the woman tasked with saving the world from global warming.”

Earth will still warm to 3.5°C by 2100 if Paris pledges adhered to

M

emo to media: If countries go no further than their current global climate pledges, the earth will warm a total of 3.5°C by 2100.

Christiana Figueres - release is
too-cleverly worded.

A very misleading news release from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — coupled with an opaque UNFCCC report on those pledges, which are called intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) — has, understandably, left the global media thinking the climate talks in Paris get us much closer to 2°C than they actually do.

Indeed, the news release contains this too-cleverly worded paragraph quoting UNFCCC Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary:

“The INDCs have the capability of limiting the forecast temperature rise to around 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, by no means enough but a lot lower than the estimated four, five, or more degrees of warming projected by many prior to the INDCs,” said Ms. Figueres.

Read the ClimateProgress story - “Misleading U.N. Report Confuses Media On Paris Climate Talks.”

Paris potential excites Christina Figueres

A

Christina Figueres - she's excited
about the potential for Paris.

 total of 146 countries, representing almost 87 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have submitted their intended national climate action plans to the United Nations.

This means that so far over 75 percent of all member countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have responded. This includes all developed countries under the Convention and 104 developing countries, or almost 70 percent of UNFCCC developing member states.

Over 80 percent of the plans include quantifiable objectives and also over 80 percent include intended actions to adapt to climate change. 

Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres,  said: “Over the past few months, the number of countries submitting their climate action plans to the Paris agreement has grown from a steady stream into a sweeping flood. This unprecedented breadth and depth of response reflects the increasing recognition that there is an unparalleled opportunity to achieve resilient, low-emission, sustainable development at national level. ”

Read the UN Newsroom story - “Unprecedented Global Breadth of Climate Action Plans Ahead of Paris.”

Join this September 30 webinar and hear about COP21 in Paris

A

s COP21 approaches, businesses are being urged to take increasingly ambitious climate action, with Christiana Figueres recently stating ‘corporations can definitely work out how they can go carbon neutral’.

Many private sector companies now include voluntary offsetting strategies within CSR objectives, with We Mean Business involving an additional 47 companies in such action. To date, the voluntary carbon market has facilitated investment of $379 million, locking 76 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) out of the atmosphere.

Visit here to read more and register - “Business Action on Climate Change: Navigating Carbon Reduction Pathways”.

Christina's intent on seeing the world save itself from itself

T

Christina Figueres - she is
intent on seeing the world
 save itself from itself.

he United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or U.N.F.C.C.C., has by now been ratified by a hundred and ninety-five countries, which, depending on how you count, represents either all the countries in the world or all the countries and then some.

Every year, the treaty stipulates, the signatories have to hold a meeting—a gathering that’s known as a COP, short for Conference of the Parties. The third COP produced the Kyoto Protocol, which, in turn, gave rise to another mandatory gathering, a MOP, or Meeting of the Parties.

The seventeenth COP, which coincided with the seventh MOP, took place in South Africa. There it was decided that the work of previous COPs and MOPs had been inadequate, and a new group was formed—the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, usually referred to as the A.D.P. The A.D.P. subsequently split into A.D.P.-1 and A.D.P.-2, each of which held meetings of its own.

Read Elizabeth Kolbert’s story in The New Yorker - “The weight of the world”.

French ambassador calls on Australia to join effort to avoid dangerous climate change

F

rance’s ambassador has called on Australia to join the effort to avoid dangerous climate change, according to The Guardian.

UN climate chief Christiana
Figueres says Australia
has much home work to
do before Paris talks.

It reported that the ambassador had said his country’s leaders had repeatedly raised the issue with Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.

Ambassador Christophe Lecourtier said he was optimistic Australia would make a positive contribution before December’s talks in Paris on emissions reduction goals beyond 2020.

“We remember tough discussions in Brisbane at the G20 and then we had a state visit to Sydney and Canberra; the issue was raised and discussed quite frankly,” he said.

“We had the feeling the Australian government is working on the issue. There is momentum, even here, and I hope [Australia] will join the club, join the coalition of countries.”

The UN’s climate chief, Christiana Figueres, also speaking at a Carbon Market Institute summit in Melbourne, said she was “counting on Australian leadership” at the Paris talks, but it still had “homework” to do.

The Guardian story is headed: “French ambassador urges Australia to join climate change battle”.

Coal conversation is warming up

T

he coal conversation is warming up.

UN climate chief,
Christiana Figueres.

The UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, has said there was “no space” for new coal developments and stressed the benefits of ambitious renewable energy targets after a meeting with representatives from seven Australian governments.

At the meeting in Adelaide, organised by the South Australian government, federal, state and territory administrations agreed to work more closely to drive an uptake in renewable energy, coordinate energy-efficiency schemes and help communities adapt to climate change.

Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, urged the states and territories to work with the federal government to help deliver a “strong” global agreement at key climate talks in Paris in December.

Christiana Figueres says Australia needs a national consensus to achieve maximum effort in fight to avoid dangerous climate change

The Guardian story - “UN climate chief says the science is clear: there is no space for new coal” – takes us into the conversation.