France to shut down all coal-fired power plants by 2023

Chartlotte England reporting
 in the Independent about
 France's plants to shut down
 its coal-fired power plants.

France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023, president Francois Hollande has announced.

Speaking at an annual UN climate change conference on Wednesday, Mr Hollande vowed to beat by two years the UK's commitment to stop using the fossil fuel to generate power by 2025.

Mr Hollande, a keynote speaker at the event in Marrakech, Morocco, also praised his US counterpart Barack Obama for his work on climate change, and then appeared to snub president-elect Donald Trump.

Read Charlotte England’s story in the Independent - “France to shut down all coal-fired power plants by 2023.”

Climate Change's Most Vulnerable Nations Vow to Run Entirely on Renewable Energy

Zahra Hirji from Inside Climate News.

MARRAKECH, Morocco—As talks on implementing last year's landmark climate treaty closed in Marrakech, a group of 47 developing countries that are highly vulnerable to the climate crisis announced their intention to run on 100 percent renewable energy "as rapidly as possible."

They said this ambition is crucial to their survival in a warming world, as well as an example to other, more prosperous nations.

"We aim to survive and thrive," wrote the member countries of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) in a two-page decision adopted Friday at the climate talks. They also reaffirmed their commitment to keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the most ambitious climate target of the Paris agreement.

This climate action pledge was welcomed by climate officials and experts as one of the more aggressive to come out of the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 22). The UNFCCC is the umbrella treaty that led to the Paris Agreement last year.

Read Zahra Hirji’s story on Inside Climate News - “Climate Change's Most Vulnerable Nations Vow to Run Entirely on Renewable Energy.”

John Kerry Tells Marrakech Climate Talks Coal Investment Is “Suicide” As U.S. Delegation Ducks Fossil Fuel Influence Questions

John Kerry at Marrakech -
coal investment is "suicide".

Today at the latest round of United Nations climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, the nonprofit Corporate Accountability International (CAI) was finally able to deliver a petition to the U.S. delegation calling for the removal of corporate interests and the fossil fuel industry from the international climate negotiations process.

The petition included a demand for the U.S. to stop opposing a conflict of interest policy that would look to limit the influence fossil fuels groups could have on the talks.

Later that day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized the continued use of fossil fuels — with a careful caveat about carbon capture and storage technology — saying at this point, the world cannot “write a big fat check enabling the widespread development of the dirtiest source of fuel in an outdated way. It just doesn’t make sense. That’s suicide.”

The CIA petition is calling out organizations such as the World Coal Association, International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), and BusinessEurope, which represent major oil, gas, and coal companies from across the world and which are given “observer” status at the UN climate summit.

Read the DeSmog Blog story - “John Kerry Tells Marrakech Climate Talks Coal Investment Is “Suicide” As U.S. Delegation Ducks Fossil Fuel Influence Questions.”

The view from Marrakech: climate talks are battling through a Trump tsunami

Robyn Eckersley - surviving the
 Trump tsunami at Marrakech.

Stunned. Shocked. Speechless. Devastated. Political tsunami. These were the key words rising to the surface of the babble of conversations that took place in the corridors of the climate negotiations in Marrakech on Wednesday 9 November – the day Donald Trump won the US presidency.

A climate denier, Trump has vowed to tear up the historic Paris Agreement along with the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which seeks to slash greenhouse emissions from power plants. He has also given the green light to renewed fossil fuel exploitation in the United States.

Oil and gas stocks unsurprisingly rose, and coal stocks soared, on his victory day. If implemented, Trump’s promises would make it impossible for the United States to reach its national pledge under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by 26-28% relative to 2005 by 2025.

Read the thoughts of the Professor of Political Science from the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne,  Robyn Eckersley , on The Conversation - “The view from Marrakech: climate talks are battling through a Trump tsunami.”

Keeping warming below 1.5℃ is possible - but we can’t rely on removing carbon from the atmosphere

Kate Dooley.

This week international leaders are meeting in Marrakech to thrash out how to achieve the Paris climate agreement, which came into force on Friday. The Marrakech meeting is the 22nd Congress of Parties (or COP22) to the United Nation’s climate convention. One of the key goals of the agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and aim to limit warming to 1.5℃.

With global greenhouse gas emissions still rising, this is a daunting task. Numerous models, including recent research, suggest we will not be able to achieve this without removing large amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century (known as “negative emissions”).

But scientists are becoming increasingly sceptical of the concept, as it may create more problems than it solves, or fail to deliver. Instead, we need to ramp up action before 2020, before even the earliest targets of the Paris Agreement.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a PhD candidate from the Australian German Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne, Kate Dooley,  “Keeping warming below 1.5 C is possible - but we can’t rely on removing carbon from the atmosphere.”

'Thumbing nose at world' - Age letter writer

Letter in today’s Melbourne Age from Andrew Laird of East Malvern.

Naomi Klein - Australia is raising its
middle finger to the world on climate change.

Renowned author Naomi Klein observed  this week on Q&A that Australia is raising its middle finger to the world on climate change. It is difficult to disagree. The Paris climate agreement is now in force (and the world is meeting in Marrakech to map out how to implement it), but Australia has not ratified it, notwithstanding the inadequate emissions reduction targets the government pledged.

Our coal pollution is rising and the government continues to promote fossil fuel developments (despite this being incompatible with a safe climate and the Paris commitments), while the decision to close the polluting Hazelwood coal plant has simply been used as fodder for a fear campaign. To cap it off, the government continues to court the vote of the climate denialist One Nation rather than repudiating its absurd, anti-scientific views.

The Paris train has gone and we are left forlornly standing on the platform

(Australia is not among those countries which have signed up to the Paris agreement and The Sydney Morning Herald reported early last month:

“A spokesman for Australia's Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said the government was trying to get it ratified as soon as possible.

“The parliamentary committee was looking at the deal as part of Australia's domestic processes, he said.

“Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop insists Australia wants to ratify the agreement before the end of the year.

"The election is being blamed for the delay in tabling the agreement."

This train has left the station and Australia, one of the worst carbon dioxide emitters per capita, is left standing, forlornly, on the platform – Robert McLean)

 

The Paris train has left and
 Australia is left standing
 forlornly on the platform.

A new chapter in the world's climate talks starts this month as the Paris climate agreement enters into force on November 4, followed by the first round of formal discussions on how to turn its promises into action.

Negotiators, leaders, experts and activists will gather in Marrakech, Morocco to begin the daunting task of implementing the historic accord that seeks to avert the worst impacts of man-made climate change. The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) will convene from Nov. 7-18, tasked with continuing the momentum of the Paris accord that was negotiated last year and signed into force ahead of schedule.

"The Paris agreement really represents a promise that we've made to ourselves and...to the world," said Mariana Panuncio-Feldman from the World Wildlife Fund. "Now it is time to turn that into action and that's the work we need to do in Morocco."

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Climate Talks in Morocco Aim to Set Paris Agreement in Motion.”