G-20 Poised to Signal Retreat From Climate-Change Funding Pledge

Finance ministers for the U.S., China, Germany and other members of the Group of 20 economies may scale back a robust pledge for their governments to combat climate change, ceding efforts to the private sector.

Citing “scarce public resources,” the ministers said they would encourage multilateral development banks to raise private funds to accomplish goals set under the 2015 Paris climate accord, according to a preliminary statement drafted for a meeting that will be held in Germany next week.

The statement, obtained by Bloomberg News, is a significant departure from a communique issued in July, when finance ministers urged governments to quickly implement the Paris Agreement, including a call for wealthy nations to make good on commitments to mobilize $100 billion annually to cut greenhouse gases around the globe.

Read the Bloomberg story by Joe Ryan - “G-20 Poised to Signal Retreat From Climate-Change Funding Pledge.”

Noam Chomsky concerned about climate change and nuclear proliferation

Noam Chomsky - concerns about
climate change and
nuclear proliferation.

President Obama has just passed a little-noticed milestone, according to The New York Times: Obama has now been at war longer than any president in U.S. history—longer than George W. Bush, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Obama has taken military action in at least seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Just last month, President Obama announced the deployment of 250 more Special Operations troops to Syria in a move that nearly doubles the official U.S. presence in the country. As war spreads across the globe, a record 60 million people were driven from their homes last year. Experts warn the refugee crisis may also worsen due to the impacts of global warming. Over the weekend, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released data showing 2016 is on pace to be by far the hottest year ever, breaking the 2015 record. Meanwhile, many fear a new nuclear arms race has quietly begun, as the U.S., Russia and China race to build arsenals of smaller nuclear weapons.

These multiple crises come as voters in the U.S. prepare to elect a new president. We speak with one of the world’s preeminent intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years. His latest book is titled Who Rules the World?

Read the EcoWatch story -“Noam Chomsky: Climate Change and Nuclear Proliferation Pose Worst Threat Ever Faced by Humans.”

China the largest emitter, but holding steady

China leads the world in many
things, among them it is now
the world's largest
emitter of CO2 emissions.

China accounts for a tenth of all the greenhouse gases and aerosols that have collected in the atmosphere over the industrial era, according to new research.

Boasting one of the world’s largest economies, China has overtaken the EU and the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter, with CO2 emissions from fossil fuels tripling over the past 30 years.

But despite soaring CO2 emissions, China’s relative contribution to climate change has remained steady—around the 10 percent mark—over the whole industrial period, says a study published in Nature.

It’s a pretty complicated picture. But in recent times, this is because cooling from aerosols has been masking part of the warming signal. The upshot of this is that cutting some types of aerosol in a much-needed bid to improve air quality could drive faster warming in the coming decades, say the authors.

Read the EcoWatch story - “China Contributes 10% of Human Influence on Climate Change.”

Records tumble as global warming rolls on

G

lobal warming rolls on, worsens and the records we don’t like to see keep happening.

EcoWatch reports: “June has been a crazy weather month. Then again, so were the first five months of the year. Globally, it’s shaping up to be the hottest year on record by far. It’s not just heat either. Some parts of the U.S. have recently seen record rainfall. May was the wettest month ever recorded in the U.S., and many places had record rainfall for the month of June.”

Read the EcoWatch story - “June 2015 Smashes Heat and Rainfall Records in U.S.”.

America is about to sneeze, so we had best rug up

I

t was once said that “if America sneezes, the world catches a cold”, well the U.S. is shivering and so we had best rug up.

The realities of climate change and the impact it brings are now beginning to be understood in the U.S. and looks as if a sneeze if coming.

ClimateProgress reports that, “A coalition of big insurance companies, consumer groups, and environmental advocates are urging the United States to overhaul its disaster policies in the face of increasingly extreme weather due to human-caused climate change.”

The story - “Big Insurance Companies Are Warning The U.S. To Prepare For Climate Change” – says the U.S. needs to increase how much it spends on pre-disaster mitigation efforts and infrastructure protection.

Brutally direct warning puts climate change on leadership radar

Barack Obama has been brutally direct in warning the world about the threat posed by climate change.

U.S. President, Barack Obama puts
 climate change on leadership radar.

The U.S. President used his State of the Union address to warn of the unfolding seriousness of a disrupted climate saying that no challenge poses a greater to future generations.

An Age story, headed: “Greatest threat to future generations: Obama uses State of the Union to highlight climate change” told how Obama put climate change firmly on the leadership radar.

"The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it," Mr Obama said.

Rhetorical comfort, but distinct lack of action by Australia

Australia continues to find comfort in rhetoric about climate change, while many countries have stepped forward and are acting.

China and the U.S. have promised action to mitigate difficulties the world is facing because of climate change, Japan has announced it will contribute $US1.5 billion to an international climate green fund, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also back-pedalled to say Canada would provide a donation and UK Prime Minister David Cameron said money has already been set aside, and now France is acting to assist Pacific Nations troubled by difficulties arising from climate change.

The ABC reported today on the decision by France in a story headed: “French president Francois Hollande launches funding for Pacific nations hit by climate change”.

Wrestling with an implacable enemy

Climate change is an implacable adversary.

Professor Stephen Howes,
director of the Development
 Policy Centre at the
ANU has a different view.

More than two centuries of doing what it is we do, has left nature a rather angry beast.

Acting with little interest in or care for the consequences, we raided nature’s pantry with abandon and considered warnings about depletion and atmospheric damage caused by the use of fossil fuels as unimportant and not worthy of our interest or further research.

Now, as we tick through the years of the 21^st Century, the legacy of reckless and almost decadent use of fossil fuels has emerged as humanity’s most pressing dilemma.

Many around the world broke into a strange muted applause when it was announced the China and America had agreed, after months of secret negotiations, to each to take positive steps to mitigate and so slow greenhouse gas emissions.

Suddenly, there was joy as the as the world’s two largest economies decided to take positive steps to slow the causes of climate change.

An ABC story headed: “Climate change academics call for Australia to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15pc by 2020” tells us that the U.S. and China decision has increased pressure on the Australian Government to do more.

It says: “But a growing chorus of climate change academics are calling on the Australian Government to concentrate first on what it is doing before 2020.

“They want the Government to lift its greenhouse gas reduction targets from 5 to 15 per cent by then”, the story reports.

However, what is happening and what is needed are contradictory.

Although any move that ameliorates the world’s emissions is to be applauded, any move the falls short of the total abolition of greenhouse gas emissions is sadly inadequate.

To have any real chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change, the world’s carbon dioxide emissions need to be zero by 2050 and then go into a negative stage, meaning we need to be taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Arriving at zero emissions is problematic in the extreme and then achieving a negative stance seems, from here, nigh impossible.

Celebrations about the U.S./China agreement are reasonable, but they must tempered by the reminder that they are only the first of many processes which we don’t understand, either technically or socially.

U.S. polls tells us to worry about climate change

Australia’s politicians, despite what they might say, are driven by polls.

Here is one, admittedly from the U.S., but it is one they should most definitely be taking notice of – “Americans Are Getting More Worried About Climate Change, According To New Polls”.

The Huffington Post reports that Americans are getting increasingly worried about climate change and its impacts, or at least that is what nation-wide polls reveal.

Garnaut critical of Federal Government's intentions

Ross Garnaut has been critical of the Federal Government’s plan to scrap the existing carbon tax in Australia.

Ross Garnaut criticizes
 Federal Government.

The Melbourne Herald-Sun reporting in a story headed: “Carbon policy pits Aus against US: Garnaut”, said the former government adviser and a prominent economist has questioned government intentions.

Mr Garnaut says China, Europe and U.S, are moving toward big efforts to combat climate change and Australia, through the scrapping of its detailed and sophisticated carbon laws, is fundamentally opposing that action.

He said that with existing policies, Australia would be still in the game and doing its fair share, but pursuing what’s proposed we would be out of the game and not doing our fair share.

Confronting climate change complexities defines brothers' lives

Confronting the complexities of climate change has defined the lives of American brothers, Robert and William Nordhaus.

One became a lawyer and the other an economist and although not working side-by-side, their work is now intimately implicated in how the U.S. approaches climate change mitigation.

In story in the New York Times headed: “Brothers battle climate change on two fronts” tell the story of their work.

Population and climate change threaten U.S. cities

The combination of population and climate change are stressing water supplies around the world.

The Huffington Post today considers 11 U.S. cities that are going to be seriously troubled maintaining water supplies in a warmer and dryer world.

It points out that for decades scientists have been warning that the country’s lakes, rivers and aquifers will be hard pressed to quench the thirst of people of a “growing population in a warming world”.

In a story headed: “These 11 cities may completely run out of water sooner than you think”, said a recent report from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environment Science did not alleviate those fears.

Obama moves on climate change, despite the skeptics

U.S. President,
Barack Obama.

America is second only to China with regard to carbon dioxide emissions.

That hardly warrants applause for the U.S. has less than five per cent of the world’s population, while China has nearly a fifth of those on earth.

India is closing on China and many say it will be home to more people than China soon, while Australia, close to the top ten of carbon dioxide emitters, has .33 per cent of the world’s population.

The values, ideals and aspirations upon which the developed world hinges are quickly becoming regular for all nations and so what is happening in the U.S, is intently watched by others and dutiful copied.

Considering that, what happens in America is critical and so it was interesting to read a The Guardian story headed: “Obama climate change plan gets first airing in front of House sceptics” that the Obama administration moved on its climate change action plan with or without new laws from Congress.

Delight with exciting solar research program

Beneath the Wisteria supporters eager to see the adoption of solar energy would be delighted with the Australian government’s latest decision.

It has been reported on the ABC that Australia will join a U.S. partnership to invest more than $80 million in a solar research program.

In a story headed: “Australia joins US in $83m solar research plan” the ABC reports that the eight year project will be built around  six Australian universities, the CSIRO and the US department of energy.