The UK’s trailblazing advantage against climate change

When it comes to cutting emissions, the United Kingdom leads the pack among rich countries.

Time has become critical in dealing with climate change.

A key reason for its success is the Climate Change Act of 2008, which sets out a legally binding emissions target to meet by 2050. But the government also recognized that climate change is a long-term problem, which means long-term solutions will need to survive election cycles. That’s why the act included the creation of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an independent body of technical minds that would both scrutinize and advise the government’s work to meet its climate goals.

“The Climate Change Act creates the destination,” says Richard Black of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. “The CCC sets the milestones.” It’s the kind of approach that other countries need to adopt.

Read the story from Quartz by Akshat Rahti - “The UK’s trailblazing advantage against climate change.”

Heatwaves threaten Australians’ health, and our politicians aren’t doing enough about it

Extreme heat affects the mental health of Australians to the same degree as unemployment, yet Australia’s policy action on climate change lags behind other high-income countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.

In most states where temperatures are increasing,
 Australians are at a higher risk of suicide.

As Australia approaches another summer, we face the inevitability of deadly heatwaves. Our report published today in the Medical Journal of Australia concludes that policy inaction, particularly at the federal level, is putting Australian lives at risk.

The report, The MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: Australian policy inaction threatens lives, builds on an earlier publication in The Lancet medical journal, which concluded climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

Read the piece from The Conversation - “Heatwaves threaten Australians’ health, and our politicians aren’t doing enough about it.”

Adapt or perish: UK leads the way in protecting citizens against climate change

Despite the distraction and political chaos of Brexit negotiations, the United Kingdom has just published a far-reaching and thoroughly impressive plan to manage risks from climate change.

To the World Health Organisation, climate change
 is the greatest health threat of this century.

This follows on from their broader 25-year Environment Plan, released in January. It aims to "help the natural world regain and retain good health", to enable it to better cope with climate change.

The recently released climate plan is a strategy to save lives from heat, flood and fire — yes, fire, even in the UK!

It should be compulsory reading for the Australian Government, because we have no such plan. Considering the lives that will be lost, this is negligence in medical terms.

Read the opinion piece from ABC News by David Shearman - “Adapt or perish: UK leads the way in protecting citizens against climate change.”

Addressing the Systemic Challenge at the Heart of Escalating Inequality and Environmental Destruction

Ted Howard’s remarks to the Environmental Funders Network in Cambridge, England, on February 2nd, 2018.

( prepared remarks have been lightly edited for publication)

I want to begin by thanking the conference organizers for extending an invitation to address you during your important annual deliberations.

I come before you today not as an expert on environmental matters, but as someone who has devoted his professional life to social justice concerns, in particular addressing economic and social inequality in the United States and in the Global South.

While much good work has been done on the inequality issue, the very bitter truth is that despite our best efforts, inequality is growing dramatically in nations around the world, including here in the United Kingdom and in most of Europe.

Read the Next System Project story by Ted Howard - “Addressing the Systemic Challenge at the Heart of Escalating Inequality and Environmental Destruction.”

UK to phase out coal ahead of 2025

The United Kingdom is scaling up its use of low-carbon energy sources as it plans to phase out coal-fired power plants altogether by 2025.

According to the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), between the months of July and September last year, 50 per cent of the country’s electricity was produced primarily by wind and solar farms, as well as wood and nuclear power plants.

Scotland's last coal power plant closed in spring 2016, and two of the largest coal plants in England were also decommissioned.

As a result, the proportion of electricity generated by coal fell from 16.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2015, to just 3.6 per cent over the same period in 2016.

Read the ClimateAction story - “UK to phase out coal ahead of 2025.”

The Great Barrier Reef is ‘dead’ at the age of 25 million years - claims writer

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
 Authority said that during 2016
the reef died “due to the worst
mass bleaching event on record”.

THE Great Barrier Reef has been declared dead at 25 million years old by an environmentalist writer.

The incredible Coral Sea wilderness, which stretches for roughly 2250km over an area of roughly 2150km, has finally succumbed to bleaching writes Rowan Jacobsen, according to The Sun.

The icon of the natural world is bigger than the whole of the United Kingdom and is composed of more than 2900 individual reefs and 900 islands.

Read the news.com.au story by Tom Gillespie “The Great Barrier Reef is ‘dead’ at the age of 25 million years after ‘worst mass bleaching on record’, claims writer.”