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Historic climate deal reached, but campaigners say the work is just beginning

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‘This deal puts the fossil fuel industry on the wrong side of history.’— Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International

(Photo: Global 2000 / Liebentritt/flickr/cc)

(Photo: Global 2000 / Liebentritt/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

The global talks known as COP21 ended Saturday with nearly 200 countries agreeing to a carbon emissions-slashing deal (pdf).  But climate campaigners are saying that the agreement doesn’t go far enough, and that the real work is just beginning.

While Reuters described the deal’s adoption as “setting the course for a ‘historic’ transformation of the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming,” commentator George Monbiot writes Saturday of the draft agreement, “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”

How Rainforest Action Network viewed the deal—”with both hope and disappointment”—captures the takeaway from Monbiot as well as many groups.

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo’s take at the end of the talks was that the agreement marks “only one step on long a road, and there are parts of it that frustrate and disappoint me, but it is progress. This deal alone won’t dig us out the hole we’re in, but it makes the sides less steep.”

Here’s how environmental organization Earthjustice sums up just what the Paris Agreement commits its signatories to:

  • hold the increase in global temperature average to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, a goal that reflects the most current science on the uppermost limit of warming if we are to reduce the risk of the most catastrophic impacts of climate change
  • review progress every five years, the first before 2020, and bring countries back to the table to increase their emissions reduction efforts
  • robust transparency provisions to hold nations accountable to carry through on their pledges
  • provide support to poorer countries to help them leapfrog to low-carbon development, adapt to climate change and cope with unavoidable loss and damage.

The Guardian reports that the deal “for the first time commits rich countries, rising economies and some of the poorest countries to work together to fight climate change.”

“The overall agreement is legally binding,” the reporting adds, “but some elements—including the pledges to curb emissions by individual countries and the climate finance elements —are not.”

That was noted by Friends of the Earth Scotland, who said that among the pact’s problems is the fact that “[t]here is no legally binding way forward to address the problem of lack of ambition of current national contributions towards post-2020 action—a very weak “facilitative dialogue” in 2018 with no obligation to actually improve these plans.” And as far as the 1.5 degree limit is concerned, the language used—”to pursue efforts”—is weak.

Naidoo said of the 1.5 degree limit, “That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states.”

“This deal puts the fossil fuel industry on the wrong side of history,” Naidoo said. Indeed, similar to Reuters‘ phrasing of the outcome, the Guardianwrote in its reporting of the deal’s adoption: “Governments have signaled an end to the fossil fuel era.” Similarly, ThinkProgress‘ Joe Romm wrote that it’s a deal “that will leave most of the world’s fossil fuels unburned.” That laudable element aside, many of the nations’ pledges put the world on a path to warming of not 2 but over 3 degrees, Earthjustice says.

On the issue of climate finance, says ActionAid, the deal “lets the world’s biggest historical polluters off the hook.” Disappointments aside, the group’s chief executive, Adriano Campolina, said the deal “provides an important hook on which people can hang their demands.”

“And so our work is just beginning,” Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen. “Whether we live in rich nations or poor ones, in low-lying coastal communities or in the American heartland, our fates are bound together.”

Others at the Paris conference took to Twitter to underscore the importance of grassroots movements now in forcing governments to commit to making the changes required:

And that sentiment brought out thousands to the streets of Paris—in defiance of a protest ban—on Saturday. Among those is Philippine activist Joseph Purugganan from the organization Focus on the Global South.

“The message here is that the real solution will come from the people,” he told the New York Times.

As Naidoo added in his statement, “To pull us free of fossil fuels we are going to need to mobilize in ever greater numbers.” And there have been successes, he noted. “This year the climate movement beat the Keystone pipeline, we kicked Shell out of the Arctic and put coal into terminal decline.”

“For us,” he said, “Paris was always a stop on an ongoing journey. Ultimately our fate will be decided over the coming decades by the collective courage of our species. I believe we will succeed.”

Modi meets Sharif at CoP 21 in Paris

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Nawaz Sharif Narendra Modi

Paris: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif as world leaders converged here for the inauguration of the Conference of Parties (CoP) 21 climate summit.

“PM @narendramodi meets PM Nawaz Sharif at COP 21 in Paris,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted along with a picture of the two leaders shaking hands.

Earlier, French President Francois Hollande welcomed Modi at the summit venue here.

“On a chilly November morning, Modi is welcomed by President Hollande,” Swarup said in another tweet.

Modi will address the opening session of CoP 21 on Monday evening after inaugurating an Indian pavilion.

Modi, who arrived in Paris on Sunday, is also scheduled to hold several bilateral meetings, following the opening of the plenary session by Hollande.

Modi’s bilateral meetings include one with US President Barack Obama.

The Indian pavilion showcases the country’s harmony with nature, environment and commitment to mitigating climate change.

Modi is to launch a 122-country solar alliance with Hollande.

“President @fhollande and I will jointly host a meeting of International Solar Alliance,” Modi said ahead of his departure from New Delhi on Sunday.

Modi will also attend ‘Mission Innovation’ hosted by Obama.

(Agencies)

World’s oceans could rise higher, sooner, faster than most thought possible

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New research shows that consensus estimates of sea level increases may be underestimating threat; new predictions would see major coastal cities left uninhabitable by next century

'Roughly 10 feet of sea level rise—well beyond previous estimates—would render coastal cities such as New York, London, and Shanghai uninhabitable.' (Image: Woodbine)

‘Roughly 10 feet of sea level rise—well beyond previous estimates—would render coastal cities such as New York, London, and Shanghai uninhabitable.’ (Image: Woodbine)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

If a new scientific paper is proven accurate, the international target of limiting global temperatures to a 2°C rise this century will not be nearly enough to prevent catastrophic melting of ice sheets that would raise sea levels much higher and much faster than previously thought possible.

According to the new study—which has not yet been peer-reviewed, but was written by former NASA scientist James Hansen and 16 other prominent climate researchers—current predictions about the catastrophic impacts of global warming, the melting of vast ice sheets, and sea level rise do not take into account the feedback loop implications of what will occur if large sections of Greenland and the Antarctic are consumed by the world’s oceans.

A summarized draft of the full report was released to journalists on Monday, with the shocking warning that such glacial melting will “likely” occur this century and could cause as much as a ten foot sea-level rise in as little as fifty years. Such a prediction is much more severe than current estimates contained in reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the UN-sponsored body that represents the official global consensus of the scientific community.

“If the ocean continues to accumulate heat and increase melting of marine-terminating ice shelves of Antarctica and Greenland, a point will be reached at which it is impossible to avoid large scale ice sheet disintegration with sea level rise of at least several meters,” the paper states.

Separately, the researchers conclude that “continued high emissions will make multi-meter sea level rise practically unavoidable and likely to occur this century. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.”

The Daily Beast‘s Mark Hertsgaard, who attended a press call with Dr. Hansen on Monday, reports that the work presented by the researchers is

warning that humanity could confront “sea level rise of several meters” before the end of the century unless greenhouse gas emissions are slashed much faster than currently contemplated.

This roughly 10 feet of sea level rise—well beyond previous estimates—would render coastal cities such as New York, London, and Shanghai uninhabitable.  “Parts of [our coastal cities] would still be sticking above the water,” Hansen said, “but you couldn’t live there.”

This apocalyptic scenario illustrates why the goal of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius is not the safe “guardrail” most politicians and media coverage imply it is, argue Hansen and 16 colleagues in a blockbuster study they are publishing this week in the peer-reviewed journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry. On the contrary, a 2C future would be “highly dangerous.”

If Hansen is right—and he has been right, sooner, about the big issues in climate science longer than anyone—the implications are vast and profound.

In the call with reporters, Hansen explained that time is of the essence, given the upcoming climate talks in Paris this year and the grave consequences the world faces if bold, collective action is not taken immediately. “We have a global crisis that calls for international cooperation to reduce emissions as rapidly as practical,” the paper states.

Hansen said he has long believed that many of the existing models were under-estimating the potential impacts of ice sheet melting, and told the Daily Beast: “Now we have evidence to make that statement based on much more than suspicion.”

Though he acknowledged the publication of the paper was unorthodox, Hansen told reporters that the research itself is “substantially more persuasive than anything previously published.”

For his part, Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist who writes about weather and climate for Slate, said the “bombshell” findings are both credible and terrifying. Holthaus writes:

To come to their findings, the authors used a mixture of paleoclimate records, computer models, and observations of current rates of sea level rise, but “the real world is moving somewhat faster than the model,” Hansen says.

[…] The implications are mindboggling: In the study’s likely scenario, New York City—and every other coastal city on the planet—may only have a few more decades of habitability left. That dire prediction, in Hansen’s view, requires “emergency cooperation among nations.”

In response to the paper, climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University affirmed: “If we cook the planet long enough at about two degrees warming, there is likely to be a staggering amount of sea level rise. Key questions are when would greenhouse-gas emissions lock in this sea level rise and how fast would it happen? The latter point is critical to understanding whether and how we would be able to deal with such a threat.”

The new research, Oppenheimer added, “takes a stab at answering the ‘how soon?’ question but we remain largely in the dark.  Giving the state of uncertainty and the high risk, humanity better get its collective foot off the accelerator.”

And as the Daily Beast‘s Hertsgaard notes, Hansen’s track record on making climate predictions should command respect from people around the world. The larger question, however, is whether humanity has the capacity to act.

“The climate challenge has long amounted to a race between the imperatives of science and the contingencies of politics,” Hertsgaard concludes. “With Hansen’s paper, the science has gotten harsher, even as the Nature Climate Change study affirms that humanity can still choose life, if it will. The question now is how the politics will respond—now, at Paris in December, and beyond.”

International Scientists issue call for climate action now: ‘Commit to Our Common Future’

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‘Window for economically feasible solutions’ is closing, statement says

Demonstrators demand an ambitious climate deal from the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009. (Photo: AinhoaGoma/Oxfam International/flickr/cc)

Demonstrators demand an ambitious climate deal from the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009. (Photo: AinhoaGoma/Oxfam International/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

Time is running out to deal with the “defining challenge of the 21st century,” a group of leading scientists said Friday at the close of a climate conference, and added that this must be the year of bold action like taxing carbon to rein in greenhouse gases.

The call was issued in the outcome statement from the Our Common Future under Climate Change, a four-day meeting that gathered nearly 2,000 international academics five months ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Paris, COP21.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” it states. “Its effects have the potential to impact every region of the Earth, every ecosystem, and many aspects of the human endeavour. Its solutions require a bold commitment to our common future.

“The window for economically feasible solutions with a reasonable prospect of holding warming to 2°C or less is rapidly closing,” the statement reads, referring to the widely accepted warming threshold for the planet—an increase that many say will still bring disaster.

And a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions—40-70 percent below current levels by 2050—is what is necessary, they state.

Among the “ambitious” actions laid out in the statement are dumping fossil fuel subsidies and putting a price on carbon. The latter, the statement reads, “helps level the playing field among energy technologies by charging for the damage caused by climate change and rewarding other benefits of mitigation activities.”

Investments in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and clean energy can help bring about “inclusive and sustainable” growth, it adds.

The outcome statement was embraced by the UN top climate official, Christiana Figueres, who stated: “The world’s leading researchers on climate have underlined the crucial importance of nations focusing on a long term goal—call it zero emissions, net zero or climate neutrality. The overwhelming consensus is that Paris 2015 needs to send an unequivocal signal that the world will take a path towards a steep and deep decline in greenhouse gas pollution by the second half of the century.”

Among the signatories to the outcome statement is Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) director John Schellnhuber. He also spoke at a plenary session at the conference, and called for nothing short of “an induced implosion of the carbon economy over the next 20-30 years” in order to keep warming under the 2°C threshold.

“In the end it is a moral decision,” the Guardian quotes Schellnhuber as saying. “Do you want to be part of the generation that screwed up the planet for the next 1,000 years? I don’t think we should make that decision.”

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