17 November 2016, ECO, UNFCCC – Fossil of the Day goes to Australia! Yesterday’s first place Fossil of the Day award went to Australia for their complaints about dirty baggage. ECO doesn’t mean to gossip, but yesterday Australia was caught complaining to the US about American charities standing in solidarity with Australian communities who are fighting to prevent the construction of the largest ever coal mine down under—Adani’s Carmichael mine. Australia ratified the Paris Agreement last Friday, so lobbying for coal expansion here is an ugly thing to be doing. Read More here
Monthly Archives: November 2016
17 November 2016, Renew Economy, Australia named and shamed for “unambitious, uninspired” climate policies. As Julie Bishop assures UN climate talks in Marrakech that Australia’s private sector increasingly sees it “as their responsibility and their business… to embrace low-emissions technology,” two new new global reports underline just how far behind the climate eight-ball the Turnbull government remains. The first – the latest Climate Change Performance Index, released overnight in Marrakech by Climate Action Network Europe and German NGO, Germanwatch – ranked Australia fifth-last out of a group of 58 countries responsible for more than 90 per cent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. According to a release accompanying the Index, Australia was ranked in the bottom group of the CCPI 2017 – rated “very poor” – alongside Canada and Japan. Other countries ranked below Australia include Kazakhstan, Korea and Saudi Arabia. The CCPI report said Australia has gone backwards in energy efficiency since the last ranking, and continued to lag in ambition of climate policies. The index also noted a gap between the national and state policies in Australia: the former described as “rather unambitious and uninspired,” the latter managing “to some extent to take independent action.” Read More here
16 November 2016, DESMOG, John Kerry Tells Marrakech Climate Talks Coal Investment Is “Suicide” As U.S. Delegation Ducks Fossil Fuel Influence Questions. 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. What does that mean? For starters, this allows them to sit in on the closed-door meetings where UN delegates hammer out the details of addressing the issues caused by emissions coming from many of these same companies. However, yesterday when CAI first attempted to deliver the petition representing more than 625,000 people, mostly Americans, the U.S. delegation refused to officially receive or acknowledge the petition. “We certainly caught them off guard,” Jesse Bragg, Media Director for CAI, told DeSmog. “They brought us into the press office to keep us away from the public view, and it was very clear that they didn’t have a protocol to deal with this.” It wasn’t until nearly seven hours later that Emily White, of the U.S. State Department, told CAI she would accept the petition the following day. Read More here
16 November 2016, The Conversation, As the world pushes for a ban on nuclear weapons, Australia votes to stay on the wrong side of history. In early December, the nations of the world are poised to take an historic step forward on nuclear weapons. Yet most Australians still haven’t heard about what’s happening, even though Australia is an important part of this story – which is set to get even bigger in the months ahead. On October 27 2016, I watched as countries from around the world met in New York and resolved through the United Nations’ General Assembly First Committee to negotiate a new legally binding treaty to “prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. It was carried by a majority of 123 to 38, with 16 abstentions. Australia was among the minority to vote “no”. Given that overwhelming majority, it is almost certain that resolution will be formally ratified in early December at a full UN general assembly meeting. After it’s ratified, international negotiating meetings will take place in March and June-July 2017. Those meetings will be open to all states, and will reflect a majority view: crucially, no government or group of governments (including UN Security Council members) will have a veto. International and civil society organisations will also have a seat at the table. This is the best opportunity to kickstart nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War a quarter of a century ago. And it’s crucial that we act now, amid a growing threat of nuclear war (as we discuss in the latest edition of the World Medical Association’s journal). But the resolution was bitterly opposed by most nuclear-armed states, including the United States and Russia. Those claiming “protection” from US nuclear weapons – members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Japan, South Korea and Australia – also opposed the ban. This is because the treaty to be negotiated will fill the legal gap that has left nuclear weapons as the only weapon of mass destruction not yet explicitly banned by international treaty. Read More here