Tag Archives: UNFCCC

PLEA Network

12 March 2018, Carbon Brief, New maps pinpoint the potential for BECCS across the US. Models developed to explore how the world might limit future warming to the “well below 2C” target of the Paris Agreement on climate change typically employ large amounts of … Continue reading →

PLEA Network

13 February 2018, Under the Paris Agreement, governments worldwide agreed to hold global warming “well below 2C” and to aim for 1.5C. The inclusion of that second, tougher, goal was a victory for small island states and other countries on the front line of climate change. It was an acknowledgement of fears that higher temperature rise posed an unacceptable threat to their futures. But the vast bulk of research and analysis prior to 2015 centred on the 2C threshold, a more established international target. What would it take to bend the curve to 1.5C? Enter the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate science body agreed to produce a special report on 1.5C, summarising all the available evidence. Climate Home News has obtained an early version of the five-chapter report, which is due to be finalised in September. The IPCC stressed it was a work in progress and may change substantially. It is open for review by experts and governments, and may incorporate further studies published by 15 May. Read the draft summary for policymakers in full here. What is clear from the content so far, though, is there is not much time left. Here are the main takeaways. Read More here

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25 January 2018, Climate Home News, France, Germany, US among 166 countries late on UN climate dues. our out of five countries missed the agreed date for contributions to UN Climate Change, including some who claim to be leaders on climate change. Four out of five countries are late in making their contributions to the UN climate change body’s operating budget. Donald Trump has actively sought to block US support for international climate efforts, although this was challenged by the senate. The majority of member states support cooperation in principle but have been slow to pay. China, Brazil, France and Germany are among those failing to honour the agreed timeline for payments, a UN Climate Change statement on Thursday revealed. The body’s executive secretary Patricia Espinosa focused on the positive, thanking 31 countries who paid their 2018 share by the due date of 1 January. “I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to the parties that have contributed in a timely way,” she said. “The impacts of climate change are accelerating around the world, and it is essential that the response of the international community also accelerates and is scaled up so that countries can green their economies and build resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change.” Punctual contributors included the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. While Espinosa did not explicitly call them out, the statement implies 166 out of 197 parties to the UN climate talks are behind on their payments. Read More here

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11 January 2018, ABC News – Science:  Forget Paris: Australia needs to stop pretending we’re tackling climate change. As the Bureau of Meteorology confirms another record-breaking year for temperatures in Australia, we should expect a sense of urgency to be creeping into Australia’s climate policy. Instead, we’re seeing the opposite. While 2015-17 were all within the hottest six years on record, our carbon emissions also continued to increase during the same period, including an all-time peak in 2017, when unreliable land-use data was excluded from the analysis. This is despite signing up to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which outlined a plan to reduce our carbon emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030. Government data pushed out under the cloak of Christmas indicates that we will be about 140 million tonnes — or about 30 per cent — above that target based on current growth Government optimism at odds with UN: Despite last financial year’s continued emissions growth, Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg remains upbeat about Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. “If you look on a yearly basis that is true [that emissions went up]. But if you look on the last quarter, they went down. If you look at the trend, it is improving. And when you talk about the 2030 target, which is our Paris commitment, the numbers that were most recently shown, indicate that they were 30 per cent better than when Labor were last in office,” the Minister told RN Breakfast. But his optimism is at odds with a number of experts, and is contrary to what was reported in the United Nations Emissions Gap Report (see below), 2017. “Government projections indicate that emissions are expected to reach 592 [million tonnes] in 2030, in contrast to the targeted range of 429-440 [million tonnes],” the report states.. Read More here