Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Hopes that global CO2 emissions might be nearing a peak have been dashed by preliminary data showing that output from fossil fuels and industry will grow by around 2.7% in 2018, the largest increase in seven years.
For years, environmental justice advocates have been saying that it’s time to shift the focus of the environmental movement from beautiful landscapes and big animals to the people choking on black carbon or poisoned by lead in their water. Now, some of those people who grew up in dumping grounds have come into power and are shaping politics on the world stage. And when California sent a delegation to the U.N. climate conference in Bonn a few weeks ago, it was packed with members of the movement, including state Senator Ricardo Lara.
So last week saw the finale of the 2017 climate summit – aka “COP23” for short. Yet another round of talks in the never-ending talking shop that is the global climate political process. So what?
From November 6–17 countries will gather once again for the 23rd annual Conference of the Parties (COP 23). Several “roundtable” discussions will take place prior to the meeting proper, where the APA co-chairs hope Parties can get on the same page in terms of understanding each others’ views before the real negotiations begin.
But like Hansen and many others here in Paris, I come not to praise the COP, but to bury it.
Today was the most thought-provoking day, at times viscerally so.
Negotiators from 190 nations are working on a global deal to limit climate change, due to be agreed on in Paris next year.
As negotiators look to next year’s UN climate conference in Paris, there is increasing discussion of a new way forward that does not depend on sweeping international agreements. Some analysts are pointing to Plan B — recasting the climate issue as one of national self-interest rather than global treaties.
It seems these days that whenever Mother Nature wants to send an urgent message to humankind, it sends it via the Philippines. This year the messenger was Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Yolanda.
