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Students Worldwide Skip School To Demand Tough Action On Climate Change
CBS News - CBS | AP
From the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, students mobilized by social media and word of mouth skipped class Friday to protest what they believe are their governments' failure to take tough action against global warming. The rallies were one of the biggest international actions yet, involving hundreds of thousands of students in more than 100 countries around the globe.
The coordinated "school strikes" were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year. Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, fueled by dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change during the students' lifetime.
Thunberg, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, said as protesters cheered her name at a rally in Stockholm that the world faces an "existential crisis, the biggest crisis humanity ever has faced, and still it has been ignored for decades by those that have known about it. And you know who you are, you that have ignored this and are most guilty of this."
Across the globe, protests big and small urged politicians to act against climate change while also highlighting local environmental problems.
"Since climate change will be a global problem, I decided that this would be the best place to strike," she told CBS News. She expected students to be striking in all 50 states Friday.
In a speech Friday outside the U.N., Villasenor said world leaders weren't listening. "Our world leaders are the ones acting like children," she said. "They are the ones having tantrums, arguing with each other and refusing to take responsibility for their actions while the planet burns."
Later, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was inspired by the students to call a special summit in September to deal with what he called "the climate emergency." "My generation has failed to respond properly to the dramatic challenge of climate change," Guterres wrote in an opinion piece in The Guardian. "This is deeply felt by young people. No wonder they are angry."
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen showed up at a protest in Copenhagen and tweeted Friday "We must listen to the youth. Especially when they're right: the climate must be one of our top priorities."
IMAGECarla Reemtsma, a 20-year-old university student who helped organize the protest in Berlin, said she's part of about 50 WhatsApp groups devoted to discussing climate change. "A lot happens on social media because you can reach a lot of young people very quickly and show them: look there's lot of us," she told the Associated Press. "There's a very low threshold so we reach a huge number of people."
"I think that's how we managed to get so big," said Reemtsma. Many protesters in Berlin took aim at politicians such as the leader of Germany's pro-business Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner, for suggesting that complicated issues such as climate change were "a matter for professionals" not students.
Others, including Germany's economy minister, Peter Altmaier, have urged students to stage the protests outside school hours.
Volker Quaschning, a professor of engineering at Berlin's University of Applied Sciences, said it was easy for politicians to belittle students. "That's why they need our support," he said. "If we do nothing then parts of this planet could become uninhabitable by the end of the century."
Scientists have backed the protests, with thousands signing petitions in support of the students in Britain, Finland, Germany and the U.S. "It gives me great hope," environmentalist Bill McKibben told CBS News contributing meteorologist Jeff Berardelli. "This new generation is doing all it can to make sure that we older people don't foreclose their chance for a decent life. It's beautiful to see their courage, their passion -- if anyone ever thought 'kids today' don't care about the world, or are spending all their time on video games, the photos from around the world should renew their faith."
Scientists have warned for decades that current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are unsustainable, so far with little effect. In 2015, world leaders agreed in Paris to a goal of keeping the Earth's global temperature rise by the end of the century well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Yet at present, the world is on track for an increase of 4 degrees Celsius, which experts said would have far-reaching consequences for life on the planet. In Germany, environmental groups and experts have attacked government plans to continue using coal and natural gas for decades to come.
Quaschning, who was one of more than 23,000 German-speaking scientists to sign a letter of support this week, said Germany should aim to fully "decarbonize" by 2040. This would give less-advanced nations a bit more time to wean themselves off fossil fuels while still meeting the Paris goal globally.
"This is going to require radical measures and there isn't the slightest sign of that happening yet," said Quaschning.
A poll published Friday by German public broadcaster ZDF found that 67 percent of respondents backed the students' protests during school hours, with 32 percent opposed. The representative telephone poll conducted between March 12 and 14 involved 1,290 randomly selected voters. The margin of error was about 3 percentage points.
In Stockholm, Greta Thunberg predicted that students won't let up their protests. "There are a crisis in front of us that we have to live with, that we will have to live with for all our lives, our children, our grandchildren and all future generations," she said.
"We won't accept that, we won't let that happen and that's why we go on strike. We are on strike because we do want a future, we will carry on," she said.
Links
From the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, students mobilized by social media and word of mouth skipped class Friday to protest what they believe are their governments' failure to take tough action against global warming. The rallies were one of the biggest international actions yet, involving hundreds of thousands of students in more than 100 countries around the globe.
The coordinated "school strikes" were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began holding solitary demonstrations outside the Swedish parliament last year. Since then, the weekly protests have snowballed from a handful of cities to hundreds, fueled by dramatic headlines about the impact of climate change during the students' lifetime.
Thunberg, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, said as protesters cheered her name at a rally in Stockholm that the world faces an "existential crisis, the biggest crisis humanity ever has faced, and still it has been ignored for decades by those that have known about it. And you know who you are, you that have ignored this and are most guilty of this."
Across the globe, protests big and small urged politicians to act against climate change while also highlighting local environmental problems.
- Speakers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington stood behind a banner that said "We don't want to die."
- In New York City, students chanted "Save our planet" and "Climate change has got to go" near an entrance to Central Park.
- In San Francisco, hundreds of students disrupted downtown traffic as they marched from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office to Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office, CBS San Francisco reported.
- In St. Paul, Minnesota, about 1,000 students gathered before the state Capitol, chanting "Stop denying the earth is dying."
- In Berlin, police said as many as 20,000 protesters, most of them young students, gathered in a downtown square, waving signs with slogans such as "March now or swim later" and "Climate Protection Report Card: F" before marching through the capital's government quarter with a stop in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel's office.
- In Poland, thousands marched in rainy Warsaw and other cities to demand a ban on the burning of coal, which is a major source of carbon dioxide. Some wore face masks as they carried banners that read "Today's Air Smells Like the Planet's Last Days" and "Make Love Not CO2."
- In India's capital New Delhi, schoolchildren protested inaction on climate change and rising air pollution levels that often far exceeds World Health Organization limits.
- "Now or Never" was among signs brandished by enthusiastic teenagers thronging cobblestoned streets around the domed Pantheon building, which rises above the Left Bank in Paris. Several thousand students gathered peacefully around the landmark. Some targeted French President Emmanuel Macron, who sees himself as the guarantor of the Paris climate accord but is criticized by activists for being too business friendly and not ambitious enough in efforts to reduce French emissions.
- About 50 students protested in South Africa's capital, Pretoria, chanting "There's No Planet B." One protester held a sign reading "You'll Miss The Rains Down in Africa." Experts say Africa, with its population of more than 1 billion people, is expected to be hardest hit by global warming even though it contributes least to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it.
- Police in Vienna said about 10,000 students rallied in the Austrian capital, while in neighboring Switzerland a similar number protested in the western city of Lausanne. Last month, lawmakers in the northern Swiss canton of Basel symbolically declared a "climate emergency."
- In Helsinki, police said about 3,000 students had gathered in front of Finland's Parliament sporting placards such as: "Dinosaurs thought they had time too!"
- Thousands marched through Madrid and more than 50 other Spanish cities. Spain is vulnerable to rising sea levels and rapid desertification.
"Since climate change will be a global problem, I decided that this would be the best place to strike," she told CBS News. She expected students to be striking in all 50 states Friday.
In a speech Friday outside the U.N., Villasenor said world leaders weren't listening. "Our world leaders are the ones acting like children," she said. "They are the ones having tantrums, arguing with each other and refusing to take responsibility for their actions while the planet burns."
Later, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was inspired by the students to call a special summit in September to deal with what he called "the climate emergency." "My generation has failed to respond properly to the dramatic challenge of climate change," Guterres wrote in an opinion piece in The Guardian. "This is deeply felt by young people. No wonder they are angry."
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen showed up at a protest in Copenhagen and tweeted Friday "We must listen to the youth. Especially when they're right: the climate must be one of our top priorities."
IMAGECarla Reemtsma, a 20-year-old university student who helped organize the protest in Berlin, said she's part of about 50 WhatsApp groups devoted to discussing climate change. "A lot happens on social media because you can reach a lot of young people very quickly and show them: look there's lot of us," she told the Associated Press. "There's a very low threshold so we reach a huge number of people."
"I think that's how we managed to get so big," said Reemtsma. Many protesters in Berlin took aim at politicians such as the leader of Germany's pro-business Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner, for suggesting that complicated issues such as climate change were "a matter for professionals" not students.
Others, including Germany's economy minister, Peter Altmaier, have urged students to stage the protests outside school hours.
Volker Quaschning, a professor of engineering at Berlin's University of Applied Sciences, said it was easy for politicians to belittle students. "That's why they need our support," he said. "If we do nothing then parts of this planet could become uninhabitable by the end of the century."
Scientists have backed the protests, with thousands signing petitions in support of the students in Britain, Finland, Germany and the U.S. "It gives me great hope," environmentalist Bill McKibben told CBS News contributing meteorologist Jeff Berardelli. "This new generation is doing all it can to make sure that we older people don't foreclose their chance for a decent life. It's beautiful to see their courage, their passion -- if anyone ever thought 'kids today' don't care about the world, or are spending all their time on video games, the photos from around the world should renew their faith."
Scientists have warned for decades that current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are unsustainable, so far with little effect. In 2015, world leaders agreed in Paris to a goal of keeping the Earth's global temperature rise by the end of the century well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Yet at present, the world is on track for an increase of 4 degrees Celsius, which experts said would have far-reaching consequences for life on the planet. In Germany, environmental groups and experts have attacked government plans to continue using coal and natural gas for decades to come.
Quaschning, who was one of more than 23,000 German-speaking scientists to sign a letter of support this week, said Germany should aim to fully "decarbonize" by 2040. This would give less-advanced nations a bit more time to wean themselves off fossil fuels while still meeting the Paris goal globally.
"This is going to require radical measures and there isn't the slightest sign of that happening yet," said Quaschning.
A poll published Friday by German public broadcaster ZDF found that 67 percent of respondents backed the students' protests during school hours, with 32 percent opposed. The representative telephone poll conducted between March 12 and 14 involved 1,290 randomly selected voters. The margin of error was about 3 percentage points.
In Stockholm, Greta Thunberg predicted that students won't let up their protests. "There are a crisis in front of us that we have to live with, that we will have to live with for all our lives, our children, our grandchildren and all future generations," she said.
"We won't accept that, we won't let that happen and that's why we go on strike. We are on strike because we do want a future, we will carry on," she said.
Links
- Climate Change Strikes Across Australia See Student Protesters Defy Calls To Stay In School
- Teenage Climate Activist Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
- Students Are Striking For Action On Climate Change — A Truancy Everyone Should Applaud
- Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
Categories: External websites
Remember Morrison's Black-Rock Stunt? Well, Look Who's Scared Now
The Guardian - Katharine Murphy
With their clash over coal, the Coalition partners are making the case for voters to show them the exit
“Scott Morrison’s brandishing of a lump of coal during question time in 2017 is one of the most boneheaded performances ever to grace the bear pit.” Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP It’s always unwise to call peak farce when we are dealing with Australia’s torturous climate and energy debate, so perhaps we can just categorise the following incident as mildly surreal.
Scott Morrison was in Melbourne for much of this past week. On Wednesday he was out on the hustings with Daniel Andrews, one of the most progressive political leaders in the country, and a premier who has recently secured an emphatic mandate from the people.
By stapling himself to Andrews, by cooperating mightily in a state where the Liberals are in deep political trouble, perhaps Morrison was hoping for a small measure of reflected goodwill.
Whatever his aspirations, Morrison was asked about coal, as he has been every day since a group of Queensland Nationals decided to go to war with their leader Michael McCormack. The brawl that has fractured the government was unleashed just over a week ago, and it relates to McCormack’s failure to shirt-front the Liberals on coal plants and on divestiture powers to break up energy companies.
For some of the rebels, this is a proxy war about Barnaby Joyce returning to the leadership (yes, really). For others, coal and energy really is the burning issue.
Reporters inquired on Wednesday how Morrison could tolerate the Nationals defying his leadership by banging on relentlessly about wanting new coal plants. He calmly mouthed the responses prime ministers mouth in trying situations.
Morrison noted that Joyce (“a passionate fellow”) had returned the red cordial to the fridge and was now sequestered, spent after a spell of thrashing, on the time-out step. Joyce had “settled” the insurrection, Morrison said, by acknowledging it had been a “misstep” to describe himself as the “elected deputy prime minister”.
Having declared peace in our time (and I deploy that phrase in the Neville Chamberlain sense), Morrison then rolled around to energy projects. He said the government was about “supporting the development of commercially viable and feasible baseload power all around the country”. These projects could be “gas, it could be hydrogen … it could be hydro”.
There’s a word missing there, right? It starts with c and ends in l.
The prime minister declined to utter the word coal. As well as gas, hydrogen and hydro, Morrison noted there could be “other traditional sources”. C-o-a-l could not pass his lips.
This omission would be of only glancing interest, or perhaps zero interest, had the prime minister not been the same bloke who, seemingly five minutes ago, had brought a lump of coal into the Australian parliament and brandished it lustily during question time, in one of the most boneheaded performances ever to grace the bear pit.
“This is coal,” the then treasurer declared triumphantly in February 2017, brandishing his prop as if he’d just stumbled across an exotic species previously thought to be extinct. “Don’t be afraid,” Morrison said, soothingly, to his political opponents, waving the black rock kindly supplied by the Minerals Council of Australia. “Don’t be scared.”
Just for the record, no one was scared then – except perhaps members of the voting public transiently in the visitors galleries of the House of Representatives witnessing the sudden onset of shark-jumping as a parliamentary sport.
But perhaps the strange coal seance of 2017 was all a harbinger, more omen than stunt, because it’s pretty clear that Morrison, to borrow from himself, is a bit scared now. Being trepidatious is entirely reasonable, because it’s clear to anyone watching that there is a schism inside the government.
Put simply, the schism is this.
The Nationals want Morrison to produce a shortlist that commits the Coalition to supporting new coal projects. They want an explicit commitment made in public before the federal election, because they believe that commitment pays political dividends in central Queensland.
To underscore this point, Joyce noted during one of his interventions that he was intent on protecting the interests of his regional heartland, and didn’t give a stuff about the climate-induced anxieties of voters in Melbourne. (In case you are wondering, this isn’t the normal Joyce word salad; this is a deliberate smack at the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. The Nationals believe Frydenberg is running most of the internal interference on this issue, because he’s worried about his inner city seat, and others like it.)
The Liberals have made it equally clear that they do n-o-t (underlined) want the government to put taxpayers on the hook by supporting coal before the election, because that is the equivalent of cordially inviting their small-l liberal heartland to take out their baseball bats and start swinging come May – not just in Melbourne, but right around the country.
If you are Morrison, that’s not an easy difference to split.
Unless there’s some grand bargain in the offing – Morrison supporting a north Queensland coal project, then sealing the border allowing any Liberals south of Noosa plausible deniability – this is a straight win/loss proposition.
Either the Nationals win, or the Liberals win, and while this unresolved roiling persists (and I predict the Nationals will persist), the bottom line is the government loses. While the priority is internal death match politics, the government makes its own compelling case for why Australian voters should show it the door.
Just to summarise the general ludicrousness, in the space of seven months the government has gone from rolling Malcolm Turnbull in large part because he was too progressive on climate change, and dumping the national energy guarantee that might have given them all a measure of electoral protection on this issue, to the prime minister being unable to utter the word coal in public, for fear of offending voters worried about climate change.
As the kids say, life comes at you fast. You wouldn’t believe it had you not seen it with your own eyes.
Meanwhile, as the numpty show rolled on, and on, a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank stood amid the clamour of the week and said what anyone with any respect for facts and evidence now says: climate change is real. It’s not cyclical, it’s a trend, and if we don’t start factoring it into our policy settings and our business decisions (meaning the prudent management of carbon risk), then Australia’s financial stability is at risk.
It was an important speech from Guy Debelle, both in terms of the content, and in terms of the signal. Debelle speaks for an institution apparently intent on telling the public it does not intend to drop the ball on this most important of policy issues, which might give the students who demonstrated around the country on Friday some measure of comfort that the failure of their parents isn’t absolute.
Eyes will also be on Labor over the coming weeks. The party that wants to form the next government is expected to release the remaining elements of its policy on climate change: what it will do to reduce pollution from heavy emitters, in transport and agriculture.
Given the diabolical history of this issue, there is nervousness in Labor’s ranks about the onset of yet another cheap scare campaign once the policy is subjected to scrutiny, and the policy will be heavily scrutinised, not only by journalists but also by the stakeholders now assuming Labor wins the contest in May.
Polling, both private and public, makes clear that a majority of Australians want action on climate change. Many voters see the cheapjack opportunism of the past decade as symptomatic of a political system that has lost its way.
While political actors who favour rational action on climate change have the wind at their back in a way I haven’t seen since the federal campaign of 2007, there’s only one way to get a mandate to decarbonise the Australian economy.
It’s not complicated. You have to seek one, and be brave enough to do that without fudges or strategic omissions or weasel words.
Links
With their clash over coal, the Coalition partners are making the case for voters to show them the exit
“Scott Morrison’s brandishing of a lump of coal during question time in 2017 is one of the most boneheaded performances ever to grace the bear pit.” Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP It’s always unwise to call peak farce when we are dealing with Australia’s torturous climate and energy debate, so perhaps we can just categorise the following incident as mildly surreal.
Scott Morrison was in Melbourne for much of this past week. On Wednesday he was out on the hustings with Daniel Andrews, one of the most progressive political leaders in the country, and a premier who has recently secured an emphatic mandate from the people.
By stapling himself to Andrews, by cooperating mightily in a state where the Liberals are in deep political trouble, perhaps Morrison was hoping for a small measure of reflected goodwill.
Whatever his aspirations, Morrison was asked about coal, as he has been every day since a group of Queensland Nationals decided to go to war with their leader Michael McCormack. The brawl that has fractured the government was unleashed just over a week ago, and it relates to McCormack’s failure to shirt-front the Liberals on coal plants and on divestiture powers to break up energy companies.
For some of the rebels, this is a proxy war about Barnaby Joyce returning to the leadership (yes, really). For others, coal and energy really is the burning issue.
Reporters inquired on Wednesday how Morrison could tolerate the Nationals defying his leadership by banging on relentlessly about wanting new coal plants. He calmly mouthed the responses prime ministers mouth in trying situations.
Morrison noted that Joyce (“a passionate fellow”) had returned the red cordial to the fridge and was now sequestered, spent after a spell of thrashing, on the time-out step. Joyce had “settled” the insurrection, Morrison said, by acknowledging it had been a “misstep” to describe himself as the “elected deputy prime minister”.
Having declared peace in our time (and I deploy that phrase in the Neville Chamberlain sense), Morrison then rolled around to energy projects. He said the government was about “supporting the development of commercially viable and feasible baseload power all around the country”. These projects could be “gas, it could be hydrogen … it could be hydro”.
There’s a word missing there, right? It starts with c and ends in l.
The prime minister declined to utter the word coal. As well as gas, hydrogen and hydro, Morrison noted there could be “other traditional sources”. C-o-a-l could not pass his lips.
This omission would be of only glancing interest, or perhaps zero interest, had the prime minister not been the same bloke who, seemingly five minutes ago, had brought a lump of coal into the Australian parliament and brandished it lustily during question time, in one of the most boneheaded performances ever to grace the bear pit.
“This is coal,” the then treasurer declared triumphantly in February 2017, brandishing his prop as if he’d just stumbled across an exotic species previously thought to be extinct. “Don’t be afraid,” Morrison said, soothingly, to his political opponents, waving the black rock kindly supplied by the Minerals Council of Australia. “Don’t be scared.”
Just for the record, no one was scared then – except perhaps members of the voting public transiently in the visitors galleries of the House of Representatives witnessing the sudden onset of shark-jumping as a parliamentary sport.
But perhaps the strange coal seance of 2017 was all a harbinger, more omen than stunt, because it’s pretty clear that Morrison, to borrow from himself, is a bit scared now. Being trepidatious is entirely reasonable, because it’s clear to anyone watching that there is a schism inside the government.
Put simply, the schism is this.
The Nationals want Morrison to produce a shortlist that commits the Coalition to supporting new coal projects. They want an explicit commitment made in public before the federal election, because they believe that commitment pays political dividends in central Queensland.
To underscore this point, Joyce noted during one of his interventions that he was intent on protecting the interests of his regional heartland, and didn’t give a stuff about the climate-induced anxieties of voters in Melbourne. (In case you are wondering, this isn’t the normal Joyce word salad; this is a deliberate smack at the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. The Nationals believe Frydenberg is running most of the internal interference on this issue, because he’s worried about his inner city seat, and others like it.)
The Liberals have made it equally clear that they do n-o-t (underlined) want the government to put taxpayers on the hook by supporting coal before the election, because that is the equivalent of cordially inviting their small-l liberal heartland to take out their baseball bats and start swinging come May – not just in Melbourne, but right around the country.
If you are Morrison, that’s not an easy difference to split.
Unless there’s some grand bargain in the offing – Morrison supporting a north Queensland coal project, then sealing the border allowing any Liberals south of Noosa plausible deniability – this is a straight win/loss proposition.
Either the Nationals win, or the Liberals win, and while this unresolved roiling persists (and I predict the Nationals will persist), the bottom line is the government loses. While the priority is internal death match politics, the government makes its own compelling case for why Australian voters should show it the door.
Just to summarise the general ludicrousness, in the space of seven months the government has gone from rolling Malcolm Turnbull in large part because he was too progressive on climate change, and dumping the national energy guarantee that might have given them all a measure of electoral protection on this issue, to the prime minister being unable to utter the word coal in public, for fear of offending voters worried about climate change.
As the kids say, life comes at you fast. You wouldn’t believe it had you not seen it with your own eyes.
Meanwhile, as the numpty show rolled on, and on, a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank stood amid the clamour of the week and said what anyone with any respect for facts and evidence now says: climate change is real. It’s not cyclical, it’s a trend, and if we don’t start factoring it into our policy settings and our business decisions (meaning the prudent management of carbon risk), then Australia’s financial stability is at risk.
It was an important speech from Guy Debelle, both in terms of the content, and in terms of the signal. Debelle speaks for an institution apparently intent on telling the public it does not intend to drop the ball on this most important of policy issues, which might give the students who demonstrated around the country on Friday some measure of comfort that the failure of their parents isn’t absolute.
Eyes will also be on Labor over the coming weeks. The party that wants to form the next government is expected to release the remaining elements of its policy on climate change: what it will do to reduce pollution from heavy emitters, in transport and agriculture.
Given the diabolical history of this issue, there is nervousness in Labor’s ranks about the onset of yet another cheap scare campaign once the policy is subjected to scrutiny, and the policy will be heavily scrutinised, not only by journalists but also by the stakeholders now assuming Labor wins the contest in May.
Polling, both private and public, makes clear that a majority of Australians want action on climate change. Many voters see the cheapjack opportunism of the past decade as symptomatic of a political system that has lost its way.
While political actors who favour rational action on climate change have the wind at their back in a way I haven’t seen since the federal campaign of 2007, there’s only one way to get a mandate to decarbonise the Australian economy.
It’s not complicated. You have to seek one, and be brave enough to do that without fudges or strategic omissions or weasel words.
Links
- Climate change poses risk to Australia's financial stability, warns RBA deputy governor
- Scott Morrison brings coal to question time: what fresh idiocy is this?
- Scott Morrison says national energy guarantee 'is dead'
- Labor comfortably ahead of Coalition in Guardian Essential poll
- Liberals attack Queensland Nationals' push for coal-fired power stations
- Nationals rebels put the boot into their leader as party feels regional backlash
Categories: External websites
'Monster' El Nino A Chance Later This Year, Pointing To Extended Dry Times
Fairfax - Peter Hannam
Relief for Australia's drought-hit regions could be a long way off, with climate influences in the Pacific and Indian oceans tilting towards drier conditions and a "monster" El Nino a possibility by year's end.
Climate scientists said the conditions in the Pacific were particularly concerning given an unusual build-up of equatorial heat below the surface that could provide the fuel for a significant El Nino.
Sea surface warmth
El Ninos are marked by unusually warm sea surface temperatures that typically result in rainfall patterns shifting eastwards away from south-east Asia and the Australian continent.
Source: NOAA
If such an event transpires, the Great Barrier Reef would face another bout of mass coral bleaching while the drought gripping southern and eastern Australia could intensify.
Agus Santoso, a senior scientist at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said there were two likely outcomes from the developments in the Pacific.
"We could have an El Nino fully formed by the end of May and then it could dissipate," Dr Santoso said.
"The other is that by May it’s already formed and it still keeps building up... and by the end of the year we could have a monster El Nino."
During El Ninos, the normal easterly winds blowing along the equator slow and even reverse. Rainfall patterns tend to shift eastwards away from south-east Asia and Australia, setting up conditions favourable for below-average rainfall and bushfires.
'Very exciting'- but not in a good way
The prospect of a big El Nino later this year was raised at an international conference of climate scientists in Chile earlier this month.
They considered parallel years, such as 2014 when a near-El Nino was reached before conditions revived a year later, creating one of the three most powerful such events in the past half century.
"There is more heat now below the surface waiting to be tapped than there was in early 2015," said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration who attended the Chilean event.
"If westerly wind bursts of sufficient amplitude, duration and zonal extent develop along the equator in the next couple of months, 2019-20 could be very exciting," he said.
The scientists stress that a "predictability barrier" that falls during the southern hemisphere autumn means model reliability is lower than at other times of the year.
What lies beneath
Scientists have identified particularly warm waters just below the surface in a section of the El Nino 3.4 region. This pool of warmth could provide the fuel for a powerful El Nino re-forming by the end of 2019.
Source: NOAA"While it's not a slam dunk that El Nino is going to persist, I think that the odds have certainly increased over one to two months ago," Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University, said. " We've had a big build up of heat in the eastern and central Pacific."
'Not a great starting place'
Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasting at the Bureau of Meteorology, said "all models are suggesting an El Nino the over next month", with several having it peaking in autumn and dropping off.
The bureau has a higher threshold than NOAA - which has already declared an El Nino - but may announce one at its update next week.
Dr Watkins said "it's too early to say there'll be an extreme event", but he noted other influences - especially from the Indian Ocean - may also favour below-average rainfall during the spring for southern Australia.
The so-called Indian Ocean Dipole - which gauges relative warmth between the east and western Indian Ocean - is forecast to become positive by mid-winter, the bureau said.
“The odds are [favouring] on the drivers that create dry conditions for eastern and southern Australia," Dr Watkins said.
“We’re not starting from a great place," Dr Watkins said, noting inland reservoirs are dropping and near-term stream-flow forecasts are for below-average flows for much of the country.
Cai Wenju, a senior CSIRO scientist who has published widely on the El Nino Southern Oscillation climate pattern, said the chance of El Nino returning is high.
A return of westerlies by about June to halt the easterly tradewinds “could spark the fire and there’s a lot of fuel", Dr Cai said.
“If it’s similar to 2015, the impact this time will be big," he said. "We are already so dry.”
Climate change and big events
Dr Santoso's research, including a paper published late last year, has found the frequency of big El Ninos will increase with climate change.
That result is "quite concerning", particularly for ecosystems sensitive to heat spikes such as coral reefs that suffered mass bleaching during the 2015-16 big El Nino.
"If we get one or two bleaching events, [the Great Barrier Reef] can recover, but if we keep having these events coming up then maybe the corals are not going to be able to adapt," Dr Santoso said.
During El Ninos, the Pacific Ocean takes less heat from the atmosphere and even gives some up, giving global surface temperatures a bump up.
The trialling years of big El Ninos, especially 1998 and 2016 - the current holder of the world's hottest year on record - are particularly warm.
An event later this year would likely see temperatures next year "spike up, and that's not very helpful for global warming", Dr Santoso said.
Farmers have been already been hit hard by drought - with the Bureau of Meteorology saying rainfall totals in Australia in 2018 were the lowest since 2005. Credit: Joe Armao
Links
Relief for Australia's drought-hit regions could be a long way off, with climate influences in the Pacific and Indian oceans tilting towards drier conditions and a "monster" El Nino a possibility by year's end.
Climate scientists said the conditions in the Pacific were particularly concerning given an unusual build-up of equatorial heat below the surface that could provide the fuel for a significant El Nino.
Sea surface warmth
El Ninos are marked by unusually warm sea surface temperatures that typically result in rainfall patterns shifting eastwards away from south-east Asia and the Australian continent.
Source: NOAA
If such an event transpires, the Great Barrier Reef would face another bout of mass coral bleaching while the drought gripping southern and eastern Australia could intensify.
Agus Santoso, a senior scientist at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said there were two likely outcomes from the developments in the Pacific.
"We could have an El Nino fully formed by the end of May and then it could dissipate," Dr Santoso said.
"The other is that by May it’s already formed and it still keeps building up... and by the end of the year we could have a monster El Nino."
During El Ninos, the normal easterly winds blowing along the equator slow and even reverse. Rainfall patterns tend to shift eastwards away from south-east Asia and Australia, setting up conditions favourable for below-average rainfall and bushfires.
'Very exciting'- but not in a good way
The prospect of a big El Nino later this year was raised at an international conference of climate scientists in Chile earlier this month.
They considered parallel years, such as 2014 when a near-El Nino was reached before conditions revived a year later, creating one of the three most powerful such events in the past half century.
"There is more heat now below the surface waiting to be tapped than there was in early 2015," said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration who attended the Chilean event.
"If westerly wind bursts of sufficient amplitude, duration and zonal extent develop along the equator in the next couple of months, 2019-20 could be very exciting," he said.
The scientists stress that a "predictability barrier" that falls during the southern hemisphere autumn means model reliability is lower than at other times of the year.
What lies beneath
Scientists have identified particularly warm waters just below the surface in a section of the El Nino 3.4 region. This pool of warmth could provide the fuel for a powerful El Nino re-forming by the end of 2019.
Source: NOAA"While it's not a slam dunk that El Nino is going to persist, I think that the odds have certainly increased over one to two months ago," Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University, said. " We've had a big build up of heat in the eastern and central Pacific."
'Not a great starting place'
Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasting at the Bureau of Meteorology, said "all models are suggesting an El Nino the over next month", with several having it peaking in autumn and dropping off.
The bureau has a higher threshold than NOAA - which has already declared an El Nino - but may announce one at its update next week.
Dr Watkins said "it's too early to say there'll be an extreme event", but he noted other influences - especially from the Indian Ocean - may also favour below-average rainfall during the spring for southern Australia.
The so-called Indian Ocean Dipole - which gauges relative warmth between the east and western Indian Ocean - is forecast to become positive by mid-winter, the bureau said.
“The odds are [favouring] on the drivers that create dry conditions for eastern and southern Australia," Dr Watkins said.
“We’re not starting from a great place," Dr Watkins said, noting inland reservoirs are dropping and near-term stream-flow forecasts are for below-average flows for much of the country.
Cai Wenju, a senior CSIRO scientist who has published widely on the El Nino Southern Oscillation climate pattern, said the chance of El Nino returning is high.
A return of westerlies by about June to halt the easterly tradewinds “could spark the fire and there’s a lot of fuel", Dr Cai said.
“If it’s similar to 2015, the impact this time will be big," he said. "We are already so dry.”
Climate change and big events
Dr Santoso's research, including a paper published late last year, has found the frequency of big El Ninos will increase with climate change.
That result is "quite concerning", particularly for ecosystems sensitive to heat spikes such as coral reefs that suffered mass bleaching during the 2015-16 big El Nino.
"If we get one or two bleaching events, [the Great Barrier Reef] can recover, but if we keep having these events coming up then maybe the corals are not going to be able to adapt," Dr Santoso said.
During El Ninos, the Pacific Ocean takes less heat from the atmosphere and even gives some up, giving global surface temperatures a bump up.
The trialling years of big El Ninos, especially 1998 and 2016 - the current holder of the world's hottest year on record - are particularly warm.
An event later this year would likely see temperatures next year "spike up, and that's not very helpful for global warming", Dr Santoso said.
Farmers have been already been hit hard by drought - with the Bureau of Meteorology saying rainfall totals in Australia in 2018 were the lowest since 2005. Credit: Joe Armao
Links
Categories: External websites
Climate Change Strikes Across Australia See Student Protesters Defy Calls To Stay In School
ABC News
Students strike for climate change (ABC News)
Key points:
Rallies began in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart outside state parliament buildings and town halls.
Students have also marched at rallies across regional Australia, with large crowds protesting at Geelong, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Cairns and Townsville.
Many used humour to get their point across, with posters referencing internet memes and suggesting fail grades for the nation's political efforts on climate change policy.
Others were more serious — one poster urged politicians to "panic" about addressing climate change and another warned "there is no Planet B".
Melbourne protest organisers said about 20,000 people attended the rally outside Parliament House. (ABC News: Stephanie Anderson) In Melbourne, protesters filled Spring Street in the CBD, blocking traffic and trams and chanting "this is what democracy looks like" and "students united will never be divided".
Milou Albrecht and Harriet O'Shea Carre, both 14, travelled from Castlemaine in central Victoria to march in Melbourne.
Harriet O'Shea Carre and Milou Albrecht travelled with 400 of their fellow students to make the Melbourne march. (ABC News) The pair started the rally last year and were joined by 400 others from Castlemaine Secondary School.
"Together our collective voice is very strong and powerful," Harriet said.
What do the students want?
"Specifically for Tassie, we want to look at stopping how much forestry she's got going on," she said.
Frida Elliott, 15, said she did not care whether her school supported her presence at the Hobart rally.
"We're told we shouldn't be missing class time by our teachers … but there's nothing they can do about it and they've taken a step back and realised the power we have here," she said.
Rallies were also held in Darwin, Brisbane and Perth.
Hundreds of students defied school warnings to attend a rally at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast. (ABC News: Megan Kinninment) There were 50 rallies planned across the country for students to protest against what they see as the destruction of their future.
Meanwhile, New Zealand rallies have seen strong turnouts, with a student march blocking streets in Wellington this morning.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Perth's CBD to join the nationwide movement. (ABC News: Evan Morgan Grahame) Students 'on the right side of history'
The protests were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg, who pledged to protest outside the Parliament in Stockholm until the country caught up on its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Greta urged students to ignore calls from some politicians to stay in school.
Students in Byron Bay ditched school to join the global movement. (ABC News: Sam Turnbull) "I say that the children are on the right side of history and that those politicians are not," she said.
"So they should keep on fighting and they must be prepared to go on for a very, very long time.
"I don't think decision-makers will get the message for a very long time."
In Melbourne, students staged their protest outside Parliament House. (ABC News: Bez Zewdie) Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said he would meet with the climate strikers to discuss their concerns outside of school hours, while Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the protests should have been held on a weekend.
"Students leaving school during school hours to protest is not something that we should encourage," Mr Tehan said.
... and they just keep on coming #CoffsHarbour #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/tJlycxjMyx— Adam Curlis (@TAFEeducation) March 14, 2019"Especially when they are being encouraged to do so by green political activists."
Similar protests in November prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to warn against the idea of students leaving school to participate in protests.
"We don't support our schools being turned into parliaments. What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools," Mr Morrison said at the time.
Students are calling for a switch to renewable energy. (ABC News: Gabriella Marchant) But other politicians have thrown their support behind the rallies.
NSW Opposition Leader Michael Daley encouraged students to exercise their "democratic right" to protest.
Independent MP Julia Banks said she was proud to support students for "using their voice".
"This is their time," she said on Twitter.
Signs got creative in Hobart. (ABC News: Monte Bovill) Greta received a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts starting a global climate change movement.
Her view is shared by students around the globe, including the 15-year-old student organiser for the Sydney school strike, Jean Hinchcliffe.
"I believe that I have learnt much more from these strikes and the organising process than I have learnt in any lesson during school," she told the ABC.
"The amount of experience you gain from it and learning to mobilise and participate in democracy I think is far more worthwhile than any history lesson."
At the November protests, students filled arcades and city squares, defying calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school, to call for an end to political inertia on climate policy.
Students gathered on the steps of South Australia's Parliament House. (ABC News: Gabriella Marchant)
Ruby Clark, 12, was among thousands of protesters gathered at Garema Place in Canberra. (ABC News: Niki Burnside)
Thousands of students gathered in Hobart. (ABC News: Monte Bovill) Links
Students strike for climate change (ABC News)
Key points:
- Students have used a combination of humour, passion and urgency in protests across the country
- The protests were inspired by the actions of a 16-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, in Stockholm
- PM Scott Morrison objected to a previous similar protest, saying he didn't want to see "schools being turned into parliaments"
Rallies began in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart outside state parliament buildings and town halls.
Students have also marched at rallies across regional Australia, with large crowds protesting at Geelong, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Cairns and Townsville.
Many used humour to get their point across, with posters referencing internet memes and suggesting fail grades for the nation's political efforts on climate change policy.
Others were more serious — one poster urged politicians to "panic" about addressing climate change and another warned "there is no Planet B".
Melbourne protest organisers said about 20,000 people attended the rally outside Parliament House. (ABC News: Stephanie Anderson) In Melbourne, protesters filled Spring Street in the CBD, blocking traffic and trams and chanting "this is what democracy looks like" and "students united will never be divided".
Milou Albrecht and Harriet O'Shea Carre, both 14, travelled from Castlemaine in central Victoria to march in Melbourne.
Harriet O'Shea Carre and Milou Albrecht travelled with 400 of their fellow students to make the Melbourne march. (ABC News) The pair started the rally last year and were joined by 400 others from Castlemaine Secondary School.
"Together our collective voice is very strong and powerful," Harriet said.
What do the students want?
- Stop the Adani coal mine in central Queensland
- No new coal or gas projects
- 100 per cent renewables by 2030
"Specifically for Tassie, we want to look at stopping how much forestry she's got going on," she said.
Frida Elliott, 15, said she did not care whether her school supported her presence at the Hobart rally.
"We're told we shouldn't be missing class time by our teachers … but there's nothing they can do about it and they've taken a step back and realised the power we have here," she said.
Rallies were also held in Darwin, Brisbane and Perth.
Hundreds of students defied school warnings to attend a rally at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast. (ABC News: Megan Kinninment) There were 50 rallies planned across the country for students to protest against what they see as the destruction of their future.
Meanwhile, New Zealand rallies have seen strong turnouts, with a student march blocking streets in Wellington this morning.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Perth's CBD to join the nationwide movement. (ABC News: Evan Morgan Grahame) Students 'on the right side of history'
The protests were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg, who pledged to protest outside the Parliament in Stockholm until the country caught up on its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Greta urged students to ignore calls from some politicians to stay in school.
Students in Byron Bay ditched school to join the global movement. (ABC News: Sam Turnbull) "I say that the children are on the right side of history and that those politicians are not," she said.
"So they should keep on fighting and they must be prepared to go on for a very, very long time.
"I don't think decision-makers will get the message for a very long time."
In Melbourne, students staged their protest outside Parliament House. (ABC News: Bez Zewdie) Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said he would meet with the climate strikers to discuss their concerns outside of school hours, while Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the protests should have been held on a weekend.
"Students leaving school during school hours to protest is not something that we should encourage," Mr Tehan said.
... and they just keep on coming #CoffsHarbour #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/tJlycxjMyx— Adam Curlis (@TAFEeducation) March 14, 2019"Especially when they are being encouraged to do so by green political activists."
Similar protests in November prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to warn against the idea of students leaving school to participate in protests.
"We don't support our schools being turned into parliaments. What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools," Mr Morrison said at the time.
Students are calling for a switch to renewable energy. (ABC News: Gabriella Marchant) But other politicians have thrown their support behind the rallies.
NSW Opposition Leader Michael Daley encouraged students to exercise their "democratic right" to protest.
Independent MP Julia Banks said she was proud to support students for "using their voice".
"This is their time," she said on Twitter.
Signs got creative in Hobart. (ABC News: Monte Bovill) Greta received a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts starting a global climate change movement.
Her view is shared by students around the globe, including the 15-year-old student organiser for the Sydney school strike, Jean Hinchcliffe.
"I believe that I have learnt much more from these strikes and the organising process than I have learnt in any lesson during school," she told the ABC.
"The amount of experience you gain from it and learning to mobilise and participate in democracy I think is far more worthwhile than any history lesson."
At the November protests, students filled arcades and city squares, defying calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school, to call for an end to political inertia on climate policy.
Students gathered on the steps of South Australia's Parliament House. (ABC News: Gabriella Marchant)
Ruby Clark, 12, was among thousands of protesters gathered at Garema Place in Canberra. (ABC News: Niki Burnside)
Thousands of students gathered in Hobart. (ABC News: Monte Bovill) Links
- 'We can't afford not to': Why these kids will ditch school to fight for climate action
- Students' climate change statement places demands on politicians
- Students Are Striking For Action On Climate Change — A Truancy Everyone Should Applaud
- Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour
- Amsterdam's First National Climate Change March Draws 40,000 People
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
- Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Climate Change Sceptics Push To Ban Teaching Global Warming Facts
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
Categories: External websites
Teenage Climate Activist Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Fairfax - AP | Peter Hannam
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, started a global campaign for student action that will culminate in an international day of strike action by students on March 15. Credit: DPA
Three Norwegian lawmakers have nominated Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, who has become a prominent voice in campaigns against climate change, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Freddy Andre Oevstegaard and two other members of the Socialist Left Party said they believe "the massive movement Greta has set in motion is a very important peace contribution".
Thousands of children walk out of their classrooms for a global climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating crisis.
Oevstegaard told the VG newspaper Wednesday that "climate threats are perhaps one of the most important contributions to war and conflict".
Thunberg, 16, has encouraged students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change, a movement that spread far beyond Sweden.
On Friday, about 40,000 students in Australia are expected to strike in as many as 55 separate protests as part of the School Strike 4 Climate campaign. That number is about twice that of a similar action in November, with over 100 nations likely to take part this time around.
Thunberg has been staging a Friday strike since last year, boycotting 42 days of classes since she began last year.
"The plan was to school strike for three weeks [in the run up to Swedish elections]," she said. "But at the end of that I wanted to go on. So then I started Fridays For Future ... The emissions are still going up so nothing has been achieved really."
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg leading a march of thousands of French students through Paris in February. Credit: AP
When not standing vigil in public protests, the 16-year-old has travelled widely - always avoiding flights to save on greenhouse gas emissions - and addressed a UN conference on climate in Poland, the World Economic Forum in Davos and the European Union in Brussels, among other events.
"But my grades are still good and I have not missed out on what I need to achieve in school," she said.
IMAGE
Any national lawmaker can nominate somebody for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn't publicly comment on nominations, which for 2019 had to be submitted by February 1.
Friday's strike will be held from midday at the Sydney Town Hall, the Old Treasury in Melbourne and Garema Place in Canberra. In Brisbane it will be held from 1pm at Queen's Gardens and in Perth from 11am at St George's Cathedral, with dozens of other protests to be held in regional parts of Australia.
Links
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, started a global campaign for student action that will culminate in an international day of strike action by students on March 15. Credit: DPA
Three Norwegian lawmakers have nominated Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, who has become a prominent voice in campaigns against climate change, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Freddy Andre Oevstegaard and two other members of the Socialist Left Party said they believe "the massive movement Greta has set in motion is a very important peace contribution".
Thousands of children walk out of their classrooms for a global climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating crisis.
Oevstegaard told the VG newspaper Wednesday that "climate threats are perhaps one of the most important contributions to war and conflict".
Thunberg, 16, has encouraged students to skip school to join protests demanding faster action on climate change, a movement that spread far beyond Sweden.
On Friday, about 40,000 students in Australia are expected to strike in as many as 55 separate protests as part of the School Strike 4 Climate campaign. That number is about twice that of a similar action in November, with over 100 nations likely to take part this time around.
Thunberg has been staging a Friday strike since last year, boycotting 42 days of classes since she began last year.
"The plan was to school strike for three weeks [in the run up to Swedish elections]," she said. "But at the end of that I wanted to go on. So then I started Fridays For Future ... The emissions are still going up so nothing has been achieved really."
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg leading a march of thousands of French students through Paris in February. Credit: AP
When not standing vigil in public protests, the 16-year-old has travelled widely - always avoiding flights to save on greenhouse gas emissions - and addressed a UN conference on climate in Poland, the World Economic Forum in Davos and the European Union in Brussels, among other events.
"But my grades are still good and I have not missed out on what I need to achieve in school," she said.
IMAGE
Any national lawmaker can nominate somebody for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn't publicly comment on nominations, which for 2019 had to be submitted by February 1.
Friday's strike will be held from midday at the Sydney Town Hall, the Old Treasury in Melbourne and Garema Place in Canberra. In Brisbane it will be held from 1pm at Queen's Gardens and in Perth from 11am at St George's Cathedral, with dozens of other protests to be held in regional parts of Australia.
Links
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Greta Thunberg Dresses Down More Global Elites For Climate Inaction
- Teenage Activist Takes School Strikes 4 Climate Action To Davos
- ‘Grown-Ups Have Failed Us’
- 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice
- The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding A New Kind Of Politics
- The Swedish 15-Year-Old Who's Cutting Class To Fight The Climate Crisis
Categories: External websites
Environmental Groups Take France To Court Over Climate Change Inaction
Reuters - Bate Felix | Marine Pennetier | Danielle Rouquié | Jean-Baptiste Vey
PARIS - Environmental groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam have filed an unprecedented court action against the French government, accusing it of insufficient policy actions to tackle climate change.
French President Emmanuel Macron addresses the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) in Gigiri, within Nairobi, Kenya March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas MukoyaThe groups aim to persuade the Paris Administrative court to force the government to apply its own policies, such as the multi-year energy plan, known as the PPE, and international agreements such as the 2015 Paris Climate accord.
“The state is not living up to commitments it has made itself, especially in the context of the Paris agreement of 2015,” said Cecile Duflot, a former minister and current Executive Director of Oxfam France.
“The state is a litigant like any other, our goal is for it to be condemned to act,” she told France Inter radio.
The court action is backed by an online petition signed by more than 2 million people and is supported by other NGOs including the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, created by a former minister and renowned environmentalist who resigned from President Emmanuel Macron’s government last summer over slow progress on climate change goals.
A Greenpeace statement said that France was on the wrong track in terms of curbing its emissions of greenhouse gases, which have been on the rise since 2015.
“This wait-and-see attitude has only worsened the situation in the agriculture, transport, energy and biodiversity protection sectors, with France falling behind and now requiring a restart and strong and urgent measures,” it said, adding that the government was refusing to put urgent measures in place to reach its objectives.
French Environment Minister Francois de Rugy, denied that the government was dragging its feet, adding on BFM Television that the court action would not lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking in Kenyan capital Nairobi on the sidelines of the One Planet Summit he launched in 2017 to speed efforts to tackle climate change, President Macron said he does not believe the court action would lead anywhere.
“The solution is in all of us. On this issue, it is not the People vs. The Government. This nonsense should stop,” Macron said on LCI Television.
“We all must act. Governments must act. Major enterprises must act. Investors must act. Citizens must act. All together.”
A draft energy and climate law that was due to be presented to the cabinet this week has been postponed so that it can be reworked with more ambitious environmental goals.
Links
PARIS - Environmental groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam have filed an unprecedented court action against the French government, accusing it of insufficient policy actions to tackle climate change.
French President Emmanuel Macron addresses the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) in Gigiri, within Nairobi, Kenya March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas MukoyaThe groups aim to persuade the Paris Administrative court to force the government to apply its own policies, such as the multi-year energy plan, known as the PPE, and international agreements such as the 2015 Paris Climate accord.
“The state is not living up to commitments it has made itself, especially in the context of the Paris agreement of 2015,” said Cecile Duflot, a former minister and current Executive Director of Oxfam France.
“The state is a litigant like any other, our goal is for it to be condemned to act,” she told France Inter radio.
The court action is backed by an online petition signed by more than 2 million people and is supported by other NGOs including the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, created by a former minister and renowned environmentalist who resigned from President Emmanuel Macron’s government last summer over slow progress on climate change goals.
A Greenpeace statement said that France was on the wrong track in terms of curbing its emissions of greenhouse gases, which have been on the rise since 2015.
“This wait-and-see attitude has only worsened the situation in the agriculture, transport, energy and biodiversity protection sectors, with France falling behind and now requiring a restart and strong and urgent measures,” it said, adding that the government was refusing to put urgent measures in place to reach its objectives.
French Environment Minister Francois de Rugy, denied that the government was dragging its feet, adding on BFM Television that the court action would not lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking in Kenyan capital Nairobi on the sidelines of the One Planet Summit he launched in 2017 to speed efforts to tackle climate change, President Macron said he does not believe the court action would lead anywhere.
“The solution is in all of us. On this issue, it is not the People vs. The Government. This nonsense should stop,” Macron said on LCI Television.
“We all must act. Governments must act. Major enterprises must act. Investors must act. Citizens must act. All together.”
A draft energy and climate law that was due to be presented to the cabinet this week has been postponed so that it can be reworked with more ambitious environmental goals.
Links
- Trump’s Climate Policies Face 6 Big Legal Battles This Year
- Support Is Surging For Teens’ Climate Change Lawsuit
- Climate Change In Court
- Climate Change-Related Litigation Was Once Seen As A Joke, But It Could Soon Become Business Reality
- These Residents Stopped A Coal Mine, Made History And Sent Ripples Through Boardrooms Around The World
- Australia's Coal Future Under Threat As More Changes Hit Fossil Fuels Globally
- As Lawsuits Over Climate Change Heat Up, Oil Industry Steps Up Attacks On Its Critics
- Coal Miners Derided Climate Action 'Sideshow'. Now It's The Main Event
Categories: External websites
Climate Change Top Of Voters' Minds In NSW Election
Fairfax - Alexandra Smith
Climate change is a key election issue for most people in NSW, polling shows, as the environment emerges as a more pressing concern for voters than hospitals, schools and public transport.
Exclusive Herald polling shows that 57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection when deciding who to vote for on March 23.
57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Almost 37 per cent of people said climate change would not be a vote changer, and five per cent were unsure, the UComms/ReachTEL poll reveals.
Voters identified the environment as their top concern after the management of the state's finances, but ahead of health and hospitals, transport, schools and cost of living pressures.
Internal party research showed climate change played a major role in last year's Wentworth byelection and is shaping up to be a key issue in former prime minister Tony Abbott's seat of Warringah.
With climate change again looming as an issue at the federal election in May, Mr Abbott on Friday abandoned his call to withdraw from the Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions, falling in to line with Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the key policy.
Independent candidate for Warringah Zali Steggall and former PM Tony Abbott debate over the cost of renewable energy.
A war of words broke out between the NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin and the federal government late last year, when Mr Harwin attacked the Morrison government as "out of touch on energy and climate policy".Mr Harwin's strong stance was seen as a way of differentiating the state Liberals from their federal counterparts over the issue of climate change but also more broadly.
As part of the state election campaign, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced interest-free loans to 300,000 households for solar and battery systems while Labor has pledged to put solar on 500,000 homes over the next 10 years through rebates.
Labor Leader Michael Daley has committed to the state government's agencies acquiring 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. By the 2030, the state will have a renewables target of 50 per cent and aiming for 100 per cent renewables by 2050.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner, Holly Dawson, said the poll results showed voters did not view climate change as a federal issue.
"This poll reflects an ongoing trend - NSW across the political spectrum cares about the environment and expect the state government to act on climate change," Ms Dawson said.
"This poll is a strong mandate for climate change to be at the front of negotiations if a hung parliament were to occur. The independents that both parties will court to form government have already publicly announced that they want strong action to address climate change."
The three independents – Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper, and Wagga Wagga MP Joe McGirr – are demanding Labor and the Coalition take action on climate change.
The crossbenchers, who will hold the balance of power if the government loses six seats, wrote to the Premier and Mr Daley last week asking them to act on transitioning from coal mining to clean energy.
The poll of 1019 voters across NSW on Thursday night also showed Labor ahead of the Coalition 51:49 on a two-party preferred basis and had Labor leader Michael Daley as preferred premier.
It also revealed that opinions were mixed about which party is best equipped to lead the state amid falling house prices and forecasts for slower growth.
Only one-third of voters said the state's economic outlook makes them more likely to vote for the Berejiklian government, despite the Premier using financial management as a key selling point.
As the leaders ramped up their campaigning ahead of next week's poll, Ms Berejiklian visited a school yesterday to spruik her policy for more before and after school care, while Mr Daley announced 5000 extra teachers.
Links
Climate change is a key election issue for most people in NSW, polling shows, as the environment emerges as a more pressing concern for voters than hospitals, schools and public transport.
Exclusive Herald polling shows that 57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection when deciding who to vote for on March 23.
57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Almost 37 per cent of people said climate change would not be a vote changer, and five per cent were unsure, the UComms/ReachTEL poll reveals.
Voters identified the environment as their top concern after the management of the state's finances, but ahead of health and hospitals, transport, schools and cost of living pressures.
Internal party research showed climate change played a major role in last year's Wentworth byelection and is shaping up to be a key issue in former prime minister Tony Abbott's seat of Warringah.
With climate change again looming as an issue at the federal election in May, Mr Abbott on Friday abandoned his call to withdraw from the Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions, falling in to line with Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the key policy.
Independent candidate for Warringah Zali Steggall and former PM Tony Abbott debate over the cost of renewable energy.
A war of words broke out between the NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin and the federal government late last year, when Mr Harwin attacked the Morrison government as "out of touch on energy and climate policy".Mr Harwin's strong stance was seen as a way of differentiating the state Liberals from their federal counterparts over the issue of climate change but also more broadly.
As part of the state election campaign, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced interest-free loans to 300,000 households for solar and battery systems while Labor has pledged to put solar on 500,000 homes over the next 10 years through rebates.
Labor Leader Michael Daley has committed to the state government's agencies acquiring 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. By the 2030, the state will have a renewables target of 50 per cent and aiming for 100 per cent renewables by 2050.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner, Holly Dawson, said the poll results showed voters did not view climate change as a federal issue.
"This poll reflects an ongoing trend - NSW across the political spectrum cares about the environment and expect the state government to act on climate change," Ms Dawson said.
"This poll is a strong mandate for climate change to be at the front of negotiations if a hung parliament were to occur. The independents that both parties will court to form government have already publicly announced that they want strong action to address climate change."
The three independents – Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper, and Wagga Wagga MP Joe McGirr – are demanding Labor and the Coalition take action on climate change.
The crossbenchers, who will hold the balance of power if the government loses six seats, wrote to the Premier and Mr Daley last week asking them to act on transitioning from coal mining to clean energy.
The poll of 1019 voters across NSW on Thursday night also showed Labor ahead of the Coalition 51:49 on a two-party preferred basis and had Labor leader Michael Daley as preferred premier.
It also revealed that opinions were mixed about which party is best equipped to lead the state amid falling house prices and forecasts for slower growth.
Only one-third of voters said the state's economic outlook makes them more likely to vote for the Berejiklian government, despite the Premier using financial management as a key selling point.
As the leaders ramped up their campaigning ahead of next week's poll, Ms Berejiklian visited a school yesterday to spruik her policy for more before and after school care, while Mr Daley announced 5000 extra teachers.
Links
- Climate change a vote changer in NSW: poll
- Climate change policies major battleground in NSW election
- NSW Labor Party aims for renewable energy target of 'at least' 50 per cent by 2030 if elected
- Koalas and climate to the fore as environment looms large in NSW election
- NSW election: Nationals' hold on environment policy drags down Coalition
- Climate, The Crisis That Threatens Our Political Duopoly
- When The Polls Are Tight The Coalition Pretends To Care About Climate
- Climate Change A Burning Issue (Again) In Voters' Minds
- 'The Right Time': Climate-Change Action The Rallying Cry For Emerging Independents
Categories: External websites
Victoria Can, And Should, Lead The Country On Climate Change
Fairfax - Jonathan La Nauze*
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spent much of the past few weeks trying to repair the Coalition’s terrible reputation on climate change.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the government's climate package at a function in Melbourne.
Credit: AAPIt appears he has finally heard the sustained and unequivocal demand from Australians to step up on this issue – though after a summer of record high temperatures, crippling drought, mass fish deaths and more bushfires, there should be no prizes for noticing.
But a big part of what has caught Morrison’s attention is the voters of Victoria, who sent the Coalition a clear signal last November and appear willing to do so again at the impending federal election.
The signs Victoria was ready to lead the country were evident back in August. Malcolm Turnbull chose appeasement on the National Energy Guarantee and ultimately lost his prime ministership. That same week, Premier Dan Andrews confidently announced his first big election commitment – half-price solar for 650,000 homes.
It was a startling contrast. The federal Coalition couldn’t stomach the most modest of climate policies, while state Labor plastered theirs on the side of their campaign bus. Support for rooftop solar became Victorian Labor’s most visible election commitment and biggest contrast with the Liberal opposition, which had pledged to scrap the renewable energy target and build a new gas or coal power station instead.
After the thumping win for Labor, Victorian Liberals conceded they’d misread the public mood on clean energy and cutting pollution. Having lost his blue-ribbon seat of Hawthorn, shadow attorney-general John Pesutto acknowledged many conservative people “just want our party to do something” about climate change. His own daughter joined the student climate strike rallies.
Julian Burnside will run as the Greens candidate in the seat of Kooyong.
Credit: Jason South
If replicated at the federal election, November’s swing would see Liberals lose safe seats across Melbourne. This has inspired several prominent independent candidates – plus, last week, lawyer Julian Burnside for the Greens – to run against the Coalition in Victoria, with action on climate change central to their pitch. It’s hard to imagine this happening if the Victorian election hadn’t proven voters will dramatically shift loyalties, given a credible climate alternative.
But at the federal level, neither Labor nor the Coalition is offering a serious plan to get us off coal and gas in a meaningful timeframe.
Two days before the Victorian election, Bill Shorten announced a plan for cleaning up Australia’s energy system. Perhaps he was emboldened by polling showing Andrews’ apparent conversion of support for renewable energy into electoral reward. But Shorten’s plan still lacks urgency and would keep pollution at catastrophic levels for decades.
Morrison’s recent policy offerings would be even more damaging to our climate. Some have merit but overall they fail to do the obvious and most important thing needed to stop global warming – limit pollution from coal and gas power stations.
This is the gaping hole in the two major parties’ response to the climate crisis and it presents a unique opportunity for Victoria to step up once more.
Why? Because Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority is currently reviewing the licences of our state’s three coal-burning power stations, which are among the dirtiest in the world, and Victoria’s biggest source of climate pollution.
The EPA already licenses and regulates other types of air pollution, such as toxic particles and sulphur dioxide, but hasn’t yet imposed any constraint on the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
Victoria could be the first Australian state to put limits on this pollution from coal-burning power stations and the decision would come smack-bang in the middle of a federal election campaign fought on climate change.
We know it would be popular. People hate the big energy companies and want the government to pull them into line. Polling shows overwhelming demand for government action on climate change, including intervening in the electricity market. And imposing a legal limit on pollution is a simple proposition to put to the public.
The conditions today are similar to the debate over renewable energy last August. The federal government is in chaos and the public is crying out for real action, not fudging half-measures.
Many people see climate change as a federal domain, but actually the states are responsible for energy supply and have most of the regulatory levers – like the EPA – to cut pollution across all sectors of the economy. Plus Andrews has already done the hard yards cranking up the renewables we will need as we phase out Victoria’s ageing coal power stations.
All of which means Victoria can, and should, lead the entire country on the issue.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that human civilisation has just 12 years to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. We live in an extraordinary time and it calls for extraordinary leadership, not merely sound management. The Andrews government has just won an election with a massive mandate on climate change and renewable energy and here is the perfect political moment to act. Will they seize it?
*Jonathan La Nauze is CEO of Environment Victoria.
Links
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spent much of the past few weeks trying to repair the Coalition’s terrible reputation on climate change.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the government's climate package at a function in Melbourne.
Credit: AAPIt appears he has finally heard the sustained and unequivocal demand from Australians to step up on this issue – though after a summer of record high temperatures, crippling drought, mass fish deaths and more bushfires, there should be no prizes for noticing.
But a big part of what has caught Morrison’s attention is the voters of Victoria, who sent the Coalition a clear signal last November and appear willing to do so again at the impending federal election.
The signs Victoria was ready to lead the country were evident back in August. Malcolm Turnbull chose appeasement on the National Energy Guarantee and ultimately lost his prime ministership. That same week, Premier Dan Andrews confidently announced his first big election commitment – half-price solar for 650,000 homes.
It was a startling contrast. The federal Coalition couldn’t stomach the most modest of climate policies, while state Labor plastered theirs on the side of their campaign bus. Support for rooftop solar became Victorian Labor’s most visible election commitment and biggest contrast with the Liberal opposition, which had pledged to scrap the renewable energy target and build a new gas or coal power station instead.
After the thumping win for Labor, Victorian Liberals conceded they’d misread the public mood on clean energy and cutting pollution. Having lost his blue-ribbon seat of Hawthorn, shadow attorney-general John Pesutto acknowledged many conservative people “just want our party to do something” about climate change. His own daughter joined the student climate strike rallies.
Julian Burnside will run as the Greens candidate in the seat of Kooyong.
Credit: Jason South
If replicated at the federal election, November’s swing would see Liberals lose safe seats across Melbourne. This has inspired several prominent independent candidates – plus, last week, lawyer Julian Burnside for the Greens – to run against the Coalition in Victoria, with action on climate change central to their pitch. It’s hard to imagine this happening if the Victorian election hadn’t proven voters will dramatically shift loyalties, given a credible climate alternative.
But at the federal level, neither Labor nor the Coalition is offering a serious plan to get us off coal and gas in a meaningful timeframe.
Two days before the Victorian election, Bill Shorten announced a plan for cleaning up Australia’s energy system. Perhaps he was emboldened by polling showing Andrews’ apparent conversion of support for renewable energy into electoral reward. But Shorten’s plan still lacks urgency and would keep pollution at catastrophic levels for decades.
Morrison’s recent policy offerings would be even more damaging to our climate. Some have merit but overall they fail to do the obvious and most important thing needed to stop global warming – limit pollution from coal and gas power stations.
This is the gaping hole in the two major parties’ response to the climate crisis and it presents a unique opportunity for Victoria to step up once more.
Why? Because Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority is currently reviewing the licences of our state’s three coal-burning power stations, which are among the dirtiest in the world, and Victoria’s biggest source of climate pollution.
The EPA already licenses and regulates other types of air pollution, such as toxic particles and sulphur dioxide, but hasn’t yet imposed any constraint on the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
Victoria could be the first Australian state to put limits on this pollution from coal-burning power stations and the decision would come smack-bang in the middle of a federal election campaign fought on climate change.
We know it would be popular. People hate the big energy companies and want the government to pull them into line. Polling shows overwhelming demand for government action on climate change, including intervening in the electricity market. And imposing a legal limit on pollution is a simple proposition to put to the public.
The conditions today are similar to the debate over renewable energy last August. The federal government is in chaos and the public is crying out for real action, not fudging half-measures.
Many people see climate change as a federal domain, but actually the states are responsible for energy supply and have most of the regulatory levers – like the EPA – to cut pollution across all sectors of the economy. Plus Andrews has already done the hard yards cranking up the renewables we will need as we phase out Victoria’s ageing coal power stations.
All of which means Victoria can, and should, lead the entire country on the issue.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that human civilisation has just 12 years to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. We live in an extraordinary time and it calls for extraordinary leadership, not merely sound management. The Andrews government has just won an election with a massive mandate on climate change and renewable energy and here is the perfect political moment to act. Will they seize it?
*Jonathan La Nauze is CEO of Environment Victoria.
Links
- Scott Morrison pledges $2 billion, 10-year boost to Direct Action fund in election climate pitch
- 'Serious questions' over whether Australia's emissions cuts are real
- Annual emissions keep rising as gas jump counters power sector drop
- Pro-coal Nationals hold electorates most at risk from climate change
- 'Cantering off a cliff': Investor group warns on weak emissions goals
- Living in fairyland': Nats leader links emissions to night sport
- Morrison government hit by new internal dispute over coal
- 'Underhanded': States baulk at Labor's reluctance to nix Kyoto credits
- The one thing we have to fear is fear itself
- Tony Abbott performs major backflip on withdrawing from Paris climate agreement
Categories: External websites
Students Are Striking For Action On Climate Change — A Truancy Everyone Should Applaud
Los Angeles Times - Haven Coleman | Bill McKibben
A student with her face painted participates in a climate change protest
organized by 'Youth Strike 4 Climate' in London on Feb. 15.
Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA-EFE / REX Haven ColemanHaven Coleman, a student in Denver, has been striking for the climate weekly since January. She is founder and co-director of US Youth Climate Strike.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben wrote the first book on climate change in 1989, and helped found the global climate campaign 350.org. Consider this a note explaining why one of us will be absent from school on March 15 — and why everyone else should applaud this truancy.
Beginning last August, a Swedish schoolgirl named Greta Thunberg went on strike from her classes, choosing instead to spend the days on the steps of the Parliament building in Stockholm.
Her reasoning: If her government couldn’t be bothered to safeguard her future by taking action against climate change, it was a bit rich to demand that she spend her time preparing for a future that might not exist.
Her protest soon spread across Scandinavia, Europe, Britain and Australia.
Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have now participated worldwide, and the protest has drawn some prominent support: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on March 2, “I very much welcome that young people, school students, demonstrate and tell us to do something fast about climate change." But of course others have been less understanding.
During climate demonstrations in Australia, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “We do not support our schools being turned into parliaments. … What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”
Lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.AUSTRALIA
School Strike 4 Climate Action
Join A March 15 Strike
DETAILS
On Friday, many thousands of American students will be joining the school strike, so we’d like to lay out the reasoning behind it in more detail, in the hopes that people will view these protests with the seriousness they deserve.
It was 30 years ago that scientists first explained that burning fossil fuels was changing the composition of the atmosphere and driving the rapid warming of the Earth. That is enough time to educate a student all the way from preschool to a PhD, but it hasn’t been time enough for our politicians to learn how serious a climate catastrophe we are facing.
The American government, in particular, is a study in inaction. Our federal government has reversed course on every effort to change laws and regulations. Our current president has taken steps to drop out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the only international effort to combat global warming. Young people see that their future is on the line, which is why they’ve been at the front fighting against oil companies, pipelines and fracking wells.
You don’t need to be much past first grade to know that when you’re in a hole you should stop digging. Or, in this case, drilling. It is time to replace fossil fuel energy with power from the sun and wind — and we have the cheap solar panels and turbines to do it. But America has become the largest producer of gas and oil in the world, and most politicians lack the courage to stand up to the industry. Both of us, for instance, worked last fall on a modest Colorado referendum that would have prohibited oil wells right next to homes and schools, only to watch fossil fuel companies outspend local activists 40 to 1 and narrowly defeat the measure.
So, lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.
It’s not a stunt. A stunt is Australia’s now-prime minister bringing a lump of coal to parliament to pass around to his colleagues. A stunt is former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper literally drinking a cup of fracking fluid.
A school strike, instead, recalls some of the most pivotal moments in American history. In 1963, for instance, the Rev. Martin Luther King found that he had run out of adult volunteers to stand up to Bull Connor at the height of the civil rights battle in Birmingham.
So, after much soul-searching, King asked the city’s schoolchildren to leave class and face the police dogs and firehoses. “Don’t worry about your children,” he told their frantic parents. “They’re gonna be all right. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. For they are doing a job not only for themselves but for all of America and for all mankind.”
No one striking for the climate on March 15 will confront the immediate perils those brave schoolchildren had to endure. But just as they anticipated a future blighted by segregation, so today’s young people face a future blighted by environmental destruction. And so they must act.
It would be better, of course, if adults had taken the lead. Stopping climate change is their responsibility. But they haven’t. Though pretty much every politician has made it out of college, their education seems to have done them little good.
Maybe, at least for a day, there’s more education to be found out in the street. Instead of studying history, it’s time to make it.
Links
A student with her face painted participates in a climate change protest
organized by 'Youth Strike 4 Climate' in London on Feb. 15.
Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA-EFE / REX Haven ColemanHaven Coleman, a student in Denver, has been striking for the climate weekly since January. She is founder and co-director of US Youth Climate Strike.
Bill McKibbenBill McKibben wrote the first book on climate change in 1989, and helped found the global climate campaign 350.org. Consider this a note explaining why one of us will be absent from school on March 15 — and why everyone else should applaud this truancy.
Beginning last August, a Swedish schoolgirl named Greta Thunberg went on strike from her classes, choosing instead to spend the days on the steps of the Parliament building in Stockholm.
Her reasoning: If her government couldn’t be bothered to safeguard her future by taking action against climate change, it was a bit rich to demand that she spend her time preparing for a future that might not exist.
Her protest soon spread across Scandinavia, Europe, Britain and Australia.
Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have now participated worldwide, and the protest has drawn some prominent support: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on March 2, “I very much welcome that young people, school students, demonstrate and tell us to do something fast about climate change." But of course others have been less understanding.
During climate demonstrations in Australia, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “We do not support our schools being turned into parliaments. … What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”
Lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.AUSTRALIA
School Strike 4 Climate Action
Join A March 15 Strike
DETAILS
On Friday, many thousands of American students will be joining the school strike, so we’d like to lay out the reasoning behind it in more detail, in the hopes that people will view these protests with the seriousness they deserve.
It was 30 years ago that scientists first explained that burning fossil fuels was changing the composition of the atmosphere and driving the rapid warming of the Earth. That is enough time to educate a student all the way from preschool to a PhD, but it hasn’t been time enough for our politicians to learn how serious a climate catastrophe we are facing.
The American government, in particular, is a study in inaction. Our federal government has reversed course on every effort to change laws and regulations. Our current president has taken steps to drop out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the only international effort to combat global warming. Young people see that their future is on the line, which is why they’ve been at the front fighting against oil companies, pipelines and fracking wells.
You don’t need to be much past first grade to know that when you’re in a hole you should stop digging. Or, in this case, drilling. It is time to replace fossil fuel energy with power from the sun and wind — and we have the cheap solar panels and turbines to do it. But America has become the largest producer of gas and oil in the world, and most politicians lack the courage to stand up to the industry. Both of us, for instance, worked last fall on a modest Colorado referendum that would have prohibited oil wells right next to homes and schools, only to watch fossil fuel companies outspend local activists 40 to 1 and narrowly defeat the measure.
So, lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.
It’s not a stunt. A stunt is Australia’s now-prime minister bringing a lump of coal to parliament to pass around to his colleagues. A stunt is former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper literally drinking a cup of fracking fluid.
A school strike, instead, recalls some of the most pivotal moments in American history. In 1963, for instance, the Rev. Martin Luther King found that he had run out of adult volunteers to stand up to Bull Connor at the height of the civil rights battle in Birmingham.
So, after much soul-searching, King asked the city’s schoolchildren to leave class and face the police dogs and firehoses. “Don’t worry about your children,” he told their frantic parents. “They’re gonna be all right. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. For they are doing a job not only for themselves but for all of America and for all mankind.”
No one striking for the climate on March 15 will confront the immediate perils those brave schoolchildren had to endure. But just as they anticipated a future blighted by segregation, so today’s young people face a future blighted by environmental destruction. And so they must act.
It would be better, of course, if adults had taken the lead. Stopping climate change is their responsibility. But they haven’t. Though pretty much every politician has made it out of college, their education seems to have done them little good.
Maybe, at least for a day, there’s more education to be found out in the street. Instead of studying history, it’s time to make it.
Links
- Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour
- Why I'm encouraging my daughter to wag school
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
Categories: External websites
Even In Its Dying Days, The Government Denies The Need For Climate Action
The Guardian - Peter Lewis*
The reckoning for this failure will come at the next election. And it can’t come soon enough
‘While the PM will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.’ Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP For all the skittishness of Australian politics through the years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments there’s been one factor that has been remarkably consistent.
Amid leadership coups, cultural offensives and the revolving door of energy policy acronyms, the Australian public has remained steadfast in its belief that more needs to be done to address climate change.
Whether the focus has been an ETS, an ERF, a CET or a Neg or just a big stick, the majority of the voting public has not moved from its view that meaningful action is required by government.
After the craziness of another fortnight of Coalition energy policy where our fossil-fondling PM has whipped up some new renewable buzzwords while his National party partners are baying for taxpayers to fund new coal projects, it’s worth reminding ourselves of this baseline. Because it explains so much of why this government’s condition has reached terminal status.
For the past decade the Essential poll has asked two benchmark questions when it comes to climate change. The first is around whether people believe the climate science.
Over the past decade this split has been stable. Granted, it dipped into the high 50s at the height of Tony Abbott’s attack on the Gillard government’s so-called carbon tax, but that was after Labor had spent the best part of a term faffing around on the issue.
What’s most striking in these numbers is the disconnection between the climate sceptics within the government and Coalition voters. Indeed, on the science they are much more aligned with One Nation and conservative independent voters who make up the “other” cohort of voters. As for younger voters, the Coalition comes across every bit as much a fossil as the fuel they seek to dig up.
The second question we have regularly asked is whether people believe Australia is doing enough to address climate change. Again, a majority – including one-third of Liberal voters – say they are not.
All of which makes Barnaby Joyce’s entreaty for an election fought on coal appear delusional, as some of the more tethered members of the government have felt compelled to point out in recent days. These words of moderation come too late. Joyce’s indulgence will only provide further impetus to the swathe of moderate independents challenging the Liberal heartland in more affluent areas of Sydney and Melbourne where Sky after dark does not rate.
Meanwhile, as the Coalition’s self-inflicted wounds fester, Labor simply holds its line with a commitment to 50% renewables by 2030 and aggressively promotes battery storage. Yes, there are calls for a more rapid phaseout of coal from the left, but all the pressure on policy is currently on the Coalition.
As a separate table in this week’s report shows, one of Labor’s core brand advantages over the Coalition, alongside wages and workplace conditions, is climate change.
While Scott Morrison will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.
Perhaps it’s the ultimate revenge on a government that came to power through a cynical attempt to deny the need for climate action. As the summers have got warmer and warmer, the public’s anger at the inaction has got hotter.
The failure of this government has not just been the toppling of its leaders. It’s been the reason for the topplings, which has been more than the blind pursuit of power, but power in the name of energy.
And even in its dying days, key members of the government continue in this state of denial. Not just of the science, nor the need for meaningful action, but denial that this is the sort of leadership elected governments are expected to exhibit.
The reckoning is coming and it will be harsh. And it can’t come soon enough.
*Peter Lewis is the executive director of Essential and a Guardian Australia columnist
Links
The reckoning for this failure will come at the next election. And it can’t come soon enough
‘While the PM will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.’ Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP For all the skittishness of Australian politics through the years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments there’s been one factor that has been remarkably consistent.
Amid leadership coups, cultural offensives and the revolving door of energy policy acronyms, the Australian public has remained steadfast in its belief that more needs to be done to address climate change.
Whether the focus has been an ETS, an ERF, a CET or a Neg or just a big stick, the majority of the voting public has not moved from its view that meaningful action is required by government.
After the craziness of another fortnight of Coalition energy policy where our fossil-fondling PM has whipped up some new renewable buzzwords while his National party partners are baying for taxpayers to fund new coal projects, it’s worth reminding ourselves of this baseline. Because it explains so much of why this government’s condition has reached terminal status.
For the past decade the Essential poll has asked two benchmark questions when it comes to climate change. The first is around whether people believe the climate science.
Over the past decade this split has been stable. Granted, it dipped into the high 50s at the height of Tony Abbott’s attack on the Gillard government’s so-called carbon tax, but that was after Labor had spent the best part of a term faffing around on the issue.
What’s most striking in these numbers is the disconnection between the climate sceptics within the government and Coalition voters. Indeed, on the science they are much more aligned with One Nation and conservative independent voters who make up the “other” cohort of voters. As for younger voters, the Coalition comes across every bit as much a fossil as the fuel they seek to dig up.
The second question we have regularly asked is whether people believe Australia is doing enough to address climate change. Again, a majority – including one-third of Liberal voters – say they are not.
All of which makes Barnaby Joyce’s entreaty for an election fought on coal appear delusional, as some of the more tethered members of the government have felt compelled to point out in recent days. These words of moderation come too late. Joyce’s indulgence will only provide further impetus to the swathe of moderate independents challenging the Liberal heartland in more affluent areas of Sydney and Melbourne where Sky after dark does not rate.
Meanwhile, as the Coalition’s self-inflicted wounds fester, Labor simply holds its line with a commitment to 50% renewables by 2030 and aggressively promotes battery storage. Yes, there are calls for a more rapid phaseout of coal from the left, but all the pressure on policy is currently on the Coalition.
As a separate table in this week’s report shows, one of Labor’s core brand advantages over the Coalition, alongside wages and workplace conditions, is climate change.
While Scott Morrison will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.
Perhaps it’s the ultimate revenge on a government that came to power through a cynical attempt to deny the need for climate action. As the summers have got warmer and warmer, the public’s anger at the inaction has got hotter.
The failure of this government has not just been the toppling of its leaders. It’s been the reason for the topplings, which has been more than the blind pursuit of power, but power in the name of energy.
And even in its dying days, key members of the government continue in this state of denial. Not just of the science, nor the need for meaningful action, but denial that this is the sort of leadership elected governments are expected to exhibit.
The reckoning is coming and it will be harsh. And it can’t come soon enough.
*Peter Lewis is the executive director of Essential and a Guardian Australia columnist
Links
- Coalition is struggling to handle the heat of its own bonfire
- Angus Taylor Again Falsely Claims Australia's Greenhouse Emissions Are Falling
- Scott Morrison's Pea-And-Thimble Trick
- The Government Thinks We’re Idiots And Is Not Serious About Reducing Emissions
- Scott Morrison Announces $2 Billion Climate Solutions Fund To Reduce Australia's Emissions
- When The Polls Are Tight The Coalition Pretends To Care About Climate
- If The Coalition Has Had A Climate Epiphany, I'm Beyoncé
- Morrison Must Break With Climate Denialists
- Astounded': Former Fire Chief Unloads On Politicians Over Climate Change Inaction
- Coalition Signals It Will Provide Taxpayer Support For New And Existing Coal Plants
- Morrison's Big Stick On Energy Defies What A True Liberal Believes In
- It Should Not Be Up To Australia's Schoolchildren To Stop Adani
Categories: External websites
Enough Scandalous Time-Wasting On Climate Change. Let's Get Back To The Facts
The Guardian - Lenore Taylor
At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing
Drought-affected pastures near Wyandra in Queensland. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start.
I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.
“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”
We knew we had to do something almost three decades ago. Children have grown to adulthood and had their own children during the time we have known, and done not very much.
We were then, apparently, going to meet our target through “no regrets” actions – things that made sense for other environmental reasons as well as climate concerns. We didn’t meet it. We haven’t ever met any of a succession of greenhouse gas reduction targets by actually reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to rise, still. No regrets? At the forefront? If only.
1990 was the year the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made clear predictions – of higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and impacts on agriculture.
They are no longer predictions. They are our reality now. We just endured the hottest summer on record. In Port Augusta the thermometer hit 49.5 degrees. Across the country more than 200 temperature records were broken. Nine of the 10 warmest years in Australia’s records have occurred since 2005. Communities have no water. Flying foxes are dropping dead from the trees. Up to a million fish have died in the parched Murray-Darling – an ongoing environmental, social and economic catastrophe. We have been warned that without urgent action, the Darling will die.
The bushfire season is starting earlier and different kinds of forests are burning, one in Tasmania stands over 1,000 years old. Flooding is more frequent and rainfall patterns are changing. Our ecosystems are being driven to collapse.
For all those decades some politicians tried and failed to act, because others tried harder and succeeded in preventing it. For a brief moment we had a carbon price, and greenhouse emissions did fall, but then it was abolished, ostensibly in the name of reducing the price of groceries and services, which had never risen much in the first place, but mostly in the cynical interests of trying to win an election.
There were various other attempts at credible policy over the years, from across the political spectrum, as well as some spectacularly bad ones, but in the end effective policy was mostly washed away by political timidity, outright ignorance and the well-financed lobbying efforts of mining companies determined to delay the eventual phasing-out of coal.
But as the evidence of a changing climate defies denial, those who have spent careers delaying or refuting the need for action have untethered their arguments from fact.
Climate policy is no longer a real “debate” about the existential threat at the heart of the issue, and competing ideas about how to address it, but rather it has become a proxy for an ongoing war of attrition, in particular between the Coalition’s moderates and conservatives, stripped of policy meaning to become a vacuous argument about being “for” or “against” fossil fuels.
Those who would thwart action are also again resorting to that tired contention that would undermine any action by any nation on any global issue – we shouldn’t have to do anything because we are responsible for just a proportion of the problem, or put another way, we shouldn’t do anything because we can’t solve the problem on our own.
They sow uncertainty and sometimes they descend to farce, such as citing Dorothea MacKellar’s poetic reference to “droughts and flooding rains” in refutation of scientific fact or claiming that renewable energy will “kill” night sporting fixtures.
They ignore or misquote their own advice to persist with the blind belief that building new coal-fired power stations is the only way the nation can secure affordable, reliable power.
They claim, for example, that the energy market operator backs investment in coal-fired power, when in fact its modelling says the opposite. And, just for the record, as Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy has pointed out, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission didn’t recommend it either. No one has, because underwriting a coal-fired power station and indemnifying it against any future climate measures makes no economic sense.
But the government – including its resources minister – is persisting with its faith in new plants, even as the mining and power companies that have profited richly from coal fired power for years, and spent millions on secret public relations campaigns trying to prolong its use, are conceding the gig is up.
Even more bewilderingly, it is persisting with the idea even as it seeks to build credentials with an electorate increasingly concerned about global warming, informed by what they are seeing and reading about current events, and what they are experiencing in their lives.
The prime minister who once fondled a lump of coal in the parliament, is brandishing a “climate solutions package”, the contradiction most baldly evident in the fact that he is now simultaneously advocating taxpayer support for renewable projects that rely on coal-fired power stations closing, and also taxpayer support for opening new ones.
We’ve seen this eleventh hour conversion before – when John Howard reluctantly said he would introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2007, faced with rising voter concern after the millennial drought. (He later admitted he did it only because of the political pressure, and never really believed in the idea.)
At Guardian Australia, we think it is time, a long way past time, to take a breath and go back to the facts.
We’ve tried to do this all along, of course, but at this crisis point we want to take stock of what is already happening – things we know about but need to understand better, such as the crisis in the Murray-Darling – and also consequences of climate change that are less well known or just emerging. We want to look at the latest forecasts and what they mean for our lives, our communities and our environment, and – putting the political rhetoric and posturing aside – assess the policies for emission reduction and adaptation and the broader impacts and consequences.
Regret, at this point, is unavoidable: regret that Australia has been a drag on global efforts to address climate change, regret for having scrapped so long that the cost and disruption of doing what we must has risen and will be borne largely by our kids, regret for the billions of dollars wasted on half-baked policies, regret for the scandalous waste of time and effort and opportunity.
But given what’s at stake, it can’t be too late to regroup, and assess the facts, to inform the most sensible path from here.
Links
At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing
Drought-affected pastures near Wyandra in Queensland. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start.
I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.
“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”
We knew we had to do something almost three decades ago. Children have grown to adulthood and had their own children during the time we have known, and done not very much.
We were then, apparently, going to meet our target through “no regrets” actions – things that made sense for other environmental reasons as well as climate concerns. We didn’t meet it. We haven’t ever met any of a succession of greenhouse gas reduction targets by actually reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to rise, still. No regrets? At the forefront? If only.
1990 was the year the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made clear predictions – of higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and impacts on agriculture.
They are no longer predictions. They are our reality now. We just endured the hottest summer on record. In Port Augusta the thermometer hit 49.5 degrees. Across the country more than 200 temperature records were broken. Nine of the 10 warmest years in Australia’s records have occurred since 2005. Communities have no water. Flying foxes are dropping dead from the trees. Up to a million fish have died in the parched Murray-Darling – an ongoing environmental, social and economic catastrophe. We have been warned that without urgent action, the Darling will die.
The bushfire season is starting earlier and different kinds of forests are burning, one in Tasmania stands over 1,000 years old. Flooding is more frequent and rainfall patterns are changing. Our ecosystems are being driven to collapse.
For all those decades some politicians tried and failed to act, because others tried harder and succeeded in preventing it. For a brief moment we had a carbon price, and greenhouse emissions did fall, but then it was abolished, ostensibly in the name of reducing the price of groceries and services, which had never risen much in the first place, but mostly in the cynical interests of trying to win an election.
There were various other attempts at credible policy over the years, from across the political spectrum, as well as some spectacularly bad ones, but in the end effective policy was mostly washed away by political timidity, outright ignorance and the well-financed lobbying efforts of mining companies determined to delay the eventual phasing-out of coal.
But as the evidence of a changing climate defies denial, those who have spent careers delaying or refuting the need for action have untethered their arguments from fact.
Climate policy is no longer a real “debate” about the existential threat at the heart of the issue, and competing ideas about how to address it, but rather it has become a proxy for an ongoing war of attrition, in particular between the Coalition’s moderates and conservatives, stripped of policy meaning to become a vacuous argument about being “for” or “against” fossil fuels.
Those who would thwart action are also again resorting to that tired contention that would undermine any action by any nation on any global issue – we shouldn’t have to do anything because we are responsible for just a proportion of the problem, or put another way, we shouldn’t do anything because we can’t solve the problem on our own.
They sow uncertainty and sometimes they descend to farce, such as citing Dorothea MacKellar’s poetic reference to “droughts and flooding rains” in refutation of scientific fact or claiming that renewable energy will “kill” night sporting fixtures.
They ignore or misquote their own advice to persist with the blind belief that building new coal-fired power stations is the only way the nation can secure affordable, reliable power.
They claim, for example, that the energy market operator backs investment in coal-fired power, when in fact its modelling says the opposite. And, just for the record, as Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy has pointed out, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission didn’t recommend it either. No one has, because underwriting a coal-fired power station and indemnifying it against any future climate measures makes no economic sense.
But the government – including its resources minister – is persisting with its faith in new plants, even as the mining and power companies that have profited richly from coal fired power for years, and spent millions on secret public relations campaigns trying to prolong its use, are conceding the gig is up.
Even more bewilderingly, it is persisting with the idea even as it seeks to build credentials with an electorate increasingly concerned about global warming, informed by what they are seeing and reading about current events, and what they are experiencing in their lives.
The prime minister who once fondled a lump of coal in the parliament, is brandishing a “climate solutions package”, the contradiction most baldly evident in the fact that he is now simultaneously advocating taxpayer support for renewable projects that rely on coal-fired power stations closing, and also taxpayer support for opening new ones.
We’ve seen this eleventh hour conversion before – when John Howard reluctantly said he would introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2007, faced with rising voter concern after the millennial drought. (He later admitted he did it only because of the political pressure, and never really believed in the idea.)
At Guardian Australia, we think it is time, a long way past time, to take a breath and go back to the facts.
We’ve tried to do this all along, of course, but at this crisis point we want to take stock of what is already happening – things we know about but need to understand better, such as the crisis in the Murray-Darling – and also consequences of climate change that are less well known or just emerging. We want to look at the latest forecasts and what they mean for our lives, our communities and our environment, and – putting the political rhetoric and posturing aside – assess the policies for emission reduction and adaptation and the broader impacts and consequences.
Regret, at this point, is unavoidable: regret that Australia has been a drag on global efforts to address climate change, regret for having scrapped so long that the cost and disruption of doing what we must has risen and will be borne largely by our kids, regret for the billions of dollars wasted on half-baked policies, regret for the scandalous waste of time and effort and opportunity.
But given what’s at stake, it can’t be too late to regroup, and assess the facts, to inform the most sensible path from here.
Links
- Greens demand documents on 'dodgy' carry-over credits for Paris target
- Climate change is a burning issue (again) in voters' minds
- Australia had third-warmest year on record in 2018
- 'The Darling will die': Scientists say mass fish kill due to over-extraction and drought
- Revealed: Glencore bankrolled covert campaign to prop up coal
- Scott Morrison brings coal to question time: what fresh idiocy is this?
- Out of sight, out of luck: the hidden victims of Australia’s deadly heatwaves
Categories: External websites
'Change Now Or Pay Later': RBA's Stark Warning On Climate Change
Fairfax - Eryk Bagshaw | Nick Bonyhady
The Reserve Bank has warned climate change is likely to cause economic shocks and threaten Australia's financial stability unless businesses take immediate stock of the risks.
The central bank became the latest Australian regulator to tell business that they must analyse their investments on Tuesday, as the Coalition grapples with an internal battle over taxpayer-funded coal fired power and energy policy.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Development in Sydney, the Reserve's deputy governor Guy Debelle said challenges for financial stability may arise from both physical and transition risks of climate change.
Dr Guy Debelle, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of Australia. Credit: Jessica Hromas"What if droughts are more frequent, or cyclones happen more often?" he asked.
"The supply shock is no longer temporary but close to permanent. That situation is more challenging to assess and respond to."
Financial stability could be put at risk if businesses remained unaware of unanticipated insurance payouts, pollution driven reputational damage, legal liability and regulation changes that could cause valuable assets to become uneconomic.
"All of these consequences could precipitate sharp adjustments in asset prices, which would have consequences for financial stability," he said.
He said the current drought across large swathes of the eastern states has already reduced farm output by around 6 per cent and total economic growth by about 0.15 per cent
"We need to think in terms of trend rather than cycles in the weather. Droughts have generally been regarded as cyclical events that recur every so often. In contrast, climate change is a trend change."
That has an impact on monetary policy, Dr Debelle said, citing the temporary shock of banana prices surging after Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which in turn boosted inflation by 0.7 percentage points.
But he said future events may not be so one off, with repeated climate events and the transition of the economy likely to have a longer term impact.
"We need to be aware that decisions taken now by businesses and government may have a sizeable influence on that transition path," he said.
Dr Debelle said the transition posed challenges and opportunities.
Industries especially exposed to the consequences of changes in the climate will face lower costs if there is an early and orderly transition, some will bear greater costs from the transition to a lower carbon economy, while others such as the renewables sector, may benefit.
"There has been a marked pick-up in investment spending on renewable energy in recent years," he said.
"It has been big enough to have a noticeable impact at the macro-economic level and affect aggregate output and hence the monetary policy calculus."
In comments that are likely to be used against some pro-coal Nationals MPs urging the Coalition to build a taxpayer-funded power station, the deputy governor said the renewable sector was a good example where price signals have caused significant behavioural change.
"There has been a rapid decline in the cost of renewable energy sources," he said.
Dr Debelle said the cost of generating electricity has declined in the case of wind and solar to the point where they are now cost-effective sources of generation. He added that storage and transmission remained relevant costs.
Despite coal being one of Australia's top exports, Dr Debelle said opportunities remained as China transitioned away from coal.
"Natural gas is expected to account for a larger share of its energy mix, and Australia is well placed to help meet this demand," he said.
He endorsed comments by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority executive Geoff Summerhayes in London in January, which warned tackling climate change had become a "financial necessity".
In the speech to the UN's sustainable insurance forum, Mr Summerhayes lashed government inaction, arguing the summer's extreme weather, severe drought and floods were all fuelled by climate change, but Australia still lacked the political consensus needed to respond to the threat.
Links
The Reserve Bank has warned climate change is likely to cause economic shocks and threaten Australia's financial stability unless businesses take immediate stock of the risks.
The central bank became the latest Australian regulator to tell business that they must analyse their investments on Tuesday, as the Coalition grapples with an internal battle over taxpayer-funded coal fired power and energy policy.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Development in Sydney, the Reserve's deputy governor Guy Debelle said challenges for financial stability may arise from both physical and transition risks of climate change.
Dr Guy Debelle, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of Australia. Credit: Jessica Hromas"What if droughts are more frequent, or cyclones happen more often?" he asked.
"The supply shock is no longer temporary but close to permanent. That situation is more challenging to assess and respond to."
Financial stability could be put at risk if businesses remained unaware of unanticipated insurance payouts, pollution driven reputational damage, legal liability and regulation changes that could cause valuable assets to become uneconomic.
"All of these consequences could precipitate sharp adjustments in asset prices, which would have consequences for financial stability," he said.
He said the current drought across large swathes of the eastern states has already reduced farm output by around 6 per cent and total economic growth by about 0.15 per cent
"We need to think in terms of trend rather than cycles in the weather. Droughts have generally been regarded as cyclical events that recur every so often. In contrast, climate change is a trend change."
That has an impact on monetary policy, Dr Debelle said, citing the temporary shock of banana prices surging after Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which in turn boosted inflation by 0.7 percentage points.
But he said future events may not be so one off, with repeated climate events and the transition of the economy likely to have a longer term impact.
"We need to be aware that decisions taken now by businesses and government may have a sizeable influence on that transition path," he said.
Dr Debelle said the transition posed challenges and opportunities.
Industries especially exposed to the consequences of changes in the climate will face lower costs if there is an early and orderly transition, some will bear greater costs from the transition to a lower carbon economy, while others such as the renewables sector, may benefit.
"There has been a marked pick-up in investment spending on renewable energy in recent years," he said.
"It has been big enough to have a noticeable impact at the macro-economic level and affect aggregate output and hence the monetary policy calculus."
In comments that are likely to be used against some pro-coal Nationals MPs urging the Coalition to build a taxpayer-funded power station, the deputy governor said the renewable sector was a good example where price signals have caused significant behavioural change.
"There has been a rapid decline in the cost of renewable energy sources," he said.
Dr Debelle said the cost of generating electricity has declined in the case of wind and solar to the point where they are now cost-effective sources of generation. He added that storage and transmission remained relevant costs.
Despite coal being one of Australia's top exports, Dr Debelle said opportunities remained as China transitioned away from coal.
"Natural gas is expected to account for a larger share of its energy mix, and Australia is well placed to help meet this demand," he said.
He endorsed comments by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority executive Geoff Summerhayes in London in January, which warned tackling climate change had become a "financial necessity".
In the speech to the UN's sustainable insurance forum, Mr Summerhayes lashed government inaction, arguing the summer's extreme weather, severe drought and floods were all fuelled by climate change, but Australia still lacked the political consensus needed to respond to the threat.
Links
- Climate Change and the Economy | Speeches | RBA
- Climate change costs will have knock-on effect on interest rates, Reserve Bank warns
- RBA deputy warns climate change a threat to Australian economy (audio)
- RBA warns of 'abrupt, disorderly' effects of climate change
- Climate change poses risk to Australia's financial stability, warns RBA
- Coal baron and LNP donor blasts RBA for sounding alarm on climate
- Fossil fuel 'special interests' putting Australian economy at risk, warns Stiglitz
Categories: External websites
Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour
Fairfax - John Birmingham
I hope a lot of school kids join this global children’s strike on Friday and I hope they’re mocked and traduced by their elders in politics and the media, because those elders aren’t really their betters on this issue; they’re mostly either dangerous fools or mendacious swine.
The hammer of the coming climate catastrophe will fall most heavily on these kids and eventually upon their children and grandchildren, 20, 30, 40 years from now, and it will do them no harm to take a few rhetorical knocks from a bunch of bloviating, overpaid idiots simply because they chose to step up and take action now. It’ll be good practice.
These are the people who will have to deal with the consequences of their critics' inaction. Credit: Nick MoirThey’re going to be doing this for the rest of their lives, unless they’re cool with those lives ending in famine, superstorms and wars over diminishing water supplies, and shrinking remnants of arable land.
Protest won’t directly change that of course. Only radically revised policy settings, massive expenditure on clean energy R&D, and the accelerated deployment of paradigm shifting new technologies can change that. But that change will come only when political actors feel a real sense of terror for their futures. Not the future of the planet and its inhabitants, mind you. Just for their own immediate futures. Their pay cheques.
When they feel that existential terror creeping up on them, you’ll start to see things like Tony ‘climate change is BS’ Abbott, perform the sort of tortured interpretive dance routine the electors of Warringah have enjoyed this week.
Abbott is tying himself into Yogi Master knots as he tries to fend off the challenge of Zali Steggall, a highly accomplished and impeccably conservative independent candidate for his seat, who somehow manages to believe in the free market, the primacy of the individual, franking credits for everyone and how awesome it would be if our lives didn’t end in famine, superstorms and war over diminishing water supplies etc, etc.
The only reason Abbott and his fellow travellers on the dirty great coal train to oblivion feel any need to move away from their previous embrace of pro-apocalypse energy policy is because they can see that public opinion has moved on. Year after year of worsening climate and extreme weather events will eventually do that to people.
All those kids who strike on Friday are helping to move that opinion. Yeah, they’ll be derided and ridiculed, their motives questioned and belittled. But they just need to remind themselves that those who caused this problem will soon enough all be dead, leaving them to clean up the mess.
Best they get started now.
Links
I hope a lot of school kids join this global children’s strike on Friday and I hope they’re mocked and traduced by their elders in politics and the media, because those elders aren’t really their betters on this issue; they’re mostly either dangerous fools or mendacious swine.
The hammer of the coming climate catastrophe will fall most heavily on these kids and eventually upon their children and grandchildren, 20, 30, 40 years from now, and it will do them no harm to take a few rhetorical knocks from a bunch of bloviating, overpaid idiots simply because they chose to step up and take action now. It’ll be good practice.
These are the people who will have to deal with the consequences of their critics' inaction. Credit: Nick MoirThey’re going to be doing this for the rest of their lives, unless they’re cool with those lives ending in famine, superstorms and wars over diminishing water supplies, and shrinking remnants of arable land.
Protest won’t directly change that of course. Only radically revised policy settings, massive expenditure on clean energy R&D, and the accelerated deployment of paradigm shifting new technologies can change that. But that change will come only when political actors feel a real sense of terror for their futures. Not the future of the planet and its inhabitants, mind you. Just for their own immediate futures. Their pay cheques.
When they feel that existential terror creeping up on them, you’ll start to see things like Tony ‘climate change is BS’ Abbott, perform the sort of tortured interpretive dance routine the electors of Warringah have enjoyed this week.
Abbott is tying himself into Yogi Master knots as he tries to fend off the challenge of Zali Steggall, a highly accomplished and impeccably conservative independent candidate for his seat, who somehow manages to believe in the free market, the primacy of the individual, franking credits for everyone and how awesome it would be if our lives didn’t end in famine, superstorms and war over diminishing water supplies etc, etc.
The only reason Abbott and his fellow travellers on the dirty great coal train to oblivion feel any need to move away from their previous embrace of pro-apocalypse energy policy is because they can see that public opinion has moved on. Year after year of worsening climate and extreme weather events will eventually do that to people.
All those kids who strike on Friday are helping to move that opinion. Yeah, they’ll be derided and ridiculed, their motives questioned and belittled. But they just need to remind themselves that those who caused this problem will soon enough all be dead, leaving them to clean up the mess.
Best they get started now.
Links
- Why I'm encouraging my daughter to wag school
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
Categories: External websites
Amsterdam's First National Climate Change March Draws 40,000 People
Time - Amy Gunia
Tens of thousands of people joined a climate change protest in Amsterdam on Sunday, urging the Dutch government to take action on climate change.
The demonstration, the first of its kind in the Netherlands, drew around 40,000 people despite heavy rain, according to Agence France-Presse.
“The high turnout is the proof that people now want a decisive policy on climate from the government,” Greenpeace, one of the march organizers, said in a statement.
The waterlogged European country is expected to be especially vulnerable to the rising tides brought on by climate change. Much of the country already sits below sea level, and some of its land is sinking.
While the U.S. has been backpedalling out of global climate change agreements like the Paris accord, Dutch lawmakers have passed ambitious climate change laws, seeking a 95 percent reduction of the 1990 emissions levels by 2050. But according to some in the country, the action isn’t happening fast enough. In January, a Dutch environmental research agency said the government is lagging behind its goals.
“We are under sea level, so we really need to do something about it,” demonstrator Esther Leverstein, a 21-yer-old climate studies student at Amsterdam University, told AFP.
Students around the world have been leading protests to prompt their governments to address climate change. A worldwide school strike is planned for later this week. Greta Thungerg, a Swedish teenager widely known for her climate change activism, said on Twitter that at least 82 countries plan to participate in the upcoming protest.
Links
Tens of thousands of people joined a climate change protest in Amsterdam on Sunday, urging the Dutch government to take action on climate change.
The demonstration, the first of its kind in the Netherlands, drew around 40,000 people despite heavy rain, according to Agence France-Presse.
“The high turnout is the proof that people now want a decisive policy on climate from the government,” Greenpeace, one of the march organizers, said in a statement.
The waterlogged European country is expected to be especially vulnerable to the rising tides brought on by climate change. Much of the country already sits below sea level, and some of its land is sinking.
While the U.S. has been backpedalling out of global climate change agreements like the Paris accord, Dutch lawmakers have passed ambitious climate change laws, seeking a 95 percent reduction of the 1990 emissions levels by 2050. But according to some in the country, the action isn’t happening fast enough. In January, a Dutch environmental research agency said the government is lagging behind its goals.
“We are under sea level, so we really need to do something about it,” demonstrator Esther Leverstein, a 21-yer-old climate studies student at Amsterdam University, told AFP.
Students around the world have been leading protests to prompt their governments to address climate change. A worldwide school strike is planned for later this week. Greta Thungerg, a Swedish teenager widely known for her climate change activism, said on Twitter that at least 82 countries plan to participate in the upcoming protest.
Links
- Climate Change And The Power Of One
- Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
- Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Climate Change Sceptics Push To Ban Teaching Global Warming Facts
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
Categories: External websites
From Antarctica To Costa Rica, Women Team Up To Build A Climate-Safe Future
Reuters - Megan Rowling
Women are leading efforts to achieve the world's climate goals - but more need to be involved, leaders say
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Patricia Espinosa (R) and ex secretary Christiana Figueres are applauded after receiving the 2016 Princess of Asturias award for International Cooperation from Spain's King Felipe, alongside Queen Letizia during a ceremony at Campoamor theatre in Oviedo, northern Spain October 21, 2016. REUTERS/Vincent WestBARCELONA - When former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres spent 20 days on a boat with 80 female scientists in Antarctica in January, she observed more than icebergs, whales and penguins.
She also saw how easily those women gravitated towards a shared purpose of saving the planet.
"It wasn't about, 'How do I improve my career, how do I get to the top of my ladder?' It was, 'How do I use my skills, my expertise, my knowledge and my practice to contribute to a global issue?'," said the Costa Rican ex-diplomat, who leads Mission 2020, an international campaign to cut carbon emissions.
Figueres spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of International Women's Day, which this year has a theme of promoting the role of women in innovation and technology.
While those areas offer "unprecedented opportunities", women are held back by their under-representation in related professions, and by a growing digital divide along gender lines, according to UN Women.
Figueres noted that women on the "Homeward Bound" Antarctica expedition - all working in science, technology, engineering, maths or medicine - wanted to make sure their work would help address climate change.
"I do have the feeling that we women tend to be more collaborative, we tend to be more long-term, we tend to be more global in our thinking because of our innate stewardship role ... in society," she said.
That sentiment is playing out back in her home country, which last month launched an ambitious economy-wide plan to decarbonise the country by 2050, aiming to show other nations what is possible in tackling climate change.
A key figurehead of that vision is the president's wife Claudia Dobles Camargo, an architect and urban planner who has coordinated many of the country's green public transport initiatives, including an electric train project.
Andrea Meza, climate change director at Costa Rica's Ministry of Environment and Energy, said women were spearheading her country's push to produce no more emissions than it can offset through efforts such as protecting its extensive forests.
From the first female CEO of the nation's electricity utility to the planning minister and agriculture vice-minister, women in top government jobs were collaborating on a clean development vision for Costa Rica, she noted.
"We are the ones with voices, and we want to demonstrate that women can lead in this area," she said.
The same is happening at the local level too, she added, with women in rural communities driving efforts to fight climate change and improve lives into the bargain.
A woman is seen in an Ikea shop in a mall in Rome, Italy, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Max RossiFeminist Design
Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said women were at the heart of that same struggle around the world.
Some of their efforts are gaining wider recognition through the U.N. Momentum for Change initiative, which recognises successful climate projects run by and for women.
They range from a campaign to get women cycling on the streets of war-torn Damascus to a "feminist electrification" drive in Haiti, and Indian women making compost from ceremonial flowers while cleaning up the River Ganges.
"We must build smarter (and) we must build with the future in mind," Espinosa said in emailed comments.
"Women must not only be a 'voice at the table' but play a key role in planning, designing, building and managing how that infrastructure and those communities are built."
International Women's Day this year aims to explore, among other things, ways to build services and infrastructure that meet the needs of women and girls.
That's already happening at the world's biggest furnishings retailer IKEA Group, where the typical customer is a woman and about half of top executives are female, said its chief sustainability officer Pia Heidenmark Cook on the sidelines of a forum on climate-wise infrastructure in Barcelona this week.
A survey carried out by the Swedish company of public attitudes to climate change in 14 countries, published last September, showed younger people and women were more concerned and interested in acting on the issue than men, she added.
But doing so does not require "something new and fancy" - rather it means simply acting to ensure it is safe to breathe the air, drink the water, and be secure and healthy, she noted.
Women's Money Talks
Younger women are increasingly aware of the threats global warming poses to those rights - a concern seen in their leadership of school strikes demanding climate action, many inspired by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, observers say.
Kirsten Snow Spalding, programme director for the U.S.-based Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk and Sustainability, believes they may start to care more about how their money is invested.
Her organisation is looking to work with wealth management firms whose prosperous clients include millennials.
"My guess is that there are many more women in that group than there were 20 years ago," she said.
For some of them, sustainability is likely to be a higher investment priority, and could lead them to accept larger risks to achieve it, she added.
For now in the United States, there is anecdotal evidence of women stepping up their influence over infrastructure investment at the country's biggest pension funds, said Snow Spalding, a priest and former chief deputy treasurer of California.
U.N. climate chief Espinosa said there was a need for more women to get involved to achieve equal participation and leadership in innovation, tech and sustainable infrastructure.
The change "must take place not only at the negotiations table, but in classrooms and communities throughout the world", she added.
Links
Women are leading efforts to achieve the world's climate goals - but more need to be involved, leaders say
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Patricia Espinosa (R) and ex secretary Christiana Figueres are applauded after receiving the 2016 Princess of Asturias award for International Cooperation from Spain's King Felipe, alongside Queen Letizia during a ceremony at Campoamor theatre in Oviedo, northern Spain October 21, 2016. REUTERS/Vincent WestBARCELONA - When former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres spent 20 days on a boat with 80 female scientists in Antarctica in January, she observed more than icebergs, whales and penguins.
She also saw how easily those women gravitated towards a shared purpose of saving the planet.
"It wasn't about, 'How do I improve my career, how do I get to the top of my ladder?' It was, 'How do I use my skills, my expertise, my knowledge and my practice to contribute to a global issue?'," said the Costa Rican ex-diplomat, who leads Mission 2020, an international campaign to cut carbon emissions.
Figueres spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of International Women's Day, which this year has a theme of promoting the role of women in innovation and technology.
While those areas offer "unprecedented opportunities", women are held back by their under-representation in related professions, and by a growing digital divide along gender lines, according to UN Women.
Figueres noted that women on the "Homeward Bound" Antarctica expedition - all working in science, technology, engineering, maths or medicine - wanted to make sure their work would help address climate change.
"I do have the feeling that we women tend to be more collaborative, we tend to be more long-term, we tend to be more global in our thinking because of our innate stewardship role ... in society," she said.
That sentiment is playing out back in her home country, which last month launched an ambitious economy-wide plan to decarbonise the country by 2050, aiming to show other nations what is possible in tackling climate change.
A key figurehead of that vision is the president's wife Claudia Dobles Camargo, an architect and urban planner who has coordinated many of the country's green public transport initiatives, including an electric train project.
Andrea Meza, climate change director at Costa Rica's Ministry of Environment and Energy, said women were spearheading her country's push to produce no more emissions than it can offset through efforts such as protecting its extensive forests.
From the first female CEO of the nation's electricity utility to the planning minister and agriculture vice-minister, women in top government jobs were collaborating on a clean development vision for Costa Rica, she noted.
"We are the ones with voices, and we want to demonstrate that women can lead in this area," she said.
The same is happening at the local level too, she added, with women in rural communities driving efforts to fight climate change and improve lives into the bargain.
A woman is seen in an Ikea shop in a mall in Rome, Italy, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Max RossiFeminist Design
Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said women were at the heart of that same struggle around the world.
Some of their efforts are gaining wider recognition through the U.N. Momentum for Change initiative, which recognises successful climate projects run by and for women.
They range from a campaign to get women cycling on the streets of war-torn Damascus to a "feminist electrification" drive in Haiti, and Indian women making compost from ceremonial flowers while cleaning up the River Ganges.
"We must build smarter (and) we must build with the future in mind," Espinosa said in emailed comments.
"Women must not only be a 'voice at the table' but play a key role in planning, designing, building and managing how that infrastructure and those communities are built."
International Women's Day this year aims to explore, among other things, ways to build services and infrastructure that meet the needs of women and girls.
That's already happening at the world's biggest furnishings retailer IKEA Group, where the typical customer is a woman and about half of top executives are female, said its chief sustainability officer Pia Heidenmark Cook on the sidelines of a forum on climate-wise infrastructure in Barcelona this week.
A survey carried out by the Swedish company of public attitudes to climate change in 14 countries, published last September, showed younger people and women were more concerned and interested in acting on the issue than men, she added.
But doing so does not require "something new and fancy" - rather it means simply acting to ensure it is safe to breathe the air, drink the water, and be secure and healthy, she noted.
Women's Money Talks
Younger women are increasingly aware of the threats global warming poses to those rights - a concern seen in their leadership of school strikes demanding climate action, many inspired by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, observers say.
Kirsten Snow Spalding, programme director for the U.S.-based Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk and Sustainability, believes they may start to care more about how their money is invested.
Her organisation is looking to work with wealth management firms whose prosperous clients include millennials.
"My guess is that there are many more women in that group than there were 20 years ago," she said.
For some of them, sustainability is likely to be a higher investment priority, and could lead them to accept larger risks to achieve it, she added.
For now in the United States, there is anecdotal evidence of women stepping up their influence over infrastructure investment at the country's biggest pension funds, said Snow Spalding, a priest and former chief deputy treasurer of California.
U.N. climate chief Espinosa said there was a need for more women to get involved to achieve equal participation and leadership in innovation, tech and sustainable infrastructure.
The change "must take place not only at the negotiations table, but in classrooms and communities throughout the world", she added.
Links
- Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
- 25 Female Climate Leaders Shaping 2019
- These Women Are Changing The Landscape Of Antarctic Research
- Sydney Wins Bid To Host Major Climate Conference For Women In 2020
- Young Women More Likely To Care About Climate Change: Study
- Climate Change Is Everyone's Problem. Women Are Ready To Solve It
- Mary Robinson Launches New Feminist Fight Against Climate Change
- Climate Change A 'Man-Made Problem With A Feminist Solution' Says Robinson
- Margaret Atwood: Women Will Bear Brunt Of Dystopian Climate Future
- Where Women Lead On Climate Change
Categories: External websites
Climate Change And The Power Of One
Press Republican
Greta Thunberg protesting outside Sweden’s Parliament.
Those of us of a certain vintage might remember a memorable photograph/video from June 5, 1989, of an incident that took place on the north side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. It was the day after the military used deadly force to break up a protest nearby.
As a long column of tanks approached down the middle of a broad avenue, an unarmed, unidentified man calmly stepped in front of the lead tank forcing it to a stop.
As the tank tried to go around him, the man moved with it in order to remain in front of the tank in a non-violent action.
Photos and a video of this event (Wikipedia, “Tank Man”) were “smuggled out to a worldwide audience. Internationally, it is considered one of the most iconic images of all time.”
Business as usual
Another, more recent image from September 2018 also stands out as a powerful visual in a peaceful protest.
The image here may be more subtle in the sense that no tanks or armed police are present.
But the cause here is for “Climate Justice.”
Greta Thunberg, who has been in a recent climate article published in this paper, positioned herself in front of the stone edifice of Sweden’s Parliament.
Based on her study of climate change, and reports from the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change, she is alarmed that the powers that be, both political and business, are not taking the threat to our planet seriously.
It is business as usual.
The image (above) of the then-15-year-old student, protesting all by herself during school hours is powerful by itself.
Her modesty, sincerity, and articulate presentation of the dangers of climate change and a warming planet, and to her future, inspired the U.N. Council of Parties — or COP24 — to give her the platform to speak to a worldwide audience.
Speaking her mind
The meeting was held in Katowice, Poland in December 2018.
She spoke for only 3-and-a-half minutes but captured the whole issue of climate change and the lack of responsibility of our leaders to address it so that she, and tens of millions of other young people, have a future.
Now 16, she was also invited to Davos, Switzerland in January 2019, to give a similar address to an audience of business leaders, the wealthy and many political leaders.
To keep her carbon footprint small and to be consistent with her beliefs, she traveled from Stockholm to Davos by train. It took about 32 hours.
She shunned an extravagant hotel room and slept in a tent.
Meanwhile 1,500 private jets landed with other attendees.
Youth movement
Her actions have since sparked interest and ignited protests around the world including the U.S.
The theme is basically keep fossil fuels in the ground, stop CO2 emissions, move to clean renewable energy, now.
In January 2019, when the new Congress was being sworn in, many students urged our legislators to move on a “Green New Deal” which centers around clean, renewable energy.
Students and youths in a hallway of Congress. Michael Brochstein/SOPA/Images/LightRocketStrike for change
The United Kingdom has seen a large number of protests in many cities throughout the country recently. In February thousands of young people in Britain left their classrooms to take part in “a growing movement to protest the lack of action on climate change.”
This global movement is known as “Youth Strike for Change,” with protests from Tasmania to Europe.
They want climate change to be treated like a crisis it is by their politicians.
Just 12 years
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report supports their contention that climate change is serious, dangerous and needs to be addressed now.
We have just 12 years to avoid the more serious consequences of catastrophic climate change.
More than 10,000 youths in Leuven, Belgium have skipped school for the fifth Thursday in a row.
Some climate change deniers claim that these events “are being manipulated by politicians and environmental organizations.”
Indeed, one Belgian Environment Minister was forced to resign after she said she had security confirmation that these recent demonstrations were staged as a plot against her.
Meanwhile, NASA just confirmed that the last 5 years are the “Hottest Years On Record Globally”.
Links
Greta Thunberg protesting outside Sweden’s Parliament.
Those of us of a certain vintage might remember a memorable photograph/video from June 5, 1989, of an incident that took place on the north side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. It was the day after the military used deadly force to break up a protest nearby.
As a long column of tanks approached down the middle of a broad avenue, an unarmed, unidentified man calmly stepped in front of the lead tank forcing it to a stop.
As the tank tried to go around him, the man moved with it in order to remain in front of the tank in a non-violent action.
Photos and a video of this event (Wikipedia, “Tank Man”) were “smuggled out to a worldwide audience. Internationally, it is considered one of the most iconic images of all time.”
Business as usual
Another, more recent image from September 2018 also stands out as a powerful visual in a peaceful protest.
The image here may be more subtle in the sense that no tanks or armed police are present.
But the cause here is for “Climate Justice.”
Greta Thunberg, who has been in a recent climate article published in this paper, positioned herself in front of the stone edifice of Sweden’s Parliament.
Based on her study of climate change, and reports from the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change, she is alarmed that the powers that be, both political and business, are not taking the threat to our planet seriously.
It is business as usual.
The image (above) of the then-15-year-old student, protesting all by herself during school hours is powerful by itself.
Her modesty, sincerity, and articulate presentation of the dangers of climate change and a warming planet, and to her future, inspired the U.N. Council of Parties — or COP24 — to give her the platform to speak to a worldwide audience.
Speaking her mind
The meeting was held in Katowice, Poland in December 2018.
She spoke for only 3-and-a-half minutes but captured the whole issue of climate change and the lack of responsibility of our leaders to address it so that she, and tens of millions of other young people, have a future.
Now 16, she was also invited to Davos, Switzerland in January 2019, to give a similar address to an audience of business leaders, the wealthy and many political leaders.
To keep her carbon footprint small and to be consistent with her beliefs, she traveled from Stockholm to Davos by train. It took about 32 hours.
She shunned an extravagant hotel room and slept in a tent.
Meanwhile 1,500 private jets landed with other attendees.
Youth movement
Her actions have since sparked interest and ignited protests around the world including the U.S.
The theme is basically keep fossil fuels in the ground, stop CO2 emissions, move to clean renewable energy, now.
In January 2019, when the new Congress was being sworn in, many students urged our legislators to move on a “Green New Deal” which centers around clean, renewable energy.
Students and youths in a hallway of Congress. Michael Brochstein/SOPA/Images/LightRocketStrike for change
The United Kingdom has seen a large number of protests in many cities throughout the country recently. In February thousands of young people in Britain left their classrooms to take part in “a growing movement to protest the lack of action on climate change.”
This global movement is known as “Youth Strike for Change,” with protests from Tasmania to Europe.
They want climate change to be treated like a crisis it is by their politicians.
Just 12 years
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report supports their contention that climate change is serious, dangerous and needs to be addressed now.
We have just 12 years to avoid the more serious consequences of catastrophic climate change.
More than 10,000 youths in Leuven, Belgium have skipped school for the fifth Thursday in a row.
Some climate change deniers claim that these events “are being manipulated by politicians and environmental organizations.”
Indeed, one Belgian Environment Minister was forced to resign after she said she had security confirmation that these recent demonstrations were staged as a plot against her.
Meanwhile, NASA just confirmed that the last 5 years are the “Hottest Years On Record Globally”.
Links
- Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Climate Change Sceptics Push To Ban Teaching Global Warming Facts
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
- Climate Change: Young People Striking From School See It For The Life-Threatening Issue It Is
Categories: External websites
Trump’s Climate Policies Face 6 Big Legal Battles This Year
Grist - Greta Moran
Letitia James is an American lawyer, activist, politician and Attorney General of New York.
Newsday LLC / Contributor The Trump administration has been chipping away at the bedrock of environmental protection in the United States. It didn’t happen overnight. But slowly, like toxic mold spreading through a home, polluter-friendly policies have started to build up.
Left unchallenged, the administration’s relaxed rules on pollution could add more than 200 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year by 2025, a new report from The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center finds. “In short, the Trump administration is prepared to take us over the climate cliff,” the authors state.
But lawyers are putting up a good fight. Here are six pieces of noxious Trump-era policy that state attorneys general are gearing up to battle in court this year, as laid out in the report:
Links
Letitia James is an American lawyer, activist, politician and Attorney General of New York.
Newsday LLC / Contributor The Trump administration has been chipping away at the bedrock of environmental protection in the United States. It didn’t happen overnight. But slowly, like toxic mold spreading through a home, polluter-friendly policies have started to build up.
Left unchallenged, the administration’s relaxed rules on pollution could add more than 200 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year by 2025, a new report from The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center finds. “In short, the Trump administration is prepared to take us over the climate cliff,” the authors state.
But lawyers are putting up a good fight. Here are six pieces of noxious Trump-era policy that state attorneys general are gearing up to battle in court this year, as laid out in the report:
- The so-called “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” proposed by the EPA last August, would allow fossil fuel-fired power plants to pollute even more than they already do. The rule would replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and could result in 1,630 more premature deaths and 120,000 more asthma attacks by 2030, according to the report. Twenty-one state attorneys generals are opposing the new rule, led by Letitia James of New York and Maura Healey of Massachusetts.
- The Trump administration’s rollback of 2012 clean car regulations would add an additional 16 to 37 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere by 2025. The proposal would also revoke a waiver that allows California, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the country’s cars, to set stricter fuel economy standards than the federal government. A group of state attorneys general, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, is fighting the proposal.
- The EPA’s pending repeal of a 2016 rule would loosen emissions requirements for glider trucks, some of the dirtiest vehicles on our highways (they typically release 20 to 40 times more pollution than other trucks). In November 2017, former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt tried to reopen an old loophole that allows glider trucks with old, dirty engines to pass as new. Anti-pollution proponent Becerra is also leading the fight against this move on the basis that it undermines the Clean Air Act.
- The EPA is trying to weaken methane emissions standards for new oil and gas equipment. The proposal would also allow the industry to monitor methane leaks less frequently. These changes would result in the release of about 380,000 tons of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s 86 times more potent than CO2 in the short-term — between 2019 and 2025. James of New York is leading the multi-state coalition challenging the EPA’s proposed rule.
- The EPA is failing on its obligation to reduce methane emissions from old sources. Oil and gas operations prior to 2012 are responsible for up to 90 percent of methane emissions, and under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is legally obligated to address these sources. The agency hasn’t exactly done that — prompting a coalition of state attorneys general, led by James, to sue.
- In September 2018, the Trump administration repealed the 2016 Methane Waste Prevention Rule, which would have cut emissions by at least 175,000 tons a year. The original rule would reduce the waste of natural gas (from, say, leaks or venting) on public and Native American lands. In ongoing litigation, Becerra and New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas have challenged the repeal.
Links
- Support Is Surging For Teens’ Climate Change Lawsuit
- Climate Change In Court
- Climate Change-Related Litigation Was Once Seen As A Joke, But It Could Soon Become Business Reality
- These Residents Stopped A Coal Mine, Made History And Sent Ripples Through Boardrooms Around The World
- Australia's Coal Future Under Threat As More Changes Hit Fossil Fuels Globally
- As Lawsuits Over Climate Change Heat Up, Oil Industry Steps Up Attacks On Its Critics
- Coal Miners Derided Climate Action 'Sideshow'. Now It's The Main Event
Categories: External websites
Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
South China Morning Post - Zoe Low
They come from secondary schools and universities in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, and will join their peers in the Americas and Europe to take part in the Global Strike for Future.
“We are the ones who will inherit this earth. We deserve to have a say about the kind of future we have, which at this stage could be non-existent unless we stand up and show the politicians how important this is to us,” said 18-year-old Sophie Handford, who has completed high school and is coordinating the strikes in New Zealand.
The protest comes a month after about 10,000 youngsters staged a nationwide school strike across 60 cities in Britain, showing how a grass roots movement inspired by a Swedish girl last summer had taken off.
Students taking part in a climate change protest in London on February 15. Photo: EPA
Greta Thunberg, 16, had planted herself in front of the Swedish parliament in August handing out fliers that said: “You grown-ups do not give a s*** about my future.” Many students around the globe have also been striking every Friday since Thunberg started her protest.
The students interviewed for this article said the movement was largely decentralised, with them learning about the strike on social media. Some kept in touch with other coordinators from abroad through encrypted messaging apps.
A number of them wrote an open letter that British newspaper The Guardian published on March 1. “We demand justice for all past, current and future victims of the climate crisis, and so we are rising up,” the letter said.
“There have been fires in some places where it has become so dry and rising sea levels are hitting our friends in the Pacific hard. We are also fighting for them so they are able to remain in their homes,” said Handford.
This is the first time that New Zealand’s young people will be striking in 24 cities including Auckland and Christchurch to demand the government to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Some of their demands include fast tracking paths to reach emission targets and stopping all exploration and extraction of fossil fuels.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Photo: AFPIn Bangladesh, another first time strike is being organised in Dhaka, Sundarbans and Sylhet by 24-year-old Sabbir Ahmed, who emphasises that this country’s low-lying areas will be most affected by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Sabbir graduated in 2017 and has been working with youth groups to develop professional skills.
“Bangladesh has already seen some unusual weather patterns. Temperatures in the summer rise up to 38 degrees Celsius or more, and last rainy season the floods caused heavy losses to agricultural production,” said Sabbir, who wants governments of industrialised nations to take more responsibility for reducing emissions.
The impact of climate change is already being felt throughout the world, but lower-income countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East do not have the resources to adapt to the changes, said Harald Heubaum, an associate professor in global energy and climate policy at the SOAS University of London.
He said developed countries in Europe and North America need to do more in terms of reducing emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“The main polluters, including China and increasingly, India as well, need to invest a lot more so the least developed countries – those that haven’t caused problems, but face [the] consequences because they can’t adapt – can deal with this effectively,” Heubaum said.
China, the United States and India have the highest emissions in the world in 2015, according to the independent Union of Concerned Scientists.
An Indian man cools himself under a public fountain on a hot afternoon in New Delhi. Photo: APIndian teen Vidit Baya is demanding his government take action. “Our future is in their hands and we want them to take action not just for us but for the sake of the planet, its people and its survival,” said 17-year-old Baya, who is one of the organisers of the strike in India.
He said India’s status as a developing nation means the government needs to invest in renewable energy such as solar power instead of sticking to “ancient technology” like coal. “With seven out of the 10 most polluted cities in the world in India, it is a shame our condition is getting worse,” he said.
Strikes will take place in Delhi and Udaipur next Friday, and Baya’s team is organising more mass rallies every two months. His group is also working to educate people by going door-to-door and holding open meetings every Friday for youths to share ideas on how to create a better future.
However, Baya said schools and parents have reservations about allowing their children to take part in activism. “Many parents fear their kids might get in trouble with the wrong people. They also think we should focus on our studies and think only about our careers,” he said.
“But our parents and schools do not understand the land is dying,” said Baya, adding many schools refused to let students join environmental campaigns and activities organised by non-governmental organisations and the government.
Hong Kong’s Education Bureau is also opposed to the strike, saying on February 28 that the movement would disrupt order in schools.
Australians protesting against climate change in Brisbane in December. Photo: EPAIn Australia, where 15,000 students walked out of their schools on November 31 last year, students have also been warned against taking part in the upcoming strike. New South Wales education minister Rob Stokes said in an interview that students and teachers who did not show up would be punished, which earned him a swift rebuttal from Greta Thunberg herself.
“Your statement belongs in a museum,” wrote Thunberg on Twitter.
School principals in New Zealand have also warned students who strike they will be marked as truants, local media reported on Thursday.
Yet, the youth movement has caught the attention of climate scientists worldwide, who have written a letter of support for the young strikers published in The Guardian on February 13.
“The global youth movement and organisation is indeed impressive,” said Peter deMenocal, director of the Centre for Climate and Life at Columbia University in New York.
“The breadth and authenticity of this youth movement can turn the tide of public opinion,” said deMenocal, who has worked with leaders of the strike in the US.
An open-cut coal mine in Singleton in Hunter Valley north of Sydney. The Australian government has continued to push for coal as an energy source. Photo: AFP This really is a grass-roots movement organised by the youthAustralian organiser Zel Whiting Australian organiser Zel Whiting, who has worked with a larger team to pull together not just the Australian protest but internationally as well, is adamant the strikes are necessary. “Climate-based decisions are decisions that can’t be undone in 20 years’ time,” said the 13-year-old.
Whiting is frustrated with the current Australian government, which has continued to push coal as an energy source for the country. “That will devastate our environment, but we’re starting to sway the general public to our side, which is really good,” he said.
The Australian youth has also managed to gain the support of labour unions, but at the same time, Whiting said, the hardest hurdle to overcome is convincing dismissive adults who think the kids are being used by politicians.
“This really is a grass-roots movement organised by the youth, and climate justice should be totally apolitical and focus on communicating with governments,” said Whiting. “People need to realise that climate change is going to be a problem for their future and for their children for a long time.”
Links
- Students from at least six Asian countries will take part in Global Strike for Future
- But authorities in some countries have warned students not to disrupt classes
They come from secondary schools and universities in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, and will join their peers in the Americas and Europe to take part in the Global Strike for Future.
“We are the ones who will inherit this earth. We deserve to have a say about the kind of future we have, which at this stage could be non-existent unless we stand up and show the politicians how important this is to us,” said 18-year-old Sophie Handford, who has completed high school and is coordinating the strikes in New Zealand.
The protest comes a month after about 10,000 youngsters staged a nationwide school strike across 60 cities in Britain, showing how a grass roots movement inspired by a Swedish girl last summer had taken off.
Students taking part in a climate change protest in London on February 15. Photo: EPA
Greta Thunberg, 16, had planted herself in front of the Swedish parliament in August handing out fliers that said: “You grown-ups do not give a s*** about my future.” Many students around the globe have also been striking every Friday since Thunberg started her protest.
The students interviewed for this article said the movement was largely decentralised, with them learning about the strike on social media. Some kept in touch with other coordinators from abroad through encrypted messaging apps.
A number of them wrote an open letter that British newspaper The Guardian published on March 1. “We demand justice for all past, current and future victims of the climate crisis, and so we are rising up,” the letter said.
“There have been fires in some places where it has become so dry and rising sea levels are hitting our friends in the Pacific hard. We are also fighting for them so they are able to remain in their homes,” said Handford.
This is the first time that New Zealand’s young people will be striking in 24 cities including Auckland and Christchurch to demand the government to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Some of their demands include fast tracking paths to reach emission targets and stopping all exploration and extraction of fossil fuels.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Photo: AFPIn Bangladesh, another first time strike is being organised in Dhaka, Sundarbans and Sylhet by 24-year-old Sabbir Ahmed, who emphasises that this country’s low-lying areas will be most affected by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Sabbir graduated in 2017 and has been working with youth groups to develop professional skills.
“Bangladesh has already seen some unusual weather patterns. Temperatures in the summer rise up to 38 degrees Celsius or more, and last rainy season the floods caused heavy losses to agricultural production,” said Sabbir, who wants governments of industrialised nations to take more responsibility for reducing emissions.
The impact of climate change is already being felt throughout the world, but lower-income countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East do not have the resources to adapt to the changes, said Harald Heubaum, an associate professor in global energy and climate policy at the SOAS University of London.
He said developed countries in Europe and North America need to do more in terms of reducing emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“The main polluters, including China and increasingly, India as well, need to invest a lot more so the least developed countries – those that haven’t caused problems, but face [the] consequences because they can’t adapt – can deal with this effectively,” Heubaum said.
China, the United States and India have the highest emissions in the world in 2015, according to the independent Union of Concerned Scientists.
An Indian man cools himself under a public fountain on a hot afternoon in New Delhi. Photo: APIndian teen Vidit Baya is demanding his government take action. “Our future is in their hands and we want them to take action not just for us but for the sake of the planet, its people and its survival,” said 17-year-old Baya, who is one of the organisers of the strike in India.
He said India’s status as a developing nation means the government needs to invest in renewable energy such as solar power instead of sticking to “ancient technology” like coal. “With seven out of the 10 most polluted cities in the world in India, it is a shame our condition is getting worse,” he said.
Strikes will take place in Delhi and Udaipur next Friday, and Baya’s team is organising more mass rallies every two months. His group is also working to educate people by going door-to-door and holding open meetings every Friday for youths to share ideas on how to create a better future.
However, Baya said schools and parents have reservations about allowing their children to take part in activism. “Many parents fear their kids might get in trouble with the wrong people. They also think we should focus on our studies and think only about our careers,” he said.
“But our parents and schools do not understand the land is dying,” said Baya, adding many schools refused to let students join environmental campaigns and activities organised by non-governmental organisations and the government.
Hong Kong’s Education Bureau is also opposed to the strike, saying on February 28 that the movement would disrupt order in schools.
Australians protesting against climate change in Brisbane in December. Photo: EPAIn Australia, where 15,000 students walked out of their schools on November 31 last year, students have also been warned against taking part in the upcoming strike. New South Wales education minister Rob Stokes said in an interview that students and teachers who did not show up would be punished, which earned him a swift rebuttal from Greta Thunberg herself.
“Your statement belongs in a museum,” wrote Thunberg on Twitter.
School principals in New Zealand have also warned students who strike they will be marked as truants, local media reported on Thursday.
Yet, the youth movement has caught the attention of climate scientists worldwide, who have written a letter of support for the young strikers published in The Guardian on February 13.
“The global youth movement and organisation is indeed impressive,” said Peter deMenocal, director of the Centre for Climate and Life at Columbia University in New York.
“The breadth and authenticity of this youth movement can turn the tide of public opinion,” said deMenocal, who has worked with leaders of the strike in the US.
An open-cut coal mine in Singleton in Hunter Valley north of Sydney. The Australian government has continued to push for coal as an energy source. Photo: AFP This really is a grass-roots movement organised by the youthAustralian organiser Zel Whiting Australian organiser Zel Whiting, who has worked with a larger team to pull together not just the Australian protest but internationally as well, is adamant the strikes are necessary. “Climate-based decisions are decisions that can’t be undone in 20 years’ time,” said the 13-year-old.
Whiting is frustrated with the current Australian government, which has continued to push coal as an energy source for the country. “That will devastate our environment, but we’re starting to sway the general public to our side, which is really good,” he said.
The Australian youth has also managed to gain the support of labour unions, but at the same time, Whiting said, the hardest hurdle to overcome is convincing dismissive adults who think the kids are being used by politicians.
“This really is a grass-roots movement organised by the youth, and climate justice should be totally apolitical and focus on communicating with governments,” said Whiting. “People need to realise that climate change is going to be a problem for their future and for their children for a long time.”
Links
- Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
- Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Climate Change Sceptics Push To Ban Teaching Global Warming Facts
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
- Climate Change: Young People Striking From School See It For The Life-Threatening Issue It Is
- Hong Kong students plan school boycott to protest against climate change … but not all agree with action
- Bigger, badder typhoons and climate change – what’s the link?
- Hong Kong government aims to slash carbon emissions with 2030 action plan
- What has Hong Kong done to tackle climate change? Next to nothing
Categories: External websites
Woman Fest Founder Plans Training Camp For Climate Rebels
The Guardian - Matthew Taylor
Spring Uprising festival in Bristol will feature bands and civil disobedience instruction
School pupils gathered in Parliament Square last month to protest against government inaction over climate change. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images The woman behind the UK’s first female-only festival is setting up a climate activism training camp to instruct hundreds of young people in civil disobedience before a series of environmental protests planned for the coming weeks.
Tiana Jacout is putting on the Spring Uprising festival in Bristol this month for people taking part in the ongoing school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion protests planned for 15 April.
The two-day event will offer the usual festival diet of live bands and DJs alongside civil disobedience training and sessions on climate solutions.
Jacout said: “With thousands of people coming together to face the climate and ecological emergency, this event is intended to help people prepare, organise and celebrate for this historic moment in time together.”
Last month more than 10,000 young people took to the streets across the UK as part of the growing school strike movement. Up to 150,000 people around the world are expected to take part in a global school strike on 15 March.
Separately, thousands of protesters are expected to descend on London on 15 April as part of a global climate action organised by Extinction Rebellion.
The group, known as XR, has established groups in countries around the world and has the support of hundreds of senior academics and scientists.
It is demanding that the UK government tell the truth about the scale of the ecological crisis and enact legally binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025. It also wants the creation of a citizens’ assembly to oversee the transformation to a sustainable economy.
Activists closed down five London bridges for several hours in November, and they say this time they intend to bring widespread disruption to London until their demands are met.
Tiana Jacout
Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer Jacout said the festival was a chance for people who were considering getting involved in climate campaigns to “come together, get trained, get organised and have a damn good time doing it”.
She added: “One of the real challenges of being in this movement is that every week there is a new scientific study coming out that shortens the time we have left to take action. That is why we need to come together and look after each other. Taking part in civil disobedience is high adrenaline and you need to be looked after and cared for. That, along with training and preparation, is what this festival is about.”
The event, on 16 and 17 March, has sold more than 700 tickets and has the backing of music industry and festival organisers such as Boomtown, Buddhafield and Burn Punk. A dozen music acts including Sam Lee, Dizraeli, Mesadorm, Bellatrix, Pete the Temp, Honeyfeet, Nick Mulvey and the High Breed have been confirmed.
Jacout, who staged Woman Fest last year, said that although non-violent civil disobedience was at the heart of the emerging environment protest movements, “many of the people who have come forward to join may not have been in that situation before”.
“As we saw from our demonstrations in November we are entirely peaceful and although there were lots of police around it was all calm and friendly, but we think that people can’t be too well trained or briefed and the more support we can give each other the more successful the rebellion can be,” she said.
The event will include a talk from school strike activists and video linkups with XR groups around the UK and the rest of the world.
“This is the next step in our response to the threat to life we all face, a potentially life-changing event for attendees,” Jacout said. “For people who have not been involved in XR before, this is perfect moment to come down and see what we are about, to meet and make friends and get properly involved.”
Links
Spring Uprising festival in Bristol will feature bands and civil disobedience instruction
School pupils gathered in Parliament Square last month to protest against government inaction over climate change. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images The woman behind the UK’s first female-only festival is setting up a climate activism training camp to instruct hundreds of young people in civil disobedience before a series of environmental protests planned for the coming weeks.
Tiana Jacout is putting on the Spring Uprising festival in Bristol this month for people taking part in the ongoing school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion protests planned for 15 April.
The two-day event will offer the usual festival diet of live bands and DJs alongside civil disobedience training and sessions on climate solutions.
Jacout said: “With thousands of people coming together to face the climate and ecological emergency, this event is intended to help people prepare, organise and celebrate for this historic moment in time together.”
Last month more than 10,000 young people took to the streets across the UK as part of the growing school strike movement. Up to 150,000 people around the world are expected to take part in a global school strike on 15 March.
Separately, thousands of protesters are expected to descend on London on 15 April as part of a global climate action organised by Extinction Rebellion.
The group, known as XR, has established groups in countries around the world and has the support of hundreds of senior academics and scientists.
It is demanding that the UK government tell the truth about the scale of the ecological crisis and enact legally binding policies to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025. It also wants the creation of a citizens’ assembly to oversee the transformation to a sustainable economy.
Activists closed down five London bridges for several hours in November, and they say this time they intend to bring widespread disruption to London until their demands are met.
Tiana Jacout
Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer Jacout said the festival was a chance for people who were considering getting involved in climate campaigns to “come together, get trained, get organised and have a damn good time doing it”.
She added: “One of the real challenges of being in this movement is that every week there is a new scientific study coming out that shortens the time we have left to take action. That is why we need to come together and look after each other. Taking part in civil disobedience is high adrenaline and you need to be looked after and cared for. That, along with training and preparation, is what this festival is about.”
The event, on 16 and 17 March, has sold more than 700 tickets and has the backing of music industry and festival organisers such as Boomtown, Buddhafield and Burn Punk. A dozen music acts including Sam Lee, Dizraeli, Mesadorm, Bellatrix, Pete the Temp, Honeyfeet, Nick Mulvey and the High Breed have been confirmed.
Jacout, who staged Woman Fest last year, said that although non-violent civil disobedience was at the heart of the emerging environment protest movements, “many of the people who have come forward to join may not have been in that situation before”.
“As we saw from our demonstrations in November we are entirely peaceful and although there were lots of police around it was all calm and friendly, but we think that people can’t be too well trained or briefed and the more support we can give each other the more successful the rebellion can be,” she said.
The event will include a talk from school strike activists and video linkups with XR groups around the UK and the rest of the world.
“This is the next step in our response to the threat to life we all face, a potentially life-changing event for attendees,” Jacout said. “For people who have not been involved in XR before, this is perfect moment to come down and see what we are about, to meet and make friends and get properly involved.”
Links
- Spring Uprising
- Fight For Life
- activism
- School pupils call for radical climate action in UK-wide strike
- Generation Greta will step up their Climate Strikes on 15 March
- How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
- Climate Change Sceptics Push To Ban Teaching Global Warming Facts
- Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
- Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
- How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement
- Climate Change: Young People Striking From School See It For The Life-Threatening Issue It Is
- The Guardian View On Teenage Activists: Protesters Not Puppets
- 'I Feel Very Angry': The 13-Year-Old On School Strike For Climate Action
Categories: External websites
Veterans Are Concerned About Climate Change, And That Matters
The Conversation - Matthew Motta | Jennifer Spindel | Robert Ralston
Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the Navy’s largest base, is endangered by sea level rise. Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott News that the Trump administration plans to create a panel devoted to challenging government warnings about climate change has been met with opposition from members of the U.S. military. Citing concerns about the effects of climate change on national security, more than four dozen top-ranking military officials came out in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.
Military concern about the effects of climate change on national security is not new. Months before former Secretary James Mattis left the Defense Department in January 2019, he acknowledged that increased coastal flooding and tropical storms, resulting from rising average global temperatures, pose a threat to as many as one-third of U.S. military bases.
In addition to its potential effect on military infrastructure, climate change could pose threats to global security. A recent IPCC report predicts that rising global temperatures, drought and other extreme weather patterns are likely to become more frequent and severe across the globe. This could create competition and conflict for increasingly scarce water and agricultural resources, particularly in the developing world or in fragile states.
Although climate change could pose major risks to national security, few have asked current and veteran members of the armed forces what they think about climate change and its potential effects. Our new survey research finds that most U.S. veteran members of the armed services in our sample think that the planet is warming, and many of them are concerned about what climate change means for U.S. security.
Combating climate change: A call to arms?
Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, pictured Nov. 26, 2018 in Doral, Florida. Brynn Anderson/AP PhotoPast and present members of the military are more likely to support politically conservative views than politically liberal ones. But to characterize the military as uniformly conservative misses an important element of nuance.
Numerous surveys of active duty service members and veterans in the early 2000s demonstrated that enlisted members of the military tended to vote in patterns similar to their civilian counterparts. However, recent research has pointed to a shift rightward within the military and found that higher-ranking officers and younger vets are especially more likely to be conservative, identify as Republicans, and support President Trump than nonveterans.
Despite their conservative tendencies, there is reason to suspect that armed forces members are concerned about the effects of climate change – a position held most commonly by ideological liberals. Service members might, for example, have observed the impact of major storms or rising sea levels on the day-to-day functioning of military bases. Or they could have used weapons systems that run on renewable energy sources, including aircraft, tanks and solar energy-powered backpacks.
The Pentagon is continuing to take steps to address climate change, despite President Trump saying such preparation should stop. U.S. military personnel are thus likely to have more experience with climate change effects, solutions to it or both.
Our study
To study past and present military personnel’s attitudes about climate change, we conducted a survey between Jan. 17-21, 2019 of 293 U.S. active duty or veteran service members, recruited via the online service Lucid. While this sample is not perfectly representative of the military writ large, it is both ideologically and demographically diverse. Our sample closely resembles veteran population benchmarks on race, educational attainment, and, perhaps most importantly, party identification.
We asked two related questions. First, we asked respondents which of the following statements is closest to their view: (1) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels;” (2) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of natural patterns in the Earth’s environment; (3) "There is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer;” or (4) “not sure.”
If respondents answered that the Earth is getting warmer, we then asked how likely it is that “U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms” and that “Drought and famine will cause international military conflict for food and water resources.”
First, the survey results showed that even though veterans and active duty service members tend to be politically conservative, their levels of belief in human-caused climate change are virtually the same. In our sample, 44 percent of veterans and active duty service members expressed belief in anthropogenic climate change. This tracks closely with nationally representative estimates of anthropogenic climate change consensus in the U.S. adult population. A 2016 Pew survey that featured a question identical to ours found about 48 percent believed in anthropogenic climate change (although some surveys asking other versions of this question, like this 2018 survey from Gallup, sometimes find higher levels). The results also track closely with a recent survey on the Lucid platform, used to conduct our study, which found that about 50 percent of Americans believe in human-caused climate change.
Second, we found that many veterans and active duty service members are concerned about the effects that climate change might have on security. More than three-quarters, 77 percent, of respondents consider it fairly or very likely that military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms as a result of climate change. Fewer veterans and active duty service members – 61 percent – consider drought and famine-driven international military conflict over food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur.
Third, we found that veterans and active duty service members who accept the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change are considerably more likely to be concerned about its effects on national security than those who do not.
To be specific, 87 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider damage to U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions due to flooding or severe storms fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 64 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change. And, 70 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider drought and famine causing international military conflict for food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 49 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change.
Why this matters
U.S. citizens appreciate and respect veterans. Some believe that veterans’ views on climate change could influence others. fiyaazz/Shutterstock.comBelief in climate change among past and active military personnel is noteworthy, because veterans are an important and influential voting block in American politics. Veterans comprise about 7 percent of the U.S. voting population, and millions of dollars are spent every year trying to win their political support, and advance their policy priorities US$13 million in independent expenditures.
Service members’ views could also affect the views of civilians, thus also pressuring political leaders to take action. The American public is deferential to and has a high degree of trust in the military. If enough veterans express concern about climate change, this reliably conservative voting bloc may push Republican officials to take policy action on climate change.
Links
Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the Navy’s largest base, is endangered by sea level rise. Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott News that the Trump administration plans to create a panel devoted to challenging government warnings about climate change has been met with opposition from members of the U.S. military. Citing concerns about the effects of climate change on national security, more than four dozen top-ranking military officials came out in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.
Military concern about the effects of climate change on national security is not new. Months before former Secretary James Mattis left the Defense Department in January 2019, he acknowledged that increased coastal flooding and tropical storms, resulting from rising average global temperatures, pose a threat to as many as one-third of U.S. military bases.
In addition to its potential effect on military infrastructure, climate change could pose threats to global security. A recent IPCC report predicts that rising global temperatures, drought and other extreme weather patterns are likely to become more frequent and severe across the globe. This could create competition and conflict for increasingly scarce water and agricultural resources, particularly in the developing world or in fragile states.
Although climate change could pose major risks to national security, few have asked current and veteran members of the armed forces what they think about climate change and its potential effects. Our new survey research finds that most U.S. veteran members of the armed services in our sample think that the planet is warming, and many of them are concerned about what climate change means for U.S. security.
Combating climate change: A call to arms?
Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, pictured Nov. 26, 2018 in Doral, Florida. Brynn Anderson/AP PhotoPast and present members of the military are more likely to support politically conservative views than politically liberal ones. But to characterize the military as uniformly conservative misses an important element of nuance.
Numerous surveys of active duty service members and veterans in the early 2000s demonstrated that enlisted members of the military tended to vote in patterns similar to their civilian counterparts. However, recent research has pointed to a shift rightward within the military and found that higher-ranking officers and younger vets are especially more likely to be conservative, identify as Republicans, and support President Trump than nonveterans.
Despite their conservative tendencies, there is reason to suspect that armed forces members are concerned about the effects of climate change – a position held most commonly by ideological liberals. Service members might, for example, have observed the impact of major storms or rising sea levels on the day-to-day functioning of military bases. Or they could have used weapons systems that run on renewable energy sources, including aircraft, tanks and solar energy-powered backpacks.
The Pentagon is continuing to take steps to address climate change, despite President Trump saying such preparation should stop. U.S. military personnel are thus likely to have more experience with climate change effects, solutions to it or both.
Our study
To study past and present military personnel’s attitudes about climate change, we conducted a survey between Jan. 17-21, 2019 of 293 U.S. active duty or veteran service members, recruited via the online service Lucid. While this sample is not perfectly representative of the military writ large, it is both ideologically and demographically diverse. Our sample closely resembles veteran population benchmarks on race, educational attainment, and, perhaps most importantly, party identification.
We asked two related questions. First, we asked respondents which of the following statements is closest to their view: (1) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels;” (2) “The Earth is getting warmer mostly because of natural patterns in the Earth’s environment; (3) "There is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer;” or (4) “not sure.”
If respondents answered that the Earth is getting warmer, we then asked how likely it is that “U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms” and that “Drought and famine will cause international military conflict for food and water resources.”
First, the survey results showed that even though veterans and active duty service members tend to be politically conservative, their levels of belief in human-caused climate change are virtually the same. In our sample, 44 percent of veterans and active duty service members expressed belief in anthropogenic climate change. This tracks closely with nationally representative estimates of anthropogenic climate change consensus in the U.S. adult population. A 2016 Pew survey that featured a question identical to ours found about 48 percent believed in anthropogenic climate change (although some surveys asking other versions of this question, like this 2018 survey from Gallup, sometimes find higher levels). The results also track closely with a recent survey on the Lucid platform, used to conduct our study, which found that about 50 percent of Americans believe in human-caused climate change.
Second, we found that many veterans and active duty service members are concerned about the effects that climate change might have on security. More than three-quarters, 77 percent, of respondents consider it fairly or very likely that military bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or severe storms as a result of climate change. Fewer veterans and active duty service members – 61 percent – consider drought and famine-driven international military conflict over food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur.
Third, we found that veterans and active duty service members who accept the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change are considerably more likely to be concerned about its effects on national security than those who do not.
To be specific, 87 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider damage to U.S. military bases in coastal or island regions due to flooding or severe storms fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 64 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change. And, 70 percent of veterans and active duty service members who accept anthropogenic climate change consider drought and famine causing international military conflict for food and water resources fairly or very likely to occur, compared to 49 percent of those who do not accept anthropogenic climate change.
Why this matters
U.S. citizens appreciate and respect veterans. Some believe that veterans’ views on climate change could influence others. fiyaazz/Shutterstock.comBelief in climate change among past and active military personnel is noteworthy, because veterans are an important and influential voting block in American politics. Veterans comprise about 7 percent of the U.S. voting population, and millions of dollars are spent every year trying to win their political support, and advance their policy priorities US$13 million in independent expenditures.
Service members’ views could also affect the views of civilians, thus also pressuring political leaders to take action. The American public is deferential to and has a high degree of trust in the military. If enough veterans express concern about climate change, this reliably conservative voting bloc may push Republican officials to take policy action on climate change.
Links
- Climate Change An 'Imminent' Security Threat, Risk Experts Say
- U.S. Intelligence Officials Warn Climate Change Is A Worldwide Threat
- We Need To Do More To Understand How Climate Change And Conflict Are Linked. Here's Why
- Approving The Climate Security Agenda
- Why Climate Change Is A Security Matter
- Climate Change-Related Disaster Relief Is Increasing Demand On Defence Department, Senate Hears
- Climate Change An 'Existential Security Risk' To Australia, Senate Inquiry Says
- Climate Change Is A Security Threat – So Where Is The UN Security Council?
- Here Are All The Ways Climate Change Presents A Threat To National Security
- 'Long, Slow, Horrible': Former Defence Officers Warn Of Climate Impacts On National Security
Categories: External websites
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