* (My apologies for the strange formatting again – WordPress gets glitchy on me and refuses paragraph spacing, forcing me to use awkward-looking stars. Bear with me.) * The left is loudly proclaiming, amidst the coronavirus (largely manufactured disaster capitalism) disaster: bail-outs for the people not the corporate elite, health
Continue readingTag: 350.org
The Disaffected Lib: "We’ve Run Out of Elections to Waste" – McKibben
Bill McKibben has a warning – “We’ve run out of elections to waste – this is the last chance to make a difference on climate change.” McKibben, of 350.org, has been waging a war against climate change and the political caste that ignores it since his first book was published
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Ineffective 350.org divestment campaign should give way to direct corporate actions
Students at Dalhousie University in Halifax are a determined lot. Campaigning against the burning of fossil fuels, they have occupied the office of school president Richard Florizone. The students also created a six-foot-high dinosaur to signify that investing in pollution-causing industries is a skeleton in the university’s closet. Divest Dal is
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Ineffective 350.org divestment campaign should give way to direct corporate actions
Students at Dalhousie University in Halifax are a determined lot. Campaigning against the burning of fossil fuels, they have occupied the office of school president Richard Florizone. The students also created a six-foot-high dinosaur to signify that investing in pollution-causing industries is a skeleton in the university’s closet. Divest Dal is
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Climate controls ‘slip slidin’ away’ following weak Paris agreement
to reduce emissions and fight climate change”
The Vancouver Sun.
The Winnipeg Free Press.
With these headlines appearing in newspapers across the country, Canadians must have been relieved that they don’t need to worry about climate change nearly as much now that everything has been worked out in Paris.
Unfortunately, this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
The politicians meeting in Paris, faced with the possibility of total failure, were extremely excited to reach any kind of an agreement. As politicians will do, they convinced themselves and the compliant mainstream media that the accord all 195 countries signed was an amazing break through document.
The agreement is jam-packed with lofty language and idealistic goals. However, it is totally lacking in legally binding mechanism that will hold governments to emission limits that will stop global warming from reaching devastatingly high levels.
May & Klein have strongly different opinions
Even so, there are strong differences of opinion among environmental leaders concerning the value of the pact.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May is not concerned that the temperature goals in the agreement are not binding.
“It’s an historic and potentially life-saving agreement,” May writes in her blog. . . . . “it may save the lives of millions. It may lead to the survival of many small nations close to sea level. It may give our grandchildren a far more stable climate and thus a more prosperous and healthy society.”
Two of the world’s leading climate activists disagree strongly with May.
Responding to the cheering going on in the meeting room when the deal was signed, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org commented: “All the serious people in there in suits are playing fantasy games.”
Activist and author Naomi Klein said the agreed upon targets are far too weak. “They don’t lead us to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees. They lead us to warming of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, which is beyond catastrophic.”
This year global warming, compared to the pre-industrial age temperature, is expected to reach 1 degree Celsius. Scientists say that warming must be kept to 1.5 degrees if hundreds of islands are to be saved. If countries do not improve on the promises they made in Paris global warming could reach 3.5 degrees by 2100 or earlier.
In Paris, rich countries, instead of stepping forward and coming up with firm commitments to fight warming, abdicated their responsibility to powerful multi-national corporations.
Corporations were involved in just about every aspect of COP21, including helping to pay for the summit. Meanwhile, a few select non-governmental organizations were permitted only to look over the draft of the agreement at the end of each day. Organizers kept thousands of protestors away from the delegates.
Most of the actions that can come out of the agreement are left to the marketplace, and activities many will be carried out by the same corporations that have polluted the planet.
Incidentally, it was no surprise that none of the words “fossil fuels”, “oil” or “coal” appear in the agreement.
Carbon trading, which allow companies to make huge profits but that are slow to reduce emissions, are looked upon favourably. Because no action was taken against fracking, the practice, which produces highly damaging methane gas, will increase.
Financial institutions are already making large profits from financing many activities related to global warming. The most common funding is for clean energy solutions, underwriting green bonds and structuring catastrophe-linked securities to help clients manage climate change risks.
It is a bitter irony that the banks financed corporations as they destroyed our climate, and now they’ll provide the financing for many of the same companies to try to clean it up.
Rich North betrays developing nations
The lack of substantial outcomes from Paris for countries with the least ability to defend themselves from global warming has caused rifts that may not be overcome for years.
Helen Szoke, of Oxfam Australia, denounced the agreement as “a frayed lifeline to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific Region contribute just 0.3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet residents of many islands have had to leave their homes, and dozens of islands will disappear under water if strong actions to slow emissions in the developed world are not taken.
There was a lot of fancy talk in Paris about transporting millions of tonnes of earth to restore the most threatened islands, but residents aren’t holding their breath.
The strongest condemnation of the Paris agreement came from Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace, one of the world’s most influential environmental groups.
It’s “climate apartheid,” says Naidoo.
“Most of the people in the countries that emitted the most carbon are white and most people in the countries who are paying first and the most are people of colour,” says Naidoo. “There is no doubt in my mind that subliminal racism is at play in these negotiations.”
Environmentalists must pick up the slack
So with governments failing to move ahead the cause of a cleaner environment in any meaningful way, what can be done to pick up the slack?
The world’s many climate change groups need to organize a huge lobby movement – one that can match the power of the fossil fuel industry. The tobacco industry was not brought under some control until it was banned from lobbying governments, and the same needs to happen with the fossil fuel industry.
Across the globe, NGOs, civil society and all kinds of organizations need to work together lobbying all levels of government. It seems they may be the only segments of society – for now at least – willing to fight for climate justice.
A Different Point of View....: Climate controls ‘slip slidin’ away’ following weak Paris agreement
“World agrees to historic climate accord” The Toronto Star. “Nearly 200 countries agree to historic pact in Paris to reduce emissions and fight climate change” The Vancouver Sun. “Climate deal: World praises France’s diplomacy, showing it’s still a master of the art”The Winnipeg Free Press. With these headlines appearing in
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Climate controls ‘slip slidin’ away’ following weak Paris agreement
“World agrees to historic climate accord” The Toronto Star.“Nearly 200 countries agree to historic pact in Paris to reduce emissions and fight climate change” The Vancouver Sun. “Climate deal: World praises France’s diplomacy,…
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Fossil fuel lobby seen as main threat to meaningful progress in Paris
- Instead of governments taxing emitters – a simple and inexpensive system to operate – corporations want to create a world market where polluters and investors can buy and sell carbon credits. They claim the system would help spur investments in low-carbon energy However, this system has worked poorly in Europe and is vulnerable to abuse.
- The fossil fuel industry wants governments and the public to acknowledge natural gas as a “clean energy source.” This would result in significant increases of fracking in many parts of the world. It’s true that gas, when burnt, has low emissions, but the fracking process leaks methane into the atmosphere, which is 80 times worse than carbon.
- The ‘net zero’ proposal: Rather than attempting to reduce emissions to zero, ’net zero’ means that some emissions can keep rising. The industry says this would be offset in the future via the removal of emissions from the atmosphere when yet-to-be developed technologies make the removal possible.
- According to Shell, going to net zero would allow them to keep burning fossil fuels for the rest of this Century. This would be balanced off by the – so far – theoretical removal of carbon from the atmosphere at some point in the future.
While public interest groups will be kept mainly on the sidelines, corporations are being allowed to hold at least 10 special events for government officials. Names of some of the sessions: “Business and Climate: A positive revolution for companies?”; “The Future is Looking Up”; and “Energy for Tomorrow.”
A Different Point of View....: Fossil fuel lobby seen as main threat to meaningful progress in Paris
In the early-1950s, when it became widely known that smoking caused cancer, giant tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Industry Research Council (TIRC). Its main goal was to deny the harmful effects of tobacco and confuse the public. The tobacco lobby wormed its way into the United Nations’ World Health Organization
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Fossil fuel lobby seen as main threat to meaningful progress in Paris
In the early-1950s, when it became widely known that smoking caused cancer, giant tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Industry Research Council (TIRC). Its main goal was to deny the harmful effects of tobacco and confuse the public. The tobacco lobby …
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Keystone XL: The Last Six Years, By The Numbers
On the six-year anniversary of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline proposal, 350.org highlights some of the facts and figures associated with the dangerous tar sands project. The post Keystone XL: The Last Six Years, By The Numbers appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue reading350 or bust: Signs Of Change
I’ve been blogging about climate change since my conversion from being a climate change avoider to a climate activist/fossil fuel abolitionist in the fall of 2009. As a climate change avoider, I never watched An Inconvenient Truth; after all, it might be inconvenient to have to face my fear or
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Corporate money preventing all-outcampaign to stop global warming
Highly-regarded former Toronto Mayor David Miller says he is “very excited” about becoming the new President and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund-Canada in September. “They’ve made such a difference,” Miller told The Toronto Star, “and to be part of an organization that knows how to make real change is
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Public comments prove Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is all risk, no reward
By: 350.org | Press Release: WASHINGTON – April 23, 2013 – Opponents of Keystone XL have submitted more than one million comments urging President Obama, Secretary Kerry and the State Department following the publication of the latest deficient environmental review urging that the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline be rejected. Across
Continue reading350 or bust: This Earth Day, Let’s Focus On Saving Humans
It’s a snowy and cold Earth Day morning in northwestern Ontario. On this Earth Day, Joe Romm over at Think Progress muses about renaming Earth Day – after all, it’s really humans and our civilization that is in peril at this point by our feckless, reckless and cavalier treatment of
Continue reading350 or bust: Let’s Stop Being Fossil Fools, And Just Say No To Bankrolling Climate Change
Via Fossil Free Canada: What do you call an industry that is planning to cook the planet? An industry responsible for destroying land, polluting the air and water, and violating the rights of people around the world? An industry who’s business model means burning over three times the amount of
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis: ‘Senate’s Big Oil Benefactors’ Slammed for Keystone XL Vote
10 KXL amendment co-sponsors took $8 million from fossil fuel industry By: Jacob Chamberlain and Jon Queally | Common Dreams In a 62-37 vote late Friday, the US Senate passed a non-binding amendment calling for the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Environmental groups and climate activists were quick to condemn
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Keystone XL pipeline: Leaders in historical act of civil disobedience in front of White House
48 environmental, civil rights, and community leaders engage in historic act of civil disobedience to stop Keystone XL pipeline. Julian Bond, Bill McKibben, Michael Brune, and others arrested in front of White House in call for action on climate. By Sierra Club | Feb. 13, 2013: WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, 48 environmental,
Continue readingdrive-by planet: DC rally on climate-change Feb 17: threats posed by tar sands and Keystone XL pipeline
This Sunday, February 17, one of the largest rallies ever held in the US on climate-change will take place in front of the White House. The Sierra Club, 350.org, together with over a hundred partners have helped organize the DC event. Key goals include decisive action on carbon pollution, increased
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: 60 Groups urge Kerry to continue strong leadership on climate change
New Secretary of State positioned to advance American climate leadership, should deny the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline By 350.org | Feb. 6, 2013: WASHINGTON – Sixty leading environmental, conservation, development, faith-based, and social justice organizations are congratulating Secretary of State John Kerry for his commitment to fight climate change and
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