Category Archives: Greenhouse gas emissions

Wealthy nations urged to meet $100bn climate finance goal

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Countries must close gap on funding target for developing countries says European Commission president

The European Commission president has urged wealthy countries to close the gap to meet a $100bn annual climate finance target for developing nations a year earlier than expected.

Speaking before crucial meetings on the climate emergency at the G20, and at the UN Cop26 talks, the president, Ursula von der Leyen, said rich countries had “to try harder” to close the shortfall in climate finance.

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The make-or-break climate summit: here’s what’s at stake at Cop26

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If leaders in Glasgow do not act to ratchet up carbon cutting, the alternative is a dialling up of calamitous global heating

Cop26 may involve dozens of world leaders, cost billions of pounds, generate reams of technical jargon and be billed as the last chance to prevent calamitous global heating, but at its simplest the climate conference in Glasgow is a debate about dialling up or dialling down risk.

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Australian politics live: Scott Morrison heads to Rome for G20 before climate summit

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Prime minister is flying to Europe amid global criticism of his plan for Australia to reach a net zero emissions target. Follow all the day’s news

McKinsey, a consulting company paid to advise on the vaccine rollout before receiving another contract to advise on the government’s net zero 2050 commitment, is now being paid to advise on how to cut down on waiting times for veterans waiting for their benefits.

From estimates overnight:

To mark this new chapter, Australia will invest $154 million into our cooperation with Asean through:

· a new Australia for ASEAN Futures Initiative, which will provide $124 million to support projects that address complex challenges including health security, terrorism and transnational crime, energy security, promoting the circular economy and healthy oceans, and support implementation of the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP);

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What’s the beef with cows and the climate crisis?

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Reducing methane emissions is seen as the biggest opportunity for slowing global heating by 2040

About a third of human-caused methane emissions come from livestock, mostly from beef and dairy cattle, produced in the digestive process that allows ruminants (hoofed animals including cows, sheep and goats with four-part stomachs) to absorb plants.

Cows and other farm animals produce about 14% of human-induced climate emissions, and it is methane from their burps and manure that is seen as both the biggest concern and best opportunity for tackling global heating.

Although methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions has been touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to slow global heating ahead of the Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow.

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Australia politics live news: government faces net zero ‘plan’ fallout; Covid vaccine booster shots approved; overseas travel for fully vaccinated

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Question time tackles climate policy as PM faces mounting criticism over roadmap for reducing emissions by 2050; vaccine booster program to begin from 8 November; 16 Covid deaths in Victoria and NSW; international travel exemption scrapped for vaccinated Australians; national child abuse prevention strategy announced. Follow all the day’s news

The UN Environment Programme’s latest emissions gap report is out and it makes for sobering reading. The accompanying statement includes this:

Alok Sharma, incoming COP26 President, said the report underlined why countries need to show ambitious climate action at COP26:

“As this report makes clear, if countries deliver on their 2030 NDCs and net zero commitments which have been announced by the end of September, we will be heading towards average global temperature rises of just above 2C.

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World has wasted chance to build back better after Covid, UN says

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Report says countries must strengthen climate ambitions after wasting chance to build back better after Covid

The world is squandering the opportunity to “build back better” from the Covid-19 pandemic, and faces disastrous temperature rises of at least 2.7C if countries fail to strengthen their climate pledges, according to a report from the UN.

Tuesday’s publication warns that countries’ current pledges would reduce carbon by only about 7.5% by 2030, far less than the 45% cut scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, the aim of the Cop26 summit that opens in Glasgow this Sunday.

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Boom time for Cape Verde’s sea turtles as conservation pays off

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The number of nesting sites on the archipelago has risen dramatically, but global heating sees male population plummet

It’s nearly midnight as Delvis Semedo strolls along an empty beach on the Cape Verdean island of Maio. Overhead, the dense Milky Way pierces the darkness. A sea turtle emerges from the crashing waves and lumbers up the shore. Then another. And another.

Semedo is one of about 100 local people who patrol Maio’s beaches each night during nesting season to collect data on the turtles and protect them from poachers. This year has been busier than usual. Sea turtle nests on the islands of Sal, Maio and Boa Vista – the primary nesting grounds for loggerheads in Cape Verde – have soared in the last five years. Cape Verde’s environment ministry puts nest numbers in 2020 across all 10 islands at almost 200,000, up from 10,725 in 2015.

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Australia news live update: Scott Morrison unveils details of 2050 net zero plan; Victoria premier outlines new pandemic laws

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Prime minister gives press conference on Australia’s commitments to climate action; Daniel Andrews explains new measures; Victoria confirms four Covid deaths overnight, NSW one death – follow all the day’s news

The estimates hearings today cover off the same committees as yesterday:

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Climate crisis: greenhouse gas levels hit new record despite lockdowns, UN reports

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The data send a ‘stark’ message to the nations tasked with increasing action at the Cop26 climate summit, UN meteorology chief says

Levels of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere hit record levels in 2020, despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization has announced.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is now 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution sparked the mass burning of fossil fuels. Methane levels have more than doubled since 1750. All key greenhouse gases (GHG) rose faster in 2020 than the average for the previous decade and this trend has continued in 2021, the WMO report found.

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London drivers ditching diesel cars six times faster than rest of UK

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Abandoning of polluting vehicles has accelerated since expansion of ultra-low emission zone announced

Drivers in London have abandoned diesel cars six times faster than those in the rest of the UK since Sadiq Khan announced plans for a massive expansion of the London’s clean air zone.

Research released days before London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is rolled out across the capital shows there are about 128,000 fewer diesel cars on the city’s roads than in 2017, when the mayor announced plans to create one of the biggest clean air zones in Europe.

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No formal Cop26 role for big oil amid doubts over firms’ net zero plans

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Officials from fossil fuel firms may attend fringe events but campaigners hail lack of official role

Fossil fuel firms have been given no official role in the Cop26 climate summit, it can be revealed, against a background of growing concern among UK officials that big oil’s net zero plans do not stack up.

Private emails from civil servants in the Cop unit, seen by the Guardian, show doubts about one oil major’s net zero plans, with an official saying BP “[does] not currently fit our success criteria for Cop26” and another noting “it’s unclear whether [its net zero] commitments stack up yet”.

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‘Case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans

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Trawl of 90,000 studies finds consensus, leading to call for Facebook and Twitter to curb disinformation

The scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

The degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies. This means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather.

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Malcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’

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Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writes

The United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.

To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing.

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Boris Johnson’s climate credibility at stake in run-up to Cop26 summit

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Campaigners fear net zero strategy is being hamstrung by Rishi Sunak, who refuses to provide adequate funding

Boris Johnson faces a significant test of his leadership before the Cop26 climate summit as the chancellor and business secretary are at war over the imminent plan for reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions.

The government is poised to publish its long-awaited net zero strategy on Monday, setting out how the UK will meet its targets to cut CO2 emissions by 78% by 2035 and reach net zero by 2050. This will also include the heat and buildings strategy for insulating draughty homes and phasing out gas boilers, along with a massive expansion of offshore wind, and building electric vehicle charging networks.

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Queen ‘irritated’ by world leaders talking not doing on climate crisis

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Overheard comment suggests anger at possible no-shows at Cop26 by leaders of countries with worst CO2 emissions

The Queen has criticised world leaders’ inaction on addressing the climate crisis, admitting she is “irritated” by individuals who “talk but don’t do”.

She made the remarks, which were picked up on a livestream, at the opening of the Welsh parliament in Cardiff on Thursday.

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UK, US, China: how the world’s carbon ‘centre of gravity’ moved over 200 years

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The geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit atop the UK. Now it sits squarely over China

A new Guardian visualisation reveals how the “centre of gravity” of global emissions has moved over the past 200 years.

The analysis shows how the geographic centre of the world’s carbon emissions used to sit directly atop the UK before being pulled westwards by the US and back towards the east by the rise of China.

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Carbon emissions ‘will drop just 40% by 2050 with countries’ current pledges’

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International Energy Agency says $4tn investment needed over decade to reach net zero target

Current plans to cut global carbon emissions will fall 60% short of their 2050 net zero target, the International Energy Agency has said, as it urged leaders to use the upcoming Cop26 climate conference to send an “unmistakable signal” with concrete policy plans.

In its annual World Energy Outlook, redesigned this year as a “guidebook” for world leaders attending the summit in Glasgow, the IEA predicted that carbon emissions would decrease by just 40% by the middle of the century if countries stick to their climate pledges.

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Australia urged to support Asian Development Bank plan to end fossil fuel financing

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Thirty-five organisations implore Australia, which is ADB’s fifth-largest shareholder, to help the region ‘make a just and equitable low-carbon transition’

The Australian government is being urged to support an end to the financing of fossil fuel projects as the Asian Development Bank prepares to signs off on a new energy policy later this month.

The ADB “will not support coalmining, processing, storage, and transportation, nor any new coal-fired power generation”, according to a draft version of the policy, which also endorses “the early retirement of coal-based power plants”.

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Historical climate emissions reveal responsibility of big polluting nations

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Six of top 10, including China and Russia, yet to show ambition on emissions cuts before Cop26

Analysis of the total carbon dioxide emissions of countries since 1850 has revealed the nations with the greatest historical responsibility for the climate emergency. But six of the top 10 have yet to make ambitious new pledges to cut their emissions before the crucial UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.

The six include China, Russia and Brazil, which come only behind the US as the biggest cumulative polluters. The UK is eighth and Canada is 10th. Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries and the cumulative amount of CO2 emitted is closely linked to the 1.2C of heating the world has already seen.

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Sweden’s green dilemma: can cutting down ancient trees be good for the Earth?

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The country’s model for managing its trees is bad for biodiversity… and political unity

Forest-owner Lars-Erik Levin doesn’t seem like an environmental villain. As he walks through his 80 hectares (198 acres) of woodland in southern Sweden, he identifies goldcrests by their song, points out a cauliflower fungus and shows off the aspen in his wood that grouse feed on. This year he’s picked more than 100kg of chanterelles, and even more bilberries.

But this is the part of the property he manages by so-called continuous cover forestry, where he claims he only fells trees with trunks so thick his arms no longer reach around them. On the other side of his farmhouse is a wide-open space the size of two football pitches, where, five years ago, he cut the forest to the stumps. Little now remains but grass, brambles and young, waist-high spruce. “Animals and birds have legs and wings, they can move a little,” he protests when asked what happened to the wildlife.

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