Category Archives: Greenhouse gas emissions

European Green Deal to press ahead despite Polish targets opt-out

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Poland opts out of 2050 net-zero emissions after hours of wrangling over timetables and money

European Union leaders have vowed to press on with a major economic plan to confront the climate emergency, despite Poland’s opt-out from a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told journalists he had secured an exemption for Poland on the 2050 target, which is meant to become the legally binding centrepiece of the “European Green Deal” , a plan to transform Europe’s economy announced two days ago.

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Australia’s bushfires have emitted 250m tonnes of CO2, almost half of country’s annual emissions

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Exclusive: forest regrowth can reabsorb emissions from fires but scientists fear natural carbon ‘sinks’ have been compromised

Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal.

Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period.

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EU leaders meet to try to agree on carbon neutrality by 2050

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Greenpeace activists unfurl climate emergency banner on Brussels venue before event

European leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels will make a new attempt to set the European Union on course for carbon neutrality by 2050, in a test of the bloc’s credibility on the climate emergency.

Hours before EU leaders were due to arrive on Thursday, Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner on the side of the summit venue warning of the climate emergency.

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European Green Deal will change economy to solve climate crisis, says EU

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Everything from travel to air quality has been looked at in order to create ‘a growth that gives back’

Nearly every major aspect of the European economy is to be re-evaluated in light of the imperatives of the climate and ecological emergency, according to sweeping new plans set out by the European commission on Wednesday.

The comprehensive nature of the European Green Deal – which encompasses the air we breathe to how food is grown, from how we travel to the buildings we inhabit – was set out in a flurry of documents as Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, made her appeal to member states and parliamentarians in Brussels to back the proposals, which would represent the biggest overhaul of policy since the foundation of the modern EU.

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COP25 climate summit: put children at heart of tackling crisis, says UN

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Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock

Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.

Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.

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Daimler to axe at least 10,000 jobs worldwide

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Mercedes-Benz owner bids to slash €1bn from wage bill as industry switches towards electric vehicles

Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler has announced plans to cut at least 10,000 jobs worldwide in the latest sign of stress in the German automotive industry as it invests billions in electric cars.

Daimler, which also makes lorries, vans and buses, said in a statement on Friday it planned to cut “thousands of jobs” by the end of 2022, but later made it clear the toll would be higher.

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Proposed EU-wide ‘climate law’ would set net-zero carbon target by 2050

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Plan is part of ‘green new deal’ but campaigners say it is not enough to tackle climate crisis

The first EU-wide “climate law” would enshrine a legally binding target of reaching net-zero carbon by 2050, and Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions would be halved by 2030, under a set of proposals being discussed by the incoming European commission.

Cars would be subject to new air pollution standards, following the disastrous cheating that allowed diesel pollutants to be masked, and all vehicles may be brought within the EU’s carbon emissions trading scheme, which would affect drivers across the bloc. Three quarters of road transport would have to be moved to rail and inland waterways, and pricing would have to be adjusted to reflect the carbon output of different modes of transport, which is likely to prove controversial.

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‘We have to follow up’: European parliament declares climate emergency – video

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The European parliament has declared a 'climate and environmental emergency' in a symbolic moment when it promised to urge member states to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and push the climate crisis to the top of the EU’s agenda. 

The parliament voted 429-225 with 19 abstentions to use the term 'emergency'. Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European commission, declared this week that the EU would lead the fight against 'the existential threat' of the climate crisis

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‘Our house is on fire’: EU parliament declares climate emergency

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Bloc warned against making symbolic gestures not backed up by concrete action

The European parliament has declared a global “climate and environmental emergency” as it urged all EU countries to commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The vote came as scientists warned that the world may have already crossed a series of climate tipping points, resulting in “a state of planetary emergency”.

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Labour activists call on Corbyn to push radical stance on migration

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Party leader has stressed benefits of immigration, but some fear policy could hurt Labour in Tory seats

Labour activists are urging Jeremy Corbyn to incorporate the radical pro-migration policy passed at the party’s conference into its manifesto this week as the Tories prepare to weaponise the issue in the election battle.

Senior Labour figures are expected to meet on Monday to thrash out the details of the party’s policy, but a final decision will not be made until next weekend.

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‘Greta Thunberg effect’ driving growth in carbon offsetting

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NGOs report fourfold increases in investments in carbon-reducing projects in developing countries

Growing concern about the climate crisis and the “Greta Thunberg effect” are driving huge increases in individuals and businesses choosing to offset their emissions by investing in carbon-reducing projects in developing countries.

NGOs and organisations involved in carbon offsetting have seen as much as a fourfold increase in investment from people who want to try to mitigate their carbon footprints.

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Pollutionwatch: Africa increases its reliance on fossil fuels

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Continent is embarking on a huge expansion of power stations, most of which will burn coal

Last week the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for an end to new coal-fired power plants. Many European countries including the UK and Germany are decreasing their dependence on coal, but this is not the case everywhere. Across Africa many people rely on standby diesel generators to supplement erratic electricity supplies, leading to local air pollution problems and high emissions of climate-heating carbon dioxide.

Although Africa is in a unique position to leapfrog dependence on fossil fuels and utilise abundant renewable sources such as wind and solar, the continent is embarking on a massive expansion of fossil fuel electricity. More than 200 new power stations are planned, the majority of which will burn coal. Power ships – vast floating power stations, some burning highly polluting bunker oil – are already moored in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Mozambique.

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Trump begins year-long process to formally exit Paris climate agreement

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  • Exit will not be final until day after 2020 elections
  • Many organizations are keeping US in climate crisis fight

Donald Trump is moving to formally exit the Paris climate agreement, making the United States the only country in the world that will not participate in the pact, as global temperatures are set to rise 3C and worsening extreme weather will drive millions into poverty.

The paperwork sent by the US government to withdraw begins a one-year process for exiting the deal agreed to at the UN climate change conference in Paris in 2015. The Trump administration will not be able to finalize its exit until a day after the presidential election in November 2020.

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No fly zone: I didn’t catch a plane for a year and saved 19 tonnes of Co2

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A year without air travel taught me the path to carbon neutral won’t be easy, but I learned I could inspire others to act

What is the single thing that you could do that would most reduce your carbon footprint? Take your bike to work rather than your car? Dig up your lawn for a vegetable garden? For me, an academic scientist living and working in Auckland, New Zealand, I reasoned that the most significant thing I could do was to stop flying.

In 2017 I flew 84,000km. I made twenty day trips to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. I travelled to the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to attend conferences and work on joint projects with other scientists. All of this made me accountable for around 19 tonnes of carbon dioxide that year, nearly three times that of the average Kiwi.

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Fracking halted in England in major government U-turn

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Victory for green groups follows damning scientific study and criticism from spending watchdog

The government has halted fracking in England with immediate effect in a watershed moment for environmentalists and community activists.

Ministers also warned shale gas companies it would not support future fracking projects, in a crushing blow to companies that had been hoping to capitalise on one of the new frontiers of growth in the fossil fuel industry.

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Super-rich fuelling growing demand for private jets, report finds

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Growth centred in US and China, with slowdown in Sweden attributed to Greta Thunberg

Almost 8,000 new private jets are expected to be bought by multinational companies and the super-rich over the next decade, each of which will burn 40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights, according to a report by aviation firm Honeywell Aerospace.

About 690 new business jets are expected to take to the skies in 2019, a 9% increase on 2018, as businesses and the wealthy refresh their fleets with fancy new models released by three of the world’s biggest private jet manufacturers.

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Prince Charles calls on City finance to fight climate emergency

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Prince says private sector needs to lead with green investments towards sustainable economy

Prince Charles has called on the City of London to help protect the environment by investing trillions of pounds into green investments which help create a sustainable economy.

In an interview with the Evening Standard the heir to the British throne said big businesses and City investors must drive a rapid decarbonisation of the economy before the environmental crisis becomes “a total catastrophe”.

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Glacial rivers absorb carbon faster than rainforests, scientists find

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‘Total surprise’ discovery overturns conventional understanding of rivers

In the turbid, frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada’s high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, flip the conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions.

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Ocean acidification can cause mass extinctions, fossils reveal

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Carbon emissions make sea more acidic, which wiped out 75% of marine species 66m years ago

Ocean acidification can cause the mass extinction of marine life, fossil evidence from 66m years ago has revealed.

A key impact of today’s climate crisis is that seas are again getting more acidic, as they absorb carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists said the latest research is a warning that humanity is risking potential “ecological collapse” in the oceans, which produce half the oxygen we breathe.

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Britain now G7’s biggest net importer of CO2 emissions per capita, says ONS

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Fall in UK-produced emissions has been offset by those from increase in imported products

Britain has contributed to the global climate emergency by outsourcing its carbon emissions to developing nations, according to official figures, despite managing to weaken the domestic link between fossil fuels and economic growth.

The Office for National Statistics said the UK had become the biggest net importer of carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the G7 group of wealthy nations – outstripping the US and Japan – as a result of buying goods manufactured abroad.

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