Glasgow COP26
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Failing promises again
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by 6.2% from 2020 levels last year as the use of coal-fired electricity jumped 17%.
Emissions growth outpaced the rate of economic recovery
We told you so
Promises made at the Cop26 summit to prevent the climate emergency are at risk without urgent action, its president Alok Sharma is warning. Just three months after the landmark summit, there is a danger that the vital pledges made will “wither on the vine”, the cabinet minister will say.
“We will have mitigated no risks. Seized no opportunities. We will have fractured the trust built between nations. And 1.5 degrees will slip from our grasp.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/danger-climate-promises-made-cop26-105219043.html
China’s ambitious low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of energy and food security or the “normal life” of ordinary people, President Xi Jinping said.
“Reducing emissions is not about reducing productivity, and it is not about not emitting at all,”
US coalmining giant Peabody Energy has repeatedly submitted incorrect greenhouse gas emissions reports to the Australian government, prompting questions about the reliability of national climate data based on company assessments. Annica Schoo, the lead environmental investigator at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said there were “more and more examples” of companies submitting emissions data that did not stand up to scrutiny. It follows Dutch scientists examining satellite imagery and finding the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leaking from some Queensland coalmines was greater than has been reported.
Schoo said the company reports lodged with the regulator were used to help fulfil Australia’s international obligations under several treaties, including the Paris climate agreement, and as part of the government’s annual projections of future emissions.
“The accuracy of this data is critical to getting on top of the climate crisis. The lack of care Peabody has shown is completely unacceptable,” she said.
Another sign of the crumbling COP26 pledges
The Abigail oil and gas field off the east coast of Scotland was quietly approved by the government’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) last month, defying climate experts who warned at the Glasgow conference in November that no new fossil fuel developments would be compatible with the world’s climate targets.
Was COP26 worth it?
Holding the Philippines and other countries across Southeast Asia back from phasing out coal sooner is a rigid financing model that guarantees coal plants stay active for decades at a time.
Under power purchase agreements (PPAs), which are in widespread use across the region, utility companies pay coal plants to generate power for a 20 to 30 year period irrespective of external factors – a scenario known as a “coal lock-in”.
The world’s biggest companies are failing to meet their own targets on tackling climate change, according to a study of 25 corporations. They also routinely exaggerate or misreport their progress, the New Climate Institute report says.
Study author Thomas Day said his team originally wanted to discover good practices in the corporate world, but they were “frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies’ claims”.
Were socialists surprised?
New greenfield housing developments are locking residents into car dependency, making everyday journeys impossible without a vehicle, a new report has found. Meanwhile, pledges for walking, cycling and public transport are often left unfulfilled.
Greenfield sites were often far from shops and amenities, without public transport, cycling links or even pavements, and the homes themselves were seemingly designed around car parking.
Surface transport is responsible for 22% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Steve Chambers, a campaigner at TfNH, told the Guardian: “We have found places where you can’t do anything without getting into a car; you literally cannot do anything. There is nothing within walking distance, there’s nothing within safe cycling distance, and for work, for going to the shop; for everything you can imagine, you need to get in the car.
“The impact of that is that houses are being designed around two and three parking spaces with tiny back gardens, no front gardens whatsoever, and that poor design obviously crowds out walking, cycling, and basically good homes.”
“There isn’t even the most basic public transport in a lot of places. There isn’t even a bus route, which is clearly an issue.”
Another COP fail
“Climate-friendly” Norway castigated
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/02/10/norway-claims-be-climate-leader-its-mirage
Frode Pleym of Greenpeace Norway added: “Norway is a poster child for climate hypocrisy. Every new exploration well and every new oil field that Norway allows undermines a well-planned just transition and is a step closer to climate chaos. Investments need to be redirected to scale up new, green industries across the country and ensuring a just transition so that every worker can retrain and move into a good green job.”
The number of trees cut down in the Brazilian Amazon in January far exceeded deforestation for the same month last year
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60333422
“The new data yet again exposes how the government’s actions contradict its greenwashing campaigns,” explains Cristiane Mazzetti of Greenpeace Brazil.
What was the whole point of it?
Europe’s biggest banks led by HSBC, Barclays and BNP Paribas have provided £24bn to oil and gas companies that are expanding production less than a year since pledging to target net zero carbon emissions.
25 banks that signed up to reduce emissions have provided $33bn (£24bn) in loans and other financing to 50 companies with large oil and gas expansion plans.
News that reveal the failure of COP26 keeps arriving almost daily.
The government is considering licences for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, under pressure from backbench MPs and media commentators, who claim new fossil fuel development is needed to reduce energy bills.
But the additional greenhouse gas emissions from developing new oil and gas fields, as existing wells are depleted, would bust the UK’s carbon budgets and set the world on course to exceed the limit of 1.5C targeted at last year’s Cop26
Daniel Welsby, a research fellow at UCL said for the government to justify licensing new fossil fuels, ministers would have to be able to persuade other countries to reduce their production.
“There is no need for new oil and gas fields in the UK,” he told the Guardian. “For the UK to produce more oil and gas, another oil producer would need to keep their oil and gas in the ground.”
Biden’s Broken Promises. Why did he bother turning up in Glasgow?
1. Held the biggest-ever offshore oil drilling lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico
2. Permitted more drilling on public lands in the West and in Alaska than Trump did in his first year
3. Failed to advance a climate legislative agenda
4. Faltered in quickly reinstating rules
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/16/down-to-earth-joe-biden-climate
The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, equivalent to 2% of global GDP, is directly working against the goals of the Paris agreement.
From tax breaks for beef production in the Amazon to financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, billions of pounds of government spending and other subsidies are harming the environment.
The fossil fuel industry ($620bn), the agricultural sector ($520bn), water ($320bn) and forestry ($155bn) account for the majority of the $1.8tn. No estimate for mining, believed to cause billions of dollars of damage to ecosystems every year, could be derived.
According to a peer-reviewed study, in the journal PLOS One, focused on two American companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, as well as two European ones, BP and Shell, researchers at a pair of Japanese universities reviewed data from 2009 to 2020, examining the firms’ keyword use in annual reports; business strategies; and production, expenditures, and earnings for fossil fuels along with investments in clean energy.
“We found a strong increase in discourse related to ‘climate,’ ‘low-carbon,’ and ‘transition,’ especially by BP and Shell,” the paper states. “Similarly, we observed increasing tendencies toward strategies related to decarbonization and clean energy. But these are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions.”
“Moreover, the financial analysis reveals a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels along with insignificant and opaque spending on clean energy,” the study adds. “We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse.”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263596#ack
Another big F for COP26
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