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'The Most Dangerous Situation That Humanity Has Ever Faced': Doomsday Clock Now 100 Seconds to Midnight
Citing the worsening nuclear threat and inaction on the climate crisis, scientists issue a historic warning about the risk of global catastrophe.
Jan 22, 2020
"The Doomsday Clock now stands at 100 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous situation that humanity has ever faced. Now is the time to come together--to unite and to act."
"Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers--nuclear war and climate change--that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to respond."
--Bulletin of Atomic Scientist
So said Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders, in a statement from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on Thursday announcing a historic update to the clock, a decades-old symbol for potential global catastrophe.
Robinson, the former president of Ireland and United Nations high commissioner for human rights, urged world leaders "to join us in 2020 as we work to pull humanity back from the brink."
After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Bulletin was founded by University of Chicago scientists who had been involved with the Manhattan Project. Two years later, the group introduced the Doomsday Clock, set at seven minutes to midnight. Midnight represented potential apocalypse based on global nuclear dangers--the closer the hands are to midnight, the higher the threat.
Since 1947, the clock's hands have moved both closer to and further from midnight, reaching 17 minutes to midnight in 1991. In 2018, the hands hit two minutes to midnight for the first time since 1953, after the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear weapons. Last year, the clock stayed there, and Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson welcomed the world to "the new abnormal."
For more than a decade, the Doomsday Clock's setting has reflected the threat posed by nuclear weaponry as well as the human-caused climate crisis. The 2020 statement explained that "humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers--nuclear war and climate change--that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to respond."
"It is 100 seconds to midnight. We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds--not hours, or even minutes," Bronson said Thursday. "It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history of the Doomsday Clock. We now face a true emergency--an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay."
Along with highlighting growing concerns about how "sophisticated, technology-propelled propaganda" is undermining global efforts to address the two key existential threats, this year's statement slammed world leaders for "not responding appropriately to reduce this threat level and counteract the hollowing-out of international political institutions, negotiations, and agreements that aim to contain it."
As the Bulletin put it:
Faced with this daunting threat landscape and a new willingness of political leaders to reject the negotiations and institutions that can protect civilization over the long term, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight--closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing, board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.
Referencing "the new abnormal" introduced last year, the 2020 statement warned, "This dangerous situation remains--and continues to deteriorate." The Bulletin declared that "the need for emergency action is urgent." On the nuclear front, global leaders were urged to reinstate treaties, cut countries' arsenals, limit modernization programs, and "start talks on cyber warfare, missile defenses, the militarization of space, hypersonic technology, and the elimination of battlefield nuclear weapons."
More generally, the Bulletin called for "multilateral discussions aimed at establishing norms of behavior, both domestic and international, that discourage and penalize the misuse of science," emphasizing that "focused attention is needed to prevent information technology from undermining public trust in political institutions, in the media, and in the existence of objective reality itself."
In terms of climate action, the Bulletin urged all countries remain committed to the landmark 2015 Paris agreement. The statement noted that meeting the goals of that accord will require industrialized countries "to curb emissions rapidly, going beyond their initial, inadequate pledges and supporting developing countries so they can leapfrog the entrenched, fossil fuel-intensive patterns."
While the Bulletin broadly encouraged citizens across the globe to pressure their governments to pursue bold policies to avert climate catastrophe, it drew specific attention to the United States, pointing out that in November 2019, President Donald Trump fulfilled his longtime promise to begin the lengthy process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement.
During a press conference in Washington, D.C. to announce the Doomsday Clock update Thursday, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment in global leaders for failing to address these two crises. Ban, now deputy chair of The Elders, warned of the dangers of isolationist policies but also framed the clock's shift as an opportunity for policymakers worldwide to recommit to multilateralism.
Jerry Brown, the current executive chair of the Bulletin, also spoke at the press conference Thursday. He criticized Trump for delivering a speech--at the World Economic Forum's summit for the global elite in Davos, Switzerland--that called for rejecting "alarmists" and "perennial prophets of doom," along with their "predictions of the apocalypse."
Brown, a former Democratic governor of California, also said that U.S. politicians from both major parties have not adequately worked to combat the nuclear and climate threats, and decried "vast, deep, and pervasive complacency" on a societal level.
After summarizing the Bulletin's warnings in a statement Thursday, Brown concluded: "If there's ever a time to wake up, it's now."
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Climate Conferences Are Male, Pale and Stale--It's Time to Bring in Women
By supporting women at all levels, from the village to the global stage, this vital perspective can inform the creation of robust, sustainable and effective solutions to our climate crisis.
Dec 17, 2019
The COP25 climate meeting in Madrid concluded over the weekend. As in past meetings, the talks failed to make much progress on international climate action. And again, the views and needs of women were largely ignored.
Among the aims of the COP, or conference of parties to the Paris Agreement, was working towards "ambitious and gender-inclusive climate action." That is, recognising the need to integrate gender considerations into national and international climate action.
The first step to achieving this aim would be gender parity at international climate conferences such as the Madrid COP. While we don't yet know how many of the 13,000 registered governmental delegates were women, based on past numbers they are unlikely to make up more than a quarter.
This is not the only forum where the experiences of women are ignored. Our research, spanning Kenya, Cambodia and Vanuatu, has found women are working collectively to strengthen their communities in the face of climate change. But their knowledge about climate risk is dismissed by scientists and political leaders.
Bridging climate awareness
When women are excluded from local and national-level governance, the absence of their voices at regional and global levels, such as COP meetings, is virtually assured.
Our work across Africa, Asia and the Pacific found scientists - generally male - lack awareness of the knowledge women hold about the local consequences of climate change. At the same time, those women had little access to scientific research.
When women are excluded from local and national-level governance, the absence of their voices at regional and global levels, such as COP meetings, is virtually assured.
In places where the labour is divided by gender, women and men learn different things about the environment.
Though the women in our research generally did not know about government policies or programs on climate change and disaster risk reduction, they were very aware of environmental change. In Kenya, the pastoralist women we spoke to are acutely aware of the link between their physical insecurity and extreme drought.
As droughts become more intense, pastoral communities who depend on livestock and grazing land are severely impacted. The loss of livestock can trigger communal conflicts and displacements as violence is used in retaliation for cattle rustling.
Moreover, given the prevailing practice of "bride prices" among pastoral households, early marriages for young women and girls are a way to secure cattle. Despite laws against female genital mutilation in Kenya, it is practised to secure higher bride prices, due to beliefs that the practice makes girls more valuable.
This everyday knowledge is crucial for identifying the full risk posed by climate change. However, women told us their knowledge was not always recognised within their communities - let alone at the national level. They blamed this on discrimination against women taking up decision-making roles, poverty and gender-based violence which dissuades women and girls from participating.
Valuing women
Even when countries have policies for gender equality in climate change responses, that doesn't mean women are actually given an equal voice. According to female community leaders and women working in government and non-government organisations in Cambodia, Kenya and Vanuatu, gender equality issues in climate change policies tend to be confined to "women-only programs."
Even when countries have policies for gender equality in climate change responses, that doesn't mean women are actually given an equal voice.
Gender inclusion is primarily addressed in social welfare programs, rather than ministries responsible for energy, meteorology, land and natural resources.
To address these gaps, we need to to take women's varied expertise seriously. This begins with supporting their leadership within communities and villages.
Women's access to education and careers in climate-relevant sciences is also crucial. Ideally, this will progressively bring in broader groups of women and girls to participate in climate change decision-making.
Climate change action
Our research found programs for mitigating climate change are also perfect opportunities to support peace, community development and women's rights.
In Kenya, for example, one member of a women's network responding to drought and conflict told us: "[W]e support each other. We want a collective voice because then we have more power.
These networks help women with female-specific issues, such as natural disasters that make women extremely vulnerable to abuse from men.
But even in day-to-day life, these forums are valuable for women who would otherwise be barred from political activism. In areas where authoritarian rule or discriminatory customs limit democratic spaces, women's networks for climate response are a rare opportunity for public deliberation on policy-making.
Global evidence now shows environmental projects are more effective when gender considerations are taken into account. Our research adds to this knowledge base by documenting how women's networks mobilise in response to climate change.
For example, the Women I Tok Tok Tugeta (Women Talk Together) network in Vanuatu has created a Women's Weather Watch that provides early warning of disasters.
It also makes clear that relying on scientific knowledge or technological solutions alone will be insufficient in these complex environments, where climate change, gender discrimination and conflict all come together.
When we look at COP25, we can't help but mourn the lack of women's knowledge from the countries most affected by climate change. By supporting women at all levels, from the village to the global stage, this vital perspective can inform the creation of robust, sustainable and effective solutions to our climate crisis.
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'We Need Total System Change': A Letter from Santiago, Chile
Without mass grassroots awareness and collective action, without a political revolution—the billionaires and corporations will destroy us all.
Dec 15, 2019
Defying the machinations of discredited President Sebastian Pinera--who abruptly cancelled the Global Climate Summit in Santiago, Chile in reaction to the nationwide grassroots uprising that erupted here on October 18--an intrepid band of North and South American farmers, food activists and climate campaigners, under the banner of Regeneration International, came together in the Chilean capital of Santiago to share experiences and ideas, and to develop a common strategy for reversing global warming and resolving the other burning issues that are pressing down on us.
With global attention focused on Madrid, which hosted the December 2-13 official COP 25 Climate Summit after Chile pulled out, a number of us decided nevertheless to hold our own North and South America mini-summit here, expressing our solidarity with the Chilean people's epic struggle, and, at the same time, giving some of the best practitioners and campaigners in the Regeneration Movement the opportunity to focus on what's holding us back and how we can most quickly move forward.
More and more people in Madrid this week, and all over the world, are finally talking about how regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration can sequester large amounts of excess atmospheric carbon in soils, trees and plants, while providing other valuable ecological, public health, and economic benefits.
Yet overall progress is still too slow. We need total system change, and a Regenerative Revolution--now--if we hope to turn things around in time.
Accelerating public awareness and movement-building
Public awareness of how photosynthesis works, of what agroecology and agroforestry mean, of how healthy plants and trees and properly grazed livestock draw down and sequester significant amounts of carbon in the soil, of how Big Food and Big Ag's chemical and fossil fuel-intensive food system is a major factor driving global warming and poverty, is still in the early stages--as is public awareness of the multiple benefits of regenerative food, farming and land use.
Most climate activists are still focused narrowly on reducing fossil fuel use. They are still ignoring the fact that it will take both a rapid conversion to renewable energy and a massive drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (especially here in the Global South) if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
Most climate activists are still focused narrowly on reducing fossil fuel use. They are still ignoring the fact that it will take both a rapid conversion to renewable energy and a massive drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (especially here in the Global South) if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2030, (and net negative emissions from 2030-2050) as called for by the Sunrise Movement and Bernie Sanders in the U.S., and by various national and international coalitions for a Green New Deal.
But in order to gain critical mass, political power and sufficient resources--North and South--we have no choice but to move beyond single-issue campaigns and minor reforms to building a qualitatively stronger and more diverse Movement. To head off catastrophe and bring the world's corporate criminals and fascist politicians to heel, we must unite all the different currents of our local-to-global resistance. We must create a world-changing synergy between our myriad demands and constituencies for economic justice, social equity and renewable energy and our demands for radical and regenerative transformations in our food, farming, forestry and land-use policies.
Gaining political power
Unfortunately, many organic and agro-ecological farmers, food and consumer organizations, and anti-GMO and anti-factory farm activists are still either apolitical, or afraid of being called "radical."
For example, too many organic consumers and farmers in the U.S. are still questioning why they should support revolutionary change, such as a multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal, or a radical presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders, who is calling for political revolution (eco-social justice, universal health care, and free public education), as well as renewable energy and a new food system based upon organic regenerative practices.
What many of our well-meaning but often naive, timid or overly pessimistic compatriots fail to understand is that without a radical shift in political power and public policies, including finance policies--facilitating a massive infusion of public money and private investments--our growing organic and regeneration revolution will likely shrivel up and die on the vine. And of course such a dramatic cultural and political transformation will be possible only with the massive participation and leadership of youth, women, African-Americans, Latinos and workers, carrying out a Ballot Box Revolution that includes, but is not limited to, our life-or-death food, farming and climate imperatives.
Ten to 25 percent market share for organic and local food and grass-fed meat and animal products by 2030 is better than what we have now, but it's not going to make much difference on a burnt planet. Our planetary house, as Greta Thunberg reminded us once again this week in Madrid, is on fire.
Without mass grassroots awareness and collective action, without a political revolution, as well as an energy and farming revolution and a massive influx of funds, public and private, the business-as-usual machinations of the billionaires, the multinational corporations (Bayer/Monsanto, Cargill, JBS, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Facebook, Google et al) and the one percent will drive us past the point of no return and destroy us all.
In order to replicate and scale up the game-changing, carbon-sequestering regenerative food, farming and ecosystem restoration practices that are finally taking root and spreading across the Americas and the planet--these include bio-intensive organic, agroecology, holistic grazing, agroforestry, permaculture, reforestation and biochar--we need all of the major drivers of regeneration to be operating in synergy and at full power.
As we affirmed in our Regeneration International General Assembly meeting on December 10 in Santiago:
Given the unprecedented and accelerating global-scale climate emergency that is upon us, global governments and civil society must rapidly prioritize, invest in, and scale up the following:
- Public education on climate and regeneration and a sharp focus on grassroots movement-building
- Rapid expansion of existing regenerative agriculture practices that promote ecosystem restoration, carbon-capture in soils, and food security
- Reorientation of public policies to support regenerative agricultural practices and ecosystem restoration
- Reorientation of economic priorities to facilitate a massive increase in public and private investment in regenerative practices..."
Despite the continuing bad news on the climate front, and the rise of authoritarian and fascist regimes in South America and across the world, our counterparts here in Santiago have been very happy to hear about some of the recent positive developments in North America, including the growing support for a Green New Deal and the campaign of Bernie Sanders for president, as well as the growth of radical, youth-led, direct action groups such as the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for the Future.
In the short span of 12 months, the Green New Deal Resolution in the U.S. has gained massive support from disenfranchised youth, minority communities, embattled working class constituencies, the food movement and climate activists. The resolution, according to a number of polls, now has the support of more than 60 percent of the population, despite increasingly frantic opposition by Trump, the corporate mass media and the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, represented by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and billionaires like Michael Bloomberg.
The growing understanding that we need "System Change," i.e. a political revolution, in the U.S. if we are to stop climate change and resolve our other burning crises, is echoed in the call for a "Fourth Transformation" in Mexico, in the growing movement for the overthrow of the climate-denying, Amazon-burning, fascist Bolsonaro junta in Brazil (ditto Bolivia, Honduras, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, et al), and now the thunderous demand from all sectors of the population for a New Constitution and a democratic revolution in Chile.
Taking it to the streets
Marching and chanting with our Chilean brothers and sisters along riot-scarred streets in central Santiago, past an astonishing number of smashed-up billboards, burnt-out subway stations, battered storefronts, broken traffic lights, boarded-up banks, hotels and businesses, it's clear that elite control and "business as usual," at least here in Chile, is no longer tolerable. Along the major thoroughfares such as Avenida Providencia, neighborhood or family-owned businesses, "somos pyme" have generally been spared, while colonial monuments, government buildings, Starbucks, McDonald's, Oxxo, Domino's Pizza the Crown Plaza Hotel, and other symbols of multinational control and consumerism have been spray painted, smashed and vandalized.
Supposedly prosperous Chile--the Latin America "free market" jewel of U.S. foreign policy (where President Nixon, Kissinger, AT&T and the CIA overthrew the democratic socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973)--today has the surreal feeling of a post-modern dystopia. Block after block, mile after mile, with anti-government youth directing traffic at many of the intersections, every wall of the central city is covered with messages of resistance and solidarity, including heartbreaking photos of young protesters (my son's age) murdered, blinded (the Carbineri have reportedly been deliberately shooting rubber bullets into the eyes of protestors) and imprisoned.
Chile's workers, indigenous Mapuches, farmers and the once-middle class, led by youth and students, are rising up against the one percent, despite tremendous repression.
Meanwhile the glaciers that supply much of Chile's water and agriculture are melting. Record-breaking temperatures, forest fires and drought are spreading here and throughout Latin America. Last Sunday, just as thousands of young protestors on bicycles converged on President Pineda's mansion calling for his resignation and a new Constitution, a massive wildfire broke out on one of the seriously deforested and parched mountains surrounding the city. The scene reminded me of what's happening in California, and even now in the Boreal forests of Canada and Alaska.
Our collective house, our politics and our climate, are all on fire. As India activist Arundhati Roy said:
"It is becoming more and more difficult to communicate the scale of the crisis even to ourselves. An accurate description runs the risk of sounding like hyperbole...
The hour is late. The crisis is dire. But as those of us in the Regeneration Movement understand, heart and mind, we've still got time to turn things around. But the time to act, to educate, to build stronger movements, to scale up our best practices, to gain political power, is now.
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US Denounced as 'Threat to Humanity' as COP25 Ends Without Deal on Big Polluters' Responsibility to Frontline Nations
"This year the masses mobilized, but our political leaders refused to rise above their own little agendas."
Dec 14, 2019
Climate action advocates who had spent two weeks demanding action from the COP 25 climate summit emerged from the conference Sunday stunned and angry over its conclusion, which was deemed a "lost opportunity" by the United Nations secretary-general.
Because of the refusal of some of the world's wealthiest countries to commit to more ambitious targets to reduce their climate-warming carbon emissions, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation, and finance to tackle the climate crisis."
As Common Dreams reported Saturday, the summit was intended to wrap up Friday but negotiations lasted two extra days as delegations debated provisions for carbon markets.
The final deal acknowledged there was a "significant gap" between countries' pledges to reduce their carbon emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and government's ability to achieve that reduction.
Countries were urged in the final text to honor their emissions-reduction commitments, but high-polluting countries including China, India, and the U.S. argued they saw no need to set more ambitious reduction plans for themselves.
In the final hours of negotiations, Papua New Guinea's climate envoy, Kevin Conrad, told Euronews, "90% of the participants have not been involved in this process."
Developing countries especially took issue with the absence of language that the U.S. successfully stonewalled, which would have addressed how the U.S. should be held liable to island nations for the damage the climate crisis has already caused to them, thanks in part to the activities of the world's biggest carbon emitter historically.
The Tuvalu delegation reportedly said Sunday that the United States' refusal to compensate other countries for loss and damage "could be considered a crime against humanity."
"Unfortunately, the new text we adopted this morning does not reflect anything near what we would have wanted. It is the bare minimum and we regret that countries could not agree on a more ambitious text," said Tina Eonemto Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands.
"With 11 months remaining, only some of the most vulnerable countries are showing the leadership and responsibility required to keep global temperature rise below 1.5C. This contrasts with the countries and actors most responsible for the climate crisis that have shown they have no intention of solving it," said Sebastien Duyck, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
On social media, observers denounced the U.S. and other wealthy countries which had demonstrated, one critic said, that "the first civilization casualty of the climate crisis is government."
The global climate action group Friends of the Earth (FOE) noted that the failure to reach a final agreement on carbon markets could be seen as a small victory.
Several larger countries wanted language allowing carbon markets to "offset" instead of cut emissions, but the debate was pushed to next year's COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.
The decision to put the provision off was made "despite a last minute attempt by developed countries and a few big developing countries to push through a destructive deal that would have flooded the system with old carbon credits and opened the door to huge new trading mechanisms," said Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator for FOE. "This is a small victory, with an even bigger fight ahead into COP 26 next year."
"The bad news is virtually everything else--there is no new finance for loss and damage for developing countries hit hard by climate change, nor is there any agreed provision of long term climate finance," she added.
In the coming year and at Glasgow next year, as the Paris climate accord officially goes into effect, countries must decide whether they want to stand on the side of millions of campaigners who have demonstrated at climate strikes on a weekly basis for over a year and of countries which are bearing the brunt of the climate emergency's effects--or of big polluters.
"World leaders have a clear choice: stand by the blockers of progress such as the United States and Brazil that prioritize the profits of the fossil fuel polluters and big agribusiness over the well-being of their citizens, or listen to the voices of their people; the scientific community; and youth, indigenous, labor, business, environmental, social justice, faith and other leaders working hard to create a better world for current and future generations," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"It's time to choose."
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In Final Hours, COP 25 Denounced as 'Utter Failure' as Deal Is Stripped of Ambition and US Refuses to Accept Liability for Climate Crisis
"The only thing more disastrous than the state of UN climate negotiations at COP 25 is the state of the global climate."
Dec 13, 2019
After the COP 25 talks on the Paris climate agreement went into overtime Friday night amid a stalled agreement on wealthy countries' contributions to greatly reducing climate-warming carbon emissions, civil society groups and climate scientists were shocked by the weak language that emerged from the late-night talks on Saturday.
The latest text includes an "invitation" for countries to communicate their mid-term and long-term climate plans, and the majority of delegations, which attempted to push countries including the U.S. towards ambitious climate targets, were unable Saturday to sway the U.S. away from language regarding carbon markets.
Nearly 100 civil society organizations on Saturday released a joint statement condemning the U.S., Australia, the E.U., and other wealthy countries that emit much of the carbon that's warming the planet, for insisting on a deal "only for the corporate elites, while damning people and the planet."
As of Saturday, civil society groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Oil Change International, and Friends of the Earth said, the deal that had been hammered out by the parties included an agenda brought by big polluters "straight to the halls of the U.N." with the help of countries "historically most responsible for the climate crisis."
"From the Amazon to the Arctic, our world is on fire. Allowing expansion of coal, oil and gas production at this moment of history is throwing gasoline on the fire." --70+ civil society organizations
At the behest of fossil fuel corporations, they said, wealthy countries are insisting on using carbon markets to "offset" instead of cut emissions, and "nature based solutions," which the civil society groups said is likely a euphemism for "large scale biomass burning, carbon storage technologies, the commodification of the ocean"--which will contribute to deforestation and displace food production.
The U.S. is also reportedly still objecting to provisions that would hold it liable for the destruction the climate crisis has already wreaked in island nations.
The deal as it stands would "condemn those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, while hiding the crimes of polluters," said the groups. "And it would lead to increased inequality with no increase in ambition, no real emissions reductions, and no pathway to 1.5 [degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.]"
The COP 25 summit approached its end after demonstrators staged sit-ins and other protests, with security officials barring about 200 campaigners from the talks after they staged a sit-in. The demonstrators followed in the footsteps of the global climate strike which have drawn millions in the past year.
"I've been attending these climate negotiations since they first started in 1991," Alden Meyer, director of strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the BBC. "But never have I seen the almost total disconnect we've seen here at COP25 in Madrid between what the science requires and the people of the world demand, and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action."
Other critics on social media wrote that the talks had descended into "disarray," with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling them an "utter failure."
"This is nothing less than a breakdown in the Paris Agreement. This is not climate leadership, this is a betrayal of humanity and future generations," tweeted climate scientist Eric Holthaus.
"What's happening today at COP 25 is a clear and present threat to civilization itself," Holthaus added. "The Trump administration and its fossil fuel allies around the world have sabotaged the Paris Agreement--the only global treaty we have to fight climate change. This is a betrayal of humanity."
Catherine Abreu of Climate Action Network Canada was among those who spoke at the People's Closing Plenary Saturday afternoon, where people from marginalized and frontline groups decried the breakdown of the conference and the real-world consequences it will have.
"For so many people gripped by devastating floods, fires, and storms, time is up," Abreu said. "And instead of helping them, rich countries hold on to your dollars and hold up loss and damage. Public mobilizations are swamping the streets. The status quo you are working so stubbornly to protect is not working for people or the planet."
Harjeet Singh, of ActionAid International lambasted wealthy countries including the U.S. for fighting to avoid liability for helping to accelerate the climate crisis.
"Developing countries came to this climate conference with the expectation that the people who have lost their crops to drought, or who have lost their homes to cyclones, will finally get help from the UN system," said Singh. "Instead, they have faced bullying, arm-twisting and blackmail. Rich countries most responsible for the crisis have refused to provide a single penny of new money to support communities to recover from the devastation caused by increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters."
The civil society groups' joint statement noted that in the final hours of the summit, "it is not too late for developing countries to stand strong, to resolutely refuse the agenda of polluters."
"From the Amazon to the Arctic, our world is on fire," the statement read. "Allowing expansion of coal, oil and gas production at this moment of history is throwing gasoline on the fire."
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'We Are Furious': As COP 25 Draws to Close, Green Campaigners Fume as Rich Nations Move to Gut Paris Agreement
"Just as we thought the slow pace and weak ambition shown at the climate talks couldn't get worse, along comes COP 25."
Dec 12, 2019
With just hours left in the COP 25 climate conference taking place in Madrid, Spain, international climate campaigners said Friday they are "furious" over rich countries' refusal to adequately commit to addressing the urgency of and pay for their role in fueling the climate crisis.
"Just as we thought the slow pace and weak ambition shown at the climate talks couldn't get worse, along comes COP 25," said Sara Shaw, Climate Justice and Energy Program coordinator for Friends of the Earth International (FOEI). She also criticized "the advance of dodgy carbon trading that will only exacerbate the climate crisis and harm Southern communities."
As crunch time hits, hammering out a deal on controversial carbon markets is proving to be sticking point. Politico's "Morning Energy" newsletter noted Friday:
A group of large developing economies--China, Brazil, India, and South Africa--are pushing back on efforts to write the rulebook for international carbon trading regimes. That's a major priority for the meeting, and the nearly 200 countries attending the talks need to get that out of the way if they're going to move on to the next big task: preparing their new domestic climate targets for 2020's meeting in Glasgow. A failure to get a set of rules on trading in place is threatening to push back that effort to raise the world's climate "ambition"--and could undermine the entire Paris agreement.
Climate Action Network International (CAN), in Twitter thread Friday, said the plans which have thus far emerged from the conference on carbon trading bode ill for the prospect of reducing emissions.
The climate campaigners' comments came on the final day of a conference that saw activists including Fridays for Future youth stage protests within the event hall demanding climate justice. The activists were kicked out of the conference, in their view, had their voices suppressed over those of corporate polluters.
Speaking about the unrest at the conference, Nnimmo Bassey of Health of Mother Earth Foundation told Democracy Now! Wednesday that "the protesters here are saying that the trajectory on which the COP negotiation is moving, which is towards market mechanisms rather than real climate action, is the wrong direction and that this cannot be accepted."
"We're seeing a situation where the rich, polluting countries are not ready to fund climate adaptation and mitigation to pay for loss and damage," said Bassey.
Some countries, though, have made good pledges, as Jake Schmidt, Brendan Guy, and Han Chen wrote at NRDC's expert blog Thursday. "The 80 countries that have committed to put forward stronger steps to curb climate change here at COP25 in Madrid are impressive."
But the 80 countries represent only about 10% of global emissions. The 20 major emitters that account for approximately 80% of global emissions have stood nearly mute in Madrid. They've dithered over side issues and done absolutely nothing about the 800-pound gorilla in the room--the continually rising global emissions of greenhouse gases hurtling us toward catastrophe. The eyes of the world are squarely on them.
It's no secret who those major emissions produers are.
"The United States," which last month began withdrawing from the Paris agreement, "is not a good actor here," Greenpeace International executive director Jennifer Morgan told CNN, adding that Saudi Arabia and Brazil are also thwarting progress. DeSmog blog also reported Friday that "almost a third of Saudi Arabia's representatives attending the Madrid meeting, known as COP25, are associated with the oil and gas industry."
"The voices of people defending the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women, and Southern communities were aggressively pushed out of the COP in a clear attempt to silence them."
--Karin Nansen, FOEI"I think that the climate politics are quite dark," Morgan continued. "You have the oil majors working with the Trump administration, with others, to try and slow things down here. And you have others that just aren't prioritizing it." That means "the role of countries or units like the European Union becomes even more important, but... it's like they're tired and they're not rising above the daily kind of issues and there's no time for that."
FOEI's Shaw, in her statement, suggested such inaction and active thwarting of progress was sabotaging the prospect of global temperature rise to below the threshold agreed to in the Paris climate accord.
"Here, we have witnessed the gutting of the already weak Paris Agreement" as well as "a refusal by developed countries to pay up for loss and damage finance, while they try to introduce language that would remove their liability for the impacts their emissions have caused," she said.
"We are furious that while so many are already suffering the impacts of climate change, corporations and rich country governments are working to destroy any hope of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees," said Shaw. "And when we stood up in peaceful protest at COP 25, we were aggressively suppressed."
FOEI chair Karin Nansen from Uruguay was equally dismissive of that silencing.
"The 'ambition' claimed by developed country governments is a false one," she said. "They are serving the interests of corporations aiming to profit from the crisis and secure capital accumulation. The voices of people defending the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women, and Southern communities were aggressively pushed out of the COP in a clear attempt to silence them."
"But peoples--in Madrid, Santiago, and around the world--are rising up and will continue to fight for environmental, social, gender, and economic justice and system change," Nansen said. "We will continue to demand that governments be accountable to people, not to corporate polluters."
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Decrying EU Proposal to Address Climate Crisis by 2050 as 'Too Little Too Late,' Greenpeace Activists Stage #HouseOnFire Demonstration
"The world is on fire and our governments are letting it burn."
Dec 11, 2019
Greenpeace activists on Thursday dropped banners and held flares in an attempt to make the Europa building in Brussels, Belgium appear to be on fire as the continent's leaders gathered to address the planetary emergency.
"The world is on fire and our governments are letting it burn," Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss said in a statement.
Protesters arrived at the building Thursday morning in a vintage fire engine. The 61 demonstrators came from seven countries, according to Greenpeace EU. Twenty-eight climbers "scaled the summit venue and wrapped the building with images of giant lapping red and yellow flames, setting off billowing clouds of black and white smoke, red distress flares, and sounding a loud fire alarm," the group said in a statement.
WARNING: CLIMATE DELAYERS INSIDE
European leaders are stuck discussing climate targets... for 2050?!
If we don't decrease EU emissions to at least 65% by 2030, it's going to be very difficult to get to zero by 2040 #HouseOnFire #EUCO #ClimateEmergency #COP25 pic.twitter.com/MEqx4kzRwX
-- Greenpeace EU (@GreenpeaceEU) December 12, 2019
It's a big week for the climate crisis in Europe as the region's leaders are debating action at both the United Nation's COP 25 gathering in Madrid, Spain and the European Union summit in Brussels.
According to The Associated Press, E.U. Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is fighting to get support for a carbon-neutral plan, but is facing particular resistance from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic who object to a clean energy transition by voicing cost concerns.
To get the support of all E.U. members, von der Leyen on Wednesday unveiled a new "European Green Deal" she called a "master plan," with an offer of some 100 billion euros ($130 billion) in public and private funds to help the fossil-fuel reliant E.U. nations make the transition to lower emissions.
"It's not enough for them to commit to a climate neutral E.U. in 2050," said Riss. "The presidents and prime ministers in Brussels today will be long gone by then. What counts even more is the urgent action they take now, while they are in power."
Fifty of the demonstrators, including all 28 climbers, were arrested.
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Move Over, Peak Oil. Scientists Say 'Peak Livestock' Must Arrive This Decade to Limit Global Heating
"If the livestock sector were to continue with business as usual," experts warn, "this sector alone would account for 49% of the emissions budget for 1.5°C by 2030."
Dec 11, 2019
In an open letter to The Lancet Planetary Health journal Wednesday, a group of scientists called for setting a date to reach "peak livestock" production and pursuing dramatic efforts to restore vegetation in the next decade to curb planet-heating emissions, increase natural carbon sequestration, and avert climate catastrophe.
Referencing the primary temperature rise targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the letter says that "continued growth of the livestock sector increases the risk of exceeding emissions budgets consistent with limiting warming to 1.5degC and 2degC, limits the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere through restoring native vegetation, and threatens remaining natural carbon sinks where land could be converted to livestock production."
Specifically, the scientists warn that "if the livestock sector were to continue with business as usual, this sector alone would account for 49% of the emissions budget for 1.5degC by 2030, requiring other sectors to reduce emissions beyond a realistic or planned level."
Helen Harwatt, a fellow at Harvard Law School and lead author of the letter, has previously published research on the necessity of driving down meat and dairy consumption to achieve global climate goals.
"Countries should be looking for peak livestock within the next 10 years," Harwatt told The Guardian Thursday. "This is because we need steep and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, as we are reaching dangerous temperature tipping points."
The letter, which lists four other scientists as co-authors and over 50 (pdf) signatories, details four measures that the scientists believe high-income and middle-income countries should implement from 2020 onward to combat the climate crisis:
- First, declare a timeframe for peak livestock--i.e., livestock production from each species would not continue to increase from this point forward.
- Second, within the livestock sector, identify the largest emissions sources or the largest land occupiers, or both, and set appropriate reduction targets for production. This process would be repeated sequentially, to set reduction targets for the next largest emitter or land occupier.
- Third, within a reconfiguration of the agriculture sector, apply a best available food strategy to diversify food production by replacing livestock with foods that simultaneously minimize environmental burdens and maximize public health benefits--mainly pulses (including beans, peas, and lentils), grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
- Fourth, when grazing land is not required or is unsuitable for horticulture or arable production, adopt a natural climate solutions approach where possible, to repurpose land as a carbon sink by restoring native vegetation cover to its maximum carbon sequestration potential with additional benefits to biodiversity.
Experts and activists have increasing pushed for pursuing natural solutions to battle climate and ecological breakdown--including with a bold campaign that launched in April. In a video released in September that featured teen activist Greta Thunberg, writer and campaign leader George Monbiot explained that "mangroves, peatbogs, jungles, marshes, seabeds, kelp forests, swamps, coral reefs, they take carbon out of the air and lock it away. Nature is a tool we can use to repair our broken climate."
The scientists behind the new letter acknowledge that their suggestions don't comprehensively cover climate mitigation actions related to agriculture, but they assert that their four key recommendations "are necessary to adhere to the equity component of the Paris agreement, and are considered part of a suite of measures that are needed across all sectors to reduce the risk of reaching temperature levels beyond the Paris goals."
Harwatt said that "we're fully aware that our call requires large-scale change across society and isn't something that can be achieved overnight or without challenges," while also noting that she has observed a recent rise in plant-based offerings.
In January, as Common Dreams reported, the EAT-Lancet Commission called for a "global agricultural revolution" and urged people around the world to adopt a "planetary health diet" to both address the current food system's devastating impacts on the environment as well as mass malnutrition.
University of Aberdeen professor Pete Smith, a signatory of the new letter and a senior author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's August report on land use and the climate crisis, pointed out that "ruminant meat is 10 to 100 times more damaging to the climate than plant-based food."
"As a planet, we need to transition away from a dependence on livestock, just as we need to to transition away from fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of hitting the goals of the Paris climate agreement," Smith told The Guardian. "Livestock numbers need to peak very soon and thereafter decline substantially."
"Given the urgency of the climate emergency, this will need to be over the coming decade for sure," he added. "But the transition will need to be managed fairly to allow citizens to change diets and for farmers, producers and agri-food chains to diversify. In poor countries, where over 800 million people are still undernourished, priorities obviously differ."
The letter came just ahead of the conclusion of the United Nations Climate Conference in Madrid, which is set to wrap up on Friday. The COP 25 summit has brought together government representatives from around the world to discuss their efforts to combat the climate crisis, including national commitments under the Paris accord.
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Outrage as UN Climate Talks Kick Out Civil Society, Not the Polluters
As we enter a decade that will define all the ones after it, we need to stand together against fossil fuel companies and the governments that prop them up—at the UNFCCC and everywhere.
Dec 11, 2019
Two days ago, I blogged calling for the Polluters to be kicked out of the UN climate process.
Two days later, and what has the UN done? It has kicked the people out--and not the polluters.
This morning, youth activists from over a dozen countries stormed the stage at a COP25 plenary session to demand real climate action. They occupied the stage chanting "We are unstoppable, another world is possible."
The inspiring action was followed by a disruptive action in the afternoon when 320 members of civil society organized a cacerolazo action banging metal cups and utensils before the plenary session where UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was to give a speech. The people represented a broad coalition of young people, indigenous people, frontline communities, women and gender activists and trade unionists. They called on rich countries to "Step Up, Pay Up." The protest was interrupted when several security officials violently struggled to take a banner from a protester.
Oil Change International was there to witness the events:
The reason for the protest was clear: It was a message to the rich industrialized countries who refuse to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement and human rights law to provide finance to support communities suffering from increasingly severe disasters.
It was a message to the corporate polluters, who roam these halls attempting to profit from the world's suffering with their false solutions to climate change rather than making a transition away from a fossil fuel economy and paying for the damage they've done.
As Earther reported: The reason for the protest are 25-years of futility, broken promises, and negligence" during the climate process. "And people are sick of it."
In response, the authorities, rather than listening to peoples' concerns, kicked hundreds of delegates out and banned them from reentering the conference.
Twitter rightly exploded into outrage:
Many civil society organizations, including Oil Change International, issued a statement attacking the UN's "unprecedented crackdown on dissent."
The statement said: "Instead of kicking out these polluters, the UNFCCC 25th Conferences of the Parties (COP25) kicked out the people. Instead of listening to our voices, they attempted to silence us. We were pushed, bullied, and touched without our consent. We were driven out of the negotiating halls, told that we can take our action outside as they raised an enormous metal door and herded us out."
It continued: "We weren't advised to the intentions of the UN security to take our badges. We stood out in the cold, many without our jackets and coats as we later watched the enormous metal door lock us out in the cold. An Indigenous woman was not allowed to go back inside to feed her baby.
The statement highlighted that this had never happened before in 25 years of negotiations, but yet, there "could be no better symbol of this crisis we face. People around the world are crying out for justice, and fighting oppression, while those in power attempt to shut us out."
The statement finished by saying "We will not back down. We demand full access for civil society, the people of the world, to these negotiations and all international processes. We demand that our voices be heard."
As Angela Valenzuela, a student climate striker from Chile who took part in the actions today, said, "From Santiago to Madrid, the world is waking up to the climate crisis!"
"We say enough. We no longer support the systems that drive the climate crisis. We will continue to rise against governments that don't represent us, and that prioritize profit over the wellbeing of its people and climate."
As we enter a decade that will define all the ones after it, we need to stand together against fossil fuel companies and the governments that prop them up--at the UNFCCC and everywhere.
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Earth In Extremis While Trump Plays Ostrich
Indeed a vexing state of affairs for the world when major players shirk their responsibilities.
Dec 10, 2019
Storms are savaging East Africa where rainfall in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania is now over 300 mm (about a foot) higher than the 30-year mean tallied since 1981. The subsequent flooding and landslides have affected 2.8 million people displacing many and reportedly killing 300 according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Thousands of miles away at the other end of the Indian ocean, there is extreme dry heat across Australia with an 80 percent chance of exceeding the median maximum temperature for the October-February summer period. It has led to an early start to the bushfire season as about 140 are already raging in New South Wales. Among the worst is a vast and so far uncontrollable fire about 40 miles outside Sydney, with evacuation warnings along its perimeter.
The cause of such extreme weather at the two ends of the Indian Ocean is described by weather scientists as the dipole effect -- a sea surface temperature difference between the Arabian Sea western end and the south of Indonesia eastern end. A positive dipole means warmer ocean temperatures in the west end and cooler in the east. A negative dipole is the opposite; and a neutral dipole, means even temperatures and normal weather in the adjacent land areas.
This year's warmer Indian Ocean temperatures in the western section have led to more storms and cooler, much wetter weather in East Africa, while cool waters pooling off Indonesia mean dry weather, causing extreme heat in Australia. At a 2C temperature difference, this positive dipole is one of the strongest Indian Ocean dipoles on record. Such a rare event occurring once in about 17 years in the past is now expected once in 6 years. Why? The culprit is climate change.
It projects a future of more frequent, more extreme weather unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and begin to eliminate the record high CO2 levels already in the atmosphere.
The rest of the world is not immune from extreme weather events. In a historic flood not too long ago this year, Venice's iconic St. Mark's square lay hip-deep in water threatening the frescoes in the church itself. And in the US, coastal flooding on the east coast has been featured by the New York Times (As Sea Levels Rise, So Do Ghost Forests, October 8, 2019). The 'ghost forests' refer to trees in coastal areas dying off due to frequent incursions of saltwater; it kills them from the roots up.
An excellent estimate of coastal flooding on the East and Gulf coasts, Encroaching Tides, was prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists a five years ago. Sober reading, the report's prognosis of coastal inundation and sea level rise over the next three decades is of concern to communities from Maine to Texas. Adaptation to new norms, protective sea walls, economic consequences, the responsibilities of Municipalities, States and the Federal Government, and a retreat from heavily impacted areas are the conclusions. Is anybody listening?
The US is also not immune from fires. California's Kincade fire lasting two weeks through November 6 this year burnt almost 78,000 acres. The largest 2019 wildfire in the state, it was the largest ever for Sonoma county--evacuation orders and warnings covered almost everyone living in it. For the first eleven months of 2019 there have been 46,706 wildfires compared to 47,853 for all of 2018. Blame the downslope Santa Ana winds for fanning them.
If such is the state of our earth in extremis, COP25 the UN Climate Change Conference, is endeavoring to mitigate the major cause: climate change. It concludes in Madrid, Spain this week (Dec 13) having been displaced from Chile due to riots by an unhappy populace. And celebrity climate activist Greta Thunberg was obliged to hitch a yacht ride back across the Atlantic arriving just in time to demonstrate. Everything helps.
COP25's ambitious aim is to up the ante from the 2C temperature rise limit of the Paris agreement, adopted by COP24 last year in Poland, to only 1.5C. A laudable aim perhaps, yet the worst polluters since the industrial revolution are comfortably ensconced, enjoying their wealth, without bearing a heavier burden -- in the case of the US very little as Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Paris agreement. Indeed a vexing state of affairs for the world when major players shirk their responsibilities.
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