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    'We Need to Get Off the Current Road to Hell,' Say Former UN Climate Leaders

    'We Need to Get Off the Current Road to Hell,' Say Former UN Climate Leaders

    Global ambition to avert climate catastrophe "must shift quickly to another scale, beyond recognition."

    Andrea Germanos
    Dec 10, 2020

    A group of four former United Nations climate chiefs say it's "unthinkable" for the world to continue its business-as-usual approach to climate action, warning that without ramped-up ambition, humanity is headed down a "road to hell."

    The assessment is laid out in an article published on Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Policy.

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    News
    In Paris: FRONTLINES OF CRISIS; FOREFRONT OF CHANGE

    Leaving Paris for All The Wrong Reasons

    Sara Mersha
    Carol Schachet
    Jun 16, 2017

    The announcement by Donald Trump that that United States intends to ignore the non-binding Paris Climate Agreement, with the intention to renegotiate it to foist his America First policy on the rest of the world, should come as no surprise to anyone. What is surprising is who opposed the US withdrawal: Big business - including fossil fuel transnationals Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and BP, industrial agribusiness and agrochemical giants Monsanto, DuPont, and General Mills, and more, as well as the current Secretary of State (and former Exxon exec). If nothing else, this assortment of big-business boosters of the Paris Agreement tells us just how weak the agreement truly is at addressing the root causes of climate change.

    Since Kyoto, the US has diluted every global climate proposal to the point of ineffectiveness, including the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 and the Paris Agreement itself. It was the US that insisted on making the deal based on non-binding pledges for voluntary emissions cuts (which collectively would still lead to a global temperature increase between 3-4degC above pre-industrial levels), on preventing the operating text of the agreement from including recognition of human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and on promoting many false solutions that will end up doing a great deal of harm (including so-called "carbon neutrality," which allows polluters to keep polluting by purchasing offsets).

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    Opinion
    paris agreement
    The Climate Deal That Failed Us

    The Climate Deal That Failed Us

    "History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.

    Shefali Sharma
    Dec 11, 2010

    "History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun." These are the last lines of the Bolivian Government's press release yesterday about the outcome of the climate negotiations here in Cancun. The talks ended here today after two weeks of negotiations by a 192 governments. It is a deal that will be remembered by our future generations as one that killed the climate treaty, unless we radically change course.

    Witnessing standing ovations and applause in the closing hours over negotiating texts that basically kill the Kyoto Protocol and make emissions reductions voluntary for all governments fills me with a profound sense of disillusionment (you can view the final plenaries here). Disillusionment at the utter lack of leadership exhibited by virtually every government except Bolivia and disillusionment at the role that many environmental and development groups played in legitimizing these governments' actions.

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    Opinion

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