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"The Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe," said one campaigner.
A coalition of climate campaigners on Tuesday published a proposal "for how the U.S. can play a bigger role in tackling the global climate emergency."
Described as "a civil society model document for the U.S. climate action pledge submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" under the landmark Paris agreement, the Fair Share Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a "comprehensive plan for the United States to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate action in an equitable way both domestically and internationally."
Russell Armstrong, international policy liaison at the U.S. Climate Action Network, a member of the coalition, explained that "the Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe."
The plan sets targets for the U.S. to slash domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2035 from 2005 levels, in line with "scientific standards and universally accepted global justice principles."
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at coalition member Oil Change International, said: "The U.S. has a long way to go to become the climate leader the world needs. It's the largest producer of oil and gas in human history, and it plans to expand fossil fuels far beyond what's compatible with a livable climate."
"The Fair Share NDC shows what the U.S. must do to change course, starting with an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and paying its fair share to the countries dealing with the consequences of U.S. extraction," she added.
The proposal is centered on a phased approach to ending all fossil fuel production, with coal to be eliminated by the end of the decade and oil and gas by 2031. The plan also proposes the development of "robust public transportation infrastructure and transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030."
"This transition will also be fair, funded, feminist, and equitable," the report states. "A funded fossil fuel phaseout means that wealthy Global North countries commit to paying their fair share for fossil fuel phaseout in their own countries and in the Global South. A feminist fossil fuel phaseout means a gender-just energy transition from an extractive, fossil-fueled economy to a regenerative, care-based economy that sustains life and well-being for all."
According to Oil Change International:
The U.S.' historic emissions are so large that the U.S. cannot mitigate enough emissions domestically to fulfill its "fair share" of responsibility for the climate crisis. It must also provide Global South countries annually with $106 billion in mitigation funding and $340 billion worth of adaptation and loss and damage funding by 2030. To mobilize money on such a scale, the U.S. can redirect funding for fossil fuel subsidies and military weaponry, and make wealthy elites and big polluters pay for the damages they've already caused. Finally, changing global rules on debt, taxes, trade, and technology will also significantly expand the fiscal space Global South countries have to finance their own transitions, lowering the overall bill.
The report warns that the U.S. must commit "to avoiding dangerous distractions and unproven technological solutions, such as
forest offsets; carbon market mechanisms; carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, enhanced oil recovery, and other false solutions that act as dangerous distractions to only delay phasing out of fossil fuel production."
Tuesday is False Solutions Day during the Global Week of Action for Climate Finance and a Fossil-Free Future, which runs from September 13-20 and focuses on pressuring Global North governments to "stop making empty promises" and "cease pandering to corporations to perpetuate fossil fuels."
Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a member of the coalition, said in a statement that "the U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas producer and largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter."
"It's time the U.S. took responsibility for its outsized role in causing the climate crisis," Sen added. "The Fair Share NDC is a pathway for the U.S. to actually become the climate leader it claims to be, both internationally and at home."
Last month, 94% of new vehicles sold in the oil-producing nation were electric.
In what's believed to be a global milestone, electric vehicles now outnumber gasoline-fueled automobiles on Norway's roads, as the overwhelming bulk of new cars sold in recent months have been battery-powered.
Norway's Road Information Council (OFV) said Tuesday that electric vehicles (EVs) made up 754,303, or 26.6%, of the 2.8 million passenger automobiles registered in the Nordic nation. That's slightly more than the 753,905 registered gasoline-powered vehicles, but far fewer than the 999,715 diesel-burning ones.
Last month, a record 94.3% of all new vehicles sold in Norway were EVs, with Tesla's Model Y as the top seller.
"This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago," said OFV director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen. "The electrification of the passenger car fleet is keeping a high pace, and Norway is making rapid strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars."
"But it will take some time before we get there, because there are still 1 million registered passenger cars with diesel engines in the country," Thorsen noted. "The pace we are seeing in the replacement of the passenger car fleet now may indicate that in 2026 we will also have more electric cars than diesel cars."
According to OFV, there could be as many as 3.1 million EVs registered in Norway by the end of the decade.
"The rate of change in the passenger car units is difficult to predict," Thorsen cautioned. "Economic fluctuations in relation to car taxes, prices, interest rates, and other factors affect new car sales—both for private individuals and companies. And tax changes have a big impact on which cars we choose."
Norway—which is ironically Europe's second-largest oil producer—incentivizes EV purchases with generous tax rebates.
In stark contrast with Norway, electric car sales have been lagging in most of the rest of Europe, where EVs make up just 12.3% of new cars sold, according to The Guardian.
Experts say that in order for countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris climate agreement, zero-emission vehicles—which include EVs and hydrogen-powered automobiles—must account for around 40% of the global car and light truck fleet by 2030.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and MIT Energy Initiative forecast in 2021 that the global EV fleet will grow from just over 10 million to 95-105 million by 2030, and 585-823 million by 2050.
"The lack of butterflies this year is a warning sign to us all," the director of a U.K. wildlife charity said. "Nature is sounding the alarm and we must listen."
A U.K. conservation charity sounded the alarm on Monday after a yearly butterfly count turned up a record low number of butterflies so far.
Participants in the count, which runs through August 4, are reporting a little more than half the number of butterflies as they did by this time in 2023, Butterfly Conservation said.
"The lack of butterflies this year is a warning sign to us all," the charity's director of conservation Dan Hoare said in a blog post. "Nature is sounding the alarm, and we must listen. Butterflies are a key indicator species. When they are in trouble we know the wider environment is in trouble too."
"So far this summer, I have not seen a single butterfly alight on the flowers. Desperate times."
The low numbers are one example of how the climate crisis exacerbates biodiversity loss. Butterfly numbers have plummeted by 80% in the U.K. since the 1970s, a decline driven by the climate emergency as well as habitat destruction and pesticide use. This year, the country experienced an abnormally wet, windy spring and a cooler than average summer.
"Butterflies need some warm and dry conditions to be able to fly around and mate," Hoare explained. "If the weather doesn't allow for this there will be fewer opportunities to breed, and the lack of butterflies now is likely the knock-on effect of our very dreary spring and early summer."
The climate emergency increases rainfall because warmer air holds more moisture. Spring 2024 was the U.K.'s sixth wettest on record and the wettest overall since 1986, according to The Guardian. March, April, and May saw almost a third more rainfall than usual for those months.
The heavy rain also followed a drought in 2022 that put a different kind of pressure on butterfly populations by decreasing the number of plants that caterpillars need to eat. The green-veined white and the ringlet species were especially hard hit and have yet to recover.
"Never known a year like it," author and climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote of 2024. "We have two huge buddleia 'butterfly bushes' that are normally swarming with at least half a dozen species. So far this summer, I have not seen a single butterfly alight on the flowers. Desperate times."
Since the count began on July 11, the number of butterflies reported in the U.K. is the lowest in the count's 14-year history, but there is still a chance that warmer, drier weather could turn things around. However, even if it doesn't, Hoare called for more citizen scientists to participate in the count by spending 15 minutes noting any butterflies and moths they see in a specific area and recording their totals on the website or via app.
"People are telling us that they aren't seeing butterflies, but simply telling us is not enough; we need everyone to record what they are or aren't seeing by doing a Big Butterfly Count as this will give us the evidence we need to take vital action to conserve our butterfly species," Hoare said.
The U.K.'s butterfly decline is not the only recent example of climate extremes harming wildlife. Extreme wildfires in Australia in 2019 and 2020 killed at least 1 billion animals, while a heatwave in Mexico this spring prompted howler monkeys to drop dead out of trees. In 2023 and 2024, the world's coral reefs suffered their fourth mass bleaching event.
The news of the butterflies' decline also follows a week that saw the four hottest days on record globally. 2023 was the hottest year in the past 125,000, and 2024 is expected by many scientists to surpass it. Every month since June 2023 has been the hottest of its kind on record and has seen average temperatures at or above 1.5°C higher than preindustrial levels, the more ambitious temperature goal enshrined in the Paris agreement.
"The extreme events that we are now experiencing are indications of the weakening resilience of these systems," Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told The Washington Post on Saturday. "We cannot risk pushing this any further."