tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cop26-80762/articlesCOP26 – The Conversation2023-10-23T14:04:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104062023-10-23T14:04:41Z2023-10-23T14:04:41ZClimate change: Kenya’s power sector is a shining example, the big hurdles are household and transport emissions<p>Kenya’s ambition is to reduce carbon emissions by <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-06/Kenya%27s%20First%20%20NDC%20%28updated%20version%29.pdf#page=1">one-third</a> by 2030, relative to the business-as-usual scenario of 143 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. It also seeks to <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition">reduce</a> carbon emissions to as close to zero as possible by 2050. How and whether these goals are achieved will have huge implications for the country’s economic development.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, Kenya has taken unprecedented measures to move towards low-carbon energy sources. Despite <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X21000040">increasing</a> electricity demand over the past decade, carbon emissions in the power sector have been on a decline. This is because renewable energy sources such as hydropower, geothermal, wind and solar have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X21000040">continued to slowly replace</a> power plants that run on fossil fuels, such as diesel. These clean sources made up <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1276547/share-of-renewables-in-electricity-generation-in-kenya/">90%</a> of Kenya’s total energy source in 2022. Their share is <a href="https://communications.bowmanslaw.com/REACTION/emsdocuments/Renewable%20energy%20auction%20Policy.pdf">likely to increase</a> following the country’s plan to promote private sector deployment of renewable electricity at competitive bidding prices in the near future.</p>
<p>The challenge, not only for Kenya but for all developing countries, is that there is no template for moving to a low-carbon future while accelerating economic growth and development. Kenya seeks to achieve all three goals. The emissions, economic growth and development targets are contained in the country’s <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-06/Kenya%27s%20First%20%20NDC%20%28updated%20version%29.pdf">updated</a> Nationally Determined Contributions and its economic blueprint, <a href="https://nairobi.aics.gov.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Kenya-Vision-2030.pdf">Vision 2030</a>. </p>
<p>I have been researching the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies in Africa for the last 16 years. As I argue in a recently published <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X21000040">paper</a>, Kenya could potentially achieve 100% electricity generation from clean energy sources by 2030.</p>
<p>This could, however, be undermined by <a href="https://www.decoalonize.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LCPDP-Least-Cost-Power-Development-Plan-2017-2037-not-2022-updated-June-2018.pdf">plans</a> to build a major coal-fired power plant from 2024. These plans are on ice after the high court <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-electricity-idUSKCN1TR2AM">suspended</a> the plant’s licence due to environmental concerns. But if it eventually goes ahead, Kenya’s carbon emissions from the cheap and highly carbon intensive coal power plant <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X21000040#bib0052">would likely increase</a> by 64% by 2040 compared to the 2025 level. That would reverse progress towards reducing emissions by one-third by the end of the decade.</p>
<p>Therefore, continued investment in renewable energy will be necessary to reduce power sector emissions, as I have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667095X21000040#bib0052">argued</a> in my paper. Such a transition should ensure universal and affordable access to electricity while creating decent green job opportunities and supporting the growth of the manufacturing sector.</p>
<h2>Other ways of reducing emissions</h2>
<p>Beyond electrification, a promising technology for decarbonising the industrial sector is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468227621002283">carbon capture</a> and storage. That is, trapping emissions from fossil fuel sources. Others are energy conservation and the production of <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/%20en/ip_23_4324">green hydrogen</a>.</p>
<p>However, the use of these technologies in Kenya’s industrial sector is still in its infancy. With the right incentives, green technologies and practices could be scaled up in existing and new industrial zones. Redirecting waste from landfills is one way. Increasing energy efficiency and conservation, through energy efficient equipment and changing behaviour, is another.</p>
<p>In the agriculture, forestry and other land use sector, carbon emissions are <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/11/1507#:%7E:text=AFOLU%20related%20sectors%20are%20associated,MtCO2%2Deq%20in%202030">projected</a> to increase from the equivalent of 73 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2010 to 143 million tonnes in 2030. This is mainly because of the high rate of deforestation and degradation, driven by the demand for fuel wood and charcoal. To address this, the government recently <a href="https://www.treasury.go.ke/national-tree-planting-intiative-launch/#:%7E:text=The%20Government%20led%20by%20H.E,Restoration%20Initiative%20which%20was%20launched">launched</a> an initiative to plant 15 billion trees by 2032. The national <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/counties/central/2022-06-06-kfs-targets-30-per-cent-tree-cover-by-2050/">policy</a> objective is to attain a 30% tree cover by 2050 from the current cover of 12.13%.</p>
<p>Other important sources of emissions in Kenya are transport and residential cooking.</p>
<h2>Decarbonising the transport sector</h2>
<p>Kenya signed the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/accelerating-adoption-of-electric-vehicles-for-sustainable-transport-in-nairobi/#:%7E:text=Kenya%20also%20signed%20the%20COP26,priority%20action%20for%20sustainable%20transportation.">COP26 declaration</a> on “accelerating the transition to 100% zero-emission cars and vans”. Several national policy documents indicate the importance of electric mobility for low-emissions transport. Electric vehicles are therefore <a href="https://repository.kippra.or.ke/bitstream/handle/123456789/3074/ENERGY%20STRATEGY.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">projected</a> to make up about 5% of vehicle imports by 2025.</p>
<p>Besides, Kenya <a href="https://repository.kippra.or.ke/bitstream/handle/123456789/3063/Sessional%20Paper%20No.%202%20of%202012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">seeks</a> to replace diesel-powered trains with electric ones, and turn to electrified urban buses. These are expected to play a much bigger role in the future transport sector.</p>
<p>Despite these and other policy measures, low levels of investment mean that road transport emissions are likely to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X23000706?via%3Dihub">increase</a> between four- and 31-fold from 2010 to 2050. Investment is therefore needed in public charging stations and servicing for e-mobility. And private sector actors and startups in this area need financial incentives to reduce the high initial cost of investment.</p>
<h2>Cutting household cooking emissions</h2>
<p>In 2019, Kenya’s residential cooking carbon emissions were <a href="https://newclimate.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/a2a_kenya_cleancookingstudy_july2021.pdf">estimated</a> to amount to the equivalent of 24.8 megatonnes of carbon dioxide annually, compared to the national total of 93.7 megatonnes. This is because a mere <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2023-07-03-24percent-of-kenyans-use-clean-fuel-technology-for-cooking-report/">24%</a> of the population use clean cooking technologies and fuels. In spite of this, Kenya <a href="https://mecs.org.uk/kenya-national-clean-cooking-strategy-knccs/#:%7E:text=To%20develop%20a%20roadmap%20for,monitoring%20and%20evaluating%20its%20implementation">aims</a> to achieve universal access to clean cooking by 2028 by promoting liquefied petroleum gas, bio-ethanol and other clean fuels.</p>
<p>Highly efficient wood stoves alone can reduce fuel wood use by 30%-60%. This can <a href="https://cleancooking.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Accelerating-Clean-Cooking-as-a-Nature-Based-Climate-Solution.pdf">save</a> about 624 hectares of forest and avoid the equivalent of 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. But improved cookstoves and fuel are <a href="https://ednaclimate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IKI-MI-Infographics.pdf">expensive</a>. That’s why 75% of Kenyan families continue to rely on charcoal and firewood as their choice of cooking energy. </p>
<h2>Transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy</h2>
<p>Although Kenya has plans to transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy, implementation remains a major challenge. The government can take the following actions to address this issue:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Use the draft <a href="https://www.treasury.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Draft-Green-Fiscal-Incentives-Policy-Framework.pdf">National Green Fiscal Incentives Policy Framework</a> to attract private-sector green investment at scale.</p></li>
<li><p>Work with think tanks, international NGOs and universities to develop bankable project proposals for the <a href="https://www.thegef.org/projects-operations/database">Global Environment Facility</a>, <a href="https://www.greenclimate.fund/projects">Green Climate Fund</a> and <a href="https://www.adaptation-fund.org/projects-programmes/">Adaptation Fund</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Facilitate partnerships with the World Bank’s <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/217301525116707964-0340022018/original/GreenBondImplementationGuidelines.pdf">green bond programme</a> and the African Development Bank’s <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/african-development-bank-launches-model-deploying-green-financing-across-continent-56903">Africa Green Bank Initiative</a> to scale climate actions and low-carbon energy transitions.</p></li>
<li><p>Collaborate with development finance institutions, investors and international development organisations to refinance a portion of national debt at lower interest rates and longer repayment terms. This would provide savings to channel into low-carbon, climate-resilient development projects.</p></li>
<li><p>Set up a comprehensive national incubation programme to test and commercialise local green innovations by offering training, business development, technology and finance support.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://unhabitat.org/climate-proofing-toolkit-for-basic-urban-infrastructure-with-a-focus-on-water-and-sanitation#:%7E:text=The%20toolkit%20outlines%20current%20capacity,adapts%20to%20changing%20climate%20conditions">Climate-proof</a> infrastructure, community and other development projects to protect lives and livelihoods, and reduce direct losses from floods and droughts.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anderson Kehbila receives funding from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, The European Climate Foundation, and UNEP.</span></em></p>For developing countries, such as Kenya, there is no template for moving to a low-carbon future while accelerating economic growth and development.Anderson Kehbila, Programme Leader, Energy and Climate Change, Stockholm Environment InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2124622023-09-22T00:47:18Z2023-09-22T00:47:18ZCarbon removal: why ambitious ‘no nonsense’ plans are vital to limit global heating to 2°C<p>2023 is proving to be a year of climate and weather extremes. Record-busting <a href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/summer-2023-hottest-record">global air and ocean temperatures</a>, unprecedented <a href="https://theconversation.com/devastatingly-low-antarctic-sea-ice-may-be-the-new-abnormal-study-warns-212376">low levels of Antarctic sea ice</a>, and devastating <a href="https://apnews.com/article/photography-wildfires-climate-fire-greece-hawaii-spain-canada-22266a7cc68dd98c8753a8fe8b72c109">fires</a> and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/ten-countries-territories-saw-severe-003606452.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKeR6ATk1c6Z6l668WsxKzUzLhqD2KEEK-c8XWVq0CttFZETnIG-H4XgGzycJmtWLtrHPH0bKGGV7vQuknlT7HqAKktEFyU6fhMhpK1JfGYJlmvI5i7H3bjRaiLOefRqpW6wLpH1KHx23nG-49XnoxEjd40ItUGcCkJ9OmKMi_ej">floods</a> have been reported across the world. </p>
<p>Less discussed by the world media is the continuing rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases driving these changes. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/broken-record-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-levels-jump-again">at a level</a> not seen since the hothouse world of the <a href="https://mashable.com/article/carbon-dioxide-earth-co2">Pliocene</a>, 3 million years ago. On top of that, an <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/">El Niño event is now likely</a>, so widespread extreme events may <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/17/el-nino-ciimate-change-extreme-weather">intensify in coming months</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the changes we are seeing, global efforts to cut emissions <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-what-credible-climate-pledges-mean-for-future-global-warming/">fall well short</a> of what’s needed to keep heating to less than 2°C, let alone the more ambitious Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C. This creates an urgent need for the purposeful removal of atmospheric CO₂ as well as cuts in emissions.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02649-8">recent article in Nature</a>, we argue for a different approach to pricing carbon. It should take into account how it is removed from the atmosphere, for how long, and with what confidence. This will help fund the most promising technologies for reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/devastatingly-low-antarctic-sea-ice-may-be-the-new-abnormal-study-warns-212376">Devastatingly low Antarctic sea ice may be the ‘new abnormal', study warns</a>
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<h2>Carbon removal is on the agenda</h2>
<p>The United Nations hosted a “no-nonsense” <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/climate-ambition-summit">Climate Ambition Summit</a> in New York this week with the aim of accelerating the global transition away from carbon. This must be done to avoid breaching 2°C of global heating relative to the pre-industrial era. </p>
<p>Two strategies are being pursued: </p>
<ol>
<li>carbon emission reductions</li>
<li>carbon dioxide removal (CDR), also called “negative emissions”.</li>
</ol>
<p>At <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop26">COP26</a> in 2021, global resolutions on cutting emissions drove the push for “<a href="https://theconversation.com/net-zero-carbon-neutral-carbon-negative-confused-by-all-the-carbon-jargon-then-read-this-151382">net zero</a>” across nations, cities and sectors. However, some worldwide activities, including aviation and heavy industry, face challenges eliminating emissions. Carbon credits have become the main way to offset their remaining emissions.</p>
<p>The dilemma lies in the nature of carbon credits. Most are allocated for so-called “avoidance” measures. A prime example is not clearing forest, which has come <a href="https://theconversation.com/worthless-forest-carbon-offsets-risk-exacerbating-climate-change-211862">under intense scrutiny</a>. </p>
<p>And these measures do nothing about the existing excess carbon dioxide. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/worthless-forest-carbon-offsets-risk-exacerbating-climate-change-211862">'Worthless' forest carbon offsets risk exacerbating climate change</a>
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<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1704156181256679842"}"></div></p>
<p>A big change in our thinking is needed. The emphasis must shift from emission “avoidance” to “removal” offsets that actively pull carbon from the atmosphere. So how do we tackle the monumental challenge of reducing atmospheric CO₂? </p>
<p>What’s needed is a shift from avoidance to verifiable <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/outreach/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Factsheet_CDR.pdf">carbon dioxide removal</a>. Almost all current removal efforts come from traditional land management. Less than 1% comes from innovative removal technologies. </p>
<p>Removal technologies include:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://drawdown.org/solutions/biochar-production">biochar</a> – where carbon from plant material is sequestered as charcoal and stored in soil</li>
<li><a href="https://www.iea.org/energy-system/carbon-capture-utilisation-and-storage/direct-air-capture">direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS)</a> – which directly removes CO₂ from the air and stores it in geological formations.</li>
</ul>
<p>A major advance at COP26 was to work out the projected demand and market trajectory for carbon offsets. Offset credits play a vital role in advancing CO₂ removal technologies and developing carbon markets. </p>
<p>Another key goal was to formulate a carbon trading rulebook. The resulting <a href="https://www.iif.com/tsvcm">Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets</a> predicts demand for carbon offsets will grow tenfold by 2030 and 50-fold by 2050.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stripping-carbon-from-the-atmosphere-might-be-needed-to-avoid-dangerous-warming-but-it-remains-a-deeply-uncertain-prospect-195097">Stripping carbon from the atmosphere might be needed to avoid dangerous warming – but it remains a deeply uncertain prospect</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>So what are the obstacles?</h2>
<p>We identify a potential bottleneck. Developing, testing and scaling up CO₂ removal technologies takes time. This means a lag in supply could stymie the rapidly growing demand for carbon dioxide removal. </p>
<p>Another problem is that the current carbon offset market offers a flat rate, no matter the quality or effectiveness of the CO₂ removal method. There is an urgent need for a tiered market that values high-quality, proven CO₂ removal methods. This will provide an incentive to fast-track their use.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://unfccc.int/about-us/regional-collaboration-centres/the-ciaca/about-carbon-pricing#What-does-the-Paris-Agreement-say-on-carbon-pricin">carbon offset market’s pricing mechanism</a> is a stumbling block. The price for offsetting a tonne of CO₂ is in the range US$10–100. Cheaper avoidance strategies, such as not clearing forests, heavily influence this price. </p>
<p>The existing pricing falls short when we consider the costs of CO₂ removal technologies, which can exceed US$200 per tonne removed.</p>
<p>The prevailing metric, simplifying everything to “one tonne of carbon”, doesn’t consider the complexities of CO₂ removal. Each method has its own specifics about how long it can store carbon, how reliably it can be verified and the potential risks or side effects. Shoehorning such a varied field into a single metric stifles innovation in CO₂ removal.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/net-zero-by-2050-too-late-australia-must-aim-for-2035-213973">Net zero by 2050? Too late. Australia must aim for 2035</a>
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<h2>What are the solutions?</h2>
<p>Understanding the market’s resistance to intricate metrics, we propose a more nuanced yet approachable two-step solution:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Shift in metrics</strong>: change the standard from a “carbon tonne” to a “carbon tonne year”. This recognises the longevity of CO₂ removal methods and rewards those that store carbon longer. Such a metric connects directly with efforts to cut emissions.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>A mandatory warranty</strong>: each “carbon tonne year” requires a warranty from the seller to vouch for the method’s reliability (verification) and its overall safety (assessing risks and side effects).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>These changes will foster a system that appropriately values CO₂ removal methods that are long-lasting, reliable and safe. It creates an incentive to develop and use these methods.</p>
<p>In our Nature article, we advocate a structured ten-year plan. This timeframe is crucial for maturing the markets, establishing effective regulatory frameworks and fine-tuning verification. </p>
<p>It’s essential to prepare for the evolution and scaling up of carbon dioxide removal. A decade provides a realistic window to develop the processes needed to reach net zero.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/net-zero-carbon-neutral-carbon-negative-confused-by-all-the-carbon-jargon-then-read-this-151382">Net-zero, carbon-neutral, carbon-negative ... confused by all the carbon jargon? Then read this</a>
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<p>The magnitude of this task cannot be overstated. In just a few decades, <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022">CO₂ removal must operate on a colossal scale</a>, comparable to global food production.</p>
<p>The New York summit has set the stage for the <a href="https://www.cop28.com/">COP28 meeting in Dubai</a> later this year. An ambitious long-term global strategy can still provide a sustainable future within the heating limits set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. </p>
<p>It’s time to get real about carbon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Turney receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a scientific adviser and holds shares in cleantech biographite company, CarbonScape (<a href="https://www.carbonscape.com">https://www.carbonscape.com</a>). Chris is affiliated with the virtual Climate Recovery Institute (<a href="https://climaterecoveryinstitute.com.au">https://climaterecoveryinstitute.com.au</a>).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lennart Bach receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Carbon to Sea Initiative. He is a scientific adviser of Submarine (<a href="https://www.submarine.earth/">https://www.submarine.earth/</a>), which develops tools for monitoring, reporting and verification of marine CO₂ removal. Lennart is affiliated with the virtual Climate Recovery Institute (<a href="https://climaterecoveryinstitute.com.au">https://climaterecoveryinstitute.com.au</a>).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Boyd receives funding from the Australian Research Council and he is affiliated with the virtual Climate Recovery Institute. </span></em></p>Global efforts to cut emissions fall well short of what’s needed to avoid dangerous warming. It’s becoming essential to develop carbon-removal strategies to get to net zero.Christian Turney, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research, University of Technology SydneyLennart Bach, Associate Professor, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of TasmaniaPhilip Boyd, Professor of Marine Science, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940322022-11-15T17:18:08Z2022-11-15T17:18:08ZCOP27: how King Charles has demonstrated his commitment to the environment from afar<p>King Charles is a committed environmentalist. Aged 21, he gave a <a href="https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speech/speech-hrh-prince-wales-countryside-1970-conference-steering-committee-wales-cardiff">speech</a> to the Countryside Steering Committee for Wales warning against the environmental cost of oil pollution and plastic waste. </p>
<p>He has since spoken on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgmYOh-B-4M">environmental issues</a> at the European Parliament and at global conferences. At the UN climate summit COP26 in 2021, <a href="https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speech/speech-hrh-prince-wales-opening-ceremony-cop26-glasgow">he spoke</a> formally about the <a href="https://www.sustainable-markets.org/">role of the private sector</a> in accelerating the transition to net zero.</p>
<p>The film and fashion industries have demonstrated that <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-power-of-stars-do-stars-drive-success-in-creative-industries">“star” figures</a> can mobilise their popularity to generate media attention and, if used appropriately, can create the context for positive discussion. Hollywood actor <a href="https://togetherband.org/blogs/news/leonardo-dicaprio-environment">Leonardo DiCaprio</a> has used his stardom to promote environmental action effectively. In 1998, DiCaprio was invited to the White House to discuss the climate crisis with then US vice-president Al Gore.</p>
<p>But now he is king, Charles’s position has changed. It is widely considered unacceptable for the monarch to directly express personal opinions. There are clear political questions associated with influential but unelected figures advocating for policies in a democracy where representatives are elected to make such decisions. Comparisons with other prominent environmentalists such as Dicaprio have therefore diminished.</p>
<p>Charles has had to reconsider his approach to environmentalism. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/28/king-charles-will-not-attend-cop27-in-egypt-no-10-confirms">agreed</a> not to attend the COP27 summit in Egypt this year, and has not deviated from the official position that this decision was made by mutual agreement with Liz Truss, then prime minister. But some <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq1TsA35zkA">royal commentators</a> have speculated that the King was disappointed as he had hoped to deliver a speech to delegates.</p>
<h2>Environmental activism</h2>
<p>In the past, Charles has used his influence to advocate for climate action overtly. In 1992, the landmark <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/rio1992">UN Earth Summit</a> was held in Rio de Janeiro. It was the first time in 20 years that UN member nations had convened to discuss environmental issues.</p>
<p>A year before that summit, Charles <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-05-09-vl-2019-story.html">hosted an informal reception</a> off the coast of Brazil for delegates on the royal yacht Britannia. The guests included Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello and US Environmental Protection Agency administrator William K. Reilly.</p>
<p>It was reported that Charles challenged officials and business leaders over the role of their respective countries at the impending Rio summit. He later called for the same people to show <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/04/22/Prince-Charles-calls-for-vision-at-Rio-summit/9135703915200/">“vision and courage”</a> at the summit.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Royal Yacht Britannia berthed at a port." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494629/original/file-20221110-26-bo155e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prior to the UN Earth Summit, Charles held a reception on the Royal Yacht Britannia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/royal-yacht-britannia-berthed-edinburgh-city-1105392581">Edinburghcitymom/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thirty years on, the King has shown recognition that his new position necessitates a change in his approach to environmental campaigning. On his accession to the throne, he acknowledged that he could not devote as much time to all of his <a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charles-will-redistribute-hundreds-of-charity-patronages-heres-why-they-are-such-an-important-part-of-royal-life-190810">associated charities</a>. Instead, he has changed his strategy to one that involves encouraging and directing the discussion of environmental issues. </p>
<p>Charles used his scheduled programme of visits and events on a recent <a href="https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/king-charles-first-tour-yorkshire-25456681">tour of the UK</a> to engage with businesses and community leaders over environmental issues. He visited the Bradford head office of the supermarket chain Morrisons, for example, to hear about its sustainability schemes. </p>
<p>By endorsing green initiatives such as the <a href="https://queensgreencanopy.org">Queen’s Green Canopy Project</a>, Charles has encouraged public engagement with small-scale environmental solutions. The initiative, which has been extended to March 2023, involves nationwide tree planting projects in commemoration of the Queen. </p>
<p>He has also passed some of his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/02/king-charles-should-not-attend-cop27-says-environment-minister">environmental work</a>, including on rainforests and species conservation, to Prince William. Charles’s eldest son has his own track record of engaging with environmental issues, including launching the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/18/prince-william-reveals-earthshot-prize-winners-in-global-bid-to-tackle-climate-crisis">Earthshot Prize</a> in 2021, which rewards innovative solutions to environmental issues. </p>
<h2>Convene and capitalise</h2>
<p>Illustrating the King’s newly refined approach to environmentalism is his use of his new position to bring together prominent public figures, such as political leaders, on the promise of a highly visible platform.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1588568719751806976"}"></div></p>
<p>In early November, 200 politicians and campaigners gathered at Buckingham Palace for a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/king-charles-rishi-sunak-cop27-reception-b2214857.html">pre-COP27 reception</a>. Among the attendees were Alok Sharma, a committed climate negotiator and president of COP26, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and current climate envoy. Kerry was instrumental in the creation of the <a href="https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2013/03/20/ross-mpa/">Ross Sea marine protected area</a> in Antarctica in 2013.</p>
<p>As well as politicians, the reception was attended by guests from business including the fashion designer and environmental campaigner Stella McCartney. This allowed Charles to convey the message that environmental issues are a shared responsibility, reinforcing the theme that members of the private sector can also be catalysts for environmental action. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rishi Sunak with both hands out in front of him mid-way through giving a speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494628/original/file-20221110-24-6ww6p8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rishi Sunak spoke at the King’s pre-COP27 reception.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cardiff-wales-uk-august-3-2022-2186667263">ComposedPix/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surrounded by environmental campaigners and thought leaders, the UK’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was prompted to speak at the reception on the need for urgent climate action.</p>
<p>Sunak alluded to the “desperate inheritance” we are leaving our children by failing to act immediately on climate change. He also adopted the political language used by Charles in the past, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/cop27-rishi-sunak-king-charles-buckingham-palace-b2218066.html">acknowledging</a> that human suffering will worsen if we continue to allow climate change to “ravage our planet”. </p>
<p>The King has in the past expressed his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1EUsGrIgMY">frustration</a> with the lack of concrete action and binding commitments at climate conferences. But the pre-COP27 reception demonstrates that he has refined his operating procedure. His approach is to “convene and capitalise” in order to continue engaging with environmental issues, despite the constraints imposed by his new role.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Klaus Dodds does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite not being at COP27, there are other ways for King Charles to showcase his commitment to the environment.Klaus Dodds, Professor of Geopolitics, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1921312022-11-07T17:13:28Z2022-11-07T17:13:28ZClimate change: carbon offsetting isn’t working – here’s how to fix it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493831/original/file-20221107-21-5gvhig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The global carbon offsets market is set to continue growing, but scientists and environmentalists remain sceptical.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-planting-tree-garden-preserve-1136725715">nBhutinat/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions will be the same irrespective of where the emissions take place. Carbon emitted in one part of the world can be cancelled out if the same amount is removed elsewhere. </p>
<p>Carbon offsetting is one way of achieving this. Companies can meet their emissions reduction targets by purchasing carbon credits awarded to projects that either emit fewer emissions at source, such as cleaner energy production, or remove them from the atmosphere, such as forestry schemes. Each credit corresponds to one metric tonne of reduced or removed carbon emissions.</p>
<p>The first day of the UN climate summit, COP27, in Egypt saw intense discussions over the trade of carbon offsets. The US sees offsets as a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8272e012-5374-4676-860e-b860b6c01cf5">promising way</a> of directing investment towards clean energy projects in developing countries. </p>
<p>But many scientists and environmentalists are sceptical of companies offsetting their emissions instead of actually reducing them. This has prompted some firms, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/26/easyjet-will-stop-offsetting-carbon-emissions-from-planes-roadmap-net-zero">EasyJet</a>, to focus their efforts on reducing their emissions directly. </p>
<p>I am a member of the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s independent climate change advisory body. We have produced a <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/voluntary-carbon-markets-and-offsetting/">report</a> that assesses whether carbon offsetting has supported the UK’s transition towards net zero. The report confirms that the scepticism around carbon offsetting is not unfounded. But we also found ways to improve offsetting.</p>
<h2>Can we rely on carbon offsets?</h2>
<p>Carbon credits are cheap. One tonne of carbon dioxide <a href="https://data.ecosystemmarketplace.com/">costs just £3</a> to offset on average. Companies are also not required to disclose how offsets are being used to meet their net zero targets. They therefore have little incentive to reduce their emissions as they can claim to be net zero while relying entirely on offsetting. </p>
<p>But offsetting often fails to reduce carbon emissions meaningfully. <a href="https://www.carbonfootprint.com/offsetstandards.html">Global carbon credit standards</a> exist to ensure that credits are traceable and meet a minimum verifiable level. However, an emissions reduction may occur whether or not it is paid for with credits. An area of rainforest, for example, will remove carbon from the atmosphere whether or not it has been sold as part of a carbon offsetting scheme.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A burned forest next to a a green forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493562/original/file-20221104-24-zex4ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Forests are susceptible to wildfire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/burned-zone-next-green-trees-lightner-716371675">Kara Grubis/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Projects may also not remove emissions permanently. A fire that destroys a forest, for example, will damage the integrity of the credits sold by forestry projects. <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.930426/full">Six forest projects</a> involved in the carbon offsetting market in California have released up to 6.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2015 because of fires.</p>
<h2>Seeds of hope</h2>
<p>But if used correctly, carbon offsetting can be an important component of the policy mix as we transition to net zero. A rise in the price of credits would allow offsetting to make a greater contribution to global climate priorities, such as restoring nature. </p>
<p>International <a href="https://www.iisd.org/articles/paris-agreement-article-6-rules">accounting mechanisms</a> were agreed at <a href="https://ukcop26.org/">COP26</a> encouraging countries that sell offsets not to count these emissions savings towards their own climate targets. Within their borders, countries would have to deliver both their domestic targets and any offsetting projects sold to overseas buyers.</p>
<p>This could help raise overall climate ambition in some countries. But national climate targets for countries selling offsets need to be ambitious and the sale of offsets must be monitored to ensure the delivery of offsetting projects.</p>
<p>Woodland covers <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/state-of-uk-woods-and-trees/">roughly 13%</a> of the UK’s land surface, making it one of the most <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094162/Working_with_nature_-_report.pdf">nature-depleted</a> nations on the planet. Despite this, less than 1% of the carbon offsets purchased by the 350 largest listed companies on the London Stock Exchange go towards <a href="https://vcmintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Summary-of-Consultation-Interviews.pdf">restoring UK nature</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rows of planted trees in a field in front of a forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493559/original/file-20221104-11-o26op0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woodland creation in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woodland-creation-biodivers-uk-native-trees-1498848269">Callums Trees/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, offsetting could provide the finance required to restore UK nature. <a href="https://woodlandcarboncode.org.uk/">Quality standards</a> are being developed for woodland and peatland creation projects in the UK, detailing the scale of restoration needed to deliver climate and biodiversity targets. </p>
<p>They require projects to last for a minimum of 70 years and demand the creation of buffers in the form of additional tree planting and peat restoration to insure against project failure. Our report suggests that these standards could lead to £1 billion of funding each year for UK nature restoration projects. </p>
<p>We also found that the purchase of carbon credits could raise £400 million of funding each year for emerging climate technologies in the UK. One such technology is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-largest-plant-capturing-carbon-air-starts-iceland-2021-09-08/">direct air capture</a>, which involves pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it underground. Purchasing credits in long-term carbon removal projects such as this represent an attractive option for industries that cannot easily curb their emissions, such as the aviation industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A diagram showing the process of direct air capture." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493823/original/file-20221107-3609-9nbzq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carbon offsetting can provide the finance for important climate technologies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/direct-air-capture-co2-filtering-reduce-2090709838">VectorMine/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Offsets can work</h2>
<p>Since 2018, the global market for offsets has grown <a href="https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/publications/state-of-the-voluntary-carbon-markets-2021/">five-fold</a> and is set to continue growing. But further steps must be taken to ensure that carbon offsets are used correctly.</p>
<p>Guidance over how a company is using carbon offsetting must be improved. A company should only be able to claim that they are net zero when they have minimised their own emissions and are using offsetting to compensate for the rest. </p>
<p>The UK government is developing its own regulations for businesses through a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fact-sheet-net-zero-aligned-financial-centre/fact-sheet-net-zero-aligned-financial-centre">net zero transition plan</a>. The plan will require organisations to disclose the steps they are taking to transition towards net zero. This involves setting out how offsetting contributes to these targets, enabling an independent assessment of how far organisations are reducing their emissions. </p>
<p>Efforts to improve UK and international standards for carbon offsetting projects should be accelerated. Standards are being developed in the UK for carbon credits associated with restoring kelp beds off our coasts, improving carbon storage in our soils, and planting hedgerows. They will support climate and biodiversity goals while providing a financial incentive for farmers. </p>
<p>For overseas projects, a set of standards could be internationally agreed, possibly based on the <a href="https://icvcm.org/">Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s Core Carbon Principles</a>. With a trusted set of standards, businesses can be confident that they are investing in high-quality offsetting projects. </p>
<p>Carbon offsetting should support attempts to reduce an organisations emissions, not provide an alternative. By improving guidance on the use of offsetting, businesses can be encouraged to reduce their emissions directly. But through financing climate change mitigation and nature restoration, carbon offsetting can play an important role in the transition to net zero.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Piers Forster receives funding from the European Horizons Research Programme and the UK Research Council. He is a member of the UK Climate Change Committee. He is Trustee of the United Bank of Carbon woodland research and restoration charity. </span></em></p>Carbon offsetting is often met with scepticism, but a new report suggests that if correctly designed it can be an important part of the net zero transition.Piers Forster, Professor of Physical Climate Change; Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1915862022-10-04T19:06:02Z2022-10-04T19:06:02ZAlmost 200 nations are set to tackle climate change at COP27 in Egypt. Is this just a talkfest, or does the meeting actually matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487961/original/file-20221004-22-4jo9ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5168%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a crucial meeting for tackling the climate crisis, almost 200 countries will come together <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/egypt-hosting-cop27-can-it-become-africas-climate-champion">in Egypt</a> at the start of November for a “Conference of the Parties”, or COP27.</p>
<p>You may remember hearing about COP26 in Glasgow about this time last year. It was <a href="https://ukcop26.org/around-120-leaders-gather-at-cop26-in-glasgow-for-last-best-chance-to-keep-1-5-alive/">often hailed</a> as our “last best chance” to keep global warming under 1.5°C this century. </p>
<p>Since then, emissions have reached <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/06/30/greenhouse-emissions-rise-to-record-erasing-drop-during-pandemic">record levels</a> after the pandemic downturn. And this year alone, we’ve seen dozens of <a href="https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disasters/">catastrophic disasters</a> ranging from drought in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/somalia-on-the-brink-of-famine-aid-efforts-risk-failing-marginalised-communities-yet-again-190174">Horn of Africa</a> to floods in <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistan-floods-what-role-did-climate-change-play-189833">Pakistan</a>, South Africa and Australia, and wildfires and heatwaves in Europe, the United States, Mongolia and South America, <a href="https://theconversation.com/2022s-supercharged-summer-of-climate-extremes-how-global-warming-and-la-nina-fueled-disasters-on-top-of-disasters-190546">among others</a>. </p>
<p>As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129127?utm_source=UN+News+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3ec6666237-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_10_03_11_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdbf1af606-3ec6666237-107091541">said this week</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On every climate front, the only solution is decisive action in solidarity. COP27 is the place for all countries […] to show they are in this fight and in it together.</p>
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<p>So, as disasters intensify and war rages in Ukraine, what can we expect from this important summit?</p>
<h2>What happens at COP meetings?</h2>
<p>Conferences of the Parties are held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and this year marks its 30th anniversary since it was established at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. COP27 will be held in Egypt’s resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. </p>
<p>COPs allow the international community to decide on a fair allocation of responsibility for addressing climate change. That is, who should lead in emissions reduction, who should pay for transitioning to new forms of energy production and who should compensate those already feeling the effects of climate change. </p>
<p>They also allow countries to agree on rules for meeting commitments, or processes to transfer funds and resources from wealthy countries to poorer ones. And they provide opportunities for sharing the latest climate change research.</p>
<p>Just as importantly, COP meetings focus international attention on the climate crisis and responses to it. This creates pressure for countries to make new commitments or, at least, to play a constructive role in negotiations.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-were-at-cop26-it-had-mixed-results-172558">We were at COP26: It had mixed results</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Is COP27 less important than COP26?</h2>
<p>In some ways, COP27 is less significant than COP26. That meeting, the first for two years after a COVID-19 delay, was the deadline for countries to commit new emissions reduction targets under the rules of the 2015 Paris Agreement. </p>
<p>The agreement allowed countries to make their own commitments, with the expectation these would be ratcheted up every five years. Glasgow was essentially a big test of whether the deal actually worked to increase commitments addressing climate change.</p>
<p>Glasgow was also significant because it was the first COP since the US returned to the fold after the Trump administration’s withdrawal. </p>
<p>By contrast, Sharm el-Sheikh is less a test of the agreement itself. It is more an opportunity for renewed commitment on mitigation and finance, and deciding on next steps for realising these commitments. </p>
<p>But there is still plenty at stake, and a few crucial points of debate loom.</p>
<h2>Will more countries make new commitments?</h2>
<p>The first big test for COP27 will be whether countries make new emissions reduction commitments.</p>
<p>At Glasgow, more than 100 nations committed to new emissions reduction targets. But these commitments still fell well short of what’s needed to reach the goals agreed at Paris.</p>
<p>Instead of providing a pathway <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement#:%7E:text=Its%20goal%20is%20to%20limit,neutral%20world%20by%20mid%2Dcentury">to limit</a> global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C, Glasgow commitments were shown to put the world on track for <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/glasgows-2030-credibility-gap-net-zeros-lip-service-to-climate-action/">a 2.4°C increase</a> by the end of the century. </p>
<p>This would endanger people and ecosystems throughout the world. And that’s assuming those countries even meet the targets.</p>
<p>Despite this, in the lead up to COP27 fewer than 20 countries have provided updates, and only a handful of these <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/climate-target-update-tracker-2022/">have outlined</a> new emissions reduction targets or net-zero commitments. Of these, only India and Australia are among emitters <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/271748/the-largest-emitters-of-co2-in-the-world/">producing more than 1%</a> of global carbon dioxide emissions. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1577033497172058112"}"></div></p>
<h2>Show us the money</h2>
<p>Three big issues around climate finance – <a href="https://unfccc.int/topics/introduction-to-climate-finance#:%7E:text=What%20is%20climate%20finance%3F,that%20will%20address%20climate%20change.">funds to support</a> mitigation and adaptation – also loom in Egypt. </p>
<p>The first is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02846-3">the failure</a> of developed states to make good on their 2009 commitment to provide US$100 billion per year in funds for developing states. This issue was raised at Glasgow, but hasn’t gone anywhere since. And there’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/wealthy-countries-still-havent-met-their-100-billion-pledge-to-help-poor-countries-face-climate-change-and-the-risks-are-rising-173229">no prospect</a> of this target being met in 2022. </p>
<p>Second, developing countries, including <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/news/pacific-island-leaders-declare-climate-emergency/">many Pacific nations</a>, will call for greater focus on finance for <a href="https://unfccc.int/topics/adaptation-and-resilience/the-big-picture/new-elements-and-dimensions-of-adaptation-under-the-paris-agreement-article-7">adapting to</a> the impacts of global warming.</p>
<p>So far, most of the funds have been channelled to <a href="https://www.oecd.org/climate-change/finance-usd-100-billion-goal/">mitigation projects</a>, focused on helping developing states reduce their emissions. But as climate change becomes increasingly felt in developing states, funding for adaptation has become even more important.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/flooding-in-pakistan-shows-that-climate-adaptation-requires-international-support-and-regional-co-operation-189853">Flooding in Pakistan shows that climate adaptation requires international support and regional co-operation</a>
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<p>Third, the Paris Agreement included recognition of likely “<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop27-why-is-addressing-loss-and-damage-crucial-for-climate-justice/#:%7E:text=COP27%20is%20a%20chance%20for,the%20needs%20of%20the%20continent">loss and damage</a>”. This refers to destruction wreaked by climate change, where mitigation and adaptation efforts were insufficient to prevent that harm. </p>
<p>At the time, there was no commitment to provide compensation for loss and damage. In Egypt, developing states will likely push harder for financial commitments from the developed world. </p>
<p>The developed world has contributed most significantly to climate change and can better pay to insulate from its effects. But the developing world is least responsible, more likely to feel climate effects and least able to pay for managing those effects.</p>
<p>With the location of these talks in Africa, we can expect these issues to be particularly prominent at COP27. </p>
<h2>The storm clouds of international politics</h2>
<p>While global agreement on climate action has been difficult to achieve in the past, recent international politics cast further shadow over the prospects for genuine cooperation at COP27.</p>
<p>First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine <a href="https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/what-is-cop27-this-years-crucial-climate-talks-explained/">has led to</a> rising global inflation, soaring energy prices and increasing international concerns about energy access. All these have taken attention – and even potential funding – from the imperative of climate action. </p>
<p>It also has meant Russia, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-climate-laggards-change-russia-like-australia-first-needs-to-overcome-significant-domestic-resistance-170461">key player</a> in international climate talks, could play a spoiler role. </p>
<p>Second, China, the world’s largest emitter, looks similarly disaffected with current global politics. This has been evident in its approach to international climate politics. </p>
<p>For example, in Glasgow, China made a breakthrough agreement with the US on climate cooperation. But this <a href="https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/roundtable-the-implications-of-the-us-and-china-suspending-climate-cooperation/">was suspended</a> soon after US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.</p>
<h2>We’re running out of time</h2>
<p>Egypt’s Minister for International Cooperation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/25/egypt-climate-finance-top-of-agenda-cop27-talks">announced in May</a> that the focus of international action at COP27 should be moving from “pledges to implementation”.</p>
<p>While this includes targets to reduce emissions, the hosts have also been clear about the need for developed states to make good on meeting their financial commitments. The onset of climate change has clearly made this an urgent concern for many in the developing world who are already feeling its effects. </p>
<p>And clearly, these talks are a pivotal moment for the planet, as we risk <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/27/time-running-out-us-germany-intensify-climate-change-fight">running out of time</a> in our efforts to avoid climate catastrophe.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-peoples-across-the-globe-are-uniquely-equipped-to-deal-with-the-climate-crisis-so-why-are-we-being-left-out-of-these-conversations-171724">Indigenous peoples across the globe are uniquely equipped to deal with the climate crisis – so why are we being left out of these conversations?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt McDonald has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>Remember hearing about COP26 in Glasgow last year? There’s a lot at stake in this year’s climate summit, so here’s your essential guide to prepare.Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1912952022-09-29T14:07:13Z2022-09-29T14:07:13ZGreen hydrogen sounds like a win for developing countries. But cost and transport are problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486469/original/file-20220926-879-upyevo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Hydrogen is used mainly to make chemicals such as fertiliser, and in oil refineries. Most hydrogen in the world today is made from natural gas or coal – methods associated with large carbon dioxide emissions. Developed countries are therefore looking to “green hydrogen” instead – produced using renewable electricity such as solar and wind power. Energy experts Rod Crompton and Bruce Young explain green hydrogen’s potential benefits and challenges.</em></p>
<h2>What is hydrogen used for?</h2>
<p>Global hydrogen demand reached 94 million tons in 2021, and contained energy equal to about <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-hydrogen-review-2022/executive-summary">2.5% of global final energy consumption</a>. Only about <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/4-technologies-accelerating-green-hydrogen-revolution/#:%7E:text=Green%20hydrogen%20is%20produced%20through,0.1%25%20of%20global%20hydrogen%20production">0.1%</a> of current global hydrogen production is green, but big expansions are planned. </p>
<p>New applications for green hydrogen are also envisaged.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/clean-hydrogen-ladder-v40-michael-liebreich/">Liebreich’s classification</a> is a useful indicator of the potential markets for green hydrogen. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486287/original/file-20220923-214-qehx50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Reproduced with permission from Liebreich Associates.</span>
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<p>Since the objective of using green hydrogen is really to reduce carbon dioxide, the applications to target first should be those that will yield the largest reductions in emissions. Liebreich’s ladder shows which they are. The applications in the (green) top row are an efficient use of valuable green hydrogen. </p>
<p>But green hydrogen currently costs much more to make than less clean types of hydrogen. Using it to produce the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/green-ammonia/green-ammonia-policy-briefing.pdf">180 million tons</a> per annum of ammonia required globally for fertiliser production would have a severe knock-on effect on food prices. </p>
<p>So it is difficult to see how this transition is going to occur.</p>
<h2>How is green hydrogen made?</h2>
<p>Green hydrogen is made from water. Using renewable (“green”) electricity, equipment called electrolysers separates the hydrogen from oxygen in water (H₂O). The process is called electrolysis. </p>
<p>Green hydrogen production emits no carbon dioxide, but the construction of renewable electricity infrastructure currently uses fossil fuels, which do emit carbon dioxide. </p>
<p>Hydrogen has traditionally been made from non-renewable energy sources like coal (“black hydrogen”) and natural gas (“<a href="https://energy-cities.eu/50-shades-of-grey-and-blue-and-green-hydrogen/#:%7E:text=Grey%20hydrogen%20accounts%20for%20most,per%20kg%20of%20hydrogen%20production">grey hydrogen</a>”). When these methods are combined with carbon capture and storage, the hydrogen produced is known as “blue hydrogen”. </p>
<h2>What challenges does green hydrogen present?</h2>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-Costs-in-2020">costs of renewable power generation</a> have been coming down, the cost of electrolysis is still not commercially competitive. </p>
<p>Today, green hydrogen has an estimated energy equivalent cost of between US$250 and US$400 per barrel of oil at the factory gate, according to the <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2020/Dec/Green-hydrogen-cost-reduction">International Renewable Energy Agency</a>. Future cost reductions are forecast but these are uncertain. Current oil prices are around $100 a barrel – much less than it would cost to use green hydrogen instead of conventional petroleum products. </p>
<p>The costs of transporting hydrogen must be taken into account too. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the physics of hydrogen is against low-cost hydrogen transport. It is much more challenging than oil-based liquid fuels, liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas. Ocean transport of hydrogen has to be at very low temperatures (-253°C). Petrol or diesel doesn’t need costly refrigeration: it is transported at ambient air temperature. </p>
<p>And hydrogen carries only 25% of the energy that a litre of petrol does, making it much more expensive to transport and store the same amount of energy. </p>
<p>Alternative ways to transport hydrogen have been investigated. Because ammonia (NH₃) is much easier and cheaper to transport than hydrogen, the International Renewable Energy Agency has recommended “storing” hydrogen in ammonia for shipping. But that requires additional equipment to put the hydrogen into ammonia and strip it out at its destination. These processes add costs of about US$2.50-US$4.20/kg (equivalent to US$123-US$207 per barrel of oil) according to <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2022/Apr/Global-hydrogen-trade-Part-II">the agency</a>. </p>
<p>Hydrogen is more difficult to handle than conventional fossil fuels. It is a colourless, odourless and tasteless gas, unlike conventional hydrocarbons. This makes leak detection more difficult and increases the risk of fire or explosion. Hydrogen fires are invisible to the human eye. </p>
<p>Historically, hydrogen has been controlled within factory perimeters and managed by trained people. The widespread introduction of hydrogen into society will require new measures and skills, including insurance, materials handling, firefighting and disaster management.</p>
<h2>Where are the first hydrogen mega projects likely to be built?</h2>
<p>Construction of the first <a href="https://acwapower.com/en/projects/neom-green-hydrogen-project/">gigawatt scale green hydrogen project</a> in Saudi Arabia has already started. Many of the pioneering projects will be built in the southern hemisphere, mostly in developing countries. This is because they are less densely populated and have better renewable energy resources (solar and wind) for generating the necessary electricity. </p>
<p>Although this may sound positive for developing countries, there are big risks in developing hydrogen mega projects. For one thing, the “iron law” of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299393235_Introduction_The_Iron_Law_of_Megaproject_Management">megaprojects</a> states: “Over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again”. Project owners bear the project execution risk.</p>
<p>Risks also include exchange rate risk, remote locations, pioneering technology, and a lack of skills. Prospective host countries will have to balance these risks against the temptations of improved investment, employment and balance of payments. They would be wise to extract guarantees from their customer countries so as to avoid the injustice of the global south subsidising the global north as it transitions to cleaner energy.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-huge-green-fuels-potential-but-it-needs-to-act-now-129009">South Africa has huge 'green fuels' potential. But it needs to act now</a>
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<p>South Africa now has a “<a href="https://www.dst.gov.za/images/South_African_Hydrogen_Society_RoadmapV1.pdf">Hydrogen Roadmap</a>” after many years of government funding. There is talk by the energy company Sasol and vehicle manufacturer Toyota of a “<a href="https://www.dst.gov.za/images/2021/Hydrogen_Valley_Feasibility_Study_Report_Final_Version.pdf">Hydrogen Valley</a>”, a geographical corridor of concentrated hydrogen manufacture and application industries. And the South African government and Sasol are talking of establishing a new port on the west coast at <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/stakeholders-to-visit-boegebaai-to-kickstart-green-hydrogen-project-2022-01-14">Boegoebaai</a> for the manufacture and export of green hydrogen. In Nelson Mandela Bay, Hive Hydrogen is planning a US$4.6 billion <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/print-version/worlds-largest-green-ammonia-export-plant-for-nelson-mandela-bay-2021-12-15">green ammonia plant</a>. </p>
<p>Namibia also has big <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/namibian-green-hydrogen-developer-expects-implementation-agreement-on-10bn-project-by-year-end-2022-08-18#:%7E:text=to%20Learn%20More-,Namibian%20green%20hydrogen%20developer%20expects%20implementation%20agreement,bn%20project%20by%20year%2Dend&text=Green%20hydrogen%20development%20company%20Hyphen,Namibian%20government%20by%20year%2Dend">plans</a> for a US$10 billion green hydrogen project. </p>
<p>The key to reducing green hydrogen costs in the future lies mainly in technological improvements and cost reductions related to mass manufacture and a scale-up in electrolysis. And to a lesser extent, incremental cost reductions in transport and handling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Crompton is a non-executive director at Eskom and SANEA.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Douglas Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The key to reducing green hydrogen costs in the future lies mainly in technological improvements.Rod Crompton, Visiting Adjunct Professor, African Energy Leadership Centre, Wits Business School, University of the WitwatersrandBruce Douglas Young, Senior Lecturer, Africa Energy Leadership Centre, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1898412022-09-12T18:06:41Z2022-09-12T18:06:41ZCulpability for the Pakistan floods rests with the Pakistani government and rich countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484115/original/file-20220912-22-ndg083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C678%2C4669%2C2574&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of men sit in floodwater in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Sept. 3, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Zahid Hussain)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/culpability-for-the-pakistan-floods-rests-with-the-pakistani-government-and-rich-countries" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Nearly a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/08/30/1119979965/pakistan-floods-monsoon-climate">third of Pakistan</a> still remains submerged after catastrophic flooding. The country’s administration has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/pakistan-monsoon-on-steroids-flooding-warning-antonio-guterres">denied responsibility</a> for the crisis and blamed wealthier nations that produce the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/climate-change-caused-by-wealthy-nations-creates-harm-for-poorer-study-says">bulk of global carbon emissions</a> for the unfolding climate disaster.</p>
<p>Rich nations must be <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/interview/2022/1/31/rich-countries-owe-rest-of-world-climate-justice-reparations">held accountable</a> and humanitarian aid should be redefined as <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/11/the-case-for-climate-reparations/">climate reparations</a>. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/climate-emergency-is-a-legacy-of-colonialism-says-greenpeace-uk">colonial legacy of climate change</a> must also be recognized. However, the Pakistani state, too, remains culpable for the dispossession of its people in the wake of the floods.</p>
<p>Like many countries, Pakistan’s population centres are <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11746">based around its river systems</a>. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke with Ali, a resident of northwestern Pakistan. He described how his family has been struggling to meet their daily expenses amidst <a href="https://tribune.com.pk/story/2373389/inflation-breaks-all-records-climbs-to-4458">record-high inflation</a>. Since then, the floods have <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220831-heavenly-pakistan-mountain-town-becomes-site-of-ruin">destroyed his village</a> and he is currently in a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/half-a-million-forced-into-camps-as-flooding-ravages-pakistan">displacement camp</a>. Twelve years ago, Ali’s family was similarly forced into a camp where I first met him. </p>
<p>This is not the first time Pakistan has experienced flooding of this scale. In 2010, <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/08/cruel-echoes-of-a-2010-disaster-in-pakistans-catastrophic-2022-floods/">large parts of the country were also inundated</a>. I worked in the disaster response following the floods and have since <a href="https://doi.org/10.25071/2292-4736/38546">conducted research with affected communities</a> across the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A aerial photo of a flooded town." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483318/original/file-20220907-18-ennilw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Homes are surrounded by flood waters in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, Sept. 1, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Zahid Hussain)</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1707390/pakistans-history-of-disasters-and-the-lessons-we-fail-to-learn">Important lessons</a> were learned from the floods in 2010. Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1708388?fbclid=IwAR1XmudBM7s1_4yucwxZOKzdynFCHfjb_XysCCTwdHtGkehw_IdULPq5OtA">authorities have failed</a> to use them to shape national policies. </p>
<h2>Marginalized areas hardest hit</h2>
<p>Most notably, the devastation from the floods is taking place in some of the country’s poorest and politically repressed regions, such as Balochistan, where an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-world/2012/1/9/balochistan-pakistans-other-war">armed insurgency against state oppression is ongoing</a>. Images of inundated villages cycle with images of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2022/5/4/why-are-people-disappearing-in-balochistan">disappeared activists and intellectuals</a>.</p>
<p>Southern Punjab, another heavily impacted region, is also marked by <a href="https://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/state-must-address-south-punjabs-long-standing-grievances/">uneven development and inequality</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/my-land-my-right-putting-land-rights-at-the-heart-of-the-pakistan-floods-recons-133790/">Insecure land rights</a> were flagged as a significant impediment to disaster recovery after the floods in 2010.</p>
<p>In my work with the United Nations, I have argued that <a href="https://www.unescap.org/publications/accelerating-progress-empowered-inclusive-and-equal-asia-and-pacific">empowerment should be at the heart of climate action</a>, of which security of land tenure is key. </p>
<p>Little progress has been made since then to strengthen land tenure. <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/uneven-ground-land-inequality-heart-unequal-societies">Land tenure</a> is about the relationship between people and the land where they live and work. In Pakistan, land ownership is deeply <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Politics-Landlords-and-Islam-in-Pakistan/Martin/p/book/9780815392989">embedded with political patronage</a>.</p>
<p>Many in the heavily affected provinces are <a href="https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article5989">peasant farmers</a> who work for landed elites. Many of these elites <a href="https://www.himalmag.com/the-eclipse-of-feudalism-in-pakistan/">consolidated their hold over land and political power under the British</a> as a reward for facilitating colonial rule.</p>
<p>Contract farmers pay rent to landowners in exchange for the right to stay and plant crops. There is little incentive for the landed class to make any improvements to the land that could mitigate the impacts of flooding. Farmers who rent that land are not allowed to make significant changes.</p>
<p>Those with land tenure, however, more effectively utilize reconstruction assistance to build resilient housing following floods and earthquakes in the country.</p>
<h2>Climate action needs investment and empowerment</h2>
<p>Despite a disaster management authority at the federal and provincial levels, <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2022/09/05/Pakistan-floods-urgent-questions-climate-crisis">disaster preparedness and mitigation</a> have not been prioritized. The country’s <a href="https://mocc.gov.pk/SiteImage/Policy/NCCP%20Report.pdf">National Climate Policy</a> details the necessity of early warning systems, disaster-resilient infrastructure, and evacuation plans. These recommendations have yet to be implemented.</p>
<p>The destructive effects of the flooding are exacerbated by <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/01/pakistan-flooding-crisis-climate-change-governance/">years of poor governance</a>. Underdevelopment has become a chronic problem in flood-prone regions. And due to the absence of zoning or relocation policies, communities continue to reside in marginal areas dangerously close to waterways, accumulating the recurring costs of climate change. Where laws exist, <a href="https://tribune.com.pk/story/2374352/floods-largely-damage-riverbank-structures">enforcement</a> has been difficult.</p>
<p>Some of the most crucial lines of defence against flooding are <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220828-flood-fate-of-thousands-lies-with-colonial-era-pakistan-barrage">colonial-era projects,</a> many of which are in a state of disrepair.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of people standing in water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483315/original/file-20220907-9722-29nv9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">People walk through flood waters to receive aid in Pakistan, Sept. 7, 2022. Despite a disaster management authority at the federal and provincial levels, disaster preparedness has not been prioritized.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)</span></span>
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<h2>Reparations and accountability</h2>
<p>Pakistan omits less than one per cent of global emissions but is among the <a href="https://www.concern.net/news/countries-most-affected-by-climate-change">top 10 countries</a> most affected by climate change. The Pakistani Minister of Climate Change has argued that wealthier countries <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/04/pakistan-floods-reparations-climate-disaster">owe reparations to countries facing climate disaster</a>.</p>
<p>Climate reparations were a <a href="https://climatechangenews.com/2021/11/12/climate-reparations-crunch-issue-cop26-goes-overtime/">contentious issue at the COP26 summit</a> in Glasgow last year. The U.S. and EU opposed climate reparations.</p>
<p>While climate reparations from the global north may assist Pakistan in recovering from the current crisis, <a href="https://www.tanqeed.org/2014/09/we-should-be-resettled-there/">structural change is needed</a> to prepare the country for the next climate catastrophe. This requires substantial <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-08-30/pakistan-could-have-averted-its-climate-catastrophe">investments in climate-resilient infrastructure and poverty reduction</a>.</p>
<p>Pakistan spends billions on servicing debts to foreign lenders. It paid <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1705141">$15 billion</a> on payments this year alone. That is over <a href="https://tribune.com.pk/story/2298691/debt-servicing-surges-to-rs21tr">80 per cent of its total tax revenue</a>.</p>
<p>Ammar Ali Jan, a member of the <a href="https://twitter.com/haqooq_e_khalq">Haqooq-e-Khalq Party</a> in Pakistan, argues that the twin crises of indebtedness and climate catastrophe <a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/09/floods-pakistan-natural-disaster-global-south-climate-crisis/">mean we need to change the narrative on climate change</a>. The grassroots collective aims to hold the Pakistani government accountable for rights promised in the country’s constitution. </p>
<p>There are growing calls for <a href="http://cadtm.org/Double-penalty-for-Pakistan-drowning-in-floods-and-debts">debt cancellation</a> as a form of climate reparation. Similar calls were <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/fr/node/9654">made after the floods in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>Frames of <a href="https://www.ictj.org/what-transitional-justice">transitional justice</a> used to pursue accountability following war and conflict <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijx024">should also be used in contexts of disasters</a>.</p>
<p>Climate reparations make sense for Pakistan because of the much <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/31/flooding-pakistan-britains-imperial-legacy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">longer history of colonial exploitation</a>. Climate reparations are also colonial reparations.</p>
<p>It won’t be surprising that national authorities, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2021.1911939">humanitarians</a>, and high carbon emitters will all be on the list of those culpable for the floods in Pakistan if such mechanisms are implemented.</p>
<p>Conversations on climate reparations should be pursued in relation to Pakistan’s internal record of letting its people down. These two aspects cannot be disentangled but must be viewed together through the prism of justice and accountability.</p>
<p>While the lives lost and affected can <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/615675">never be fully restored</a>, centring accountability and empowerment in reconstruction efforts offer a path forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omer Aijazi receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to conduct research on disaster recovery in Pakistan.</span></em></p>The culpability for Pakistan’s catastrophic floods rests with the government and wealthy polluter countries.Omer Aijazi, Visiting Researcher, University of VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810332022-05-23T10:51:06Z2022-05-23T10:51:06ZDavid Bowie and the birth of environmentalism: 50 years on, how Ziggy Stardust and the first UN climate summit changed our vision of the future<p>David Bowie released his seminal album <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/the-rise-fall-of-ziggy-stardust-and-the-spiders-from-mars-95636/">The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars</a> 50 years ago, on June 16, 1972. It was an artsy and ambitious rock album which captured the time’s sense of being on the cusp of new technological and cultural frontiers.</p>
<p>In the early 1970s, the US Apollo programme was, briefly, making men visiting the moon seem like a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/12-men-who-walked-moon-n707951">routine event</a>. The possibilities of computer power were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbqt8MSFM2Y">beginning to unfold</a>, and the countercultural youth revolt was challenging prevailing values and norms. Bowie’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ziggy-stardust-how-bowie-created-the-alter-ego-that-changed-rock-55254/">fictional alter ego</a> encapsulated all these groundbreaking developments: an androgynous rockstar from outer space with, in the words of the album’s title song, “a god-given ass”. Bowie-Ziggy wore heavy makeup, dyed his hair red, and dressed in clothes inspired by Japanese kabuki theatre.</p>
<p>But coupled with its playful fascination for space technology, the Ziggy Stardust album also described a dread of the Pandora’s box that might be opened as a result. Its opening track, Five Years, warned listeners that “Earth was really dying”. During the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cold-war-4087">cold war</a>, the prospect of man-made armageddon through nuclear war was never far away. And by the early 1970s, fears of an ecological crisis and overpopulation were starting to take on similar apocalyptic proportions.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stockholm-50-sweden-hosts-major-un-environment-conference-yet-is-losing-its-own-green-credentials-184086">Stockholm+50: Sweden hosts major UN environment conference, yet is losing its own green credentials</a>
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<p>Indeed, the day of Ziggy Stardust’s release coincided with the final day of a landmark gathering in Sweden to discuss the future of the planet. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/stockholm1972">Stockholm Conference</a>, which began on June 5, 1972, was the first United Nations conference on the human environment, and the starting point for global environmental governance.</p>
<p>Today’s global climate summits, most recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cop26-80762">COP 26</a> in Glasgow last November, are its direct descendants. And like Bowie’s album, the Stockholm Conference began amid conflicting emotions: hopes of a new dawn of environmental awareness and technological possibility set against fears of global conflict and planetary collapse.</p>
<h2>Moonage daydream</h2>
<p>Bowie’s obsession with outer space predated the creation of Ziggy Stardust. In June 1969, what would become his first major hit single, <a href="https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/david-bowie/story-behind-space-oddity-david-bowie/">Space Oddity</a>, was released. It told the story of an astronaut losing contact with Ground Control while gazing at the Earth from afar in his “tin can”. In July 1969, the BBC used the song in its broadcast of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyOhPpDLiwg">first moon landing</a>, apparently unaware of the tragic lyrics.</p>
<p>As Bowie clearly grasped, the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/index.html">Apollo space programme</a> was central to the birth and early growth of the global environmental movement. It was during the manned moon expeditions that Earth was first photographed from space. The most iconic image, “<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-8-earthrise">Earthrise</a>” – taken over Christmas 1968 with a Hasselblad camera by the crew of Apollo 8 – shows our planet rising over the lifeless landscape of the moon, like a sun at the horizon. It has become one of the most widely shared and reproduced photographs of all time.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Earth from the Moon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463751/original/file-20220517-27-b2b281.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The original Earthrise photograph taken from Apollo 8.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-8-earthrise">Nasa</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders had become the first humans to venture outside the Earth’s orbit. New satellite technology also made it possible for their space adventures to be followed via television broadcasts. On Christmas Eve, they <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEEpHmC1jzo">read the opening verses of Genesis</a> and sent festive greetings to an estimated one billion people watching around the world. Six months later, the first moon landing drew an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/business/media/apollo-11-television-media.html">even greater audience</a>, offering those watching further spectacular views of the Earth.</p>
<p>Such images resonated among the new breed of environmentalists. In the words of historian <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-poole-804224">Robert Poole</a>, “It gave people a picture to think with.” Other scholars talked about the “overview effect”: by seeing the Earth from space, people became aware that life on their planet was interconnected, limited and vulnerable – giving impetus to the emerging <a href="https://theconversation.com/living-with-bunker-builders-doomsday-prepping-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-136635">survivalism movement</a>.</p>
<p>The opening track of Ziggy Stardust, Five Years, echoes some of the survivalist debate’s darker sentiments, with its weeping “newsguy” confirming the end of the world is nigh. Yet just five years earlier, during 1967’s utopian <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties">summer of love</a>, this message would hardly have resonated in popular culture.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>In Swedish history, the pivotal moment for the awakening of environmental consciousness came in the <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9789198557749/9789198557749.00005.xml">autumn of 1967</a>. At that time, a choir of prominent Swedish scientists publicly warned of an impending global environmental crisis. Foremost among them was the chemist Hans Palmstierna, whose book <a href="https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ifikk/KUN4500/blogg/s2016/ida-kamilla-lie/what-can-a-swedish-environmentalist-tell-us-about-.html">Plundering, Starvation, Poisoning</a> became an instant bestseller. Palmstierna argued there was an urgent need to act “before the hourglass expires for humanity”. He linked environmental destruction to other global issues, including world poverty, war and overpopulation – thereby emphasising that environmental hazards were just as severe a threat to humankind. </p>
<p>The impact of Palmstierna’s and other scientists’ collective intervention was powerful. There was talk of a general environmental awakening in Sweden, as the national press, radio and television reported on mercury-poisoned fish, biocides and acid rain with unprecedented intensity.</p>
<p>In the words of the Swedish historian Lars J Lundgren, it was as if a “new continent of problems” had been discovered. Where previously, environmental hazards had been regarded as individual problems to be solved in isolation, more and more people were beginning to see them as connected – and constituting a severe crisis.</p>
<h2>Five years</h2>
<p>From an international perspective, Sweden’s breakthrough of environmental concern occurred remarkably early. Intrinsic to this reorientation was the very concept of “the environment” (in Swedish, <em>miljö</em>).</p>
<p>The word had not been used in the early 1960s – for example, during the intense debate sparked by Rachel Carson’s book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/may/27/rachel-carson-silent-spring-anniversary">Silent Spring</a>, which awakened public understanding of the links between industrial pesticides and the die-out of insects and wildlife in the US. At that point, people discussed nature, conservation and the threat modern industrial civilisation posed to wild birds and animals. But the environmental debate which arose in Sweden in the late 1960s put the threat to humankind at the forefront.</p>
<p>The discovery of <a href="https://www.ivl.se/download/18.14bae12b164a305ba11108ff/1537538019862/C327.pdf">acid rain</a> was of particular importance. The finding that it was being caused by sulphur dioxide emissions from across Europe was first reported in October 1967, in an article in Sweden’s largest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, by the scientist Svante Odén. The story caused an immediate stir and frantic political action. </p>
<p>Inspired by the debate at home, Swedish diplomats suggested to the United Nations that a large environmental conference should be organised. Their initiative set the ball rolling towards what would eventually become the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the UN’s first global Conference on the Human Environment.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457223/original/file-20220410-32519-8108ds.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Delegates gather at the 1972 Stockholm Conference. UN.org.</span>
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<p>Over the intervening five years, the Swedish public became acutely aware of the Earth’s environmental crisis – a chain of events I examine in <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9789198557749/9789198557749.xml">my book</a>, The Environmental Turn in Postwar Sweden: A New History of Knowledge. A key voice in this national debate was <a href="https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/knowledge-of-the-future-in-circulation-g%C3%B6sta-ehrensv%C3%A4rds-diagnosi">Gösta Ehrensvärd</a>, professor of biochemistry at Lund University, who calculated that the depletion of the planet’s limited resources, combined with accelerating population growth, would lead to a global crisis in around 2050 – followed by centuries of famine and anarchy.</p>
<p>Ehrensvärd was accused by his opponents of being a gloomy doomsday prophet. But he saw it differently: “Planning to clean up the Earth’s affairs in the long term is realism, not pessimism.” What was needed, he said, was to steer development in new directions, and to take precautions against overexploitation and natural destruction. This would require “an array of technological expertise, wisdom, humanity and foresight” – and he hoped the Stockholm Conference would be a step in the right direction. </p>
<h2>It ain’t easy</h2>
<p>Half a century ago, in the summer of 1972, the future of humanity was looking increasingly precarious in many other ways, too. In the US, the racial divide and ongoing Vietnam war spurred civil unrest. On a global scale, in addition to the cold war, the process of decolonisation highlighted stark differences between the global north and south. Threats of overpopulation and dwindling natural resources were made real by catastrophic famines in India and Biafra.</p>
<p>Despite the Stockholm Conference’s focus on humankind’s shared destiny, it – like the world – was deeply polarised. With East Germany barred from participating because it was not a member of the UN, most of the Eastern Bloc announced they would boycott the event. (The only communist countries to attend were Yugoslavia, China and Romania.) The conference was also sharply criticised by emerging environmental movements who argued it was a top-down, inadequate and purely symbolic event. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/05/archives/environment-conference-will-offer-some-sideshows.html">Parallel environmental conferences</a> were organised in Stockholm, such as the radical left-wing People’s Forum.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Olof Palme’s speech at the 1972 Stockholm Conference.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The main conference’s inaugural speech by Sweden’s prime minister, Olof Palme, was also controversial. He highlighted the “tremendous destruction caused by indiscriminate bombing” and “the large-scale use of bulldozers and herbicides”. Although not stated explicitly, there was no doubt his remarks were aimed at US conduct in Vietnam, which included use of chemical herbicides and weather modification technologies that were elsewhere described as “<a href="https://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/origins-ecocide-revisiting-ho-chi-minh-trail-vietnam-war">ecocide</a>”.</p>
<p>Palme’s speech was not appreciated in Washington. A spokesperson for the US state department said that “deep unease” was felt over the way the prime minister of the host country had raised this issue, which (in US eyes, at least) had nothing to do with an environmental protection conference.</p>
<p>The discussions in Stockholm went on for two hot June weeks, based on a growing realisation that humans were on the verge of destroying their own living environment. While the assembled world leaders sought to instil hope and spark international commitments, some environmental activists objected that the conference was excluding the general public. It only existed, one wrote, so that “the real decision-makers” could meet and discuss “the problems they themselves have caused”. On a diplomatic level, however, there were reasons for optimism, with the People’s Republic of China – having been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_2758">admitted to the UN</a> in October 1971 – making its first appearance on the global scene.</p>
<p>Two concrete results of the conference were the <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/cedep-demos/000_P514_IEL_K3736-Demo/treaties/media/1972%20Stockholm%201972%20-%20Declaration%20of%20the%20United%20Nations%20Conference%20on%20the%20Human%20Environment%20-%20UNEP.pdf">Stockholm Declaration</a>, which laid the groundwork for international environmental jurisdiction, and the foundation of the <a href="https://www.unep.org/about-un-environment">United Nations Environmental Programme</a> (UNEP). Based in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, UNEP became responsible for coordinating international responses to environmental issues, and was the first UN body located in the developing world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greta-thunberg-emerged-from-five-decades-of-environmental-youth-activism-in-sweden-171043">Greta Thunberg emerged from five decades of environmental youth activism in Sweden</a>
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<p>Much of the conference’s focus ended up being on the global north-south divide. The western world’s efforts to deal with environmental degradation and overpopulation were pitted against developing countries’ desire for industrialisation and prosperity. Knowledge of an ongoing environmental crisis was circulating globally by now, but it was understood and handled in very different ways by the conference’s various power blocs and countries. </p>
<p>To an observer in 2022, with last year’s COP26 still fresh in the memory, the dividing lines of Stockholm 1972 look eerily familiar. Then, as now, young environmental activists viewed the conference as a slow and insufficient way of dealing with urgent problems. Greta Thunberg’s famous <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59165781">“blah, blah, blah” speech</a> could have been spoken by protesters in 1972. Fifty years on, we have grown accustomed to recurring meetings, declarations, goals, bleak scenarios and calls from scientists and environmental activists to change the system. Much of this was present at the birth of global environmental politics.</p>
<h2>Starman</h2>
<p>Göran Bäckstrand had not long been working at the Swedish foreign ministry when a telegram from the Swedish delegation to the United Nations landed on his desk. They had just put forward the idea of a UN-led conference focused on the environment. Over the next five years, Bäckstrand was directly involved in the preparation and organisation of the 1972 Stockholm Conference.</p>
<p>Now in his mid-80s, Bäckstrand remains a vigorous and politically engaged figure. Over the last five years, we have discussed environmental history and contemporary concerns both in-person and over the telephone. He is a joyous soul who does not seem to despair – even though the road ahead has proven “far longer and more complicated than we imagined in 1972”.</p>
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<img alt="Göran Bäckstrand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463733/original/file-20220517-26-d9ayze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Göran Bäckstrand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>“My vocation for international relations got an essential new twist by being part of the Swedish team preparing the substantial scientific input for that conference,” Bäckstrand recently told me. “At one point, Professor Bert Bolin [who later became the first chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] presented a preliminary report to our minister for the environment. He asked Bolin if he was 100% sure about the predictions in the report. Bolin said ‘no’ as there were too many variables to consider, and the minister remarked that he had always to be 100% convinced in proposing political action. </p>
<p>"To me, this illustrates why decisive political action on climate change has been neglected.”</p>
<p>Looking back, Bäckstrand thinks the most important result of the Stockholm Conference was helping to build a “global environmental consciousness”. It also created a framework for environmental governance at an international level, and indirectly led to the founding in most states of national environmental authorities.</p>
<p>This June 2-3, the 1972 event will be commemorated in the Swedish capital during <a href="https://www.stockholm50.global/about/about">Stockholm+50</a>, a UN conference jointly organised by Sweden and Kenya. Its organisers are seeking to highlight the importance of multilateralism in tackling what they call “Earth’s triple planetary crisis”: climate, nature and pollution. But just as collective action proved difficult at the original Stockholm Conference, is it possible for the nations of the world to act any more decisively now?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368">Climate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap</a>
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<p>Bäckstrand’s expectations are set low – hardened by recurring experiences of gruelling international climate negotiations. Pondering the developments of the last 50 years, he told me: “In 1972, there existed some kind of harmony between certain aspects of science and politics, and there was a mild confidence among the participating nations of the environmental crisis as a unifying mission.”</p>
<p>Today, he says, the relationship between politics and science is much more problematic, and the environment has become polarising. “There are two parallel processes of the last 50 years: the exploitation of natural resources has accelerated, and trust in the international system, and the constructive role of the UN, has gradually disintegrated.”</p>
<p>Before our latest conversation ended, I had to ask one more question of this lifetime civil servant and globally minded environmentalist. “Did you listen to the new Ziggy Stardust album when it came out that year? And did you feel any resonance with the messages you were discussing in Stockholm?”</p>
<p>“No,” Bäckstrand confessed. “In fact, I have never heard of it until you told me about it now. But I am glad you have made the connection to music history. I think it is an important one.”</p>
<h2>Blackstar</h2>
<p>The final day of the Stockholm Conference – June 16, 1972 – was the day that Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars was released to the world. Fifty years on, the hopes and fears evoked in this album, like the conference, still feel disturbingly relevant – particularly amid the heightened nuclear tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Blackstar video directed by Johan Renck.</span></figcaption>
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<p>So what would Bowie have made of the way things have turned out for the planet? He may have left some clues in his final album, Blackstar, released two days before his death in January 2016. The music videos for the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw">title song</a> and second single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8">Lazarus</a>, were directed by another Swede, Johan Renck. At the centre of the Blackstar video is an empty space suit, blinking back to the Major Tom character in Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashes – a distinctly gloomy echo of that groundbreaking time when men first walked on the moon.</p>
<p>Bowie’s death coincided with a renewed interest in outer space. In our time, however, it is not superpower states that are leading the way to the final frontier, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/08/space-tourism-wealthy-bezos-musk-branson/">superwealthy individuals</a> such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who have made their billions through the digital revolution of the 21st century – and whose companies and personal fortunes arguably epitomise the staggering inequalities that new technologies emerging in the 1970s have enabled.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/billionaire-space-race-the-ultimate-symbol-of-capitalisms-flawed-obsession-with-growth-164511">Billionaire space race: the ultimate symbol of capitalism’s flawed obsession with growth</a>
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<p>Environmentally, the picture feels similarly bleak. This November’s <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/events/2021-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-27/">COP 27</a> will return to Africa in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt. The continent, despite contributing a <a href="https://www.cdp.net/en/research/global-reports/africa-report">mere 4%</a> to global emissions of greenhouse gases, is bearing the brunt of their impacts, with the combined effects of severe drought, flooding and pestilence – along with conflict in Africa and Ukraine – now threatening a “<a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/many-28-million-people-across-east-africa-risk-extreme-hunger-if-rains-fail-again">full-scale catastrophe</a>” across East Africa.</p>
<p>The challenges facing those following in the footsteps of Bäckstrand and his fellow attendees of the 1972 Stockholm Conference appear daunting, to say the least.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Larsson Heidenblad has received funding for his research from the Crafoord Foundation. </span></em></p>In June 1972, the first United Nations conference on the human environment coincided with the release of David Bowie’s iconic Ziggy Stardust album. Both still feel disturbingly relevant todayDavid Larsson Heidenblad, Associate Professor, History, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813002022-05-17T12:24:25Z2022-05-17T12:24:25ZWhy Indigenous communities need a seat at the table on climate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462825/original/file-20220512-2142-5mh4l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=251%2C260%2C5479%2C3565&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drought in Navajo Nation. Indigenous people around the world are dealing with many environmental problems, such as access to water.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-overlooks-a-dry-river-bed-on-june-04-2019-in-gallup-new-news-photo/1153762258">Spencer Platt/Getty Images News</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>There’s growing recognition that Indigenous communities are among the most <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-native-tribes-are-taking-the-lead-on-planning-for-climate-change">vulnerable to the effects of climate change</a> and that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-world-has-a-lot-to-learn-about-conservation-and-trust-from-indigenous-societies-179165">traditional ecological knowledge is vital</a> to <a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-indigenous-knowledge-can-help-us-combat-climate-change">adapting to environmental changes</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>As part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/environment-and-faith-120238">series</a> of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d42L4hVJmrA&list=PL_mJBLBznANyj4fx3WEl13xxPJUQCn3bf&index=5&t=1s">video</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8gAITE7LTI&feature=emb_title">stories</a> on <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-religion-and-faith-combat-eco-despair-173177">faith and the environment</a>, The Conversation spoke to <a href="https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/ray-minniecon/">Ray Minniecon</a>, an Anglican Aboriginal pastor based in Australia and an Indigenous elder at NAIITS, an Indigenous learning community. Minniecon shares his perspective on the role Indigenous knowledge can play in environmental protection and on his attendance at the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November, 2021.</em></p>
<p><em>The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Indigenous elders predicted environmental destruction and climate changes. Will Native voices finally be heard?</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Within Christianity there’s the notion of <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/creation-care/">caring for God’s creation</a>. As an Indigenous Christian, how do you view that idea?</h2>
<p>For Indigenous peoples, we want to make sure that we’re the ones who hold the knowledge of our ancestors. So we should be the ones who help our own people come to grips with the things that are important to us as Indigenous peoples. And so we’re building upon our assets, not on our deficits, and the assets that our ancestors have left us are very powerful. We can directly look after and care for our creation and teach people the right way of living in relationship with each other, all of God’s creation and with our creator. We’ve got a lot to learn to achieve that goal today. But we also got a lot to teach others from our ancient wisdom. And I think it comes out of the ministry and message of reconciliation. </p>
<h2>What do you mean by reconciliation in this context?</h2>
<p>It means reconciliation, not with nature, not only with each other and with our past and our histories, but also reconciliation with our environment. Reconciliation with our creator. It is really one of the key agenda items for all of humanity at this particular stage in our human history. </p>
<h2>Do you think that people connected to the Aborginal tradition saw the current state of environmental destruction coming?</h2>
<p>We did ask ourselves, who gave these people permission to come and invade our country and do all this destruction not only to our land, but also to the people itself? We’ve had to learn their language to say, When are you going to stop your destructive policies and practices and start listening to us and take notice of how we looked after land and how we prevented these big things like bush fires and other kinds of things from the wisdom our elders passed on to us?</p>
<p>We’ve had mitigation strategies embedded in us, because for us the land already has laws. And we’ve abided by those laws that were there. And they are good laws, they’re perfect laws, and they tell us how to look after land. The land is alive. It has spirit and voice. Our brothers, sisters, grandparents – they’re the ones who tell us who we are and how we can look after each other. That’s why I say at COP26, as an Indigenous person, our hopes are shattered by the ways in which these nations actually try to convince us, deceive us into saying that they have the solutions to climate change when they are the ones who are destroying our environment and created this mess. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Members of the Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change at COP26" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462851/original/file-20220512-20-7a5euq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Indigenous groups from around the world attended the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, which failed to achieve any breakthrough agreement on lowering greenhouse gas emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ClimateCOP26Summit/135ee40477434528affea2606d8b4f8c/photo?Query=cop26%20indigenous&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=31&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Alastair Grant</a></span>
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<h2>What was your experience at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), and what did you take away from it?</h2>
<p>The experience left me disillusioned. Indigenous peoples have been at the forefront of climate change destruction, but we don’t have a seat at the table. We’ve tried to make our voices heard to ensure that people realize that the fossil fuel industries and other extractive policies and developments are always harmful to Mother Earth and also harmful to our human existence. </p>
<p>Indigenous people have looked after our country and environment for the last 60,000 years, and we’ve kept it in pristine condition, because we knew what we had to do to protect it. Our Mother provides us with everything we require and everything we need. And it’s only in the last 200 years that we have seen the incredible devastation and degradation and the destruction of our environment in so many powerful ways that it’s left us feeling very sick spiritually, mentally and physically. </p>
<p>But it’s those who have colonized Indigenous nations that have the loudest voices. The Australian Pavilion at COP26 was supported by the fossil fuel industries, the coal mining industries. Those extractive industries say that they are the ones who are going to give us the solutions to climate change. And I just found that what they were saying was so hypocritical and deceitful, and it left me feeling depressed and with a lot of questions in my mind. I just felt like I came away with no hope at all. But I didn’t lose my faith. My faith in God is there.</p>
<h2>What do you think needs to happen for Aboriginal voices to be heard? What would that look like?</h2>
<p>Well, first and foremost, we need an official seat at the table – the G-7, G-20 and these international conferences and gatherings where these issues are debated and discussed. The corporations or nations that come together for events like COP26 invite us, but they’re the ones who really are not listening to our voices. I feel like a token. </p>
<p>The policies and practices based on the wisdom of our elders that we put in place here in our country for the last 60,000 years made sure that we could protect Mother Earth and live in harmony with all creation. If some of those wise strategies from our cultural understandings could be implemented quickly, perhaps we could arrest the damage we are doing to our Mother and make the immediate changes for the better of all humanity before its too late.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Minniecon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Anglican Aboriginal pastor who attended the COP26 climate conference shares his perspective on Indigenous knowledge in dealing with climate change.Ray Minniecon, NAIITS Indigenous Elder, NAIITS Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1826432022-05-10T12:05:30Z2022-05-10T12:05:30Z6 months after the climate summit, where to find progress on climate change in a more dangerous and divided world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462126/original/file-20220509-12310-eciia4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=348%2C69%2C5697%2C3829&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Germany, heavily reliant on natural gas from Russia, has seen a fast expansion in solar power since Russia attacked Ukraine.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GermanyEnergy/45034bc9133647bf9b63f99732a63c02/photo?Query=22124274857730">AP Photo/Martin Meissner</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Six months ago, negotiators at the United Nations’ <a href="https://ukcop26.org/">Glasgow climate summit</a> celebrated a series of new commitments to lower global greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Analysts concluded that the new promises, including phasing out coal, would <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/">bend the global warming trajectory</a>, though still fall short of the Paris climate agreement.</p>
<p>Today, the world looks ever more complex. Russia is waging a war on European soil, with global <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/system-shock-russias-war-and-global-food-energy-and-mineral-supply-chains">implications for energy and food supplies</a>. Some leaders who a few months ago were vowing to phase out fossil fuels are <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/13/biden-gas-supply-climate-change-00024776">now encouraging fossil fuel companies</a> to ramp up production. </p>
<p>In the U.S., the Biden administration has struggled to get its promised actions through Congress. Last-ditch efforts have been underway to salvage some kind of climate and energy bill from the abandoned <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/28/president-biden-announces-the-build-back-better-framework/">Build Back Better plan</a>. Without it, U.S. commitments to reduce emissions by over 50% by 2030 look fanciful, and the rest of the world knows it – adding another blow to U.S. credibility overseas.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, severe famines have hit Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Extreme heat has been threatening lives <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/astonishing-heat-grips-india-and-pakistan/">across India and Pakistan</a>. Australia faced <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149685/flooding-in-eastern-australia">historic flooding</a>, and the Southwestern U.S. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-southwest-is-on-fire-with-iconic-deserts-and-towns-at-risk-biden-issues-a-disaster-declaration-182426">can’t keep up with the wildfires</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/rachel-kyte">a former senior U.N. official</a>, I’ve been involved in international climate negotiations for several years. At the halfway point of this year’s climate negotiations, with the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/sharm-el-sheikh-climate-change-conference-november-2022">next U.N. climate conference</a> in November 2022, here are three areas to watch for progress and cooperation in a world full of danger and division.</p>
<h2>Crisis response with long-term benefits</h2>
<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to a triple whammy of <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/ukraine-energy-and-food-radio-davos/">food price, fuel price and inflationary spikes</a> in a global economy still struggling to emerge from the pandemic.</p>
<p>But Russia’s aggression <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-06/eu-revises-russia-oil-sanctions-plan-to-give-hungary-more-time">has also forced Europe</a> and others to move away from <a href="https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/how-russian-oil-flows-to-europe/">dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal</a>. The G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. – pledged on May 8, 2022, to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/08/g7-leaders-statement-2/">phase out or ban Russian oil</a> and accelerate their shifts to clean energy.</p>
<p>In the short term, Europe’s pivot means much more energy efficiency – the International Energy Agency estimates that the European Union can save 15%-20% of energy demand with <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/energy-saving-actions-by-eu-citizens-could-save-enough-oil-to-fill-120-super-tankers-and-enough-natural-gas-to-heat-20-million-homes">efficiency measures</a>. It also means <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/25/fact-sheet-united-states-and-european-commission-announce-task-force-to-reduce-europes-dependence-on-russian-fossil-fuels/">importing oil and gas</a> from elsewhere.</p>
<p>In the medium term, the answer lies in <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/will-russias-war-spur-europe-to-move-on-green-energy">ramping up renewable energy</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men and women talking in a conference room with table placemarker reading " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462127/original/file-20220509-21-8unyk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former Secretary of State John Kerry, representing the U.S. at the U.N. climate talks in November 2021, speaks with negotiators from Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ClimateCOP26summit/21ac41d9415f449abea6e00a98d1d2b3/photo">AP Photo/Alastair Grant</a></span>
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<p>There are issues to solve. As Europe buys up gas from other places, it risks reducing gas supplies relied on by other countries, and <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highest-level-in-history-in-2021">forcing some of those countries to return to coal</a>, a <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-natural-gas">more carbon-intense</a> fuel that destroys air quality. Some countries will need help expanding renewable energy and stabilizing energy prices to avoid a backlash to pro-climate policies.</p>
<p>As the West races to renewables, it will also need to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/22/fact-sheet-securing-a-made-in-america-supply-chain-for-critical-minerals/">secure a supply chain</a> for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-is-worried-about-its-critical-minerals-supply-chains-essential-for-electric-vehicles-wind-power-and-the-nations-defense-157465">critical minerals and metals</a> necessary for batteries and renewable energy technology, including replacing an overdependence on China with <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/transcripts/transcript-us-treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-on-the-next-steps-for-russia-sanctions-and-friend-shoring-supply-chains/">multiple supply sources</a>.</p>
<h2>Ensuring integrity in corporate commitments</h2>
<p>Finance leaders and other private sector coalitions made headline-grabbing commitments at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021. They promised to <a href="https://www.gfanzero.com/about/">accelerate their transitions to net-zero</a> emissions by 2050, and some firms and financiers were specific about <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/end-of-coal-in-sight-at-cop26">ending financing for coal plants that don’t capture and store their carbon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-global-methane-pledge-can-buy-time-while-the-world-drastically-reduces-fossil-fuel-use-171182">cutting methane emissions</a> and supporting ending deforestation.</p>
<p>Their promises faced <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/greta-thunberg-slams-cop26-as-greenwashing-failure/a-59738745">cries of “greenwash”</a> from many climate advocacy groups. Some efforts are now underway to hold companies, as well as countries, to their commitments.</p>
<p>A U.N. group chaired by former Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is now <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/high-level-expert-group">working on a framework</a> to hold companies, cities, states and banks to account when they claim to have “net-zero” emissions. This is designed to ensure that companies that pledged last year to meet net-zero now say how, and on what scientific basis. </p>
<p>For many companies, especially those with large emissions footprints, part of their commitment to get to net-zero includes buying carbon offsets – often investments in nature – to balance the ledger. This summer, two efforts to put guardrails around voluntary carbon markets are expected to issue their first sets of guidance <a href="https://icvcm.org">for issuers of carbon credits</a> and for <a href="https://vcmintegrity.org">firms that want to use voluntary carbon markets</a> to fulfill their net-zero claims. The goal is to ensure carbon markets reduce emissions and provide a steady stream of revenue for parts of the world that need finance for their green growth.</p>
<h2>Climate change influencing elections</h2>
<p>Climate change is now an increasingly important factor in elections.</p>
<p>French President Emmanuel Macron, trying to woo supporters of a candidate to his left and energize young voters, <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2022/04/26/macron-promises-to-abandon-gas-oil-and-coal-but-will-he-deliver/">made more dramatic climate pledges</a>, vowing to be “the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal.”</p>
<p>With Chile’s swing to the left, the country’s redrafted constitution will incorporate <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/climate/chile-constitution-climate-change.html">climate stewardship</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Morrison and his wife holds hands and smile on the left while a protester in a 'stop Adani' t-shirt is held back by security on the right." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459594/original/file-20220425-2721-261e0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) has faced protests over his support for the Adani Carmichael mine, one of the largest coal mines in the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AustraliaElection/49f31511876a48b5a930a2def85e16b5/photo">AP Photo/Rick Rycroft</a></span>
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<p>In Australia, Scott Morrison’s government – which supported opening one of the world’s largest coal mines at the same time the Australian <a href="https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/media-releases/2021-australian-energy-statistics-electricity">private sector is focusing</a> on renewable energy – faces an election on May 21, 2022, with heatwaves and extreme flooding fresh in voters’ minds. Brazil’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-authoritarianism-and-worsening-climate-change-share-a-fossil-fueled-secret-181012">Jair Bolsonaro</a> faces opponents in October who are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/climate/brazil-elections-lula-climate.html">talking about protecting the climate</a>.</p>
<p>Elections are fought and won on pocketbook issues, and energy prices are high and inflation is taking hold. But voters around the world are also <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/09/14/in-response-to-climate-change-citizens-in-advanced-economies-are-willing-to-alter-how-they-live-and-work/">experiencing the effects</a> of climate change firsthand and are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/14/climate-change-threat/">increasingly concerned</a>.</p>
<h2>The next climate conference</h2>
<p>Countries will be facing a different set of economic and security challenges when the next round of <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/sharm-el-sheikh-climate-change-conference-november-2022">U.N. talks begins in November</a> in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, compared to the challenges they faced in Glasgow. They will be expected to show progress on their commitments while struggling for bandwidth, dealing with the climate emergency as an integral part of security, economic recovery and global health.</p>
<p>There is no time to push climate action out into the future. Every decimal point of warming avoided is an opportunity for better health, more prosperity and better security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182643/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Kyte is a member of the U.N. secretary-general’s high-level advisory group on climate action and co-chair of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative.</span></em></p>War, famine and an energy crunch are affecting the world’s response to climate change, but there are reasons for optimism.Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1776462022-05-10T02:40:45Z2022-05-10T02:40:45ZImagine it’s 2030 and Australia is a renewable energy superpower in Southeast Asia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461703/original/file-20220506-12142-9v32t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Achmad Ibrahim/AP/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are into the final fortnight of the election campaign, and commentators have noted that climate change has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2022/apr/21/in-australias-election-campaign-the-silence-on-climate-is-deafening">almost invisible</a>. This is despite the latest IPCC report in April calling for <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-finds-the-world-has-its-best-chance-yet-to-slash-emissions-if-it-seizes-the-opportunity-179653">urgent action</a> to avoid catastrophic climate change. </p>
<p>So what would a positive vision for Australia as a climate leader look like?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scorched-dystopia-or-liveable-planet-heres-where-the-climate-policies-of-our-political-hopefuls-will-take-us-182513">Scorched dystopia or liveable planet? Here’s where the climate policies of our political hopefuls will take us</a>
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<h2>Fast-forward 8 years</h2>
<p>Imagine it’s 2030. Australia is a renewable energy superpower helping meet Southeast Asia’s energy needs. It exports <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-really-address-climate-change-australia-could-make-27-times-as-much-electricity-and-make-it-renewable-179311">renewable energy via cable</a> from northern Australia and ships <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-hydrogen-is-coming-and-these-australian-regions-are-well-placed-to-build-our-new-export-industry-174466">green hydrogen</a> first from Queensland and Tasmania, and then from all around the country. </p>
<p>It is a significant exporter of <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-really-address-climate-change-australia-could-make-27-times-as-much-electricity-and-make-it-renewable-179311">green commodities</a> - such green steel produced with renewable energy - and the <a href="https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/climate/renewables/resources/making-australia-a-renewables-export-powerhouse-policy#gs.u5k4z3">critical minerals used in renewable technology</a> such as solar panels and electric vehicles. It works closely with the region on climate risk assessment and disaster preparedness.</p>
<p>Seem fanciful? Not necessarily. </p>
<h2>Southeast Asia’s needs</h2>
<p>Southeast Asian countries are highly exposed to the effects of climate change, with ASEAN rating Southeast Asia as one of the world’s <a href="https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ASCCR-e-publication-Final-12-Oct-2021.pdf">most at-risk regions</a>. Southeast Asia is already experiencing the growing intensity and magnitude of extreme weather events including flash floods, forest fires, landslides and cyclones - and the <a href="https://www.redcross.org.au/stories/climate-change/the-cost-of-doing-nothing/">economic, environmental and social damage</a> they cause. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.aspi.org.au/report/preparing-era-disasters">era of climate disasters</a>, Australia needs to avoid getting caught in a spiral of simply responding to events. As one of the <a href="https://imccs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/World-Climate-and-Security-Report-2021.pdf">primary security threats</a> of this century, we know climate change is a huge <a href="https://sdsc.bellschool.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/2021-05/centre-of-gravity-58-challenges-to-australias-strategic-imagination.pdf">challenge</a> for Australia’s strategic and foreign policy. But it is also an opportunity.</p>
<p>Southeast Asian countries will increasingly be looking for renewable energy sources, green commodities, critical minerals and <a href="https://perthusasia.edu.au/getattachment/Our-Work/FUELLING-COOPERATION-THE-INDO-PACIFIC-HYDROGEN-TR/PerthUSAsiaCentre-Hydrogen-Report-2021.pdf.aspx?lang=en-AU">associated technologies and infrastructure</a>, with countries as diverse as Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos all putting in place <a href="https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ASCCR-e-publication-Final-12-Oct-2021.pdf">national green growth plans</a>.</p>
<h2>Australia’s resources</h2>
<p>Australia should be in a position to facilitate this. It has a major competitive advantage thanks to its renewable energy resources. </p>
<p>One provider, <a href="https://suncable.sg/">Sun Cable</a>, estimates its undersea cable from Darwin could provide up to 15% of Singapore’s electricity supply.</p>
<p>Australia’s natural endowment of nickel, copper, lithium and cobalt are critical to the development of solar panels and electric vehicles (which in turn can lead to <a href="https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/climate/renewables/resources/making-australia-a-renewables-export-powerhouse-policy#gs.u5k4z3">job creation</a> in raw materials, technological development and service delivery). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-says-the-tools-to-stop-catastrophic-climate-change-are-in-our-hands-heres-how-to-use-them-179654">IPCC says the tools to stop catastrophic climate change are in our hands. Here's how to use them</a>
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<p>Southeast Asian countries are looking for partners in their energy transition not just within ASEAN but among other countries. Australia’s recent green economy agreements with <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/singapore/singapore-australia-green-economy-agreement/singapore-australia-green-economy-agreement-propelling-our-sustainable-future">Singapore</a>, <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-indonesia-joint-statement-cooperation-green-economy-and-energy-transition-0">Indonesia</a> and <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/vietnam-australia-joint-statement-commitment-practical-climate-action">Vietnam</a> demonstrate this. But there are other countries who could also take advantage of this market. For example, <a href="https://perthusasia.edu.au/getattachment/Our-Work/FUELLING-COOPERATION-THE-INDO-PACIFIC-HYDROGEN-TR/PerthUSAsiaCentre-Hydrogen-Report-2021.pdf.aspx?lang=en-AU">major players in hydrogen</a> include Japan, Korea, China and Germany. </p>
<h2>There are barriers to overcome</h2>
<p>To achieve this, Australia will need to overcome ambivalence and inconsistency around climate and energy policy. This has led to uncertainty for energy market operators meaning they can’t plan and commit to major projects. </p>
<p>In many Southeast Asian countries, there are also vested interests and political calculations that create barriers. For example, there are strong political incentives to <a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-fuel-subsidies-amount-to-hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars-a-year-heres-how-to-get-rid-of-them-153740">subsidise fossil fuels</a> in some countries that have to be managed, as <a href="https://www.iisd.org/publications/financing-development-fossil-fuel-subsidies-reallocation-indonesias-gasoline-and">Indonesia did</a> when it scrapped petrol subsidies. </p>
<p>Finding ways for those who currently benefit from fossil fuel to benefit from renewables may be necessary to help them transition.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-a-security-threat-the-government-keeps-ignoring-well-show-up-empty-handed-to-yet-another-global-summit-158702">Climate change is a security threat the government keeps ignoring. We'll show up empty handed to yet another global summit</a>
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<h2>A window of opportunity</h2>
<p>There is a window of opportunity for Australia to become actively involved in influencing Southeast Asian economies towards sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy sources. </p>
<p>Australia could use <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/blended-finance-principles/">blended finance</a> - where development finance attracts private finance - to support investment. For example, blended finance into Indonesia’s emerging car battery industry could help it become a global electric vehicle manufacturing hub, both securing a critical tech supply chain and expanding export markets for Australian lithium.</p>
<p>Government has a role in compiling and promoting up-to-date assessments of regional needs and Australia’s opportunity to supply these, including in critical minerals, green steel, green aluminium and hydrogen. As industry becomes more aware of the opportunities for Australian renewable exports, the volume will rise.</p>
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<img alt="Thai people protesting against lack of climate action." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461706/original/file-20220506-27-rq3gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Citizens in Thailand have been among those demanding more action on climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Narong Sangnak/EPA/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Australia should also work with regional bodies on related policy issues, including <a href="https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/climate/renewables/resources/making-australia-a-renewables-export-powerhouse-policy#gs.u5k4z3">standards, certification and regulation</a> and with Southeast Asian governments on <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/transforming-australian-diplomacy-climate-leadership">policy creation and regulation</a>. Australian can share its expertise around energy market design to assist with development of a region-wide ASEAN electricity market.</p>
<p>The pathways are there for Australia to be a significant partner to achieve the global goal of net zero by 2050 in Southeast Asia, a region that will be a litmus test for the rest of the world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-asia-faces-climate-change-upheaval-how-will-australia-respond-6308">As Asia faces climate change upheaval, how will Australia respond?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Conley Tyler is Program Lead at the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D). This research is based on a report "What does it look like for Australia to be a Partner in Climate Leadership in Southeast Asia?" funded by the Australian Civil-Military Centre. Thanks to all those involved in consultations to produce this report.</span></em></p>There is a big opportunity for Australia to help Southeast Asia meet its energy needs. But time is running out.Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1806922022-04-06T10:20:23Z2022-04-06T10:20:23ZJust Stop Oil: how mediation between climate activists and police could help with escalating protests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456573/original/file-20220406-20-tg0eh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1364&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Florian Reichelt/Centre for Good Relations</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/01/down-to-earth-just-stop-oil-protest">Just Stop Oil activists</a> have glued themselves to roads, climbed atop oil tankers and attached themselves to the goalposts of a Premier League football match. They demand that the government halt all new licences for fossil fuel projects, seeing this as a part of what’s needed to tackle the climate emergency.</p>
<p>At the same time, Extinction Rebellion (XR) has announced a new wave of protests beginning on April 9 2022. XR’s previous “rebellions” and separate efforts by <a href="https://theconversation.com/insulate-britain-blocking-roads-will-alienate-some-people-but-its-still-likely-to-be-effective-168021">Insulate Britain</a> saw determined campaigners block motorway traffic and interrupt city life. </p>
<p>These are the kind of actions which the UK government aims to restrict and counter with its Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will redefine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/18/study-crowds-police-crime-bill-less-safe-priti-patel">what counts as legitimate protest</a>. In response, the Kill the Bill campaign has drawn thousands of people to demonstrate against what they see as a major threat to civil liberties and rights to assemble.</p>
<p>The police and local councils are tasked with facilitating peaceful protest at the same time as activists see the scope for it being closed down. The urgency of the climate crisis and these new limits on protest will probably <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-policing-bill-will-make-climate-activism-almost-illegal-just-when-its-most-needed-173231">raise conflict</a> between state authorities and environmentalists in the years to come.</p>
<p>In this fraught situation, mediation between all involved in protests could help people achieve their aims peacefully. </p>
<h2>How mediation can help</h2>
<p>At COP 26 – the most recent UN climate change summit, hosted by the UK in November 2021 – I was among 50 people who volunteered to attend protests in Glasgow and help defuse disagreements and tension between protesters, the police and others through dialogue.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://centreforgoodrelations.com/keeping-our-cool/">Keeping Our Cool</a> initiative assumed that contention can be handled well, and that mediation might sometimes feel useful to everybody involved in a protest. Mediation between different parties can help people on all sides reach an outcome they’re relatively happy with.</p>
<p>In our branded uniforms, we were a visible point of contact for hundreds of people attending protests in the city’s streets and squares. Our team members were involved in situations which could have deteriorated without mediation. </p>
<p>In one instance, we relayed messages between XR activists and police officers which helped to de-escalate an unexpected stand-off near a motorway junction. We listened to the frustrations some people had about who was being heard (and who was not) at the climate talks. We helped campaigners who had walked all the way from Germany proceed with their protest even though they had not given prior notice to the council and the police. Deeply frustrated with the initial bureaucratic response, they left COP26 feeling that they had been able to represent children and families back home. We also found ourselves in some of the sharper incidents across COP26, like when the police decided to contain or “kettle” some activists.</p>
<p>Mediation is not always appropriate for handling these situations. Some activists, clear-eyed about the possible consequences, including arrest, will decide to escalate the situation anyway. There are signs that increasing numbers of people are ready to escalate matters, by doing things like <a href="https://theconversation.com/tyre-extinguishers-activists-are-deflating-suv-tyres-in-the-latest-pop-up-climate-movement-178911">temporarily disabling SUVs</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/04/protesters-block-oil-depot-near-heathrow-as-action-enters-fourth-day">blocking fuel depots</a>. Political theorist Andreas Malm has <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4946-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-a-letter-from-the-editor">advocated</a> destroying the machinery involved in extracting, processing, distributing and consuming fossil fuels, like oil pipelines.</p>
<p>Other campaigners believe disruptive action and property destruction could prevent an effective movement for change emerging by alienating potential supporters. They will be among those trying to avoid breaking the law or provoking a police reaction, but could still find themselves subject to heavy policing. Altercations and arrests could result from misunderstandings and misjudgements between the parties. This is exactly the kind of problem mediators can help with.</p>
<p>Conflict between protesters and the police can occur when no one expects or wants it, and in ways which activists – and the police – see as a distraction from the course which they wanted to pursue. By offering protesters and police officers a space to consider other options, volunteer mediators can be helpful to everybody.</p>
<p>My own experience of and research into civic mediation began with work on racialised social divisions in north-west England, written up in my book <a href="https://lwbooks.co.uk/product/on-burnley-road-class-race-and-politics-in-a-northern-english-town">On Burnley Road</a>. My academic collaborators in Keeping Our Cool had traced the origins of civil mediation from the Northern Ireland peace process through their <a href="https://journal.equinoxpub.com/MTP/article/view/450">research</a>. As a result, Keeping Our Cool was not based on a naive view that there can be easy consensus or deep agreement between the people we talked to. Instead the experiment helped us to develop our understanding of how mediation can be applied.</p>
<p>We found that clarity about our role was key. We needed to explain our impartial character to the police, so that they would not be tempted to treat us as quasi-colleagues who could help influence protesters. We also talked about our intentions and approach to XR protesters and others committed to direct action.</p>
<p>Some immediately saw the value of independent mediation, while others suspected that we were essentially “soft cops” who might share the information we gleaned from demonstrators with the authorities, inadvertently or not.</p>
<p>It was relatively easy to address these issues. Some campaigners who saw us respecting confidential information were, after a couple of days, happy to give their approval to us relaying some of their questions and concerns to the police or to staff in the offices they were protesting outside.</p>
<p>Other activists challenged us on what they saw as the essentially liberal character of our initiative. They accepted that mediators would not seek to obstruct or influence protest tactics, or tell protesters what they could and couldn’t do. Nevertheless, they argued that – in spite of our good intentions – our logic would tend to demobilise and defang their efforts, blunting their campaigns on issues which in fact call for sharp and decisive action.</p>
<p>Some pointed out that, although there are times when de-escalation and a degree of cooperation between protesters and the authorities is appropriate, there are other times when a degree of tension helps to achieve the protestors’ aims, including the relatively modest goals of publicising their cause and recruiting new supporters. They worried mediators would get in the way of this.</p>
<p>Mediators at climate protests should not obstruct anyone who has decided to act in a particular way. But they should offer space for people to consider and try out alternative ways of meeting their goals in a process open to and shaped by all others who have a stake.</p>
<p>Our conversations with demonstrators at COP26 showed how people could take time to reflect and make useful connections. Such support might be useful to them – and to councils and the police – as the coming months bring further protests by Just Stop Oil and other campaigners.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Makin-Waite was a lead practitioner on Keeping Our Cool, which involved volunteers from Centre for Good Relations, Scottish Mediation and Place for Hope. Keeping Our Cool received financial support from the Scottish government.</span></em></p>Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have vowed to strike at the fossil fuel industry.Mike Makin-Waite, ISRF Associated Academic, Independent Social Research FoundationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1780432022-03-07T14:58:55Z2022-03-07T14:58:55ZNigeria’s fuel crisis: smaller, more flexible refineries aren’t the full answer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449177/original/file-20220301-23-19pxg9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fuel scarcity in Nigeria causes untold hardship to people and negatively impacts the economy</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria’s growing population of over <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nigeria-population-projected-to-double-by-2050/4874956.html">200 million</a> people is facing an <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/harder-times-loom-as-fuel-crisis-lingers/">ever-growing</a> fuel crisis despite its <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/vast-energy-reserves-waiting-be-unlocked-nigeria">vast oil reserves</a>. </p>
<p>The shortage of refining capacity at existing oil refineries is the main driver of Nigeria’s fuel crisis, which hampers the socio-economic development of the country. It places a <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/fg-sets-aside-pia-to-pay-n4-6tr-on-fuel-subsidy/">high subsidy burden</a> on the government and has long made Nigeria <a href="https://punchng.com/nigerias-petroleum-imports-exceeded-exports-by-43-56bn-opec/">dependent</a> on imported petroleum products. The country uses little renewable energy. </p>
<p>The fuel crisis has also led to the proliferation of artisanal refineries in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, with <a href="https://punchng.com/soot-stakeholders-call-for-integration-of-artisanal-refineries/">huge environmental and health challenges</a>.</p>
<p>The recently signed <a href="http://www.petroleumindustrybill.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Official-Gazette-of-the-Petroleum-Industry-Act-2021.pdf">Petroleum Industry Act</a> (PIA) 2021 aims to pave the way for increased investment in Nigeria’s crude oil refining capacity. </p>
<p>It also seeks to address the grievances of oil-producing communities: unemployment, lack of socio-economic development and environmental pollution. The Act made a provision for a less cumbersome process for granting operational licenses to investors in the downstream oil operation, which could increase investment interest in modular refineries. </p>
<p>Recently, there has been increased interest from the Nigerian government’s <a href="https://energycapitalpower.com/market-report-nigerias-modular-refinery-program-on-course/#:%7E:text=Chief%20Timipre%20Sylva%20disclosed%20that,over%2023%20refineries%20undergoing%20rehabilitation">petroleum ministry</a> in modular refineries as a means of addressing the deficit of petroleum products. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/10/petroleum-refining-modular-versus-conventional-refineries/">Modular refineries</a> are simplified crude oil refineries with capacities ranging from 1,000 to 30,000 barrels per day. They are well-suited for remote areas. </p>
<p>Over <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202104140024.html">30 licences</a> for modular refineries were issued in 2015 by the Department of Petroleum Resources (now Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission). </p>
<p>But <a href="https://energycapitalpower.com/market-report-nigerias-modular-refinery-program-on-course/#:%7E:text=Chief%20Timipre%20Sylva%20disclosed%20that,over%2023%20refineries%20undergoing%20rehabilitation">very few operate effectively</a>, because of inconsistencies surrounding policy and regulations in <a href="https://brickstone.africa/modular-refinery-developments/">Nigeria’s investment space</a>. There is however no clarity in the petroleum industry Act to remedy these inconsistencies.</p>
<p>Currently, modular refineries are considered useful to help meet energy demand in the country. But in view of the global call for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, they are a short term solution. </p>
<p>At the 2021 climate change conference in Glasgow, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari pledged to achieve <a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2021/11/02/cop26-nigeria-to-reach-net-zero-emissions-by-2060-says-buhari/">net zero emissions by 2060</a>. This would mean de-carbonising the <a href="https://climatechange.gov.ng/national-determined-contributions/">oil and gas sector</a>.</p>
<h2>Modular refineries as a solution</h2>
<p>The modular refinery technology has appeal on several fronts. It is simple and easy to replicate.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/assets/pdf/the-bottom-up-refining-revolution-part1.pdf">These refineries</a> can be constructed within 12 to 20 months. They can be built in phases at a low cost and provide flexibility for upgrades based on an investor’s preference.</p>
<p>They can pay for themselves in one to five years, depending on the type of refined products.</p>
<p>Nigeria refines almost none of its own crude oil. The cost of importing refined petroleum products exceeded petroleum exports by <a href="https://punchng.com/nigerias-petroleum-imports-exceeded-exports-by-43-56bn-opec/">US$43.56 billion in 2020</a>. If modular refineries reduced or eliminated fuel importation, they would save money spent on importation and subsidies and reduce pressure on foreign exchange.</p>
<p>The refineries are normally sited close to oil production facilities. This creates opportunities for more Nigerian firms, which are the main players in the onshore marginal oil fields. </p>
<p>Local people could be engaged in making, installing and operating the refineries. This would provide employment, which is much needed in the oil-bearing communities. The low technology requirement allows local engineers and technicians to participate. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://ncdmb.gov.ng/">Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board</a>, promotes local content in the oil and gas industries, has envisaged <a href="https://www.ncdmb.gov.ng/lcdm/LocalContentDigestQ318.pdf">70% of the fabrication</a> activities within the modular refinery space will be done locally.</p>
<p>The reduced pipeline network requirement has the potential to increase direct jobs in the form of truck drivers, sales support and other support services, which will be required to deliver the refined products to the last mile. </p>
<p>The sector could also drive petrochemicals research and development in the local universities.</p>
<h2>Challenges</h2>
<p>Although modular refineries may help in meeting Nigeria’s growing demand for petroleum products and have a number of other potential benefits, they bring challenges too. </p>
<p><em>Policy and regulations:</em> There is a lot of uncertainty and inconsistency surrounding policy and regulations in Nigeria’s investment space. This has been blamed for a <a href="https://brickstone.africa/modular-refinery-developments/">US$15 billion loss</a> annually in foreign investments.</p>
<p>This experience could discourage investors and may be the reason <a href="https://businessday.ng/energy/oilandgas/article/licenses-for-private-refineries-expire-2020-only-a-handful-will-reach-commissioning/">many modular refinery licences have expired</a>. </p>
<p><em>Social challenges:</em> Lack of integration of the existing illegal artisan refineries into the mainstream of the modular refineries could create tension and result in oil theft and armed conflict. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-young-people-in-the-niger-delta-are-being-left-out-of-development-143642">How young people in the Niger Delta are being left out of development</a>
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<p><em>Carbon emissions:</em> Oil refining contributes about <a href="https://www.carbonclean.com/blog/co2-emissions-from-oil-refineries">5% to 10%</a> to global total emissions. It could increase with the proliferation of modular refineries, which are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211001526">less efficient</a> than conventional refineries. Nigeria’s emissions commitments might require the modular refinery operators to introduce greening technologies.</p>
<p><em>Technical challenges:</em> Premium motor spirit, or petrol, is the product in greatest demand in Nigeria. Making it in a modular refinery requires catalytic reformers and <a href="https://inspectioneering.com/tag/fccu">fluid catalytic cracking unit</a> or hydro-cracker units. These units present most of the technical challenges in existing refineries in Nigeria. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>Some of the identified challenges could be addressed as a short term solution to the energy crisis. </p>
<p>Steps might include:</p>
<ul>
<li>coordinating regulations to build investors’ confidence</li>
<li>incorporating existing local technologies – artisanal refineries – into the mainstream</li>
<li>collaboration between the modular refinery operators and institutions of higher learning in the country to develop better catalysts. </li>
</ul>
<p>But the long term solution to the energy crisis would be to incorporate <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-20/locked-in-emissions-from-oil-refineries-endanger-climate-goals">green technologies</a> into modular refinery operations. </p>
<p>This is important so as not to undermine Nigeria’s efforts to de-carbonise the country. Another solution could be the use of renewable energy in the transport sector to reduce the demand for refined petroleum products.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chukwumerije Okereke receives funding from the French Development Agency (AFD), European Climate Foundation (ECF), Global Challenges Research Fund, UK, and World Resources Institute (WRI). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ogheneruona E. Diemuodeke receives funding from the DFID 9UK Government; GCFR (UK Government); Horizon (European Commission), and TetFund (Nigerian Government). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As a short term measure, modular refineries may help Nigeria with its fuel crisis. It is however not likely to be a long term solution.Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi, Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandChukwumerije Okereke, Professor of Environment and Development, University of ReadingOgheneruona E. Diemuodeke, Senior Lecturer, University of Port Harcourt Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1758422022-02-03T02:03:53Z2022-02-03T02:03:53ZNew German leader proposes a ‘climate club’ of leading economies that would punish free riders like Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444188/original/file-20220203-15-1fgfprg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C2382%2C1593&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Nietfeld/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Germany has announced plans for a new climate alliance between the world’s advanced economies, in a move that promises to transform international climate action.</p>
<p>This year, Germany is the president of the G7 – a key forum for wealthy democracies to discuss solutions to global challenges. </p>
<p>New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who replaced long-time leader Angela Merkel in December last year, wants the G7 nations to become founding members of an international “carbon club”. This alliance of countries would coordinate shared climate policy standards and impose costs on countries that don’t meet them. </p>
<p>The proposal should ring alarm bells in Canberra. It is likely to mean economic and diplomatic costs for Australia, and further isolate this nation as a climate laggard on the world stage. To avoid this, Australia should at least match the climate ambition of G7 countries, by pledging to halve greenhouse gas emissions this decade.</p>
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<img alt="coal plant at sunset" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444189/original/file-20220203-17-1vx8fz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The proposed alliance would impose costs on countries that don’t meet climate policy standards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ronald Wittek/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is a climate club?</h2>
<p>The “climate club” concept was developed by Nobel-prize winning economist William Nordhaus <a href="https://ycsg.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/nordhaus-climate-clubs.pdf">in 2015</a>, and has since <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2021.1967717">gained ground</a> in international policy circles. </p>
<p>United Nations climate agreements – such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement – are voluntary. Nordhaus argues this provides an incentive for some nations, overly focused on their own national interests, to seek to minimise their share of the global costs of climate action. </p>
<p>So while responsible nations bear the cost of switching to new, cleaner technologies, the “free-riding” nations benefit from those technologies and a potentially safer climate while failing to make adequate cuts to their own domestic emissions. </p>
<p>To address this problem, Nordhaus proposes a “club” model for climate cooperation. Club members – those countries who move first to take climate action – would be rewarded and protected from competitive disadvantage.</p>
<p>Members would harmonise their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work toward a shared goal. And nations that do not meet their global obligations would incur penalties, such as a levy on exports to club member nations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/japan-wants-to-burn-ammonia-for-clean-energy-but-it-may-be-a-pyrrhic-victory-for-the-climate-174782">Japan wants to burn ammonia for clean energy – but it may be a pyrrhic victory for the climate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="man speaks at lectern" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444190/original/file-20220203-21-1yjivef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nobel-prize winning economist William Nordhaus proposed the ‘climate club’ idea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Craig Ruttle/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the G7 could become a climate club</h2>
<p>In addition to Germany, the G7 comprises the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan and Canada. </p>
<p>Just a month after being elected German chancellor, Olaf Scholz <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/speech-by-federal-chancellor-olaf-scholz-at-the-world-economic-forum-s-davos-dialogue-on-19-january-2022-video-conference-working-together-restoring-trust--1999052">announced</a> at the World Economic Forum in January that Germany intends to turn the G7 into the nucleus of an international climate club. </p>
<p>Scholz has been keen on the climate club idea for some time. Last August, as Germany’s finance minister, he <a href="https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/EN/Downloads/Climate-Action/key-issues-paper-international-climate-club.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=4">proposed</a> an “A-B-C” model that would be:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>ambitious: all members would commit to climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest, and set strong interim targets</p></li>
<li><p>bold: member states would determine a shared minimum carbon price and coordinate measures to prevent production being moved to countries with weaker emissions rules</p></li>
<li><p>cooperative: club membership would be open to all countries that introduce adequate climate action targets and measures.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>A G7 climate club could build on the experience of the European Union. The EU already has an internal carbon market and will next year start imposing border levies on imported goods, based on the emissions generated in their production. The highest costs will be borne by exporters from countries that don’t have a carbon price or meaningful climate policy. </p>
<p>Scholz <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/speech-by-federal-chancellor-olaf-scholz-at-the-world-economic-forum-s-davos-dialogue-on-19-january-2022-video-conference-working-together-restoring-trust--1999052">suggests</a> G7 countries could negotiate similar arrangements to those of the EU. The G7 countries will consider Germany’s proposal at <a href="https://www.g7germany.de/resource/blob/998352/2000326/dccfffa26e07bc77e2eef4cc35fe4c11/2022-01-21-g7-ministertreffen-en-data.pdf?download=1">ministerial meetings</a> this year. </p>
<p>Climate policy is a key priority for the Biden administration in the US, providing a window of opportunity for positive negotiations. </p>
<p>And there are already moves to set shared standards across the Atlantic. In October last year, the EU and the US <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/31/fact-sheet-the-united-states-and-european-union-to-negotiate-worlds-first-carbon-based-sectoral-arrangement-on-steel-and-aluminum-trade/">announced</a> they were working towards a world-first deal to restrict access to their markets for high-carbon steel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="cargo ship docked at port" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444193/original/file-20220203-14381-mq8qfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The EU will start imposing carbon border levies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Chang/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What this means for Australia</h2>
<p>Australia is widely seen as a free-rider in global climate efforts. While G7 member states have promised to cut their emissions by <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210613-g7-leaders-to-back-new-nature-compact-to-halve-carbon-emissions-by-2030">about 50% </a>this decade, Australia has pledged only to cut emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels. </p>
<p>At last year’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Australia was the only major developed country that refused to set a stronger 2030 emissions target. It’s also the only country in the world to have repealed a carbon price.</p>
<p>What’s more, the Morrison government is promoting a “gas-fired” economic recovery from the COVID pandemic. It continues to promote coal and gas exports, and derides the EU’s carbon border levies as <a href="https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/opinion-piece/keeping-our-export-markets-free-open-and-tax-free">protectionism</a>. </p>
<p>Safe to say, if a G7-led climate club formed in the near future, Australia would not be invited to join.</p>
<p>Australia should take Germany’s climate club proposal seriously, and move quickly to implement climate policies that bring us in line with G7 nations.</p>
<p>Otherwise, Australia faces the prospect of economic harm. This would not just come in the form of potential <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/jobkiller-australian-climate-inaction-puts-20000-nsw-jobs-at-risk-from-carbon-tariffs/">carbon border levies</a>, but also a loss of both investment capital and the economic gains that come from being a first mover in clean industries. </p>
<hr>
<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-2030-climate-target-betters-the-morrison-government-but-australia-must-go-much-further-much-faster-173066">Labor’s 2030 climate target betters the Morrison government, but Australia must go much further, much faster</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="wind farm on green grass against mountains" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444196/original/file-20220203-29545-l0eg74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia should move quickly to implement climate policies that bring us in line with G7 nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Granville Harbour Wind Farm</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Staying in the race</h2>
<p>The climate club concept is not without its detractors. Some academics and climate negotiators caution that it could <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2021.1967717#">undermine</a> multilateral cooperation in UN climate talks, while others warn such agreements can <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/12/2/24/14560/Moving-Forward-in-the-Climate-Negotiations">exacerbate</a> equity issues between richer and poorer nations.</p>
<p>For its part, Germany has suggested climate finance could be provided to help developing countries become club members, and club members could make a phased policy transition. </p>
<p>The proposed G7 climate club marks a major shift in global efforts on climate change. Major powers now view climate action as a race for competitive advantage. The first movers in the new industrial revolution will take first, second and third prize. </p>
<p>If Australia wants to stay in the race, much more ambitious federal climate policy is urgently needed. </p>
<hr>
<p>
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Read more:
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</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Morgan is a researcher with the Climate Council, a non-profit organisation that advocates for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. </span></em></p>The proposal is likely to mean economic and diplomatic costs for Australia, and should ring alarm bells in Canberra.Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1724272022-01-19T14:32:35Z2022-01-19T14:32:35ZAn energy revolution is possible – but only if leaders get imaginative about how to fund it<p>Limiting climate change will require an unprecedented global movement to make <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/low-carbon-energy-technologies-successes-and-opportunities">low-carbon technologies</a> the norm. <a href="https://theconversation.com/glasgow-climate-pact-what-happened-at-cop26-and-what-it-means-for-the-world-podcast-172070">COP26</a> – the UN climate conference held last November in Glasgow – showed that unfortunately, the world is far from ready for such a movement. Many leaders still <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/opinion/degrowth-cllimate-change.html">assume</a> that reducing emissions and growing their countries’ economies aren’t compatible goals.</p>
<p>Yet in many places, transitions to clean energy technologies have succeeded far beyond expectations. Since 2010, wind power has grown from providing under 1% to providing <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2021">10% of electricity</a> in Brazil, and provided 15% of the EU’s <a href="https://windeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/files/about-wind/statistics/WindEurope-Annual-Statistics-2019.pdf">electricity demand</a> in 2019. Solar power – described as “the most expensive way to reduce carbon emissions” as recently as <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2014/07/29/sun-wind-and-drain">2014</a> – now costs 85% less than it did a decade ago, increasingly making it the <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2020">cheapest electricity</a> in history. </p>
<p>And in India, affordable energy access programmes drove sales of high-efficiency <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-energy-efficient-led-bulbs-lit-up-india-in-just-five-years">LED bulbs</a> from just 3 million in 2012 to 670 million in 2018, with prices also falling by 85%. These three technologies now offer some of the cheapest ways to produce electricity or light across much of the world.</p>
<p>What’s crucial is that these transitions all involved significant government action. Plus, most went ahead despite the fact that in many cases, early economic calculations suggested that developing renewables would be an especially expensive way to cut emissions.</p>
<p>Rather than relying on <a href="https://www.brunel.ac.uk/business/Research-and-development/What-is-research-and-development">research and development</a> to bring down costs through coming up with new inventions – or leaving the market to do so on its own through <a href="https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/978-1-4648-0945-3_ch2">competition</a> – governments used subsidies and <a href="https://www.startupindia.gov.in/content/sih/en/public_procurement.html">public procurement</a> programmes (government commitments to buy a certain volume of a new product) to keep costs down and boost uptake.</p>
<p>These impressive outcomes show that traditional models of economic appraisal – calculating costs and benefits as if they were fairly predictable – are inadequate for making truly <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2018/Apr/IRENA_Report_GET_2018.pdf">transformative</a> change in sectors like energy, industry, transport and buildings. </p>
<h2>Challenges</h2>
<p>A global <a href="https://theconversation.com/fight-or-switch-how-the-low-carbon-transition-is-disrupting-fossil-fuel-politics-122376">low-carbon transition</a> will involve multiple, unpredictable changes to the way these sectors are run. And few of a transition’s most important benefits, like cleaner technologies and <a href="https://insights.raconteur.net/the-low-carbon-supply-chain">supply chains</a>, <a href="https://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/thejobspotentialofashifttowardsalow-carboneconomy.htm">new jobs</a>, and <a href="https://royalsociety.org/news/2021/11/clean-air-carbon-emissions">fresher air</a>, can be easily quantified in advance.</p>
<p>The costs of wind power, solar power and LEDs were initially <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth">much higher</a> than established technologies (like <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-really-driving-coal-powers-demise-153868">coal-</a> and gas-powered electricity) that had benefited from more than a century of development. But as seen in major emerging economies, as well as in Europe, these new technologies are now actually cutting energy costs.</p>
<p><a href="https://eeist.co.uk/downloads/">Our analysis</a> shows that, when deciding how to make low-carbon transitions, leaders need to look beyond traditional <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cost-benefitanalysis.asp">cost-benefit</a> economic approaches – and must embrace uncertainty around the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378021001382">risks and opportunities</a> countries might face as a result.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An electric car charges outside a shop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440845/original/file-20220114-25-gt0080.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Making more EV chargers readily available will help increase EV adoption.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BMW_i3_electric_car_charging.jpg">Kārlis Dambrāns/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leaders and researchers also need to identify how to create “<a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/climate-change-carbon-emissions-global-warming/">tipping points</a>” that can trigger cascading changes towards low-carbon economies. For example, continued improvements in <a href="https://theconversation.com/electric-vehicle-batteries-what-will-they-look-like-in-the-future-164263">battery technology</a> are making electric vehicles (EVs) increasingly competitive with gasoline cars. </p>
<p>Policies to build better <a href="https://theconversation.com/charging-ahead-how-to-make-sure-the-electric-vehicle-transition-is-sustainable-and-just-166685">charging infrastructure</a> and reduce EVs’ price could tip us more rapidly towards an electric transport future. The benefits of that future include cleaner cities, reduced oil dependence and even the ability to <a href="https://www.carbontrust.com/news-and-events/insights/new-study-reveals-embedded-storage-can-impact-transmission-system-demand">store</a> excess electricity in EV batteries to support the national grid when needed.</p>
<p>Historically, it’s been widely assumed that reducing emissions would mean <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab842a">damaging</a> countries’ economies. And low-carbon transitions do, of course, involve social and economic <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435117300922">challenges</a>. </p>
<p>But well-designed policies – such as those used to drive the revolutions in wind, solar and LEDs – have the potential to create huge benefits for participating countries, not just for our climate. If we want to solve climate change, we first need to transform our economic thinking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Grubb receives funding from the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Research Grant on the Economics of Energy Innovation and Transition (<a href="http://www.eeist.co.uk">www.eeist.co.uk</a>).</span></em></p>Providing government subsidies for emerging clean technologies could unlock their transformative potential.Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1726902022-01-10T19:12:10Z2022-01-10T19:12:10ZScientists call for a moratorium on climate change research until governments take real action<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434597/original/file-20211130-26-1xeaq1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C113%2C5356%2C2957&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Tama/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Decades of scientific evidence demonstrate unequivocally that human activities jeopardise life on Earth. Dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system compounds many other drivers of global change. </p>
<p>Governments concur: the science is settled. But governments have failed to act at the scale and pace required. What should climate change scientists do?</p>
<p>There is an unwritten social contract between science and society. Public investment in science is intended to improve understanding about our world and support beneficial societal outcomes. However, for climate change, the science-society contract is now broken. </p>
<p>The failure to act decisively is an indictment on governments and political leaders across the board, but climate change scientists cannot be absolved of responsibility. </p>
<p>As we write in an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.2008855">article about this conundrum</a>, the tragedy is the compulsion to provide ever more evidence when the phenomena are well understood and the science widely accepted. The tragedy is being gaslighted into thinking the impasse is somehow our fault, and we need to do science differently: crafting new scientific institutions, strategies, collaborations and methodologies. </p>
<p>Yet, global carbon dioxide emissions are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104">60% higher today</a> than they were in 1990, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC</a>) published its first assessment. At some point we need to recognise the problem is political and that further climate change science may even divert attention away from where the problem truly lies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graph that shows governments' lack of action on climate change" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434581/original/file-20211129-15-1pzdok0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Governments agree that the science is settled but scientists are compelled to do more research despite inadequate government action and worsening climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Was COP26 too little, too late?</h2>
<p>The outcome of COP26, summarised in the draft <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_L16_adv.pdf">Glasgow Climate Pact</a>, includes some progress, including an agreement to begin reducing coal-fired power, removing subsidies on other fossil fuels, and a commitment to double adaptation finance to improve climate resilience for countries with the lowest incomes. </p>
<p>But many of the world’s leading scientists argue that this is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03431-4">too little, too late</a>. They note the failure of COP26 to translate the 2015 <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a> into practical reality to keep global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. </p>
<p>Even if COP26 commitments are fulfilled, there is a strong likelihood that humanity and life on Earth face a precarious future. </p>
<p>What are climate change scientists to do in the face of this evidence? We see three possible options — two that are untenable, one that is unpalatable.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-look-up-hollywoods-primer-on-climate-denial-illustrates-5-myths-that-fuel-rejection-of-science-174266">'Don’t Look Up': Hollywood's primer on climate denial illustrates 5 myths that fuel rejection of science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Where to from here for climate change scientists?</h2>
<p>The first option is to collect more evidence and hope for action. Continue the IPCC process that stays politically neutral and abstains from policy prescriptions. A recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03433-2">editorial in Nature</a> called on scientists to do just that: stay engaged to support future climate COPs. </p>
<p>However, this choice not only ignores the complex relationship between science and policy, it runs counter to the logic of our scientific training to reflect and act on the evidence. We know why global warming is happening and what to do. We have known for a long time. </p>
<p>Governments just haven’t taken the necessary action. In a recent Nature <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02990-w">survey</a>, six in ten of the IPCC scientists who responded expect 3°C warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Persisting with this first option is therefore untenable.</p>
<p>The second option is more intensive social science research and climate change advocacy. As Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes recently <a href="https://www-scientificamerican-com.ezproxy.massey.ac.nz/article/ipcc-youve-made-your-point-humans-are-a-primary-cause-of-climate-change/">observed</a>, the work of the IPCC’s Working Group I (<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">WGI</a>, on the physical science basis of climate change) is complete and should be closed down. Attention needs to focus on translating this understanding into action, which is the realm of WGII (on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) and WGIII (on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions). </p>
<p>In parallel, growing numbers of scientists are getting involved in diverse forms of advocacy, including <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03430-5">non-violent civil disobedience</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1459244312068337670"}"></div></p>
<p>However, albeit more promising than option one, there is little evidence of impact thus far and it is doubtful this pathway will lead to the urgent transformative actions required. This option is also not tenable.</p>
<h2>Halt on IPCC work until governments do their part</h2>
<p>The third option is much more radical, but unpalatable. We call for a moratorium on climate change research that does little more than document global warming and maladaptation. </p>
<p>Attention needs to focus on exposing and re-negotiating the broken science-society contract. Given the rupture to the contract outlined here, we call for a halt on all further IPCC assessments until governments are willing to fulfil their responsibilities in good faith and mobilise action to secure a safe level of global warming. This option is the only way to overcome the tragedy of climate change science. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-to-find-courage-and-defiant-hope-when-our-fragile-dewdrop-world-seems-beyond-saving-171299">Where to find courage and defiant hope when our fragile, dewdrop world seems beyond saving</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Readers might agree with our framing of this tragedy but disagree with our assessment of options. Some may want greater detail on what a moratorium could encompass or worry it may damage the credibility and objectivity of the scientific community. </p>
<p>However, we question whether it is our “duty” to use public funds to continue to refine the state of climate change knowledge (which is unlikely to lead to the actions required), or whether a more radical approach will serve society better. </p>
<p>We have reached a critical juncture for humanity and the planet. Given the unfolding tragedy, a moratorium on climate change research is the only responsible option for revealing and then restoring the broken science-society contract. The other two options are seductive but offer false hope. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>We would like to acknowledge the work by Andrés Alegría in preparing the graphic.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Glavovic acknowledges the support of the New Zealand Earthquake Commission in enabling his contribution to this research, and the support by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment through the National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature’s Challenges.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain White acknowledges the support by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment through the National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature’s Challenges.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Smith acknowledges support by the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects Funding Scheme (Project FT180100652). The views expressed herein are those of the authors, and are not necessarily those of Massey University, the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of Waikato, the governments of New Zealand or Australia, the Earthquake Commission, or the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>What should climate scientists do in the face of ever rising emissions? They could continue providing more evidence, join climate activists – or stop work in protest against government inaction.Bruce Glavovic, Professor, Massey UniversityIain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of WaikatoTim Smith, Professor and ARC Future Fellow, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744372022-01-06T15:26:04Z2022-01-06T15:26:04ZEnergy prices are unlikely to fall in 2022 or beyond – not until major importers get serious about green transition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439694/original/file-20220106-27-1vc58jg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese demand for LNG is one of the factors keeping gas prices so high. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/a-tanker-is-to-be-loaded-with-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-at-the-rudong-lng-terminal-of-cnpc-china-national-petroleum-corporation-parent-company-of-image261938953.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=C106071E-D2E5-45BC-8BA7-3282A3A7A0E4&p=856787&n=0&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3dbar%26st%3d0%26pn%3d1%26ps%3d100%26sortby%3d2%26resultview%3dsortbyPopular%26npgs%3d0%26qt%3dchina%2520lng%26qt_raw%3dchina%2520lng%26lic%3d3%26mr%3d0%26pr%3d0%26ot%3d0%26creative%3d%26ag%3d0%26hc%3d0%26pc%3d%26blackwhite%3d%26cutout%3d%26tbar%3d1%26et%3d0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3d0%26loc%3d0%26imgt%3d0%26dtfr%3d%26dtto%3d%26size%3d0xFF%26archive%3d1%26groupid%3d%26pseudoid%3d289682%26a%3d%26cdid%3d%26cdsrt%3d%26name%3d%26qn%3d%26apalib%3d%26apalic%3d%26lightbox%3d%26gname%3d%26gtype%3d%26xstx%3d0%26simid%3d%26saveQry%3d%26editorial%3d%26nu%3d%26t%3d%26edoptin%3d%26customgeoip%3dGB%26cap%3d1%26cbstore%3d1%26vd%3d0%26lb%3d%26fi%3d2%26edrf%3d0%26ispremium%3d1%26flip%3d0%26pl%3d">ImagineChina Limited</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With today’s high oil prices and record gas prices, it is easy to forget that the situation was reversed as recently as two years ago. At the end of 2019, an over-supply of fossil fuels had left producers concerned about low prices. Saudi Arabia and Russia <a href="https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/5/1/opec-output-hit-30-year-high-during-the-saudi-russia-price-war">fell out</a> over the need for further production cuts to support prices. Then the scale and impact of the pandemic became apparent, economies locked down, and energy demand plummeted – most significantly for oil, given its links to transport.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262860/uk-brent-crude-oil-price-changes-since-1976/">average price</a> for a barrel of Brent crude oil duly fell from US$64 (£47) in 2019 to US$42 in 2020. It has since rallied to an average of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50738">US$71 in 2021</a>. This strengthening reflects the success of oil-producer cartel Opec+ in managing production against rebounding global demand, helped also by only modest rates of recovery in supplies from the US shale industry. </p>
<p>The same cannot be said of the gas market, where prices vary significantly by region. North America is self-sufficient and has been enjoying relatively low prices, but consumers in Europe and Asia have to compete for marginal supplies on the global market. </p>
<p>Using the <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas">UK’s spot price</a> as a European benchmark, gas was trading at around £0.35 to £0.40 per therm in early 2020, but by May 2020 it had fallen to £0.084. In the thick of the pandemic, liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes in the US were being cancelled due to a lack of demand and Gazprom in Russia was having to scale back production from its fields in Siberia. </p>
<p><strong>Natural gas price (UK spot, pence per therm)</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Natural gas price chart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439700/original/file-20220106-21-1mws3sf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas">Trading Economics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in early 2021, a cold snap in Asia warned of what was to come as demand for gas started rising. A global gas-price crisis unfolded, with European consumers having to out-compete Asian buyers to attract LNG deliveries. UK spot prices reached a record £4.50 per therm just before Christmas, representing a ninefold increase on 12 months previously. </p>
<p>Prices have since fallen back as LNG deliveries have been diverted from Asia. But storage remains low, and a prolonged cold snap in Europe and/or Asia could see prices skyrocketing again (and indeed they have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/04/gas-price-hike-of-more-than-30-stokes-home-bills-fears-for-europe">on the increase</a> in early January).</p>
<p>Against this backdrop, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have called for increased oil and gas production as a way of lowering prices. In the UK there have been calls to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/energy-crisis-boris-johnson-rules-out-cutting-vat-from-bills-despite-brexit-pledge-j7jpmjqgd">reduce taxation</a> on gas and electricity; remove the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10362493/MPs-call-PM-tackle-cost-living-crisis-scrapping-taxes-fuel-bills-green-levies.html">green levies</a> from bills that subsidise renewable energy; <a href="https://leftfootforward.org/2022/01/tory-mps-use-energy-price-hikes-to-argue-for-more-drilling-of-oil-and-gas-from-north-sea/">support new exploration</a> in the North Sea; and <a href="https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/revive-fracking-to-tackle-rising-energy-bills-net-zero-sceptic-tory-mps-tell-boris-johnson-3512820">even try</a> and resuscitate shale gas development. </p>
<p>Fossil fuel producers have used this crisis to warn against a messy energy transition and a rapid move away from <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/89231064-08d6-49d3-a13e-df8446abfc80">fossil fuels</a>. For environmentalists, on the other hand, the crisis highlights the need to accelerate the move away from expensive and volatile fossil fuels. There is truth in both positions.</p>
<h2>Challenges with the green transition</h2>
<p>The environmental consequences of fossil fuel consumption are ever more apparent. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">physical science report</a> of 2021, described as code-red for humanity, made clear the severity of the situation. Analyses by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8">academics</a>, <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/report/production-gap-report-2021">international organisations</a> and <a href="https://carbontracker.org/reports/adapt-to-survive/">think-tanks</a> have made clear that we are planning to invest in future oil and gas production way beyond the constraints of the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a> of 2015, which committed to keeping global warming to well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible. </p>
<p>When the world’s politicians and climate change negotiators met in Glasgow at the COP26 climate conference in November, the scale of the challenge was acknowledged and commitments and pledges were made, but they still <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/press/Glasgows-one-degree-2030-credibility-gap-net-zeros-lip-service-to-climate-action/">fall way short</a> of what is needed. Equally, greenhouse gas emissions <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59148520#:%7E:text=Climate%20change%3A%20Carbon%20emissions%20show%20rapid%20rebound%20after%20Covid%20dip,-By%20Paul%20Rincon&text=Global%20carbon%20dioxide%20emissions%20are,finding%20that%20has%20surprised%20scientists.&text=But%20a%20scientific%20report%20by,rise%20by%204.9%25%20this%20year.">are rebounding</a> and the opportunity to build back better through a <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/are-we-building-back-better-evidence-2020-and-pathways-inclusive-green">green recovery</a> has been missed as most government financial support is towards maintaining the fossil-fuelled status quo. </p>
<p>The good news is that the cost of <a href="https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2021/Jun/Majority-of-New-Renewables-Undercut-Cheapest-Fossil-Fuel-on-Cost#:%7E:text=Renewable%20Power%20Generation%20Costs%20in,PV%20by%207%20per%20cent.">clean energy</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/most-new-wind-solar-projects-cheaper-than-coal-report#:%7E:text=Solar%20power%20costs%20fell%20by,has%20declined%20by%20almost%2048%25.">low carbon technologies</a> continues to fall. At the same time, investments in fossil fuel production <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-crisis-fossil-fuel-investment-renewables-gas-oil-prices-coal-wind-solar-hydro-power-grid-11634497531">are declining</a> as the financial community has less appetite to invest. </p>
<p>But here’s the rub: how do you ensure an adequate supply of fossil fuels to meet global demand in the short-term, while reducing production in the long-term? <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2021">At present</a>, far more green investment is required to ensure the future falling fossil fuel production is compensated for by improvements in energy efficiency and rapid growth in clean power generation. </p>
<p>This lack of commitment helps to explain why demand for fossil fuels has driven prices back up. With governments apparently less willing to lock down in the face of the omicron variant, oil demand will likely continue to recover at least in the short term. </p>
<p>At the same time, Opec+ is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b2f797d1-980e-41bd-a297-7a782ba2a969">hesitant</a> to increase production significantly. Equally, the US shale industry is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-06/shale-oil-output-forecasts-may-fall-victim-to-driller-discipline">demonstrating financial discipline</a> and may never again reach 2019 production levels. Other risks such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/russia-invade-ukraine-enormous-sanctions-schiff">Russia-Ukraine situation</a> could further drive up prices if Russian oil were removed from the world market because of sanctions. </p>
<p><strong>Brent crude price (US$) 2012-22</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brent crude price chart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439699/original/file-20220106-21-11cs7gq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=TVC%3AUKOIL">Trading View</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The gas situation is more unpredictable. Ordinarily, demand and prices fall when the winter heating period ends in the northern hemisphere. But storage will require re-filling because facilities in many countries were not full even before this winter. And growing global demand, as economies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/high-carbon-prices-prompt-coal-to-gas-fuel-switching-2021-04-21/">switch away</a> from coal to gas, may stretch supply. </p>
<p>In Europe, the challenge is to ensure adequate supply in the short-term as climate policy drives down demand in the long term. Relations with Russia, which exports gas to Europe via several pipelines, will remain critical to avoid expensive competition with Asia for LNG supply. </p>
<p>Aside from this possibility of Europe contributing to higher demand, it is higher LNG demand in emerging markets that will promote an expansion of natural gas production in the medium to long term. One potential issue is that higher gas prices may dissuade potential new importers like <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/091421-vietnam-to-start-lng-imports-in-2022-as-key-step-in-lowering-emissions-energy-security-minister">Vietnam</a> from investing in import infrastructure, potentially lowering global demand. </p>
<h2>The production problem</h2>
<p>Yet in general, few significant oil and gas producing economies are going to stop investing in new production anytime soon. The problem is the credibility gap that exists between ambition and action in importing economies. The producers simply do not believe that demand is going to disappear, that prices are going to fall permanently, or that their assets are going to get stranded. </p>
<p>It is true that financial markets are <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/23/why-high-gas-prices-are-more-about-wall-street-than-the-white-house.html">doing their bit</a> to curb extra fossil fuel production by turning away from financing the sector, but the net result may simply be to hand market share to national oil companies. The real answer lies in fossil-fuel-importing nations – the largest of which are China and India – demonstrating credible plans to decarbonise their economies and delivering on them. At present, they are doing just the opposite.</p>
<p>The current energy crisis will eventually pass as more supply comes on the market. For now, governments in those countries impacted by high prices must hold their nerve and press on with decarbonisation. At the same time, fossil fuel producers should not be fooled into thinking that the good times are here to stay. What the current crisis does highlight is that the challenge of phasing down fossil fuels in an affordable and equitable manner is just as great as that of building up clean energy capacity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Bradshaw receives funding from NERC in relation to its Unconventional Hydrocarbons in the UK Energy System Research Programme and EPSRC in relation to his role as Co-Director for the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).. </span></em></p>Oil and gas have been on a roller coaster these past two years – here’s why.Michael Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734782022-01-06T14:39:09Z2022-01-06T14:39:09ZThe Paris Agreement is working as intended, but we’ve still got a long way to go<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439499/original/file-20220105-23-lx3o1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C3896%2C2167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tuz Lake, once the second-largest lake in Turkey, has almost entirely receded in 2021, following a climate-induced drought and decades of agricultural polices that depleted groundwater. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel) </span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-paris-agreement-is-working-as-intended--but-we-ve-still-got-a-long-way-to-go" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Well, this is beginning to feel old: 2021 was another year of climate catastrophes — <a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-was-a-terrible-year-for-climate-disasters-but-there-are-reasons-for-hope-in-2021-151434">just like the one before it</a>. </p>
<p>Yet another year of <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8483716/colorado-wildfire-1k-homes-destroyed/">fires</a> and <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-climate-disasters-2021/">floods</a>, with more <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-12-30/climate-change-will-get-worse-in-2022-but-it-wont-be-the-end-boiling-point">beckoning for 2022</a>. And, like last year, there are desperate calls for 2022 to be a year of <a href="https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/climate-issues-to-watch-in-2022-a-year-for-more-action-and-bigger-ambition/">accelerated climate action</a>. It has to be, in so many ways (technological, social, economic, political), if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change. </p>
<p>Yet one thing that’s different in 2022 than years past is that we we now have a completed, functioning global climate treaty. At the November 2021 <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/cop26-reaches-consensus-on-key-actions-to-address-climate-change">COP26 meeting in Glasgow</a>, the international community finalized the remaining details of the Paris Agreement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of burned down houses and smoking trees, surrounded by pale yellow fields." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439496/original/file-20220105-25-6nr5ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A neighbourhood in Boulder County, Colo., smoulders after it was destroyed by wildfire on Dec. 31, 2021. Wildfires do not typically occur in this region in mid-winter, but the state has experienced a prolonged drought.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hart Van Denburg/Colorado Public Radio via AP, Pool)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of the world, or at least the media in North America and the United Kingdom, met this news with confusion. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/14/world/does-cop26-matter-for-climate-intl/index.html"><em>CNN</em></a>, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2021/11/14/was-cop26-in-glasgow-a-success"><em>Economist</em></a>, the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-globe-climate-a-deal-was-reached-but-was-cop26-a-success/"><em>Globe and Mail</em></a> and even <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/was-cop26-a-success-or-a-failure"><em>CBC Kids</em></a> ran stories asking the same question: “Was COP26 a Success?” </p>
<p>The consensus that emerged in the media and among columnists was that some progress was made even if it didn’t fix climate change. Environmental activists were more certain: <a href="https://climateactionnetwork.ca/2021/11/13/canadian-civil-society-reacts-to-cop26-incremental-inadequate-progress-a-reason-to-mobilize/">COP26 was a failure</a>. </p>
<p>Both reactions are reasonable because two facts about climate action uncomfortably coexist.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf">Paris Agreement</a> is working as it was designed, doing what it is supposed to do and what it can do as an international agreement.</p></li>
<li><p>The Paris Agreement agreement alone can’t save us. The global response to climate change <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/19/1/4/15032/Dangerous-Incrementalism-of-the-Paris-Agreement?searchresult=1">is not generating transformation at the pace or scale we need</a> to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Paris is a means, not an end</h2>
<p>The Paris Agreement is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12708">context for climate action</a>, not action itself. Its main substance is a collectively agreed goal (keep warming to 1.5 C) and it mandates that countries <a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/NDCStaging/Pages/All.aspx">develop their own climate plans</a>, which they have mostly done and some have even <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/updated-ndc-synthesis-report-worrying-trends-confirmed">ratcheted them up since 2015</a>. </p>
<p>It also provides infrastructure for <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-glasgow-climate-pact/cop26-outcomes-transparency-and-reporting">collective reporting and monitoring of plans</a> with common metrics, for taking stock of how states’ commitments translate to the overarching goal, for developing a <a href="https://www.goldstandard.org/blog-item/post-cop26-%E2%80%93-reflections-article-6-outcomes">global carbon market</a> and <a href="https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/16/11/2021/100-billion-dollar-question-cop26-glasgow-and-climate-finance">mobilizing finance for the Global South</a>. After Glasgow, most of this is now in place.</p>
<p>Yay! The Paris Agreement is working … and yet the climate is still burning. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Paris Agreement can work perfectly and <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-emissions-gaps/">states’ individual efforts can still come up short</a>. The Paris Agreement is a means, not an end. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wades through a flooded field with several dwellings in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439497/original/file-20220105-18500-1nuh0zs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change is being blamed for the worst floods in some parts of South Sudan in more than 60 years. Scientists say global warming-linked changes in a weather pattern called the Indian Ocean Dipole led to extensive bush fires in Australia in 2019 and 2020, and extreme flooding in East Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Adrienne Surprenant)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Turning this global institutional context into an effective global response to climate change requires ambitious national action. The Paris Agreement will succeed in the broader sense if states ramp up the ambition and implementation of their climate plans. That’s the whole ballgame. Fortunately, the Paris Agreement infrastructure and approach provide some mechanisms to encourage this.</p>
<p>The co-operative infrastructure — especially transparency and <a href="https://www.wri.org/insights/cop26-key-outcomes-un-climate-talks-glasgow">common reporting timelines and metrics for greenhouse gas emissions and national climate actions</a> — may help catalyze virtuous cycles of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1695571">increasing ambition</a>. Even though the Paris Agreement relies on individual instead of joint commitments, countries are still wary about moving ahead of their peers and competitors. Having transparent national commitments with standardized reporting is potentially a way to alleviate those concerns. </p>
<p>Efforts to mobilize finance need to be drastically improved, however. This was a major sticking point at COP26 that <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/11/climate-finance-elephant-room-cop26">almost derailed the conference</a>. </p>
<p>States in the Global North are seriously <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02846-3">underperforming on their pledged commitments</a> on climate and adaptation finance. They have come up at least US$20 billion short on a US$100 billion per year pledge — an amount itself considered “miniscule” compared to what’s ultimately necessary. Mobilizing finance for the Global South was a <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/16/3/1/14984/The-Paris-Agreement-on-Climate-Change-Behind">key bargain that made the Paris Agreement itself possible</a> and its future success depends on this commitment being fulfilled. </p>
<h2>Accountability and inclusion can instigate change</h2>
<p>These mechanisms, however, rely on countries wanting to act with enthusiasm and equity. That’s the necessary change and it’s what climate activists <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59185007">took to the streets around the world</a> to demand. The logic of accountability and inclusion built into the Paris Agreement offers opportunities to instigate change. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman stands in a forested area looking back, past the camera, over her shoulder. A man stands several metres in front of her, also looking back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439500/original/file-20220105-17-1uugjvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate, left, walks with a guide at the Kaazi reforestation project on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, she said that she and her peers did not believe the pledges that leaders and investors have made to fight climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2017.1327485">accountability in the Paris Agreement is largely external</a> — the agreement itself doesn’t have enforcement mechanisms because decisions and actions are taken domestically. This provides citizens and activists with concrete targets — national climate plans. </p>
<p>We need more national legislation like <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050/canadian-net-zero-emissions-accountability-act.html">Canada’s Net Zero Accountability Act</a>. We need citizen pressure to continue ratcheting up national ambition and implementation to ensure that such legislation isn’t <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-report-failure-to-failure-1.6262523">greenwashing</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-finally-has-a-climate-plan-that-will-let-it-meet-its-carbon-targets-by-2030-152133">Canada finally has a climate plan that will let it meet its carbon targets by 2030</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Second, the Paris Agreement recognizes the importance of <a href="https://unfccc.int/climate-action/introduction-climate-action">mobilizing the full range of corporations, cities, provinces, NGOs, communities and so on</a> to meet the 1.5 C target. The work done by these <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/16/3/12/14989/All-Hands-on-Deck-The-Paris-Agreement-and-Nonstate">non-state</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2020.1828796">sub-state</a> players can change what countries see as possible and appropriate climate action. </p>
<p>So, we have Paris and that’s a good thing, somewhat. It is working. It provides the infrastructure to do more; to do better. It’s not magic though. As <a href="https://climateactionnetwork.ca/2021/11/13/canadian-civil-society-reacts-to-cop26-incremental-inadequate-progress-a-reason-to-mobilize/">Catherine Abreu</a>, the executive director of the Climate Action Network, observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The final outcomes of COP26 gives Canadians a clear image of where the world is at: united in the desperate hope to limit warming to 1.5 C and avoid the most irreversible impacts of climate change; divided on the scale of effort required to achieve that goal.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The animating force for the Paris Agreement to truly succeed is the efforts that people, communities, NGOs and corporations deploy to make states see the necessity of the proper scale of effort. We have Paris, but hope for 2022 will be found in the <a href="https://grist.org/fix/22-predictions-for-2022-climate-tech-infrastructure-policy-culture-trends/">movements and politics</a> that are growing across the globe; in fighting for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2021.1976095">pandemic recovery plans that focus on justice, equity and sustainability</a>; in the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/12/12/meet-the-net-zero-neighbours-this-tiny-toronto-group-has-big-climate-change-ambitions.html">everyday actions of concerned individuals</a> that build social momentum for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Hoffmann receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council. He is affiliated with the NGO Green Economy Canada.</span></em></p>On the tail of yet another year of climate disasters, 2022 ushers in the final version of the Paris Agreement, making it a functioning global climate treaty. But it alone can’t save us.Matthew Hoffmann, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director Environmental Governance Lab, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1716542021-12-23T11:50:41Z2021-12-23T11:50:41ZA climate-vulnerable country’s experience at a UN summit: ignored, overlooked, then targeted by investment banks<p>The recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow <a href="https://theconversation.com/cop26-deal-how-rich-countries-failed-to-meet-their-obligations-to-the-rest-of-the-world-171804">served the interests of rich, industrialised nations</a> over those of the poor and climate vulnerable countries. This was another missed opportunity. While most of the countries most vulnerable to climate change sought urgent emission reductions and compensation for damages, their voices were either <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59206814">ignored explicitly</a> or turned away in favour of potential investment deals with rich countries and aligned institutions. </p>
<p>Like many others, we kept our fingers crossed for any realistic progress on emission targets. But the summit only increased our fear that rich governments and corporations will continue to opt for fossil fuel extraction instead of preservation. </p>
<p>Our home nation, Bangladesh, is one of those most vulnerable countries. Two-thirds of it is <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2016/10/07/bangladesh-building-resilience-to-climate-change">less than five metres above sea level</a>. Rising seas will instantly displace between one and three million people while many millions more will be hit by stronger cyclones, <a href="https://www.oecd.org/env/cc/21055658.pdf">flooding</a>, failing crops, desertification, droughts and dangerous heatwaves. And all this is despite the fact that, on a per capita basis, Bangladesh is one of the very lowest emitters of greenhouse gases outside of Sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>We spoke with some of Bangladesh’s delegates at the COP26 summit. Based on these conversations and our own expertise, we reveal what matters most for super vulnerable countries like Bangladesh – and how these issues were sidetracked in the negotiation process.</p>
<h2>Adaptation goals and financial support towards adaptation</h2>
<p>Bangladesh’s position was that major greenhouse gas emitters, mostly developed nations, should commit to financial support for those countries which are at most risk yet will have a much smaller role in the reduction of CO₂ emissions globally.</p>
<p>Much of this money will be required simply to adapt to climate changes that are already locked in. Bangladesh, for instance, needs to fortify its river banks against floods; it needs to conserve soil that is being washed away; it needs high-yield water sensitive crops, and it needs more <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200910-the-remarkable-floating-gardens-of-bangladesh">floating gardens</a> in flooded areas. These adaptations, and many more besides, will cost <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/mar/10/climate-change-talks-bangladesh-donors">billions of dollars</a>.</p>
<p>Most vulnerable countries find it difficult to provide these things through internal self-finance. The UN does have an <a href="https://www.adaptation-fund.org">adaptation fund</a> which is reliant on voluntary contributions from developed countries and received <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/adaptation-fund-raises-record-us-356-million-in-new-pledges-at-cop26-for-its-concrete-actions-to">US$356 million in pledges at COP26</a>, an increase on the COP25 pledges of US$129 million. But this is still far from enough. Bangladeshi delegates we spoke with warned that the amount needed is growing far faster than the amount available. Indeed, one recent report said adaptation costs in developing countries are <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/adaptation-gap-report-2021/">ten times greater</a> than the money they currently receive.</p>
<p>One problem is that climate finance is still mostly geared towards mitigation, funding things like solar farms or hydropower plants that might help countries like Bangladesh cut their own emissions. One of the delegates told us that Bangladesh wanted a 50:50 mix of support for adaptation and mitigation.</p>
<p>Bangladesh, like other climate-vulnerable nations, also wanted more grants, rather than loans, which leave them indebted. Instead, with rich countries unwilling to offer the required support, funding was often offered through market-based instruments such as public-private partnerships (PPP). </p>
<p>But this kind of private sector investment is constrained by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20430795.2021.1917929">long term uncertainty or perceived high risks</a> associated with climate change and natural hazards. As one civil society representative of Bangladesh at COP told us, private financing will mainly prioritise business interests and will hardly meet the dire adaptation needs of poor and marginalised people.</p>
<h2>Loss and damage</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://theconversation.com/mondays-ipcc-report-is-a-really-big-deal-for-climate-change-so-what-is-it-and-why-should-we-trust-it-165614">the IPCC</a>, some impacts of climate change are unavoidable and so serious that things cannot be restored through adaptation. In the language of international climate policy, this is known as “loss and damage”. A good example here is land lost due to salinity and sea level rise, which is already displacing thousands of people in Bangladesh. </p>
<p>This is why super vulnerable countries placed huge emphasis on finding a common tool for <a href="https://unfccc.int/santiago-network">addressing loss and damage</a>. There was a proposal at COP26 to create a new fund for loss and damage, but it was <a href="https://theconversation.com/cop26-deal-how-rich-countries-failed-to-meet-their-obligations-to-the-rest-of-the-world-171804">blocked by the US and EU</a>.</p>
<p>One Bangladeshi civil society leader observing the negotiations told us that rich nations were more interested in luring the poor countries (through promises of increased aid) to support their agenda of a tokenistic reduction in CO₂ emissions while carrying on business as usual by <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/18/15331040/emissions-outsourcing-carbon-leakage">outsourcing emissions to poorer nations</a>. </p>
<p>There were also visible efforts to introduce market-based approaches such as <a href="https://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/energy-and-power/climate-smart-ppps-1">public-private partnerships</a>, whereby international financial institutions and investment banks would finance “climate-smart infrastructure” in poor countries. Our contacts told us highly-paid consultants were trying to convince delegates and political leaders of the poor countries to agree with this approach. Though Bangladesh does welcome <a href="https://thebangladeshtoday.com/?p=41127">private climate investment</a>, the lack of public funding could mean many urgent-but-not-profitable priorities may be left unaddressed. Our contacts said it was unlikely that those behind the public-private partnerships would be interested in investing in agricultural insurance, for instance. </p>
<p>Though some countries may be desperate enough to sign up, such deals could prove to be a new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/20/climate-finance-driving-poor-countries-deeper-into-debt-says-oxfam">debt trap</a>. As one civil society leader pointed out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How would these be aligned with the core objectives of the climate negotiation for the poor countries? It is obvious when private sector will invest, they would first look to make profits.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Palash Kamruzzaman receives funding from the British Academy, and Universities Wales. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohammad Ehsanul Kabir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two Bangladeshi academics spoke to delegates at the Glasgow COP.Mohammad Ehsanul Kabir, Lecturer, University of South WalesPalash Kamruzzaman, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1725812021-12-22T12:46:56Z2021-12-22T12:46:56ZThe radical history of scrapbooks – and why activists still use them today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438423/original/file-20211220-21-gga1pc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C25%2C4230%2C2796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">(Alice) Maud Arncliffe Sennett, English actress and suffragette, arrested four times for her activism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-postcards-open-empty-book-vintage-115549870">Shutterstock/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might think of scrapbooks as nothing more than a relic from the Victorian period, or an activity from your own childhood, but you would be wrong – because scrapbooking has a long and rich history connected with activism.</p>
<p>Indeed, in the run-up to the recent COP26 climate conference, the UK’s <a href="https://www.thewi.org.uk/about-us">largest women’s organisation</a>, the Women’s Institute (WI), asked for contributions to its “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewi/photos/a.185789386138/10158504954166139/?type=3&source=48">climate scrapbook</a>”. The <a href="https://mywi.thewi.org.uk/public-affairs-and-campaigns/current-campaigns/climate-change/the-whole-story-the-wis-campaign-for-cop26/climate-scrapbook">public affairs</a> team invited anyone, members and non-members alike, to use their “knowledge, experience, and creativity” to respond to a short but powerful question – “why does the UK government need to make COP26 a success?”</p>
<p>Answers could take various forms: a short piece of writing, a photograph capturing how climate change had impacted their local area, a drawing, painting, or piece of embroidery. These contributions would be photographed and uploaded to a digital scrapbook for WI members to browse and consider. A few copies would be printed and delivered to key government ministers, using a chorus of voices to call for greater urgency in dealing with the climate crisis.</p>
<p>It may surprise that the WI chose a scrapbook over a more conventional report or letter as the way to deliver its call to action. Or maybe the scrapbook was the perfect choice for an organisation that has celebrated women’s craft skills since <a href="https://www.thewi.org.uk/about-us">it was founded</a> in 1915. Either way, it shows how, for many communities, scrapbooking is still very much connected with activism.</p>
<h2>Write with scissors</h2>
<p>Scrapbooks are a democratic form of archiving, available to anyone who can buy (or make) a scrapbook, scissors and glue. They are, to use English professor Ellen Gruber Garvey’s apt phrase, a way for activists to “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/writing-with-scissors-9780199927692?cc=gb&lang=en&">write with scissors</a>”, by rescuing items such as newspaper clippings, photographs, letters, badges – anything at all to chart their activist lives.</p>
<p>A scrapbook is a blank canvas upon which any activist can paint their story. It’s for this reason that campaigners have used this genre to document their worlds. Activists from all shades of the campaigning spectrum have used scrapbooks to capture their activist energies: whether it be recording <a href="https://phm.org.uk/collections-display/?irn=19965">hunger marches</a>, <a href="https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/archives/search-the-online-catalogue">strikes</a>, <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/special/peroni">fascist political activity</a>, or the work of <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N15275967">women’s peace camps</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scrapbooks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438469/original/file-20211220-19-xu0zxu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scrapbooks from the past, (author’s own collection).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout history, many activists have used scrapbooks as a powerful act of protest. Unlike published memoirs or autobiographies, there is something intimate and tactile in the process of both compiling and reading an activist’s scrapbook. Sometimes these scrapbooks are private volumes. Other times, campaigners presented scrapbooks <a href="https://archives.lse.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=10/02&pos=119">as gifts</a> to each other, or used them to speak to a larger, public audience.</p>
<p>This was the case for (Alice) Maud Mary Arncliffe Sennett (1862-1936), who was not only a suffrage campaigner but <a href="https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2018/02/21/maud-arncliff-sennett-a-militant-suffragette/">an actress</a> and businesswoman. She joined fellow suffrage campaigners organising marches, writing to newspapers, smashing windows, and forming <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/case-studies-women-parliament/suffragettes-in-trousers/men-from-the-north/">her own organisation</a>, the Northern Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage, after suffragette <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/davison_emily.shtml">Emily Davison</a> famously collided with a horse at the Epsom race course in June 1913. She also kept 37 scrapbooks where she documented her activist life on her own terms in rich, vibrant detail.</p>
<h2>A scrapbooking suffragette</h2>
<p>The pages of <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2020/12/suffrage-scrapbooks-forgotten-histories-of-political-activism-.html">Sennett’s scrapbooks</a> were somewhere for her to collate all her various readings on the suffragette movement sourced from pamphlets, newsletters and newspapers. Newspaper clippings record her window-smashing campaigns in 1919, while a police telegram chronicles the date of her court hearing, and letters share her joy at gaining the vote in 1918. Her 37-volume scrapbook collection was somewhere for her to talk back to writers, responding with her own views in the margins.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Force feeding a suffragette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438463/original/file-20211220-48933-d3c468.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A suffragette on hunger strike in the UK being force-fed with a nasal tube in Holloway Prison, 1909.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Arncliffe_Sennett#/media/File:Force-feeding_(suffragettes).jpeg">Wikicommons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The pages of her scrapbooks are like an emotional rollercoaster, with her frenetic layering of material visually presenting her activist world. Her strident, angry outbursts compel you to turn the next page, eager to see who or what is the subject of her next outburst. Alongside newspaper clippings, Sennett scrapbooked on her frustrations and loneliness, ranting against the Pankhurst family for excluding her from a large gathering of suffrage campaigners on Women’s Sunday in June 1908. In this way, activists’ scrapbooks are not just celebratory archives, but spaces that capture the messy, complicated lived experience of campaigning and political activism.</p>
<p>Nearly a century later, as a researcher sitting in the Reading Rooms of the British Library, I can request her scrapbooks, touch the newspapers Sennett read and feel the objects that meant something to her as a suffrage campaigner. Her scrapbooks are like time capsules, transporting us back to her busy, complex campaigning life. </p>
<p>While scrapbooking might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think of activism, it has been a persistent way in which activists have amplified and archived their voices for the past, present and future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cherish Watton receives funding from The Wolfson Foundation. </span></em></p>A scrapbook is a blank canvas upon which any activist can paint their story.Cherish Watton, PhD Candidate in British Modern History, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1739222021-12-17T16:50:58Z2021-12-17T16:50:58ZCOP26 agreed rules on trading carbon emissions – but they’re fatally flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438215/original/file-20211217-27-193qg9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3071&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/jiujiang-china-jan10-2021-smoky-smokestacks-1891775509">Humphery/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One surprise from COP26 – the latest UN climate change conference in Glasgow – was an agreement between world leaders on a new set of rules for regulating carbon markets. This would allow countries to trade the right to emit greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>Carbon trading is part of how countries intend to meet their obligations for reducing emissions under the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, the manner in which countries agreed these rules may hobble the Agreement in its goal of averting catastrophic warming.</p>
<p>Carbon markets were central to the design of the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which created three different mechanisms for trading carbon. Developing countries had become accustomed to attracting investment via one called the “Clean Development Mechanism” (CDM) which allowed industrialised countries to invest in projects to reduce emissions in developing countries and count them against their own targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Many industrialised countries wanted to retain this sort of flexibility in how they met their own treaty obligations.</p>
<p>As a result, most governments were keen to keep carbon markets as part of the Paris Agreement. In Paris in 2015, the bare bones of mechanisms similar to those in the Kyoto Protocol were agreed, but without the details needed to put them into practice.</p>
<p>Why then did it take six years to agree the rules which would govern these markets? This was more than the four years it took countries to do the same in the Kyoto Protocol and, in effect, they were recreating the same mechanisms. The problems in reaching an agreement this time were three-fold, and they weren’t satisfactorily resolved in Glasgow.</p>
<h2>Going backwards from Kyoto</h2>
<p>Various states, and many environmental campaign groups, suspect that carbon markets weaken the overall effort to reduce emissions. As climate change has accelerated over the past decade these concerns have become more acute. Why trade emissions if everyone is trying to get them to zero? There is <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abdae9/meta">considerable evidence</a> that carbon offset projects – such as wind farms, which emissions trading can fund – have failed to deliver a reduction in overall emissions. A 2017 study led by the EU Commission found that <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/clima/system/files/2017-04/clean_dev_mechanism_en.pdf">85% of projects</a> funded by the CDM hadn’t reduced emissions. </p>
<p>There are also fundamental design issues in the Paris Agreement that make setting up carbon markets under it much more difficult. The Kyoto Protocol expressed the obligations of industrialised states to reduce their emissions as targets. These could be translated into a fixed number of emissions allowances that provided carbon markets with a clear set of accounting rules and indicators of market demand.</p>
<p>No such set of rules exists in the Paris Agreement. Instead, all states submit their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – national plans for reducing emissions. They may or may not have an emissions target and they vary in how they account for emissions or which sources of emissions they include in their plans. How can a market function if there is no clear way of measuring what is being traded? And how should a country trading with another adjust its own NDC to avoid double-counting, when the design of each country’s NDC varies so much?</p>
<p>And what should countries do with all the credits created in the Kyoto Protocol’s system? Should they just be rolled over to be used in the new markets? Should they be simply abandoned? Or is there some way of allowing them in but controlling their use? A lot of CDM credits in particular remain, and they could flood the new markets and undermine the integrity of the NDCs.</p>
<h2>A cop out</h2>
<p>In the first week of COP26, it looked like these issues would continue to dog the negotiations. India supported unrestricted use of CDM credits in the new mechanism while the Solomon Islands (representing the Least Developed Countries group) opposed using them at all. In week two, these issues were either fudged or hastily agreed. The <a href="https://www.ieta.org/page-18192/12124951">carbon traders were happy</a>, as were the managers of the COP26 process – the UN secretariat and the UK government. We can now see the cost of failing to grapple with these thorny issues.</p>
<p>The Glasgow decisions on both Article <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Art._6.2%2520_draft_decision.pdf">6.2</a> and <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Art.6.4%2520draft_decision.v4.pdf">6.4</a> of the Paris Agreement are extraordinarily unclear compared with the equivalent ones for the Kyoto Protocol. Specialists in this field are still decoding precisely what they mean in practical terms. It’s likely that states will be able to use this opacity to double-count and claim credit for the same emissions-reducing activities.</p>
<p>Countries are supposed to set new NDCs regularly. At the same time, countries will be negotiating individual emission trades. The possibility for a country to game its NDC – making it appear more ambitious than it really is by counting already agreed trades within them – is impossible to avoid. It’s hard to see how this doesn’t fundamentally weaken the ambition of countries when updating their NDCs.</p>
<p>Monitoring how these mechanisms work in practice and whether they have the desired effect will be important over the coming years. While heralded at the time as a breakthrough in implementing significant tracts of the Paris Agreement, the Glasgow pact on carbon markets might instead be remembered as its undoing.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Paterson is a member of the Green Party. </span></em></p>The dust has settled on COP26 and one of the summit’s few achievements looks decidedly less impressive.Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1721912021-12-16T12:06:54Z2021-12-16T12:06:54ZHere’s why we need climate protests: even if some think they’re annoying<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436949/original/file-20211210-188518-70utf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3489%2C2326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors march in Glasgow during the UN climate conference COP26.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/theleft_eu/51658441637">TheLeft_EU/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The last few years have seen a surge in climate protests. From <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2019/10/24/legacy-of-gezi-protests-in-turkey-pub-80142">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/10/20/737787659/activists-occupy-an-ancient-forest-in-germany-to-save-it">Germany</a> to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer">US</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/world/australia/surfers-drilling-bight.html">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/542052316/hundreds-protest-against-total-across-africa">countries across Africa</a>, local activists have fought corporate actions that threaten to destroy precious green space and accelerate global warming. </p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://www.glasgowworld.com/news/people/cop26-global-day-of-action-protest-march-in-pictures-3447961">protest march</a> that took place in Glasgow on 6 November 2021, during the UN climate conference COP26. As a huge range of different groups marched together to demand action on global warming, they waved banners drawing attention to issues such as greenwashing, housing crises and trade unions.</p>
<p>Through taking part in this march, <a href="https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5125">protesters</a> may have begun to see themselves as belonging to a wider, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430220936759#">shared identity</a> – one that specifically stood in opposition to climate destruction. This identity was reinforced by songs and chants, such as the words “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYS9sNlj1bQ&ab_channel=clarissal">power to the people</a> because the people have the power”, that rippled out across groups along the march route.</p>
<p>This inclusive identity, based on fighting inequality, could also be seen in the solidarity between climate protesters at COP26 and <a href="https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/19690670.extinction-rebellion-stand-glasgow-binmen-third-day-cop26-strikes/">binmen</a> striking for better pay.</p>
<h2>Long-term benefits</h2>
<p>People who reduce their plastic use, use low-carbon transport like bicycles and eat a plant-based diet are often called “environmentalists” as a result of their behaviour. Interestingly, this relationship could also run in reverse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People at a climate protest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437262/original/file-20211213-27-1netj3z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protests can help people develop valuable social skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TAG_Climate_Protest_Future.jpg">Thomas Good/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perceiving yourself as part of the “environmentalist” <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-98657-000">social category</a> – by identifying the environmentally friendly beliefs you share with that group – could help drive sustainable behaviour, crucial in the face of climate change. </p>
<p>However, for these behaviours to really have any influence, our research suggests they need to <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjso.12270">endure over time</a>. For that to happen, it’s important to have the opportunity to express your new shared identity in different social contexts. </p>
<p>This can be achieved by forming relationships with others who consider themselves part of an environmental community, increasing the prominence of environmental issues in your life and therefore the chance that your sustainable behaviour will continue behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Based on ours and others’ research on psychological change and collective action, it seems that what benefits protesters also benefits society. When protesters encourage reducing consumption and becoming more climate-conscious, we all – along with the environment – <a href="https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5125">profit</a> from it.</p>
<h2>Taking action</h2>
<p>Some have suggested that protests can <a href="https://www.independent.ie/news/environment/greta-made-me-cry-but-climate-change-protests-risk-alienating-public-mary-robinson-38618785.html">alienate people</a> through, for example, actions which disrupt daily life (creating traffic jams receives particular criticism). And politicians have called protests <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband-blasts-counterproductive-insulate-25207626">counterproductive</a>, while emphasising that “real work” on climate happens within conferences and boardrooms. </p>
<p>But we’d argue that protests are an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023120925949">effective tool</a>, even when they’re disruptive. Seeing others take action increases our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328716301422?via%3Dihub">hope for the future</a> as well as offering an opportunity for <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12786">vicarious empowerment</a> – motivating people in other places to take similar action, even when they haven’t physically participated in the original protests.</p>
<p>By seeing protests, directly or through media, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00004/full">bystanders</a> can come to identify with protesters, possibly increasing their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494421001006?via%3Dihub">belief</a> in their own power to cause social change. </p>
<p>This can create a positive feedback loop. Researchers have found that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/socf.12422">emissions decrease</a> in US states with large numbers of environmental protests. Polling from <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/11/09/concern-environment-reaches-record-high-yougov-top">YouGov</a> also reported a significant rise in the number of British people concerned about climate following Extinction Rebellion’s early 2019 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/07/extinction-rebellion-protesters-block-road-outside-downing-street">protests</a> in London.</p>
<p>Protests can also help achieve <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/128/4/1633/1849540">policy change</a> if the policy being protested is already under public discussion – and if protesters have <a href="https://meridian.allenpress.com/mobilization/article-abstract/12/1/53/82105/Useless-Protest-A-Time-Series-Analysis-of-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext">support from politicians</a>. And in countries where politicians are elected based on public opinion, protests that increase environmental awareness can <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wcc.683">encourage change</a> through altering people’s voting habits. </p>
<p>For example, it’s likely that climate <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58681515">protests</a> across Germany helped in part to double the number of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-global-warming-changing-just-climate-s-changing-politics-rcna3571">voters</a> for the climate-conscious <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20210922-from-radical-to-mainstream-a-closer-look-at-germany-s-greens">Green Party</a> from 2017 to 2021. </p>
<p>Protests have even managed to change court decisions. Forest occupations in <a href="https://svenskbotanik.se/hur-ojnareskogen-raddades-och-bastetrask-blir-nationalpark/">Sweden</a> and <a href="https://energytransition.org/2018/10/in-a-win-for-the-environment-hambach-forest-stands-for-now/">Germany</a> resulted in courts saving the forests from destruction (for now). The value of protests should not be disregarded: they could have a larger effect than events behind closed doors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Finnerty is affiliated with Extinction Rebellion - XR Scientists. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Vestergren and Yasemin Gülsüm Acar do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joining a protest doesn’t just help attract others to supporting important causes - it comes with personal and psychological benefits too.Sara Vestergren, Lecturer in Psychology, Keele UniversitySamuel Finnerty, PhD Student in Social Psychology, Lancaster UniversityYasemin Gülsüm Acar, Lecturer in Psychology, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1727702021-12-15T02:52:08Z2021-12-15T02:52:08ZWeakening Australia’s illegal logging laws would undermine the global push to halt forest loss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437120/original/file-20211213-27-btyhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1997%2C1422&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Suzanne Plunkett/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One success from this year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow was an <a href="https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/">agreement</a> to halt forest loss by 2030. The Morrison government signed the agreement, and this commitment is now being put to the test as it reviews Australia’s rules on illegal logging imports.</p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018C00027">Illegal Logging Prohibition Act</a> and associated regulations are up for periodic review. The rules were designed to ensure timber produced overseas and imported to Australia was not logged illegally. Some changes under discussion would water down the rules by reducing the regulatory burden on businesses. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2020/Forestry-crime-targeting-the-most-lucrative-of-environmental-crimes">Interpol</a>, the illegal timber industry is worth almost US$152 billion a year. In some countries, it also accounts for up to 90% of tropical deforestation, which is a major driver of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51464694">climate change</a>. Illegal logging and associated tax fraud has other <a href="https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc226766/">devastating</a> environmental, social and economic harms. </p>
<p>Australia would be acting inconsistently with the Glasgow agreement if it weakened illegal logging laws. Any loosening of the rules could also threaten the confidence of Australian consumers that the timber they’re buying is legally harvested.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="logged hill in front of green landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437122/original/file-20211213-5488-lddduk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia would be acting inconsistently with the Glasgow agreement if it weakened illegal logging laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Barbara Walton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Due diligence matters</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/">deal</a> inked at COP26, 141 countries agreed to a range of measures to end deforestation this decade, including to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>facilitate trade and development policies, internationally and domestically, that promote sustainable development, and sustainable commodity production and consumption, that work to countries’ mutual benefit, and that do not drive deforestation and land degradation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As it currently stands, Australian law regulating timber imports supports this goal. It prohibits a person from importing or processing timber harvested in a way that contravenes the laws of the jurisdiction from which it was harvested.</p>
<p>People in Australia importing and processing timber are required to conduct due diligence to ensure imported timber was legally logged. Failure to do so can result in criminal or civil penalties.</p>
<p>Due diligence requires a business to gather information about the timber product being imported and assess and mitigate the risk it was logged illegally. </p>
<p>Similar laws exist in other jurisdictions, including the <a href="https://www.fws.gov/international/laws-treaties-agreements/us-conservation-laws/lacey-act.html#:%7E:text=Under%20the%20Lacey%20Act%2C%20it,sold%20in%20violation%20of%20State">United States</a>, the <a href="https://www.euflegt.efi.int/home/">European Union</a>, <a href="https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do?hseq=43379&lang=ENG">South Korea</a>, <a href="http://www.commonlii.org/my/legis/consol_act/nfa1984217/">Malaysia</a> and <a href="http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/vie50759.pdf">Vietnam</a>. </p>
<p>The restrictions are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jel/article-abstract/33/2/395/6275021">consistent with</a> established principles of international trade law, which recognise as necessary some trade restrictions to conserve exhaustible natural resources or protect human, animal or plant life. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-forests-will-store-less-carbon-as-climate-change-worsens-and-severe-fires-become-more-common-173233">Australian forests will store less carbon as climate change worsens and severe fires become more common</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="timber frame of home" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437126/original/file-20211213-13-oe54tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian timber importers must ensure the product was legally logged.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MARIA ZSOLDOS/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A push for ‘efficiency’</h2>
<p>The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is currently conducting a scheduled <a href="https://haveyoursay.awe.gov.au/illegal-logging-sunsetting-review">ten-year review</a> of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation 2012. </p>
<p>The department’s <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/illegal-logging-sunsetting-review-consultation-paper.pdf">consultation paper</a> asks, among other things, how the regulation’s efficiency could be enhanced. The proposed changes <a href="https://haveyoursay.awe.gov.au/illegal-logging-sunsetting-review">could include</a>, among other things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>removing the requirement to establish a due diligence system, for those who import and process foreign timber infrequently. The department says establishing the system may be “unnecessarily burdensome”, however these importers would still be required to undertake a risk assessment.</p></li>
<li><p>reducing requirements and allowing exemptions for low-volume and low-value importers and processors.</p></li>
<li><p>reducing due diligence requirements for repeated imports. So, for example, if timber products were from the same supplier, made from the same timber species and harvested from the same area, only one due diligence assessment would be required in a year. However, importers may be required to check no pertinent elements of the supply chain have changed ahead of each repeat import.</p></li>
<li><p>removing the requirement for companies to undertake due diligence on timber imports if they instead use third-party frameworks, such as that established by the Forest Stewardship Council, to assess risks associated with a regulated timber product. This would be known as a “deemed to comply” arrangement.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The department has proposed measures to compensate for the loosening of some rules, including stronger requirements for frequent importers and processors of foreign timber, and third-party auditing of due diligence systems. </p>
<p>It also says risks would need careful management, including ensuring claims relating to timber species and harvest origins were underpinned by authentic documentation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/organized-crime-is-a-top-driver-of-global-deforestation-along-with-beef-soy-palm-oil-and-wood-products-170906">Organized crime is a top driver of global deforestation – along with beef, soy, palm oil and wood products</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="people carry timber at port" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437129/original/file-20211213-27-tl9e3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claims relating to timber species and harvest origins should come with authentic documentation, the department says.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bagus Indahono/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>We must stay vigilant</h2>
<p>As the department prepares its final recommendations to the federal government, it must factor in the need for increased vigilance of global logging practices. This need was clearly recognised by nations signatory to the COP26 deforestation deal.</p>
<p>What’s more, overseas experience has shown some mooted changes have the potential to be problematic.</p>
<p>Indeed, in foreign timber markets, “deemed to comply” arrangements have been exposed as vulnerable to fraud. The European Union, for example, has <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52021SC0328#footnoteref98">pointed to</a> misuse of certification and questions around transparency.</p>
<p>Australia has a way to go if it wants to satisfy the COP26 agreement to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation – not least by <a href="https://theconversation.com/cop26-global-deforestation-deal-will-fail-if-countries-like-australia-dont-lift-their-game-on-land-clearing-171108">tightening</a> domestic policy on deforestation within our borders. </p>
<p>It could also embrace efforts to address the other major driver of deforestation - agricultural expansion - through the <a href="https://ukcop26.org/forests-agriculture-and-commodity-trade-a-roadmap-for-action/">joint statement</a> on forests, agriculture and commodity trade which other countries progressed at Glasgow. </p>
<p>But it must also ensure foreign timber entering Australia is not the product of illegal logging. While due diligence requirements may present a regulatory burden for some operators, this must be weighed against the pressing global imperative to halt forest loss.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tropical-forests-can-recover-surprisingly-quickly-on-deforested-lands-and-letting-them-regrow-naturally-is-an-effective-and-low-cost-way-to-slow-climate-change-173302">Tropical forests can recover surprisingly quickly on deforested lands – and letting them regrow naturally is an effective and low-cost way to slow climate change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Margaret Young was a co-investigator on the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project, 'Climate Change Law and Mitigation: Forest Carbon Sequestration and Indigenous and Local Community Rights' (DP110100259) (2011-2017).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine E. Gascoigne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A review of Australia’s illegal logging laws tests the Morrison government’s commitment to halting global forest loss.Margaret Young, Professor, The University of MelbourneCatherine E. Gascoigne, Research Affiliate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734852021-12-13T01:07:15Z2021-12-13T01:07:15ZCourts around the world have made strong climate rulings – not so in New Zealand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437047/original/file-20211212-104971-3b3mt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C69%2C5160%2C3375&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand made two important climate commitments at the COP26 summit last month — to <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/climate-change-conference-emissions-to-be-cut-by-50-per-cent-below-2005-levels-by-2030/WRDDTBYBIRDSOTQSDP7UH6KWLI/">halve emissions by 2030</a> and to join the <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nz-joins-global-initiative-tackle-methane">global methane pledge</a> to cut methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030.</p>
<p>But what happens if these pledges are inadequate for the climate emergency we face? And how can we ensure future climate commitments are bold enough, and actually fully met, to bring about the transformation necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C?</p>
<p>One response is <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/climate-change-litigation-is-heating-up-2211098/">climate litigation</a>, the use of courts to compel governments and corporations to take greater action to mitigate climate change. </p>
<p>The number of climate-related court cases is increasing around the world. In some countries, it has achieved strong rulings, but in New Zealand, the courts recently pushed the responsibility back to policymakers. </p>
<p>New Zealand’s international pledges join obligations in domestic legislation, including the much vaunted <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2019/0061/latest/LMS183848.html#LMS183790">Zero Carbon Act</a>, which commits to reduce emissions (excluding methane from livestock) to net zero by 2050.</p>
<p>They also have to be matched against the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0040/latest/DLM158584.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_Climate+Change+Response+Act_resel_25_a&p=1">Climate Change Response Act</a>, which sets requirements around emissions budgets.</p>
<p>New Zealand’s pledge to cut domestic emissions by half by the end of this decade reflects the country’s revised commitment under the Paris Agreement, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (<a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs">NDC</a>). It has already been criticised for its over-reliance on purchasing carbon credits from overseas. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop26-new-zealands-new-climate-pledge-is-a-step-up-but-not-a-fair-share-170932">COP26: New Zealand's new climate pledge is a step up, but not a 'fair share'</a>
</strong>
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<hr>
<p>The government’s commitment to “play its part” towards the global methane pledge may also be weaker than the promise suggests. It will likely mainly involve meeting its pre-existing target to cut methane emissions from livestock by 10% (on 2017 levels) by 2030. </p>
<p>The consequences of insufficient ambition globally will be felt at home. New Zealand’s natural environment will continue to degrade and climate instability become more severe.</p>
<h2>Court action brings some progress</h2>
<p>In various jurisdictions, climate litigation is achieving notable progress in environmental protection and forcing stronger action on emissions cuts. Just in 2021, court rulings in France, Australia and the Netherlands show the potential climate litigation has to bring significant change. </p>
<p>In May this year, in an action brought by eight children regarding plans to expand a coal mine, the Australian federal court <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/climate-change-litigation-is-heating-up-2211098/">agreed</a> the government has a duty of care to protect young people from climate change. The court held that common law should impose responsibility on those who do harm through atmospheric pollution.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-landmark-judgment-the-federal-court-found-the-environment-minister-has-a-duty-of-care-to-young-people-161650">In a landmark judgment, the Federal Court found the environment minister has a duty of care to young people</a>
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<p>However, in New Zealand the courts recently declined to offer significant, let alone transformational, legal remedies for similar harm. They were not persuaded that using common law doctrines was suitable for this purpose. Instead, they signalled the response should come from appropriate regulation.</p>
<p>The case of <a href="https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/cases/smith-v-fonterra-co-operative-group-limited">Smith v Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd 2021</a> was the first in New Zealand to target corporates for their greenhouse gas emissions. Mike Smith, spokesperson for the Climate Change Iwi Group, brought a claim against seven New Zealand companies. The claim was based on three points: public nuisance, negligence and breach of duty of care.</p>
<p>The High Court struck out the public nuisance and negligence claims in March 2020. The case proceeded to the Court of Appeal regarding the novel duty of care claim.
But the court was not persuaded this novel duty of care should be created for the purpose of requiring a small number of emitters to comply with more onerous requirements than those imposed by statute. </p>
<p>The court said such private litigation, if successful, would be a costly and inefficient response to climate change nationally and arbitrary in its impact. Instead of using tort law, the Court of Appeal stated climate change “calls for a sophisticated regulatory response at a national level supported by international co-ordination”.</p>
<h2>Litigation isn’t an ideal response to climate change</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, Lawyers for Climate Action New Zealand (<a href="https://www.lawyersforclimateaction.nz/about-us">LCANZI</a>) have begun a judicial review of the Climate Change Commission’s recommendations to government on carbon budgets and other measures to reduce emissions.</p>
<p>LCANZI’s statement of claim emphasises the need for domestic laws to be interpreted consistently with the <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf">Paris Agreement</a>, the right to life (in the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM224792.html?src=qs">New Zealand Bill of Rights Act</a>), Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles (in particular the exercise of rangatiratanga) and tikanga Māori.</p>
<p>The outcome of this case remains to be seen. But following the decision in Smith v Fonterra, it’s important to concede litigation isn’t an ideal response to the climate crisis and won’t guarantee success. An effective “sophisticated regulatory response” would be preferable.</p>
<p>Whatever happens in the LCANZI case, its emphasis on integrating international law, human rights, treaty obligations and tikanga Māori offers a vision of how we might pursue ambitious climate change action. </p>
<p>The challenge will be to design regulation that is both robust enough to ensure all obligations (international and domestic) are sufficiently ambitious to achieve environmental protection and sophisticated enough to articulate the unique context of Aotearoa. But in the face of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/new-zealand-declares-a-climate-change-emergency">climate emergency</a>, it’s worth trying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In several countries, court rulings have forced governments to make stronger cuts to emissions. But New Zealand courts have so far stayed clear of imposing legal steps, calling for regulation instead.Nathan Cooper, Associate Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1718452021-12-08T19:21:19Z2021-12-08T19:21:19ZWhy climate change must stay on the news agenda beyond global summits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436225/original/file-20211207-138695-jxwmoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=232%2C504%2C8394%2C5160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christopher Furlong/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During last month’s COP26 summit, climate change was a ubiquitous story. News hooks abounded, from unpacking the flurry of non-binding pledges to reporting on the failure of rich nations to honour demands of countries at the frontline, criticising the summit as the “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/cop26-sharply-criticized-as-the-most-exclusionary-climate-summit-ever.html">most exclusionary COP ever</a>”.</p>
<p>Even in today’s crowded information landscape, mainstream news media continue to play an important role in shaping <a href="https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2020/how-people-access-news-about-climate-change">how we understand</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0267323115612213">act on</a> climate change. </p>
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<img alt="This chart shows coverage of climate change (across newspapers, radio and TV) across 59 countries in seven regions around the world." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436212/original/file-20211207-25-e8bdes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">This chart shows coverage of climate change (across newspapers, radio and TV) across 59 countries in seven regions around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Media and Climate Change Observatory</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Based on research interviews with climate reporters, I argue the main stories are about climate breakdown and climate justice, and entire newsrooms, not just science and environment specialists, need to step up to demonstrate that understanding. </p>
<p>This needs to be reflected in the quantity and quality of climate coverage, well beyond the brief window of COP summits.</p>
<h2>Climate change is every story</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://climatejournalismnz.wordpress.com/">research</a>, which focused on interviews with journalists who consistently cover climate change, highlights how climate reporting directly challenges journalism’s traditional tendency to divide the world into rounds.</p>
<p>As Kennedy Warne, founder and former editor of New Zealand Geographic, puts it:</p>
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<p>The exclusive deployment of science journalists to the climate beat has had the unfortunate problem or effect of scientising the whole thing, when it’s really a human life, human hopes, human dreams, human inter-generational responsibility type of issue.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While specialist expertise does matter, the lion’s share of climate coverage can no longer be left to a handful of science and environment reporters.</p>
<p>When it comes to ensuring climate stories get regular coverage across newsrooms of large media outlets, Stuff is taking a laudable lead. In early 2020, it established a climate desk with a climate editor and reporter. The climate desk journalists, Eloise Gibson and Olivia Wannan, set about embedding climate reporting within the organisation’s outputs.</p>
<p>Newsroom is an example of a smaller organisation in which climate coverage is also a priority and mainstay, with diverse and regular reporting within its <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/climate-emergency">climate emergency</a> section.</p>
<h2>Specialist reporters matter</h2>
<p>Specialist climate reporters can build up a base of knowledge in a complex domain. But the journalists I interviewed were clear that media outlets don’t have to have a climate desk to produce more and better climate coverage. </p>
<p>On the science side, explaining the ecosystems and human implications from melting glaciers or freshwater policy is crucial.</p>
<p>In politics, reporters need to continue holding governments accountable to their promises, as many did recently in highlighting the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/300442463/climate-change-target-nowhere-near-as-ambitious-as-it-sounds">dubious accounting</a> in Aotearoa’s latest emissions reduction pledge.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop26-new-zealands-new-climate-pledge-is-a-step-up-but-not-a-fair-share-170932">COP26: New Zealand's new climate pledge is a step up, but not a 'fair share'</a>
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<p>Reporters are responsible for connecting the consequences of rising emissions for people’s lives.</p>
<p>Stuff’s Charlie Mitchell describes a 2017 <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/91778352/climate-change-could-spell-extreme-poverty-in-coastal-nz-towns">story</a> about the impacts of coastal erosion on mostly low-income residents of the West Coast coal-mining town of Granity.</p>
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<p>It sticks out for me because climate change can be quite abstract and hard to communicate in some ways. But in that story, it was very real, it was very tangible.</p>
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<p>Alex Braae, a former reporter at The Spinoff, picks out a different kind of local story about a meeting on carbon farming in the economically run-down King Country town of Taumarunui. It detailed the concerns of local farmers about planting productive farmland with carbon-absorbing pines at the cost of local jobs and community cohesion.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It took into account the fact that we might know exactly what the scientific solutions to climate change are, but we don’t necessarily know how to turn scientific changes into social and political policy that won’t leave people behind.</p>
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<h2>Covering climate responsibly</h2>
<p>The journalists I interviewed highlighted that in order to cover climate responsibly, they aim to:</p>
<p>● Provide accurate and contextualised stories</p>
<p>● strive for fair and diversified representation</p>
<p>● strive for regular and fresh coverage</p>
<p>● maintain emotional awareness</p>
<p>● make coverage interesting and relevant</p>
<p>● remain responsive to audience needs and feedback.</p>
<p>Accuracy is a tenet of responsible journalism. Another principle is balance, but journalists were clear that mainstream editors have understood the <a href="https://grist.org/climate/the-curse-of-both-sidesism-how-climate-denial-skewed-media-coverage-for-30-years/">dangers</a> of false balance for about a decade now. While climate denial is no longer platformed in a misguided effort to balance a story, this should apply to opinion columns as well. </p>
<p>Stories need to be based on evidence, which can come from Western science or other long-established knowledge systems like <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/110587713/climate-change-scientists-look-to-maori-and-other-indigenous-people-for-answers">mātauranga Māori</a>.</p>
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<img alt="A elder bathes a young child in a lagoon in Tuvalu." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436227/original/file-20211207-17-1a28egl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The low-lying South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, home for about 11,000 people, has been classified as extremely vulnerable to climate change by the UN Development Programme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Tama/Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>The journalists I interviewed said it was important to them to make a conscious effort to seek out and fairly convey a wide range of perspectives.</p>
<p>Those already marginalised or in vulnerable situations face <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/EM2016/DisproportionateImpacts.pdf">disproportionate impacts</a> and multiplied inequities. </p>
<p>Jamie Tahana, previously at RNZ Pacific and now RNZ Te Ao Māori, emphasises that being able to tie frontline perspectives into political and scientific climate discussion brings them to life, reminding us that decisions made at political summits like COPs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/cop26-pacific-delegates-condemn-monumental-failure-that-leaves-islands-in-peril">amount to decisions</a> about Pacific Islanders’ lives and livelihoods.</p>
<h2>Connecting with audiences</h2>
<p>When Rebekah White, editor at New Zealand Geographic, imagines climate reporting in a decade, she isn’t optimistic about lessening the class divide between mainstream media’s primary audiences and those most affected.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I suspect that it’s going to be much the same as today. A bunch of journalists trying to make something that predominantly affects under-privileged people relevant to the middle-class people who are the main consumers of their media.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Still, climate connects with our daily lives and our choices all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not. Stories about air pollution, house insurance, banking, living in poverty, e-scooters or the best vegan restaurants all have climate angles.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-do-people-around-the-world-care-about-climate-change-we-surveyed-80-000-people-in-40-countries-to-find-out-140801">How much do people around the world care about climate change? We surveyed 80,000 people in 40 countries to find out</a>
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<p>A 2019 <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/113711124/we-asked-about-climate-change-coverage-and-got-15000-responses">Stuff survey</a> garnered 15,248 responses and showed audiences were keen for more accessible and relatable climate coverage.</p>
<p>They asked for more coverage of the impacts of their lifestyle and political choices, reporting that holds politicians and industry to account and more emphasis on the farming sector, especially about how it is adapting.</p>
<p>They were also keen on more forecasting of future climate impacts, as well as hopeful and solutions-based stories.</p>
<p>COVID-19 need not be a deterrent to climate coverage. Globally, around <a href="https://www.undp.org/publications/peoples-climate-vote">two in three people</a> think climate change is an emergency, even during the pandemic.</p>
<p><a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2021.1969978">Canadian analysis</a> shows while COVID-19 can compete with climate stories within a finite pool of audience attention, it also opens up opportunities to link the two. And a <a href="https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2020/09/23/climate-change-news-coverage-has-declined-the-audience-for-it-has-not/">US study</a> shows that while the amount of climate coverage dropped off during the early months of the pandemic, page views on climate stories didn’t.</p>
<p>Off the back of the momentum generated by COP26, it’s incumbent on all of Aotearoa’s newsrooms to ensure climate remains on the news agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171845/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Áine Kelly-Costello does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Specialist reporters are important, but climate coverage can no longer be left to them. Here’s what New Zealand journalists say about why climate should be part of every newsroom and every beat.Áine Kelly-Costello, University of GothenburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.