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Venturing to a breakaway iceberg
Katowice: UN climate talks stand-off continues
UN climate change talks avoid contentious issues in draft agreement
Struggles remain on enacting 2015 Paris accord despite more clarity on emissions
The UN met on Saturday in Poland to discuss a draft agreement on climate change, which sources said was likely to pass, as exhausted delegates made compromises on some key issues but left other contentious problems to be resolved next year.
The result will not be the breakthrough campaigners and some countries were hoping for, but will keep discussions alive on formulating key aspects of the implementation rules for the 2015 Paris accord.
Continue reading...COP24: Article 6 talks face postponement to avoid collapse of Paris rulebook -sources
UN climate talks extended due to sticking points in Poland
Legal plastic content in animal feed could harm human health, experts warn
Small bits of plastic packaging from waste food make their way into animal feed as part of the UK’s permitted recycling process
Plastic traces in animal feed could pose a risk to human health and urgently need to be the subject of more research, experts have told the Guardian.
Their comments came after British farmer Alex Rock contacted the Guardian, having noticed plastic shreds in his animal feed. Rock was told by the suppliers that this was a legal part of the recycling process that turns waste food, still packaged, into animal feed.
Continue reading...Federation University Australia prepares students for jobs in renewable energy
Mining brings arsenic to the surface
CP Daily: Friday December 14, 2018
COP24: Roundup for Dec. 14, 2018
Galilee Basin mine plans understated water impact, government report says
Report finds more than 95% chance of hydrological changes to Belyando River Basin from mines including Carmichael
Coalmines planned in the Galilee Basin – including Adani’s Carmichael mine – understated the likely impacts on surrounding water resources, a federal government scientific report has found.
The bioregional assessment report into the cumulative impact of coalmine proposals was published quietly last week. It was compiled by experts from the CSIRO, Geosciences Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and the federal environment department.
The report modelled information from seven of 17 proposed coalmines in the Galilee and found there was a greater than 95% chance that they would cause hydrological changes to the Belyando River Basin.
EU Carbon Market Analyst, BNEF – London
The arctic and a poet, stories from a cold climate
COP24: Chile to host 2019 UN climate summit after Brazil withdrawal
Oregon debating set-aside carbon allowance account for poor hydro years
Country Breakfast Features
A Big Country 15 December 2018
Cutting emissions proves a sticking point at Poland climate talks
Slow progress on 2015 Paris agreement comes as scientists warn of need to get on track
Negotiators at the climate conference in Poland have inched closer to an outcome, as the official deadline for finishing a deal ran out.
The conference was meant to approve a rulebook which would govern how nations put into action the goals set in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015, when the world resolved to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration to limit temperature rises to no more than 1.5C.
Continue reading...A youth activist on the climate crisis: politicians won't save us | Victoria Barrett
At the COP24 conference, leaders lack the urgency felt by communities on the frontlines of a global threat
As wildfires burn, as temperatures rise, as the last remaining old-growth forests in Poland are logged, world leaders are in Katowice to negotiate the implementation of the Paris climate agreement. To outsiders, UN climate talks may seem like a positive step. Unfortunately, this is COP24.
For 24 years, world leaders have annually talked at each other instead of to one another in hopes of reaching an agreement on how to mitigate the climate crisis. In all that time, they have barely scratched the surface of an issue that the world’s top climate scientists say we now have 12 years to stop – and that is an optimistic estimate.
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