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The Observer view on the Cop26 agreement
Countries still lack the radical ambition to avert disaster – this accord goes nowhere near far enough
On Glasgow Green, there lies a stone that commemorates the spot where the engineer James Watt in 1765 conceived the idea for a separate condenser for the steam engine. It is Watt’s invention, which revolutionised the efficiency of the steam engine, that means Glasgow can lay claim to be the place from which the Industrial Revolution sprang.
Just over a quarter of a millennium later, delegates from all over the world meeting in the same city have agreed the text of a critical international agreement to try to bind countries into the action required to slow the catastrophic global heating that the Industrial Revolution set in train.
Continue reading...Snake on a boat: 7ft python hitches 100-mile ride round Florida coast
Invasive species that wreaks havoc on land found on vessel after trip from Indian Key to Marco Island
A python sneaked aboard a sailboat in the Florida Keys and lurked undetected until the boat finished a near-100-mile voyage, police said.
The crew found the 7ft snake in the boat’s shower after docking on Friday at Marco Island, on the south-west Florida Gulf coast, after a trip from Indian Key, a distance of about 95 miles around the southern tip of the state.
Continue reading...Maine’s lobster fishers caught up in fierce fight with conservationists over entangled whales
Critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are dying in alarming numbers after getting caught in lobster trap ropes
A fierce fight is being waged in the Gulf of Maine between lobster fishers desperate to maintain their way of life and conservationists who argue that the waters are a vital haven for the threatened North Atlantic right whale.
Last month, a federal judge in Maine rejected a federal ban on lobstering in a section of the Gulf of Maine that is meant to protect the whales.
Continue reading...COP26: UN talks compel nations to revise GHG pledges next year, shy away from coal exit
COP26: New global climate deal struck in Glasgow
Cop26 ends in climate agreement despite India watering down coal resolution
Glasgow Climate Pact adopted despite last-minute intervention by India to water down language on phasing out dirtiest fossil fuel
Countries have agreed a deal on the climate crisis that its backers say will keep within reach the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C, the key threshold of safety set out in the 2015 Paris agreement.
Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and Cop president, said the deal was “imperfect” but showed “consensus and support”. He said: “I hope we can leave this conference united having delivered something significant for people and planet together as one.”
Continue reading...It could have been worse, but our leaders failed us at Cop26. That’s the truth of it.
Countries who take this crisis seriously must seize the initiative, and make the rest pariahs
Where now? Governments have agreed a weak climate deal which gets us a smidgen closer to holding temperatures to a rise of 1.5C. But as regards all the most important pledges to phase out coal, reduce subsidies and protect forests, Glasgow failed.
The fossil fuel lobby, led by India, held its line, dramatically succeeding in watering down – at the last minute and without due, transparent process – the move to ‘phase out’ coal power, pledging instead to ‘phase down’. The poor came away with next to nothing, there was little urgency and we are still heading for catastrophe. Any chance of halving fast-rising emissions by 2030 – the declared aim of the talks – is now negligible.
Continue reading...‘Love song’ lost: the fight to stop Australia’s regent honeyeater from dying out
At least 1,000 long-flowered mistletoe seeds, a key breeding source for the species, will be planted into host trees in the Tomalpin Woodlands
So few of Australia’s regent honeyeaters remain, its distinctive mating song is slowly being lost to its dwindling population.
Its staccato burst of pips and squeaks, a “funny sort of call”, was passed down to young males from “uncles” when honeyeaters, a nomadic species, still travelled in flocks.
Continue reading...Avian adventurers: BirdLife Australia 2022 calendar – in pictures
At a time when international travel has been mostly out of reach, BirdLife Australia is turning the spotlight on some of the country’s mightiest and most threatened migratory birds in its 2022 calendar
- BirdLife Australia’s Birds on the Move 2022 calendar is available for A$19.95.
Arrests as XR activists block lord mayor’s show in London
Demonstrators say Cop26 talks failed and call on City banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects
Police arrested Extinction Rebellion protesters who blocked the lord mayor’s show in central London on Saturday.
Footage shared on social media showed officers dragging demonstrators out of the road after they disrupted the procession. Environmental activists could be seen blocking the route in the City of London, while forcing riders on horseback and the new lord mayor’s golden state coach to stop.
Continue reading...COP26: Governments line up Article 6 emissions trade deal as talks grind on
Cop26 goes into overtime – in pictures
Red lines, negotiations and walkouts as the climate summit in Glasgow continues
Continue reading...If global finance can step up to the net-zero challenge, governments surely can | Mark Carney
A new alliance of financial institutions is committed to funding the changes necessary to avert climate catastrophe
Six years ago, in Paris, countries reached an historic agreement to limit the global temperature rise to less than 2C, targeting 1.5C. In finance, we launched the task force on climate-related financial disclosures so that companies would disclose their climate-related risks, allowing finance to measure what matters.
Despite these breakthroughs, in the years that followed, action didn’t match ambition. Few countries pursued the necessary policies, and business investment in decarbonisation was limited. Too many in finance thought that the climate crisis was someone else’s problem.
Mark Carney is UN special envoy on climate action and finance and former governor of the Bank of England
Continue reading...Third draft of Cop26 text retains key goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C
Latest version of text, which asks nations to return next year with stronger emissions targets, will now be scrutinised by delegates
A third draft of the outcome of the Cop26 climate summit retained key resolutions to pursue greenhouse gas emissions cuts in line with holding global temperature rises to 1.5C.
Nations will be asked to return next year to strengthen their targets on emissions cuts, which are so far inadequate, and to accelerate the phase-out of coal power and fossil fuel subsidies. The text was not substantially weakened overnight, but there is a long process still to go through on Saturday, and perhaps Sunday, in which some countries are likely to attack some of the key provisions.
Continue reading...Cop26 live: third draft text expected as climate talks go into overtime
After passing the original deadline on Friday night, a new draft text is expected on Saturday morning
Welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of day 13 of the Cop26 climate summit.
Negotiations were supposed to end at 6pm local time last night, but to nobody’s surprise they have overrun into Saturday. You can read our latest news story on the state of play here:
Continue reading...‘No sharks but I’ve seen porpoises’: the rebirth of the River Thames
A trip down London’s famous waterway reveals many signs of life – but is this another false dawn?
The Thames shark hunt begins on a swirling golden brown river, where high above Battersea power station soars a speck that may be another awesome predator: a peregrine falcon.
“I haven’t seen a shark but I’ve seen porpoises up the Thames and there were a couple of whales last year,” says Alfie Gardner, captain of one of the Thames Clipper Uber Boats that whisk commuters and tourists up and downriver. “We see a lot of seals. Near enough every day.”
Continue reading...Pressure mounts on countries to strike Cop26 deal as talks pass deadline
Deadlock stretched climate summit past its scheduled end with hopes leaders will reach agreement by Saturday
Cop26 climate talks were closing in on a global deal aimed at limiting devastating global warming, with UK organisers hoping for a final agreement to the marathon negotiations on Saturday.
Delegates from nearly 200 nations are tasked with keeping alive the 2015 Paris goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, as warming-driven disasters hit home around the world.
Continue reading...It’s a fairytale that world governments will fix our climate crisis. It’s up to us | Bill McKibben
Thank climate activists for the fact that any progress was made in Glasgow. Unless we push hard, powerful interests don’t budge
It was inspiring to watch activists – especially young people and those from the global south – as this Glasgow Cop limped towards its mushy end. They were on top of every twist in the text, and they won significant concessions from the big polluting countries. At the time of writing, it looks as if the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels will be mentioned in a Cop document for the first time, and that there will be more money for nations of the global south to “adapt” to the climate crisis. The activists’ anger echoed through the halls, and was heard in whatever parts of the world were listening. To the extent that this Cop worked at all, it’s a tribute to their perseverance and creativity.
But was this a sea change in the way we deal with the global climate crisis? No –Glasgow moves us down the track a little and boxes in national governments a little more, but it has changed not nearly enough. After 26 iterations, the truth about these Cops is pretty clear: the results are largely determined before they even begin. Yes, there’s an endless succession of concerts, marches, seminars, negotiating sessions, speeches, ultimatums, declarations, photo-ops; and yes, everyone works hard to build a sense of drama (the media especially). But history would suggest that the parties rarely go beyond what they’d intended to do before they arrived.
Bill McKibben is the Schumann distinguished scholar at Middlebury College, Vermont, and leader of the climate campaign group 350.org
Continue reading...Can California save itself from the flames?
Glasgow Brief: Australia given “Colossal Fossil” award as COP26 goes into overtime
Australia recognised as the worst performer in Glasgow, as the COP26 talks set to run for at least one extra day.
The post Glasgow Brief: Australia given “Colossal Fossil” award as COP26 goes into overtime appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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