7 December 2016, Climate Home, There’s a secret UN climate summit taking place in Mexico. UN biodiversity chief tells Climate Home protecting and restoring ecosystems is the best way to protect the world from dangerous levels of global warming. There’s a UN climate change meeting involving nearly 200 governments taking place right now in the Mexican holiday resort of Cancun. It’s not making many headlines, but then the biannual UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference rarely does. Especially not in a year like 2016. And that’s a pity, because at stake is the air you breathe, the trees that surround you and the fate of the earth’s 8.7 million species of flora and fauna. Also at stake is the ability of communities across the world to cope with erratic weather patterns linked to climate change like flash flooding, acidifying oceans, drought and storms. “Everything is inter-linked,” says Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, a former Brazilian government official who has been executive secretary of the CBD since 2012. “If countries want to meet the Paris climate agreement and the sustainable development goals in 2030 they also need to make progress in biodiversity.” That means slowing and then reversing deforestation so there are more trees to suck up carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and managing wetlands that can act as a buffer against storm surges. It means working out how countries can better manage livestock and look after fish stocks so species can be supported if their habitats are damaged or waters become too acidic. “Unless we can do a better job we won’t make it,” says Dias, who argues that countries and businesses are – eventually – starting to understand why biodiversity matters. The Brazilian leaves his role after this meeting, but he wants governments to understand that building walls as protection – no Trump pun intended – is not going to crack it. Read More here
Tag Archives: United Nations
16 November 2016, The Conversation, As the world pushes for a ban on nuclear weapons, Australia votes to stay on the wrong side of history. In early December, the nations of the world are poised to take an historic step forward on nuclear weapons. Yet most Australians still haven’t heard about what’s happening, even though Australia is an important part of this story – which is set to get even bigger in the months ahead. On October 27 2016, I watched as countries from around the world met in New York and resolved through the United Nations’ General Assembly First Committee to negotiate a new legally binding treaty to “prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. It was carried by a majority of 123 to 38, with 16 abstentions. Australia was among the minority to vote “no”. Given that overwhelming majority, it is almost certain that resolution will be formally ratified in early December at a full UN general assembly meeting. After it’s ratified, international negotiating meetings will take place in March and June-July 2017. Those meetings will be open to all states, and will reflect a majority view: crucially, no government or group of governments (including UN Security Council members) will have a veto. International and civil society organisations will also have a seat at the table. This is the best opportunity to kickstart nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War a quarter of a century ago. And it’s crucial that we act now, amid a growing threat of nuclear war (as we discuss in the latest edition of the World Medical Association’s journal). But the resolution was bitterly opposed by most nuclear-armed states, including the United States and Russia. Those claiming “protection” from US nuclear weapons – members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Japan, South Korea and Australia – also opposed the ban. This is because the treaty to be negotiated will fill the legal gap that has left nuclear weapons as the only weapon of mass destruction not yet explicitly banned by international treaty. Read More here
3 November 2016, Climate Home, UNEP: global climate action “still not good enough” – Greenhouse gas emissions need to fall a further 25% from projected levels in 2030 to meet 2C global warming limit, says report. A day before the Paris climate agreement is fêted into international law, the UN has issued a stark warning that political compromises have kept the world on track for disastrous global warming. In a major annual stocktake of global action to reduce carbon – the Emissions Gap Report released on Thursday – the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) called on the leaders of the world to bring their emissions targets into line with the advice of scientists. Under the Paris climate agreement, which comes into effect on Friday, nations agreed to limit warming “well below 2C” and strive for less than 1.5C. But the collective pledges of nations under the Paris agreement fall far shy of either goal – sending the temperature shooting up to 3.2C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The warmer the world becomes, the more destructive and painful climate change will be. The report was released a week before climate talks resume in Morocco and it is hoped the process of increasing ambition will begin. In order to get on track, nations must cut a further 25% off their projected emissions by 2030, said UNEP head Erik Solheim: “It’s still not good enough if we are to stand a chance of avoiding serious climate change.” Read More here
27 October 2016, Climate Home, Whiffs of sulphur: UN shipping talks face climate dilemma. Historic pact to cut sulphur emissions from shipping sector hailed by green groups, but slow progress suggests a climate deal is a long way off. Whisper it, but the shipping industry is showing signs of tackling its environmental footprint. This week at International Maritime Organisation (IMO) talks in London around 170 countries agreed to tighten limits on toxic sulphur emissions from ships. The decision means the sulphur content of maritime fuels has to be cut from a current maximum of 3.5% to 0.5% in 2020, and could prevent 200,000 premature deaths, say experts. It’s a significant step and one that the likes of WWF, Friends of the Earth and Brussels-based NGO Transport and Environment have been pushing for in the past few years. “This is a landmark decision and we are very pleased that the world has bitten the bullet and is now tackling poisonous sulphuric fuel,” said Bill Hemmings, T&E shipping director. Still, the battle to get this deal has been immense, and raises questions over the capability of the IMO to deliver a similar agreement on climate change, its next major task. The sulphur fight has lasted a decade. Only now, with the European Union pushing hard for tougher global regulations and China implementing its own standards has a pact seemed likely. Read More here