Report Card

The Parish Agreement 2015 was the best one to date on climate change. I still remember the enthusiasm of one person I know on his return from the COP Conference compared to previous ones he attended. There is a great story in the book, Not Too Late called “How the Ants Moved the Elephants in Paris”.

The Climate Vulnerable Form was formed in 2009 and composed of the countries who stand to lose the most from climate change. While rich countries wanted global warming limited to 2 degrees centigrade, in the long term, it meant that the vulnerable would still lose their right to food, health, shelter, and water. They asked for an increase of 1.5 degrees. Everyone would have to work on carbon reduction - and the largest countries would have to work better and faster. One hundred countries had supported them, but the recommendation hadn’t made it into the proposed final goal.

The CVF broke into action - having the Eiffel Tower light up with the the goal “1.5C” and a statement read into the record, which ended , “The parties which stand in the way of recommending a sound decision base on the information available will be remembered by the children of today for the failure of Paris, and we will shout it to the rooftops.” Eventually even Saudi Arabia chimed in and agreed.

It is now 2023 and heading into the next COP conference soon. The most recent report commends what has been done. We can take a minute to rejoice that the rise of greenhouse gases as slowed. In 2015, we were then on track for a rise of 4C degrees if we did nothing. Then we have to face that it is not enough. By 2100, we had reduced the pace to 3 degrees Celsius. Many countries have made promises - largely still on paper. If these are followed through, the predictions are a rise of 2-2.4C by 2100. That takes us back to the fears of the CVF as the real scenario.

The Climate Action Tracker has been created to measure our progress. SCroll down on the tracker to find out progress. Here are Canada’s for the year 2050:

• Our policies and action: Highly insufficient. We’re contributing to a future 4 dgree world

• Our target: almost sufficient for a 2 degree world

• Our target against taking our fair share - insufficient for a less than 3 degree world

• Financing climate change - Highly insufficent.

  Our overall score: Highly insufficient.

  Get angry if you like. But act. Elect people who support the right policies and get the right people on the bus. Keep the wrong people off it. This applies anywhere you have a say - with government, with corporations, in communities and community groups. We have voices. We need to raise them.

Hot Enough Yet?

We are featured today in Bill McKibben’s New Yorker Article - we being Canadians and he’s asking the question about our politicians. You can guess the answer. While the temperature breaks all records, how are we responding?

• Polls show 75% of us are anxious about climate change - and we are a liberal democracy, so that should help.

• The Arctic is warming faster than any other place and we have a front seat to watch that.

• Wildfires have burned the most forest ever.

• Air quality related to fires made ours the worst in the world.

This should result in some good political action. What is happening?

• We’re building a natural gas exporting terminal - and we may count exports as part of the carbon tax.

• Politicians say we are making progress - but we don’t want anything to change locally because that would upset too many people and mean not get re-elected.

• We’re not alone. But we are absolutely the poster child for how these things work. Will any radical solution break through even with democratic societies who suffer the least?

How we live

I’m looking at an article in the New York Times. “How countries can get richer without wrecking the planet”.  Note the two parts here.  We at least know now that we are wrecking the planet just by looking out the window at the smoke from fires many kilometers or miles away. But the article takes it for granted that somehow we can have it all anyway and being richer will make us happier. Neither need be questioned.

The article goes on to state that it’s a conflict between accumulating wealth and. preserving nature. It adds our need to lift people out of poverty - as though accumulating wealth is going to do that – and that the rich will always share with the poor. Researchers at the World Bank think they have found a way.  Well good for them. Let’s see how it is to be done.

• Farming more intensively and in appropriate places

• Preserving more areas of forests that stash planet warming carbon

• Supporting biodiversity

“Suppose you used all the resources that you have more efficiently” – says the lead economist. “How much could you produce?” Countries could sequester lots of carbon dioxide without denting economic growth. Or they could increase annual income from forestry and agriculture for food needs without damaging the environment. Preserving land and water helps the economy and nature at the same time.

Producing more food on smaller plots sounds good. Was Monsanto consulted on that one and will they be happy to give up their land? Small farmers, few as they are, will like that. It continues to sound good until others warn there might be unintended consequences. Perhaps they have studied those caused by the industrial revolution. The mention how one country increased agricultural productivity but contaminated the adjacent waterways. In another case, increasing land efficiency meant that there were more land grabs of protected ones.  Reducing garbage or eating less beef were not among the efficiencies. We still want it all – and we have a master-slave relationship with nature.  That’s not something noticed in the report - or by most of us most of the time.

COP 26 - the Takeaways

These are the key points of agreement after two weeks of COP26 conferring.

• Fossil fuels were named in the final report for the first time. The young were furious when language was weakened, but the words were at least used, if watered down. Now that the need to reduce their use is on record, no matter how weakly, a new degree of accountability can begin.

• A fund for loss and damage is not included. This, of course is terribly discouraging for those who have been the most damaged by fossil fuel use in the richest countries. Some of them are already under water.

• A 1.5 degree target increase still exists - but in a less than adequate way. Projections of actual results based on current realities and the announcement of actual future plans lessen the possibility of it happening.

• The timelines for report national results are higher. That, at least, is good news. Most countries want to have good reputations and there are now better methods to separate results from aspirations or as Greta would say, blah, blah, blah.

• The young are awake and aware. One hundred thousand of them were present for the conference and many of them were not old white men, but young women of colour. The young are getting older, will have increased influence and they are not going to depart from activism any time soon. Politicians who want to be re-elected need to take note.

All in all, some progress, but there is still a glaring need to speed things up. Let’s hope the young people keep on the case, and inspire the rest of us to support them.

Questions and answers

Here are the definitive questions and answers to the questions on climate change. It’s worth checking out the ones at the top and then go to the individual responses below. You may know some of the answers already but others may be new. Have a look.

The answers are extensive and also have links to further articles. It would ne good to set some time over the next few weeks to tackle one of the questions and responses at a time. An educated public is necessary. Misinformation is usually tied to an agenda. Sober realism is the necessary antidote.