4 years ago ‘We have only a few days left,’ COP26 chair warns By Associated Press GLASGOW, Scotland — Countries must come together urgently to find political consensus on issues like the promise of money from rich countries for poor countries to combat climate change or to adapt to climate shocks, says Alok Sharma, who is chairing the two-week climate talks in Glasgow. “We have only a few days left,” he said. Sharma said that the commitments made by countries in the first week of the talks narrowed the gap but weren’t enough. He said that countries now have to shift immediately to making good on those promises. He said that with the commitments the world is bending the curve to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. “But of course, that isn’t good enough,” he said, reiterating that the target for these talks was to try to ensure that warming is less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Archie Young, the U.K.’s lead negotiator, said that there have been three main areas where there have been disagreements during the negotiations: a mechanism for helping countries with the losses they suffer from climate change, how the progress on countries’ own climate targets would be tracked and the support that poor countries need to become more transparent. But Sharma maintained that there remained an “opportunity to succeed,” adding that the transition to a zero-carbon economy isn’t just possible technologically. “It is economically attractive, and it’s accelerating everywhere. And if we successfully manage this, we deliver immense benefits for the world.”
4 years ago WATCH LIVE: Pelosi holds news conference By News Desk House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to hold a news conference from Glasgow at 10:15 a.m. ET.
4 years ago Pelosi: ‘America is back’ to curb climate change By Associated Press House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 9, 2021. Photo by REUTERS/Yves Herman GLASGOW, Scotland — U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for putting women and girls at the center of efforts to fight climate change, saying they are disproportionately affected by the impacts of a warming planet. Pelosi is leading a delegation of congressional Democrats to the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow this week to send a message that the United States has rejoined international initiatives to curb climate change after the Trump years. Global warming “is a threat multiplier, amplifying and accelerating existing inequities in our economies and societies,” Pelosi said during a Tuesday meeting focused on gender and climate change. A report by the U.N. Development Program has estimated that 80% of those displaced by climate change are women. Pelosi said a a $1.85 trillion package of measures focused on health, family and climate change reflected the Biden administration’s goal to “build back better with women.” Democratic holdouts have the bill currently stalled in Congress. Echoing President Joe Biden, Pelosi said: “America is back together for the planet, for the women, for our children.”
4 years ago Rich and poor nations confront divides over money and trust By Seth Borenstein, Aniruddha Ghosal, Associated Press The two-week climate conference in Glasgow first saw heads of government talking about how curbing global warming is a fight for survival. The leaders focused on big pictures, not the intricate wording crucial to negotiations. Then, for about a week, the technocratic negotiations focused on those key details, getting some things done but not resolving the really sticky situations. Now, it’s time for the “high level” negotiations, when government ministers or other senior diplomats swoop in to make the political decisions that are supposed to break the technical logjams. The United Nations has three goals out of Glasgow, which so far are all out of reach: cutting carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030; rich nations giving poor countries $100 billion a year for combating climate change; and ensuring that half of that money goes to adapting to climate change’s increasing harms. To forge compromise, they have a big gap to bridge. Or more accurately, multiple gaps: there’s a trust gap and a wealth gap. A north-south gap. It’s about money, history and the future. Read more.
4 years ago Russia aims to make its largest island carbon neutral by 2025 By Tanya Titova, Frank Jordans, Associated Press More than two-thirds of Sakhalin Island is forested. With the Kremlin’s blessing, authorities there have set an ambitious goal of making the island — Russia’s largest — carbon neutral by 2025. Tree growth will absorb as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as the island’s half-million residents and its businesses produce, an idea the Russian government 4,000 miles to the west in Moscow hopes to apply to the whole country, which has more forested area than any other nation. “The economic structure of Sakhalin and the large share of forestland in the territory and carbon balance distribution reflect the general situation in Russia,” said Dinara Gershinkova, an adviser to Sakhalin’s governor on climate and sustainable development. “So the results of the experiment in Sakhalin will be representative and applicable to the whole Russian Federation.” The plan reflects a marked change of mood in Russia on climate change. Read more.
4 years ago Youth activists call on U.S. to help deliver $100 billion in international climate aid By Bella Isaacs-Thomas, William Brangham, Sam Lane Youth activists at the U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 8, 2021. Photo by WIlliam Brangham/ PBS NewsHour Youth activists on Monday demanded that wealthy nations like the United States, which are responsible for generating the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions, collectively pay a promised $100 billion in annual aid to poorer ones who bear the brunt of climate change’s consequences. “We’re in the [climate crisis right now] because of empty promises, because [world leaders] prioritize themselves and their economies over the planet and the people,” South African climate activist Raeesah Noor-Mahomed told the PBS NewsHour at COP26. The activists’ demand that the U.S. follow through on facilitating more global aid came as former President Barack Obama made an appearance at the ongoing climate conference. During the 2009 COP15 summit in Copenhagen, Obama pledged that the U.S. would help reach that goal by 2020. This year, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would commit $5.7 billion to the effort, with $1.5 billion dedicated to climate change adaptation. But critics argue that that sum is not enough to fulfill the original target, and that the U.S. should instead be dedicating $43 to $50 billion in climate aid each year. A delay here, a delay there, a broken promise here, a broken promise there, a commitment here, a commitment there and then you sit back- do you know what comes next? Loss and damage We must put Loss and Damage at the center of the #COP26 negotiations! Show us the money!!! pic.twitter.com/GAkpAs7qxE — Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 8, 2021 Noor-Mahomed also questioned how it’s possible to make the “important decisions” on the summit’s agenda without marginalized groups present. They said that they and other activists in Glasgow are being ignored by the leaders and diplomats leading the conference. Not only do these activists not have a seat at the negotiating table, Noor-Mahomed said, but they’re also being denied the opportunity to at least sit in and observe those discussions. “Being here from the Global South with other people from the Global South, watching all these leaders play games with the future — it’s devastating,” they said. “The effects of the climate crisis isn’t something that’s happening in the future. It’s happening right now in our countries because of the people in the Global North.”
4 years ago WATCH: This California project is studying how to help people adapt to climate change By Tom Casciato President Biden’s infrastructure bill includes $50 billion for climate resiliency — funding to help mitigate and adapt to the effects of global warming — the United Nations has called for fully half of all funds fighting climate change be used for adaption and acknowledged that some will need those funds more than others. NewsHour Weekend special correspondent Tom Casciato recently visited a unique partnership in California that uses behavioral science and cultural awareness in climate studies to help communities cope with extreme weather. As climate-change-fueled wildfires become the new normal there, the need to adapt to smoke and other hazards has become acute, and low-income residents are most at risk.
4 years ago What 1.5 means at COP26 and for the planet By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press An advertising board is seen during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 7, 2021. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters. Stopping warming at to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times or so can avoid or at least lessen some of the most catastrophic future climate change harms and for some people is a life-or-death matter, scientists have found in many reports. The 1.5 figure now it is the “overarching objective” of the Glasgow climate talks, called COP26, conference President Alok Sharma said on the first day of the conference. Then on Saturday he said the conference, which takes a break on Sunday, was still trying “to keep 1.5 alive.” For protesters and activists, the phrase is “1.5 to stay alive.” And 1.5 is closer than it sounds. That’s because it may sound like another 1.5 degrees from now but because it is since pre-industrial times, it’s actually only 0.4 degrees (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from now. The world has warmed 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Read more.
4 years ago WATCH: Obama addresses COP26 By Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Barack Obama is expressing confidence at U.N. climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its $555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulting U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he calls a “dangerous absence of urgency” in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions. The U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, is the former American president’s first since he helped deliver the triumph of the 2015 Paris climate accord, when nations committed to cutting fossil fuel and agricultural emissions fast enough to keep the Earth’s warming below catastrophic levels. Climate summits since then have been less conclusive, especially as the U.S. under President Donald Trump dropped out of the Paris accord. President Joe Biden has since rejoined. Obama’s appearance on the sidelines of the talks is meant to remind governments of the elation that surrounded the striking of the Paris accord, and urge them to more immediate, concrete steps to put the 2015 deal into action.
4 years ago Stickiest issues unresolved after week of negotiations By Associated Press Britain's COP26 president Alok Sharma speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 6, 2021. Photo by REUTERS/Phil Noble No deals have been made yet on the three main goals of the U.N. conference — pledges to cut emissions in half by 2030 to keep the Paris climate deal’s 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise goal alive; the need for $100 billion annually in financial help from rich countries to poor ones; and the idea that half of that money go on adapting to global warming’s worst effects. Several other issues, including trading carbon and transparency, also weren’t solved yet. And on the issue of more frequent updates of countries’ emission-cutting goals — something poorer nations seek — negotiators listed nine different time options for future negotiators to choose from. COP President Alok Sharma named teams of two ministers — one from a rich country, one from a poor — for each issue to oversee negotiations on each topic, a technique used in the past. Not fixing the financial pledge problem shows rich nations’ pledges are “an empty commitment,” and without fixing that these climate talks cannot be successful, representatives from several countries, including Guinea, said. “There is a history of broken promises and unfulfilled commitments by developed countries,” Diego Pacheco Balanza of Bolivia told the conference. Read more here.