Lethal Heating: 02/09/19

09/02/2019

'I Feel Very Angry': The 13-Year-Old On School Strike For Climate Action

The Guardian - Sandra Laville

Holly Gillibrand is skipping class to join pupils around the world in pushing for urgent measures

Holly Gillibrand has spent the past five Fridays on strike outside her school in Fort William. Photograph: Twitter

Until recently, Holly Gillibrand was like any other schoolchild, keen on the outdoors, football and rock climbing, inspired by the stunning surroundings of her secondary school at the foot of Ben Nevis.
But for the past five Fridays, while hundreds of her fellow students file into class, she has stood outside Lochaber high school in Fort William in the Highlands to take strike action.
Her protest is not for better classrooms, nicer meals or more free time. Holly, 13, is helping to build a UK movement of children demanding more action on climate change by withdrawing themselves from the lessons they are legally required to attend.
They are working towards a UK school strike next Friday, which will follow other walkouts by tens of thousands of children across Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Australia.
Holly was inspired by the actions of Greta Thunberg, who in September sat outside the Swedish parliament for three weeks on “school strike”. International interest in her story led to Thunberg going to Davos last month to address world leaders. While she travelled for 32 hours on trains to reach the ski resort, political and business leaders hired 1,500 private jets to get to the summit.

Holly said: “I saw on social media that she was sitting outside the parliament, and then lots of other children started doing similar things and I thought, that is something I could do to make a difference. I thought she was brave and inspirational.”
Each week, Holly and a small group of supporters carry placards with slogans such as “School strike for the climate”, “Beep for climate action” and “Striking for the seas – stop global warming now”, and take time out of classes to demand action.
“It’s the first time I have done anything like this,” she said. “But I feel very angry, very scared and I see that they [political leaders] are not taking climate change seriously. It is an urgent crisis that needs to be addressed.”
Holly has tried to make changes to reduce her carbon footprint and insisted the Guardian did not send a photographer to drive two hours from Glasgow to take her portrait. “I take the bus, I am almost completely vegan, as are my parents, and my family has always been very environmentally aware,” she said.
Taking time out of school is a powerful weapon, Holly believes, to draw attention to the need to act more decisively to tackle climate change. “I am not sure how my headteacher feels, but my class teachers have been very supportive,” she said.
“I have had lots of people joining me, although not as many from my school as I hoped, but we are hoping many other children from schools across the country will take action next week.”
Across Europe, a pushback from adults – particularly those in power – seems to have begun. The Belgian environment minister, Joke Schauvliege, recently suggested the school strikes were not genuine actions of young people angry and frustrated about the future of their planet, but a “setup” and “more than spontaneous actions of solidarity”.
Schauvliege claimed Belgium’s intelligence services had information that the children were being directed by unknown groups or individuals. But such was the political backlash, she was forced to resign last week.
Holly has gained support globally via social media, where a network of young people are reaching out across national boundaries. She has little time for adults who doubt and criticise her actions.
“I say to people who object to us missing lessons, what is the point of studying for a future that if nothing is done, we might not have?” she said.
On her first strike day, Holly explained clearly why she was taking the step. “I am striking because we are running out of time. Thousands of children around the world should not be having to miss classes because of our leaders’ inability to treat the climate crisis as a crisis,” she said.
Over the past few weeks, she has featured in Scottish media and been recruited as an environment columnist for the Lochaber Times.
And her sense of urgency and passion has only increased. As the school strike message continues to spread across the globe, Holly says she is determined to follow Thunberg’s lead.
“Greta Thunberg, thank you for leading the way,” she said in a tweet. “You are right – with action does come hope.”

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'We Won': Landmark Climate Ruling As NSW Court Rejects Coal Mine

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Environmental groups are cheering a decision in NSW's Land and Environment Court that found the emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change from a proposed coal mine were among the reasons to reject the project.
Brian Preston, chief judge of the court, handed down his judgment in a case between Gloucester Resources Ltd and the NSW Planning Minister in Sydney on Friday. He concluded the mine project was "in the wrong place at the wrong time".

The chief judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court dismissed Gloucester Resources Limited's appeal of the Department of Planning and Environment's 2017 decision to not approve the mine in the NSW Hunter.

He dismissed an appeal by developers of the controversial Rocky Hill open-cut coal mine near the Mid North Coast town of Gloucester against any earlier planning rejection.
Last April, the Environmental Defenders Office of NSW secured approval from the court to join the case, arguing on behalf of its client Groundswell Gloucester that the mine's detrimental impact on climate change and on the social fabric of the town must be considered.
The EDO dubbed it a "once in a generation case" as it was the first time an Australian court had heard expert evidence about the urgent need to stay within a global carbon budget in the context of a proposed new coal mine.
Justice Preston noted the "significant adverse social impacts on the community" from the proposed mine but - in a court-first in Australia - highlighted the climate impacts of coal mining.
"The construction and operation of the mine, and the transportation and combustion of the coal from the mine, will result in the emission of greenhouse gases, which will contribute to climate change," Justice Preston said in his judgement.

'Reverberate across Australia'
Di Montague, a member of Groundswell Gloucester, told fellow anti-mine campaigners, "we've won, we've won".

Gloucester residents are jubilant after their win in the Land and Environment Court. Credit: Janie Barrett

The result should "reverberate across every community fighting coal and coal seam gas in Australia", Ms Montague told the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the result.
"It's a very strong judgement," David Morris, EDO NSW's chief executive, said after the judgment was released to a packed court room.
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts declined to comment on the judgement's wider importance, saying only: "That’s the legal process and we respect the court’s decision”.
A spokesman later added that Minister Roberts was "gratified that the Land and Environment Court agreed with his original decision to refuse a mining licence on the grounds that the proposal did not meet environmental and social requirements. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis."
Brian Clifford, chief operating officer for Gloucester Resources said the company was disappointed by the court's decision after the mine had "met all the non-discretionary criteria".
"Gloucester Resources Limited will assess the implications of today’s decision and consider its
next steps," Mr Clifford said.
Stephen Galilee, chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, said his organisation did not accept that the verdict amounted to a "landmark case"because the Planning Department had already recommended against the project's approval.
"We’ll take a close look at the judgement, including what appears to be a range of different reasons for the outcome," Mr Galilee said.

'Shutting the door'
The result was being watched with interest internationally. Climate litigation, particularly in the US and European nations such as the Netherlands, is growing as climate campaigners frustrated by insufficient political action seek alternative routes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Hunter Valley coal mines: will it be harder to expand or dig new ones after NSW court ruling?

Will Steffen, an adjunct professor at the Australian National University who gave evidence in court about the climate impacts of coal, welcomed the result.
"It is absolutely clear that the Paris climate targets cannot be met if we continue to open up new fossil fuel reserves," Professor Steffen said.
"This landmark decision sends a clear message to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot continue to expand if we are serious about tackling climate change."
"Shutting the door on new fossil fuel developments will be a major turning point in the battle to stabilise the climate system - and will add further momentum to the shift to clean, reliable renewable energy systems," he said.

'All emissions contribute'
Justice Preston elaborated on his judgement, noting that "all of the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of the Rocky Hill Coal Project will impact on the environment".
"All anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change," he said.
In aggregate, the mine would have contributed 37.8 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent, "a sizeable individual source" of such emissions, Justice Preston concluded.
"It matters not that the aggregate of the Project's greenhouse gas emissions may represent a small fraction of the global total", he said. "The global problem of climate change needs to be addressed by multiple local actions to mitigate emissions by sources and remove greenhouse gases by sinks."

'Wrong place, wrong time'
In summarising, Justice Preston said an open-cut coal mine in "this part of the Gloucester valley would be in the wrong place at the wrong time".
It was the wrong place because of "this scenic and cultural landscape", including indigenous ones, and its proximity to home.
However, it was also the "wrong time because the greenhouse gas emissions of the coal mine and its coal product will increase global total concentrations of [those gases] at a time when what is now urgently needed, in order to meet generally agreed climate targets is a rapid and deep decrease" in those emissions, Justice Preston concluded.
Such a judgment "will be generally applicable to any coal mine in Australia", Mr Morris from the EDO said.
Mr Morris also drew attention to Justice Preston's recognition and apparent acceptance of the need for a carbon budget to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 1.5-2 degrees compared to pre-industrial times, as agreed in the Paris climate accord.
That budget meant "most fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground unburned", Justice Preston wrote.
Justin Field, a NSW Greens MP, said the decision put the government and miners "on notice".
"NSW's contribution to climate change from the burning of fossil fuels mined here has been recognised by the court's decision and should rightly be a consideration in any proposed developments," he said.

Long battles
The town of Gloucester and its campaigners are no strangers to the spotlight.
Groundswell Gloucester successfully saw off energy giant AGL and its plans to develop at least 330 coal seam gas wells in the valley, with the anniversary of that result three years ago last Monday.
"There's been so much angst" over the CSG and coal mines in the region, Julie Lyford, president of Groundswell Gloucester and a former mayor of the town, said.
Licences, including for coal and CSG exploration near Gloucester, "had been handed out like confetti" by the previous state Labor government, Ms Lyford said. "The Gloucester community has been living with the results of that disgraceful period" for more than a decade.
It was now important for the planning, environment and resources departments to "take a serious look" at how they have colluded to promote mining over other interests, she said.
"It's about time something changed," Ms Lyford said.

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UN Warns World On Track To Breach 3c Rise By 2100; Last Year Was Fourth Warmest On Record

ABC - ABC/Reuters

A rise of 3 degrees Celsius could have disastrous consequences. (ABC News: Mary Lloyd)

Key points:

US, British, Japanese and European weather agencies contributed to the data
20 out of the past 22 years have been the hottest on record
The long-term climate trends show that warming will continue to break records

Last year was the fourth warmest year on record and the outlook is for more sizzling heat approaching levels that most view as dangerous for humankind on the Earth, a United Nations report has shown.
The new report said the world was on track to have average global temperatures rise to 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, as record levels of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, is trapping more heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
In 2015, almost 200 governments adopted the Paris climate agreement to phase out the use of fossil fuels and limit the rise in temperatures between 1.5C to 2C, to avert "dangerous" man-made climate change.
Weather extremes last year included wildfires in California and Greece, drought in South Africa, floods in India, while the new year saw Queensland and Tasmania threatened by record-breaking floods and bushfires.
Scientists warn there could be more to come as a long-term rise higher than 2C could have more disastrous consequences.
"The long-term temperature trend is far more important than the ranking of individual years, and that trend is an upward one," the UN's World Mereological Organisation (WMO) secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

"The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years," Mr Taalas said.

US, Australia experienced polar climactic extremes

Two extremes: Australia had its hottest January on record while the US experienced a record-breaking cold snap. (Nick Monk Photography and AP)

Two US agencies, the United Kingdom Met Office and the WMO have analysed global temperatures in slightly different ways, but each came to the same conclusion on Wednesday: 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record behind 2016, 2015 and 2017.
NASA and NOAA climate scientists said even though 2018 was a tad cooler than the three previous years that was mostly due to random weather variations.

Climate policy keeps sinking PMs

Federal Parliament has proven itself unable to reach consensus on climate change policy, even when the parties are close enough to touch.

Last year, the United States alone suffered 14 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) each, led by hurricanes and wildfires, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This year has also started with scorching temperatures, including Australia's warmest January on record, while North America had the complete opposite, experiencing a polar vortex that plunged parts of America into temperatures colder than that of Antarctica's.
"The impacts of long-term global warming are already being felt — in coastal flooding, heatwaves, intense precipitation and ecosystem change," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

World temperature may rise 3C by 2100: UN

In 2018, drought-stricken California experienced its deadliest wildfires in recent memory. (AP: Noah Berger)

A UN report last year said the world is likely to breach 1.5C sometime between 2030 and 2052 on current trends, triggering ever more heatwaves, powerful storms, droughts, mudslides, extinctions and rising sea levels.
The British Met Office said temperatures could rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial times, for instance if a natural El Nino weather event adds a burst of heat.
"Over the next five years there is a one-in-10 chance of one of those years breaking the [1.5C] threshold," Professor Adam Scaife of the Met Office told Reuters of the agency's medium-term forecasts.

"That is not saying the Paris Agreement is done for… but it's a worrying sign," he said.

This week, a separate report from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that the Himalayas would lose two-thirds of its glaciers if temperatures rose by 2C by 2100.

Water released to river systems by melting Himalayan glaciers could be deadly for millions downstream. (Flickr: NASA)

US President Donald Trump, who has cast doubt on mainstream climate science and promotes the coal industry, plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
He did not mention climate change in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
Patrick Verkooijen, head of the Global Centre on Adaptation in the Netherlands, told Reuters that the WMO report showed "climate change is not a distant phenomenon but is here right now".
He called for more, greener investments, ranging from defences against rising seas to drought-resistant crops.

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