29/01/2020

What Was Said At Davos On Climate Change

New York Times

Global leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland agree that a rapid response is needed to stave off disaster.
Credit...World Economic Forum, via Associated Press
As the effects of climate change are increasing around the world, so is talk about solutions — from  businesses, governments, nonprofits, individuals (especially young ones), scientists and others. While there are many advocates for change, most experts would say progress needs to be much faster to avert global disaster.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, climate change was at the top of the agenda. Talks took place in open panel discussions, hallways and private meeting rooms. Businesses and global leaders like Jane Goodall and Prince Charles made some commitments. Below are excerpts from panels and speeches, which have been edited and condensed.
Urban Truths: Unlocking Net Zero Pathways for Cities
The panel, a collaboration of The New York Times with support from Wellcome Trust and BCG Digital Ventures, was led by Somini Sengupta, a Times climate reporter, and looked at the climate health nexus through the strategic lens of cities. The panelists were Kate Brandt, the sustainability officer at Google; Christiana Figueres, a diplomat from Costa Rica; and Maria Neira, director of the public health, environment and social determinants of health department of the World Health Organization.



 Somini Sengupta, New York Times climate reporter
Ms. Sengupta: We, city people, have a disproportionately large carbon footprint, emitting 70 percent, give or take, of emissions. We represent 50 percent of the population and emit 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So how are cities going to adapt to what is already a hotter planet, and how are cities going to do the heavy lifting of mitigating emissions? That’s what we’re really here to talk about.


diplomat, Costa Rica. Credit...Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
Ms. Figueres: All of our cities, and I know very few that are not, are congested, polluted, completely unhealthy environments. And that is an assault on our human right to health and to breathe clean air, simply put. Now it’s not so easy, obviously, to go from there to a system where all vehicles — and this is the ideal — all vehicles are shared, and hopefully not owned, and clean, and where there is efficient, clean, interconnected public transport. Because you will never get any public transport, whether it be buses, or whatever, that take you from A to B; you will always have to interconnect.


Maria Neira, World Health Organization. Credit...Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA, via Shutterstock
Dr. Neira: If you are the mayor of a big city and you want to do something about mobility in the city, it will be very unpopular in certain ways. That’s why you need to convene a kind of working group where you involve citizens, involve mothers who are dealing every day with a child with asthma, involve all of those with health data to try to put maybe in a less painful way the life expectancy that you are losing if you live in, for example, New Delhi.


Credit...Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile for Web Summit, via Getty Images
Ms. Brandt: And I think that’s interesting, too, about getting street-by-street air quality data. What we’re seeing in cities around the world is it’s often the most urban populations who have the worst air quality. So when you actually have that granularity of data, it becomes very stark and very clear that there are issues, and there are opportunities to address them, and you can really see that disparity actually in the air quality data.

Averting a Climate Apocalypse
Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager and climate activist, made the opening remarks at a Times panel, “Averting a Climate Apocalypse,” moderated by Rebecca Blumenstein, deputy managing editor of The Times, with Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs in China; Oliver Bäte, the chief executive of Allianz; Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, coordinator of the Association of Peul Women and Autochthonous Peoples of Chad; and Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation.



Rebecca Blumenstein, deputy managing editor New York Times
Ms. Blumenstein: Five years after the Paris Accord, governments need to reset their goals and businesses are finally and quickly talking about setting goals. We have top voices from across the world to discuss the urgency of the situation and next steps. But we are going to start with some words from Greta Thunberg, who made headlines around the world last year by saying here at Davos that our house is on fire.




Greta Thunberg, Swedish teenager and climate activist. Credit...Alessandro Della Valle/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ms. Thunberg: I joined a group of climate activists demanding that you, the world’s most powerful and influential business and political leaders, begin to take the action needed. We demand, at this year’s World Economic Forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction; immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies; and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels. We don’t want these things done by 2050 or 2030 or even 2021. We want this done now.

Credit...Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Mr. Ma: China’s emissions [goals] have not been accomplished. We’re still burning half of the world’s coal. We need to do more. But now, at this moment, we’re facing the economic downturn locally and globally. We’re facing the [trade]war and also the withdrawal by the U.S. government from the Paris agreement. All these are not helpful. So we need to find innovative solutions which tap into the market power, which can balance growth and protection. But all this needs people to join the efforts. So with that, I truly salute the efforts to raise public awareness.

 IbrahimCredit...Hanna Bardo/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ms. Ibrahim: This is today. This is our reality. When the forest is barren in Australia, in the Amazon, it’s forest that is disappearing. Back in my region, it’s people that are dying. Dying because of the climate change. Losing their lives. They would not think about the future. When people talk about 2050, for me, I’m like, really? Seriously. By 2050, there’s no solution for this planet. We need it now.

Credit...Mike Cohen for The New York Times
Mr. Shah: Climate change today bears its brunt mostly on the bottom two billion people on the planet. And so our commitment to Paris, our commitment to be serious and urgent and taking actions to meet those targets, is not just about protecting the future. It is also about protecting today people who rely on climate, environment and those natural resources to survive and to thrive.


Oliver Bäte, Allianz. Credit...Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Mr. Bäte: In the past it was always governments demanding business to change business models and then we had to adapt. Today, unfortunately, I believe that governments are behind the curve behind us. I can only speak for my home country. We always talk about the plans when we would get out of coal. But we’re discussing dates. We’re not discussing action. And what we are trying to do is put real action behind it.


One Trillion Trees
Jane Goodall, the renowned British anthropologist, gave her support to the World Economic Forum’s initiative One Trillion Trees, which supports the growing, restoring and conserving of a trillion trees worldwide by 2030.

Jane Goodall, British anthropologist. Credit...Alessandro Della Valle/Keystone, via Associated Press
Ms Goodall: The reason I think that the one trillion tree project is so exciting is, people say to me all the time what can I do? What’s one thing I can do? You can plant a tree, and whether you plant the tree in your own backyard or whether you pay to have trees planted in Tanzania, or if it’s urban or rural, you know it’s something you can do.


Sustainable Markets
Prince Charles came to the World Economic Forum after a nearly three-decade absence, with a 10-point Sustainable Markets plan that would include setting clear plans for governments and businesses to reach net zero in their carbon emissions and rooting out “perverse subsidies” that prevent the global economy from becoming more sustainable.

Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Global warming, climate change and the devastating loss of biodiversity are the greatest threats humanity has ever faced and one largely of our own creation. I have dedicated much of my life to the restoration of harmony between humanity, nature and the environment, and to the encouragement of corporate, social and environmental responsibility. But now it is time to take it to the next level. To secure a future and to prosper, we need to evolve our economic model. It is not a lack of capital that is holding us back, but rather the way in which we deploy it.
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How Davos Became A Climate Change Conference

TIME - Justin Worland



The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, informally known as Davos for the Swiss ski town where it’s held, is typically a conference about the economy and geopolitics. It makes sense that in 2020, as Australia burns and activists turn out by the millions, Davos approximated a climate conference.
The conversation held over the past few days showed that it’s become impossible to ignore reality: a warming planet is reshaping geopolitics and threatening the economy as we know it. Around the halls of the conference center in Davos, CEOs and government ministers, politicians and celebrities, talked about big solutions to fix that. They discussed how GDP has failed us as a metric of societal health and the need for new government support for climate mitigation.
“I don’t want to be naive, but I want to acknowledge that the center of the global economy is now saying things that many of us have dreamed they might for a long time,” Al Gore said at a dinner convened by WWF International. “They’re saying them forcefully and eloquently.” The question is, where does that conversation lead us?

A Clear and Present Crisis
Most people with even the loosest familiarity with the science of climate change know that it poses a long-term risk that could lead to drowned coastlines and charred cities. Yet, for years it remained a secondary issue for corporations concerned with short-term earnings and government officials who didn’t view it as a kitchen table issue.
For that reason, it remained on the margins of conferences like Davos, which instead centered around the economy. “I can remember when climate was talked about in a tent outside,” Rachel Kyte, a long-time climate leader and the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told me.
What’s changed is the growing immediacy: climate change has become a clear and present crisis. Australia is on fire. Heatwaves struck much of the world last year, including Western Europe. And, in the last five years, the cost of climate-related disasters in the U.S. topped $525 billion, close to a third of the cost of natural disasters since 1980. Meanwhile, climate activists have forced corporate leaders to at least say they’re listening.
The risks posed by climate change were underscored even before the conference began, with the release of the WEF global risk report. All five of the top risks in terms of likelihood touched on climate and the environment, including extreme weather events, failure to slow emissions and invest in adaptation, and biodiversity loss.
The rising concern of environmental issues at Davos, Part I
Every year, the WEF ranks the top 5 global risks in terms of impact. In 2009, no environmental issue made it into the top 5; since 2017, three of the top 5 have been environmental issues.
Chart: Elijah Wolfson for TIME Source: WEF 2020 Global Risk Report Get the data Created with Datawrapper
The rising concern of environmental issues at Davos, Part 2
WEF also ranks the risks in terms of likelihood. In 2009, no environmental issue made it into the top 5; in 2020, all of the top five risk were environmental.
Chart: Elijah Wolfson for TIME Source: WEF 2020 Global Risk Report Get the data Created with Datawrapper 
These fiscal risks helped drive the conversation around climate change in Davos. Just a few days prior to the start of the conference, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said climate change would lead to a “fundamental reshaping of finance” and promised to rethink its strategy.
“Usually, the conversation immediately pivots to sort of far off long-term risks,” Brian Deese, BlackRock’s global head of sustainable investing, told me in Davos. “Those risks, while they do accelerate out into the future, are more pressing on the market today than most market participants understand.”
That was underscored by an announcement in Davos from the International Monetary Fund that climate change “already endangers health and economic outcomes.”
Meanwhile, companies made new commitments to protect nature and biodiversity, acknowledging nature’s centrality to their supply chains. And a group of investors—called the Net-Zero-Asset Owner Alliance—committed to having a zero-emissions portfolio by 2050 grew to more than $4 trillion in assets.
“Momentum is growing at an incredible pace,” said Edward Mason, head of responsible investment at the Church of England, which joined the alliance at Davos. “It really feels like we have reached a tipping point so that we can do this.”

Towards a “Better Capitalism”
But despite all the talk at Davos, that change is still not happening fast enough, and many say the efforts that have been made are too piecemeal. In perhaps the most publicized moment of the week, Greta Thunberg said “pretty much nothing has been done, since the global emissions of CO2 have not reduced.”
Of course, a lot has been done, but those efforts are also far from adequate. Global temperatures have already warmed 1° C since the industrial revolution and are on track to rise to 3°C even if governments follow through on their current commitments, blowing past the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping temperature rise well below 2°C.
And, while investors and corporations wield enormous power, there is widespread agreement among experts that actually tackling climate change—to the extent that it can be tackled—will require governments to step up in a major way.
There are a range of different approaches to tackling climate change, and at Davos leaders politely discussed which they preferred. But the discussions were much broader than wonky policy concerns like how to structure a carbon tax (though there was plenty of that).
Broadly, participants discussed how to end the multi-trillion giveaway that fossil fuel producers receive in the form of subsidies and whether we should move away from GDP as a measure of societal wellbeing. “The version of capitalism we have today in our world must be reformed,” said Gore.
It’s fitting, then, that the official theme of this year’s Davos gathering was “better capitalism.” Around the halls, political leaders and business honchos talked about the need to rethink our political and economic system, in large part to address climate change and its byproducts.
They chatted about the challenge of growing inequality, and many shook their heads at President Trump’s speech cheering economic growth and dismissing climate change. “Our capitalism must be sustainable; it must allow us to fight against global warming following a rapid and credible calendar,” Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister told reporters, according to a translation. “We must move quicker.”
The question is, when push comes to shove, will all the talk about changing the system amount to anything more than words?
There are a number of challenges ahead. For all the corporate leaders that say they will tackle climate change, there are others that aren’t so interested. As while some investors move away from heavy polluters, other remain ready to swoop in hoping to make a quick buck.
Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, described the dynamic as a “tension” between the companies that see themselves as part of the solution and “an old energy” driving companies that operate with business-as-usual assumptions.
A Greenpeace International report released during Davos showed that 24 banks that attended Davos this year financed the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $1.4 trillion between the adoption of the Paris Agreement and 2018.
Governments have their own challenges. Some, like the U.S., aren’t responding at all. Others, like the EU, have done a lot already, picking the low-hanging fruit, making further reductions more challenging. Meanwhile, developing countries still need to figure out how to continue to grow their economies while limiting the increase of their emissions.
At Davos, there was widespread commitment, but not always detail. This year will be a critical test of whether we cans get that detail as governments prepare to make new commitments to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement ahead of the November UN climate conference in Glasgow. Davos was a good start; leaders are talking. Now they need to act.

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(AU) The Recent History Of Australia's Climate Change Wars

SBS - Nick Baker

Australia's politicians haven't only just started fighting over climate change - here's how the issue has previously dominated parliament
Climate change has dominated Australian politics for more than a decade. Source: AAP



As Australia continues to grapple with a horror bushfire season, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under increasing pressure to commit to further action on climate change.
Protests against him have raged in the country's smoky cities and he has attracted blistering criticism from across the nation and around the world.
A protest in Sydney in November. AAP

It was in this context that Mr Morrison opened the door to "evolving" the government's climate change policies last week.
"The cabinet and the government will continue to evolve our policies to meet our targets and to beat them," he told the ABC.
It's the latest development in the years-long political conflict around Australia's climate change policies, which has claimed the scalps of several leaders and shows no sign of being resolved soon.
But how did we get here?

Kyoto opposition
At the turn of the millennium, then-prime minister John Howard made it clear Australia would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty in which countries committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A protest at John Howard's Sydney office in 2006. AAP

But as parts of the nation were gripped by drought in the early 2000s, climate change became a front-and-centre issue for many Australians.
So much so that the conservative Mr Howard went to the 2007 election with an emissions trading scheme and committed to increasing spending on measures to tackle climate change by $627 million.
"Implementing an emissions trading scheme and setting a long-term goal for reducing emissions will be the most momentous economic decision Australia will take in the next decade," Mr Howard said at the time.
Protesters wearing shirts that read "don't walk away from Kyoto" follow then-PM John Howard. AAP

Siobhan McDonnell, a lecturer in climate change and disasters the Australian National University, said Mr Howard "shifted substantially" on the issue towards the end of his prime ministership.
"He shifted in part, I think, in response to the climate science ... He was prepared to tackle these issues," Dr McDonnell told SBS News.
"Climate change hadn't become the issue so deeply entrenched in the right [side of politics] at the time, that it later was to become."

'The great moral challenge'
But after 11 years in office, Mr Howard lost the 2007 election to Kevin Rudd.
Unlike his predecessor, the Labor leader sought to be a global warrior for the climate cause, describing it as "the great moral challenge of our generation".



The first official act of Mr Rudd's government was signing the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Labor then got down to business and tried to craft and pass an emissions trading scheme, called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
And that's where things got complicated.

Rudd, Turnbull out
In late 2009, Labor sought common ground with the opposition to get their emissions trading scheme through parliament.
Then-Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull endorsed the plan, but some in his party promptly turned against him.
The anti-CPRS Tony Abbott beat Mr Turnbull in a leadership contest by a single vote, and the Liberals suddenly became far less receptive to bipartisan climate action.
In a scathing opinion article days after, the defeated Mr Turnbull called Mr Abbott's new climate stance "bullshit".

Mr Turnbull slammed Mr Abbott in the Fairfax newspapers. www.smh.com.au

Meanwhile, the Greens opposed Mr Rudd's plan for not going far enough to curb emissions.
Any hope of passing the CPRS seemed to disappear by 2010 so it was shelved by Labor until at least 2013.
Kevin Rudd after the leadership spill in 2010. AAP

But Mr Rudd's popularity consequently plummeted and within weeks, he was removed as leader by his party, with Julia Gillard becoming the prime minister.

The carbon tax
In the lead up to the 2010 election, Ms Gillard pledged a "citizens assembly" to resolve the issue of climate change, which she later conceded was "probably very naive".
And, in a statement that would come back to haunt her, she promised there would be "no carbon tax under a government I lead".
The 2010 election between Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott resulted in Australia's first hung parliament since 1940, meaning that each leader had to negotiate with crossbenchers to win power.
Julia Gillard in Parliament House in 2013. AAP

Ms Gillard got the support of Bob Brown's Greens along with other key crossbenchers and retained her prime ministership.
She went on to announce her plans for a carbon pricing scheme, dubbed by critics as the "carbon tax", which passed in 2011.
Ms Gillard called it "a win for Australia's children".
"It's a win for those who will seek their fortunes and make their way by having jobs in our clean energy sector. It's a win for those who want our environment to be a cleaner environment and to see less carbon pollution," she said at the time.
Ms Gillard also set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, two government entities to boost clean energy.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie told SBS News the establishment of these entities was a "high point" in how the nation tackles climate change.
"Both bodies have quietly made a huge difference to financing innovation and new technology," she said.

Axing the tax
Mr Abbott railed against Ms Gillard's climate policies and his commitment to "axing the tax" defined his time as opposition leader.
The climate debate over these years reached new levels of vitriol.
In a move that resulted in heavy criticism, Mr Abbott attended an anti-carbon tax protest at Parliament House and spoke in front of signs which read "ditch the witch" and "Ju-liar... Bob Browns bitch [sic]".
Tony Abbott speaking at the anti-carbon tax rally in 2011. AAP

Mr Abbott won the 2013 election and the carbon tax was repealed soon after.
Then-Greens leader Christine Milne called the repeal a "tragic day".
The new PM instead opted for a scheme called Direct Action, which paid businesses and communities to reduce their emissions.
Under Mr Abbott, Australia signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 and agreed to reduce carbon emissions by at least 26 per cent by 2030.

The NEG and Turnbull's demise
With Mr Abbott's poll numbers stubbornly low, Mr Turnbull successfully challenged him for the leadership and became prime minister in 2015.
In a move he hoped would end the climate wars, the then-PM proposed the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), an integration of climate and energy policy.
But once again, many Liberals rebelled against Mr Turnbull and soon, both the NEG and Mr Turnbull's prime ministership were history.
Enter Mr Morrison.
Scott Morrison brings a lump of coal into Parliament House. AAP

ANU's Dr McDonnell said, "Turnbull attempted to fight the fight internally ... He lost the leadership as a result and the politics became entrenched at that point".
"It became the defining issue for the [Liberal] leadership, it was like, you can only hold the leadership if you're not prepared to take any meaningful steps in relation to climate change," she said.
"Australia's emissions definitely reduced substantially under the Labor government and since we've had a Coalition government they have increased substantially. That is just the factual story."

'A massive wake-up call'
As the 2010s came to a close, the climate change warnings of experts and studies became increasingly dire around the world.
Pedestrians walk towards Darling Harbour as smoke haze blankets Sydney. AAP

In Australia, a crescendo was reached at the end of 2019.
A horror bushfire season, which was predicted by economist Ross Garnaut back in the Rudd years, swept the nation.
So far, at least 31 people have been killed and more than 2,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.
A koala is rescued from the fires on Kangaroo Island. AAP

Cities have been choked with bushfire haze and images of the more than one billion injured or killed wildlife have shaken Australians.
The Climate Council's Ms McKenzie said, "the bushfire and smoke crisis should be a massive wake-up call to the Morrison government".
"This is exactly what scientists have been warning them about for decades. The government has no credible policies to tackle fossil fuel pollution which is driving climate change," she said.
"The crisis should prompt a wholesale rethink of Australia's approach the climate change."

From Hawaii to an 'evolving' stance
In December, Mr Morrison took a Hawaiian vacation in the middle of the bushfire crisis.
He faced severe criticism and later apologised.
Australian tourists snapped this picture with Scott Morrison in Hawaii. Twitter: @Ben_Downie

From there, things did not get much better.
Mr Morrison was heckled during a visit to the bushfire-hit town of Cobargo, which a fellow Liberal said he "probably deserved".
And self-proclaimed climate sceptic Liberal MP Craig Kelly went on UK television and disputed the link between climate change and Australia's fires.
In the fallout, protests against Mr Morrison have been held in capital cities and show no sign of stopping.
His approval rating plunged in a recent Newspoll and the Coalition is now trailing Labor for the first time since last year's federal election.
A protester holding a photograph of property destroyed by bushfire is arrested outside of Kirribilli House. AAP

To ease the tensions, Mr Morrison admitted last week, "there are things I could have handled on the ground much better".
He also responded by announcing there would be a royal commission into the disaster and saying climate policies could, yet again, change.
"We want to reduce emissions and do the best job we possibly can and get better and better and better at it," he told the ABC.
ANU's Dr McDonnell said it could be a pivotal moment.
"There is a shift, but for me, the question is will it be enough? ... Australia is just so vulnerable to climate change."

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