(The Guardian) A Billion Children At ‘Extreme Risk’ From Climate Impacts – UNICEF

The Guardian - Damian Carrington

Report launched with youth activists including Greta Thunberg paints ‘unimaginably dire’ picture

Rescuers evacuating a child from a flooded area following heavy rains in Suizhou, China. Photograph: CNS/AFP/Getty Images

Almost half the world’s 2.2 billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution, according to a report from UNICEF.

The UN agency’s head called the situation “unimaginably dire”.

Nearly every child around the world was at risk from at least one of these impacts today, including heatwaves, floods, cyclones, disease, drought, and air pollution, the report said.

But 1 billion children live in 33 countries facing three or four impacts simultaneously. The countries include India, Nigeria and the Philippines, and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

The report is the first to combine high-resolution maps of climate and environmental impacts with maps of child vulnerability, such as poverty and access to clean water, healthcare and education.

“It essentially [shows] the likelihood of a child’s ability to survive climate change,” said Nick Rees, one of the report’s authors.

The report was launched with youth climate activists on the third anniversary of Greta Thunberg’s first school strike, which sparked a global movement. After a pause in public demonstrations during the coronavirus pandemic, a global climate strike is planned for 24 September.

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director, said: “For the first time, [this report gives] a complete picture of where and how children are vulnerable to climate change, and that picture is almost unimaginably dire. Virtually no child’s life will be unaffected.”

”Children are uniquely vulnerable to climate hazards,” she said. “Compared to adults, children require more food and water per unit of body weight and are less able to survive extreme weather events.”

The report calls for the inclusion of young people in all climate negotiations and decisions, including at the UN Cop26 summit in Glasgow in November. “The decisions will define their future,” said Fore. “Children and young people need to be recognised as the rightful heirs of this planet that we all share.”

Thunberg said: “We are not just victims, we are also leading the fight. But [the world] is still not treating the climate crisis like an emergency. We are still just talking and greenwashing things instead of taking real action. But, on the other hand, there have been many millions of people mobilised, especially young people, and that is a very important step in the right direction.”

Nkosilathi Nyathi, a climate activist from Zimbabwe, said: “Climate change is very personal to me.”

He said heatwaves and floods had interrupted his schooling and farmers in his village were struggling with unpredictable weather.

“I’m passionate about the inclusion of young people in decision-making platforms – young people are the world’s most precious natural resource.”

The UNICEF report said the impacts of the climate crisis were “deeply inequitable” and very likely to get worse. Rees said: “The top 10 countries that are at extremely high risk are only responsible for 0.5% of global emissions.”

The report found 920 million children are highly exposed to water scarcity, 820 million to heatwaves, and 600 million to vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, which are likely to get worse as suitable climate conditions for mosquitoes and pathogens spread.

300 million children live in areas with extreme air pollution, data reveals. Read more

“But there is still time to act,” said Fore.

“Improving children’s access to essential services can significantly increase their ability to survive these climate hazards.

"UNICEF urges governments and businesses to listen to children and prioritise actions that protect them from impacts, while accelerating work to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a youth campaigner from the Philippines who also helped launch the report, said: “One of the reasons I’m a climate activist is because I was born into climate change like so many of us have been.

"I have such vivid memories of doing my homework by the candlelight as typhoons raged outside, wiping out the electricity, and growing up being afraid of drowning in my own bedroom because I would wake up to a flooded room.”

“[Cop26] has to be the one that changes something because we’ve gone for so long having these conferences only coming up with empty promises and vague plans,” she said.

Thunberg said: “We cannot stress enough how big a responsibility the UK government has now.

"But there is a lie that the UK is a climate leader and that they have reduced their CO2 emissions by more than 40% since 1990.

"If you include things like aviation, shipping, outsourcing and imports and the burning of biomass, it doesn’t really look that good – they are very good at creative carbon accounting.

"We want them to stop talking and start acting.”

Links

• The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis
• The impacts of climate change put almost every child at risk 
• Children and climate change
  
• Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action
  
• Young climate activists demand action and inspire hope
• Environment and climate change
• The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index
• Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) Interactive Atlas

(Gizmodo) It Rained at the Summit of Greenland’s Ice Sheet for the First Time Ever Recorded

Gizmodo -  Dharna Noor

The rain triggered widespread ice melt—a warning sign for what the climate crisis may have in store.

Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP (Getty Images)

Last week, the Greenland ice sheet underwent a major melting event—its second in two weeks.

This time around, the melting was quickened by a wholly unexpected and unwelcome visitor: rain.

Seven billion tons of rain fell on the country last week, and for the first time in recorded history, it rained at the Greenland Summit Camp, a research station near the normally frigid top of the ice sheet. 

Saturday was also only the third time this decade that temperatures ever rose above freezing at Greenland’s summit, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The big melting event took place across two days last weekend. These large-scale melts can do serious damage to the ice sheet even if they only last a few days.

The darker water can absorb the sun’s energy and cause the surrounding ice to melt faster, destabilizing the snow and firn below the surface. The blitz of water can screw up ice sheet dynamics in the longer term as well.

“During melt events, these processes can occur over parts of the ice sheet that do not typically experience melt, making the impact more widespread,” Lauren Andrews, a glaciologist with NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, said in a statement to NASA’s Earth Observatory. “Positive feedbacks like these are starting to take their toll.”

The weekend of rain adds yet another wrinkle to the mix. In addition to melting ice, it also creates issues for when it inevitably refreezes. Ice made by the compression of snow and firn is generally pretty white and reflective.

 Ice by way of rain is relatively smooth and dark, though, which means it will absorb more of the sun’s rays and be more prone to melting.

Before and after satellite images showing the impact of rain on the Greenland ice sheet. The cloud-free image was acquired on Aug. 12, 2021 while the rainy one was acquired on Aug. 15, 2021. Gif: Gizmodo (NASA Earth Observatory)

On Saturday, the extent of ice affected by melting peaked at 337,000 square miles (872,000 square kilometers), roughly half of the massive ice sheet. 

About two-thirds of the ice sheet melted in late July, and this marks only the second year on record the ice sheet has seen more than one melt event of more than 309,000 square miles (800,000 square kilometers).

What’s more, no melt event of that extent has ever been seen as late in the year as the one that just hit the ice sheet.

This summer is a warning sign of the horrors the climate crisis has in store. The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. Studies show that rain is becoming far more common, and that trend will continue as the climate crisis becomes more severe.
 
A 2020 report found that some Arctic regions will begin seeing rain instead of snow in any month of the year, even during the traditionally frigid winter.

Daily ice melt extent at the Greenland Ice Sheet during last week’s melt event. Photo: National Snow and Ice Data Center/T. Mote, University of Georgia
  

TheGreenland ice sheet meltdown is only one impact.

These shifts have also taken a massive toll on the region’s Indigenous populations and ecosystems, and they’re dangerous for those of us living far from the Arctic, too.
 
Last week’s major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showed that melt from Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets is causing seas to rise faster than at any point in the last 3,000 years.

A 2019 study found that if the world keeps emitting greenhouse gases at an increasing rate, ice melt from Greenland alone could cause sea levels to rise between up to a foot (.3 meters) by the end of the century, overwhelming coastal communities around the world. 

It would also eventually lead all of the ice sheet to disappear, albeit by the year 3000. That would raise sea levels 23 feet (7 meters). 
The only way to ward off that fate is to rapidly, urgently kick fossil fuels to the curb and draw down greenhouse gas emissions.
 
If we don’t, rain at the Greenland Summit Camp could become common—and could be the least of our problems.

Links

• It Rained at the Summit of Greenland. That’s Never Happened Before.
• Rain falls on peak of Greenland ice cap for first time on record
• Greenland rainfall has scientists worried about melting ice caps
• Explained: Why rain at Greenland summit is a cause for worry
• Rain Fell On The Peak Of Greenland's Ice Sheet For The First Time In Recorded History
• Warming Seas Are Accelerating Greenland's Glacier Retreat 
• Greenland: enough ice melted on single day to cover Florida in two inches of water
• Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study

(CBS News) How Climate Change Helped Strengthen The Taliban

CBS News - Cara Korte

Drought-displaced Afghan children carry water containers filled from a tanker at a camp for internally displaced people in the Injil district of Herat province, August 3, 2018. HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP via Getty Images

Rural Afghanistan has been rocked by climate change. The past three decades have brought floods and drought that have destroyed crops and left people hungry. And the Taliban — likely without knowing climate change was the cause — has taken advantage of that pain.

While agriculture is a source of income for more than 60% of Afghans, more than 80% of conflicts in the country are linked to natural resources, according to a joint study by the World Food Programme, the United Nations Environment Program and Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2019, Afghanistan ranked sixth in the world for countries most impacted by climate change, according to the Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index.

Over the last 20 years, agriculture has ranged from 20 to 40% of Afghanistan's GDP, according to the World Bank. The country is famous for its pomegranates, pine nuts, raisins and more. However, climate change has made farming increasingly difficult.

Whether from drought or flood-ravaged soil, farmers in the region struggle to maintain productive crops and livestock. When they cannot profitably farm, they're forced to borrow funds to survive. When Afghans can't pay off lenders, the Taliban often steps in to sow government resentment.

"If you've lost your crop and land or the Afghan government hasn't paid enough attention [to you] then of course, the Taliban can come and exploit it," said Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center.

The Taliban has capitalized on the agricultural stress and distrust in government to recruit supporters. Alam said the group has the means to pay fighters more, $5-$10 per day, than what they can make farming.

"[Farmers] fall into choices. That's when they become prey to people who would tell them, 'Look, the government is screwing you over and this land should be productive. They're not helping you. Come and join us; let's topple this government,'" said Nadim Farajalla, director of the climate change and environment program at the American University of Beirut.

In the mountainous north, snow and glaciers have melted more quickly and earlier than ever before, at times flooding fields and irrigation systems, but also leading to snowmelt-related drought in the winter. In the south and west, some areas have seen heavy precipitation events increase by 10 to 25% over the past 30 years.



Those regions are often left reeling, without adequate aid from the former government.

"With poverty and war and everything else, climate change is the last thing on anyone's mind," said Alam.

Today, one-third of Afghans are in "crisis" or "emergency" levels of food insecurity due to drought, a danger potentially more threatening than the historic 2018 drought that left thousands dead.

Farajalla said even Afghans who move into the urban areas in order to leave the stress of farming behind still cannot escape the pressures of "people of ill repute."

"They become destitute enough to be given a few dollars to join this party or that group."

The ripples of these climate-spurned Afghans can last for years. Farajalla said farmers who abandon their land often leave their families behind, arguably making those children easier recruiting targets for extremism.

Climate change has fueled terrorism and civil unrest elsewhere in the world. Boko Haram gripped water-scarce central Africa in 2017 as they gained footholds along the Lake Chad Basin.

ISIS has taken advantage of agrarian communities suffering from extreme drought in Iraq and Syria. Farajalla said arid or semi-arid areas in impoverished countries with low levels of education and poor infrastructure are all ripe for extremism.

The Taliban has not only used farmers and rural communities to fortify their ranks, but also to help fund their efforts by taxing farmers on their territory. Most crucially, they have controlled the uber-lucrative poppy trade in Afghanistan.

The country is the world's leading supplier of opium poppies. Not only has the Taliban made billions from their illicit drug trade, but poppies require less water than other crops, providing more stable means to struggling farming communities.

Poppy cultivation is most abundant in the south of the country, where drought in part fueled by climate change has been the most severe and the Taliban is most popular.

These partnerships have helped the Taliban's popularity. But since taking control of the country, the group has vowed to make the nation poppy-free — a tenuous political decision that would not be popular with the rural communities that rely on the crop, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"If they went to go for the ban quickly, they would cause themselves a huge economic downturn. They would set off massive miseration of the population. And they would have real problems with maintaining stability," she said.

"Their own fighters often harvest poppy. For many of the fighters, poppy was the principal source to help them fund their family and themselves. They could do jihad for months but would have to disengage to harvest so the family had food."

Links

• Climate Change In Afghanistan: What Does It Mean For Rural Livelihoods And Food Security (pdf)
• Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, value added (% of GDP) - Afghanistan
• Severe drought threatens three million Afghans
• Afghanistan’s Biggest Fight: Climate Change
• Drought compounds humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as conflict intensifies
• Climate and conflict as a vicious cycle: The case of Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: Hidden dangers of climate change
• Explore the overview for a general context of how climate change is affecting Afghanistan.
• Climate change drives migration in conflict-ridden Afghanistan

(The Conversation) Australia Is At Risk Of Taking The Wrong Tack At The Glasgow Climate Talks, And Slamming China Is Only Part Of It

The Conversation - Peter Martin

Joe Logan/Shutterstock

Author Peter Martin is Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.

Buried within the prime minister’s response to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is just about everything we’re at risk of getting wrong at the Glasgow climate talks in October.

After slamming China — whose emissions per person are half of Australia’s — for not doing more to cut emissions, Scott Morrison said the Glasgow talks were the “biggest multilateral global negotiation the world has ever known”.

If he treats the talks as just another (big) negotiation, we’re in trouble.

The way the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade usually treats negotiations is hold something back, hold out the prospect of “giving it up,” and then only make the concession if the other side gives something in return. Even if holding back damages Australia.

Cars are a case in point. From an economic point of view, there is no reason whatsoever to continue to impose tariffs (special taxes) on the import of cars — none, not even in the eyes of those who support the use of tariffs to protect Australian jobs. Australia no longer makes cars.

Yet the tariff remains, at 5%, making it perhaps A$1 billion harder than it should be for Australians to buy new cars (although nowhere near as hard as it was in the days when the tariff was 57.5%).

The tariff seems to be in place largely to give the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade something to negotiate away in trade agreements: for use as what the Productivity Commission calls “negotiating coin”.

Australia removed tariffs on cars from Korea but kept them in place more broadly. Tricky Shark/Shutterstock

Here’s how it worked in the 2014 Australia-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Australia agreed to remove the remaining 5% tariff on Korean cars, “with consumers and businesses to benefit from downward pressure on import prices”.

But Australia didn’t remove the tariff on car imports altogether, which would have given us a much bigger benefit but denied the department negotiating coin.

The next year the department did it again, agreeing to give up the tariff on imported Japanese cars in the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (but not on other cars) so Australians could “benefit from lower prices and/or greater availability of Japanese products”.

Two years later, it did it again, with cars from China.

When the UK and European agreements are negotiated, it’ll do it there too.

Australia holds back reforms

Eventually Australians will get what they are entitled to. But the point is that rather than advancing the cause of free trade, the department has held back, treating a win for the other side as a loss for us, when it wasn’t.

The Centre for International Economics believes the much bigger earlier set of tariff cuts lifted the living standard of the average Australian family by A$8,448.

Had our trade negotiators been in charge, we would still be waiting. Instead the Hawke and then the Keating governments pushed through unilateral reductions, asking for nothing in return.

As former Trade Minister Craig Emerson put it, this gave Australia “credibility in international trade negotiations way beyond the relative size of our economy”.

Does that sound like the sort of thing Australia might need at Glasgow, to have enough credibility to urge even bigger emitters to deliver the kind of cuts on which our futures and future temperatures depend?

It won’t work with China

The prime minister is right to say that China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, even though its emissions per person are low. Its high population means it accounts for 28% of all the greenhouse gases pumped out each year. The next biggest emitter, the United States, accounts for 15%

But China’s status is new. Until 2006 it pumped out less per year than the United States. Because the US has had mega-factories and heating and so on for so much longer, it is responsible for by far the biggest chunk of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere: 25%, followed by the European Union with 22%.

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China might reasonably feel that countries like the US that have done the most to create the problem should do the most to fix it.

Like Australia, the US pumps out twice as much per person as China and has much more room to cut back.

On the bright side, China knows that being big means it is in a position to make a difference to global emissions in a way that other countries cannot on their own. And that’s a position that can benefit its citizens.

China’s latest five-year plan, adopted in March, commits it to cut its “carbon intensity” (emissions per unit of GDP) by 18%. If it beats that five-year target by just a bit (and it has beaten its previous five-year targets) its emissions will turn down from 2025.

It is aiming for net-zero emissions by 2060.

Australia needs China’s help

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that Australia is especially susceptible to global warming. We’re facing less rain in winter, longer heatwaves, drier rivers, more arid soil and worse droughts.

We are right to want China to do more, but the worst way to achieve it is to say “we won’t lift our ambition until you lift yours”.

Hardly ever a worthwhile strategy, it is particularly ineffective when we don’t have bargaining power.

The only power we’ve got is to set an example, unilaterally, as we did with tariffs. And to ramp up our ambition.

If Australia said it would do more, and didn’t quibble, it might just count for something.

It’s all we can do, and it’s the very best we can do.

Links

• This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth's future. Here’s what you need to know
• Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns
• The coal price has skyrocketed in 2021 – what does it mean for net zero?
• This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know 
• Each Country's Share of CO2 Emissions
• Australia widely criticised over emission reduction targets ahead of COP26 climate talks

(AU ABC) Australia Widely Criticised Over Emission Reduction Targets Ahead Of COP26 Climate Talks

ABC News - Michael Slezak | Melissa Clarke

Fires are projected to get worse and more frequent due to global warming. (AAP: Dean Lewins, File photo)

This week has seen the UK, the US and others pile onto Australia's approach to climate change at a virtual conference on climate action.

The US President's deputy special envoy for climate change, Jonathan Pershing, told the Better Futures Forum on Thursday our current emissions reduction commitments were not enough.

"It would be really helpful to see Australia step forward with a more ambitious effort," Mr Pershing said. "I would submit that Australia could be much more aggressive."

Later in the day, the UK's Minister of State, Alok Sharma, who is president of the upcoming climate conference in Glasgow, called on Australia to do more.

"I urge Australia to step up with big, bold commitments ahead of COP26 in November," he said.

At the same conference earlier this week, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon said not taking more action risked Australia's international standing, and NSW Liberal environment minister Matt Kean said Australian climate politics needed to move beyond vested interests.

Australia is copping it from all sides. Why now?

Ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, the world wants tougher targets

In just over 70 days, the world is meeting in Glasgow for COP26, as the next round of UN climate talks are known.

At the meeting, countries are expected to announce new and more ambitious emissions reduction targets.

As Mr Pershing explained, the UK is leading the pack, with a pledge to cut emissions by 68 per cent by 2030. The EU has pledged a 55 per cent reduction and the US 52 per cent. 

The world needs to cut emissions roughly in half by 2030, and rich countries such as Australia are expected to lead the way.

But Australia has stuck with the same commitment it made in 2015 under Tony Abbott: 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

At the same time, all our major trading partners have committed to a net zero target, but Australia has so far resisted.

Ban Ki-moon put it bluntly: "Australia's current goal of a 26 to 28 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030, and the absence of a national zero emissions target, is out of step with its states, its trading partners, and other comparable nations. It is insufficient to meet Australia's Paris Agreement commitments."

Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon says Australia is out of step with its states and trading partners. (Reuters: Kim ngHo-Ji)

There are other things Australia can do, too

Many expect Australia will announce a net zero by 2050 target ahead of Glasgow.

But without stronger interim targets for 2030, that is unlikely to satisfy our global friends and neighbours.

COP26 will involve important discussions that go beyond emissions pledges, which could offer room for Australia to generate goodwill.

The IPCC report explained

Worse fires, longer droughts, and more severe floods — the projections from one of the world's most significant reports on climate change make for scary reading. Let's break down what it all means. Read more

How money will be mobilised to help the developing world mitigate and adapt to climate change is going to be an important discussion.

There was a target of mobilising $US100 billion ($139.5 billion) of global finance by 2020. How that's measured is a matter of some debate, but most agree the target has not been met.

Australia has a chequered history on the issue.

Under the Abbott government, Australia supported the Green Climate Fund, which seeks to raise finance to assist the developing world.

Australia even chaired it.

When Scott Morrison became Prime Minister, following Donald Trump's lead, he withdrew Australia from the fund, telling talkback radio he would not "tip money into that big climate fund".

Australia did stand by its commitment to provide climate finance, just through other channels.

IPCC report and Australia

The latest IPCC report does not make for particularly uplifting reading. But if you are keen to delve further into the details, it does say quite a bit about Australia. Read more

Despite that, the move was condemned by some of our Pacific neighbours, and now the US has rejoined the fund, Australia is the only developed country not part of it.

Australia could probably win some goodwill by playing a constructive role in discussions around finance.

There are other options. Mr Pershing suggested Australia could help reduce its impact on emissions in other countries too by reducing its coal exports. And important negotiations will take place around adaptation targets and carbon markets as well.

What about Australia's 'technology, not taxes' approach?

Mr Morrison has been ardent in his promotion of "technology, not taxes" as a way of tackling climate change.

This is a reference to the Coalition's Technology Investment Roadmap, which guides $18 billion into five priority areas: hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, soil carbon, energy storage options and "low-carbon" steel and aluminium production.

The initiative does have international support, acknowledging technological breakthroughs in these areas could help both developed and developing countries alike lower their emissions in the future.

But it doesn't cut it as an emissions reduction target.

There is no guarantee these technological breakthroughs will happen at all, let alone quickly and successfully enough to make them competitive with existing methods of electricity generation and manufacturing in the next decade.

The US, UK and others want Australia to commit to targets and time frames. That way, if the technological breakthroughs don't happen, Australia will be compelled to find other ways to reduce emissions.

How does Labor's policy stack up?

With a federal election due sooner rather than later, it is possible the ALP, rather than the Coalition, could be dealing with climate change policy.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has already committed to the net zero by 2050 target and Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has now acknowledged stronger interim targets are needed as well.

"Net zero emissions by 2050 is necessary, but not sufficient," he told the Better Futures Forum.

"A strong roadmap there is important, too."

But he declined to outline what that would involve, beyond the vague statement: "Australia should take a higher medium-term target to COP26 in November."

Labor's centrepiece energy policy is the $20 billion Rewire the Nation plan, which would see direct investment in the energy transmission network.

That investment is needed to accommodate the growth in wind, solar and hydro-power generation scattered around the countryside, not to mention the growth in rooftop solar feeding into what used to be a one-way grid.

Labor's Rewire The Nation plan would see direct investment in the energy transmission network, which is needed to accommodate growth in wind and solar energy. (Getty Images: Dean Mouhtaropoulos)

But, like the Coalition's Technology Investment Roadmap, it doesn't hold Australia to account to meet its share of emissions reduction in a feasible time frame to limit global warming.

So how will this play out?

In the next 70 days, we can expect to see the US, UK and other developed countries ratchet up the pressure on Australia.

Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor is standing firm on the government's approach for now.

"While ambition is important, outcomes are what ultimately matter," he said. 

"Over the last two years, our position against our 2030 target has improved by more than 639 million tonnes. That is equivalent to taking all of Australia’s 14.7 million cars off the road for 15 years."   

"Australia will continue to act in a practical, responsible way to be part of the global solution to reduce emissions without destroying jobs or regional communities."

The US and UK are currently coaxing and cajoling Australia, but expect more muscle flexing if Australia doesn't show that it is willing to come on board with stronger action.

The EU is forging ahead with a "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism", a bureaucratic name for a tariff on goods that are produced in nations that don't meet emissions reduction benchmarks.

Mr Biden has indicated the US intends to follow suit with a similar trade policy.

If Mr Morrison does not do enough to convince the world Australia is serious about contributing to global emissions cuts, as Ban Ki-moon warned, the nation's reputation and its trading strength could be badly damaged.

Links

• If Morrison treats the Glasgow climate talks as another negotiation, we're in trouble. Here's why
• What does the latest IPCC report mean for Australia?
• Other world leaders have called a UN report on climate change a 'wake-up call', but Australia's PM isn't going to budge
• Temperature rises as time runs out for both the planet and for Coalition action on climate change
• Humans have not existed in a climate like this before — and it's getting worse
• One of the most comprehensive climate reports ever was released last night. Here's what you may have missed
• 'Many things will happen, mostly bad': The blast from the past that shows how long we’ve ignored climate change

(AU Canberra Times) Resources Industry Must Clean Up Its Act Or Get Out Of The Way

Canberra Times - Michael Allen

Fossil-fuel industries and their peak bodies are adept at painting themselves as partners on the way to climate solutions. Give me a break. Picture: Shutterstock

Author Michael Allen is a former chief financial officer for listed resource companies and has worked in senior executive positions for companies including AngloGold, Anglo American and Resolute Mining. He is treasurer of renewable-energy think tank Sustainable Energy Now.

As someone who has worked in the resources industry for three decades, much of it as a chief financial officer for major mining companies, it has been frustrating over the past week to see how the oil and gas industry has tried to position itself as part of the solution to lowering emissions and tackling climate change - rather than acknowledging it is a large part of the problem.

Let us be clear at the start: gas is a fossil fuel that's driving climate change.

Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are not only continuing to grow but accelerating. Experts like the Climate Council's Professor Will Steffen, the former executive director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, largely attribute this increase to the gas industry's expansion.

This is what exacerbating climate change looks like - not solving it. The industry's mouthpiece, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, simply has no valid claim to being part of the solution when it and its members are aggressively pushing to expand gas extraction.

Parts of our economy today still rely on oil and gas, but the only course of action compatible with net-zero emissions and a safe climate is to spare no effort in the transition to cleaner options like renewable energy or alternative materials - not prolonging existing, dangerous incumbents like gas.

It is also a cop out for the gas industry to mention the royalties companies pay, without also mentioning the billions of dollars of public subsidies the industry receives and the minimal tax many of those same companies pay. Let's see them published together.

Instead, to protect their profits, fossil-fuel companies have perpetuated decades of misinformation about climate change, spent billions on political donations to stall climate action and secured public funding for a "gas-led recovery".

When it comes to climate change, fossil fuels - like coal, oil and gas - are the cause, because they are the biggest driver of greenhouse gas emissions.

Links

• (AU ABC) Legal Challenge Launched Against Federal Government's $21 Million Beetaloo Basin Grant
• (AU The Guardian) Western Australia Gas Project ‘Would Create More Emissions Than Adani And Damage Indigenous Rock Art’
• (Big Think) Hey, Methane Leakers: Now We Know Where You Live
• (AU The Conversation) Four seismic climate wins show Big Oil, Gas and Coal are running out of places to hide
• (AU The Guardian) Why Is Australia Building A $600m Gas Power Plant As World Experts Warn Against Fossil Fuels?
• (AU The Guardian) Australia Urged To Drop Coal And Gas Plans After Global Energy Agency’s Warning
• (USA New Yorker) It’s Time To Kick Gas
• (AU The Guardian) The 2021 Federal Budget Was Light On Climate And Environment Measures. But Here’s What You Should Know

(Grist) New UN Report Could Be A Game-Changer For Climate Lawsuits

Grist -  Joseph Winters

"The IPCC report should be a sort of rallying call to lawyers."

Cristina Vega Rhor / AFP via Getty Images

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report, released on Monday, contained some of the group’s strongest language yet affirming the link between human activity and global warming.

Humans have “unequivocally” warmed the planet, the IPCC report said, making heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires more extreme in the process. While that might seem like a no-brainer to some, it’s a finding that could have big implications for lawsuits seeking to hold polluters accountable for disaster damages.

“The IPCC report should be a sort of rallying call to lawyers,” said Rupert Stuart-Smith, a climate researcher at the University of Oxford, “to ensure that they are making use of the most up-to-date developments in climate science.”

The specific field of science that examines the connection between extreme weather events and human activity is called “climate change attribution.” According to the IPCC, scientists have gotten much better at this over the past decade, and can now more rigorously pin extreme heat, heavy precipitation, dry spells, and hurricanes on big carbon emitters.

For years, plaintiffs around the world have sought to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their contributions to climate change — often seeking compensation for damages like economic losses from floods or wildfires. But these cases have been stymied by a lack of causal evidence. That is, plaintiffs have struggled to prove in the courtroom that they have suffered economic damages due to the activities of the oil and gas companies they are litigating.

Take, for example, the 2008 case of Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., in which Native Alaskans sued ExxonMobil and 23 other energy giants for damages associated with coastal erosion. The plaintiffs said the erosion had been exacerbated by climate change.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the villagers’ case, citing a dearth of causal evidence. “It is not plausible to state which emissions — emitted by whom … and at what point in the world — ‘caused’ Plaintiffs’ alleged global-warming related injuries,” the court ruled.

Left: A young boy in Kivalina, Alaska, watches workers fill sandbags for a sea wall in 2007. Right: Coastal erosion has caused many houses, like this one near Kivalina, to sink into the ocean. Image credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, AP Photo / Diana Haecker

According to Stuart-Smith, however, that’s no longer true. Thanks to the rapidly advancing field of attribution science, researchers now have the tools needed to attribute natural disasters to human-induced climate change, and to determine individual companies’ contributions to them.

“This kind of scientific evidence exists, the methods are robust, and they’re widely accepted in the scientific community,” Stuart-Smith said.

But that evidence isn’t yet being used in the majority of climate-related lawsuits. According to a paper Stuart-Smith co-published in Nature Climate Change this June, plaintiffs tend to claim that they have been damaged by oil and gas companies’ contributions to climate change without citing strong enough evidence: Nearly three-quarters of of the 73 cases analyzed in the study didn’t refer to any peer-reviewed attribution studies at all.

Those that did incorporate attribution science tended to do so in a general way, drawing broad links between emissions and climate change impacts, rather than making a causal link to specific damages sustained by the plaintiff.

To build a better legal case in climate lawsuits, Stuart-Smith said, plaintiffs must first establish the contribution of an individual emitter to climate change using what’s known as source attribution. In other words, “How much has an individual fossil fuel company contributed to climate change?” Stuart-Smith explained.

That calculation may be easier than it sounds, considering there is already a robust and well-used body of literature on the topic. Much of the field builds on seminal research from the Climate Accountability Institute, which in 2014 published a paper quantifying the top fossil fuel companies’ contribution to global warming.

“We’re citing the hell out of it,” said Pat Parenteau, a law professor at Vermont Law School. 

But Parenteau said legal groups could do more with newer attribution science tools focused on “impact attribution,” which can draw a direct line between human activity and the consequences of climate-related extreme weather events.

For example, earlier this summer when the Pacific Northwest was scorched by a record-breaking “heat dome,” climate scientists were quickly able to determine that the event was made 150 times more likely due to climate change.

“Basically without climate change, this event would not have happened,”said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, in an interview with Buzzfeed.

Such analyses would be relatively straightforward for many other climate-related impacts, Stuart-Smith explained, if plaintiffs knew to commission and use them. Combined with robust evidence from source attribution, those tools could help plaintiffs overcome the evidentiary hurdle needed to prove that oil and gas companies’ activities contributed to their economic losses.

Parenteau expressed optimism that the IPCC report’s high profile would remind lawyers of the importance of quality attribution science as they build their evidentiary cases. He’s paying attention to ongoing cases in California, where strong tort laws — a branch of laws that govern remedies for civil wrongs — could help cities like San Mateo and Oakland win cases against big polluters like Chevron.

“The real show is yet to come,” Parenteau said, “but you can be sure that the plaintiffs’ lawyers are well aware not only of the IPCC report itself, but of the contributing scientists and what their studies are showing.”

Links

• (AU ABC) Human Rights Issue Or 'Green Lawfare'? Citizens Take To The Courts To Fight Climate Change
• (Legal) Climate Change Cases Doubled Past Six Years
• (AU ABC Law Report) Climate Change Litigation
• (AU SBS) In A Critical Year For Climate Justice, These Torres Strait Islanders Are Leading The Fight
• (UK BBC) Climate Change: Courts Set For Rise In Compensation Cases
• (UK The Guardian) New Climate Science Could Cause Wave Of Litigation Against Businesses – Study