09/11/2019

(UK) Judges Overrule London Police Ban On Extinction Rebellion Climate Protests

Reuters - Laurie Goering

"The right to protest is a longstanding fundamental right in a democratic society that should be guarded, not prohibited by overzealous policing," an Extinction Rebellion lawyer says
Protesters fill the area at the Extinction Rebellion climate change protest in Trafalgar Square in London, October 16, 2019. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Anna Scholz-Carlson



 LONDON - Police overstepped the law in issuing a blanket ban on protests by Extinction Rebellion climate activists in October, London High Court judges ruled on Wednesday, in a decision the group hailed as "an immense victory for the right to protest".
In their decision, the judges agreed with Extinction Rebellion's lawyers that police were wrong to use Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to prohibit upcoming protests planned as part of the movement's two-week "Autumn Uprising".
The Metropolitan Police Service invoked Section 14 after the first week of protests blocked traffic across the city, including in its main financial district, and targeted firms demonstrators said profited from or funded activities driving climate change.
The police service said it was "disappointed" by Wednesday's ruling, reiterating that the protests had caused widespread disruption in London and pulled officers away from other duties.
Tobias Garnett, a human rights lawyer working with Extinction Rebellion, said the movement was "delighted" with the judgment on what he called "an unprecedented and unlawful infringement on the right to protest".
"This was obviously an over-extension of police power," he told reporters outside the court.
The Metropolitan Police was unlikely to appeal the ruling, he said, as the judges had made it "fairly clear they acted beyond their power".
The police service said it was still considering whether to appeal.
The decision means the more than 400 Extinction Rebellion protesters arrested after the ban was imposed would now see charges against them dismissed, Garnett said.
The ruling also opens the way for some of them, as individuals, to seek compensation for false imprisonment if they choose, he added.
Ellie Chowns, a Green Party Member of the European Parliament who was among those arrested for gathering in London's Trafalgar Square following the ban, called the decision "an immense victory for the right to protest".
The Extinction Rebellion protests "have played such a critical role in making the politicians pay attention" to climate change threats, she said, calling the decision to restrict them "disproportionate and dangerous".
Section 14 allows police to make arrests "to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community" during a protest.
"The police have powers to impose conditions to manage protests but not to ban them," Jules Carey, a lawyer acting for Extinction Rebellion, said in a statement.
"This judgment is a timely reminder to those in authority facing a climate of dissent (that) the right to protest is a longstanding fundamental right in a democratic society that should be guarded, not prohibited by overzealous policing," he added.
Outside the High Court, a small crowd of Extinction Rebellion activists expressed relief at the decision.
"It's essential we protect the right to peaceful protest. It would be a slippery slope if we let this (ban) stand," said Caroline Saville, a London resident standing in front of a blue banner reading, "You can't arrest everyone and remain legitimate".
Jim Cooper, another activist, said the ruling was a "moral victory" but that a loss in court would not have affected the movement's plans to carry out more non-violent protests to demand urgent action on climate change threats.
"We will continue no matter what. Our goal is to disrupt, to make people aware of what's going on," he said.
Lawyer Garnett said Extinction Rebellion was grateful for Britain's strong record on human rights and expressed sympathy for climate activists in other nations who were protesting "without these protections to rely on".
Gracie Bradley, of civil rights organisation Liberty, said Wednesday's ruling would "help safeguard future protests from police overreach".

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Past Antarctic Ice Melt Reveals Potential For 'Extreme Sea-Level Rise'

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Sea levels rose as much as three metres per century during the last interglacial period as Antarctic ice sheets melted, a pace that could be exceeded in the future, given the turbo-charged potential of human-led climate change.
A study led by Australian National University researchers, published in Nature Communications, found sea-level increases during the last major melt of about 130,000 years ago were faster than models have factored in, even though the "climate forcing" from greenhouse gases is much stronger today.
The Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica began to break up in the 1990s. Others are expected to follow, particularly those with large exposure to the warming Southern Ocean. Credit: FDC
Using evidence ranging from Red Sea sediments to fossil corals, the scientists reconstructed the ancient climate. They showed how ocean circulation slowed, leading the Southern Hemisphere to warm up and triggering the Antarctic and then Greenland ice sheets to melt.
At its fastest – about 125,000 years ago when temperatures were about a degree warmer than now – sea levels rose as much as 3.4 metres per 100 years for several centuries.
"We don't predict the future, but we show what nature can do even without human interference in the climate," Eelco Rohling, the paper's lead author and a professor at ANU's College of Science, said. "Nature knows how to go much quicker than we thought."
Fiona Hibbert, the paper's second author and also at ANU, said the findings reveal Antarctica's "really, really big contribution" to sea-level rise, a finding that was "potentially quite startling" for its implications.
"The rate of warming is much faster this time – the warming is more extreme – and it's happening at both poles at the same time," Dr Hibbert said.
The research will reignite debate over whether the general consensus that sea levels will rise only about one metre by 2100 - as argued in the latest paper by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - is too conservative.
"They calculate very much the sea-level rise without ice sheet contribution," Professor Rohling said.
"Some really fast things have happened in the past," he said. "We need to go to fully coupled models with ice sheets, and have all the physics represented that could be activated."
Waves engulf the Seaham Lighthouse in Durham, England, in early 2016. Sea-level rises may be a lot more than currently predicted by climate models because they largely exclude ice sheet contribution. Credit: PA
If all the ice in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted, sea levels would rise about 60 metres, he said.
"As soon as it's more than four metres, all of the big coastal cities are going to have to be moved," Professor Rohling said.
Taryn Noble, a marine geochemist at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, said the paper was "a really important contribution. It shows us what the natural system is capable of."
The paper revealed complex systems "can change more rapidly than we thought", Dr Noble said, adding "we've not yet seen the full impact of the temperature changes that we have set off".
Professor Rohling said some of the processes that were part of the earlier melt are already evident. For instance, the flush of fresh water from melting Greenland ice had started to slow the Gulf Stream in recent decades.
"We are seeing the first responses ... and we're really worried about it," he said.
Even without any further "forcing" from extra greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures will rise about half a degree by 2100 and a further degree by 2200 as slow-warming areas such as the deep sea and ice caps catch up, Professor Rohling said.

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(NZ) 'This Is Our Nuclear Moment': Jacinda Ardern Leads New Zealand To Pass Climate Change Law

SBS - AAP

Jacinda Ardern's coalition government has delivered its flagship climate policy, passing the Zero Carbon Bill through the New Zealand parliament.



Zero Carbon Bill
The New Zealand prime minister's zero-carbon bill has passed in parliament with historic cross-party support. 
It commits the country to new climate change laws and to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2050 in line with the Paris climate agreement.
The bill passed by 119 votes to one with the centre-right opposition National party's support, despite none of its proposed amendments being accepted.
New Zealand's parliament has achieved the holy grail of environmental politics - a consensus on climate change policy.
Jacinda Ardern's government landed their flagship climate legislation, the Zero Carbon Bill, on Thursday with the support of the conservative opposition.
Such a consensus has proved elusive in Australian politics, frustrating environmentalists and industry alike over the last two decades.
The bill legislates New Zealand's emissions targets under the Paris Agreement and creates an independent Climate Change Commission to steer government policy.
Ms Ardern delivered a remarkable off-the-cuff speech in parliament just prior to the bill's passing, likening the occasion to anti-nuclear protests that defined the country's politics in the 1980s.
"For this generation, this is our nuclear moment," she said.
"We have to start working beyond targets. We have to start working beyond aspiration. We have to start moving beyond signs of hope and deliver signs of action. That is what this government is doing and proudly so."
The Coalition Government - comprised of Labour, the Green party and NZ First - didn't need the support of the opposition National party to pass the bill.
However, Greens co-leader and climate change minister James Shaw courted the conservative side of politics in order to secure the future viability of the policy.
"Some things are too big for politics. And the biggest of all is the climate crisis," he said.
"Everyone has had to give way, even a little. But this is bigger than all of us.
"This bill delivers on some of the most important work of the Green movement over many decades."
The prime minister's passion was evident in her address.
"New Zealand will not be a slow follower," Ms Ardern boomed.
"We are here because the world is warming, undeniably it is warming.
"I'm proud of the fact ... we're no longer having the debate over whether or not it is the case, we're debating what to do about it."
The opposition moved seven amendments to the bill - which all failed - before National supported the legislation anyway.
Thousands of people marched on NZ Parliament to protest climate change in September. AAP
Opposition leader Simon Bridges, who pledged to make the changes should they win next year's election, noted it was his party that agreed to the Paris targets in April 2016.
"There are parts of this bill I disagree with. I strongly disagree with," he said.
"We have taken a bipartisan approach to climate change, but we will continue to fight for the changes we think will make the law better."
The bill wasn't totally supported inside the parliament or out.
Judith Collins, a senior National often mentioned as a leadership aspirant, delivered a fiery speech, suggesting a policy reversion should she displace Bridges.
The one-man libertarian party ACT signalled opposition, only to miss the vote.
Lobby group Federated Farmers also pointed to methane targets that they believed would reduce production.
"New Zealand farmers are proud to be the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world," vice president Andrew Hoggard said.
"Forcing them to reduce production is not only going to make New Zealand poorer but will likely increase global emissions, so we will effectively be shooting ourselves in both feet."
Greenpeace, usually a staunch critic of the coalition, praised the government - as well as grassroots campaigners who provided momentum for its passage.
"Climate change won't be fixed by the Zero Carbon Act alone," campaigner Amanda Larsson said.
"The government must now implement bold and courageous policies that will roll out heaps of new solar and wind energy, replace dirty transport with clean alternatives, and support farmers to transition from industrial to regenerative agriculture."


Jacinda Ardern: 'On the right side of history'

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08/11/2019

Italy To Become First Country To Make Learning About Climate Change Compulsory For School Students

CNN - Gianluca Mezzofiore

A student bounces an inflatable earth beach ball during a protest against global warming by the Colosseum (Colosseo, Colisee) in central Rome on March 15, 2019. ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images
From next year, Italian school students in every grade will be required to study climate change and sustainability, in an attempt to position the country as a world leader in environmental education.
Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti, of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, said all public schools will include about 33 hours a year in their curricula to study issues linked to climate change.
The lessons will be built into existing civics classes, which will have an "environmentalist footprint" from September 2020, Vincenzo Cramarossa, Fioramonti's spokesman, told CNN.
"The idea is that the citizens of the future need to be ready for the climate emergency," Cramarossa said.
In addition, sustainable development will appear in more traditional subjects, such as geography, maths and physics, Cramarossa said.
"There will be more attention to climate change when teaching those traditional subjects," he explained.
Fioramonti, an economics professor at South Africa's Pretoria University, told Reuters in an interview that the entire ministry "is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model."
"I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school," he said.


What you can actually do to slow the climate crisis

Cramarossa said a panel of scientific experts, including Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Development, and American economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, will help the ministry redevelop the national curriculum to pay more attention to climate change and sustainability.
"It's a world's first to have a (compulsory) national education in that sense," Cramarossa said.
The Five Star Movement, to which Fioramonti belongs, has a history of environmental concern and grassroots activism.
Since becoming minister, Fioramonti has been criticized by right-wing opposition parties for supporting striking students protesting climate change and backing taxes on plastic and sugary drinks.

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(Global) Most Countries' Climate Plans 'Totally Inadequate' – Experts

The Guardian - 

US and Brazil unlikely to meet Paris agreement pledges
- while Russia has not even made one
Smoke and steam billows from Bełchatów power station in Poland, Europe’s largest coal-fired power plant. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters 
The world is on a path to climate disaster, with three-quarters of the commitments made by countries under the Paris agreement “totally inadequate”, according to a comprehensive expert analysis.
Four nations produce half of all carbon emissions but the US has gone into reverse in tackling the climate emergency under Donald Trump while Russia has failed to make any commitment at all.
Other major oil-producing nations, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have set no targets to reduce emissions. China and India are cleaning up their energy systems but their surging economies mean emissions will continue to grow for a decade.
Under the 2015 Paris deal, countries agreed to limit global heating to 2C, or 1.5C if possible. Each country makes a voluntary pledge of climate action, but to date these would result in global temperatures rising by a disastrous 3-4C. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2018 that emissions, which are still rising, must fall by 50% by 2030 to be on track for 1.5C.
Only the 28 countries of the European Union and a few others including Norway, Switzerland and Ukraine are on track. Of the 184 national Paris pledges made, 136 are judged insufficient in the report, published by the Universal Ecological Fund.

Three-quarters of Paris agreement commitments
are insufficient to tackle climate change, say experts
Guardian graphic. Source: Universal Ecological Fund, The truth behind the climate pledges
Another problem is many pledges are unlikely to be met, due to the US withdrawing from the Paris agreement, Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, reversing environmental policies, or because poorer nations do not get the funding they need – the US and Australia have stopped making such contributions.
“The current pledges made under the Paris agreement are totally inadequate to put us on a pathway to meet either the 1.5C or the 2C goal,” said the report’s author, Prof Sir Robert Watson, a former IPCC chair and scientific adviser to the UK and US governments. “With just 1C warming so far, we are already seeing some very significant effects. The effects at 3-4C will be very profound on people around the world.”
“When you see a country like Russia not even putting a pledge on the table, it is extremely disturbing,” he said. “Saudi Arabia and Russia rely heavily on their fossil fuels but that is no excuse. Those that have not effectively made any pledges yet really should be shamed into being part of the solution.”
Harvard University’s James McCarthy, a co-author of the report, said: “Failing to reduce emissions drastically and rapidly will result in an environmental and economic disaster from human-induced climate change.”
Failing to halve emissions by 2030 means the number of hurricanes, severe storms, wildfires and droughts are likely double in number and intensity, the scientists said, costing $2bn (£1,55bn) a day within a decade. To avoid this, the scale of climate change action must double or triple, they said.


California wildfires: what role has the climate crisis played? – video explainer 

The Paris agreement does allow for nations to ratchet up their commitments. “This report demonstrates we need to ratchet badly, and as quickly as possible,” said Watson.
China and India should be applauded for improving their energy systems, he said, but their emissions must peak. However, Watson said it was difficult to expect leadership from these nations when those with the biggest historical emissions, like the US, were not doing so.
The report concluded that countries that had pledged between 20-40% emission reductions by 2030 needed to do much better, including Australia, Canada and Japan.
“Leaders need to adopt new policies to close coal-fired power plants and promote renewable and carbon-free power sources such as wind, solar and hydropower,” said McCarthy. That means closing 2,400 coal-fired power stations around the world in the next decade and tackling the 250 new coal-powered units that are under construction.
Improved energy efficiency is also critical, said co-author Prof Nebojsa Nakicenovic, at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, potentially saving households around the world $500bn a year in energy bills.
From cars to homes to industry, he said, the potential of energy efficiency was so great that if implemented no extra energy would be required in 2030, despite the fact that global population was expected to be 1.2bn higher than today.

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(AU) Australia Could Fall Apart Under Climate Change. But There’s A Way To Avoid It

The Conversation - 

Iron ore piles at Dampier, Western Australia. Australia could convert iron oxide to metal for export, producing it with no emissions. CHRISTIAN SPROGOE/ Rio Tinto
Ross Garnaut conducted the 2008 and 2011 climate reviews for the Rudd and Gillard governments. 
His book, Superpower – Australia’s Low-Carbon Opportunity, is published by BlackInc with La Trobe University Press.
Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to 2°C, and as close as possible to 1.5°C.
The bad news is that four years on the best that we can hope for is holding global increases to around 1.75°C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.
A failure to act here, accompanied by similar paralysis in other countries, would see our grandchildren living with temperature increases of around 4°C this century, and more beyond.
I have spent my life on the positive end of discussion of Australian domestic and international policy questions. But if effective global action on climate change fails, I fear the challenge would be beyond contemporary Australia. I fear that things would fall apart.

There is reason to hope
It’s not all bad news.
What we know today about the effect of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases broadly confirms the conclusions I drew from available research in previous climate change reviews in 2008 and 2011. I conducted these for, respectively, state and Commonwealth governments, and a federal cross-parliamentary committee.
But these reviews greatly overestimated the cost of meeting ambitious reduction targets.
The Yallourn coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria. David Crosling/AAP

There has been an extraordinary fall in the cost of equipment for solar and wind energy, and of technologies to store renewable energy to even out supply. Per person, Australia has natural resources for renewable energy superior to any other developed country and far superior to our customers in northeast Asia.
Australia is by far the world’s largest exporter of iron ore and aluminium ores. In the main they are processed overseas, but in the post-carbon world we will be best positioned to turn them into zero-emission iron and aluminium.
In such a world, there will be no economic sense in any aluminium or iron smelting in Japan or Korea, not much in Indonesia, and enough to cover only a modest part of domestic demand in China and India. The European commitment to early achievement of net-zero emissions opens a large opportunity there as well.
Converting one quarter of Australian iron oxide and half of aluminium oxide exports to metal would add more value and jobs than current coal and gas combined.
Australia’s vast wind and solar energy resources mean it is well-placed to export industrial products in a low-carbon global economy. Flickr

A natural supplier to the world’s industry
With abundant low-cost electricity, Australia could grow into a major global producer of minerals needed in the post-carbon world such as lithium, titanium, vanadium, nickel, cobalt and copper. It could also become the natural supplier of pure silicon, produced from sand or quartz, for which there is fast-increasing global demand.
Other new zero-emissions industrial products will require little more than globally competitive electricity to create. These include ammonia, exportable hydrogen and electricity transmitted by high-voltage cables to and through Indonesia and Singapore to the Asian mainland.
Australia’s exceptional endowment of forests and woodlands gives it an advantage in biological raw materials for industrial processes. And there’s an immense opportunity for capturing and sequestering, at relatively low cost, atmospheric carbon in soils, pastures, woodlands, forests and plantations.
Modelling conducted for my first report suggested that Australia would import emissions reduction credits, however today I expect Australia to cut domestic emissions to the point that it sells excess credits to other nations.
Tall white gum trees in northern Tasmania. Australia has huge potential to store more carbon in forests and woodlands. BARBARA WALTON/EPA
The transition is an economic winner
Technologies to produce and store zero-emissions energy and sequester carbon in the landscape are highly capital-intensive. They have therefore benefited exceptionally from the historic fall in global interest rates over the past decade. This has reduced the cost of transition to zero emissions, accentuating Australia’s advantage.
In 2008 the comprehensive modelling undertaken for the Garnaut Review suggested the transition would entail a noticeable (but manageable) sacrifice of Australian income in the first half of this century, followed by gains that would grow late into the second half of this century and beyond.
Today, calculations using similar techniques would give different results. Australia playing its full part in effective global efforts to hold warming to 2°C or lower would show economic gains instead of losses in early decades, followed by much bigger gains later on.
If Australia is to realise its immense opportunity in a zero-carbon world, it will need a different policy framework. But we can make a strong start even with the incomplete and weak policies and commitments we have. Policies to help complete the transition can be built in a political environment that has been changed by early success.

Three crucial steps
Three early policy developments are needed. None contradicts established federal government policy.
First, the regulatory system has to focus strongly on the security and reliability of electricity supplies, as it comes to be drawn almost exclusively from intermittent renewable sources.
A high-voltage electricity transmission tower in the Brisbane central business district. Darren England/AAP



Second, the government must support transformation of the power transmission system to allow a huge expansion of supply from regions with high-quality renewable energy resources not near existing transmission cables. This is likely to require new mechanisms to support private initiatives.
Third, the Commonwealth could secure a globally competitive cost of capital by underwriting new investment in reliable (or “firmed”) renewable electricity. This was a recommendation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s retail electricity price inquiry, and has been adopted by the Morrison government.

We must get with the Paris program
For other countries to import large volumes of low-emission products from us, we will have to accept and be seen as delivering on emissions reduction targets consistent with the Paris objectives.
Paris requires net-zero emissions by mid-century. Developed countries have to reach zero emissions before then, so their interim targets have to represent credible steps towards that conclusion.
Japan, Korea, the European Union and the United Kingdom are the natural early markets for zero-emissions steel, aluminum and other products. China will be critically important. Indonesia and India and their neighbours in southeast and south Asia will sustain Australian exports of low-emissions products deep into the future.
An electric car being charged. Australia has good supplies of lithium, used in electric vehicle batteries. Ian Langsdon/EPA



For the European Union, reliance on Australian exports of zero-emissions products would only follow assessments that we were making acceptable contributions to the global mitigation effort.
We will not get to that place in one step, or soon. But likely European restrictions on imports of high-carbon products, which will exempt those made with low emissions, will allow us a good shot.
Movement will come gradually, initially with public support for innovation; then suddenly, as business and government leaders realise the magnitude of the Australian opportunity, and as humanity enters the last rush to avoid being overwhelmed by the rising costs of climate change.
The pace will be governed by progress in decarbonisation globally. That will suit us, as our new strengths in the zero-carbon world grow with the retreat of the old. We have an unparalleled opportunity. We are more than capable of grabbing it.

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07/11/2019

(US/China) The U.S. And China Need To Put Aside Their Rivalry And Focus On The Common Enemy: Climate Change

TIME - Christine Loh | Robert Gottlieb

Getty Images
Authors
The U.S. worries that China has become a political and economic threat. China worries that the U.S. is attempting to constrain it. These concerns increasingly resemble a classic Cold War conflict.
Such security threats are misplaced. Trade wars and technology competition notwithstanding, there is one overarching global security concern that by its very nature should lead to collaboration and cooperation rather than Cold War antagonism: climate change.
We are today witnessing a devastating global crisis in the making. It is happening worldwide, even as climate change’s impacts are immediately felt locally, regionally, and nationally. Make no mistake—ferocious climate events are not just causing extensive physical damage and loss of livelihood—they are creating insecurities that will grow each year and subsume all other existing security fears.
In the U.S., the annual average temperature has increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2016 and is expected to continue to rise, possibly doubling in just one or two decades. China’s official climate change assessment is even more sobering. As many as 641 of its 654 largest cities now experience regular flooding and Shanghai, one of the most prone to serious flooding, has already built 520 km of seawalls defending the city.
Around the world, climate change impacts could create destabilizing crises in migrations of climate refugees, water availability, and food production, as well as climate-related disasters from massive and intense storms to fire, flooding, and deterioration of air quality. More and more, climate change will dominate political discourse, economic activity, and people’s well-being.
The U.S. and China are vulnerable because both countries place such a high premium on security. Yet current responses about climate insecurity are minimal, particularly in the U.S. under the current administration. Instead, the U.S. is building walls to keep immigrants and climate refugees out, while heavily promoting fossil fuel development and undermining rather than encouraging decarbonization initiatives. In China, climate concerns have increased substantially in the past ten years and efforts have been made to reduce domestic coal production. Yet, China is also the leading investor in financing coal plants globally that are generating more than 5,000 MW of energy, according to Global Energy Monitoring.
The U.S. and China have a special global responsibility with climate change. The U.S. has been the largest contributor historically to carbon emissions in the past 150 years and remains the largest per capita contributor today. China, meanwhile, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases by volume. At the same time, the U.S., under the the Trump administration, is in denial about its role, while China, even as it focuses on decarbonization domestically, has not played a leading role globally through its external development policies.
Today, to make matters worse, the U.S. and China—through trade wars, technology disputes, and nationalist rhetoric—are creating a new Cold War environment. The future does not belong to globalists, Trump declared at the U.N., it belongs to patriots. Security, both countries assert, is a domestic priority. Yet, when it involves climate change, the Cold War-type environment precludes what is crucial in this period: global action, collaboration, cooperation, and Earth Care. If security is the goal for the U.S. and China, both countries are undermining that goal through their failure to work together, whether through sharing technologies, or dramatic shifts in energy, food, and development policies (jointly and globally pursued).
Such collaboration could extend beyond government-to-government relations to community and institutional connections, such as the initiative of the University of California at Berkeley and Tsinghua University to form a California-China Climate Institute. It could also involve grassroots collaborations such as those regarding sustainable agriculture programs and shipping emission reductions. And it could include major support and financing of alternative energy and decarbonization projects throughout the developing world, as those countries seek their own transition to a green development future.
The U.S. and China have the capacity to make their own countries more secure; even more importantly, they can make the world a more secure place. Most governments are not ready for the onslaught of severe weather events. When it comes to climate change, everyone needs to be a “globalist,” and a localist as well, to advocate for their own national security.

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