US, Saudi rank last in fighting climate change
PROTEST AT US SIDE EVENT
KATOWICE, POLAND: The US and Saudi Arabia rank last when it comes to curbing climate change among the 56 nations accounting for 90% of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions while India fared far better, researchers said.
A large number of laggards means the world is dangerously off-track which it comes to slashing the carbon pollution that has already amplified droughts, flooding and deadly heatwaves worldwide, they reported on the margins of UN climate talks in Katowice, Poland. “Only a few countries have started to implement strategies to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius,” the cornerstone target of the 2015 Paris climate treaty, according to Newclimate Institute and Germanwatch, an NGO.
Most governments “lack the political will to phase out fossil fuels with the necessary speed.” Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which accounts for 80% of global warming, will climb nearly three percent in 2018, scientists confirmed last week.
After holding steady from 2014 through 2016 -- raising hopes that humanity had turned a corner on climate change -- carbon pollution started to climb again last year, driven by increased use of oil, gas and coal. A major UN report in October concluded that CO2 emission levels must drop a quarter within 12 years to stay under 2C, and by half over the same period to cap warming at 1.5C, seen as a safer guardrail against catastrophic extreme weather.
Sweden and Morocco scored KATOWICE: Groups representing indigenous peoples and youth disrupted a US government event at United Nations climate talks on Monday, criticising the Trump administration’s policy of backing the extraction of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
About 100 protesters chanted “Keep it in the ground” shortly after the start of a panel called “US Innovative Technologies Spur Economic Dynamism.” As cameras swarmed around them, some of the protesters explained how their communities are affected by the extraction of coal, oil and natural gas.
The US event took place on the sidelines of the ongoing UN meeting in Poland. After several minutes, the activists left the room chanting “Shame on you.” Their protest mirrored a similar action taken during a Us-hosted panel at last year’s climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
highest in the annual ranking, the survey showed, with Britain, India, Norway, Portugal and the European Union as a whole in the top tranche as well. The threeplace podium, however, was left empty because no country’s policies and actions were deemed sufficient, it said. Other nations at the bottom included Iran, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Russia, Turkey and Japan.