‘Keep planet cool to protect nature’

UK asks experts to advise on zero emissions target

PARIS, Oct 15, (Agencies): The best – and fairest – way to cap global warming is to empower indigenous forest peoples, reduce food waste and slash meat consumption, an alliance of 38 NGOs said Monday.

Restoring natural forest ecosystems, securing the land rights of local communities and revamping the global food system could cut greenhouse emissions 40 percent by mid-century and help humanity avoid climate catastrophe, they argued in a 50-page report based on recent science.

Approximately half of the reduced emissions would come from boosting the capacity of forests and wetlands to absorb CO2, and the other half from curtailing carbon-intensive forms of agriculture.

On current trends, Earth is on track to warm up an unlivable three or four degrees Celsius (5.4 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, far about the 1.5ºC climate-safe threshold endorsed last week by the UN in a major climate change assessment.

In the wake of the UN report, two starkly different visions are emerging on how to beat back the existential threat of global warming.

One calls for geoengineering and the aggressive use of technology to draw excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, especially by burning biofuels and capturing the emitted CO2, a process known by its acronym, BECCS.

The other, favoured in the new “Missing Pathways to 1.5ºC” report, is based primarily on Earth’s natural capacity to absorb CO2.

“This is a pragmatic blueprint for tackling the climate crisis while respecting human rights and protecting biodiversity,” said Kelsey Perlman, forest and climate campaigner at UKbased NGO Fern.

“Decision makers must abandon their faith in unproven technological solutions and put restoring and protecting forests at the centre of climate strategy.”

But how to do that remains a challenge: More than two decades of UNled efforts to curb deforestation have largely failed, with the planet still losing a wooded area the size of Greece every year.

Deforestation – responsible for about a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions – intensifies global warming in two ways, reducing Earth’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, and releasing huge amounts of the planet-warming gas into the air.

The report highlights research showing that native forest communities should play a key role.

When it reaches “severe+”, a new category, authorities will stop the entry of trucks except those with essential goods and regulate the number of cars on the

“People who live in, and with, forests protect those lands,” lead author Kate Dooley, a political scientist at the University of Melbourne, told AFP. “Recognising this is the greatest forest conservation success story in the last decade.”

“We have to give these peoples not just land rights, but the resources to protect those lands,” she added.

The report also tackles head-on the political hot potato of how to change human behaviour in ways that will reduce our carbon footprint – cutting back on travel, using public transportation, switching to electric vehicles.

But it is revamping our diets that would have the biggest impact of all.

“Even bigger emissions can come from producing and consuming less meat,” especially beef, said Teresa Anderson, climate change policy officer for ActionAid International.

A study published in Nature last week calculated that rich nations would have to eat 90 percent less meat by 2050 to sustainably accomodate a projected global population of 10 billion people.

The report notes that only six countries – The United States, Brazil, China, Canada, Argentina, Australia – and the European Union produce and export the lion’s share of beef, chicken and pork worldwide.

Livestock farming poses a double climate threat, driving the loss of forests to make way for grazing land and generating huge amounts of methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2.

Reducing food waste – estimated at more than 30 percent worldwide – by half could cut CO2 pollution by half-abillion tonnes, more than one percent of total emissions. It could also help feed some of the billion people who go to bed hungry every night, the report notes.

But hitting that target remains a deceptively difficult, especially in the developing world, experts say.

LONDON:

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Britain has asked its climate change experts to advise on whether it should set a date to meet a net zero emissions target, the government said on Monday.

Britain has a target to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2050, but campaigners have warned this does not go far enough to meet pledges made under the Paris climate agreement.

The move comes a week after a

road.

The Badarpur thermal plant was due to permanently close on Monday because of its high contribution to pollution in the city. United Nations report warned the world needs to make unprecedented changes in the way people use energy to curb global temperature rises and limit the worst effects of climate change such as more extreme weather and loss of species.

Britain’s Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry has asked the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to examine whether the target should be reviewed and if the country should set a date to meet net zero emissions.

“The evidence is clear – governments, businesses and communities must take further action to confront one of the greatest global challenges we’ve ever faced,” Perry said in a statement on Monday.

Under the Paris agreement more than 190 nations agreed in 2015 to pursue efforts to limit a rise in global temperatures this century to 1.5ºC.

The CCC said it would consider how and by when Britain can eliminate carbon emissions from its economy and look at whether the country’s 2050 target is still fit for purpose.

GENEVA: The number of climate-related disasters around the world is growing rapidly, humanitarians warned Friday, urging more efforts to prepare and build resilience to looming changes on a warming planet.

Climate shocks are already driving displacement, causing many to go hungry and are sparking or exacerbating conflicts around the globe, humanitarian workers said, cautioning that the situation is quickly deteriorating.

“With climate change, the shocks and hazards are multiplying,” Elhadj As Sy, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told AFP in an interview.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva on the impact of climate change on humanitarian situations around the globe, he cautioned that such “shocks” were “getting more frequent and more severe.”

Friday’s conference was aimed at unpacking the humanitarian implications of the findings in a landmark UN climate report this week, which warned drastic action was needed to prevent Earth from hurtling towards an unbearable rise in temperature.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) said the globe’s surface has already warmed 1ºC (1.8ºF) – enough to lift oceans and unleash a crescendo of deadly storms, floods and droughts – and is on track toward an unlivable 3ºC or 4ºC rise.

Smog spikes during winter in Delhi, when air quality often eclipses the World Health Organization’s safe levels. (AFP)

Bid to revoke permit:

Environmental campaign group ClientEarth has launched a legal challenge seeking to revoke a permit for two coal-fired power plants in Greece, one of which has yet to be built, it said on Monday.

ClientEarth said it launched the action with the Greek branches of Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) because Greece had failed to comply with Greek and European Union laws when renewing the permit.

“Greece’s power plants have an abysmal track record of shaky permitting, which consistently fails to protect its citizens and the environment from the harmful effects of burning lignite”, ClientEarth lawyer Eleni Diamantopoulou said in a statement.

Greece is heavily reliant on coal and has extended until 2028 the permit for the existing Meliti I plant and the adjacent Meliti II plant, which has yet to be built, ClientEarth said.

The group says Greece did not carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the plants’ impact on health, the environment and the climate, breaching EU and Greek laws. (RTRS)