Climate Change News & Discussions

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UAE Banks Federation Pledges $272 Billion In Sustainable Financing at Cop28
by Deena Kamel
December 4, 2023

Introduction:

(The National) The UAE Banks Federation, which represents 56 lenders in the country, pledged Dh1 trillion ($272 billion) in sustainable financing by 2030 during the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai.

The commitment is aimed at fulfilling the country's ambitions of reaching its goal of net zero by 2050, Abdulaziz Al Ghurair, chairman of the UAE Banks Federation, said on Monday during a finance-themed day at Cop28.

“Cop28 has provided the UAE Banks Federation with a remarkable platform, empowering us to unite and deliver on a sustainable finance objective,” he said.

“We are a catalyst for action, inspiring and urging our banking institutions to pledge their commitment, financially and strategically, to propel us towards 2050 net-zero milestone.

“Our aim aligns seamlessly with the UAE government's climate agenda and Year of Sustainability, urging us all to forge a path that aligns finance with a greener future.”

Read more here: https://www.thenationalnews.com/climat ... t-cop28/

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Annual report shows fossil CO₂ emissions at record high in 2023
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-annual-fo ... -high.html
by University of Exeter

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have risen again in 2023—reaching record levels, according to new research from the Global Carbon Project science team.

The annual Global Carbon Budget projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO2 emissions of 36.8 billion metric tons in 2023, up 1.1% from 2022. The 2023 edition (the 18th annual report) was published in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Fossil CO2 emissions are falling in some regions, including Europe and the U.S., but rising overall—and the scientists say global action to cut fossil fuels is not happening fast enough to prevent dangerous climate change.

Emissions from land-use change (such as deforestation) are projected to decrease slightly but are still too high to be offset by current levels of reforestation and afforestation (new forests).

The report projects that total global CO2 emissions (fossil + land-use change) will be 40.9 billion metric tons in 2023.

This is about the same as 2022 levels, and part of a 10-year "plateau"—far from the steep reduction in emissions that is urgently needed to meet global climate targets.

The research team included the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia (UEA), CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich and 90 other institutions around the world.

"The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow," said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

"It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive."

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UAE Banks Federation Pledges $272 Billion In Sustainable Financing at Cop28
by Deena Kamel
December 4, 2023

Introduction:

(The National) The UAE Banks Federation, which represents 56 lenders in the country, pledged Dh1 trillion ($272 billion) in sustainable financing by 2030 during the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai.

The commitment is aimed at fulfilling the country's ambitions of reaching its goal of net zero by 2050, Abdulaziz Al Ghurair, chairman of the UAE Banks Federation, said on Monday during a finance-themed day at Cop28.

“Cop28 has provided the UAE Banks Federation with a remarkable platform, empowering us to unite and deliver on a sustainable finance objective,” he said.

“We are a catalyst for action, inspiring and urging our banking institutions to pledge their commitment, financially and strategically, to propel us towards 2050 net-zero milestone.

“Our aim aligns seamlessly with the UAE government's climate agenda and Year of Sustainability, urging us all to forge a path that aligns finance with a greener future.”

Read more here: https://www.thenationalnews.com/climat ... t-cop28/

I wonder if they'll use mental gymnastics to ultimately just fund fossil fuels

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UN Climate Chief Calls for 'bullet train' to Speed Up Cop28 Talks
by Simon Stiell
December 6, 2023

Introduction:

(The National) The UN's most senior climate official said governments needed to give their negotiators “clear marching orders” to step up ambition for the remainder of Cop28.

Simon Stiell said the talks on the crucial global stocktake had led to “a starting text on the table”.

“But it’s a grab bag of wish lists and heavy on posturing," he added. "The key now is to sort the wheat from the chaff.”

Negotiators are working day and night on the text that will assess where the world stands in limiting warming to 1.5ºC and chart the way forward.

There is a pause on Thursday during which the summit site will be mostly closed. On Friday, talks will intensify amid high expectations.

Read more here: https://www.thenationalnews.com/climat ... e-talks/

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Andrew Forrest calls for fossil fuel bosses' 'heads on spikes' in extraordinary outburst on sidelines of UN COP28 climate conference

22 hours ago, updated 17h ago

Australian mining magnate and climate campaigner Andrew Forrest has lashed out in an extraordinary outburst aimed at oil and gas supremos, saying their heads should be "put on spikes".

Attending this year's United Nations COP28 climate talks in the United Arab Emirates, Mr Forrest is stepping up his fight against what he says are the "lethal" threats posed by the continued use of fossil fuels.

His broadside came as Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen flew into Dubai to spearhead Australia's negotiations at the conference.

Speaking on AM on Wednesday, Mr Bowen declined to be drawn on whether Australia would back a push led by the European Union to phase out fossil fuel use.

Tensions are increasing in Dubai over the nature of the final wording of the COP summit, with some pushing for a complete end to the use of coal, oil and gas, as others resist the demand.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/ ... /103198354

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A new 66 million-year history of carbon dioxide offers little comfort for today

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-million-y ... mfort.html

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The planet is warming so fast, it could cross a key climate limit in 2024

December 8, 2023 at 3:50 p.m. EST

Global temperatures are poised to surpass a key climate threshold many thought was still years away — so quickly that some climate activists and scientists say world leaders should give up on the pretense they can still prevent disastrous levels of warming.

The United Kingdom’s Met office on Thursday warned that next year’s average global temperature could breach a key planetary warming benchmark: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. While it would not mark a permanent crossing of that barrier — natural fluctuations could make temperatures dip back below it the following year — remaining above it over a longer period of time would induce catastrophic sea level rise and make extreme heat a threat to life for 2 billion people. This year, the planet is on its brink.

And yet, as global leaders start their second week of talks at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai, the 1.5C warming target, which nations adopted in Paris in 2015, remains central.

“Yes, you must make compromises. But not on 1.5 degrees,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Friday. U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry called it a “critical guidepost.” The president of this year’s climate summit, Sultan Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, called it his “North Star,” meanwhile downplaying how dramatically humans would need to curtail fossil fuel to achieve it.

Others now deem the goal little more than wishful thinking.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... p28-dubai/

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I should "like" these bad news less often lol.

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I should "like" these bad news less often lol.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Perhaps we need a "reactions" system like Facebook, so it's clearer whether you actually like what's reported, or if you're sad about it, etc.

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U.S. Pledges to Triple Renewable Energy by 2030


Introduction:

(PIRG.org) On December 2nd, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the United States is joining more than 115 nations in a commitment to double energy efficiency and to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. The announcement came at the international climate summit COP 28‘s Leaders’ Session.

Over the past decade renewable energy in America has more than tripled and energy efficiency savings increased by about 20% between 2013 and 2021, according to the Renewables on the Rise dashboard.

The Vice President said the United States is on a path to meet these goals thanks in part to policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

For information on how your family can take advantage of the new tax credits and rebates in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Clean Energy Home Toolkit offers guides & resources for weatherizing your home, cutting energy bills, buying an electric car, more with help from the tax credits and rebates.

Read more here: https://pirg.org/updates/u-s-pledges-t ... by-2030/

To view the Renewables on the Rise dashboard: https://environmentamerica.org/resource ... ashboard/

To access the Clean Energy Home Toolkit: https://environmentamerica.org/center/ ... toolkit/

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The Weirdest Reason the Poles Are Warming So Fast? Invisible Clouds
by Matt Simon
November 29, 2023

Introduction:

(Wired) If you had lived some 50 million years ago and taken a trip to the poles, you would have found lush forests and creatures like crocodiles instead of miles-thick ice sheets. That’s because during the Eocene, greenhouse gas concentrations were much higher than they are today, leading to a natural period of global warming. Levels of methane, which is 80 times as potent a planet-warmer as carbon dioxide, were especially high, ratcheting up temperatures and allowing plants and animals to migrate toward the poles—just as they’re slowly doing once again.

Methane may have been heating the Eocene poles in another more subtle, fascinating way: by creating a blanket of invisible clouds that trapped warmth against the surface. That alone could have boosted warming at the poles by 7 degrees Celsius during the coldest winter months, according to a paper recently published in Nature Geoscience. “We know that when methane is in the atmosphere, it gets oxidized, and then it produces water vapor,” says climate scientist and lead author Deepashree Dutta, who’s now at the University of Cambridge but did the research at the University of New South Wales. “This water vapor then travels upward into the stratosphere, and helps to form polar stratospheric clouds,” or PSCs for short.

The Arctic is today warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet due in part to gnarly feedback loops: Ice melts, which exposes darker water or land underneath, which heats up faster, which leads to more warming and more melting. Scientists call this polar amplification.

Predictive climate models consistently underestimate polar warming; scientists’ actual observations tend to be more grim than what models expect. And this disagreement is even larger for past climates like the Eocene. PSCs may be a missing piece that explains why. They're currently less common in the Arctic compared to Antarctica, but with greenhouse gas emissions rising, scientists are wondering weather these clouds could become more prevalent over both poles in the future.

Read more here: https://www.wired.com/story/the-weirde ... clouds/


Iceberg A-23A, drifting northward across the Weddell Sea.
NASA Earth/ZUMA

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