Nine activists from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion have been arrested after they glued themselves to the front of a central London hotel to demand that the petroleum industry end its “deeply immoral” behaviour in driving climate change.
Specialist police officers spent about two hours unsticking the protesters from windows next to the entrance of the InterContinental Park Lane hotel in Mayfair, which was hosting an oil and gas industry conference.
Police put up screens to conceal the protesters from view as the officers detached them.
We can’t just carry on like this.” Another said: “The petroleum industry has been complicit in the destruction of our environment and they have been making money out of selling products that are harmful and we need them to stop.” Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) Jeremy, 51, IT consultant, glued on to the Park Lane Hotel, where oil and gas industry leaders are gathering for International Petroleum Week “I’m here because I’m acting like the truth of the climate and ecological emergency is real”.
A Metropolitan police spokesperson said: “Police were called to reports of a protest at a hotel on Hamilton Place, W1.
Extinction Rebellion said oil and gas operators and investors should respond seriously to the climate crisis rather than meet to form new partnerships and discuss expansion.
We have to start talking about that.
They continue to put private profit over human life.
The fact that they are still talking about acquiring new fossil fuel reserves at this point in the climate crisis is not only deeply immoral, it is evidently criminal.
Similar events are planned by Extinction Rebellion groups in 30 other countries.
Climate Change & Global Warming
The bill creates ‘get-out-of-jail-free cards’ for ministers and exposes the environment watchdog to government influence, they said Britain’s draft environment bill would create loopholes around its guiding principles and too much government influence over its green watchdog, legal experts told parliament members on Wednesday.
The draft, however, creates “too many get-out-of-jail-free cards” around those environmental principles, Labour MP Mary Creagh, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said in response to expert testimony.
EU principles say the polluter should pay and precaution and prevention of pollution should be taken at the source, and then rectified there.
Sign up here The concern in Britain is that the principles would be limited to the environment law, with a narrow requirement on ministers to apply them in policy-making – and room for exemptions.
“You can put the principles into the legislation in a way that gives pretty powerful influence,” said Tim Buley, a barrister at Landmark Chambers, pointing to the UK’s human rights and air quality acts.
“What you have here is not that, nor is it one or two steps away from that, it’s many, many steps away from that, because of the various ways in which the principles are downgraded.” The Office of Environmental Protection, meanwhile, may not be able to hold the government accountable the way the European Commission does with member countries, Conservative MP Neil Parish, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said during a separate hearing.
According to the draft, however, the environment secretary (currently Michael Gove) would appoint the OEP’s chair and two to five other non-executive members.
There is also strong concern that the draft Environment Bill doesn’t extend to enforcing climate change policy.
The environment watchdog should therefore have the power to enforce climate obligations, as long as it first consults with the Committee on Climate Change, experts agreed.
Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation.
Vulnerable countries are backing governance reform at the Green Climate Fund, while emerging economies resist efforts to impose conditions on finance Developing countries are split over whether the UN’s flagship climate fund needs a voting system to break deadlock on policy and project decisions.
At present, all 24 members of the Green Climate Fund board have effective veto power.
The US used this in October to block a Chinese bid for a green development loan.
Several policy issues have been repeatedly deferred due to lack of consensus.
As the fund prepares to solicit a fresh round of contributions, a long-running debate flared anew at a board meeting in Songdo, South Korea on Tuesday.
Representatives of vulnerable communities joined rich world voices in calling for governance reform, to make money flow faster.
“In this context, the board has the responsibility to apply the most efficient decision-making procedures possible.
Decision-making should not become a barrier to the delivery of climate finance, which hurts not only the fund and its reputation, but more importantly the fund’s recipients and vulnerable countries the most.” US-China trade war spills into Green Climate Fund Saudi Arabia’s representative railed against any kind of voting system, arguing it would only weaken the developing world’s hand.
“The voting system will do nothing but put you in an inferior position,” Ayman Shasly told his peers.
“These governance flaws, they need to be addressed,” he said.
Volkswagen, the German automobile giant, has come a long way from its iconic two-door “VW bug” design of years past.
It is now going full throttle into sustainable motoring and consumer’s everyday life.
In the process in developing a new green energy supply division, “Volkswagen Energy Supply Division” situated in Berlin, the company has established a new consumer brand, Elli- short for Electric Life to address a more pollution free life for consumers bringing emission-free electric vehicles mainstream and offering consumers CO2 neutral power from renewable sources for their day-to-day living.
With plans to invest $39 billion, their goal is to provide an all-electric vehicle inventory for consumers and also provide the same inventory for fleet owners.
I In doing so, VW is establishing domestic EV (electric vehicle) charging solutions called “Wallboxes” so consumers can charge their cars at home and energy management systems for consumers deriving hydroelectric power from Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria.
If a consumer has a Wallbox in his garage or carport, he can let his neighbors charge their cars for a fee.
Drivers on the go will also be able to charge their vehicles in public places by paying with a charge card.
By 2020 all of VW’s 4000 dealerships and service partners in Europe will be supplied with charging equipment.
Expanding beyond the continent, VW announced that it would partner with Pod Point to deliver 2400 EV chargers at Tesco car parks up and down the UK.
With Volkswagen’s new Energy Supply Division it is committed to bringing a more sustainable life for all consumers by providing renewable energy woven in the fabric of everyday life.
Al Gore has launched an environmental justice tour with a visit to poor areas of Alabama – and warned that already dire conditions are set to worsen because of climate change.
“This looks like the civil rights movement never took,” Barber said, staring down at the patchwork of sewage at his feet and walking around the brown liquid taking up much of the street.
Gore asked him how many times it had to be pumped.
“And with climate change it has only gotten worse.” A sewage truck comes by every three days to pump out the mess, Meanes explained.
Her great-grandchildren ran toward the chain-link fence, trying to play in the brown liquid, but Holcombe shooed them away.
“Nobody cares about us,” she told Barber and Gore.
“We’re going to try to get help,” Gore said.
Holcombe has congenital heart disease.
Gore said the area needed a systemic solution – not emergency stop-gaps like sewage trucks.
Before Means goes back into his house, he told the Guardian he was leaving his home in Hayneville but was unsure where he will go.
‘That will have to change if B.C.
Randy Shore The wheels are coming off and Big Green isn’t happy~ctm Dozens of solar, wind and run-of-river power projects have been indefinitely suspended by the provincial government in an effort to manage the cost of electricity from independent power producers.
“That will have to change if B.C.
is to pursue its CleanBC plans,” said Jae Mather, executive director of Clean Energy B.C.
By turning its back on alternative energy, B.C.
The provincial government’s CleanBC plan calls for a massive program of electrification of homes, industry and transportation with aggressive greenhouse-gas reduction targets set for 2030.
Adding to the gloom, a report released Wednesday found that B.C.
HT/Patrick H O……K….. Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492 Here’s a link to the full paper.
Estimates European arrival in 1492 lead to 56 million deaths by 1600.
Power plants in the United States need as much water each year as all of the nation’s farms…
It’s a very singular irony that in a world populated like never before, loneliness has become the disease du jour.
But you are not alone, if you don’t want to be.
No matter who you are and where you are, there is a like-minded soul out there, a sympathetic voice, a support group, a project, a fellowship.
That’s what young people in England found when it turned out medical interventions for mental illness in their region were inadequate.
They formed a support group and helped each other.
It’s also what struggling students from deprived communities have learned, thanks to an initiative that pairs them with successful professionals for a extra tuition.
In a sense, the “you are not alone” message was also delivered live on television to the LGBTQ community by an international sports star, a bold act of principle that did more for his sport than any athletic prowess could.
Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) “Don’t use it as an insult.
JezJez commenting on our article about digital democracy Where was the Upside?
Which global crisis might best benefit from some Upside treatment?
From the good ol’ UEA <—- I suggest you check out link~ctm Forecast suggests Earth’s warmest period on record University of East Anglia Temperature figures table Credit: Met Office The forecast for the global average surface temperature for the five-year period to 2023 is predicted to be near or above 1.0 °C above pre-industrial levels, says the Met Office. Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Prediction at the Met Office said: “2015 was the first year that global annual average surface temperatures reached 1.0 °C above pre-industrial levels and the following three years have all remained close to this level. The global average temperature between now and 2023 is predicted to remain high, potentially making the decade from 2014 the warmest in more than 150 years of records.” Averaged over the five-year period 2019-2023, forecast patterns suggest enhanced warming is likely over much of the globe, especially over land and at high northern latitudes, particularly the Arctic region. Predictions now suggest around a 10 per cent chance of at least one year between 2019 and 2023 temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C.” Alongside this forecast, 2018 is today cited to be nominally the fourth warmest year on record globally in data released by the Met Office, at 0.91±0.1°C above the long-term pre-industrial average. It follows 2015, 2016 and 2017, which are the three warmest years in the 169-year record of the HadCRUT4 dataset. Professor Tim Osborn, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, which co-produces the HadCRUT4 global temperature figures with the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “The warmth of 2018 is in line with the long-term warming trend driven by the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases.” The effects of climate change are not limited to surface temperature. The Met Office decadal forecast show that global average surface temperatures may be close to reaching 1.5 °C, but this would be a temporary exceedance rather than the climatological level of warming in the Paris 1.5 °C threshold. EurekAlert! Highlights Combines multiple methods estimating pre-Columbian population numbers. Estimates European arrival in 1492 lead to 56 million deaths by 1600.
The earth is warming up.
Earth’s history tells us that climate change has always happened.
And what caused the Warm Medieval Period?
The great certainty that the IPCC wants the world to believe that man is responsible is scientifically unsustainable.
To limit global warming to 2 degrees, CO2 emissions must be reduced by about 25% by 2030 and by about 85% by 2050.
The success of the climate movement is a simple message: “Human CO2 is the cause of global warming; global warming is causing a catastrophe; if we turn the CO2 knob, everything will be fine again.” But for the above claims there is no proof.
If the authors are really serious about CO2, they should be making a massive plea for keeping the existing nuclear power plants open for as long as possible.
CO2 emissions are still increasing worldwide, so we are not emitting less, but more and more every year.
For example, if we in the Netherlands achieve the target of 49% CO2 reduction by 2030 (more than the authors of the open letter propose), it would result in 0.0003 degrees less warming by 2100 – negligible and immeasurable.
However, the question is how many jobs are lost elsewhere and what the net effect is.
The new rules will define which fuels can be counted toward EU renewable energy targets.
If it is adopted, the European Parliament and member countries will have two months to give any objections before it’s finalised.
If the commission chooses tough criteria could significantly limit one of Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s biggest exports – palm oil.
“Malaysia is committed to producing sustainable palm oil … every drop of palm oil produced in Malaysia will be certified sustainable by 2020.” Jakarta, meanwhile, plans to lodge a complaint with the WTO on the grounds that the EU directive will unfairly target palm oil in favour of European commodities like rapeseed oil, Reuters reported last week.
Instead, palm oil and other crops will have to pass new “objective and non-discriminatory” criteria in order to qualify as low-carbon and renewable sources of energy, the EU’s ambassador to Indonesia, Vincent Guérend, wrote in a letter to the Jakarta Post in November.
“If it failed to pass these criteria, palm oil imports would still be possible under current condition, except European member states could not count it as ‘renewable energy’ anymore.” The EU is working with the Indonesian government to see how its palm oil can comply with the coming rules, with about four years to prepare, he added.
According to the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E), biodiesel releases three times the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuel diesel, once land use is taken into account.
On the other hand, banning palm oil outright – which the Commission does not intend to do – would hurt more sustainable producers as well.
France announced in November that it will stop imports of palm oil, soy, beef and other products linked to deforestation and unsustainable agriculture by 2030.
NOTE: This article was amended to indicate that the rules may not be finalised at the meeting this week.
