News Feeds | ecology.iww.org (2024)

Mining.Com - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 06:03

Canada’s Orla Mining (TSX: OLA)(NYSE: ORLA) is mulling takingthe Panamanian government to an arbitration court following the country’s rejection of a permit extension request for each of the three mining concessions that make up the company’s Cerro Quema gold project.

The Vancouver-based miner said it had notified authorities of its intentions with the hope the move would open the door to talks between the parties.

“If these consultations are not successful, the company expects to file a formal request for arbitration under the FTA late in the second quarter 2024,”Orla said in the statement.

The company said its “preference is a constructive resolution with the government of Panama that results in a positive outcome for all stakeholders.”

The country’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry in December not only rejected the permits extension — it wentas far as to declare the area comprising the concessions to be a reserve area, revoking them altogether.

Orla said the cancellations were a result of a law passed by Panama’s national assembly in November, which imposed a moratorium on granting, renewing or extending concessions for metal mining activities.

The miner, which also has assets in Mexico and in the US state of Nevada, said that the notice of intent to arbitrate was filed under the Canada-Panama free trade agreement.

Cerro Quema’s development considers open pit mining of 21.7 million tonnes of ore from the La Pava and Quema-Quemita pits. The operation, planned to be built in multiple phases, is estimated to be able to produce 81,000 ounces of gold over an estimated six-year mine life.

During the construction stage, Orla estimates that it would generate 3,600 direct and indirect jobs and 1,200 during operations.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

Mining.Com - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 05:52

Management changes announced this week:

1911 Gold welcomed new VP exploration Della Libera.

Aris Mining named Richard Orazietti as CFO and Oliver Dachsel as SVP capital markets.

Michael Swistun is the new president and CEO of Canadian Gold.

Great Eagle Gold secretary Gary Harbottle has added CFO to his duties.

Jane Bankshas joinedLincon Strategic International, a global firm specializing in mining recruitment.

Osprey Advanced Materials reported the death of co-founder Dale Schultz on April 3, 2024.

Traction Uranium named Paul Gorman interim CEO and a director.

Windshear Gold appointed Patricio Varas president.

Board changes:

Aurelius Minerals gave Grant Hall a seat on the board.

Headwater Gold named Fraser MacCorquodale a non-executive director.

Kore Mining named Barry Brandon a director.

Lucapa Diamond named ex-De Beers head Stuart Brown as chair.

Terry Krepiakevich joined the board of Sama Resources.

Ur-Energy appointed new board members John Paul Pressey and Elmer W. Dyke.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

Mining.Com - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 05:45

Chile-focused explorer and developer CleanTech Lithium (LON: CTL) accepted on Friday the resignation of its chief executive officer, Aldo Boitano, who was suspended earlier this week for failing to disclose a share-backed personal loan.

Between September 8, 2023 and February 6, 2024, Boitano transferred his entire holding of 9,400,002 shares to an unnamed lender. When questioned about it, CleanTech’s co-founder was unable to ascertain whether the shares may have been transferred to a further nominee account in the lender’s name or sold to third parties.

Executive chairman Steve Kesler will assume the role of chief executive until a new CEO is appointed, the company said.

Aldo Boitano. (Image: Clean Tech Lithium presentation.)

“We hold ourselves accountable to the highest governance policies, and the board has acted decisively and with the duty of care for all our stakeholders,” it said in the statement.

CleanTech Lithium is keeping Boitano as a consultant to assist the company in the process of applying for a special lithium operating contract (CEOL) to continue building relationships with the Chilean government and local communities.

President Gabriel Boric’s administration introduced last year a national lithium strategy that requires companies to enter into partnerships with state-own entities, such as copper giant Codelco and national miner Enami.

Public-private alliances are also needed for the other 26 lithium-rich salt flats, but in those areas the state will not be a controlling partner.

In both cases, companies need to be granted a CEOL, which will follow government-led public consultations with local communities.

Cleantech said it is updating its original application to meet the latest government guidelines.

Chile is the world’s top copper producer and the second-largest producer of lithium. Both metals are considered vital commodities for the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies.

Global demand for lithium, according to the country’s government projections, will quadruple by 2030, reaching 1.8 million tonnes.Available supply by then is expected to sit at 1.5 million tonnes.

Chile expects at least four new lithium projects to be in production by 2026.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

Anthropocene Magazine - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 05:00

A large study incorporating data from over 2000 farms spread across 11 countries has made a landmark discovery: almost across the board, diversifying farmland simultaneously delivers environmental and social benefits.

This challenges the longstanding idea that on-farm practices to boost biodiversity must come at a cost to yields and food security. In fact, the mammoth study, which was published in Science, showed that the opposite was true, with clear overlaps in biodiversity gains and food security, for instance.

While several studies have examined the effect of individual diversification techniques in isolation, this study is the first to pool together varied methods and explore their social and environmental impacts, combined. The project involved an international team of 58 researchers who collaborated to bring together their published research on the topic, which amounted to 24 studies that had looked collectively at over 2,655 farms—from smallholder plots in Malawi to large scale monocultures in the United States.

These papers covered dozens of diversifying methods across the studied farms: from farmers incorporating hedgerows and flower strips, to cover cropping and crop rotation, applying compost and biochar, and increasing the variety of livestock on their land. The researchers examined the data to determine how many of these diversification practices were used on each farm. Then they modeled how each of those practices in turn influenced six different environmental and social outcomes, including biodiversity and ecosystem services, food security and yield. Those outcomes were taken as a function of the degree of diversification, and the number of practices adopted, on each farm.

For ease of analysis, the researchers grouped the dozens of different diversifying methods into five thematic groups, to help reveal which approaches in general elicit environmental or social wins—or both.

What immediately leapt out in the analysis was a striking finding: diversification led to win-win outcomes for humans and the environment. In fact, in every category of diversification practices the researchers analyzed, these practices led to both environmental and social gains.

What’s more, these benefits grew with the number of methods applied to the land. “Farmers can achieve more benefits if they employ several agricultural diversification practices in tandem, rather than just one at a time,” says Laura Vang Rasmussen, a researcher in land-use change at the University of Copenhagen, and co-lead author on the new research with colleague Ingo Grass, a researcher in the ecology of tropical agricultural systems at the University of Hohenheim.

For instance, farms that integrated several diversification methods supported more biodiversity, while seeing simultaneous increases in human well-being and food security, too. Two diversification practices in particular—farming a variety of livestock, and soil conservation methods like biochar application, composting and mulching—led to the most, and the largest, benefits across social and environmental indicators. (Livestock farming might seem like an odd path to increased biodiversity, but research shows that if sustainably managed, grazing animals can help maintain ecosystems that support more animals and plants.)

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The benefits of livestock diversification also increase, when that practice is paired with other diversification methods too, the study found.

Also notably, measures like crop rotation and cover cropping helped to boost both biodiversity and yield, while measures to introduce hedgerows, flower and insect foraging strips on farmland boosted food security for farmers, as well as some environmental measures. Surprisingly, the research found that introducing hedgerows and other natural elements into the landscape didn’t measurably increase biodiversity — something they ascribe to the variable responses that different species have to habitat and the difficulty of measuring those to reflect a general trend.

The study also showed that the win-win pattern was consistent across diversified farmlands, regardless of the farm type or global location. Essentially, wherever farmers are diversifying the way they grow food, they are producing environmental and social benefits, hand-in-hand.

All through this analysis, another striking fact became clear: diversification did not lead to significant yield losses in any case. Agricultural diversification is commonly accused of knocking agricultural yields, the researchers say. But in fact they found no evidence of reduced yields due to these greener practices. On the other hand, when the study looked at national strategies and programs to boost yield through intensive monocultures, many of these programs did not achieve the win-wins that we get from diversifying farms.

After making a robust case for diversification, the researchers did note the hurdles that lie in its path. Trade agreements and supply chain pressures are forces that lock farmers into specific ways of producing food, and moving to diversified systems can also come with large costs.

The best tools to change this system may exist with governments, who can craft policies and regulations to support the change. One clear solution would be to “invest more in incentivizing farmers, for example through subsidies, to adopt these various diversification strategies,” Vang Rasmussen says.

For governments and farmers alike, co-author Zia Mehrabi offered a one key takeaway in a recent press release about the new research: “This is evidence that this can actually work — we can imagine agricultural systems that are more diverse and serve people and nature at the same time.”

Vang Rasmussen et. al. “Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture.” Science. 2024.

Image: © Anthropocene Magazine

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 05:00

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week‘Historic’ court victory

FIRST-EVER RULING: The European Court of Human Rights this week ruled that insufficient action to tackle climate change is a violation of human rights, DeSmog reported. In a “historic” judgement, the court ruled that Switzerland’s inadequate action on cutting emissions breached the rights to respect for family and private life of some of its most vulnerable citizens, DeSmog said. The case was brought by a group of 2,000 older Swiss women, BBC News reported.

PORTUGUESE CASE: The same court also dismissed a climate case brought by six Portuguese young people, finding the group had not exhausted legal action through the national courts, the Financial Times reported. Gerry Liston, the lawyer for the Portuguese youths, said that, despite the judges dismissing the case, the court’s ruling on the Swiss women’s action was “a massive win for all generations”, added the outlet.

INDIAN COURT: Also this week, India’s Supreme Court expanded the “right to life” to include “protection against adverse effects of climate change”, adding that “climate change threatens ‘constitutional guarantees of equality and health’, impacting factors such as air pollution, disease, and food security”, the Independent reported. An editorial in the Indian Express described the decision as a “call to action”, adding that the significance of the ruling “cannot be overstated”.

Heat goes on

ROASTING MARCH: March 2024 was the “tenth straight month to be the hottest on record”, reported the Associated Press. March temperatures averaged at 14.14C – 1.68C warmer than in the late 1800s, when the fossil fuel era began, according to AP. It added that “climate scientists attribute most of the record heat to human-caused climate change from carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas”.

HEAT-TRAPPING GASES: Atmospheric levels of the three most important heat-trapping gases – CO2, methane and nitrous oxide – reached record highs again last year, the Guardian reported. The global concentration of CO2 rose to an average of 419 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, while methane rose to an average of 1,922 parts per billion (ppb) and nitrous oxide climbed slightly to 336ppb, the outlet said.

‘RAISE VOICES’: Amid the records, UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged “ordinary people everywhere” to “raise their voices” over climate change in a speech in London, the Financial Times reported. Stiell warned that humanity has just two years left to “save the world”, adding “we still have a chance… but we need these stronger [national climate] plans, now”, reported the Associated Press.

Around the world

• EU INVESTIGATION: The EU launched an investigation to examine “whether Chinese companies participating in wind parks across Europe may have benefited from state support from Beijing”, said the Financial Times.
• BIGGEST ICEBERG: BBC News tracked the world’s biggest iceberg – more than twice the size of Greater London – which has “begun to drift at pace once more” after a “few weeks loitering on the fringes of Antarctica”.
• BIGGEST ECONOMIES: G20 countries and “the multilateral development banks they fund” put £112bn into overseas fossil fuel development over 2020-2022, the Guardian reported. Despite pledging in 2022 to halt such financing, oil and gas funding “has continued at a strong pace”, the outlet added.
• UK POLITICS: Politico reported that the UK’s rightwing populist party Reform, the brainchild of Brexiteer Nigel Farage, has plans to make scrapping climate policies a central part of its campaigning in the next general election.
• SEVERE FLOODING: Russia and Kazakhstan have ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate after melting snow swelled rivers beyond bursting point, leading to the worst flooding in the area for at least 70 years, reported Reuters.
• CHINA COAL: China accounted for 95% of the world’s new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor covered by Carbon Brief.

1.37m km

The total length of “ghost roads” uncovered by researchers studying deforestation in the Asian Pacific, according to Carbon Brief.

Latest climate research

• A new study in Nature Climate Change warned that meteorites holding potential clues to life’s origins or the prospect of alien existence are fast disappearing from Antarctica because of climate change.
• Geoengineering methods that change the planet’s radiative forcing – aiming to reduce the amount of energy that reaches the surface of the Earth – could increase the incidence of fires in the Arctic, when combined with very high greenhouse gas emissions, new research in Communications Earth & Environment suggested.
• A new study in npj Climate Action found that “Roman Catholics are less likely to believe in man-made climate change as compared to evangelical Christians”. However, the more positive a respondent’s view of Pope Francis, the more likely they are “to acknowledge the effect of human activity on global warming”, it said.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Carbon Brief has just published a two-part miniseries on the complex topic of climate migration. Carbon Brief’s explainer looked into the main drivers of why people move. Using data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Carbon Brief analysis showed that most climate-linked internal displacement is due to floods and storms (see above). The series also includes a special report on climate-driven migration in rural Thailand. Carbon Brief’s science journalist Ayesha Tandon also produced a video on her investigation into climate-driven migration in Thailand.

SpotlightK-pop fans campaign for climate change

This week, Carbon Brief speaks to K-pop fans about their efforts to tackle climate change.

Dayeon Lee is a Tokyo-based South Korean student, and before discovering and joining climate campaigns, she was a “guilty” K-pop fan.

“K-pop” is a term for popular music from South Korea. K-pop has witnessed an explosion in popularity since the term first appeared internationally in the 2000s.

“I think people have the stereotype of K-pop fans, thinking we are just a group of crazy girls being obsessed with boys, but we are more than that, we are also a group of young people who care about the planet,” Lee told Carbon Brief.

“Korean entertainment companies produce a lot of album covers and we as fans buy hundreds of albums to support our idols. The companies don’t care about the environmental cost and waste, but we bear the guilt.”

Looking to make a change, Lee joined the campaign group Kpop4planet in 2021. The group, which is managed by K-pop fans, launched the campaign “No K-pop on a Dead Planet”, urging the industry to “make K-pop sustainable” and produce more eco-friendly albums.

“We had K-pop fans returning hundreds of albums to the major entertainment companies in South Korea to make sure they are aware of the issue. Although they didn’t officially respond to us, they started to introduce digital albums with purchasing code fans can scan,” said Lee.

The online campaign has in total attracted more than 100,000 people to join and they hope to inspire more.

There are an estimated 178m active K-pop fans worldwide. Kpop4planet’s campaigns cover a wide range of environmental issues, from reducing the high cost of fashion worn by K-pop singers, to protecting a beach featuring in K-pop songs and zero-emissions concerts.

“Since K-pop stars are involved with so many industries…that need to become more sustainable, we want to motivate and gather the power and influence of K-pop fans and the youth… to change the companies that are heavily polluting the environment by using fossil fuels,” said Lee.

Lee told Carbon Brief that K-pop entertainment agencies have already listened to their concerns, with some of them, such as South Korean record label JYP, committing to use 100% renewable electricity to power its operation.

‘Drop coal’

Recently, Kpop4planet decided to target the Korean motor company, Hyundai, which had signed a deal with an Indonesian company to source aluminium from a coal-powered smelter in North Kalimantan, Indonesia.

“Hyundai has a good image in Indonesia because they use the image of Korean band BTS as ‘their face’,” said Lee, adding that Kpop4planet hopes to leverage their K-pop fan stance to convince the company to “drop coal”.

Another campaigner Nural Sarifah, based in Indonesia, told Carbon Brief that the group has undertaken a “series of activities” to campaign against Hyundai’s decision, including delivering a signed petition “with a touch of K-pop dance” outside the Hyundai Motor Studio in Jakarta.

On 2 April, Reuters reported that Hyundai and its Indonesian supplier had “ended an aluminium supply agreement after calls by a climate campaigner backed by K-pop fans not to procure supplies of the metal produced using coal power”.

Hyundai announced in a statement that it had “decided to explore other opportunities independently” in Indonesia, according to the news agency. Lee told Carbon Brief:

“This move is a victory for thousands of K-pop fans who took action. We are glad that Hyundai is now exploring options to acquire transparent and sustainable sourcing materials in Indonesia.”

Lee added that their campaign will not stop there:

“Ultimately, we would like to use our collective power to [make] change. We want to secure the future that K-pop fans and the youth will inherit.”

Watch, read, listen

CHINESE SOLAR: The Financial Times published a Lex opinion piece saying “Chinese solar companies are paying a high price for victory” in a battle with European solar firms.

HAWAII’S CRISIS: CBS News released a documentary on YouTube about the water-related crisis on the Hawaiian islands.

GREEN FUNERAL: The Anti-dread Climate Podcast explored the carbon costs of traditional burial and looked for more climate-friendly alternatives.

Coming up

• 16-19 April: Scoping meeting for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on cities, Riga, Latvia
• 17 April: Solomon Islands parliamentary elections
• 19 April: Start of India’s general election

Pick of the jobs

• The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Office of Sustainability and Climate, climate communications resource assistant | Salary: $750 per week and $1,000 per month housing stipend. Location: Remote (US)
• European Space Agency, climate and long-term action knowledge exchange officer | Salary: Unknown. Location: Harwell, UK
• Chatham House, Mo Ibrahim Foundation Academy fellowship 2024-25 | Salary: Monthly stipend of £2,365. Location: London
• Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change , programme manager, nature | Salary: Unknown. Location: London

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe forfree here.

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DeBriefed 15 March 2024: Global methane surge; Europe faces ‘urgent’ climate risks; Surprising origin of Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’

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The post DeBriefed 12 April 2024: ‘Historic’ European court victory; Climate migration explained; K-pop and climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Categories: I. Climate Science

Utility Dive - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 05:00

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Utility Dive - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 04:19

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Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 03:02

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

Last year’s United Nations climate conference in the United Arab Emirates ended on a surprising high note as the world’s countries endorsed a landmark agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. After weeks of tense negotiation, the conference produced a slew of unprecedented commitments to ramp up the deployment of renewables, adapt to climate disasters, and move away from the use of coal, oil, and gas.

The question at this year’s COP29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, is just how much that massive effort will cost. After years of global debate over the scale of funding that developed countries owe less fortunate nations for decarbonization and disaster aid, negotiators have until the end of the conference in December to agree on a hard-fought financial target for climate assistance over the next few decades. This new target, referred to as the New Collective Quantified Goal by climate negotiators, is critical to upholding the 2015 Paris Agreement and addressing the harm of fossil fuel emissions from industrialized countries like the United States. Without funding, some of the poorest nations in Asia and Africa, which have contributed negligibly to the climate crisis, stand little chance of transitioning their economies away from fossil fuels and adapting to a warmer world.

The last time the world set such a goal, it didn’t work out well. Back in 2009, wealthy countries agreed to send poorer countries $100 billion in climate finance every year by 2020. Though the figure was less than half of the annual global need, according to World Bank estimates, rich countries didn’t even come close to meeting their target until last year. Even then, some aid organizations like Oxfam contend that these countries have overstated or double-counted their aid by tens of billions of dollars. In the meantime, international estimates of total aid needs have ballooned into the trillions. As a result, the talks around climate finance are still marked by frustration and mistrust, and diplomats debating the goal over the past two years have made little progress toward consensus.

As dozens of negotiators head to Colombia later this month for the first in a series of pre-conference talks that will lay the groundwork for the new goal, developing countries are trying to use the failures of the $100 billion promise as leverage for a much bigger commitment. After years of advocacy from climate-vulnerable nations, the economic heavyweights of India and Saudi Arabia are making a formal demand for climate aid to reach $1 trillion per year, broaching a number that will send negotiations into uncharted territory.

Increasing climate aid by more than tenfold could alter the life prospects of millions of people staring down imminent climate impacts in poor countries in Africa and Asia, but experts say the astronomical number will be a hard sell for many wealthy nations dealing with inflation and domestic turmoil. Plus, the commitment itself won’t mean much without strong safeguards to ensure the money reaches the vulnerable communities that most need it.

“It’s good that countries are using the t-word because that’s grappling with the scale of ambition that we need,” said Joe Thwaites, a climate finance expert at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. “But the key question is the political one of how you break that up.”

The world has known for years that the $100 billion goal was fundamentally flawed: The target number was far too low to match the mounting toll of climate change in the developing world, which one recent estimate pegged at around $2.4 trillion per year. And more than two-thirds of the aid from wealthy countries has been through loans rather than grants, forcing poor states to take on higher debt loads to respond to climate disasters. Some countries also tried to count aid to seaside hotels and gelato stores as climate assistance, exaggerating their contributions.

The slow pace of United Nations diplomacy has forced developing countries to wait more than a decade for the opportunity to hash out a new number with their counterparts in the United States and the European Union. Now that that chance has arrived, many of these countries are seeking to raise the floor for climate finance by scaling up their demands to a level that once would have sounded ludicrous.

In a letter to fellow negotiators in February, India argued that “developed countries need to provide at least USD 1 trillion per year, composed primarily of grants and concessional finance,” or very low-interest loans. Saudi Arabia, writing on behalf of a group of countries in the Middle East, said just a few days later that “we set a [target] of USD 1.1 trillion from developed to developing countries,” plus arrears for the failure of the last goal. There are just 19 countries in the world whose economies are larger than $1 trillion, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.

The fact that India and Saudi Arabia have endorsed this number is significant. India is the world’s most populous country and one of its largest emitters, and it has significant political clout in climate talks as the largest country that still needs aid to finance its energy transition. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it has faced immense pressure to join the United States and the European Union in sending aid to poorer countries. They are the only two countries to name a number so far.

Setting such an ambitious goal comes with pros and cons, experts say. On the one hand, shooting for the moon with a very high target provides poor countries with some cushion against the possibility that rich countries may fail to meet their promises. On the other hand, if voters and political leaders in wealthy countries don’t back the goal, the strategy might backfire and poor countries may end up receiving very little aid.

The United States Congress, for instance, has fought for months over whether to send around $60 billion in new aid to Ukraine, and it’s a safe bet that many lawmakers would balk at helping with a trillion-dollar global commitment. Mobilizing climate aid in a divided Congress has proven to be a challenging endeavor in previous years. Endorsing a new goal could even become a liability for President Biden and other climate-forward leaders as they stare down an election year.

Developed countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and those within the European Union haven’t proposed a numerical target for the goal in their missives to fellow negotiators. Instead, they’ve urged a broader conversation about how to mobilize private money and how to ensure aid contributions are reaching the right communities, with Canada for instance advocating a “pragmatic approach to establishing a quantum [goal size].” The U.S. has shied away from discussion of the size, focusing in its letters on questions about which nations should contribute aid money and which nations should receive it.

“Although this [trillion] number better reflects the needs of developing countries, it will be a difficult outcome to achieve given the current constraints of developed countries — shifting geopolitics, energy security concerns, stagflation, and internal politics,” said Aman Srivatstava, a climate finance expert at the Centre for Policy Research, an India-based think tank.

But negotiators and climate advocates told Grist that the structure of the new goal matters just as much as the eventual size. The $100 billion goal was too low, but it was also too vague about what counts as “climate finance,” and many wealthy countries focused on doling out loans and private investment rather than no-strings-attached grants. These countries also tended to provide much more assistance for renewables and energy projects rather than the flood and drought aid that many countries have demanded.

“We don’t need to talk only about the quantum in terms of the money, but also about the quality of the money,” said Sandra Guzmán Luna, the founder of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean, which helps developing countries in the region track and access climate aid money.

Herd boys pull out an ox stuck in the muddy waters of a drying reservoir in southern Zimbabwe. The county has declared a national emergency due to a drought caused by climate change and El Niño. Zinyange Auntony / AFP via Getty Images

The most likely outcome is a structure that some negotiators liken to an onion with multiple concentric layers. The United States, the European Union, and other wealthy countries would contribute a chunk of public funding in the form of grants for unprofitable projects like sea walls and drinking water systems. The other layers could include additional grants from new contributors like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have ample wealth but have never donated much climate aid, or private loans from investors and banks. This approach would mimic the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a 2022 agreement to protect nature and endangered species that also featured a “layered” set of commitments.

But creating such a complex structure for climate aid ahead of COP29 will be a Herculean task. Despite new endorsem*nts for a $1 trillion goal, rich and poor countries still have huge disagreements about who should contribute to the goal, how much money should come from grants and loans, and how rich countries should be held accountable for their share. Rich countries are advocating a broader group of contributors that would include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as more flexibility to include private money in their aid contributions. Countries like China and Saudi Arabia, which have huge economies but account for a low share of carbon emissions historically, are pushing for the U.S. and the E.U. to bear the greatest burden.

With COP29 just seven months away, negotiators still haven’t even put their ideas to paper, and drafts of the potential text likely won’t appear until the summer. From there the world’s climate leaders will sprint to settle as many details as possible before the conference clock in Baku runs out. Thwaites likened the process to the puzzle game Rush Hour, where a player has to move several cars around on a grid in order to clear space for one car to escape.

“Even when you think that it’s a done deal, things can fall apart, so it’s hard to make predictions,” said Eleonora Cogo, a climate finance expert at ECCO, an Italian think tank. (Cogo has negotiated on behalf of the European Union in previous climate finance talks.)

Given how far apart the sides are right now, Cogo says that she doubts countries will be able to work out all the details by the end of COP29. The most likely outcome is a basic agreement on “some core elements” like an approximate size and a promise to work the rest out later. This could produce any number of commitments — a strong promise from rich countries to scale up their grants, a weakened framework like the $100 billion goal, or something in between.

“The asks on the table are so different, and the points of departure are so far away,” said Cogo. “It’s all open.”

Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How much do rich countries owe in climate aid? That’s the trillion-dollar question. on Apr 12, 2024.

Categories: H. Green News

Yale Environment 360 - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 01:37

An extensive analysis of satellite imagery has uncovered thousands of miles of unmapped roads slicing through Asia's tropical rainforests.

Read more on E360 →

Categories: H. Green News

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.

Those involved in the Line 5 pipeline controversy have been waiting for the United States Department of Justice — and the Biden administration — to come forward with its opinion on a case that involves tribal sovereignty and foreign relations.

But when the legal brief came down on Wednesday, no one was satisfied.

The Justice Department amicus brief backed claims from a Wisconsin tribe that Enbridge, a Canadian company, was trespassing on its lands by continuing to operate the Line 5 pipeline there. The 71-year-old pipeline carries up to 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids daily from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario.

The DOJ also agreed that Enbridge has been trespassing on the band’s lands for over a decade, and specified the company should pay more than the court-ordered $5.15 million to the band, since the company has made over $1 billion in that time.

“We are grateful the U.S. urged the court not to let Enbridge profit from its unlawful trespass,” said Robert Blanchard, chairman of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, located in northern Wisconsin.

But, Blanchard added in a statement, they’re disappointed the U.S. didn’t call for the company to stop trespassing immediately: “Enbridge should be required to promptly leave our Reservation, just like other companies that have trespassed on tribal land.”

Read Next How the US government began its decade-long campaign against the anti-pipeline movement Adam Federman

The legal trail began in 2019, when the band sued Enbridge for trespassing. The district ruling came out last June. Both Enbridge and the band appealed.

In their appeal, Enbridge and the Canadian government pointed to the 1977 Transit Pipeline Treaty between the United States and Canada, which promised an uninterrupted flow of oil and gas products between the nations.

Both Enbridge and Canada argue that shutting down the pipeline before relocating it would violate the pipeline treaty, and would impact energy supplies across the northern U.S. and Canada.

The court waiting for the DOJ brief, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, was looking for guidance on that question.

But the department stopped short of saying how the court should interpret the 1977 treaty, only recommending that the case be sent back to the district court to more fully consider public interests, including diplomatic relations with Canada, energy concerns around Line 5, and protecting the band’s sovereign rights.

“The brief does not provide an interpretation of the transit treaty’s provisions, and that was pretty stunning, given that the court asked specifically for that interpretation,” said the band’s attorney, Riyaz Kanji.

The Bad River Band disagrees with Enbridge and Canada’s interpretation of the pipeline treaty. The band refers to its 1854 treaty with the U.S., which recognizes its sovereign authority over those lands.

Even if the pipeline treaty applies, according to the band, it still allows for pipelines to be regulated, including for pipeline safety and environmental protection.

Read Next Inside the last-ditch effort to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline Katie Myers

That has worried the band’s supporters. Some say the U.S. is failing to meaningfully support tribal sovereignty, instead protecting its interests with Canada.

“From the point of view of the tribe and its allies, this is incredibly concerning that the United States is not advocating for the shutdown or removal of that pipeline” said Matthew Fletcher, a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and a law professor at the University of Michigan.

Other Great Lakes tribes have argued that accepting Canada and Enbridge’s interpretation of the pipeline treaty would undermine foundational principles of tribal sovereignty and would have major implications for property rights.

In a letter to the Biden administration in late February, representatives from 30 tribal nations across the region said the U.S. should fulfill its trust responsibility by rejecting that interpretation of the pipeline treaty.

Enbridge declined Grist’s request for an interview. In an emailed statement, company spokesperson Ryan Duffy said, “The Government of Canada has made its position clear. Such a shutdown is not in the public interest as it would negatively impact businesses, communities and millions of individuals who depend on Line 5 for energy in both the U.S. and Canada.”

The band, Enbridge, and Canada have until April 24 to respond to the DOJ’s brief. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals will then decide how to move forward.

Editor’s note: Enbridge is an advertiser with Interlochen Public Radio. Advertisers have no role in IPR’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline DOJ thinks Enbridge Line 5 pipeline is trespassing on tribal lands on Apr 12, 2024.

Categories: H. Green News

Climate Change News - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 01:17

Chris Hocknell is the director of London-based sustainability consultancy Eight Versa.

Tech giant Intel said in its 2023 Climate Transition Action Plan that it faces challenges in setting targets for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The chip-maker is likely to be the first in a long list of companies to slowly break cover and admit that the SBTi is unfit for purpose.

As a professional sustainability advisor, I know that of the 5,000 or so companies that have signed up for the initiative, only a startling minority have robust and realistic plans for fulfilling their emissions-cutting commitments.

These ambitious yet under-interrogated targets are really just counterproductive “green-wishing”. When it comes to emission reductions, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. In other words, the perfect often becomes the enemy of the good.

The SBTi has been endorsed by the United Nations as a global decarbonisation framework. It requires companies to commit to an ‘absolute contraction’ of Scope 1 and 2 emissions of 90%, and for some organisations to make cuts to their Scope 3 emissions as well, by no later than 2050. Absolute contraction is essentially a carbon budget, set from year one.

UN climate chief calls for “quantum leap in climate finance”

We must first consider the implications that SBTi has for climate innovation and a company’s business model. Here we run into a major obstacle because currently, SBTi does not take into account abated emissions – the environmental benefit that technology provides.

Take Tesla. Tesla’s plan to scale production could never be SBTi-aligned But according to the EV maker’s impact report, the company helped to abate 2.3 million metric tons of CO2 in 2022, which is more than the entire CO2 emissions of Malta.

Oxford PV is another example. It has succeeded in developing a breakthrough clean technology that makes solar photovoltaic panels 30% more efficient than average panels. Yet, despite the huge emission abatement potential of this technology, there’s no feasible way the company could scale, while being SBTi-aligned on its own emissions.

This points to a fundamental issue with the current limited and simplistic ‘territorial’ approach to carbon accounting. Instead, we must embrace more comprehensive strategies that can achieve meaningful and lasting reductions in carbon emissions.

Spring Meetings can jump-start financial reform for food and climate

Can SBTi, dreamt up in air-conditioned offices in the West, really tell innovative companies in emerging economies that they must make drastic emission cuts in their operations? For example, it would not be possible for South African clean energy start-up BioTherm Energy, or Nigerian solar company Lumos, to slash their emissions by 90%, all while delivering cleaner energy and pulling in tax revenue for their developing economies. After all, sea walls, flood barriers and drought-resistant crops need to be financed somehow.

The idea that we can contract our emissions with the technologies available today, by 90%, without triggering large-scale human and economic upheaval is a view rooted in dogma, not science or economics.

Anybody who has made New Year’s resolutions will know that a crash-diet that cuts your calorie intake by 90% is a pipe dream, especially if we don’t count calories burned. Instead, a gradual downsizing of snacking, along with a feasible, sustained increase in the intensity of exercise is far more likely to deliver the results you want.

Beyond the ‘green-wishing’, the SBTi’s design is fundamentally flawed because it allows businesses with over 250 employees to reduce their Scope 3 emissions on an intensity metrics basis (reduced energy per unit of production), but not smaller firms. For example, for an air travel company, this could be energy used per flight, or for a garment manufacturer, energy used per item of clothing produced.

European court rules climate inaction by states breaches human rights

SMEs make up 99% of businesses. To subject smaller, less well-resourced companies to a more stringent emissions-reduction requirement than larger firms seems bizarre.

So what’s the alternative? Every company should use an intensity metrics measurement, and set a transparent emissions target that is relative to an economic or operational variable, like emissions per unit of goods sold.

We know we need to carry on eating healthily – we now need to learn what exercise regime works best for us. Ultimately, we should be sceptical of any one-size-fits all plan pushed by those with no skin in the game.

An ‘intensity metrics’ basis for emissions reductions provides us with a far more attainable and universal decarbonisation framework. The need for a fair global system is clear. The SBTi, with its unrealistic and reductive approach, is simply not it.

This article argues that the SBTI’s rules are too stringent. We have also published a comment piece arguing they are too lax.

The post SBTi’s rigid emissions rules don’t reflect business reality appeared first on Climate Home News.

Categories: H. Green News

Ecologist - Fri, 04/12/2024 - 01:00

Categories: H. Green News

La Via Campesina : International Peasant Movement - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 23:16

Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos (COAG) and Confederation of Rural Women (CERES) raise awareness of women farmers and livestock breeders visible in the mobilization and negotiation process.

Land managed by women receives only 3 out of every 10 euros from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In March this year, on the occasion of Women’s Day, COAG and CERES denounced the difficulties faced by female-owned farms in accessing agricultural aid. These organizations demand a modification of the current CAP and Rural Development Plans (RDP) to truly introduce the gender perspective in their design. Under the current scheme, farms owned by women farmers and livestock breeders are marginalized because they are smaller in size and have ineligible production. The demands of women farmers and livestock breeders were visible in the mobilization and negotiation that took place before the EU, the Ministry of Agriculture, and Autonomous Communities.

According to data from the Spanish Agricultural Guarantee Fund (FEGA), the proportion of CAP aid received by women-owned farms significantly lags behind that of men, with only 27.5% of direct aid and 26.34% of Rural Development aid going to women.

In a press release they issued on the 8th of March, COAG and CERES asserted the need to analyze the gender perspective in these programs to promote equality and counter rural depopulation. Current aid schemes are designed with a male bias, overlooking the diverse models of women-owned farms, which are often smaller and engage in alternative livestock production ineligible for aid. Inmaculada Idáñez, head of COAG’s Women’s Department and CERES President, stressed the importance of pre-establishing equal opportunities and adapting regulations to accommodate the realities of women-owned farms.

The statement also called for:

1. Fair prices for food covering production costs.
2. Prioritization of small and medium-sized family farms in agricultural policies.
3. Europe’s commitment to food security and sovereignty.
4. Strengthening support for initiatives fostering rural economic and social development.
5. Incentives and improved access for young people and women entering the agricultural sector.
6. Agricultural insurance system reform to address climate change impacts like droughts.
7. Promotion of sustainable production models balancing profitability with environmental preservation and biodiversity.

This is an edited version of the Press release from COAG and CERES

The post Spain: Only 3 out of 10 Euros from CAP go to Land Managed by Women appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Categories: A1. Favorites, A3. Agroecology

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 22:18

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 22:17

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

Green Action - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 20:10

April 17, 2024Bayview Hunters Point Environmental Justice Task Force Meeting

Categories: E2. Front Line Community Green

Green Action - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 20:02

March 21, 2024:
* Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Ongoing & New Violations of Environmental Justice and the
2016 Kettleman City Civil Rights Settlement

March 2023: Kettleman City, Buttonwillow, and Out-of-State Solid Waste Landfills:
Racial Discrimination, Expired Permits, Civil Rights Violations, & Regulatory Malpractice by the
Department of Toxic Substances Control in California’s Failed Hazardous Waste Program

Greenaction & El Pueblo DTSC BES Presentation.pptx

Greenaction Kettleman City BES Presentation March 21, 2024

Categories: E2. Front Line Community Green

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 19:26

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

Global Tapestry of Alternatives - Thu, 04/11/2024 - 19:16

Categories: B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition