Environment

The Inflation Reduction Act appropriated an estimated 1.2 trillion in federal dollars to fund a variety of programs, most of of which were focused on climate change. It represents the biggest investment in climate action taken by the United States to date. On top of this, [U.S. President Joe] Biden’s Justice 40 initiative aims to ensure that 40 percent of federal climate-related funding goes towards marginalized communities.

A portion of existing funds from the IRA are administered through the Environmental Protection Agency and are meant for advocacy groups, which often partner with state and local governments to help get money to the country’s neediest people. A subset of advocacy groups that receive federal funding are environmental justice groups, which advocate for climate change mitigation and increased access to a pollution-free environment for residents in low-income and BIPOC communities, which are often disproportionately located near sources of pollution.

If it followed Project 2025’s proposal, a Trump EPA would almost certainly put an end to such programs. The Heritage Foundation has previously targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in public and private institutions, as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote earlier this year. (Though it’s worth noting that race is not a factor that the Justice 40 initiative considers when deciding what constitutes a disadvantaged community.)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4332042

Australia has described the outcome of a meeting between members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources as a "backwards step".

Attendees said Russia and China vetoed all proposed measures, including one to renew existing krill management measures.

Conservationists say member countries should regroup and figure out how to tackle Russia and China ahead of the next meeting in 2025.

In a graphic at the beginning of the report, the U.N. estimates that in 2023, livestock was responsible for only 6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The number struck me as strange. Because in my previous reporting on animal agriculture, I’ve found that livestock—particularly cattle—are responsible for anywhere from 11 to 20 percent of global emissions, according to a range of peer-reviewed studies.

Seeing this, I immediately considered that industry influence could be to blame. Because like the fossil fuel industry, the animal agriculture industry has a history of pressuring the scientific community to downplay its role in the climate crisis. The industry has recently censored U.N. reports on livestock emissions; pressured the IPCC to remove recommendations to shift to “plant-based diets” from its most recent report; and sent lobbyists to COP28 to convince policymakers that meat is beneficial for the environment.

What I found, however, was more an issue of scientific choice. According to Taryn Fransen, global climate program director at the World Resources Institute and one of the report’s lead authors, the U.N. report only measures direct, or Scope 1, emissions. This includes methane from cow burps, manure, and fertilizer. It doesn’t include indirect, or Scope 2 or 3 emissions for livestock: things like deforestation, growing feed, pasture management, and slaughterhouse waste.

The report also referenced a recent survey of climate scientists conducted by the Guardian in which more than three-quarters of the 380 respondents believed humanity will miss the target set in the Paris climate agreement of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.

There is some encouraging evidence of such decisive action, albeit at insufficient levels so far. Expert organizations like the International Energy Agency project that based on current climate policies, the world is headed toward around 2.5°C global warming by 2100. That’s not enough to meet the Paris climate targets, and yet implementing additional climate policies and solutions in the coming years could improve that outcome even further to levels below the worried expectations of three-quarters of climate scientists.

Many black plastic kitchen items are made from recycled electronic materials that contain toxic flame retardants and other chemicals.

Every time I stop thinking that oil companies might be the most evil organizations of the world, I learn about a new atrocity that trumps even the worst thing about them that trumps all i knew before.

TL;DW: Chevron likely ordered the murder of one of the family members of the party involved in the case against them. And they not only put the main lawyer in prison, but also revoked his lawyer license and managed to freeze his bank accounts and confiscated h is passport to stop him from continuing the case.

Here is more information: https://www.stopeacop.net

A group of 28 NGOs have written to 34 banks, insurance companies and the Chinese government, urging them to deny financing and other support for oil and gas projects in Uganda.

The letters, written by U.S.-based Climate Rights International (CRI) and 27 Africa-based NGOs, follow a report detailing numerous human rights violations and environmental harms at the Kingfisher oil project sites in Uganda. Similarly, Uganda’s Tilenga oil fields also face scrutiny over their ecological and social harms, including impacts on wildlife and displacement of local communities.

Both Kingfisher and Tilenga are co-owned by French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company Uganda Ltd. (CNOOC), and the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC). Both projects are also part of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline initiative (EACOP), where TotalEnergies is a major partner. The initiave aims to transport oil and gas from Uganda to Tanzania for export.

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Major banks and insurance companies in Europe, Japan and North America have ruled out support for the projects, he added. “Now it’s time for all banks and insurance companies, whether in Europe, China, the Gulf States, Africa, or elsewhere, to publicly rule out any continuing or further support.”

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In 2013, Chinese mining company Chinalco (中国铝业集团有限公司) sparked an international conversation about extractive impacts with the news it had successfully relocated an entire Peruvian town of 5,000 residents to clear space for a copper mine. At the time, the relocation project in Morococha, central Peru, was touted as a solution to protect villagers from pollution and environmental degradation as a result of mining practices, and as a potential template for Chinese overseas investment in Latin America.

Ten years later, experts describe the move as a “tragedy.”

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Many residents and environmental activists argue that the company has failed to honor its promises. A 2019 study by the National University of Central Peru revealed that most of the population of New Morococha believes their economy, job stability, and access to social benefits promised by Chinalco have not been fulfilled.

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Since 2013, 96 percent of the residents in Old Morococha have been compelled to relocate to a flood-prone wetland area, which is also isolated from the central highway. The situation is even worse for some 20 families who have refused to resettle.

“The remaining families in Old Morococha are facing daily harassment from the Chinese mining company Chinalco,” Borda said. “Every day, they are destroying the few houses of the settlers, until the last brick disappears.”

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According to the Geological, Mining, and Metallurgical Institute of Perú (INGEMMET) 2017 report, the city of Old Morococha faces an “imminent, non-mitigable danger” due to severe risks, including visible structural damage, proximity to mining waste and tailings, and ongoing seismic hazards exacerbated by active mining operations. The combination of these factors renders any mitigation efforts ineffective, underscoring the extreme vulnerability of the area.

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[The Ingemmet report] concluded that frequent floods and liquefaction of soils caused by earthquakes may affect the safety of residents living in buildings of New Morococha, where most urban facilities, including schools, religious temples, and health centers, were built within 26 months between 2010 and 2012. The report said the company has not yet informed residents of what they would do to mitigate those risks.

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Hard not to feel doomer about how corrupt the US government is on every level.

All Oil Kills participants are committed to nonviolent direct action and to the central demand, but from there, individual creativity and context has led to an array of actions. The resulting structure is a decentralized yet cohesive power bloc with unified aims that becomes more than the sum of its parts, rather than a lowest common denominator coalition.

Each participating group has adopted the central demand that governments must work together to establish a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030, as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair and just transition. But each local group also brings its own unique knowledge and demands which are in turn supported by the coalition. Futuro Vegetal in Spain, for example, focuses on the imperative to adopt a plant-based agri-food system while Students Against EACOP in Uganda demand a stop to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline — and all stand in solidarity with one another.

Each group also brings its own creative tactics, from airport glue-ins, to plane occupations, to spray-painting terminals, to street marches. “The airports don’t know what to expect because we don’t even know exactly what to expect from each other — it’s beautiful and effective,” said a coalition member who requested to remain anonymous for legal reasons.

Up for negotiating in Cali will be a range of issues, including some traditionally contentious topics, such as finance for nature and the rules governing the access to digital sequence information.

But other issues, such as a global review of progress towards the goals and targets agreed at COP15 and the monitoring framework needed to assess said progress, will be new to the negotiating agenda in Colombia.

Unlike at COP15, around 10 heads of state are expected to attend the Cali summit, Carbon Brief understands.

Over the past decade, however, scientists have become reacquainted with the historical reach of Australian flat oyster reefs, which decorated about 7,000 kilometers of the country’s coastline from Perth to Sydney and down around Tasmania. Australian flat oysters—not to be confused with the far more common European flat oyster, commonly known as the native oyster—form gigantic reefs comprised of billions of individuals that can be found as deep as 40 meters. “They’re like the trees in a forest or the coral in a tropical sea,” McAfee says. Besides providing habitat and boosting biodiversity, oyster reefs are known to filter water and bolster fish production.

On the back of this learning, scientists have been working to restore these lost ecosystems—an endeavor that got a major boost in 2020 when the nonprofit the Nature Conservancy Australia teamed up with the government of South Australia on an ambitious project to bring flat oyster reefs back to the coastline near Adelaide, one of the country’s biggest cities. That project, as McAfee and his team show in a recent study, has been a resounding success so far, with the restored reef now hosting even more Australian flat oysters than the last remaining natural reef in Tasmania. “It’s quite astonishing,” says McAfee.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3536782

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China should set a "strong but achievable" target of slashing emissions at least 30 percent by 2035 when it submits updated climate commitments in coming months, a report urged Thursday.

Signatories to the 2015 Paris climate accord must announce by next February their updated roadmaps to achieve the treaty's goal of limiting global temperature rises.

China currently aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

But its policies and targets are rated "highly insufficient" to limit global warming to 1.5 Celcius above pre-industrial levels, according to the Climate Action Tracker project.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a think tank that tracks climate progress, said Beijing should aim for an absolute emissions reduction target of 30 percent.

As the world's largest emitter, China's "ambition in its climate agenda is decisive for keeping the international community on track," CREA said in a report.

To meet that target, Beijing would need to slash electricity sector emissions by 30 percent and emissions from industry by a quarter. It should also set a target of reducing non-CO2 emissions by more than 35 percent, the group said.

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But Teng Fei, deputy director of Tsinghua University's Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, called the "extreme" goal of a 30 percent emissions cut "too ambitious to be achievable".

"I think China is in the process of stabilising its emissions, so it's quite uncertain, for this period, to what extent China can reduce its overall emissions," he said.

China is currently moving to bolster its flagging housing market, which could trigger higher demand in industry, and increase emissions.

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Coal installation is continuing [in China] in a bid to secure baseload supply, and methane emissions are also rising.

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