COP27 was a big deal. Over 90 heads of State, 35,000 delegates from 190 countries met in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, at the 27th Convention of the Parties (COP27) to address climate change. We provide you with key developments- positive and negative. In our view, following Christiana Figueres, hope and optimism have the upper hand even with serious setbacks. See Elizabeth Kolbert " A Vast Experiment- the climate crisis from A to Z" for an outstanding sweep of what we face and have accomplished. (Climate Change issue of November 28 New Yorker)
Belle, Victoria and climate team
At climate talks in Egypt, President Biden apologized for his predecessor’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
After 30 years of deadlock, a new U.N. climate agreement aims to pay developing countries for loss and damage caused by global warming. But huge questions remain about how it would work.
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were created 80 years ago to rebuild countries devastated by World War II and to stabilize the global economy. But an expanding group of world leaders now say the two powerful institutions need a 21st century overhaul to handle a new destructive force: global warming… The proposals are broadly in line with what is known as the Bridgetown Initiative, put forward this summer by Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, a heavily indebted Caribbean nation that is highly vulnerable to climate disasters.
“We need to reconvene Bretton Woods and completely revamp and reform the World Bank system and make access to private capital available for developing countries,” former Vice President Al Gore said at the climate summit on Monday. “This is a moment for a global epiphany. It is not time for moral cowardice and reckless indifference to the future of humanity.”
Their estimates are part a new global compendium of emissions released on Wednesday by Climate TRACE, a nonprofit coalition of environmental groups, technology companies and academic scientists.
Climate TRACE, a nonprofit backed by Al Gore and other big environmental donors, is scouring data from satellites to track emissions down to individual power plants, oil fields and cargo ships. The group has cataloged 72,612 emitters and counting, creating a hyperlocal atlas of the human activities that are altering the planet’s chemistry.
More climate
National climate report / draft Report Offers Starkest View Yet of U.S. Climate Threats
“The things Americans value most are at risk,” says a draft of the National Climate Assessment, a major federal scientific report slated for release next year.
December 2, 2022
Regulators are proposing deep cuts to the use of fossil fuels to meet the state’s ambitious climate change goals
By Anna Phillips
The Texas Group Waging a National Crusade Against Climate Action (article attached)
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is shaping laws, running influence campaigns and taking legal action in a bid to promote fossil fuels.
…confirmation that EV sales are growing robustly in the US. This week, Tesla rolled out their Semi Truck - meant to transform that market, which is 2 years behind the company's originally scheduled roll-out. There has been a lot of skepticism about whether this machine can even work from a physics and economics perspective…
The California State Coastal Conservancy is set to invest $3.5 million to begin planning an expansion of sea-level rise and shoreline erosion defense projects around Marin and San Francisco Bay…The projects will use natural fortifications such as oyster beds, sand beds, beaches and marshes instead of sea walls and rip-rap.
The state set a goal of treating 1 million forested acres per year to reduce wildfire risk. While there is no firm figure available, the state currently treats an estimated 200,000 acres per year, excluding commercial timber harvest…The challenge: how do we get from treating 200,000 acres to 1 million acres as quickly as possible?.. There is a potential solution that could generate climate, air quality and rural economic development benefits while helping California meet its forest treatment goals: converting waste biomass into valuable products.
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