Antonio Guterres calls out the Godfathers of Climate Chaos on World Environment Day

 

Blistering speech by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on World Evironment Day urging leaders take the right decisions taking urgent climate action, particularly over the next eighteen months, with concerning temperature trends and increasing climate damage impacts

Antonio Guterres highlighted that

• The European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service officially reported May 2024 as the hottest May in recorded history.   
• This marks twelve straight months of the hottest months ever. 
• The World Meteorological Organisation reports today that there is an eighty per cent chance the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5 degree limit in at least one of the next five years.
• In 2015, the chance of such a breach was near zero.
• There’s a fifty-fifty chance that the average temperature for the entire next five-year period will be 1.5 degrees higher than pre-industrial times.
• Urged financial institutions to stop bankrolling fossil fuel destruction and start investing in a global renewables revolution; To present public, credible and detailed plans to transition [funding] from fossil fuels to clean energy with clear targets for 2025 and 2030;
• Called for advertising and PR companies  to "stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction. Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones. Fossil fuels are not only poisoning our planet – they’re toxic for your brand."
• Highlighted that  "the Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel industry – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
• Called for an effective price on carbon and tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies.
• He proposed: "We do have a choice: Creating tipping points for climate progress – or careening to tipping points for climate disaster."

He advised that "We are playing Russian roulette with our planet. We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell. And the truth is… we have control of the wheel. The 1.5 degree limit is still just about possible."

It is amazing he still holds hope as governments continue to approve new coal and gas. Like the Victorian Government  approving the Beach Energy Fossil Gas field inder the 12 Apsostles National Marine Sancturay on 6 June..

Watch full speech, or read speech transcription below.

Shipping emissions: Route optimisation using ocean currents and eddies may save 10% fuel use globally

An Australian scientist proposes freight and container ships optimise their routes based upon satellite data and a AI algorithm based upon the mapping of ocean currents and ocean eddies. 

This could save a freight route between Sydney and Wellington in New Zealand about 17 percent fuel use, with minimal deviation and change in delivery time. It could achieve these savings by tracking the flow of a large anticlockwise eddy in the Tasman Sea.

Projecting this globally: global shipping industry could potentially cut its total fuel usage by 10 per cent with his route optimisation algorithm, Estimated savings are projected to be nearly US$50 billion and 237 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.

Shane Keating is an oceanographer and associate professor of applied mathematics at UNSW Sydney. He has developed an application and is offering it through his just-launched UNSW spin-off company named Ocean Intelligence. 

“It’s essentially Google Maps for the sea, which offers the most efficient route in real time based on the behaviour of ocean eddies,” Keating said in this article in the Saturday Paper.