CHOGM meeting in Samoa: new report highlights Australia, Canada, UK role in fossil fuel emissions

This page discusses CHOGM 2024 and climate change and the outcomes.

A New report launched at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa reveals the stark imbalance in fossil fuel extraction across the Commonwealth and highlights the dominance of three wealthy nations—Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom—in driving fossil fuel expansion and emissions. 

The report Uncommon Wealth: Fossil Fuel Expansion in the Commonwealth Dominated by Three Wealthy Countries - was commissioned by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and based on data from the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels. 

It shows that despite representing only 6% of the Commonwealth’s population, Australia, Canada, and the UK are responsible for over 60% of emissions generated from extraction across Commonwealth countries since 1990.

Outcomes: Samoa Communique | Ocean Declaration | 
King Charles on Climate Action | CANi & PICAN Briefing Note |
Australia: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese | Foreign Minister Penny Wong

Is Australia prepared for a wildfire emergency in 2023 summer?

Queensland Fire incidents map Sat 19 August 11am

Early Fire season started this weekend in SE Queensland. Warmer temperatures with climate change is driving earlier fire seasons, more intense fire weather.

This fire season in Queensland is one month earlier start than the 2019-2020 bushfire season.

Key Points:
BOM says conditions ripe for high fire danger
Meteorologists warn people must take precautions
Australia's worst recorded bushfire season of 2019-2020 sparked on Queensland's Granite Belt in Sep 2019, burnt for months.

According to the Buraeu of Meteorology fire danger for the following regions were rated high on Friday: Capricornia, Central Highlands and Coalfields, Darling Downs and Granite Belt, Wide Bay and Burnett, Southeast Coast. All other regions were rated as moderate fire danger.

Australia the captain of the villians? The Fossil Fueled Five - Comparing Rhetoric with Reality on Fossil Fuel Production at #COP26

Launch of the Fossil Fueled Five Report at Panda Hub at COP26

A new report investigates the role of 5 western developed countries, their current climate plans and their current fossil fuel expansion plans.

The Fossil Fueled Five report comes at a critical time as there is gowing discussion at UN Climate conferences and generally in the community that fossil fuel production needs to be reigned in as demonstrated by the recent Production Gap Report, and the UN Environment Program Emissions Gap Report.

We saw the coal exit pledge gain ground at this UN climate change conference, and the launch of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

This report was produced by the University of Sussex and conducted in cooperation with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and key regional partners in each of the 5 countries – Uplift (UK), Oil Change International (USA), Greenpeace (Norway), The Australia Institute (Australia) and Stand.earth (Canada).

Watch the launch (below) which features Canadian environmental activist Tzeporah Berman, Freddie Daley from the University of Sussex, Tessa Khan, Lawyer, Founder & Director, Uplift UK, Colin Rees with Oil Change International, a young FoE Norway activist, and Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute.

Survivors tell stories of Climate driven mega-fires at COP26 and call for urgent climate action

Wildfire survivors press conference

The fires are growing more intense, burning far greater areas than we have previously experienced. Climate change factors are pushing widfires to become mega-fires. Fires that are near impossible to effectively control. Forest systems that have rarely if ever, seen fire, are now burning.

Bushfires sirvivors from Australia, Canada, USA and Turkey held a press conference outside the Australian Pavilion at #COP26 on Monday, where they shared their stories of heartbreak and loss.

Those who lost everything in the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires in Australia, and then the fires that followed in California, Turkey and Canada, know exactly what’s at stake. 

The Climate Council pulled together these people to share their stories outside the Australian Pavillion.  All the participants called for world leaders and decision makers at COP26 to commit to strong emission reductions this decade.

Otherwise, we risk experiencing Black Summer, after Black Summer, after Black Summer.

Biden Climate Summit: Australia Fails to Deliver, remains a global outsider and climate laggard

Here is a quick summary in graphic and point form where the main countries line up on climate commitments at the end of the Climate leaders summit organised by USA President Joe Biden in his first 100 days of leadership:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison made:

• no change in Australia's low targets.
• no commitment to net zero by 2050 target.
• produced meaningless statistics that don't stack up
• slagged off the work of other countries
• talked up hydrogen without explaining much of this will be blue hydrogen from coal and gas
• thanked some of Australia's highest emitting companies, part of the problem
• tried to carve out emissions from our fossil fuel exports (Australia is 3rd largest carbon exporter)
• talked up the hired help: Allan Finkel and his contribution (including to the gas led recovery)

Australia wins third fossil award for reducing climate aid funding among trifecta of Fossil Awards for USA at COP25

On Monday December 9, Australia picked up it's third Fossil of the Day award at this United Nationas climate conference COP25 meeting in Madrid.

This award was goven to the USA and Australia for not contributing to the Green Climate Fund on Fonance Day at the conference. Both USA and Australia have stopped pledging any money to the Fund which allocates money for projects in developing countries for both mitigation and adaptation.

December 2015 Christmas #Heatwave in Europe, US and Canada

December was remarkable for high temperature anomalies in Europe and North America. Many maximum temperature records and high minumum temperature records were broken in the leadup to and on Christmas day, particularly in North America.

2015 is set to be the hottest year on record, but already the UK Met Office has projected that 2016 will likely be hotter still.

In New York City shorts and T-shirts were still being worn, and tomatoes were still ripening. Many people highlighted the irony of turning on air-conditioning at Christmas. Some even pondered having a christmas barbecue or pool party.

Canada welcomed at Paris #PreCOP #climate Ministerial meeting

Original article published at nofibs.com.au

A high level informal Ministerial pre-summit climate conference is currently under way in Paris to try and close some of the differences in negotiating positions to set up momentum for the Paris Climate Conference. The outstanding highlight has been the return of Canada to the serious climate discussion table, although it is still very early to see how strong Canada's climate policy and negotiating position will be.

The French Government is putting a lot of diplomatic effort into the UN climate conference (COP21), due to start on Monday November 30 with an initial leaders summit with more than 100 Heads of State attending.

After years of grassroots climate campaigning Obama cancels Keystone XL pipeline

Yesterday, after many years of delay, President Obama cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline project that would bring the bitumenous oil from the Alberta tar sands to the oil refineries on the Gulf coast.

The pipeline was condemned as opening up tar sands production and enhancing carbon pollution causing climate change. James Hansen famously said in 2011 that it would be game over for the climate if the Keystone XL pipeline was ever allowed to be built.

Stopping the Keystone XL project became highly symbolic for the climate movement and entailed building a broad coalition of indigenous first nation people, ranchers, students, scientists, and activists from all walks of life and from across Canada and the United States.

It involved civil disobedience at the point of construction and more symbolic arrests in front of the White House to lobby and pressure the Obama administration to walk the talk on climate action and not be bullied by the cashed up fossil fuel lobby.

“This is a historic moment, not just for what it means about avoiding the impacts of this disastrous pipeline but for all of those who spoke out for a healthy, liveable climate and energy policies that put people and wildlife ahead of pollution and profits,” said Valerie Love with the Center for Biological Diversity in a media statement. “President Obama did the right thing, but he didn’t do it alone: Millions of Americans made their voices heard on this issue, and will continue pressing Obama and other political leaders to do what’s necessary to avoid climate catastrophe.”

“History will hopefully remember this as a moment when the tide began to turn significantly against the forces that have fueled the climate crisis for so long. And there’s no doubt that this hard-earned win attests to the power of the climate movement and sends an undeniable message that Americans want clean energy now,” Love said. “We still have a lot of work to do to get off fossil fuels, but this is proof we have power and we’re on the right track.”

PriceWaterHouseCoopers analysis of comparative ambition for Australia and Canada

An analysis published 11 May 2015 by PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimated the target that Japan, Canada and Australia needed to meet to achieve the same level of ambition as Europe or USA. We know these countries still aren't doing enough to achieve 2C target, yet they still set a benchmark for other industrial countries to also match. The EU committed to a 40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2030 and the US a 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels by 2025.

Applying the Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI) model to match the present US target PricewaterhouseCoopers results came up with:

• Japan: 6% reduction on 2005 levels by 2025
  
• Canada: 19% reduction on 2005 levels by 2025
  
• Australia: 24% reduction on 2005 levels by 2025
  

"Our LCEI report in 2014 showed that global carbon intensity is falling by around 1% per year, but that this needs to be 6% per year on average to stay within the 2 degrees carbon budget. All these targets fall well short of the 2 degrees goal." reports PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Read more on their analysis here: What would Japan, Canada and Australia’s targets be if they are as ambitious as the EU or US?

UN Climate summit advances pledges while Australia, Canada noticeably reticent

The UN climate summit has resulted in an extensive range of promises and commitments on climate action. But noticeably absent is any mention of commitments from Canada and Australia. These two countries both have high carbon fossil fuel mining industries with governments in denial on taking effective climate action on a national level to reign in emissions and the mining and export of fossil fuels.

Canadians rally against tar sands pipelines to defend a safe climate

Last Saturday thousands of Canadians took to the streets marching and rallying for a safe climate, and against tar sands expansion and more pipelines.

From coast to coast to Repulse Bay, Nunavut on the Arctic cirle, people gathered in over 180 events. Many concentrated on opposing the Enbridge Pipelines and tar sands expansion, on fracking or the more general threat of climate change, and the anti-climate policies of the Harper Government.

The protests were co-ordinated by Defend our Climate. Many were organised at the local level on short notice as word spread of the national action. But the protests were also connected to the organising of climate protests in Australia that drew in excess of 60,000 people, with an estimated 30,000 people attending a rally in Melbourne against the climate denial policies of the new Australian Government lead by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

From Defend our Climate Blog: Charlottetown | First timers step up in Halifax | Oka is Defending our Climate | North Bay Ontario comes out strong | Ottawa: Bringing the wall of opposition to Harper’s doorstep | Ottawa: Canadians stand with the Philippines today | Solidarity in Winnipeg | Nunavut braves a blizzard to defend our climate | A pipeline through the heart of Toronto | Edmonton’s barrel blockade | Looks like the start of a prairie fire | Awareness builds along 2 new routes in Ontario and Quebec | Resistance in the Interior | Vancouver: National Day of Action Wraps on the West Coast

Alberta Floods highlight a more active water cycle with climate change

An intense rainfall and storm event on June 20-21 has caused widespread flooding in the Canadian province of Alberta, encompassing much of the southern portion of the province including Canada's fourth largest city of Calgary. It is the worst flooding event in Alberta's recorded history, highlighting the more active hydrological cycle with climate change.

Over 120,000 people across the region were evacuated, 75,000 in Calgary (7% of the population), many now returning to flood damaged homes and businesses to start the clean up.

I am not going to say climate change caused the flooding. Clearly natural weather variability still plays a significant part in extreme weather events. But the reality is we have warmed the atmosphere and changed the base climate from which all extreme weather events are generated from. We are now living with weather in a more active hydrological cycle resulting in more frequent and intense storm events with a capacity to cause greater flooding.

Second chance for Rogue Weathergirl: Still Hot, Still Crazy

Those wonderful people at Deep Rogue Ram have given us more to laugh and think about with the current US Drought, climate change and the US Presidential election.

If you remember Pippa gave us the real weather report a few weeks ago at the start of September highlighting the record reduction in Arctic Sea Ice and unprecedented melting of Greenland ice sheet and thousands of record temperatures broken in North America.

Climate change increasing Canada's boreal forest mortality reducing carbon sink capacity

Climate change induced drought and water stress is increasing tree mortality in Canada's boreal forests, particularly in western Canada, resulting in a reduction in biomass which reduces it's capacity as a carbon sink. As tree mortality increases, there is reduced capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, resulting in a feedback loop where conditions become warmer and drier increasing the stress on the boreal forest ecosystem and ability to absorb carbon dioxide that humans keep on pumping into the atmosphere at increasing rates.

Wildfires in Canada approaching threshold point due to climate change

The climate is changing in Canada. New research indicates that large areas of Canada are approaching a threshold value where they may experience a rapid increase in the size of wildfires. Both the area burnt down annually and the average size of the fires would increase, write the researchers of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Michigan who undertook the research.

Wildfire is expected to increase as a result of climate change in Canada with the majority of wildfires occurring in non-fragmented coniferous forests. Recovery from fire usually takes 20 years. If fires or logging occurrs on a frequent basis, this can cause landscape traps in which the ecology becomes permanently changed. (See example: mountain ash forest landscape trap of Victoria, Australia)

Arctic Permafrost thawing raising CO2 levels

Global warming is not going away, and over coming decades will worsen through the earth passing tipping points for carbon feedback mechanisms. One such tipping point is the thawing of arctic permafrost which will release huge amounts of carbon dioxide and further accelerate climate change. A new study has found that up to two thirds of permafrost is likely to disappear by 2200, much of it in the next 100 years, as a result of warming arctic temperatures resulting in the release of an estimated 190 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

Arctic climate warming at unprecedented rate due to Global Warming

A new reportcard for 2010 highlights record temperatures across Canadian Arctic and Greenland, reduced summer sea ice cover, and record snow cover decreases, indicating rapid global warming in the arctic polar region.



The report card was produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the US Department of Commerce, and tracks recent environmental changes, with 18 essays on different parts of the environment, written by a team of 69 international authors, and supported by 176 scientific references. The report card has been produced on an annual basis since 2006.

Climate Change Road map Agreement Reached in Bali Meeting COP13

Climate Talks concluded in Bali with the United States caving in under pressure of the European Union and the developing world and agreeing to a compromise text in the preamble of "Deep cuts in global emissions will be required" to avoid dangerous climate change. The guideline that rich countries should cut emissions by 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 as recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was moved to a footnote at the US delegation's insistence.

Photos: Transnational Institute | Oxfam | Greenpeace | Related: FoE: Kyoto afloat after attempted sabotage