Time to wake up to the climate emergency says Christina Figueres

Extinction Rebellion and student climate strike movement civil disobedience actions receives support from Christiana Figueres to wake us up to the climate emergency.

Former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres, is an important architect of the Paris Agreement negotiated in 2015.

She has released a video statement on the importance of civil disobedience and protests by #ExtinctionRebellion and the Student #climatestrike in waking us up to the #climateemergency and need for political action on climate change.

Australian politicians and #climateelection candidates should all watch, take note, and undertake ambitious action if elected. There is no more time for delay or denial.

Here in Australia the student climate strike has 3 simple basic demands:

* Stop Adani coal mine
* No new coal or gas projects
* 100 percent renewables by 2030 target

Anything less than this, does not respect the science and the threat to society from climate breakdown.

Farewell to a Climate Queen - Christiana Figueres

The Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, is stepping down from her position.

She took over the important role in 2010 in time for COP16 at Cancun, after the trainwreck that was Copenhagen COP15 in 2009, and served six years in the role.

Slowly she navigated the UNFCCC secretariat, national parties, business, science and civil society groups, building a new consensus, through to concluding the Paris Agreement at COP21 in December 2015.

Her final negotiating session as Executive Secretary was the Bonn negotiations this May. Mexican politician and diplomat Patricia Espinosa will take over the role as UNFCCC Executive Secretary from July.

A Joint meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) said farewell.

Latrobe Valley: Finding Hope in Morwell at climate ground zero

On Saturday I dragged myself out of bed early to catch a 7am train to Southern Cross station. I had committed myself to journeying with a party of Greens supporters, including the State MP for Melbourne Ellen Sandell and the Federal MP Adam Bandt, to the town of Morwell in the heart of the LaTrobe Valley. This is where much of Victoria's electricity is generated from three huge thermal power station complexes and three huge open cut mines where lignite is easily extracted.

I travelled to Morwell to listen to members of the local community on the future of coal, and their concerns over health and economic transitioning. Some of them understand that the future of coal is coming to an end and requires transition planning, and this needs to be done actively on a local community level.

Morwell is a town of 14,000 with the Hazelwood open cut pit within a few hundred metres of the south side of the town. On the south side of the pit sits Hazelwood power station, owned by GDF Suez Australian Energy. About 100,000 people live within 20 kilometres of this mine. A major mine fire at Hazelwood in February-March 2014 that became one of Victoria's worst industrial disasters, provided a wakeup call to the local community.

Hazelwood is one of the most polluting power stations, not only in Australia but in the industrial world, according to the OECD, both in regard to the toxic cocktail of chemicals it daily emits into the air and water, and the carbon emissions intensity it spews into the air of the Latrobe Valley. Carbon emissions are currently 15.5 MT CO2e per year, with carbon intensity of 1.4 Tonnes CO2/MWh. Just this one facility produces about 15 per cent of Victoria’s total carbon emissions. The power station is also a major consumer of water: 1.31 megalitres of water is consumed per gigawatt hour of power generated.

While ensuring the growth of renewables is important, ultimately closing the ageing power stations like Hazelwood that generate high carbon emissions is essential to ensure a safe climate for ourselves and future generations. To ensure we stay under the two degree Celsius limit that all government's that are signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including Australia, agreed to do at Cancun in 2010.

Manila statement for #climate action calls for solidarity and justice

This original story first published at Nofibs.

The leaders of France and the Philippines issued an ambituous call from Manila for a global climate deal in Paris at the end of 2015.

The President of France François Hollande (@fhollande) and President of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III issued the Manila call to action on climate change on 26 February 2015. The statement calls on nations to step up for an ambitious and fair agreement based on climate science to be concluded at the UNFCCC climate talks, the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), scheduled for Paris in December 2015.

Will Australia be a spoiler or lifter for #Paris2015 global #climate agreement?

This article was originally published at nofibs.com.au

The Geneva negotiating text provides hope for a global climate agreement in the lead up to the United Nations Paris climate negotiations in December 2015.

The Paris climate talks are a significant landmark: whether the international community will negotiate an effective agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions and reduce global warming, or allow rising business as usual emissions to cause economic and civilisation disruption due to increasing severity of extreme weather events and rising temperatures.

You just need to look around at the climate impacts we are seeing in Australia whether it is in the bushfires in South Australia, heatwaves in Melbourne, or the increase in jellyfish blooms in North Queensland.

Youth observers expelled from UN climate change talks for Philippines Solidarity

Justice is being demanded from the UNFCCC leadership to reverse its decision to take away the badges of 3 youth observers who were expressing their solidarity with the Filipino people suffering from the massive loss and destruction brought about by Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda).

Three youth observers were ejected by security from the conference and had their accreditation withdrawn on Monday for 5 years. They had expressed solidarity with a non-sanctioned banner and signs after Philippines negotiator, Naderev Saño (Yeb Saño) left the main plenary after making his impassioned plea: "time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway".

Read Clemance Hutin's account at Push Europe: Kicked out of UN climate talks for expressing solidarity with the Philippines. Maria Alejandra Escalante and Graham Thurston Hallett gives their side of the story: Expelled from the United Nations: How the Secretary reacts to solidarity with the Philippines.

Clémence Hutin from Young Friends of the Earth Europe, and Graham Thurston Hallett and Maria Alejandra Escalante from Earth in Brackets were attending their first COP. The 3 activists were later informed they were being banned indefinitely from the negotiations on the express orders of Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC Exec Secretary. (@CFigueres). And not just for this conference, according to Hallett and Escalante's blog, they have been banned from attending UNFCCC conferences for 5 years!

Protests against coal plants across Poland as Warsaw climate change talks open

Greenpeace activists launched protests at six coal fired power stations across Poland just before the UN climate conference - COP19 - started. Using projectors on Sunday night the activists projected anti-coal messages onto the power stations urging the world’s governments to phase out fossil fuels which cause serious environmental damage.

Messages projected included “Climate change starts here!” and “Storms start here!” and highlighted the link between greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like Super Typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines.

Tony Abbott in denial on bushfire climate change link

In a radio interview with Neil Mitchell, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the Head of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, is "talking through her hat" for connecting the NSW bushfires with climate change and that "these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life in Australia."

It seems Mr Abbott is in denial on all the wildfire research done on the increase in fireweather and increase in frequency and intensity in bushfires both in Australia and globally.

Abbott articulated a list of major bushfire disasters in Australia as justification that climate change is not involved. Yet the science clearly shows the long term climate change trend for rising temperatures, with increasing frequency of heatwaves drying out forests and grasslands and driving reductions in humidity and soil moisture making extreme fireweather and bushfires more frequent and more intense.

Earlier this year just after the Tasmanian bushfires wiped out the town of Dunalley with people fleeing the inferno by boat, Prime Minister Julia Gillard linked the increasing frequency and intensity of bushfires generally to climate change conditions. At least she reads what climate scientists say on bushfires and climate change, unlike the present Prime Minister.

Related: Raging Bushfires surround Sydney with early start to Fire season | Mega bushfire feared as State of Emergency declared in NSW