Open Letter to the Commonwealth Bank Board to stop financing fossil fuels

Commonwealth Bank are preparing a new Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) policy framework which the Board of the Bank will consider on August 9, 2023. I sent the board members the following email raising my concerns and asking them to take action.

Japan wins First Fossil of the day award at COP27

During the UN Climate Change Conference the Environmental NGO Climate Action Network awards the Fossil of the Day awards to highlight those contries or entities doing the worst.

This year at Sharm El-Sheik the first award was made on November 9... to Japan.

Today’s Fossil of the Day is… Japan!

For being the world’s largest public financier for oil, gas, and coal projects

Ambitious plan to bend global emissions curve by 2020, while Australia continues Adani coal push

At Google HQ in London an ambitious plan was launched by former UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres to accelerate climate action and bend the global emissions curve down by 2020.

Figueres outlined six areas where action was needed to make 2020 a real turning point in the global emissions trend. For the last 3 years global emissions have been flat despite rising global GDP, a sign that economies are increasingly becoming disengaged from processes of carbon pollution.

While in Australia the Liberal National Party Federal Government lead by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is keenly supporting the Adani Carmichael coal mine development, supported by the Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Deciphering the US-China bilateral climate change outcomes

This article first appeared at indybay.org.

The nine point statement on the U.S.-China Climate Change Outcomes in Hangzhou China negotiated between Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama outlined the growing bilateral cooperation between the US and China on climate policy in a number of meetings since 2013. (First outcome).

These bilateral negotiations should be widely welcomed. They proved to be an important stage setter for the Paris Agreement at COP21 in Paris which set in place for the first time a true international framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with climate change.

Read the U.S.-China Climate Change Outcomes (Whitehouse.gov) in full.

United States and China ratify Paris Agreement

The formal occasion in Hangzhou China was used to lodge instruments of ratification of the Paris Agreement with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and call for all other UNFCCC signatory countries to ratify the agreement this year. (Second Outcome)

Read more on this by me: China and the United States Ratify Paris Agreement on climate

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull at COP21: all style little substance

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull waltzed onto the stage at the UN Climate Conference Loire plenary room on Monday afternoon. He was suave and eloquent. All style, but there was little of substance, or new commitments in his speech.

He announced that Australia was not only going to meet our 5 per cent target by 2020, but we were going to exceed it. "We will meet and beat our 2020 emissions reduction target." he said.

But he gave no commitment to actually setting a new pre-2020 target to aim for.

Our current pre-2020 target puts us at the back of the pack with regard to carbon pollution reduction effort prior to 2020.

If every country took this attitude, then the world would be well on the way to 4 degrees global warming.

Time to cease expansion of coal to reduce climate change says Ad

Prominent scientists and environmental organisations have published a full page ad in today's Australian Financial Review calling for the cessation of the expansion of coal exports from Australia.

More and more people are speaking up on the cost of coal expansion to the climate and biodiversity of the planet. Development of new coal mines, new coal export terminals and growing Coal exports are being done with the support of State and Federal Governments. Yet this is at the expense of and driving climate change producing more intense extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, storms, and bushfires. Coal exports are Australia's biggest contribution to climate change. They need to stop.

Read Melbourne University Associate Professor Peter Christoff's article on Why Australia must stop exporting coal. Or watch this 2010 lecture by Dr. Guy Pearse from the University of Queensland on Queensland's coal addiction.

The full text of the ad says:

World Bank dirty investments fueling climate change claims Friends of the Earth report

Amid the latest UN climate talks taking place in Bonn Germany Friends of the Earth International have released a report highly critical of the role of the World Bank in continuing to fund dirty energy investment in developing countries and continuing to push carbon markets and offset programs which essentially privatise developing country forests in the process of generating carbon offsets.

The World Bank was made interim trustee of the new Green Climate Fund in December 2010 in Cancun. The Fund was established to assist developing countries to adapt to the impacts of global warming.

Related: Interview with Sarah-Jayne Clifton, coordinator of the Climate Justice and Energy Program of Friends of the Earth International | Follow the Bonn climate talks: Adopt a Negotiator Project; Climate Action Network; Friends of the Earth.

US Banks greenwashing with carbon principles says RAN report

Banks have still got a long way to go to meet their own carbon principles says a new report from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in the US. Three leading banks put forward these carbon principles in February 2008 to make it tougher to finance conventional coal-fired plants in the US as a way to mitigate carbon emissions and climate change.

Six banks have now signed on to the Carbon principles, but the RAN report indicates adherence to the principles has been hollow and is just a greenwashing exercise by the banks.

G20 Finance Ministers fail to agree on Climate Change Finance Package

G20 Finance ministers failed to reach agreement on the financing required for a global agreement to stave off catastrophic climate change, according to WWF Scotland. The Finance Ministers of the G20 countries were meeting in St Andrews, Scotland on 6-7 November.

Dr Richard Dixon, Director of WWF Scotland said: "The G20 Finance Ministers meeting turned out to be a mostly irrelevant sideshow on the way to the talks in Copenhagen in a months' time. Failure to come to agreement here is a major disappointment. Given that these are the people who run the biggest economies in the world it seems unlikely that they will manage to devote any serious time to the issue of climate finance before the start of the Copenhagen meeting."

Indymedia Scotland: 'Nae Tae G20.' | Nae Tae G20 in St Andrews Blog