Leonardo Di Caprio uses Oscar Award speech to highlight climate change

Leonardo Di Caprio used his Oscar speech to highlight climate change in his acceptance speech for the best actor award. He won the award for his role in the film The Revanant.

Di Caprio has been lending his support to the United Nations for some time to highlight climate change as an issue.

France: 60,000 people protest against new Nantes airport as climate hypocrisy

A mass mobilisation brought tens of thousands of Nantais and people from across France together on two roads in Bretagne, the 4 lane Nantes-Vannes and Nantes-Rennes, to oppose the construction of the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (NDDL) new airport project by construction company Vinci 30 km north of Nantes.

The project is widely seen as climaticide and not compatible with France's commitment to the #COP21 Paris Agreement on climate change. It is hard to justify a new airport near Nantes when the runways are far from capacity. But Perhaps the passenger terminal of the existing airport may need an upgrade. Nantes is also only 2h 15mins by the high speed TGV train from Paris.

French President Francois Hollande announced on February 11 a regional referendum would be held later this years to settle whether the project would proceed or not. Plans for the airport construction have existed for some 50 years. The airport is strongly supported by Bruno Retailleau, President of the Regional Council of Pays-de-la-Loire, controlled by the right wing Republican Party and the far right Front Nationale.

Related stories: 5000 rally in Rennes against #NDDL #ZAD evictions and airport construction | Judge orders farmer evictions, but without fines against #NDDL airport opponents | 20,000 people protest #NDDL airport construction as a climate crime near #Nantes

After the Paris Climate Talks: Which way forward for the climate movement? - John Englart

I was on a panel for a discussion organised by Greenleft Weekly on 17 February 2016, titled After Paris Climate Talks: Which way forward for the climate movement? Other panelists included climate author David Spratt who runs the ClimateCodeRed blog, and Socialist Alliance activist Andrea Bunting. All three of us are members of Climate Action Moreland. These are my speaking notes for my contribution. Andrea Bunting has written an article at Green Left Weekly embracing the talks of all three panelists and the discussion that ensued.

Fossil fuel growth centre funded while silence on Mission Innovation global commitment

Article originally published at nofibs.com.au

On the opening day of the Paris Climate conference our Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in a stylish but lacklustre speech with few new initiatives, announced support for the Mission Innovation multi-country program to research, develop and commercialise clean energy systems.

"Today Australia joins with many other countries in supporting Mission Innovation which aims to double investment in clean energy innovation over the next five years." said Turnbull on November 30 at the Leaders Forum in COP21.

Global carbon budget reassessed downwards, but do we really have a safe carbon budget?

UNEP emissions Gap report from November 2015. Figures are in GTCO2e

The latest study identifies we have less time and carbon budget to act on climate change than previously thought. To aspire to meet the 1.5C target, as agreed to in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement or even the well below 2 degree C target, we are going to need to make substantial emission reductions this decade and continue with that trend.

Research on carbon budgets by Joeri Rogelj et al (2016) - Differences between carbon budget estimates unravelled (abstract) published in Nature Climate Change, warns that the global carbon budget has been over-estimated.

Storify: Coal train protest ends 1st week of #Leardblockade action on #coal

"Red alert, red alert, keep the coal in the dirt" the protestors chanted at a blockade of coal haul trucks going to Whitehaven's Tarrawonga coal mine while Whitehaven and Idemitsu bulldozers are lining up to devastate the Leard forest to expand coal mining.

Nofibs reporter John Englart reports on the first week of action - titled the Bats Return - at the Leard blockade via social media. The Bats Return is a six week creative action protest at Maules Creek, north-western New South Wales, that started on February 13. It coincides when the miners are allowed, under their permit, to clear the forest.

Storify: Beyond Paris: Wonthaggi forum on climate change

The recent Paris United Nations Conference on Climate Change resulted in a world agreement to attempt to limit global warming to 1.5°C, but is Australia doing enough? Then again, is limiting global warming to 1.5°C feasible? And what must we do to limit global warming both as a nation and individually?

I travelled the 150km from Melbourne to South Gippsland to guage the debate and discussion on climate change, organised by local group Groundswell Bass Coast. I found a community already actively discussing the issue and also taking action.

Storify: January 2016 smashes monthly temperature anomaly by 1.13C

NASA and NOAA and JMA all agree that January 2016 set a new high temperature anomaly over 1 degree C, the ninth consecutive month to set a new monthly record. The strong El Nino likely added about 0.2C to this anomaly.

Climate science CSIRO job cuts labelled as science vandalism

The announced staff cuts and restructure announced by CSIRO CEO Larry Marshall have been labelled as science vandalism and an abandonment of Australia's scientific commitments under the Paris Agreement signed by Australia less than 2 months ago.

Australian climate science is essential for collecting data and provide good modelling and projections for Australia's variable but warming climate for agricultural, economic and health impacts. It is also vital for studying the southern hemisphere impacts of a changing Antarctica and Southern Ocean on the global climate. Our climate research from the southern hemisphere is highly important to global research programs and climate models.

The Abbott/Turnbull Government cut $112 million from CSIRO's budget in 2014. Turnbull promised $90 million in December 2015 to support innovation and increased commercialisation of research. A further $28 million was allocated to marketing the Government innovation policy.

Interview: Paris and COP21 on Environmentality - North West FM Community radio

Friday morning I was up bright and early to do a studio interview with Jaime and Georgina on Environmentality, the environment radio program on my local community FM station, North West FM 98.9.

I was an accredited NGO delegate to COP21 in Paris and provided reports during the conference via citizen journalist site nofibs.com.au and this blog. I was the guest for Friday morning's program. You can read the blog at Environmentality about the interview and also listen to the podcast.

I was sent a series of questions by Georgina, but with Jaime running late, the program launched and did not really follow the script. So enjoy the audio broadcast which parallels but is also different to the script.

I had prepared notes to Georgina's questions anyway. This article is based on those notes.