Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev speaks during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 11 December 2023. Photo: Thomas Mukoya / REUTERS

Azerbaijan names former oil exec to lead COP29 climate talks – “With another petrostate hosting the climate conference, our concerns multiply”

By Sibi Arasu 5 January 2024 (AP) – Azerbaijan’s ecology minister has been named to lead the United Nations’ annual climate talks later this year, prompting concern from some climate activists over his former ties to the state oil company in a major oil-producing nation. Mukhtar Babayev’s appointment was announced on X by the United […]

Former British energy minister Chris Skidmore is seen outside Downing Street in London, Britain on 21 May 2019. Photo: Hannah Mckay / REUTERS

UK Conservative lawmaker quits, criticizes government’s climate plans – “I can no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of a action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm”

By Alistair Smout 5 January 2024 LONDON (Reuters) – A former British energy minister on Friday said he would quit the ruling Conservatives and stand down as a lawmaker over the government climate record, rebuking plans to allow more North Sea oil and gas licencing. Chris Skidmore’s resignation will trigger a by-election to replace him […]

Thick black smoke fills the air near the settlement of Pournari, as wildfires engulf the area of Magoula in Greece on 18 July 2023. Photo: Spyros Bakalis / AFP / Getty

World will look back at 2023 as year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis – “This year and next will be seen as the turning point at which the futility of governments in dealing with climate change was finally exposed”

By Jonathan Watts 29 December 2023 (The Guardian) – The hottest year in recorded history casts doubts on humanity’s ability to deal with a climate crisis of its own making, senior scientists have said. As historically high temperatures continued to be registered in many parts of the world in late December, the former NASA scientist […]

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) CO2 in GtCO2e (top) and Per capita GHG emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based LULUCF CO2 in tCO2e/capita (bottom). Graphic: UNEP

Petrostates planning huge expansion of fossil fuels, says UN report – “These plans throw humanity’s future into question. Governments must stop saying one thing and doing another.”

By Damian Carrington 8 November 2023 (The Guardian) – The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”. The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. […]

COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, center, hailed the adoption of the key text, calling it the “UAE consensus”. Photo: Amr Alfiky / Reuters

COP28: A deal at last – “This outcome reflects the very lowest possible ambition that we could accept rather than what we know, according to the best available science, is necessary to urgently address the climate crisis”

By Simon Mundy 13 December 2023 (Financial Times) – Hello from Dubai. After two consecutive nights of intense negotiations that ran into the small hours, COP28 has ended in a deal. The “global stocktake” agreed here has broken with the shameful inability of previous UN climate conferences to state openly the need to move away […]

Haitham Al-Ghais, the secretary general of OPEC, warned member countries of “undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels” at the COP28 summit In a letter dated 6 December 2023. Photo: Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

OPEC leader tells members to block any COP28 climate summit deal to curb fossil fuels – “Reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions”

By Lisa Friedman 8 December 2023 (The New York Times) – The head of the OPEC oil cartel, alarmed that nations gathered at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai are considering an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, has directed the group’s members to scuttle any deal that would affect the continued production and […]

Climate scientist Dr. Graeme Pearman at his home in Bangholme, Victoria. On warning the world about abrupt climate change, he laments, “I often wonder: where did I go wrong? Why didn’t people respond? Is that my responsibility?” Photo: Nadir Kinani / The Guardian

“Where did I go wrong?” The scientist who tried to raise the climate alarm

By Graham Readfearn 20 November 2023 (The Guardian) – “I often wonder: where did I go wrong?” Graeme Pearman says. “Why didn’t people respond? Is that my responsibility?” When Guardian Australia meets him at his home on the outskirts of Melbourne, the veteran climate scientist is frustrated. “If you go through the whole process and […]

King Charles III meets with Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan President of the United Arab Emirates at a bilateral meeting at Expo City in Dubai, during the COP28 summit on 30 November 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The King is visiting Dubai to attend COP28 UAE, the United Nation's Climate Change Conference. Photo: Andrew Matthews / Getty Images

The central problem for COP28: Where will all this money come from? “What used to be available at Libor plus 50 (basis points) or Libor plus 100 is not available at those rates any more”

By David Blackmon 3 December 2023 (Forbes) – As the UN convenes its COP28 Conference in Dubai amid the conclusion of another year during which the global community used record amounts of coal, oil and natural gas, concerns are mounting about the future direction and prospects for success of the energy transition. Much of the […]

A person points at a stack of trays holding treated limestone, used to absorb CO2 from the air, at Heirloom’s new plant, in Tracy, California, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on 9 November 2023. Photo: Heirloom Carbon / REUTERS

Why carbon capture is no easy solution to climate change – “Not all technologies are going to be possible in all locations”

By Leah Douglas 27 November 2023 (Reuters) – Technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions to keep them from the atmosphere are central to the climate strategies of many world governments as they seek to follow through on international commitments to decarbonize by mid-century. But they are also expensive, unproven at scale, and can be hard […]

Screenshot from “Honest Government Ad: COP31 🇦🇺 & the Pacific”, by The Juice Media, showing the rapid, record-breaking decline of Antarctic sea ice in 2023. Photo: The Juice Media

Video: Honest Government Ad: COP31 🇦🇺 and the Pacific – “Let this major fossil-fuel exporter that’s cockblocked climate action for decades co-host a crucial summit with the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world while ignoring their pleas to stop harming them”

1 August 2023 (The Juice Media) – Hello. Bonjour. Ciao stronzi. Namaste. Ham maadarachod hain. I’m from the Australien Government with a message to the world. As cities bake, fires rage, reefs die, jet streams weaken, and 6-Ligma events cause climate scientists to shit their dacks, many are wondering if we’ve finally broken our favourite […]

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