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 By Am�lie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Paris (AFP) Nov 8, 2020
Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump has brought hope to climate warriors who now see a better chance to save the planet through massive projects to limit global warming. Activists and scientists feared further climate change destruction from another four years of Trump in denial in the White House. His defeat totally changes the landscape. The veteran Democrat leader has pledged to take the United States back in to the Paris climate agreement that Trump forced the country to leave, and which happened officially only on November 4. The Democrats have drawn up a 1.7-billion-dollar plan to turn the US carbon neutral by 2050. "Joe Biden's historic election win is the first step towards avoiding climate catastrophe," tweeted Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International. "The American people are demanding a climate champion in president-elect Biden and in Kamala Harris," his vice-president, she added. France's former prime minister Laurent Fabius, who chaired the Paris agreement negotiations, cheered Biden's success saying it "raises new hopes in the indispensable fight against climate change". "Now is the moment to relaunch global, concrete and coordinated climate action" ahead of next year's COP15 conference on biodiversity and COP26 on climate, Fabius urged. - 'Tipping point' - For Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris accords, "The Biden-Harris Administration has an historic opportunity to enact one of the world's largest green stimulus efforts, to accelerate the US economy toward sustained emissions reductions while rebuilding and creating a fairer society." To stay within the Paris deal's 1.5C warming limit since pre-industrial times and cut the growing ferocity of wild weather, greenhouse gas emissions need to be slashed almost 50 percent by 2030, UN climate experts say. That will require radical economic reform on a global scale, a challenge experts hope will be more within reach under a Biden presidency. The Climate Action Tracker group put out a statement saying the election outcome could prove "a tipping point" that puts the Paris agreement's 1.5C limit "within striking distance". That would however need the US to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and for Europe, China and Japan to also keep their climate commitments. Said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: "If the US adopts net-zero emissions by 2050, we would have the four largest economic regions in the world aligning with science and showing the path towards a safe, clean and modern future". - 'Sobering reality' - Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann declared himself "cautiously optimistic" with Biden at the helm. "But make no mistake. The sobering reality is that even if every country meets their commitments under the Paris agreement (and many, including the US and EU are currently falling at least a bit short), that gets us less than half way to where we need to be." "I.e. on a path to limiting warming below 2C (let alone the more stringent 1.5C many are now calling for)," Rockstrom said. Biden's room for manoeuvre will depend greatly on his ability to push through ambitious climate legislation. And for that he will need the US Senate, which may yet stay under a Republican majority. With both parties equal on 48 senators, two seats will be run-off in the state of Georgia on January 5. Without the Senate, Biden will have to count on the multitude of non-federal bodies from the states and cities to companies in the effort to meet previous Paris targets. According to Climate Action Tracker that means by 2025 a 26-28 percent reduction in emissions from a 2005 base. With the Paris agreement's fifth anniversary next month, the green lobby is hoping at the very least for a return of American leadership to the climate front. "By re-entering the Paris Agreement on Day One, President-elect Biden can boost confidence in the international cooperation and begin to restore US standing the world," said World Resources Institute president Andrew Steer. "This is a new day for the climate, the environment and the American people... a better tomorrow is possible," the think-tank head added. However, Potsdam Institute co-director Ottmar Edenhofer warned: "Generations to come can either remember the Biden-Harris Administration as one that failed great expectations -- or as one that really served the US people, and the world."
Brazil off to bad start on Paris climate deal: watchdog The South American country spewed a total of 2.17 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019, an increase of 9.6 percent from 2018, said the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental organizations. That coincided with the first year in office for President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate-change skeptic who has presided over a sharp increase in deforestation and wild fires in the Amazon. The world's biggest rainforest is a vital resource in the fight against climate change, as its trees suck carbon from the air. But when they are felled and burned, they release it back. "The growth in (Brazil's) emissions last year was driven by deforestation in the Amazon, which surged," the Climate Observatory said in a report. It said 72 percent of the country's emissions were caused by agriculture and land use, including deforestation, which rose 85 percent last year. Under the 2015 Paris accord, Brazil agreed to cut its emissions by 37 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. But last year's emissions came in 17 percent over target, the Climate Observatory said. It said the country was also on track to miss a 2010 commitment to cut emissions by at least 36.8 percent by the end of 2020. The actual figure will come in nine percent higher, it said. "Our 2020 goal was easy to reach. We were only going to miss it if there was a tragedy. And that's exactly what's happening," said Climate Observatory executive secretary Marcio Astrini. The report came as Vice President Hamilton Mourao, the head of Bolsonaro's task force on the Amazon, led foreign ambassadors on a three-day visit to the region in a bid to improve the government's international image on the environment. "We want them to see it with their own eyes... and draw their own conclusions," said Mourao. But environmental groups condemned the trip as a whitewash. "They are flying on a route that's strategically planned to hide the evidence of the destruction of the forest, even as deforestation and wild fires are at a 10-year high," Greenpeace said in a statement.
Rich nations fall short on climate finance pledge Paris (AFP) Nov 6, 2020 Wealthy countries are falling short on a decade-old promise come due to ramp up climate finance for the developing world, according to a semi-official report released Friday. Even those numbers may be inflated, watchdog groups warned. The 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen mandated that poorer nations - historically blameless for global warming, but most at risk - were to receive $100 billion (85 billion euros) annually starting from 2020 to help curb their carbon footprint and cope with fu ... read more
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