Episode 1 text and sources

Hear the podcast here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/14101666/climatebreakdownep1sheridanfiree_4

“To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken” - U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in December 2020.

Broken Planet Headlines

1.  In January, the European Union's Earth observation program, known as Copernicus, published a climate update based on the latest data.  It found that 2020 was the warmest year on record in Europe, the 2010s were the warmest decade on record, and 2020 tied with 2016 for the warmest year globally.  Copernicus also concluded that CO2 concentrations last year rose to around 413ppm, and that the planet was now 1.25 degrees Celsius warmer than the average temperature in the late 19th century.

This follows a December analysis from the UK website Carbon Brief, which found that in the absence of more rapid reductions the world is on track to pass the 1.5 degrees threshold by a median estimate of 2031, and the 2 degrees threshold by 2043. 

2.  Research published in early February in the environmental science journal Communications Earth & Environment, found that meeting the obligations set in the 2015 Paris Agreement will give humanity a low chance at avoiding runaway global warming.  An optimistic reading of the agreement, that assumes similar global cuts to those pledged are met and continue into the coming decades, gives a 26% probability of us staying below 2 degrees this century, the authors concluded.

To give an even chance of staying under 2 degrees, the world would need to almost double commitments from Paris, to a decline of 1.8% in emissions every year.  An even chance of staying under 1.5 degrees would require an eight-fold increase in the annual rate of decline, and a thirty-fold increase in reductions would be necessary for a high, or 90% chance of staying under 1.5 degrees.  This last scenario translates to a 90% cut in current global emissions by 2023.  The study also notes that most major emitters are currently extremely unlikely to meet even their goals under the Paris agreement, with the US at a 2% likelihood of success and China at 16%. 

3.  Indigenous leaders in Brazil have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity.  The request from Chief Raoni and Chief Almir Surui accuses Bolsanaro of overseeing unprecedented environmental damage in the Amazon and the murder and forced migration of the indigenous population.  Deforestation has risen 34% since Bolsonaro took office in 2019, with an area larger than Jamaica destroyed in 2020.  The government has also systematically slashed environmental oversight and enforcement.  Invasions of indigenous land increased by 135% in 2019, invasions that President Bolsanaro has publicly encouraged.  The 91 year-old Chief Raoni also recently announced a so-called "final mission" to pressure the Brazilian government to officially demarcate the chief's ancestral home, in order to provide legal protection from industrial encroachment, an ask that Kayapo leaders have been making to the government for over 20 years.

Legal experts with the campaign group Stop Ecocide are currently drafting a new law for the ICC to adopt ecocide - or large scale destruction of an ecosystem - as a jurisdictional responsibility, with the draft expected sometime mid-year.  In its 19 year history the ICC has only ever indicted people from Africa or the Middle East, leading to accusations of Eurocentrism.

4.  In other Amazon news, three European banks have announced that they will no longer be financing the trade of oil out of the Ecuadorian Amazon.  The three banks are responsible for funding the transfer of over $5.5 billion worth of Amazon oil to the United States since 2009, over half of such trade that took place during that time.  The announcements follow an investigative report into the issue released in August by Amazon Watch and Stand.earth.  The largest investor to not make the commitment, French bank Natixis, was found to have doubled its investment in the trade of Amazon oil in the latter half of 2020.  Indigenous federations are publicly demanding a full moratorium on all oil activities in the Amazon.  Ecuador is preparing for its second round of Presidential Elections in April, with anti-extraction candidate Yaku Pérez currently contesting the results of a tight first round of voting to stay in the race, with hopes of become the countries first indigenous leader.

5.  In France, the Paris Administrative Court has handed down a ruling that holds the French state legally responsible for failing to address climate breakdown, and also finds the state liable for ecological damage resulting from it.  The NGOs that brought the case had the support of a 2.3 million strong petition, and are now looking to the spring when judges will decide if the government should be forced into adopting tougher environmental measures.  In a written response the French government rejected accusations of inaction and said it could not be held uniquely responsible when emissions are global. 

6.  In other news from France plans for a fourth terminal at Charles De Gaulle airport, the country's busiest international airport, have been scrapped.  Environment minister Barbara Pompili said the plans were incompatible with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that any airport expansions in the future must accommodate electric and hydrogen-fuelled planes, technology that remains largely theoretical.  The expansion was also called into question due to the coronavirus, with capacity at just a quarter of its pre-pandemic level.

7.  In the UK, a group of 40 Conservative MPs have written a letter in support of building a new deep pit coal mine in the Northern England county of Cumbria.  The mine, currently being reassessed by the local council, would be the first such mine opened in the country in 30 years.  Supporters claim the coal would be used for making British steel rather than energy generation so poses no threat to carbon targets.  However opponents point out that 85% of the coal for the mine has already been earmarked for export to other markets, and even some voices in the steel industry have said that opening a new coal mine would do little to reduce their costs and may delay investment in more sustainable steel production methods such as hydrogen based iron.  According to the International Energy Agency, the global iron and steel industry currently accounts for around 7 - 10% of energy-based CO2 emissions.

The UK government has also come under fire in recent weeks for a string of other climate failings.  These include pushing ahead with a 27 billion pound road expansion plan that failed to review the scheme on climate grounds; an expansion approval at Leeds Bradford Airport; approving the next phase of the carbon-intensive HS2 high-speed rail line; and the mishandled rollout of a home renovation scheme that has led to funding for the 2 billion pound program facing the axe.  This all comes despite the fact that in December, the UK raised its 2030 reduction target to a 68% cut under the Paris Agreement.

8.  And finally, in other news from the UK, the leader of the opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, is being called upon to give evidence to the government's ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, over longstanding allegations that he took part in a cover-up of  the wrongful convictions of climate activists.  In the early 2010s Starmer was the head of the government's Crown Prosecution Service.  During this time the CPS dropped conspiracy charges against a number of anti-coal direct action groups, after it was revealed that prosecutors may have been withholding evidence from defence lawyers obtained through an undercover officer embedded in the environmental movement.  The officer, Mark Kennedy, played a significant role in organising the protests and made secret recordings of meetings that actually exonerated the activists charged with conspiracy.  The 18 signatories to the recent call were part of a group of 114 arrested pre-emptively in 2009 as they prepared to occupy a coal-fired power plant in Notthinghamshire.  The activists further claim that Starmer commissioned a flawed report into the incidents that concluded there was no systemic abuse despite clear evidence to the contrary.  The call for Starmer to be questioned is being made now as the inquiries' investigation into miscarriages of justice involving undercover policing appear to have stalled.  The Labour leader has yet to issue any comment on the subject. 

All Downhill From Here (essay)

In the world of climate activism, large scale good news can be hard to come by.  So when it emerged in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic that global greenhouse gas emissions were down 17% relative to the previous year due to a dramatic reduction in transportation use and general economic slowdown, a silver lining seemed to be presenting itself through a cloud of CO2 tonnes and deadly viral particulates.  It was also projected at the time that due to lockdown measures being eased, emissions would likely only be down about 7% by years end. 

Well the numbers are in and the analysts were right in their predictions.  According to figures from the Global Carbon Project, carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 fell 2.4Gt (that's billions), down 7% to a level last seen around a decade ago, a total of 34Gt.  In the US, EU and UK the fall from 2019 was approximately 12%.  Carbon pollution from land transport was down by a tenth and from planes by almost half.  This is the biggest drop in industrial history, with the previous record holder for a modern economic wipeout - the late 2000s Great Recession - causing barely a 1% drop in global emissions.  What does it say about conventional economic commitments that this reduction in lethal pollution only seems to happen when things go off the rails?

These numbers may provide you with an ironically cold comfort on a warming planet.  Nevertheless, keeping it real remains paramount.

Even if we were able to put aside all of the misery that the COVID disaster has so far wrought - mass suffering and death of a similar nature to that which the climate movement hopes to avert - there is no guarantee that this historical discrepancy will result in the continuation of reductions of any kind, let alone the more rapid cuts that will be necessary to prevent a runaway warming scenario.  In fact, as ever, the deck is stacked in favour of a failure.  In 2010 when the economy began to recover towards so-called normalcy, emissions rose over 5%, negating the previous drop in stunning fashion.  We can see evidence that this is already happening again with the increase in pollution following the end of the initial wave of lockdowns.

In October the International Energy Agency (IEA) published its annual World Energy Outlook, using data to examine a number of possible futures.  While the IEA has been heavily critiqued by many actors over the years for the way that it interprets the data, their reports do offer a lot of insight into what is happening with energy use around the world.  One of its scenarios this time around is the Delayed Recovery Scenario, under which there is an extended economic crisis throughout the 2020s, and emissions remain largely flat.  That might sound better than the direction that we've been headed, but it's definitely not enough to decrease the buildup of gases in the atmosphere.  When looked at alongside the Outlook's still rather conservative Sustainable Development Scenario and Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (where emissions by 2030 have been cut by 20% and 41%, respectively, relative to 2019), it's clear that recessions are blunt instruments when compared to active measures to reduce our overall footprint.

There is serious disagreement as to whether even the most ambitious of these net-zero goals, 2050, is remotely adequate to stave off a complete environmental collapse.  But at least under these projections, the peak is firmly behind us.  Government planners have access to plenty of advice from stodgy, unintimidating establishment bodies on how to make this happen if they so choose.  In June the IEA partnered with that unwavering pillar of the Washington Consensus, the International Monetary Fund, to produce a Sustainable Recovery Plan, specifically detailing short term actions to ensure that 2019 remains the year the corner was turned.  There is no excuse for annual emissions to rise ever again.

The public seem to understand that the 2020 pollution dip is not all that it appears to be.  A report published earlier this month in a major peer-reviewed scientific journal (that's the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) suggests that concern over climate breakdown has not diminished due to the pandemic.

A survey of almost 2000 people in the UK was conducted in April 2019 and again in June 2020, consisting of a series of questions on the severity of climate change.  Between the two time periods there were tiny variations in the responses, but nothing consequential.  These results cast doubt on the previously studied concept of a 'finite pool of worry' - the idea that when a new crisis comes along, semi-abstract ones like climate get pushed out of public consciousness.  At the time of the second survey the UK had been in its first COVID lockdown for three months, and news of the pandemic inspired emissions drop had been reported widely.  Neither of these facts seems to have caused a downturn in climate worry.

A further question in the second round of the study asked which of the two issues was a bigger concern, coming out at almost exactly the same level for their effects on the UK.  When participants were asked which was a bigger issue for the world however, climate came out ahead with a massive 22 point percentage lead over coronavirus.  In addition, the team also analysed over 120 million UK tweets over the time period and found a drop in the number of climate-related ones as the pandemic ramped up, suggesting that even when people aren't talking about it as much, they're still concerned.  Another study conducted in April of 2020 found a similar phenomenon in levels of concern over climate in the United States.

As the COVID crisis seems to go from bad to worse in places like the US and UK, and the outlook for 2021 is almost anyone's guess, it will be interesting to see if these findings hold true.  But it appears reasonable to suggest that public understanding of climate breakdown is at this point robust enough to withstand it falling lower in the headlines and discourse, and that the average person understands the difference between the superficially positive side-effects of a new crisis and an active, significant transition.

The biosphere is breaking.  The public, despite many other problems, is increasingly desiring action.  Governments should honour not only those concerns, but all of the people that we lost in the past year, by seizing this moment to avert further suffering on an even larger scale.  Climate Breakdown podcast will be watching them to let you know if they do.