Rather than relying on far-off negative-emissions technologies, Paris needed to deliver a low-carbon road map for today, argues Kevin Anderson in Nature. (A longer version of this article can be found here.) The climate agreement delivered earlier this month in Paris...
Paris, 11 December 2015 Seemingly out of the blue (or rather, out of the black smog of the UNFCCC process), some of the largest historical culprits for climate change, countries including the United States, Canada and the European Union, have decided to back an...
by Oliver Munnion, Global Forest Coalition blog Yesterday I went to a briefing at the COP21 summit on how realistic achieving a 1.5 degree target as part of the Paris climate deal is, as opposed to the 2 degree target that was first proposed. At the end of the...
by Rachel Smolker, The Ecologist Paris has been awash with hype about 'CO2 recycling' and 'carbon neutral' or even 'carbon negative' technologies based on burning millions of trees, writes Rachel Smolker. But the alchemical notion that waste carbon can be spun into...
by Almuth Ernsting, Truthout UN climate conferences provide a platform for advocating real solutions to the climate crisis - but also for selling and promoting false ones. At the climate conference this and next week in Paris, many civil society groups and social...
Biofuelwatch has released a new comprehensive report about Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). Full report Executive Summary (Full references for the report) BECCS is being proposed as a way of removing billions of tonnes of carbon every year from...
by Oliver Munnion, Our Kingdom In the UK, a new coal fired power station is being developed by Drax that, if built, would be the first new coal fired power station to be switched on since Drax’s existing power station opened in 1974. This is surprising given that...
by Neth Daño and Pat Mooney (Project Syndicate) OTTAWA – The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December will feature all the tightly choreographed production values of a Hollywood blockbuster. The cast will be huge: presidents and prime ministers at...
by Dru Oja Jay Last week in Germany the "Group of 7" countries (Canada, Japan, USA, Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Italy) declared that "deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of...
A government-sponsored scientific panel called for more research on geoengineering — here’s why we shouldn’t even consider it by Shannon Hall (ScienceLine) Geoengineering — that wild and grandiose idea that suggests we could offset and even reverse the alarming...
The Ecologist The widely touted 'carbon capture and storage' technology is much more expensive than wind and solar, says a Greenpeace report. It also represents a perverse subsidy to the fossil fuel sector that will only boost coal and oil, and delay the transition to...
by David Roberts (Grist) The world’s first “clean coal” plant — that is, the first full-size coal-fired power plant ever to capture and store the majority of its CO2 emissions — is located in, of all places, Saskatchewan. (They should change the name to “Of All...
Using technofixes to tinker with global climate systems is an excuse to avoid unpopular but necessary measures to reduce carbon emissions by Clive Hamilton (Scientific American) The geoengineering juggernaut has shifted into higher gear with the release of a...
by Rachel Smolker and Almuth Ernsting (Truthout) The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced its long-awaited reports on climate geoengineering in mid-February. The reports intelligently state at the outset that geoengineering is no substitute for reducing...
There is no shortage of ideas from business to save the environment – the problem is when they want to make a fast buck by Clive Hamilton (Guardian) “Save the world and make a little cash on the side.” That’s the motto of Russ George, the colourful entrepreneur behind...
Why we shouldn’t fund geoengineering experimentation, and what we still need to learn about the climate by Pat Mooney (ETC Group) The US National Academy of Sciences has released two reports on geoengineering that recommend investments in solar radiation management...
by Almuth Ernsting (Truthout) Touting "sci-fi climate solutions" - untested technologies not really scalable to the dimensions of our climate change crisis - dangerously delays the day when we actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last week, I took my son to...
by LILI FUHR and NICLAS HÄLLSTRÖM BERLIN – The emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas are heating up our planet at such a rapid rate that increasingly volatile and dangerous climate conditions seem almost inevitable. Clearly, we have to reduce emissions fast, while...
[This article was originally posted to the Washington Geoengineering Consortium] by Rachel Smolker In 2012, Biofuelwatch published a report titled “Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage: Climate savior or dangerous hype?” We had long been working to reveal and...
by Rachel Smolker This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has confirmed for us, once again, that the planet is warming, even more and even faster than panel members thought. In fact, it is getting even warmer even faster than they thought the...
It's a shame that the Lorax and his message "Who Will Speak For The Trees" has been relegated to the realm of children's cartoons and fantasy. Especially as trees, forests and ecosystems appear to be right smack in the epicenter of swirling debates about climate...
by Rachel Smolker In the wake of the climate negotiations in Warsaw, the consensus appears near universal: the international process is not going to deliver, and it is up to countries and communities to go it on their own. For some, that means taking serious and...
by Rachel Smolker In an interview with Naomi Klein, published in the Autumn 2013 issue of Earth Island Journal, she referred to the American fondness for “win-win solutions.” I had to giggle, having on many occasions sat in on industry-led events, where the speakers,...
A new article published in Environmental Research Letters has made media headlines such as “Burning trees ‘may help global warming”. It is not unknown for the media to hype up and even misrepresent announcements by scientists, but in this case, the authors’ own press...