Latest news with #1.5C
Canada Standard
2 days ago
- Politics
- Canada Standard
2030 Biodiversity Target Was Always a Long Shot, UK Official Says
When negotiators in Montreal agreed in 2022 to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss by 2030, many knew the goal was ambitious, says a former United Kingdom negotiator-but the targets were about more than just hitting the numbers. In an interview with Carbon Brief, William Lockhart, who represented the UK at United Nations nature negotiations from 2021 to early 2025, expressed ambivalence about whether countries can meet the conservation targets of the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), aimed at reversing biodiversity loss within five years. It remains possible with "the right interventions at exactly the right scale," he said, but countries are not on a trajectory to make it happen. But the numbers attached to the targets aren't the main point of the COP negotiations, Lockhart added. View our latest digests "The important thing is that people spent a lot of time thinking about why we were setting certain kinds of targets," he said, adding that while targets should be specific, measurable and achievable, there were open questions about what those criteria meant, and what message they were meant to send. "This is politics; this isn't necessarily science." More than half the countries that submitted plans to the UN did not commit to protecting 30% of their territories for nature-a target as important to biodiversity conservation as the 1.5C pathway is for climate action, writes Carbon Brief. "Countries have never fully met any target to help nature since the UN biodiversity convention was established in the 1990s." Lockhart questioned the role of UN summits like the COPs and whether they can be effective for global action. In one sense, he said, the world is asking too much of the COPs, "there's so much coverage and intense scrutiny." "'This person's arrived', 'this comma has moved'...There's an extraordinary media circus." But the world also asks too little of the COPs, he added, because success and failure hinges on details as small as particular words, while overall progress stalls. Lockhart said he and his colleagues worry that the COPs are being seen as ends in themselves. "We agree on stuff," he told Carbon Brief. But that stuff "doesn't get delivered, by and large," because "political factors, capability factors, jurisdictional factors, all sorts of different things" undermine implementation processes. "The problem is that by focusing on COPs as an end to themselves, we risk missing the wood for the trees." Still, Lockhart hasn't given up on the talks. "It's extremely important, in my view, that you have a space where the whole world can come together in a room and agree that it wants to do something," he said. If targets like those in the GBF aren't achievable, "then the question is: 'Why did the world agree to it?'" he asked. "And the answer to that is: 'Because it matters that we try.'" Source: The Energy Mix
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.K. Activists Stage Mock Funeral for 1.5°C Climate Target
As President Donald Trump continues to bow down at the altar of the fossil fuel industry and decimates federal commitments to confront the worsening climate crisis, activist groups in the United Kingdom took to the streets to grieve over losses and organize for renewed action. Today, Extinction Rebellion Cambridge and other activist groups held a mock funeral for the 1.5°C target that international policymakers agreed to in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord to limit global average temperature rises above pre-industrial levels. The other groups involved included Extinction Rebellion U.K., Cambridge Greenpeace, Cambridge Stop the War, and the Organisation of Radical Cambridge Activists. A solemn procession around Cambridge city centre was led by two dozen 'Red Rebels' — silent performers dressed in red with their faces painted stark white. The procession, which included a black funeral casket representing the death of the 1.5°C target, passed through the Lion Yard, where a banner reading, 'No future on a dead planet,' was lowered from the first floor as the march passed underneath. In 2015, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Conference of Parties in Paris where they signed the Paris Climate Accord, agreeing to limit global average temperature rises to 'well below' 2°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, with a target of 1.5 °C. The rallying cry, '1.5 to stay alive!' was regularly repeated by activists during both negotiations and protests inside and outside of the conference, who also demanded the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. In 2015, temperatures had already risen by 1°C above pre-industrial levels, due to the actions of the fossil fuel industry and the continued use of fossil fuels. Despite these promises, global average temperatures smashed through the 1.5°C target in 2024 — just a quarter of a way through the century. The breach needs to be sustained for a decade or more for politicians to agree that 1.5°C has been exceeded — but many scientists say that the target has now been missed, with one describing it as 'deader than a doornail.' Trump removed the United States from the Paris Climate Accord upon taking office and has refused to uphold pledged financial commitments to support climate resilience, adaptation, and the transition away from fossil fuels at home or abroad. The procession in Cambridge marked 'the enormity and sadness of this moment,' Alex Martin of Extinction Rebellion Cambridge said in a statement. 'We felt we needed a physical space where we could grieve together for what we are losing and reflect on how to respond to the challenge now in front of us.' While sounding the death knell of the 1.5°C target, participants in today's funeral procession 'pledged to step up where politicians have failed,' seeing the action as 'a rallying cry to the public to join the many organizations and groups striving to limit temperature rises and prevent the worst effects of climate collapse,' according to the statement. The groups sought to 'highlight that while it can feel overwhelming to act alone, coming together as part of a supportive community can be a powerful force for change.' 'Every fraction of a degree of warming we can prevent will save lives,' said Zoe Flint, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Cambridge in a statement: 'We call on everyone to do what they can to protect people and planet, while there is still time to prevent the worst harm.' Extinction Rebellion is a decentralized, international, and nonpartisan movement that uses nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act to solve the climate crisis. In April 2024, 400 'Red Rebels' and hundreds of mourners in black held a Funeral for Nature procession through the historic city streets of Bath, culminating in a dramatic finale in front of the Abbey. More from Rolling Stone AOC Warns Republicans Are 'Robbing People' to Pay for Billionaire Tax Cuts What It's Really Like to Face Off with a Grizzly - and Live to Tell the Tale Trump Says Republicans Should 'Probably Not' Tax the Rich Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
