Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
Post Reply
IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by IvanV » Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:54 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:28 pm
The IEA confirmed in its Net Zero by 2050 report that there can be no new oil and gas fields approved for development and no new coalmines or mine extensions in a pathway to 1.5°C. Renewable energies will need to expand at an unprecedented pace to become the largest source of energy supply by 2050, while fossil fuel use sees a “huge decline”.
None. Zero. Presumably governments have already updated their policies on approving such developments, to align with the science they claim to be led by, and the commitments they've made under international law.
This kind of thing can only apply in developed economies that have legal systems not captured by the state. And we've already seen the UK supreme court passing this kind of thing back to the government rather than doing it itself. So I expect only in some small number of countries of very good governance is this kind of thing going to happen.

And I don't see that it will have much global effect either. For example, Shell is a large oil producer in Nigeria. The Nigerian kleptocracy feeds off the income from that oil. They are not going to let Shell close it down. Shell might walk away from it, but it will carry on. And those who carry it on will probably make Shell look well-behaved in comparison.

The demonstration effect of the wealthier countries going low carbon is essential. Without it, we have no chance of persuading the rest of the world to be modest in their emissions. Unfortunately fairness between nations is also about the cumulative history of emissions. Britain has the highest cumulative emissions per person-year over the last couple of centuries, because of its early industrial expansion, with places like the US and Germany not far behind - though it's a little while since I last checked and we might have been overtaken recently. Places like China and India are still far behind by this metric.

The take-away is that we do have to demonstrate to the rest of the world what to do. But don't expect them to be too fast in following suit. Carbon emissions are still growing, and likely to continue to grow for quite some time even if the developed world succeeds in making large cuts in emissions. This does have consequences for what it is sensible for the developed world to do as its emissions get lower.

FlammableFlower
Dorkwood
Posts: 1508
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:22 pm

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by FlammableFlower » Tue Jun 08, 2021 3:07 pm

Might be a bit late to register (as it's tonight at 6pm)... but some might be interested in this online lecture/talk: What is a green recovery?
Join us for a special lecture from Co-Leader of the Green Party and Green London Assembly Member, Sian Berry.
About this event
There is a wide consensus that recovery from the coronavirus pandemic must also address the urgent climate and ecological crises the world faces. But what is a green recovery and how can it close the gaps in our systems that the pandemic has exposed?

Sian’s lecture will look at the huge potential in the coming years for new ways of doing business, for measuring successful policies with new measures of wellbeing and sustainability, and for the bottom-up transformation of our economy through local and regional policymaking.

Speaker biography

Sian Berry is a London Assembly Member and local councillor in London and co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales since 2018.

She was recently re-elected to the London Assembly for a second term and achieved third place for the second time in the election for London Mayor. Sian has lived in London since 1997 and has worked as a medical copywriter, PA, website manager, project manager for a digital start-up, author and transport campaigner before being elected to the Assembly.

Sian has focused her policy work on housing, including the rights of renters and people who live on estates, as well as on green transport and human rights and policing, and as well as helping to win new funding for youth services in London.

User avatar
Sciolus
Dorkwood
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:42 pm

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Sciolus » Tue Jun 08, 2021 4:06 pm

IvanV wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:54 am
This kind of thing can only apply in developed economies that have legal systems not captured by the state. And we've already seen the UK supreme court passing this kind of thing back to the government rather than doing it itself. So I expect only in some small number of countries of very good governance is this kind of thing going to happen.
Funny you say that, because I was about to make a similar point:

A planning inspector has allowed the appeal by Stansted Airport to expand their passenger numbers. The inspector said that carbon emissions were the government's problem, government policy is to expand airports and it's up to the government to reconcile that policy with carbon commitments. Or "none of my business, guv".

With this and the recent coal mine kerfuffle, it is clear that the local TCPA planning system in England is completely unable to deal with carbon emissions as an issue. There are obvious ways to address this, so that carbon impacts are properly handled by the planning system; but I haven't heard that anyone is doing anything and it looks like we're going to continue bumbling along messing it up for the foreseeable future.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:36 am

IvanV wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:54 am
The demonstration effect of the wealthier countries going low carbon is essential. Without it, we have no chance of persuading the rest of the world to be modest in their emissions. Unfortunately fairness between nations is also about the cumulative history of emissions. Britain has the highest cumulative emissions per person-year over the last couple of centuries, because of its early industrial expansion, with places like the US and Germany not far behind - though it's a little while since I last checked and we might have been overtaken recently. Places like China and India are still far behind by this metric.

The take-away is that we do have to demonstrate to the rest of the world what to do. But don't expect them to be too fast in following suit. Carbon emissions are still growing, and likely to continue to grow for quite some time even if the developed world succeeds in making large cuts in emissions. This does have consequences for what it is sensible for the developed world to do as its emissions get lower.
Yes, absolutely.

One thing that gives me a bit of hope is that similar arguments are playing out within the EU (with places like Poland refusing to quit coal), and within the USA (with a lot of oil-producing states resisting progress). Biden's plans look like they'll have the intention to centre a 'just transition', providing a carrot as well as a stick. The EU isn't quite there yet AFAICT.

Obviously if the rich countries do actually get on with decarbonising their own economies, forcing companies HQed there to sort out their entire supply chains and implementing border tariffs / carbon taxation, that will have a large effect on the profitability of fossil-fuel developments in general.

And equally obviously, poorer countries are less able to adapt to climate change than rich countries are, so finding ways to get them over the short-term hump of decarbonising/low-carbon development is absolutely in their long-term interests, and I think young people know that. The necessary political changes will probably be bottom-up.

We've got 9 years to make big cuts to avoid imminent catastrophe. Morally and practically, countries with higher cumulative emissions ought to be making the deepest cuts. There are arguments that funding low-carbon development might be a more efficient use of resources than, say, closing a fairly modern gas power station in the EU, but the accounting for "un-emitted emissions"is not remotely straightforward and prone to considerable gaming. So I really think the wealthy world needs to get its house in order ASAP.

I'm really hoping a lot of them are keeping highly ambitious plans in the bag to use as bargaining chips at this year's COP.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:44 am

Re: Shell, their CEO has done a public statement on LinkedIn.

While the appeal is going ahead, he does say:
The court has said its decision applies immediately and should not be suspended pending an appeal. For Shell, this ruling does not mean a change, but rather an acceleration of our strategy. We have a clear target to become a net-zero emissions business by 2050, in step with society’s progress towards achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement. We have set rigorous, short-term reduction targets along the way to make sure we achieve net zero.

But now we will seek ways to reduce emissions even further in a way that remains purposeful and profitable. That is likely to mean taking some bold but measured steps over the coming years.

In April this year we published our detailed Energy Transition Strategy. And in May, we became the first energy company to put its energy transition strategy to a vote of shareholders at our Annual General Meeting. It won 89% support. We will give our shareholders a chance to vote on our progress every year. The court did not consider this because the hearing that led to the ruling took place several months before we published this strategy and, of course, before major investors demonstrated their support at the AGM.

Our strategy shows how we will expand on the billions of dollars we have already invested in lower-carbon energy over recent years, including providing our customers with electric vehicle charging, hydrogen, power from wind and solar energy, and biofuels. We believe our total absolute carbon emissions will come down from their 2018 level and that our oil production peaked in 2019.
He also echoes Ivan's point:
But we need one more thing, now more than ever if we’re to accelerate our strategy. The energy transition is far too big a challenge for one company to tackle. No one country or even one continent could pull this off. We need to work together, with society, governments and our customers to achieve real, meaningful change in the worldwide energy system. And this change must address the demand for carbon-based energy, not just its supply.

To mention one, perhaps extreme scenario, imagine Shell decided to stop selling petrol and diesel today. This would certainly cut Shell’s carbon emissions. But it would not help the world one bit. Demand for fuel would not change. People would fill up their cars and delivery trucks at other service stations.

Society needs to take urgent action on climate change. But a court ordering one energy company to reduce its emissions – and the emissions of its customers – is not the answer. I believe Shell should work with our customers and their sectors to help them find their own pathways to achieve net-zero emissions. This will help grow demand for new low-carbon products. For companies to invest successfully, they also need bold, clear, and consistent government policies and regulations. Greater collaboration between governments, companies and customers will allow us and others to build up our low-carbon energy businesses in the fastest way.
After decades of lobbying against such changes, I hope this ruling means that Shell will now throw all its lobbying might behind bringing other companies up to the same standards.

Obviously, this case wasn't intended to solve climate change on its own, or to encourage voluntary changes by other corporations. It's been designed to set legal precedent that can be used to strong-arm other corporations, big and small, and to accelerate the already-present pressure from investors to hurry up with the transition.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:44 am

Spot the deliberate mistake:
Screenshot_2021-06-10_11-42-41.png
Screenshot_2021-06-10_11-42-41.png (280.79 KiB) Viewed 2448 times
Surely this is just trolling? Nobody's that stupid.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Jun 10, 2021 11:07 am

I thought maybe that he had flown in there directly from some summit abroad. But no, it seems like he took the plane to travel from London.

a..eh.le.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8244
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by shpalman » Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:27 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:44 am
Spot the deliberate mistake:
...
Surely this is just trolling? Nobody's that stupid.
Weird seeing that straight after this:
RAF-Luton-2106091933.jpg
RAF-Luton-2106091933.jpg (167.63 KiB) Viewed 2419 times
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
Gfamily
Light of Blast
Posts: 5180
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:00 pm
Location: NW England

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Gfamily » Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:51 pm

shpalman wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:27 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:44 am
Spot the deliberate mistake:
...
Surely this is just trolling? Nobody's that stupid.
Weird seeing that straight after this:

RAF-Luton-2106091933.jpg
I keep forgetting that RAF Luton is a parody account.
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:46 pm

Speaking of border tariffs and so on - and with relevance to the UK's ongoing quest for trade deals too - it's notable that environmental concerns are still not "mainstreamed" when forging economic agreements between nations.

For instance, the EU is very keen to strike a deal with Mercosur (the South American trade bloc), has has long been resisting calls to add some basic protections even as Bolsonaro in particular burns the Amazon and encourages attacks on indigenous people.

ClientEarth have been keeping an eye on things:
One of the biggest failings is that the deal was negotiated without conducting a timely sustainability impact assessment – a process that works out how to mitigate adverse human rights, environmental, and social impacts related to the agreement. It is supposed to be finalised before any trade negotiations conclude, but the final assessment was only recently published – two years late.

So last year, we took action against the Commission over its failure to ensure the agreement would not lead to social, economic, environmental degradation and human rights violations.

ClientEarth and organisations Fern, Veblen Institute, La Fondation Nicolas Hulot pour la Nature et l'Homme and International Federation for Human Rights filed a complaint to the European Ombudsman. We warned that the Commission did not properly consider the deal’s potential impact on issues such as the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and the use of dangerous pesticides in farming.

In March, the Ombudsman found that the Commission’s failure to conduct a timely sustainability impact assessment before concluding the deal constituted ‘maladministration’. This is a clear rebuke of the Commission’s negotiation process.
These kinds of Sustainability Impact Assessments ought to be conducted in advance of negotiations, so that member states can ensure the deal would be congruent with their environmental concerns and commitments:
From the beginning of negotiations, serious concerns were raised over its environmental impacts. These include increases in deforestation and carbon emissions, erosion of biodiversity, and challenges for the protection of the rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

The sustainability impact assessment is an important tool to make sure the Commission’s policy choices are based on scientific evidence, and that resulting trade agreements respect human rights and high economic, social and environmental standards. This is supposed to be a core instrument of EU trade policy, as it is key to ensuring transparency and appropriate involvement of all stakeholders in negotiations.

But when the Mercosur deal was agreed upon, only the first out of three phases of the sustainability impact assessment was conducted. This undermines the case that environmental and social concerns have been sufficiently addressed in the text of the deal.
And member states are not happy about how the EU has conducted itself, necessitating a last-ditch attempt to retrofit some sustainability safeguards to the deal:
A number of EU states and members of the European Parliament have indicated they will not support the deal as it stands, due to climate and deforestation concerns.

As a response to this, the Commission is seeking pre-ratification commitments from Mercosur countries on climate and deforestation. It hopes this extra step will be enough to move the deal forward, as it has been clear it will not reopen the text to further negotiation.

Little is known so far about the legal nature and content of this additional instrument.
It's been a real missed opportunity to use EU negotiating power to promote sustainable development, as it would have rewarded the adoption of scientific limits and targets in developing economies. And to be honest it's hard to see how anything with teeth can be tacked on at the end now.

Hopefully this is another example of institutions learning - a little too late - that pressures and priorities are rapidly changing, and future deals will be negotiated with sustainability at their core.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:59 pm

Further missed opportunities in how stock exchanges are regulated, according to UN research:
New research from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a body enabling businesses to set ambitious emissions reduction targets, reveals that none of the G7’s leading stock indexes are currently aligned with a 1.5°C or 2°C pathway and calls on the largest listed G7 companies to urgently increase climate action.

In the lead up to the G7 Summit, the analysis shows that the G7 countries’ leading indexes are on an average temperature pathway of 2.95°C, according to their constituents’ current corporate climate ambitions. Stock indexes, composed of stocks of the most significant companies listed on a country’s largest exchange, are vital benchmarks to understand market trends.

The report, prepared by CDP and the UN Global Compact on behalf of the SBTi, finds that four of the seven indexes are on dangerous temperature pathways of 3°C or above. Notably, fossil fuels are a key contributor to the emissions of all seven indexes, making up 70% of Canada’s SPTSX 60 3.1°C temperature rating and almost 50% of Italy’s FTSE MIB 2.7°C rating.
So far, this is all based on companies' voluntary commitments to become Paris compliant. As Shell have just found out, many of them - whether they have made inadequate commitments or none at all - are currently risking being found in breach of human rights legislation, and potentially other legal problems from future cases, along with the accelerating risk of asset stranding.

The report makes some recommendations for G7 leaders, which hopefully they'll be discussing in Cornwall the moment:
Today’s report also identifies four urgent climate actions for financial institutions, corporate actors, investors and governments. Firstly, businesses and governments must collaborate to harness the “ambition loop”, a positive feedback cycle in which private sector action and government policies reinforce one another, such as the recent Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk by the US Government that introduced a requirement for major federal suppliers to set science-based targets.

Secondly, corporations must work to decarbonise supply chains by engaging with suppliers. Thirdly, investors should embed science-based targets into sustainability-linked bonds and climate financial standards.

Finally, financial institutions should aim to create a domino effect in all sectors of the economy through setting portfolio-level science-based targets and engagement with underlying assets. One such example is the CDP Science-Based Targets campaign, which coordinates global financial institutions to engage the world's highest impact companies to set 1.5°C-aligned science-based targets.
The idea of an "ambition loop" is a powerful one: we need governments to create conditions such that the market genuinely optimises over an appropriate parameter space, rather than burdening humanity (especially its poorer and younger members) with a huge expensive pile of externalities from other people's earnings to sort out. I'm hopefully that by hitting some of the most powerful entities (e.g. Shell) hard, those corporations in turn will therefore want to see their competitors held to the same standard, i.e. increasing the sector's appetite for regulation.

I'd also love to see more Paris-aligned financial products - where are the Paris-aligned bank accounts, pensions, savings portfolios? They are few and far between, and I don't think any mainstream bank offers anything. Which means that everybody's savings and pensions are making the world worse.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 11, 2021 5:05 pm

For completeness' sake, there's another Climate Change Human Rights case just launched, this one in Poland:
Among the claimants in the Polish case is 56-year-old Piotr Nowakowski, who lives in a forest in the Greater Poland region. Nowakowski has seen how stronger storms and forest fires are increasingly becoming a threat to him and his home, while he has to dig deeper wells to find water. He’s taking the Polish government to court because it is failing him, his children and grandchildren, he says.
I like these kinds of cases, because they offer a valuable rejoinder to the claim that caring about sustainability is only for a wealthy urban elite or whatever. The reality is that normal people doing normal rural jobs are already suffering climate impacts, and are concerned that things are going to be much worse for their offspring.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
discovolante
Stummy Beige
Posts: 4084
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by discovolante » Fri Jun 11, 2021 6:15 pm

I'm a bit wary of non-binding ratings systems (I.e. where a crap rating doesn't really lead to anything, it's just for info on the assumption that the 'market' will lead to better outcomes) but while we're not really currently in a position to dictate that every pension portfolio must be totally emission free (I'm not saying they shouldn't, just that it doesn't seem likely to happen overnight) I wonder whether some kind of 'official' ratings system would be helpful as either a temporary or partial measure? Speaking of which my employer is switching pension provider as of next month, first I heard they were even doing it was when they announced who we were moving to. Apparently they have better social responsibility credentials than the current one but I don't know much about it. The union has been a bit quiet lately too so I might see if I can prod someone.
To defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 11, 2021 6:40 pm

It's not exactly 'official', but there are some reports out there. Ethical Consumer have one for UK banks: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-f ... ings-banks and possibly others on their website with a bit of rummaging.

But it's early days, hardly any banks even report the carbon intensity of their portfolios and none of the big ones are much good.

I'd expect there to be a decent amount of correlation across the board between climate and other forms of social responsibility, fwiw.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
discovolante
Stummy Beige
Posts: 4084
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by discovolante » Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:06 pm

Yeah, there are unofficial and self-ratings but I was thinking of something 'official' because if done properly (lol) it could probably be used as a tool for other things too, and you can mandate publication of ratings etc.

As for personal investment, I'm not sure how many people could afford the investment Triodos seems to require.
To defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8244
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by shpalman » Sun Jun 13, 2021 5:15 pm

Gfamily wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:51 pm
I keep forgetting that RAF Luton is a parody account.
https://twitter.com/RAF_Luton/status/14 ... 25987?s=19
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by IvanV » Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:57 am

Swiss vote against green taxes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57457384

I read an article the other day on how "100% green electricity" has been successfully marketed to the Swiss, such that the proportion of domestic customers buying it went up from 3% to 80% in fairly short order. The marketing technique was to make "green" standard, and you had to opt out if you didn't want it. The article implied this was helping fund the green revolution in Switzerland, which is nonsense. I doubt a single green generation project has been funded as a result. There is barely a solar farm or a wind turbine in Switzerland. In any case, 95% of their electricity comes from hydro (>50%) and nuclear. And they are a net exporter, though only a small one. I read somewhere else that if one took the timing of electricity consumption into account, because Switzerland makes quite large imports and exports as it can make money by such retiming, then the amount of carbon emitted by the electricity actually consumed in Switzerland is 7 times the amount they emit producing electricity.

It does make me wonder if the Swiss salved their consciences to vote against this by thinking that they were already making a contribution by buying "green electricity", when in fact all they have been sold is greenwash.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 18, 2021 5:08 pm

Seeing as pensions have been mentioned, the state of Maine (not a particularly lefty hippy place AIUI) has passed legislation to divest its pension funds of fossil fuel investments. ETA link oops https://www.pionline.com/esg/new-maine- ... -companies

Expect to see more of this coming, in law and within organisations. I'd be interested to hear from people with pensions (not me, yet) what their provider is doing about the carbon bubble etc.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:14 pm

This is cool
Gabon has become the first African country to receive payment for reducing carbon emissions by protecting its rainforest.

The UN-backed Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) has handed over $17m (£12m) - the first tranche of a $150m deal struck in 2019.

Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered by forest, which captures more carbon than the country emits.
Gabon has been able to show that it managed to reduce deforestation and so lower its carbon emissions in 2016 and 2017 compared to the previous decade, Cafi says.

As a result Norway, through Cafi, has paid Gabon $17m based on a formula relating to the number of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise have been released. The rest of the $150m should be handed over in the coming years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57567829
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by IvanV » Wed Jun 23, 2021 9:52 am

On the one hand, I think we probably do need to help poor places avoid chopping their forests down.

On the other hand, Gabon is a petrostate with a small population and a similar GDP per capita to Serbia. I wouldn't rate it highly on a list of places that really need money to avoid chopping down trees. Many of its people are poor, but that's because it's a kleptocracy.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jun 24, 2021 2:47 pm

IvanV wrote:
Wed Jun 23, 2021 9:52 am
On the one hand, I think we probably do need to help poor places avoid chopping their forests down.

On the other hand, Gabon is a petrostate with a small population and a similar GDP per capita to Serbia. I wouldn't rate it highly on a list of places that really need money to avoid chopping down trees. Many of its people are poor, but that's because it's a kleptocracy.
Generally speaking, mechanisms like REDD+ are deliberately structured to provide payments to local people rather than central government, which helps somewhat.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jun 24, 2021 2:50 pm

Also worth looking at mechanisms that don't work, of course. One notable failure is so-called "agri-environment" schemes, which give farmers money but generally don't do much more biodiversity or the climate:
EU agricultural funding destined for climate action has not contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from farming, according to a special report from the European Court of Auditors (ECA). Although over a quarter of all 2014-2020 EU agricultural spending – more than €100 billion – was earmarked for climate change, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have not decreased since 2010. This is because most measures supported by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have a low climate-mitigation potential, and the CAP does not incentivise the use of effective climate-friendly practices.
https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/News ... ?nid=15513

As things stand the new CAP makes exactly the same failures as the last one in this regard. The farming industry wields a huge amount of power, it seems.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2663
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by IvanV » Thu Jun 24, 2021 3:12 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 2:50 pm
Also worth looking at mechanisms that don't work, of course. One notable failure is so-called "agri-environment" schemes, which give farmers money but generally don't do much more biodiversity or the climate...
I recently had to do some research on environmental support schemes, and came across reports making that point. In general, biodiversity continues to fall overall even on land that is being supported to preserve its biodiversity. Schemes of broad application are the least effective, leading to a suspicion that it is just bunging farmers money, as you say.

One of the things that I have come across in this is an arrangement supposedly being introduced here whereby housing developers have to deliver biodiversity net gains on-site, or else buy "bio-diversity offsets" from third parties who will deliver biodiversity net gain on their sites - typically farmers, woodland owners, etc. If the market won't supply, you can buy a paper gain from the government, who will apply the money itself to biodiversity gain schemes. I can't help feeling that the overall picture is being lost here.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:07 am

IvanV wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 3:12 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 2:50 pm
Also worth looking at mechanisms that don't work, of course. One notable failure is so-called "agri-environment" schemes, which give farmers money but generally don't do much more biodiversity or the climate...
I recently had to do some research on environmental support schemes, and came across reports making that point. In general, biodiversity continues to fall overall even on land that is being supported to preserve its biodiversity. Schemes of broad application are the least effective, leading to a suspicion that it is just bunging farmers money, as you say.

One of the things that I have come across in this is an arrangement supposedly being introduced here whereby housing developers have to deliver biodiversity net gains on-site, or else buy "bio-diversity offsets" from third parties who will deliver biodiversity net gain on their sites - typically farmers, woodland owners, etc. If the market won't supply, you can buy a paper gain from the government, who will apply the money itself to biodiversity gain schemes. I can't help feeling that the overall picture is being lost here.
Yes, biodiversity offsets (mainly coastal wetlands) has been part of what I do for the last 5 years or so. It's really really tricky to do well, and the political will is focussed on justifying business-as-usual rather than actually assuring continued ecological function.

In theory, using money from developers to support large-scale, ambitious restoration projects (and connecting them up) could be a smart way to fund things. But, as seen with HS2 (as well as in numerous other, lower-profile cases) the compensatory habitat delivered might be rubbish (e.g. forestry plantations), or delivered on land that already has important biodiversity value in its own right (such as some grassland types). Delivering a genuine net gain would require taking land currently used for things like agriculture or development, which is obviously more expensive and often politically difficult.

The overall picture for UK nature was largely given by Lawton's Making Space for Nature review for DEFRA in 2010, which concluded that natural areas need to be "bigger, better and more connected." A tiny SSSI is of very little value, and has very little resilience, if it's not in the context of a wider landscape that's at least partly ecologically congruent (ie, not developed and not conventional agriculture). The policies to deliver that vision don't currently exist, and protections on some sites like rivers are being deliberately weakened.

It would have been nice to see HS2, as a supposedly flagship "green" project, enacting government policy on this regard, but alas. While independent groups like the Wildlife Trusts designed offsetting that would have delivered a net gain and connected up various sites, the £130m price tag (~0.1% of the budget) was considered too steep. So instead it serves as a monument to government's disregard for biodiversity.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Tackling the Climate Emergency:Economic and judicial instruments

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:18 am

The rapidly developing field of 'climate attribution' is even making it possible to attribute climate damage to individual polluters:
Rupert Stuart-Smith, researcher at the Oxford University sustainable law programme, and lead author of a new study, said more such cases were likely to be successful, as new science was making it possible to attribute the damages of climate breakdown more directly to companies’ activities.

“It’s no longer far-fetched to think that these companies can be taken to court successfully,” he said. “The strength of evidence is bolstering these claims, and giving a firm evidentiary basis for these court cases.”

That success could in turn unleash a further new wave of litigation, he said. “It’s possible that we will see precedents made that will make it easier to file future lawsuits on climate impacts.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... sses-study

Which ties in nicely with the climate attribution thread.

The full paper is free to read here, or there's a twitter thread from the lead author if (like most academics) you prefer.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

Post Reply