ENVIRONMENT experts called for urgent action from Westminster today after scientists predicted a 66 per cent chance that a global average temperature of more than 1.5°C will be recorded over the next five years.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) also said there is a 98 per cent chance of the hottest year on record being broken during that time.
Report co-leader Dr Leon Hermanson said that the 1.5°C mark above pre-industrial levels has never been crossed before, with the current record being 1.28°C.
He said that the record will likely come from a combination of greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Nino event, a heating of the eastern Pacific which affects rainfall and temperature globally.
…
Green Party co–leader Carla Denyer urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “do the right thing” and end the plans to open the new coal mine in Cumbria and oil field in Rosebank as well as dropping “all new climate-wrecking oil and gas licences immediately.”
The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have warned.
The breaching of the crucial 1.5C threshold, which scientists have warned could have dire consequences, should be only temporary, according to research from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
However, it would represent a marked acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system, and send the world into “uncharted territory”, the UN agency warned.
Countries have pledged, under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to try to hold global temperatures to no higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, after scientific advice that heating beyond that level would unleash a cascade of increasingly catastrophic and potentially irreversible impacts.
Prof Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, said: “This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5C specified in the Paris agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency.”
Global average surface temperatures have never before breached the 1.5C threshold. The highest average in previous years was 1.28C above pre-industrial levels.
Just Stop Oil supporters have been forcibly removed from the Houses of Parliament where they were attending the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into the policing of public protests during the Coronation. Just Stop Oil is demanding an end to all new oil, gas and coal projects in the UK.
At around 10:30 am, five of the 19 Just Stop Oil supporters, who were wrongfully arrested on the 6th May, were ejected from the Home Affairs Committee inquiry after one of them attempted to speak. The supporters were wearing the same t-shirts they wore on Coronation Day, which prompted the police to arrest them for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.
Dr Kush Naker, 33, a doctor of infectious diseases from London, began to read their prepared statement: “We, as supporters of Just Stop Oil, are here today because our democracy is under threat…” however, he was unable to finish before all five were forcibly removed from the committee. One Just Stop Oil supporter could be heard saying “we should not have been arrested for wearing t-shirts,” as she was ejected from the hearing.
Meanwhile, outside Parliament, eight supporters of Just Stop Oil were being arrested for peacefully marching in Parliament Square after a section 12 public order notice was issued earlier.
The Home Affairs committee has invited evidence from policing representatives, the anti-monarchy group Republic and human rights lawyer Adam Wagner. However, no invite has been extended to Just Stop Oil, despite supporters of the campaign making up over a third of those wrongfully arrested on Coronation Day.
Just Stop Oil has presented a written submission of evidence about the day’s events that can be read here. The committee has responded to advise it will ‘not be formally accepting written evidence.’
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
“This is a continuation of the silencing of legitimate dissent we saw at the Coronation. The Metropolitan Police baselessly arrested doctors, lecturers, students and electricians, simply for possessing flags and t-shirts. This is clearly politically motivated and represents a massive overreach by the police. No evidence has been provided and now those wrongfully arrested are being prevented from giving evidence to the very committee that has been organised to assess the policing during the coronation.”
“The world is watching in horror at what has become of our once proud British democracy. This government, against all available scientific information, is pursuing an agenda of opening new oil, gas and coal projects, during a climate crisis that threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people. This silencing of those opposed to these genocidal policies is not going unnoticed by the young, who will be overseeing the climate trials of the future. Those who facilitated and co-operated with these criminal acts will be held to account for the crime of genocide.”
“Carbon capture and storage is a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry and a dangerous distraction from the pressing need to move off oil and gas,” said one advocate.
The national climate watchdog group Food & Water Watch on Monday unveiled a new interactive multimedia resource where users can learn more about “false narratives” regarding carbon capture and storage, an unproven technology pushed by fossil fuel companies eager to avoid what scientists and energy experts say is the actual solution to the climate emergency: Ending the burning of coal, gas, and oil to bring down carbon emissions.
Visitors to the group’s new “resource hub” first encounter a title card reading, “The Carbon Capture Solution” before the last word is crossed out and replaced with “Scam.”
The site, titled Carbon Capture Scam, includes video storytelling, expert testimonials, analysis, infographics, and other content that help explain to readers why carbon capture and storage (CCS) is simply “a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry” rather than a real solution that will reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere and planetary heating.
CCS refers to technologies that are designed to trap and remove carbon emissions from smokestacks and the atmosphere, such as a $1 billion project at Petra Nova coal plant in Texas and one at the San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico, both of which were found to be unfeasible.
“What carbon capture and storage is, is a complex set of machines that is attached to a smokestack where carbon dioxide is being emitted, and it captures that CO2,” said biologist Sandra Steingraber in a video featured on the site. “Problem one, it’s going to increase the energy, just to run the machinery, by 20%.”
Other emissions aside from carbon also increase with the use of CCS technology, added Steingraber, such as smog, formaldehyde, and benzene.
“These are chemicals that we know cause heart attack and stroke, that shorten lifeaspans, that are linked to childhood asthma, and are also linked to preterm birth—preterm birth being the number one cause of disability in the United States,” said Steingraber.
The Carbon Capture Scam, Explained by Dr. Sandra Steingraber
Despite evidence that CCS is more expensive than its proponents admit as well as being energy-intensive and actually contributing to a net increase in emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency last week unveiled new power plant rules that rely heavily on the unproven technology and include plans to build thousands of miles of new pipelines to carry the emissions proponents say will be trapped and stored.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act also allocated billions of dollars to expand CCS.
“The fossil fuel industry has spent millions of dollars promoting carbon capture and policy makers at all levels have taken the bait, doling out billions of dollars to support its development. But CCS is a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry and a dangerous distraction from the pressing need to move off oil and gas,” said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter on Monday.
“Our Carbon Capture Scam web hub exposes the industry lies behind CCS through detailed research, and gives people an opportunity to take action and fight back against CCS and for a truly clean, renewable energy future,” she added.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have joined the fossil fuel industry in attempting “to lull consumers into thinking there’s an easier fix than ending fossil fuel use,” reads Carbon Capture Scam.
“Stop spreading false hope about direct carbon capture,” said climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who is quoted on the site. “It won’t help prevent catastrophic damage in the short term, it would require tremendous energy, and it may never scale up. Keep researching, but don’t bet on it happening. [Definitely] don’t bet the whole planet.”
Instead of investing in CCS, Carbon Capture Scam says, Congress must stop peddling “dangerous carbon capture hype,” end its industry-approved “delay tactics,” and ramp up efforts to shift to a renewable energy system.
“Renewable energy and energy efficiency are reliable, cost-effective, and ready for widespread deployment,” reads the website. “Given huge advances in production and storage, we could meet 100% of our energy needs with clean, renewable energy—today. All we need is the political will to make it happen.”
There was a van waiting outside. One of the activists waved to the man in the driving seat. They didn’t think there was anything to worry about then; not ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ but close. They knew that what was planned for the group entering the meeting space in Haggerston, five miles away from the Coronation route, had nothing to do with King Charles III or his cavalcade of self-congratulation.
The members of Animal Rising, the direct-action group that advocates animal rights and plant-based foods, had a training session planned. They were going to learn more about non-violent protest action.
But the Metropolitan Police was more interested in violent anti-protest action. The women and non-binary people in the meeting space had just made cups of tea and coffee and sat down in a circle to introduce themselves when the police arrived. It was roughly 10.30 am and 20 officers stormed in.
The officers told the group that they had intelligence that Just Stop Oil planned to disrupt the Coronation and pointed to leaflets, and paint used for screenprinting as ‘proof’. Most of the Animal Rising activists were cuffed but they had to wait about an hour for a police bus to arrive.
They were then held for three hours in the police bus before being processed at the police station and then spent a further nine hours in custody before being released under investigation but not charged. It was after midnight when the women were back on the streets, far from where they had begun the previous day.
