PRIME MINISTER Rishi Sunak jetted into Scotland today [Monday] to announce a cash bonanza for the oil majors, just days after the United Nations announced that “the era of global boiling has arrived.”
Companies such as Shell and BP, which coined £3 billion each in just the last three months, continue to enjoy the Prime Minister’s generosity.
Having already doled out billions of pounds worth of windfall tax breaks to fossil fuel majors in the North Sea, Mr Sunak has said he will back the granting of over 100 new oil and gas licences and provide up to £20bn in state handouts to carbon capture and storage.
Despite the proposed fields not likely to come on stream for over a decade, Mr Sunak and ministers such as Energy Secretary Grant Shapps claim that the supply would ensure energy security and aid in “safeguarding bills for British families.”
Mr Sunak argued his policy to prolong production of oil and gas by decades “is entirely consistent with our plans to get to net zero” — a target due to be met in just seven years.
The Prime Minister’s remarks united climate activists, anti-poverty campaigners, trade unionists and opposition politicians in their condemnation of a policy they argue ditches international commitments on climate change, fails to deliver a fair transition for workers, and will not help those struggling to pay heating bills this winter.
In a statement, climate activists Just Stop Oil branded the 100 new licences expected to be granted this autumn as “100 new crimes against humanity,” adding: “Rishi Sunak and his fossil fuel backers are taking us all for fools.
Protest banner reads Stop Climate Crime. We are One.
Radical action is essential to stop the transition from global warming to global boiling
Extreme weather events have increased in frequency and intensity over the past decade, with the last month seeing a rare combination of problems across North America, the Mediterranean and Middle East, northern China and South Korea. For the British, there has been the separate added shock of seeing tourists fleeing wildfires, especially in Greece.
These events are all part of the early stages of climate breakdown, which will get progressively worse unless the world makes a revolutionary and rapid transition to a low carbon economy, yet there is little evidence that political leaderships are even remotely prepared for this. At least UN secretary general António Guterres is using different language, not least his use of “global boiling” rather than “global warming” for his warnings of what is to come.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres discusses climate change at U.N. headquarters in New York City on July 27, 2023.
He is an exception, and public opinion overall is still not aware of the huge changes required. All the warnings from climate scientists, coupled with the evidence of our own eyes, seems to count for little as we move towards an unstable, chaotic and overheating planet.
Why is this? More importantly, why is it that radical decarbonisation isn’t happening, even though we know it’s possible? And, most important of all, how can things be turned round in time?
Let’s start with the inaction. Here, three elements interact. First, we are talking about fundamental changes in how we live, not just in the UK or western Europe but across the whole world. The result would be a cleaner, safer and healthier world, but it would involve years of huge change – which is a lot for ordinary people to take in. We shouldn’t underestimate this. Poorer communities, in particular, will find it very difficult to cope with the changes, while richer elites everywhere in the world will likely maintain the naive belief that their wealth will keep them secure.
Second, what must be done runs directly counter to the way the economy currently works. The market fundamentalist system is rooted in competition and the false belief that the millions of people left behind will benefit from trickle-down from the rich and be content. It believes that while central government, in partnership with wealth, may hold the ultimate levers of control, it should have a minimal role in how the market works. Cooperation is anathema to this way of thinking, but cooperation is essential to prevent global boiling.
Neoliberals see this market fundamentalist approach as necessary for an ordered and stable society, and believe that if the millions of marginalised people do not upset the apple cart, all will be well. At root is a belief that the elite knows best.
In Britain, there was the unexpected risk of a seriously radical Labour government taking over in 2017. Fortunately for the neoliberals, that was narrowly avoided and since then the threat from the Labour left has been well and truly suppressed.
Despite this, the system still has wider concerns over potentially violent responses from the margins. In many countries, and especially Britain, new laws have been brought in and others strengthened, and police and security forces are much better equipped and trained to handle public dissent. Heavy prison sentences for even small acts of nonviolent direct action are now there to be used.
The problem is that a market economy system simply cannot act fast enough to handle climate breakdown. The system knows this, so finds it preferable to support the view of any “experts”– of whom there are plenty – who still deny there is a problem.
The anti-climate breakdown forces are exceptionally well entrenched in society and have the easy job of convincing people that no action is required
This brings us to the third point: the relentless propaganda from the fossil fuel industry and associated think tanks over half a century to deny the problem, even when their own scientists are saying otherwise. In a fairer world there would be an offence of global corporate manslaughter, but in the real world there isn’t.
Overall, the anti-climate breakdown forces are exceptionally well entrenched in society and have the easy job of convincing people that no action is required – just when they are being told that action will be personally costly. Politicians will play on this, especially when elections are in the offing. This can even reap electoral favour. The current behaviour of Britain’s Sunak government is a case in point, with Sunak declaring that climate policy must be “proportional and pragmatic”, following a by-election win in a constituency where the Tory candidate had opposed extension of the ULEZ low-emissions scheme.
So where do we go from here? One way to look at it is to view the current issue as two very broad global trends that are on course to converge, and when they finally meet there will be a chance of radical change because there will be no alternative.
One of these trends, as we have seen, is a system set in its ways and highly unlikely to change. Carbon emissions will continue rising, temperatures will head well above 1.5°C and those with the power will reap the rewards, at least in the short term.
The other trend is much more positive and has three elements.
Climate science has come on by leaps and bounds in the past half century. The science community is far more confident of its expectations of climate breakdown and is, at last, saying so bluntly. That welcome change also has greater force because of the manner in which the beginnings of climate breakdown are frequently exceeding the warnings of predictive models.
The second trend is, at last, a growing public awareness that things must change, and change quickly. The power of the movements in many countries is remarkable, so much so that far more people are willing to risk prison for the sake of the future.
Finally, numerous impressive developments in renewable energy technology have brought down the cost of electricity by huge margins, bringing it well below grid parity in price with fossil fuels.
That leaves just two huge questions, on which so many futures depend, particularly for our children and grandchildren. When will the convergence happen, and how quickly can changes then be made?
If it takes another 20 years to the early 2040s, then the task will be almost insurmountable, with action only happening after numerous appalling catastrophes, and bitter anger from the marginalised billions. If change comes before the mid-1930s then prospects will be brighter, but the later the convergence the greater the challenge.
It is therefore a matter of the sooner the better, so the rest of the 2020s has to be a time of intense activism whenever and wherever possible. Whether it is by persuasion, argument, nonviolent direct action or other means, it might then be possible to convince enough people that radical action is essential before the transition from global warming to global boiling risks becoming irreversible.
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“Still we are not acting with the urgency and determination that is required,” the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Monday.
As parts of the world from China to Texas bake under extreme heat, scientists and advocates are warning that world leaders are running out of time to take action on the climate crisis.
In a speech to a United Nations panel discussion on Monday,, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk cautioned that current policies put the planet on course for a “dystopian future.”
“Yet still we are not acting with the urgency and determination that is required. Leaders perform the choreography of deciding to act and promising to act and then… get stuck in the short term,” Türk said.
[Twitter refuses to embed.]
Türk’s remarks came after Reuters ran an article highlighting recent weather extremes and land- and sea-temperature records. Scientists warn that the clock is running out on the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
“We’ve run out of time because change takes time,” University of New South Wales climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick told Reuters.
Early June 2023 was the hottest on record, with average temperatures even overshooting the 1.5°C mark for a few days. While this has happened before during the Northern Hemisphere winter, this was the first time it has happened during the Northern Hemisphere summer, according to Reuters.
At the same time, sea surface temperatures broke records in both April and May. Temperatures in the Indian and Pacific oceans could rise to 3°C warmer than normal by October, Australia’s weather agency said, according to Reuters.
“We know that our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s flooding. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying.”
University of Leeds professor of climate physics Piers Forster told Reuters that the climate crisis was predominantly to blame, but that El Niño, a drop in dust from the Sahara blowing over the ocean, and a turn to low-sulfur shipping fuels that reduced atmospheric particulates also contributed.
“So in all, oceans are being hit by a quadruple whammy,” he said. “It’s a sign of things to come.”
Other signs of things to come include the wildfires burning in Canada, which is in the midst of its worst fire season on record, as AFP reported June 28. The fires have displaced more than 100,000 people, sent toxic smoke spewing south and east, and released a record almost 600 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Places from India to the southern U.S. have sweltered through deadly heat waves. On Thursday, several states in the South and Midwest had reached the highest threat level for their wet bulb temperature—the temperature of a thermometer covered in a wet cloth which is meant to simulate how the human body would react to a combination of heat and humidity in full sun, as The Hill reported. Studies have shown that the human body cannot sweat to cool down when heat and humidity reach certain levels—the most recent research points to a threshold of 88°F at 100% humidity.
[Twitter refuses to embed.]
On Sunday, Chinese authorities said that the country had broken records for the number of hot days during the first six months of the year, with Beijing breaking its all-time temperature record to hit a high of 41.1°C on Thursday, as CNN reported.
When the capital finally saw relief Monday, flooding displaced more than 10,000 people in Hunan province, and Shaanxi province’s Zhenba county experienced its worst flooding in 50 years, according to the Independent.
“We know that our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s flooding. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying,” Türk said during his remarks Monday.
Türk warned that conditions could get even more extreme if global temperatures rise to around 3°C, which current policies put them on track to do, according to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Vast territories would disappear under rising oceans, or become effectively uninhabitable, due to heat and lack of water,” he said.
Türk’s speech was focused on the right to food specifically, and how the climate crisis would continue to interfere with it. Between 2000 and 2023, there had already been a 134% increase in climate and flood disasters, he said.
“More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021,” he said. “And climate change is projected to place up to 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century—creating a truly terrifying scale of desperation and need.”
Yet so far, political and corporate leaders are not responding to the situation with the urgency experts and advocates say it requires. The Bonn climate talks, which occurred amidst the record early June heat, ended with little progress.
“I am hoping that the sheer reality will help us change people’s moves and change the politics.”
“It was very detached from what was going on outside of the building in Bonn—I was very disappointed by that,” Li Shuo, Greenpeace’s senior climate adviser in Beijing, told Reuters.
The next major international climate conference—COP28—begins in the United Arab Emirates in late November, but campaigners are concerned by the fact that its president, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, is also the head of the UAE’s state oil company.
Meanwhile, Li and Türk still expressed hope for 11th-hour progress.
“We are really getting to the moment of truth,” Li told Reuters. “I am hoping that the sheer reality will help us change people’s moves and change the politics.”
Türk recommended a list of actions including an end to fossil fuel subsidies, a phaseout of fossil fuel use, and a “just transition to a green economy.”
He also said that COP28 needed to be a “decisive game-changer.”
“There is still time to act,” he said. “But that time is now. We must not leave this for our children to fix—no matter how inspiring their activism. The people who must act—who have the responsibility to act—are our leaders, today.”
Image of Rashida Tlaib by SecretName101 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International viia WikiMedia.
“Israeli forces are now blocking ambulances from reaching the dozens of wounded Palestinians after at least eight people were killed in Jenin,” the Michigan Democrat said Monday.
In the wake of another deadly raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Monday led renewed calls for Congress to cut off the nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel’s apartheid government.
Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded dozens of others in the early morning attack on Jenin that included bombardment by unmanned aerial drones. Israeli and international media described the airstrikes as the fiercest to hit the West Bank in nearly two decades.
Retweeting an Al Jazeera English video of an Israeli bulldozer destroying a street in Jenin, Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the first Palestinian-American woman elected to the House—asserted that “Congress must stop funding this violent Israeli apartheid regime.”
“Last night,” the group said Monday, “the Israeli military unleashed a full-scale assault on Jenin, surrounding the Palestinian city, preventing people from leaving and launching airstrikes. The state-sanctioned violence Palestinians endure daily must end. End U.S. military funding to Israel now.”
The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights called Monday’s attack a “horrific massacre” that was “directly funded with $3.8+ billion/year of our U.S. tax dollars.”
Lamenting that “the Israeli government is completely out of control because it does not expect to face any consequences from the Biden administration,” Council on American Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said that “this must change.”
The Institute for Middle East Understanding, an advocacy group headquartered in Tustin, California, tweeted: “Israel has no right to invade Palestinian cities, and must be held accountable for its war crimes.”
“The U.S. sends Israel nearly $4 billion a year in military funding,” the group added. “Enough is enough.”
The peace group CodePink reshared a petition urging President Joe Biden and Congress to “stop funding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
[Twitter under **** Elon Musk]
Monday’s raid came less than two weeks after Palestinian militants killed four Israelis near Eli, an illegal Jewish-only settler colony built partly on land stolen from residents of the Palestinian village of Qaryut. In response to the killings, a mob of Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, killing one Palestinian and burning many homes, businesses, and vehicles.
Progressive members of Congress including Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) condemned U.S. military aid to Israel following what the two lawmakers called the “pogrom” in Turmus Ayya.
In May, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and co-sponsors reintroduced legislation that would prohibit Israel from using U.S. taxpayer funds to detain or abuse Palestinian children in the West Bank.
Yet another record broken and governments do nothing … We need to get rid of the useless b’stards who are actually making the climate crisis worse by expanding the use of fossil fuels.
June has been confirmed as the hottest on record for the UK.
According to provisional Met Office figures, the average mean temperature of 15.8°C for June 2023 in the UK is the highest in a series since 1884, with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also reporting their respective warmest June on record.
This eclipsed the previous record by 0.9°C, while the previous top three Junes were separated by just 0.1°C.
Fingerprint of climate change
A rapid study by Met Office scientists found the chance of observing a June beating the previous record of 14.9°C, like we have this year, has at least doubled since the period around 1940. The previous record of 14.9°C was recorded in 1940 and 1976.
Paul Davies, Met Office Climate Extremes Principal Fellow and Chief Meteorologist, explains: “We found that the chance of observing a June beating the previous joint 1940/1976 record of 14.9°C has at least doubled since the 1940s. Alongside natural variability, the background warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to human induced climate change has driven up the possibility of reaching record high temperatures.
“Using our UKCP18 climate projections, we can also see that there is a difference in the frequency of these sort of extremes depending on the emissions scenario we follow in the future. By the 2050s the chance of surpassing the previous record of 14.9°C could be as high as around 50%, or every other year. Beyond the 2050s the likelihood is strongly governed by our emissions of greenhouse gasses, with the chance increasing further in a high emissions scenario but levelling off under mitigation.”
The rapid study used the UK’s climate projections, UKCP18, comparing the chance of surpassing 14.9°C during the period 1925-1955 to that for 1991-2020.
