false solutions

Campaigners Urge Countries to Seize ‘Momentum’ at COP30 and Deliver Roadmap for Green Transition

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A projection urges leaders to “get serious” about drawing down fossil fuel emissions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 5, 2025. (Photo by Fabio Teixeira/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We need to make sure that any and all plans towards a fossil fuel-free future are built with community and frontline needs at the heart, and implemented in a way that does not leave vulnerable communities behind.”

Despite concerns over the presence of hundreds of corporate lobbyists peddling “false solutions” at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, campaigners on Monday expressed optimism about the “remarkable speed” with which global support has grown at the summit for a Transition Away From Fossil Fuels Roadmap.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the Leader’s Summit on November 6 with a call for the TAFF Roadmap, which would build on the 2023 conference’s (COP28) promise to “transition away from fossil fuels” in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner.”

He urged leaders to map out how their countries will “overcome dependence on fossil fuels,” reverse deforestation, and mobilize resources to achieve those goals, as the presidencies of this year’s conference (COP30) and last year’s released a Baku to Belém Roadmap with a plan to mobilize $1.3 trillion per year in climate finance for developing countries.

350.org found on Monday that within nine days, support for the TAFF Roadmap grew from one to 62 countries.

Suluafi Brianna Fruean, a 350.org Pacific Council elder, acknowledged that a call for “a transition away from fossil fuels is not a new concept for the Pacific, it’s a demand we’ve made at every COP and every room we’ve been in.”

Still, she said, “the growing support for a roadmap to this reality is a sign that the age of fossil fuels is over. We need to make sure that any and all plans towards a fossil fuel-free future are built with community and frontline needs at the heart, and implemented in a way that does not leave vulnerable communities behind.”

“The presidency calls on developing countries to lead, prioritize public, grant-based, concessional finance to protect the world’s most vulnerable, and break the vicious debt cycle. However, it misses the urgency to simplify direct access to finance for communities, especially Indigenous peoples.”

350.org analyzed public statements and written inputs from countries and country groups to the COP30 presidency, and released its analysis of the conference’s momentum as the Brazil presidency released its “consultation text.”

That document lays out options for a final agreement at COP30, including “the ingredients for a highly ambitious outcome,” said 350.org.

Options in the text include establishing a three-year program to implement Article 9.1 in the Paris Agreement, which requires wealthy countries to finance adaptation and a transition away from fossil fuels for the Global South; tripling adaptation finance; and implementing Article 3.5 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which requires parties to support an economic system that leads “to sustainable economic growth and development in all parties… thus enabling them better to address the problems of climate change.”

“Finance is the engine of climate action. The presidency calls on developing countries to lead, prioritize public, grant-based, concessional finance to protect the world’s most vulnerable, and break the vicious debt cycle,” said Fanny Petitbon, France team lead for 350.org. “However, it misses the urgency to simplify direct access to finance for communities, especially Indigenous peoples, who hold solutions on the ground yet face enormous barriers to securing the funds needed to scale them up.”

A second package of options is set to be released in the coming days and “will cover the more technical negotiating areas,” according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, credited Lula with injecting “real momentum into a global roadmap to move away from fossil fuels.”

But Sieber noted that Brazil recently gave its state-owned oil and gas company, Petrobras, license to drill a well in the Amazon rainforest, and Brazil is still one of the top 10 producers of crude oil globally.

“Lula spoke powerfully about justice and cooperation in a divided world, highlighting the need to get rid of fossil fuels and accelerate the energy transition,” Sieber told Argus Media after the Leaders’ Summit. “But he cannot be both a champion of climate justice and one of the world’s biggest oil expanders.”

350.org added that in a TAFF Roadmap, “finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building must be central pillars—not peripheral details—if the transition is to lift up communities rather than deepen inequality.”

WWF also applauded the “momentum” at COP30, and urged “decisive political leadership” in order to “get back on track to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement temperature limit.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF global climate and energy lead, and the president of COP20, said that “COP30 could make history by agreeing on roadmaps for both a transition away from fossil fuels and to combat deforestation. It must also respond to the emissions gap in national climate plans, and make advances on finance, including to help countries adapt to climate change.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Continue ReadingCampaigners Urge Countries to Seize ‘Momentum’ at COP30 and Deliver Roadmap for Green Transition

Thoughts of the Day 25 November 2024

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I apologise that I repeat myself.

Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

Storm Bert caused serious flooding in UK, particularly in the South Wales town of Pontypridd. Gross Capitalists scum and governments scum refuse to accept responsibility for their actions in destroying the climate at COP29. Yet more false solutions pushed by the fossil fuel industry pursued by governments …

It seems like nothing changes. Our climate is fekked. The fossil fuel industry and politicians are responsible for it since they have known since the 1960s. Governments and politicians are supposed to protect their populations. Instead they are controlled and quite willingly work for the rich and powerful. Despite the UK government committing to radical action to address climate, they still pursue false solutions i.e. carbon capture and nuclear power.

Four Greenpeace activists are pictured on a Shell vessel in the Atlantic Ocean on January 31, 2023.
Four Greenpeace activists are pictured on a Shell vessel in the Atlantic Ocean on January 31, 2023.

ed: We are at 1.5C increase now, the limit proposed by the Paris Agreement. We’re flying past it because gross Capitalists and Capitalist politicians are refusing to address the climate crisis. We are on course to far more and far more severe extreme weather events because of these cnuts.

Continue ReadingThoughts of the Day 25 November 2024

After Ending in Overtime, COP29 Called ‘Big F U to Climate Justice’

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Activists demanding that rich countries pay up for climate finance protest at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 22, 2024.
 (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Critics of the “COP of false solutions” said that instead of much-needed funding, developing nations got “a global Ponzi scheme that the private equity vultures and public relations people will now exploit.”

It was early Sunday by the time the United Nations climate summit wrapped up in Baku, Azerbaijan after running into overtime to finalize deals on carbon markets and funding for developing countries that were sharply condemned by campaigners worldwide.

“COP29 was a dumpster fire. Except it’s not trash that’s burning—it’s our planet,” declared Nikki Reisch of the Center for International Environmental Law. “And developed countries are holding both the matches and the firehose.”

Recalling last year’s conference in the United Arab Emirates, Oil Change International global policy senior strategist Shady Khalil highlighted that “the world made a deal at COP28 to end the fossil fuel era. Now, at COP29, countries seem to have been struck with collective amnesia.”

“With each new iteration of the texts, oil and gas producers managed to dilute the urgent commitment to phase out fossil fuels,” Khalil said. “But let’s be clear: Rich countries’ failure to lead on fossil fuel phaseout and to put the trillions they have hoarded on the table has done more to imperil the energy transition than any obstructionist tactics from oil and gas producers.”

This year’s conference began November 11 and was due to conclude on Friday, but parties to the Paris agreement were still negotiating the carbon market rules, which were finalized late Saturday, and the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance.

“The carbon markets in Article 6 of the Paris agreement were pushed through COP29 in a take-it-or leave-it outcome,” said Tamra Gilbertson of Indigenous Environmental Network, decrying “a new dangerous era in climate change negotiations.”

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As Climate Home Newsreported, they establish two types of markets: “The first—known as Article 6.2—regulates bilateral carbon trading between countries, while Article 6.4 creates a global crediting mechanism for countries to sell emissions reductions.”

The outlet pointed to expert warnings that “the rules for bilateral trades under 6.2 could open the door for the sale of junk carbon credits—one of the weaknesses of the previous crediting mechanism set up by the U.N. known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).”

Jonathan Crook of Carbon Market Watch said in a statement that “the package does not shine enough light on an already opaque system where countries won’t be required to provide information about their deals well ahead of actual trades.”

“Even worse, the last opportunity to strengthen the critically weak review process was largely missed,” he continued. “Countries remain free to trade carbon credits that are of low quality, or even fail to comply with Article 6.2 rules, without any real oversight.”

As for Article 6.4, “much lies in the hands of the supervisory body” that’s set to resume work in early 2025, said Crook’s colleague, Federica Dossi. “To show that it is ready to learn from past mistakes, it will have to take tough decisions next year and ensure that Article 6.4 credits will be markedly better than the units that old CDM projects will generate.”

“If they are not, they will have to compete in a low-trust, low-integrity market where prices are likely to be at rock bottom and interest will be low,” Dossi added. “Such a system would be a distraction, and a waste of 10 years worth of carbon market negotiations.”

Some campaigners suggested that no matter what lies ahead, the embrace of carbon markets represents a failure. Kirtana Chandrasekaran at Friends of the Earth International said that “the supposed ‘COP of climate finance’ has turned into the ‘COP of false solutions.’ The U.N. has given its stamp of approval to fraudulent and failed carbon markets.”

“We have seen the impacts of these schemes: land grabs, Indigenous peoples’ and human rights violations,” Chandrasekaran noted. “The now-operationalized U.N. global carbon market may well be worse than existing voluntary ones and will continue to provide a get out of jail free card to Big Polluters whilst devastating communities and ecosystems.”

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Chandrasekaran’s colleague Seán McLoughlin at Friends of the Earth Ireland was similarly critical of the conference’s finance deal, asserting that “Baku is a big F U to climate justice, to the poorest communities who are on the frontlines of climate breakdown.”

“COP29 has failed those who have done least to cause climate change and who are most vulnerable to climate breakdown because the process is still in thrall to fossil fuel bullies and rich countries more committed to shirking their historical responsibility than safeguarding our common future,” he said. “Now it’s back to citizens to demand our governments do the right thing. We must keep demanding the trillions, not billions owed in climate debt and a comprehensive, swift, and equitable fossil fuel phaseout. The struggle for climate justice is not over.”

Campaigners and developing nations fought for $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance from those most responsible for the planetary crisis. Instead, the NCQG document only directs developed countries to provide the Global South with $300 billion per year by 2035, with a goal of reaching the higher figure by also seeking funds from private sources.

The deal almost didn’t happen at all. As The Guardiandetailed Saturday: “Developed countries including the U.K., the U.S., and E.U. members were pushed into raising their offer from an original $250 billion a year tabled on Friday, to $300 billion. Poor countries argued for more, and in the early evening two groups representing some of the world’s poorest countries walked out of one key meeting, threatening to collapse the negotiations.”

While Simon Stiell, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, celebrated the NCQG as “an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country,” Chiara Martinelli, director at Climate Action Network Europe, put it in the context of the $100 billion target set in 2009, which wealthy governments didn’t meet.

“Rich countries own the responsibility for the failed outcome at COP29,” Martinelli said. “The talk of tripling from the $100 billion goal might sound impressive, but in reality, it falls far short, barely increasing from the previous commitment when adjusted for inflation and considering the bulk of this money will come in the form of unsustainable loans. This is not solidarity. It’s smoke and mirrors that betray the needs of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis.”

Also stressing that “it’s not even real ‘money,’ by and large,” but rather “a motley mix of loans and privatized investment,” Oxfam International’s climate change policy lead, Nafkote Dabi, called the agreement “a global Ponzi scheme that the private equity vultures and public relations people will now exploit.”

“The terrible verdict from the Baku climate talks shows that rich countries view the Global South as ultimately expendable, like pawns on a chessboard,” Dabi charged. “The $300 billion so-called ‘deal’ that poorer countries have been bullied into accepting is unserious and dangerous—a soulless triumph for the rich, but a genuine disaster for our planet and communities who are being flooded, starved, and displaced today by climate breakdown.”

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Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists, who is in Baku, took aim at not only rich governments, but also the host, saying that “the Azerbaijani COP29 Presidency’s ineptitude in brokering an agreement at this consequential climate finance COP will go down in ignominy.”

Cleetus’ group is based in the United States, which is preparing for a January transfer of power from Democratic President Joe Biden to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who notably ditched the Paris agreement during his first term.

“The United States—the world’s largest historical contributor of heat-trapping emissions—is going to see a monumental shift in its global diplomacy posture as the incoming anti-science Trump administration will likely exit the Paris agreement and take a wrecking ball to domestic climate and clean energy policies,” Cleetus warned. “While some politically and economically popular clean energy policies may prove durable and action from forward-looking states and businesses will be significant, there’s no doubt that a lack of robust federal leadership will leave U.S. climate action hobbled for a time.”

“Other nations—including E.U. countries and China—will need to do what they can to fill the void,” she stressed. “Between now and COP30 in Brazil next year, nations have a lot of ground to make up to have any hope of limiting runaway climate change.”

Ben Goloff of the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity called out the departing Biden administration, arguing that it “should be going out with at least a signal of its moral climate commitment, not copping out ahead of the Trump 2.0 disaster.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.

Continue ReadingAfter Ending in Overtime, COP29 Called ‘Big F U to Climate Justice’

‘Unacceptable’: Campaigners Decry Climate Finance Failures as COP29 Enters Final Hours

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Activists demonstrate against industrial agriculture and agribusiness lobbyists on day eight at the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference on November 19, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“By the end of the UN climate talks, we must see at least a trillion dollars in public finance on the table,” said one campaigner.

As the clock winds down at the UN climate summit taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, green groups are sounding the alarm Thursday following the release of a draft climate finance deal that they say falls short of what’s needed to support climate-vulnerable countries and adequately address the planetary crisis.

“The clock is ticking. COP29 is now down to the wire,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday, just a day before the two-week conference is set to conclude.

Finance has been a major focus of this year’s summit. Under the 20125 Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to come up with a “new collective quantified goal”—or NCQG in COP jargon—that will govern how much money from rich countries will be transferred to developing countries in order to help the latter cut their emissions and adapt to climate change.

No equivalent climate finance arrangement has been agreed to before, though countries at the summit broadly agree that richer countries, who are responsible for much of historic CO2 emissions, should help poorer and more climate-vulnerable nations deal with natural disasters and their transition to green energy.

The draft text that dropped early Thursday, however, was received poorly.

Oxfam International’s climate justice lead, Safa’ Al Jayoussi, said “COP29 must do more than simply repeat the same threadbare promises. Rich countries have spent decades now stalling and blocking genuine progress on climate finance. This has left the Global South suffering the most catastrophic consequences of a climate crisis they did not create. The draft text scandalously misses the crucial element of declaring a clear public commitment to a new climate finance goal.”

Instead of specifying how much annually should be funneled towards developing countries via climate finance, the NCQG draft text displayed “X” in place of any actual figures or monetary commitments.

Oscar Soria, a director at the Common Initiative think tank, told the Guardian: “The negotiating placeholder ‘X’ for climate finance is a testament of the ineptitude from rich nations and emerging economies that are failing to find a workable solution for everyone.”

“By the end of the UN climate talks, we must see at least a trillion dollars in public finance on the table,” added Andreas Sieber, 350.org associate director of policy and campaigns. Economists told the summit attendees last week that developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by 2030 to deal with climate change.

A specific and shared concern from campaigners was the draft text’s inclusion of carbon market schemes as a way “to scale up” climate finance. While the draft promotes “high-integrity voluntary carbon markets” and other “instruments that mobilize new sources of climate finance and private finance” as part of the equation, critics have long warned that these market-based approaches are nothing but false solutions designed to benefit corporate investors, wealthier nations, and the fossil fuel industry itself.

“Labelling carbon credits as climate finance—which they are unreservedly not—should be axed from the text or risk creating a dangerous escape route for polluters. The same goes for explicitly allowing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure. This is fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International’s global public finance manager, in response to the draft text.

While Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allows for the international transfer of carbon credits, groups warned the changes in the COP29 draft would dramatically strengthen the foothold of such schemes.

“Shockingly, COP29 is set to agree to carbon markets that are even worse than the voluntary carbon markets,” said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth International. “We know these markets have failed. They are riddled with fraud and they do not reduce emissions or provide finance. Communities everywhere and, in fact, the planet itself is on the line.”

Without addressing these concerns, advocates of a meaningful deal at the conference say COP29 is headed for failure.

As 350.org‘s Sieber argued, paying the “historic debt that rich countries owe will enable all nations to take action on climate at home and meet the collective goal agreed last year at COP28—to triple renewable energy, and transition away from fossil fuels. Right now, we only see cowardice and a void in leadership, ignoring the undeniable science that we can’t keep polluting our planet with dirty oil, gas and coal.”

“The time to course correct is now—the European Union and other rich countries must stop playing poker with the planet and humankind’s future at stake,” Sieber added. “It’s time to put their cards on the table and commit real, transformative funding—no more excuses, no more delays, it’s time.”

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Continue Reading‘Unacceptable’: Campaigners Decry Climate Finance Failures as COP29 Enters Final Hours

Greta Thunberg on COP29’s death sentence, false solutions and empty promises

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Greta Thunberg was detained by police in The Hague along with other climate protesters. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
Greta Thunberg was detained by police in The Hague along with other climate protesters. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

COP29 is coming to an end.

Posted on X by Greta Thunberg. I’ve had difficulies embedding X for a week or two.

As the COP29 climate meeting is reaching its end, it should not come as a surprise that yet another COP is failing. The current draft is a complete disaster. But even if our expectations are close to non-existent, we must never ever find ourselves reacting to these continuous betrayals with anything but rage.

The people in power are yet again about to agree to a death sentence to the countless people whose lives have been or will be ruined by the climate crisis. The current text is full of false solutions and empty promises. The money from the Global North countries needed to pay back their climate debt is still nowhere to be seen.

Those in power are worsening the destabilisation and destruction of our life supporting ecosystems. We are on track to experience the hottest year ever recorded, with the global greenhouse gases reaching an all time high just last year.

The COP processes aren’t just failing us, they are part of a larger system built on injustice and designed to sacrifice current and future generations for the opportunity of a few to keep making unimaginable profits and continue to exploit planet and people.

With every negotiation, with every speech made by a world leader and with every agreement they sign, it becomes clear that it is up to us as a global collective to take the action we so desperately need and show where the leadership truly lies. They are not going to do it for us, as this COP29 yet again proves.

Continue ReadingGreta Thunberg on COP29’s death sentence, false solutions and empty promises