CO2

COP27 Climate Summit sparks Action Against Investment Treaties Favoring Fossil Fuel Corporations Over People and Planet

By Manuel Pérez-Rocha | – ( Inequality.org ) – Regarding the global climate negotiations in Egypt, several countries announced important actions to curb the power of the fossil fuel industry. For decades now, a global web of international investment agreements has given corporations excessive powers to block government policies they don’t like. Through “investor-state dispute […]

Climate Crisis

COP27 Climate Policy breakthrough as Wealthy Polluters accept the Principle of Climate Reparations: But does it Go far Enough?

The Conversation

By Matt McDonald, The University of Queensland | – For 30 years, developing nations have fought to establish an international fund to pay for the “loss and damage” they suffer as a result of climate change. As the COP27 climate summit in Egypt wrapped up over the weekend, they finally succeeded. While it’s a historic […]

Agriculture

Ending Amazon Deforestation: The Future of the World’s largest Rainforest

The Conversation

By Jennifer Weeks, The Conversation | – Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was greeted with applause and cheers when he addressed the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 16, 2022. As he had in his campaign, Lula pledged to stop rampant deforestation in the Amazon, which his predecessor, Jair Bolsanaro, […]

Climate Crisis

COP27: a year on from the Glasgow climate pact, the world is burning more fossil fuels than ever

The Conversation

By Mathieu Blondeel, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick | – The burning of fossil fuels caused 86% of all CO₂ emissions during the past ten years. Despite being the primary culprits of global heating, coal, oil and gas were barely mentioned in the official texts of previous UN climate change summits. That all changed […]

Brazil

Lula’s Triumph in Brazil is a Victory for the Amazon and for the Planet

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected on Sunday to his second (non-consecutive) term as president, in a victory for planet earth as well as for Brazil. He first served 2003-2010. Since 2019, Brazil’s president has been the far right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro, who just lost to the leftist da […]

Climate Crisis

The Second Great Dying: The Earth has lost 4/5s of Fresh Water and 7/10s of Wildlife Species’ Populations in 50 Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, the scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83%, and the population of wildlife species over all has fallen 69%. The researchers found a virtual extinction-level loss in Latin […]

Climate Crisis

Dear Gov. DeSantis: Ian isn’t a once-in-500-years Flooding event, it is the New Normal, and Your Policies are helping Cause it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has abruptly been handed an honest-to-God crisis that may distract him from his usual antics of trolling Venezuelan asylum-seekers, firing elected prosecutors who disagree with him on coerced childbirth, and firing scientists who wouldn’t manipulate state COVID statistics for him. DeSantis called Hurricane Ian a once-in-a-500-year […]

Climate Crisis

The Nightmare of Military Spending on an Overheating Planet: A Big Carbon Bootprint and a Giant Sucking Sound in the National Budget

Tomdispatch

By Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – On October 1st, the U.S. military will start spending the more than $800 billion Congress is going to provide it with in fiscal year 2023. And that whopping sum will just be the beginning. According to the calculations of Pentagon expert William Hartung, funding for various intelligence […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis and the Age of the Super-Typhoon: Storms batter, flood Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Japan and Shanghai

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and […]