Working at the World Bank, I can see how it is failing humanity on the climate crisis | Jake Hess | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/28/world-bank-failing-humanity-climate-crisis-fossil-fuels-cop26

"Ultimately, I decided to speak out publicly because the recent scandals convinced me there is no internal path to reform. Institutional failures are destroying our ability to deliver on climate, which is the most pressing global development priority."

...

At a time when the world needs to move away from dirty energy as quickly as possible, the Bank has spent more than $12bn on direct fossil fuel project financing since the landmark Paris climate agreement. And its overall credibility is weaker than ever after a data manipulation scandal involving senior leaders.

...

The Bank has made some progress on climate, including ending direct financing of coal-fired power plants. But there’s a catch: it still supports coal through backdoor channels. The World Bank’s private sector lending arm is still indirectly supporting coal plants through its commercial bank clients, for example in Indonesia. Such projects are incompatible with a serious commitment to climate action, and it is dishonest for the Bank to back them in an underhand way.

...

Too often though, our ability to meet these ambitions is thwarted by what the World Bank staff association described as a “much larger systemic problem of senior management caving to political pressure”. An audit by the law firm WilmerHale found that during the recent data manipulation scandal, senior officials pressured and sometimes intimidated staff into rigging numbers so as to artificially boost China’s score on investment conditions.

Workers tried to speak out. But, according to the staff association, our internal justice system is “unable to hold senior management accountable” and failed to protect the browbeaten employees when they complained.

Javier Vlas
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1454733591573848067?s=19

ICYMI: Behind closed doors, the world’s top oil consuming nations are waging an intense diplomatic campaign to persuade OPEC+ to speed up its output increases (beyond the 400,000 b/d). Note that OPEC+ meets virtually Nov 4 to decide its policy | #OOTT

Since we published that story on Friday afternoon, the White House has revealed not only that it’s using the G20 summit to push OPEC+ to do “the needful when it comes to supply”, BUT ALSO that it’s talking to others about “what could come next” if OPEC+ doesn’t respond favourably

OPEC+ Prices 2021: As Oil Races Toward $100, U.S., India and Japan Say `Enough' - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-29/as-oil-races-toward-100-consumers-tell-opec-enough-is-enough

TADEAS:

Klimatické změny vyvolají ve světě konflikty, varují americké rozvědky - Seznam Zprávy
https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/klimaticke-zmeny-vyvolaji-ve-svete-konflikty-varuji-americke-rozvedky-178597

Britský premiér Johnson: Klimatickému summitu COP26 hrozí krach, závazky zemí jsou nedostatečné | iROZHLAS - spolehlivé zprávy
https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-svet/boris-johnson-klimaticky-summit-cop26-glasgow_2110312245_ern

Cop26 summit at serious risk of failure, says Boris Johnson | Cop26 | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/31/cop26-summit-at-serious-risk-of-failure-says-boris-johnson


Speaking at a press conference, Johnson said pledges from countries to lower their emissions needed to be stronger. Experts believe that for 1.5C to have a chance of success, countries need to make substantial and meaningful pledges of reductions by 2030 as well.

He will also ask for promises on phasing out coal, the move to electric vehicles, an end to deforestation, and finance – pledges of money to help developing nations deal with the climate emergency.

“The countries most responsible for historic[al] and present day emissions are not yet doing their fair share of the work,” Johnson said.

“If we are going to prevent Cop26 from being a failure, then that must change and I must be clear, that if Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails. The Paris agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning.”

At the Paris agreement, made in 2015, world leaders committed to keeping the global temperature rise below 2C or as close to 1.5C as possible. Johnson said that agreement and “the hope that came with it” is currently “just a piece of paper”, which needed to be filled with “granular” pledges from every country.

10 tests for COP26 | Green World
https://greenworld.org.uk/article/10-tests-cop26

Tina Rothery and Rupert Read
Wed 6 Oct 2021

1. An unprecedented investment in genuinely renewable energy.

2. A thorough shift in transport away from petrol and diesel vehicles, and most crucially, away from aviation.

3. A huge free transfer of technology and funding to global South countries.

4. A programme for transformational adaptation to dangerous human-triggered climate change.

5. Planetary boundaries should be taken seriously – there should be hard caps on resource use and pollution.

6. Companies should be legally required to disclose climate-related financial risks and/or dependence on fossil fuels, incorporating these into their financial accounts so that investors can see clearly the risk of their assets being stranded.

7. Trade arrangements should be rewritten in order to facilitate a green transition.

8. ‘Net-zero’ schemes via ‘negative emissions technologies’ should only be permitted where there is genuinely no alternative. ‘Net’ must never be an excuse for weak targets.

9. Targets should be established for the reduction of industrial and intensive agriculture, especially in the case of animal farming. Agriculture and food can no longer be the elephant in the room.

10. Methods of allocation must ensure that women; children and young people; small businesses; and marginalised communities, including peasant and indigenous communities, share adequately in the benefits of any green government investment packages, or, at minimum, are not harmed or displaced by them.

These demands are the bare bones of what needs to be agreed upon and set out for immediate action this year, rather than being kicked into the long grass of 2050, 2060, or even 2035. Respect for science and the Precautionary Principle demands a spirit of shared urgency, a quasi-wartime mobilisation.

Anything less will be failing the world, and failing future generations, for whose sake we need to act now.

If these 10 tests are not met, that would license a truth-forceful response by citizens, whose futures and children are on the line.

#savings

Vysoky ceny nakonec budou k necemu dobry, lidi se minimalne zamysli nad priroritama. Jestle by bylo fajn podporit to i nejakym dlouhodobejsim planem a misto vypinani lamp, je treba vymenit za uspornejsi...

Obce zahalené tmou? Starostové řeší, jak čelit skokovému zdražení energie - iDNES.cz
https://www.idnes.cz/ekonomika/domaci/obce-energie-elektriny-plyn-rozpocet-investice-dph.A211029_193200_ekonomika_ven#utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=ekonomikah&utm_content=main

Čína představila klimatický plán. A zabila celosvětové naděje - Seznam Zprávy
https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/cina-predstavila-klimaticky-plan-a-zabila-celosvetove-nadeje-179105

Tak co, zmocnuje se vas pesimizmus nebo optimizsmus? Jestli Cina svuj zavazek dodrzi ..

PER2: co jsem koukal pár let zpátky, tak tam je hlavně problém s vysočinou - dřív tam byli pastevci, co udržovali přehrádky a nádrže pro dobytek k pití, posledních padesát let už nepasou, tak to šlo do kelu.

Thomas Bauska
https://twitter.com/tinyicybubbles/status/1454117260331831307

Our 800,000-year-long ice core records shows the earth never exceeded 300 ppm CO₂ and 815 ppb CH₄ prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Australia Institute
https://twitter.com/TheAusInstitute/status/1454328958762164224?s=19

Good Morning PM Morrison, from Rome #G20

The PM is set to be greeted by a full-page ad in Italy's business daily Il Sole 24 Ore featuring a photo of him in parliament w/ a lump of coal. The ad, in English & Italian, bears the slogan: "Don't let Australia cheat on climate change”

Eliot Jacobson
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1453797235418796034?s=19


Arctic Minimum Sea Ice Volume (in 1000KM^3 units). This minimum occurs in mid-September each year. This seems to indicate an ice-free Arctic by 2030. But short term trends tell a different story (look at the period 2013-2021).



Arctic Average Sea Ice Volume (in 1000KM^3 units). This is the average volume of Arctic ice for the entire year. Of course, once a BOE event happens (by 2030?) this volume will take a dive.

Cop26 will be whitest and most privileged ever, warn campaigners | Cop26 | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/cop26-will-be-whitest-and-most-privileged-ever-warn-campaigners

Campaigners say activists and observers have been prevented from coming by:

- an underlying “hostile attitude” from the UK Home Office towards those travelling from countries in the global south, particularly Africa, which has led to many visas being refused;
- a failure to honour a pledge to offer Covid vaccines to all delegates, leaving many to search for vaccines in countries with little or no access;
- constantly changing Covid restrictions for those entering the UK, with travel banned from countries on the UK’s red list, which, until this month, included many of the countries worst hit by the climate crisis. This has left many to seek costly and complicated routes to Glasgow via third countries;
- an accommodation crisis in the city that has made finding a safe place to stay difficult and expensive. Campaigners have set up a “homestay network” to try to link people up with spare rooms, but say they have thousands on their waiting list

Asad Rehman, of the Cop26 Coalition, said: “Cop26 is going to be overwhelmingly white and rich this year. The UN climate talks are always exclusionary, but this year the logistics of this summit have been extraordinarily badly managed. On every level, those who are most affected by this crisis have been systemically silenced and excluded