IPCC Report: "A file of shame"

CLIMATE NEXUS, TOP STORIES




IPCC Report: Fossil Fuels Must End To Prevent 'Unlivable World': Humanity must act quickly and decisively to avert the worst climate-fueled disasters — and it has the technological and economic tools to do so, if entrenched "status quo" actors and political barriers can be overcome, the world's top body of climate scientists said yesterday. Humanity must phase out fossil fuel extraction and combustion and immediately cease constructing new fossil fuel infrastructure, the UN's IPCC report said. Pledges by the world's governments, even if fulfilled, will not limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, and the report represents "a litany of broken climate promises … a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track toward an unlivable world,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters. The report clearly called out a constructive path forward that held out hope — renewable energy has become so cheap in recent years that transitioning the global economy off of fossil fuels would only impact global GDP growth by one-tenth of one percent, before accounting for the costs of increasingly catastrophic climate-fueled disasters. Often described as "low-hanging fruit," immediate action to plug methane leaks from gas wells, pipelines, and stoves are some of the most efficient ways to limit near-term warming because methane traps heat so much more potently than carbon dioxide but stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time. The report, and its authors, also stressed the necessity of equitably cutting greenhouse gas emissions and implementing carbon drawdown policies. "If you do that at the expense of justice, of poverty eradication and the inclusion of people," Fatima Denton, one of the report's 278 authors, told Thomson Reuters, "then you're back at the starting block."

(AP, Boston Globe $, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Gizmodo, Yale Environment 360, ABC, Yale Environment 360, Grist, The Hill, Axios, BBC, Bloomberg $, Buzzfeed, CNBC, CNN, E&E News, France24, HuffPost, The Independent, NBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Politico, Popular Science, Protocol, Reuters, Reuters, Reuters, San Diego Union-Tribune, S&P Global, Daily Beast, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Verge, USA Today, Vox, Wall Street Journal $, Yahoo; TV: CBS, ABC, NBC; "Status quo" opposition: FT $; Equity in transition: Thomson Reuters Foundation; Explainers and takeaways: New York Times $, Politico EU, Reuters explainer, Washington Post $) [Additional coverage below. —Ed.]



Climate Change Threatening Premier French Wine: Increasingly frequent "false springs" could be driven by climate change, and are definitely threatening premier European wines. As the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels continues to heat and destabilize climate patterns, more frequent winter warm spells and spring frosts pose a serious threat to sensitive vines like those in parts of France where temperatures plummeted as much as 30°F (18°C) below normal over the weekend. Vintners like Thomas Ventoura, whose vineyards produce Chamblis, a very dry white only found in the specific climate of the Yonne region of Burgundy, rushed to warm their vines with hundreds of candles. "Since 2016, there have been three big frosts," Ventoura told Reuters. "We're now starting to wonder about the future of our business at this time of the year." (Reuters, Washington Post $, AP, The Drinks Business; Candles: TastingTable)



Climate Change Pushing Valley Fever Far Beyond The Gallerias Of Southern California: Valley Fever is spreading beyond Southern California and, like, climate change is totally making it worse, the LA Times reports. Transmitted by dust, coccidioidomycosis (“cocci” for short) is a fungal infection that can cause extreme, sometimes long-term, respiratory problems and can spread to the skin, bones, joints, and nervous system and lead to meningitis or pneumonia. “On a pain scale of one to 10, it was a 10,” Scott Shirley, a winemaker in Paso Robles, Calif., said. “The worst pain I’ve ever felt.” The fungus thrives in wet winters and dry summers and spreads as wind blows dust in the air, sometimes as far as 75 miles. Wildland firefighters are especially vulnerable as so much of their work involves moving dirt to form containment lines — studies suggest wildfire smoke can carry the fungi as well — and outbreaks have also been reported at multiple state prisons in the San Joaquin Valley. Warming and drying trends fueled by climate change could make greater swaths of the western U.S. more vulnerable to the fungus. “It isn’t based on population, it isn’t because we build houses — there has to be more that’s changed than that,” said Royce Johnson, medical director at the Valley Fever Institute, “and we think it’s climate, weather.” (LA Times $)





ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Students of town founded by slaves to receive EJ curriculum (E&E $)



IPCC REPORT: Why are the three IPCC working group reports significant? (The Guardian)
CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL: Removing carbon from air vital to reach climate goals, IPCC says (Thomson Reuters Foundation), The new IPCC report was delayed as scientists debated reliance on carbon capture (TIME), UN climate report: Carbon removal is now “essential” (MIT Technology Review)
AGRICULTURE: The field report: new un climate report urges food systems solutions—before it’s too late (Civil Eats)



FOSSIL FUELED WAR: What the invasion of Ukraine means for the IPCC’s latest climate change report (The Conversation), The Ukraine war has undermined the advice of the world’s climate scientists (Quartz), Will the Ukraine war push countries toward renewable energy? Yes—and no (Wall Street Journal $), War, fear, ‘hacktivist’ zeal are upending energy cybersecurity (E&E News)
METHANE: Russia’s Gazprom released five methane plumes during pipe repairs (Bloomberg $)
EUROPE: Macron calls for more energy sanctions as Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes (Politico Pro $), Enel chief blames EU energy policy for bloc’s reliance on gas imports (FT $)
GERMANY: Germany puts Gazprom subsidiary temporarily under state control (Politico Pro $), Germany resists EU ban on Russian gas as bloc prepares new sanctions (Reuters), Suspension of Russian oil, gas threatens Germany with recession (OilPrice)
US POLITICS: Russia crisis should 'supercharge' climate efforts in build back better 2.0: memo (HuffPost)



NOT GREAT: WHO says 99% of world’s population breathes poor-quality air (AP)(FT $), Poorer nations lag behind higher-income countries in air quality standards: WHO (Reuters)



HOPE: No obituary for Earth: Scientists fight climate doom talk (AP)



SCOTUS: Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson expected to be confirmed this week after bipartisan procedural vote Monday (CNN, Axios, AP, Wall Street Journal $, Business Insider, New York Times $, The Guardian)



AGENCIES: Vilsack won't free conservation land for new crop production (E&E $)



EPA: Regan on the Hill to defend EPA’s spending, staffing plan (E&E News)



DOI: BLM to hold solar auction in Trump-era energy zone (E&E $)



DOT: Federal safety agency criticizes new pipeline rule (E&E $)



WHITE HOUSE: Climate change could cost US budget $2 trillion a year by the end of the century, White House says (Reuters, The Hill), White House aims for energy-efficient, Covid-safe schools (E&E News, The Hill)

(BET, UPI, Politico Pro $), Biden’s call to increase LNG export capacity on Gulf Coast is tantamount to Sarah Palin’s call to ‘drill baby drill’ according to environmental advocates (DeSmog), Biden’s Defense Production Act order promises money to miners (E&E News), Will oil reserve release ease prices for long? (Houston Chronicle)



THE HILL: 'Swallowing a toad': Progressives warm to Manchin's fossil fuel demands to clinch climate package (Politico), ‘Ineligible’ flood projects get millions in earmarks (E&E News), Committees prepare for gasoline price battles (E&E News), Dems plot spring sprint for party-line spending deal with Manchin (Politico)



HOUSE: Congressional Democrats want President Biden to extend student loan pause and cancel portion of debt (NewsOne)





SENATE: Manchin joins Republicans opposing SEC climate-disclosure plan (Bloomberg $, Washington Examiner), Manchin to hold second hearing on critical mineral policy (E&E $)



TRIBES: Hydropower revamp deal from tribes, industry heads to Congress (E&E $)



CITIES AND STATES: N.C. Supreme Court to rule on how much power HOAs have over solar (Energy News Network), New York set to ban natural gas in new buildings -environmental groups (Reuters), A [New York state] battle over banning gas and oil hookups in new buildings (New York Times $)



FERC: FERC's Office of Public Participation eyes options for intervenor funding (Utility Dive), FERC says Commonwealth LNG could lead to ‘adverse’ environmental effects; company names new CEO (The Advocate)



IMPACTS: A small and unpretentious fish is sending a warning message (Yale Climate Connections), Outer Banks will soon open 2nd bridge to skirt flooded route (AP), It's feared a vital lake in Oregon could run dry within a generation (NPR), Clark County [Nevada] air advisory signal of frequency of wildfires (AP)



WEATHER DANGER: Forecasters face loss of data as weather balloon flights are cut (New York Times $)



RENEWABLES: Africa looks to renewables to curb warming, boost economies (AP)



BATTERIES: The battery metal really worrying China is lithium, not nickel (Bloomberg $)



LNG: ‘Opportunity has passed’ for stalled $60 million South Philly LNG plant (Philadelphia Inquirer)



HYDRO: Coalition lobbies for reforms to speed hydropower permitting, enhance climate considerations (Politico Pro $)



OIL & GAS: Exxon signals record quarterly profit from oil and gas prices (Reuters), Gas drillers in Canada face shift in Trudeau's climate plan (E&E $), Asia’s $350 billion gas buildout intensifies clean energy debate (Bloomberg $)



PIPELINES: Court backs axing of key Mountain Valley pipeline permit (E&E $)



COAL: US coal prices top $100 a ton for first time since 2008 (Bloomberg $)



HYDROGEN: Top India oil refiner follows billionaires in green hydrogen bet (Bloomberg $)



UTILITIES: Duke Energy proposes 1.3 GW solar solicitation in the Carolinas (Utility Dive)



GRID: ISO-NE proposes ending MOPR in 2025, with a transition aimed at protecting grid reliability (Utility Dive), To enhance reliability, Texas regulators will consider standardizing distribution system interconnections (Utility Dive)



EVs: Carmakers dream of clean, green, mean electric machines (Reuters), Gatik signals start of 'hyper-growth' phase with EV partnership (Utility Dive), Hertz to buy up to 65,000 electric cars from Polestar (CNN), Low use of EV smart charging alarms Minn. regulator (E&E News), 15 buses, one police car: New York’s electric-vehicle age starts slowly (New York Times $)


TRANSPORTATION: In Europe, it’s planes vs. trains. For many travelers, rail is the way to go. (New York Times $)



XR UK: Climate change protesters blockade UK oil facility in latest action (Reuters), XR protests enter fourth day as oil facility near Heathrow blocked (BBC)



AVIATION: Tight supply sends US east coast jet fuel price surging (OilPrice)



AGRICULTURE: Rockefeller’s $105M plan to produce climate-friendly food (AP)



RELIGION: Online toolkit helps Muslims incorporate climate action into Ramadan (Yale Climate Connections)



BUSINESS: A deeper dive into 24/7 carbon-free energy (Canary Media)



CARBON REMOVAL: What direct air capture can achieve — in theory (Axios)


INTERNATIONAL: Indian Oil Corp forms joint ventures for green hydrogen, electrolyser (Reuters)







UN IPCC report can lead governments to the climate action door, but they must walk through (Boston Globe, Wanjira Mathai and Michael Mann op-ed $)
The world is running out of time to blunt climate change. Where’s the urgency? (LA Times, Editorial Board $)
Humans are responsible for climate change and humans have the capacity to solve it (Boston Globe, Ko Barrett op-ed $)
Our View: It’s time to recognize, research, and remove environmental causes of mental illness (Environmental Health News, Editorial)
Russia’s war draws governments into energy markets (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
It’s time to break ground on our net-zero future (The Hill, Lori Bird and Dan Lashof op-ed)
Facts haven’t spurred US to climate action. Can fiction? (Undark, Mark Johnson commentary)
Putin’s War Gives America a Chance to Get Serious About Refugees (The New Yorker, Bill McKibben column $)
Heat pumps could help ease the climate crisis — and the war in Ukraine (Boston Globe, Bill McKibben op-ed $)
The world is on fire. Why is Canada considering massive new oil drilling? (The Guardian, Conor Curtis and Tzeporah Berman op-ed)





New IPCC Report Says Denial Drives Polarization And Undermines Climate Action (Among Other Things.)



The UN IPCC’s latest report on the fight against climate change has the standard bad news you’d expect, but also some encouraging signs, and some great news for disinfo haters.



The bad news is that people all over the planet are continuing to experience worsening impacts of fossil fuel pollution, and we’re on track for ever-more costly disasters if warming continues. Current pledges aren’t enough, and current fossil fuel infrastructure is enough to increase warming beyond the 1.5°C limit. Ending subsidies is a start, and of course we can’t build any new fossil fuel infrastructure. Instead, we need to peak emissions by 2025, and if not, we will pay dearly, in dollars and lives.



The good news is that we still have some time to avoid the worst of it, if we quickly transition away from fossil fuels. And that’s feasible, because renewables are so cheap there’s no real reason to build new fossil fuel infrastructure. The challenge of this transition is not primarily technology- we have the tools to do it and the money to afford it.



The barriers now are the fossil fuel industry’s politicians, pundits, and propaganda.



Buried in the report’s Technical Summary are a few key mentions that explain why the global community is failing to act in its own obvious best interest. Or, more accurately, who is erecting barriers to acting on the global consensus that we need to reduce warming to under 1.5°C.



“Opposition from status quo interests” to things like funding for climate programs “act as barriers to establishing and implementing stringent climate policies covering all sectors,” according to the IPCC report.



What’s more, the report notes that an increase in engagement with the climate issue doesn’t necessarily translate directly into “overall pro-mitigation outcomes” because, in part, “accurate transference of the climate science has been undermined significantly by climate change counter- movements, in both legacy and new/social media environments through misinformation.”



And while the mainstream media's coverage of climate has been increasing and improving, the report describes how “the propagation of scientifically misleading information by organized counter-movements has fueled polarization, with negative implications for climate policy.”



Or translated into plain English: people who profit off of the fossil fuel pollution and other causes of the climate crisis are using their wealth and power to thwart climate action by lying to the public about the science and making climate action a controversial political issue.



That’s why it’s so important for climate policy that we take action on climate disinformation.



Which, if you’re reading this, you probably already know!





Climate Nexus, 322 8th Avenue, Suite 601, New York, NY 10001

NATO’s global history of reaction

https://www.workers.org/2022/04/63075/






By Sara Flounders posted on April 4, 2022


The U.S.-commanded military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO, was founded April 4, 1949. Its initials describe its early geographic reach but obscure NATO’s intent, and how NATO has acted, first from 1949 to 1991, and later from 1991 to the present.

From its founding moment, NATO was an aggressive military apparatus to coordinate the police and military and intelligence apparatus among the ten founding West European member countries (plus U.S. and Canada) under U.S. command. NATO’s past 30 years of steady expansion is tied to its original purpose as an imperialist weapon against the working class.

The 1991 broken promise by Secretary of State Baker, echoed by many other Western politicians, to Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev that if the reunification of Germany went forward “NATO would expand not one inch to the East” is often quoted today in discussing the encirclement of Russia and the root of the war in Ukraine.

What needs to be understood is why did NATO expand? Why was NATO’s expansion inevitable?

NATO expanded because the capitalist markets expanded. The defeat of socialism in Eastern Europe and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the auctioning off of formerly nationalized public property and industries was only possible with an enforcement organization.

Just as the U.S., as the center of finance capital, is held together by the largest repressive state apparatus, the largest internal police force, and the largest prison system in the world.

NATO’s founding principle was to ensure a strong U.S. military, political and economic presence in Europe. There was no plan to end the U.S. military occupation of Europe. Its stated purpose from its inception was a military alliance against the Soviet Union.

NATO claimed to be a collective security arrangement against Soviet expansion, even though the Soviet Union was hardly expanding. It was devastated by World War II and had suffered the overwhelming majority of the losses in human life (27 million) and in industrial capacity. Over 700 cities and towns lay in total ruin. Refugee camps and rationing dominated daily life.

The border between two social systems

But the fact that the Soviet Union had survived was threatening to the capitalist class.

In all the countries liberated by the Red Army from Nazi Germany’s occupation in Eastern Europe workers organizations were attempting to reorganize society. Only by organizing on a non-capitalist basis could they defend their countries from absorption by Western imperialism.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had spoken in Missouri in 1946 denouncing this development and labeling it an Iron Curtain dividing Europe. His speech was a rallying cry to wall off all economic trade and technological assistance to the entire region the Red Army had liberated.

Socialism in Western Europe?

Capitalist domination of Western Europe was in question. What was labeled as Soviet expansion, imminent Soviet invasion, the Red Scare (with a media frenzy that matches today’s against Russia), was the growing influence of workers’ movements in Western Europe.

The organized power of the working class and of Communist parties was rapidly growing in national parliaments, city councils and powerful unions in war-torn Western Europe, especially in Italy and France. Communists had been the largest force in resistance to the Nazis during the years of German occupation.

In Greece the Communist Party, who had led the anti-fascist resistance, was openly contending for state power. From 1945 to 1949, U.S. and British active intervention in the Civil War in Greece, equipping and helping to coordinate the weak rightwing and monarchist forces, was crucial for defeating the Greek workers’ movement.

This Civil War helped convince the West European ruling class to follow the U.S. into a continent-wide military organization of the capitalist class.

A security umbrella for capitalism

NATO was understood as a security umbrella of Western European imperialist countries. It had, from its founding, a consolidated command structure, with the U.S. military on top.

U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), was the commander of this new military alliance. U.S.-commanded NATO and the Marshall Plan of U.S. loans and investment funds together stabilized capitalism in Western Europe and assured U.S. corporate domination.

The pre-World War II industrial capacity of much of the world was in ruins. Military security was the essential glue in Western Europe, binding the economic and political dominance of capitalist rule.

For decades NATO and the CIA operated throughout Western Europe, in tandem with the U.S. State Department, disrupting communist-led unions, financing interventions in elections and even using terror attacks against communists and socialist organizations and against the masses.

Operation Gladio was the codename for this ruthless capitalist subversion in Italy, some of which was revealed by Christian Democrat Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990.

Impact of nuclear stalemate

The second event in 1949 that consolidated the NATO military alliance was the Soviet Union’s detonation of an atomic bomb on Aug. 29, years ahead of what U.S. intelligence predicted. President Harry Truman immediately called for a re-evaluation of U.S. policies, as the U.S. could no longer simply threaten to wipe out Soviet cities without consequences.

NATO absorbed Greece and Turkey in 1952. Turkey’s membership in NATO meant that NATO had military control of the Bosporus Straits – the essential navigational waterway from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea – a choke point for the Soviet ports of Odessa and Sevastopol.

It was only after West Germany’s acceptance into NATO that the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in self-defense. The Soviet leaders saw West Germany’s military and industrial leaders as a continuation of the ruling class that backed the Nazis.

World’s largest military

Although the mass U.S. military during World War II had demobilized by 1949, with NATO U.S. troop presence in Europe tripled by 1950 and reached over 450,000 in 1957. In 1987 U.S. troops surged again to 340,000. (Stars and Stripes, March 15)

Today there are 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe. They are 1/35 of the 3.5 million NATO military force, among its 30 members, with another 2 million reservists and paramilitary forces. But U.S. officers still command this alliance – the largest military force in the world under a single command.

NATO has a permanent, integrated military command structure, composed of both military and civilian personnel from all member states. These forces are trained to follow a strict command structure, use the same equipment and deploy to whatever battlefront the U.S. commanders order them to, including Iraq, and Afghanistan. Each country is forced to pay for the maintenance of their own forces. (shape.nato.int)

Cold War leads to bankruptcy

The Cold War was a relentless war of military expenditures calculated to bankrupt the Soviet Union, which had less wealth and which did not exploit subject nations in the Global South.

According to a NATO report, “The Soviet Union was spending three times as much as the United States on defense with an economy that was one-third the size.” (nato.int) This policy of expanding military costs was enormously profitable to U.S. military industries.

The Soviet Union had to match each U.S./NATO escalation. The 1980 U.S. strategy to deploy nuclear-capable Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe aimed at bankrupting the Soviets.

Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative known as “Star Wars,” called for enormous new military expansion. The Soviet Union, starting in the mid-1980s, devoted 15-17% of its gross national product to military spending.

Concessions, enacted with great U.S. and Western applause by Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the Soviet leader in 1985, led to the complete unraveling and dismemberment of the Soviet Union by 1991.

U.S. victory opens endless war

Instead of the Cold War’s end ushering in the promised era of peace and stability, U.S. imperialism, now dominant, opened a new era of endless war and colonial reconquest. The targets were in Eastern Europe and a collapsed Russia, and in the energy-rich southwestern Asia and North Africa.

The Federal Republic of Germany annexed the German Democratic Republic in 1990 and both populations were absorbed into the NATO Alliance. A new era of open capitalist markets meant that major western corporations seized control of socially owned industries and resources in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Any country resisting complete takeover was targeted. Iraq in 1991 and then Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999 were early victims of colonial style reconquest.

The corporate media bragged about the level of destruction of these modern, developed countries that had high levels of education, health care and infrastructure. But since they were countries that had no weapons capable of matching U.S. bombers they were destroyed with impunity. They were to serve as an example to others.

Pentagon document for world domination

What was in store for the world was discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. establishment.

In a 1992 article in Workers World newspaper, then WWP chairperson Sam Marcy wrote: “On March 8,1992, the New York Times published excerpts from a 46-page secret Pentagon draft document, (written by Paul D. Wolfowitz), that it said was leaked by Pentagon officials. This document is truly extraordinary.

“It asserts complete U.S. world domination in both political and military terms, and threatens any other countries that even ‘aspire’ to a greater role. In other words, the U.S. is to be the sole and exclusive superpower on the face of the planet. It is to exercise its power not only in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, but also on the territory of the former Soviet Union….

“‘Our first objective,’ it states, ‘is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. It is of fundamental importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western defense and security, as well as the channel for U.S. influence and participation in European security affairs.’

“But then it adds: ‘While the United States supports the goal of European integration, we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly the alliance’s integrated command structure.’ The latter, of course, is led by the U.S.” https://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sam92/1992html/s920319.htm

April 4 is a day to remember not only the founding of NATO but the famous condemnation of the Vietnam War made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government. I cannot be silent.”

NATO is the greatest purveyor of violence and we cannot be silent.