Showing posts with label #climatechange. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 January 2026

Trump pulls out of UN climate agreement, 66 bodies deemed 'contrary' to US interests: SBS NEWS

The US will withdraw from the treaty underpinning all major international climate agreements and the UN climate science body, according to a White House memo.

Donald Trump speaks from behind a presidential podium with his hands raised. Behind him are several US flags.

United States President Donald Trump has openly scorned the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet and has pulled the US out of the landmark Paris climate accord in both of his terms. Source: AP / Evan Vucci

United States President Donald Trump is withdrawing the US from a foundational climate treaty and the world's leading global warming assessment body, as part of a sweeping exit from the United Nations system, the White House announced on Wednesday.

A total of 66 international organisations — comprised of "35 non-United Nations (UN) organizations and 31 UN entities" — were named in a White House memorandum as being "contrary to US national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty".

Most notable among them is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty underpinning all major international climate agreements.

Trump, who has thrown the full weight of his domestic policy behind fossil fuels, has openly scorned the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, deriding climate science as a "hoax" at the UN's high-level summit last September.

The UNFCCC was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 and approved later that year by the US Senate during George HW Bush's presidency.

The US Constitution allows presidents to enter treaties "provided two-thirds of Senators present concur", but it is silent on the process for withdrawing from them — a legal ambiguity that could invite challenges.

Trump has already withdrawn from the landmark Paris climate accord since returning to office, just as he did during his first term, a move that former Democratic president Joe Biden later reversed.

Exiting the underlying treaty could introduce additional legal uncertainty around any future US effort to rejoin.

Speaking before the General Assembly in September, Trump delivered a scathing broadside against the world body founded in 1945 to promote global peace and cooperation in the wake of the Second World War.

"What is the purpose of the United Nations?" asked Trump in a wide-ranging speech, whose litany of complaints extended even to a broken escalator and teleprompter at the UN's New York headquarters.

The United States skipped the annual UN international climate summit last year for the first time in three decades.

UNFCCC exit 'a whole order of magnitude different'"President Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the bedrock global treaty to tackle climate change is a new low and yet another sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people's wellbeing and destabilise global cooperation," Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists told AFP.

Jean Su, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, told AFP: "Pulling out of the UNFCCC is a whole order of magnitude different from pulling out of the Paris Agreement."

"It's our contention that it's illegal for the President to unilaterally pull out of a treaty that required two-thirds of the Senate vote," she continued. "We are looking at legal options to pursue that line of argument."

"The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC," said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council. SBS NEWS

AI ‘Slop’ Websites Are Publishing Climate Science Denial (excerpt from DeSmog article)

AI ‘Slop’ Websites Are Publishing Climate Science Denial

MSN hosted AI-generated content that cited non-existent climate experts and institutions.

By Joey Grostern

onAug 27, 2025 @ 07:48 PDT

Series: Tech vs Climate

At the start of June, MSN, the world’s fourth-largest news aggregator, posted an article from a new climate-focused publication, Climate Cosmos, entitled: “Why Top Experts Are Rethinking Climate Alarmism”.

The article – by “Kathleen Westbrook M.Sc Climate Science” – cited a finding from the “Global Climate Research Institute” that “65 percent of surveyed climate professionals advocate for pragmatic, solution-focused messaging over fear-driven warnings.”

But there were a couple of major problems: the Global Climate Research Institute doesn’t exist, and nor does Kathleen Westbrook, whose profile on Climate Cosmos has now been renamed to ‘Henrieke Otte’.

The article accused those who advocate for climate action of overstating the harms caused by burning fossil fuels. It also promoted the work of Bjorn Lomborg, who has repeatedly called on governments to halt spending on climate action.

This piece was seemingly a breach of MSN’s “prohibited content” rules for posting false information, which MSN partners must abide by to access the aggregator’s huge reach of around 200 million monthly visitors. It was also posted on another U.S. news aggregator, Newsbreak.

Climate Cosmos only has a small pool of contributors, according to its website, yet pumps out multiple stories a day. To do this, it appears to be relying on the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

The first line of another piece, “What the Climate Movement Isn’t Telling You”, appeared to include the response to a prompt – an instruction given to an AI platform.

It read: “I’ll help you write an article about ‘What the Climate Movement Isn’t Telling You’ with current facts and data. Let me search for the latest information first.”

“As technology advances, integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into our operations offers exciting opportunities to enhance the journalism at Climate Cosmos,” reads the AI disclaimer on site’s “about us” page. It also states: “we clearly disclose when AI-generated content is used”. However, Isacson’s piece included no such disclosure.

The article falsely claimed that humanity is on course to stay within the temperature goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, using this as a launchpad to attack the climate movement for allegedly failing to “reflect these new realities”.

Recent predictions suggest that the global average surface temperature is likely to increase to by anywhere between 1.9C and 2.9C by the end of the century, well above 1.5C limit set by the Paris Agreement.

This appears to confirm the concerns of technology experts who have warned that AI “has the potential to turbocharge climate disinformation”.

Climate Cosmos is “clearly the lowest possible level spam – they’re just trying to put out content out for some easy clicks, hence the clickbait-y titles,” said Philip Newell, communications co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition. “AI has brought the cost of disinformation down to nothing. It has automated bullshit.”

“It appears to be mostly AI slop, rather than a concerted disinformation operation,” he said – adding that AI has “no concern for accuracy”.

Climate Cosmos posted a host of articles on MSN every day and has more than 45,000 subscribers on the aggregator. However, in July, all of its MSN content disappeared, as did all the content produced by other publications belonging to its parent company.

A spokesperson for Microsoft, which owns MSN, told DeSmog: “when we become aware of instances that violate our policies, we take action to remove them as soon as possible.”

Newsbreak did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.

Even despite – or perhaps because – of this historical lack of editorial rigour, Climate Cosmos has been used by multiple anti-climate campaign groups and publications.

The website’s content has been cited by the Heartland Institute, Wattsupwiththat, the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), and the American Spectator. The climate denial project CFACT also reprinted an article from Climate Cosmos on its own site.

Climate Cosmos “appears to be climate denier propaganda posing as a science blog,” said Michael E. Mann, a leading climate scientist and Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania." Excerpt from DeSmog

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Amid Brutal Heat Wave, Officials Stress Health Risks of Hot Nights

Excerpt : "Much of the United States is baking amid an unusually severe June heat wave, with more than 150 million people under some sort of heat advisory. The unrelenting heat wave started in the Mountain West over the weekend and has since descended upon the Midwestern and Eastern U.S., where high humidity is making temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit feel even hotter.

Even at night, people can’t escape the unforgiving heat, which poses a particularly high health risk.

The level and duration of the heat is rare for this time of year “with little to no overnight relief, and affects anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration,” the National Weather Service said in an advisory Monday morning.

During a heat wave, it is crucial for people to cool down at night to reduce their core body temperature and reduce the physiological burden put on them during long, sizzling days. But a growing body of research shows that hot nights are becoming more common with climate change—and not just during a heat wave. " By Kiley Price, June 24, 2025 From Inside Climate News

Saturday, 31 October 2020

NSW urges climate action as bushfire royal commission's recommendations tabled (excerpt): ABC News

Pics from this blog

"A former New South Wales fire chief is among those calling on the Federal Government to take urgent action on climate change as the Black Summer royal commission's findings hit Parliament.

Eighty recommendations feature in the report, which acknowledges the evidence that climate change will continue to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Former top firefighter Greg Mullins is leading calls for the Government to act on the recommendations.

"We need the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to immediately endorse all 80 recommendations, to commit to fund them no matter who is in government, and to take urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions," he said."

...............................

"Key recommendations:

Go to ABC story

Saturday, 24 October 2020

Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock (excerpt): DeSmog

California burns

"More Americans than ever before — 54 percent, recent polling data shows — are alarmed or concerned about climate change, which scientists warn is a planetary emergency unfolding in the form of searing heat, prolonged drought, massive wildfires, monstrous storms, and other extremes.

Climate change denial

These kinds of disasters are becoming increasingly costly and impossible to ignore. Yet even as the American public becomes progressively more worried about the climate crisis, a shrinking but vocal slice of the country continues to dismiss these concerns, impeding efforts to address the monumental global challenge.

Weather Extremes Driving Climate Concern

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has already seen 16 billion-dollar weather disasters this year, including horrific fires in the West and powerful storms like Hurricanes Sally, Laura, and Delta on the Gulf Coast.

Florida's coast regularly floods

This reality of intensifying climate disasters in part helps explain the rise in concern on this issue among the American public, says Ed Maibach of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Maibach is part of a research team that since 2008 has surveyed and categorized American attitudes on climate change into six different groups that they call the “Six Americas.”"

Go to complete DeSmog story

Read time: 9 mins By Dana Drugmand

Monday, 19 October 2020

Amy Coney Barrett says she’s “not a scientist” and has no “firm views” on the topic of climate change: (excerpts) LAT and NYT

Wikipedia pic from 2018 Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett, the president’s Supreme Court nominee, was asked about climate change during Senate confirmation hearings. She responded that she’s “not a scientist” and has no “firm views” on the topic. The Supreme Court could play a big role in determining whether the federal government is able to mount a serious response to the climate crisis; as Marianne Lavelle wrote recently for InsideClimate News, activists are worried the court’s landmark 2007 climate ruling could be in danger.

Go to LA Times story

"But with Senator Kamala Harris of California, the Democratic

Photo from Alliance for Justice

candidate for vice president, Judge Barrett, the daughter of an oil executive, went further. She described the settled science of climate change as still in dispute, compared to Ms. Harris’s other examples, including whether smoking causes cancer and the coronavirus is infectious.

“Do you believe that climate change is happening and threatening the air we breathe and the water that we drink?” Ms. Harris asked.

Judge Barrett responded, “You asked me uncontroversial questions, like Covid-19 being infectious or if smoking causes cancer” to solicit “an opinion from me on a very contentious matter of public debate,” climate change.

“I will not do that,” Judge Barrett concluded. “I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial.”

Go to New York Times story

Saturday, 17 October 2020

How the world’s biggest emitter could be carbon neutral by 2050 (excerpts): Vox

"China’s road to net-zero emissions

The new study contains many significant recommendations; key among them is the timeline for China’s decarbonization.

When Xi Jinping announced the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, it was broadly interpreted to refer to carbon dioxide, the main gas driving global warming, and not other greenhouse gases, like methane or nitrous oxide. But the researchers suggest otherwise, saying China should reach net-zero for all greenhouse gases by 2060, and net-zero for carbon dioxide by 2050.

In his presentation of the results on Monday, He Jiankun, a Tsinghua professor and climate expert who co-led the study, said his understanding is that Xi’s goal of “carbon neutrality” by 2060 was referring to all greenhouse gases. An expert source told China Dialogue that this interpretation shouldn’t be understood as the official government stance until it is further clarified. But if official, it would mean China would have to cut emissions more rapidly over the coming decades.

The research also shows what net-zero emissions might look like for the world’s top emitter. Under their net-zero emissions scenario, the researchers propose almost entirely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy in the electricity sector, leaving coal power at less than 5 percent of power generation — a massive drop from the almost 70 percent coal supplied in 2019." .....

.................

.... "What to watch for in the coming year

Although this new study has strong backing from people with connections to the highest levels of government, its place in China’s official plans will be clearer when China submits its “mid-century strategy,” a document that all signatories of the Paris Agreement are requested to complete by the end of 2020 to chart out long-term decarbonization. (China is expected to release this document sometime in the next few months.)

As for more immediate decision-making, the study authors also recommend that China upgrade its climate and energy targets under the Paris Agreement and in its five-year plan. China’s carbon emissions are still growing — last year saw a 2 percent increase — so the authors advise that the next five-year plan set a hard cap on carbon emissions at 10.5 billion tons. As for setting new Paris Agreement targets this year, one key recommendation is to up the 2030 target from 20 percent non-fossil fuel energy generation to 25 percent to speed China’s renewable energy build-out.

Whether China adopts these upgraded targets in the coming months will be a first real indication of how and when the country plans to get to net zero."

Go to Vox article

China,methane gas,carbon capture,trees,coal,Paris Agreement,#climate crisis,#climatechange, #wewantclimateactionnow

Sunday, 4 October 2020

Exxon Touts Carbon Capture as a Climate Fix, but Uses It to Maximize Profit and Keep Oil Flowing (excerpts): Inside Climate News

Is Carbon Capture a tax scam?

"The company sells the CO2 to other companies that use it to revive depleted oil fields and has relentlessly fought EPA oversight of the practice.

Sprawled across the arid expanse of southwestern Wyoming is one of the world's largest carbon capture plants, a hulking jumble of pipes, compressors and exhaust flues operated by ExxonMobil.

The oil giant has long promoted its investments in carbon capture technology—a method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions—as evidence that it is addressing climate change, but it rarely discusses what happens to the carbon captured at the Shute Creek Treating Facility.

The plant's main function is to process natural gas from a nearby deposit. But in order to purify and sell the gas, Exxon must first strip out carbon dioxide, which comprises about two-thirds of the mix of gases extracted from nearby wells.

The company found a revenue stream for this otherwise useless, climate-warming byproduct: It began capturing the CO2 and selling it to other companies, which injected it into depleted oil fields to help produce more oil.

In 2008, when concerns about climate change led Congress to pass a tax credit meant to encourage companies to capture and store carbon dioxide, Exxon was presented with another way to make money from the technology. The massive amounts of carbon dioxide captured at its Wyoming facility put the oil and gas giant in a position to claim more credits under the tax break than any other company.

In the ensuing years, Exxon may have claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits, according to estimates based on publicly available data from the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a global think tank that tracks the technology."

........................

"For skeptics of carbon capture and storage, the lobbying battle highlights the risks of devoting government resources to propping up the technology.

"Using public money to subsidize carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery doesn't seem like a climate solution from where I'm sitting," said Doukas, of Oil Change International. "By doing that, we're enriching the industry that's done the most to delay climate action. And Exxon is the perfect example." "

Go to Nicholas Kusnetz's story in Inside Climate News

ExxonMobil, carbon capture, tax, #climateaction ,#climatechange ,#climatecriminals ,#jail the climate criminals,

Saturday, 3 October 2020

China's zero emissions target puts Australia on notice (excerpts): The Age

Flag: Peoples Republic of China

"Australia's former top climate diplomat has warned China's net-zero emissions target will leave Australia behind, threatening future trade deals and its influence in the Pacific as the Morrison government becomes wedged between the US and China on climate action.

Howard Bamsey, who was Australia's special envoy on climate change during the Rudd government, said the announcement from President Xi Jinping last week had turned the politics of emissions reduction into a sharp economic and diplomatic issue.

Renewables consumption by region

Exajoules

*Commonwealth of Independent States

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020

Professor Bamsey, who was also Australia's ambassador for the environment under the Howard government, said the new policy "pulls the rug out from under the argument" that Australia's domestic climate goals do not need to accelerate because China was yet to increase its ambitions.

"It's clear now China is accepting a leadership role," he said. "Xi made the announcement. That carries all the weight of the state and party.".."

..............

".. Professor Bamsey said the UK, European Union and a potential Biden presidency will pressure Australia to match their climate goals ahead of Glasgow.

"We are an internationally connected economy and we will have to adopt the policies of our trading partners, including our main partner in China," he said. "We won't be able to continue to provide goods and services and ignore the climate dimension.".."

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".. The director of the European Union's Centre of Excellence at RMIT, Bruce Wilson, said China's pledge would increase pressure on Australia as it attempts to negotiate free trade deals with the EU and Britain.

"If anyone is trying to do a trade deal with the EU, the Paris deal is non-negotiable," he said.

Professor Wilson said it was still not clear if the EU would accept Australia's use of Kyoto carryover credits to meet its obligations and said a "carbon border tax" was on the agenda for countries not compliant with the EU's environmental standards.

"If you are exporting an emissions heavy product into Europe there will be a tax on that," he said.

"Chief negotiators from the EU and Australia were expected to brief stakeholders about progress on the trade deal on Wednesday afternoon. ..."

Go to The Age article

carbon tariffs,European Union,China,impose trade tariffs on carbon offenders,coal,#renewables,#Australia,#climatechange,

Friday, 2 October 2020

America's year of fire and tempests means climate crisis just got very real (excerpt): Guardian

Climate Fire 2018

(Pics from this blog)

"In a flurry of recent fires and storms, the climate crisis has left unmistakable wounds on America. Even in a tumultuous year not short of anguish elsewhere, scientists warn the climate-fueled disasters of 2020’s summer point to major shifts that will upend Americans’ lives like no other threat.

The American west has experienced its biggest year of fire on record, with blazes the collective size of Connecticut roaring across a tinderbox-dry landscape, consuming thousands of buildings, claiming several dozen lives and turning the Bay Area’s sky an eerie orange.

Hurricane damage

Meanwhile, the Atlantic has been so festooned with hurricanes – atone stage this month five storms were strung out across the ocean at once – that meteorologists exceeded their 21 English-language names for major storms and for only the second time had to turn to the Greek alphabet. Appropriately, the two phenomena met on 15 September, when wildfire smoke pouring across the country wafted into Paulette, yet another tropical storm, off the eastern seaboard.

Erosion by rising sea level and storms

Such events are consistent with a heating-up planet, according to scientists, with studies showing that hurricanes are becoming stronger as ocean waters warm up and the atmosphere holds more water vapor. In the west, prolonged, intense heat – perhaps the hottest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on Earth occurred in California in August – has dried out forests and soils, making them more susceptible to huge conflagrations.

Add in the floods that have soaked swaths of the midwest and the Arctic sea ice that just shrank to its second lowest extent on record and it’s clear climate impacts are now piling upon America in multiples.

Rising sea levels will flood cities

“The changes from greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth’s climate system ain’t pretty and they do not come alone,” said Camilo Mora, an environmental scientist at the University of Hawaii and lead author of research that found climatic extremes are causing 400 different types of impacts upon humanity.

These threats are making people “unhealthy, thirsty, poor and homeless”, Mora said. “Climate change is like a horror movie with 400 endings to choose from.”.............."

30 Sep 2020

Go to complete Oliver Milman Guardian story

#jailclimatecriminals,#climateaction,#climatefires,#searise,#climatechange,

Sunday, 27 September 2020

Wildfires Explained: The YEARS Project video

Maya Lilly—who has lived through several California wildfires that threatened her home—explains the science behind wildfires. How is climate change responsible for making wildfires worse? Global warming produces more heat and more fuel—two ingredients that necessary for fires. Watch more #ClimateFacts: https://theyearsproject.com/watch/cli...

Friday, 18 September 2020

A season of climate-fueled disasters (excerpt): NYT

Wildfires are still scorching the West as a hurricane hits the South

"It’s pretty scary out there these days. There are wildfires in the West and a hurricane causing

More severe climate fires

“catastrophic” flooding in the South. And the destructiveness of those disasters is being aggravated by climate change.

All of that is keeping those of us on The Times climate team very busy.

For decades, climate journalists focused on the science of climate change, which proves the planet is warming and forecasts the consequences. That goes back at least to 1988, when The Times published a front-page article about the NASA scientist James Hansen, who testified in the Senate and warned in an interview that “It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”

The government, as we all know, continued to waffle. And here we are. Now, to an ever increasing degree, being a climate reporter is all about catastrophes, reported in real time.

And so, we do what we do. We cover the news.

More severe hurricanes

In the West, more than 5 million acres have now burned, and fire season still has months to go. Our coverage has focused heavily on the links between wildfires and climate change.

.........................."

By John Schwartz (Images from this blog)

Read complete NYT article

#climatefires,#climatechange,#climateaction,#climate crisis,hurricanes,floods,science,

We Want Climate Action Now