COVID-19 can be an historic turning point in tackling the global climate crisis: UK Committee on Climate Change

(Pics from this blog)  

 If only the current Australian government would take advice like this. This is from the United Kingdom's Committee on Climate Change to the U.K. government in 2020.

Climate Action Now

 "Ministers must seize the opportunity to turn the COVID-19 crisis into a defining moment in the fight against climate change, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says today.
 

In its annual report to Parliament, the Committee provides comprehensive new advice to the Government on delivering an economic recovery that accelerates the transition to a cleaner, net-zero emissions economy and strengthens the country’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Cities might become unbearable.

Important steps have been taken in the last year, but much remains to be done. For the first time the Committee sets out its recommendations government department by government department. These are the urgent steps that must be taken in the months ahead to initiate a green, resilient COVID-19 recovery. 

They can be delivered through strong coordination across Whitehall. Doing so will propel the UK towards more rapid climate progress and position the country as an international climate leader ahead of the pivotal COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next year.

CCC Chairman, Lord Deben, said: “The UK is facing its biggest economic shock for a generation. Meanwhile, the global crisis of climate change is accelerating. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address these urgent challenges together; it’s there for the taking. The steps that the UK takes to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic can accelerate the transition to a successful and low-carbon economy and improve our climate resilience. 

Choices that lock in emissions or climate risks are unacceptable.”

Climate Change is a fact

Chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, said: “COVID-19 has shown that planning for systemic risks is unavoidable. We have warned repeatedly that the UK is poorly prepared for the very serious impacts of climate change, including flooding, overheating and water shortages. Now is the moment to get our house in order, coordinate national planning, and prepare for the inevitable changes ahead. The UK’s domestic ambition can be the basis for strong international climate leadership, but the delivery of effective new policies must accelerate dramatically if we’re to seize this chance.”

The Committee’s new analysis expands on its May 2020 advice to the Prime Minister in which it set out the principles for building a resilient recovery. In its new report, the Committee has assessed a wide set of measures and gathered the latest evidence on the role of climate policies in the economic recovery. Its report highlights five clear investment priorities in the months ahead:

1. Low-carbon retrofits and buildings that are fit for the future.

Hydrogen energy still requires research and development

There are vital new employment and reskilling opportunities across the country if Governments support a national plan to renovate buildings and construct new housing to the highest standards of energy and water efficiency, to begin the shift to low-carbon heating systems, and to protect against overheating. Roll-out of ‘green passports’ for buildings and local area energy plans can begin immediately. 

2. Tree planting, peatland restoration, and green infrastructure. Investing in nature, including in our towns and cities, offers another quick route to opportunities for highly-skilled employment, and outcomes that improve people’s lives. By making substantial changes in our use of land, which are needed to meet the UK’s Net Zero target, we will bring significant benefits for the climate, biodiversity, air quality, and flood prevention.

Land ice is melting

3. Energy networks must be strengthened for the net-zero energy transformation in order to support electrification of transport and heating. Government has the regulatory tools to bring forward private sector investment. New hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure will provide a route to establishing new low-carbon British industries. Fast-tracked electric vehicle charging points will hasten the move towards a full phase out of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032 or earlier.

4. Infrastructure to make it easy for people to walk, cycle, and work remotely. Dedicated safe spaces for walking and cycling, more bike parking and support for shared bikes and e-scooters can help the nation get back to work in a more sustainable way. For home working to be truly a widespread option, resilient digital technology (5G and fibre broadband) will be needed.

5. Moving towards a circular economy. Within the next five years, we can not only increase reuse & recycling rates rapidly but stop sending biodegradable wastes to landfill. Local authorities need support to invest strategically in separated waste collections and recycling infrastructure and to create new regional jobs.

There are also opportunities to support the transition and the recovery by investing in the UK’s workforce, and in lower-carbon behaviours and innovation:


1. Reskilling and retraining programmes. The net-zero economy will require a net-zero workforce, able to install smart low-carbon heating systems and to make homes comfortable; to design, manufacture and use low-carbon products and materials; and to put carbon back, rather than taking carbon out, from under the North Sea. Now is the time to build that workforce and to equip UK workers with vital skills for the future.

Our children want answers.

2. Leading a move towards positive behaviours. There is a window for Government to reinforce the ‘climate-positive’ behaviours that have emerged during the lockdown, including increased remote working, cycling and walking. The public sector must lead by example by encouraging remote working. It also needs to innovate in order that customer service can be provided effectively remotely.

3. Targeted science and innovation funding. Kick-starting research and innovation now in low-carbon and adaptation technologies will facilitate the changes needed in the decades ahead and build UK competitive advantage. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of research if we are to understand fully the threats and learn how to manage them.

Cities must retreat from the coast.

Achieving the UK’s climate goals and rebuilding the economy fit naturally together. Each makes the other possible. Success demands that we do both. The actions recommended by the CCC will deliver an improved economy, better public health, improved biodiversity and access to nature, cleaner air, more comfortable homes and highly productive and rewarding employment."

Related:   Climate change: How the UK contributes to global deforestation (excerpt): BBC

#economy, #heatwaves, Britain, cities, COVID-19, energy, England, floods, infrastructure damage, reskilling, science, tidal flooding, United Kingdom

'A shot in the arm:' Victoria backs clean energy in bid to fuel COVID-19 recovery: SMH

(Pics by this blog)

"Clean energy projects will receive a Victorian government funding boost in the hope of driving the state's battered economy out of the coronavirus downturn and avoiding a slump in wind and solar investment.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio is preparing to brief 

300 investors on Wednesday about the launch of a formal process to test interest in building 600 megawatts of renewable energy capacity statewide, which she said would drive down prices and create new jobs at a critical time."

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

"Climate advocates say the unprecedented upheaval of COVID-19 presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate the energy transition. Mr Thornton said there was now a "massive consensus" in Australia and around the world about the potential for renewable energy to play a leading role in the economic recovery from COVID-19."

By Nick Toscano and Miki Perkins

September 1, 2020

Go to the complete SMH article 

Related: 

Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions: Hansen et al

Why COVID deniers and climate skeptics paint scientists as alarmist (excerpt): Grist

Climate Change Denial Tactics

By Kate Yoder on Aug 13, 2020 

 

 

In an interview with Fox News last month, President Donald Trump called Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, an “alarmist,” using a pejorative straight from the playbook of those who deny the science behind climate change. Fauci rejected the characterization, describing himself as a “realist.”

For anyone paying attention to arguments about climate change over recent decades, Trump’s comment sounded awfully familiar: Scientists are alarmists, everything’s a hoax, and hysteria abounds.

 Michael Mann, a climatologist at Penn State University, wrote an op-ed for Newsweek this week drawing parallels between his experience and Fauci’s during COVID-19. Science deniers have lobbied attacks on the two public figures, he explained, sending death threats, calling them names, and questioning their expertise.
So what do terms like alarmist and hysteria really mean, where did they come from, and how can people respond to such accusations?"

"The strategies used to dismiss the threats of climate change and coronavirus follow a similar pattern, and they’re employed by many of the same people. It starts with denying the problem exists, as Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history at Harvard who studies disinformation, has explained. Then, people trying to obstruct action deny the severity of the predicament, say it’s too hard or too expensive to fix, and complain that their freedom is under threat. Denying the science requires dismissing what scientists are saying, and the easiest way to do that is by questioning their motives, impartiality, and rationality.

“If we don’t trust scientists or medical experts because we see them as alarmist or hysterical or as contributing overreaction, then we don’t trust the info they’re giving us,” said Emma Frances Bloomfield, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas."

Read the complete Grist article by Kate Yoder

See also:

'Two global health emergencies': doctors group backs green stimulus: The Age

climate deniers, Trump, COVID-19, #cambio-climatico, #climatecrisis, #climatecriminals, #corporations, #criminales-climáticos-de-la-cárcel, #

Successful Elimination of Covid-19 Transmission in New Zealand: New England Journal of Medicine

New Covid-19 Cases in New Zealand

and Implementation of

Epidemic-Response and Support Measures.

Soon after initial descriptions of an outbreak in Wuhan, China, were shared, reports in late January 2020 (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30260-9/fulltext. opens in new tab) confirmed that Covid-19 was almost certain to become a serious pandemic. 

Despite New Zealand’s geographic isolation, we knew that introduction of SARS-CoV-2 was imminent because of the large numbers of tourists and students who arrive in the country each summer, predominantly from Europe and mainland China. Our disease models indicated that we could expect the pandemic to spread widely, overwhelm our health care system, and disproportionately burden indigenous Maori and Pacific peoples. New Zealand began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in earnest in February, which included preparing hospitals for an influx of patients. We also began instituting border-control policies to delay the pandemic’s arrival.

New Zealand’s first Covid-19 case was diagnosed on February 26 (see Figure 1). That same week, the WHO–China Joint Mission’s report on Covid-19 (www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf. opens in new tab) showed that SARS-CoV-2 was behaving more like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) than like influenza, which suggested that containment was possible.

Read the complete NEJM article 

See also:

Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage : The Guardian (excerpt)

There is an answer to post Covid-19 economic chaos.

Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent: The Conversation

"Deniers argue that further disruption to economies and societies will be avoided at all costs. 

Sorry to be the harbinger of denier disappointment, but there is every reason to expect that the virus crisis will strengthen and accelerate the imperative to transition to a low-carbon world by mid-century."

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

"Time is of the essence

As Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, states in her recent book:

“We are in the critical decade. It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.”

This will require about a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 – way more than is contemplated in the Paris agreement – to achieve even net zero emissions by 2050.

---

Read more: Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics

---

There are a few “pluses” from the experience of coronavirus. Emissions are falling (although clearly no one would advocate a global recession as a climate strategy). And the response of governments to the crisis has seen decisive domestic action – working individually, but together, in meeting what is a global challenge.

Individual governments have demonstrated how quickly they can move once they accept the reality of a crisis. We’ve also seen just how far they’re prepared to go in terms of policy responses – lockdowns, social distancing, testing, rapid and historically significant fiscal expansions, and massive liquidity injections.

It’s noteworthy that issues that in “normal times” could not have been ignored – such as civil liberties and concerns about intrusive governments and effective competition – have so easily been set aside as part of emergency responses."

Read The complete The Conversation story 

#jail climate criminals

Greens amendments to protect renters pass NSW Parliament

The Greens NSW successfully amended the COVID-19 Emergency Measures Bill in NSW Parliament last night, to enable protections for renters to be part of the emergency response by the relevant Ministers now that Parliament has been adjourned.

Greens NSW MP and Housing spokesperson, Jenny Leong MP, said today:
“The COVID-19 Bills introduced by the NSW Government yesterday didn't include any measures for renters or tenants - in fact there was nothing that even began to address the housing and homelessness crisis that is just around the corner if we don't act swiftly.”

“This isn’t just a human rights issue: it’s a health issue. You can’t stay home to social distance without a house. You can’t limit your shopping without a fridge. You can’t rest and recover without a bed.

“Yesterday morning, after getting the Bill late Monday night, I started working with the NSW Tenants Union to draft amendments that would address this massive oversight, these amendments were introduced by the Greens and subsequently passed into law.

“The amendments give the power to the relevant ministers in NSW to create regulations to put a moratorium on evictions, prevent people having their lease terminated and make other changes to what current powers landlords and owners have over tenants.

“If this amendment hadn't been made, they would have had to draft legislation, wait until parliament resumed (next scheduled date in September), then have the legislation debated & passed.

“While these amendments give delegated power to the relevant minister to act, they still need to do that. The National Cabinet including the NSW Premier is meeting tonight, and tenancy is on the agenda. They can and should decide tonight to provide security and relief for renters that can be implemented immediately.

“These are extraordinary times, and these are extraordinary powers, powers that can be used for good - right now - to protect residential and commercial tenants from evictions.

“By passing these NSW Greens amendments to protect renters, the Parliament has put the ball in the Liberals court: they have the capacity to stop families being kicked out of their homes in the middle of this crisis,” Ms Leong said.