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

 

"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." SBS NEWS

‘Climate apartheid’: Rich people to buy their way out of environmental crisis while poor suffer, warns UN: Independent

Millions forced to choose between starvation and migration under 'best-case' scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100

Wealthy communities will be able to buy their way out of the unfolding climate crisis while the poorest will suffer most, a UN report has found.

Even under the unrealistic "best-case" scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100, many millions of people will have to choose between starvation and migration, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned.

He predicted a split between those able to mitigate the worst effects of the warming planet and those with no means to avoid it, calling it a "climate apartheid". 

And he said the fallout from our rapidly warming climate would have dire implications for human rights and democracy.

"What was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario," Mr Alston said.

Read complete Independent article

 

Experts Raise Alarm Over Climate Change Threat to Cultural Heritage: The Youth Times

"Climate change is a threat to our future, but also to our heritage, natural and cultural"

 

"Athens - Climate change could wreak "irreversible damage" on the world's most precious ancient monuments and other cultural sites, experts warned Saturday as they pushed for UN protection for major global sites.

Academics and policy makers gathered in Athens for a meeting on the threats to world heritage called for an array of tools to predict, measure and counter the effects of climate change.

They are campaigning to have the issue included on the agenda at the UN Summit for Climate Change in New York in September."

Read the complete The Youth Times article 

Related: 

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander

Video: Kiribati - A Climate Change Reality

Boobu Tioram, a resident of the Pacific island of Kirabati, took time out from reinforcing a seawall in front of his newly built house to speak with UNDP about what climate change has meant to his way of life. 

Washington Post: It’s time to face the inescapable truth: We’re running out of time on climate change

THE WORLD is heading in the wrong direction, and it does not have much time left to change course. After several years in which global greenhouse-gas emissions leveled off, they spiked to record 

levels this year, according to projections a group of scientists released Wednesday. Along with some major developing nations, emissions in the United States are projected to grow substantially. So much for all those assurances that the market would take care of the problem.

The news comes just after the United Nations released a report finding that climate change will disrupt human society, kill many people and permanently reshape the Earth unless stemmed aggressively, and soon.

Read The Washington Post article

Read more:

Max Boot: I was wrong on climate change. Why can’t other conservatives admit it, too?

Eugene Robinson: Climate change is real. Welcome to the new normal.

Robert J. Samuelson: We’re on mission impossible to solve global warming

 

Video: UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls for global action on climate change

"Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. 
Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly."

Read more

Take Climate Action Messenger Bot

"Take Climate Action

We will only succeed in limiting climate change if everyone is involved. On 3 December, the United Nations will launch a new campaign- a Climate Action Messenger Bot (link opens Facebook Messenger) on the United Nations Facebook page during the UN Climate Conference COP24 in Katowice, Poland - to make it easier than ever before for people to learn what actions they can take to tackle climate change. Be part of a movement and show your support for urgent climate action! 

Every climate action that we take, no matter how insignificant it may seem, matters a lot when a lot of people do them. If many people take actions that will reduce emissions, it will add up. And it will send a message to leaders, in government and the private sector, that people want climate action, and are willing to take it."


Read the full press release about the campaign here.

IPD Article: The Criminal Dimension of Climate Change

A new book titled Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival, by Dr. Peter Carter and Dr. Elizabeth Woodworth, with a forward by the leading climate scientist Professor James Hansen outlines the criminality of those who actively promote the continuing emission of carbon gases into the atmosphere with full knowledge of the consequences, including the breakdown of the large ice sheets, sea level rise and intensification of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and fires around the world.

The book highlights the collusion of a large part of the media with climate change denial and cover ups, stating: “There is no benign explanation for a full media blackout of a significant global development that was heralded by the United Nations Secretary-General. This blackout goes far beyond ignorance or negligence. It is a willful obstruction of public knowledge of the extraordinary extent of global efforts to combat the greatest existential threat of all time by changing business-as-usual. We define this willful, methodical blocking of vital survival information as an unprecedented crime against life on the planet.”

03 Jan 2018

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