World’s Most Ambitious Agreement Ever?

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, predicts global climate deal will be fully ratified by the end of the year after 31 nations officially signed up in New York to the most ambitious global agreement the world has ever seen.
+ Singapore was among those large and small nations who are providing leadership and a nudge to others. Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan was there to do this important job.
+ Missing in action/inaction was Australia. Giles Parkinson in RenewEconomy says the country will now be locked into significantly more ambitious climate policies by the end of the year.
+ Fearing what might happen if Donald Trump gets elected as US President, 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences published an open letter drawing attention to the serious risks of climate change.

Paris climate agreement poised to come into force
UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, predicts global climate deal will be fully ratified by the end of the year after 31 nations officially sign up in New York
Oliver Milman in New York for The Gaurdian
21 September 2016
The Paris climate agreement is on the brink of coming into force after 31 nations officially joined the landmark accord, with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, predicting it will be fully ratified by the end of the year.
On Wednesday, 31 countries formally signed up to the Paris deal at the UN general assembly in New York. They include Brazil, the world’s seventh largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Mexico, Argentina and Sri Lanka. Oil-rich United Arab Emirates also ratified the deal, as did nations considered particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, such as Kiribati and Bangladesh.
The pledges mean that a total of 60 countries, representing 47.7% of global emissions, have now formally joined the Paris agreement. The deal aims to limit the global temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration of keeping it to 1.5C.
A total of 55 nations representing at least 55% of global emissions need to sign up for the deal to come into force. The first of these thresholds has now been reached, with Ban and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, both predicting that the agreement will be fully implemented within months.
“I’m ever more confident that the Paris agreement will enter into force this year,” Ban said. “I appeal to all leaders to accelerate domestic arrangements to join this year.
“What once seemed impossible now seems inevitable. When this year ends, I hope we can all look back with pride knowing that we seized the opportunity to protect our common home.”
Video messages from Germany, France, the EU, Canada, Australia and South Korea among others all promised to ratify the Paris accord in the coming months. Should these promises be fulfilled, the agreement will pass the second threshold and come into force.
Australia, one of the largest per capita emitters, will make its “best endeavours to ratify” in 2016, said the country’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Barbara Hendricks, the German environment minister, said her country planned to ratify the deal “well ahead” of the next UN climate meeting in Marrakesh in November. The UK has made a similar commitment.
Kerry said it was an “exciting moment” but warned that the threat posed by climate change grows every day.
“The problem we continue to confront is growing,” he said. “Each day the planet is on this course, it becomes more dangerous.
“If anyone doubted the science, all they have to do is watch, sense, feel what is happening in the world today. High temperatures are already having consequences, people are dying in the heat, people lack water, we already have climate refugees.”
Kerry added that international climate negotiations have been a “long and frustrating path” since 1992 but that the Paris deal means that they are “finally becoming a story that we are proud to tell our grandchildren and future generations”.
The UN climate change chief, Patricia Espinosa, said: “This is an extraordinary momentum by nations and a clear signal of their determination to implement Paris now and raise ambition over the decades to come.”
A total of 195 nations put their name to the Paris deal and submitted promises to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. Several analyses have cast doubt over whether the pledged emissions cuts will be sufficient to prevent a 2C temperature increase, with concerns exacerbated by record-breaking heat experienced over the course of 2016
The warmest August on record was recorded last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed on Tuesday. The US government agency said last month was the 16th month in a row where temperature records were broken, with July being the single warmest month since modern record keeping began in 1880.
The soaring heat, which has retained much of its intensity despite the end of the El Niño climatic event, is unprecedented in at least 1,000 years and probably much longer, scientists have said.
But climate campaigners have said that the speed of the Paris deal ratification raises hopes that the world is finally swinging behind efforts to reduce emissions and prevent the worst ravages of a warming planet.
“The global community is rallying behind swift and ambitious action to combat climate change,” said Paula Caballero, global director of the World Resources Institute’s climate program.
“The fact that the Paris agreement will likely enter into force this year took everyone by surprise. This rapid pace reflects a spirit of cooperation rarely seen on a global scale.
“Today we pause and celebrate the important progress towards bringing the Paris agreement into force. Then we again pick up our shovels and continue the hard work of creating a safer and more prosperous planet.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/21/paris-climate-agreement-poised-to-come-into-force
Singapore ratifies Paris climate agreement at UN
Channel News Asia 21 September 2016
The Republic on Wednesday formalised its pledge to fight climate change, with Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan depositing Singapore’s instrument of ratification of the Paris Agreement at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Paris accord, sealed late last year in the French capital, commits countries to make plans to keep global warming at no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels to try to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Dr Balakrishnan signed the Paris Agreement on Apr 22 together with representatives of 174 other countries. According to a joint media statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) on Wednesday, the ratification is a “further affirmation of our support and commitment for climate action”.
By ratifying the agreement, Singapore formalises its pledge to reduce its emission intensity by 36 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 and stabilise emissions with the aim of peaking around 2030. MFA said this “pledge builds on our existing commitment to reduce, by 2020, greenhouse gas emissions by 16 per cent from the business-as-usual level, which Singapore is on track to meet”.
In July, Singapore released its Climate Action Plan, outlining the various measures to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and enhance resilience to climate change.
The Paris agreement received a major boost earlier this month when China and the United States, the two largest emitters, jointly acceded to the deal during a summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping.
For the deal to take effect, 55 parties responsible for at least 55 per cent of global emissions of greenhouse gases must join the accord.
As of Tuesday, 29 parties behind 40 per cent of emissions have given their consent, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Singapore is among at least 30 countries submitting their ratification at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. The global body said other states include Latin American heavyweights Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, as well as Thailand, Bangladesh and major fossil fuel power the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-ratifies-paris-climate-agreement-at-un/3145320.html

Australia locked in for more ambitious climate, renewable policies
By Giles Parkinson in Reneweconomy on 22 September 2016
Australia will be locked into significantly more ambitious climate policies by the end of the year, as one of the key conditions of the far-reaching Paris climate deal was met overnight and the remaining condition appears merely a formality.
The Paris climate deal, which aims to cap average global warming at “well below” 2°C and as low as 1.5°C, will come into force within 30 days of it being ratified by at least 55 countries representing at least 55 per cent of total emissions.
On Wednesday, the first threshold was reached when another 31 countries, including major emitters Mexico and Brazil, and many of Australia’s vulnerable Pacific island neighbours, signed the deal. That took the running total to 60, and 48 per cent of emissions, including the two biggest emitters China and the US.
Another 14 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, and Australia, then promised to ratify the deal by the end of the year. This will ensure that the second condition will also be reached and that the pact will be in place before end of 2016, just a year after the agreement was reached in Paris and then signed in April.
This is virtually unprecedented in international agreements. “This momentum is remarkable,” UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said. “It can sometimes take years or even decades for a treaty to enter into force. It is just nine months since the Paris climate conference. This is testament to the urgency of the crisis we all face.”
Ban said that the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement would trigger the operational provisions of the agreement and accelerate efforts to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2°C, and to build climate resilience.
This is where it impacts Australia. In excerpts of a speech he is due to make in New York (Friday morning Australia time) Turnbull said all the right things.

“We all understand what is at stake – the future of generations around the globe and the wellbeing of our planet.”
And then: “We also know that our commitment to action creates new opportunities for innovation and growth, which means more jobs. Over the past decade or so Australia has reduced emissions and grown the economy by nearly 50%.”
Turnbull says that the significant and complex threat of climate change “demands every one of us to act together towards a better world”.
“We all understand what is at stake – the future of generations around the globe and the wellbeing of our planet.” Australia will play its part, he says, describing the Paris conference of last year as “a shining example of global co-operation for the common good”.
But it is one thing to make pleasing remarks on the international stage and quite another to implement those promises and engagements at home. He has been prime minister for more than 12 months but has yet to move beyond the policies of his climate sceptic predecessor, Tony Abbott.
Even the one initiative he has made, the $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund, is to be stripped of nearly all its funds because of a compromise the government agreed to make on Australian Renewable Energy Agency funding.
But the task for the Turnbull government is monumental. As Reputex pointed out in a report on Wednesday, its current policies will likely leave Australia one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas abatement short of its own modest target of a 26-28 per cent cut in emissions by 2030.
The individual targets committed in Paris still fall well short of the 2°C mark, and a long way from 1.5°C. According to some estimates, it will leave the world facing a warming scenario of 3°C or more. Australia, according to its own Climate Change Authority, will likely need to find another billion tonnes of abatement to meet the fair share promised by Turnbull.
We may have to wait another year to learn what it might be that Turnbull will do, or feel he can do with a one seat majority in parliament, and a large climate science denying conservative rump within his own party.
A review in 2017 could be a launch-pad for tightening baselines, shifting to some sort of trading scheme – as suggested by the CCA and Labour – and expanding and lifting renewable energy targets, or imposing tight emission regulations for vehicles, buildings or coal fired generators.
So far, though, the minister for the environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, has committed to nothing more than a “sit-rep”, a term so oblique we had to ask what it meant. “A situation report,” we were told. In other words, an assessment of where the country is, not of what it might or should be able to do.
Yet, the case for urgent action is clear, as even Turnbull recognises. The activist group 350.org, which wants warming limited to 1.5°C, says there remains a massive gap between what the agreement calls for and what world governments are actually doing to meet these targets.
“Each of the last 16 consecutive months have been the hottest in history, with 2016 shaping up to be the hottest year on record — a title that we’re getting far too accustomed to applying year after year,” said executive director May Boeve.
The Paris accord, which Australia will ratify and be beholden to, commits the world, Australia included, to zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century. Even the latest CCA report indicates that coal generation will have to disappear by around 2035.
The fact remains that Australia, without strong and clear action, will blow its “climate budget” by 2030 on its current course, and will miss out on the huge economic opportunities that could have been offered a global renewable energy superpower and technology leader.
And the uncomfortable truth for Turnbull and the conservative rump he is forced to deal with is that climate change is inextricably linked with all the major issues facing the country – security, immigration and trade.
US president Barack Obama on Wednesday directed his National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to systematically include “climate change assessments” in all national security decisions.
“Climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” the White House said in an accompanying fact sheet.
“It is well-established that climate change is a threat multiplier that catalyzes conflict and creates instability,” said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute.
“Climate change is a underlying driver of natural disasters and extreme weather events, increases human migration, and contributes to conflicts around resources, such as food and water. Without action, these threats will surely increase.”
In Australia, something has to change, and it has to change soon. But how?
Source: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/australia-locked-ambitious-climate-renewable-policies-87090

BY Paul Huttner in Climate Cast
20 September 2016
Top Scientists: Don’t Abandon Paris Climate Agreement
Today, 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences published an open letter that draws attention to the serious risks of climate change. The letter also highlights the urgent need to reduce heat-trapping emissions as part of the Paris Agreement. The scientists warn that a U.S. withdrawal from this agreement would diminish U.S. credibility internationally, hobble U.S. economic competitiveness in developing and marketing clean energy sources, and undermine the world’s ability to deal with climate change. The Republican nominee for President has advocated withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, as documented here and here.
The National Academy of Sciences was formed under President Abraham Lincoln to provide independent scientific advice to policymakers. Academy membership is considered one of the highest honors in science. Among the 375 signers are noted physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking and biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson, and 30 Nobel Prize winners. The signers are acting in their capacity as citizens and scientists. The letter is not an official communication from the Academy or from other institutions with which the scientists are associated.
Climate scientist Dr. Benjamin Santer, who helped to organize the letter, said he felt it was important to speak out. “Human-caused climate change is real, is serious, and is happening now. The United States has to be a leader in international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and solve this global problem.”
Dr. Kerry Emanuel, another climate scientist and letter organizer, stated, “we are in real danger of rolling back what progress we have made, exposing our descendants to unacceptable levels of risk.”
Dr. Akin Mabogunje, a renowned geographer from Nigeria and the first African to be elected a Foreign Associate of the Academy, said, “I feel privileged to join the voices of scientists internationally in calling attention to the catastrophe that could follow indifference to this challenge by a leader country such as the United States.”
Dr. Lonnie Thompson, a signer and world-famous glaciologist, just returned from a six-week trip studying glaciers in Peru – a vital source of water for that region. “What I observed was by far the largest ice loss that I have seen on these glaciers in the 42 years I’ve been doing this.”
Astrophysicist Dr. George B. Field, another organizer, stressed “the role that scientific expertise must play in informing policy decisions, whether in climate change, genetics, medicine, and other scientific fields that impact society.” Astrophysicist Dr. Ray Weymann, the fourth organizer, said, “the response of so many NAS members shows that this isn’t just of concern to climate scientists – it demonstrates the strong consensus of the broader scientific community on the urgency of this issue.”
Commenting on the letter, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a recipient of the Academy’s Public Welfare Medal, said, “For lawmakers to not heed the advice of esteemed scientists on matters of science, in this the 21st century, signals the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.”
Source: http://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2016/09/375-climate-scientists-warn-about-the-2016-presidential-race/