COP29 Day3
DAY 3 Carbon trading
Young people are our future hope. They are tasked with clearing up the planet catastrophe that we adults are creating. This anthology written by children across the planet and coordinated by Exeter University is very heartwarming and good place to start the day with before you squelch into the muddy doom and gloom of climate negotiations.
More gloomy news:
Global carbon emissions are set to hit a record high in 2024 – and we have not reached the peak yet.
Albanian PM Edi Rama went off script to give an impassioned speech. He questioned the point of the climate talks if big polluters continue with business as usual.
Over the last two days, world leaders have outlined the harsh reality of extreme weather in their countries – each story worse than the last.
French minister for the ecological transition Agnés Pannier-Runacher said she will no longer be travelling to Baku next week due to the unacceptable comments by the Azabaijan prime minister about God and oil.
Global Carbon Markets.
These were discussed today based around Article 6 of the Paris agreement.
What is this? Very simply the big polluters carry on polluting as normal and give a country that doesn’t produce many emissions, some money to plant trees for example. This then allows them to offset their emissions by counting those trees that the other country plants on their behalf without doing anything different such as reducing their emissions and as the countries that do the planting are often poorer countries, they can use that money to help them decarbonise.
That reminds me of another definition that would fit in here: green washing. This is when a company claims to be ‘green’ but in reality isn’t. An example is a fossil fuel company paying to plant trees and persuading the public to buy more petrol so that they can increase the number of trees planted.
Climate Action Plans
Each country is expected to deliver a National Climate Change Plan NDC3.0 explaining targets that they will set to mitigate climate change and decrease emissions.
Brazil was first to deliver their NDC.
It is 43 pages long. A quick summary is:
- If the world could give them $200billion dollars then they will put the money towards restoring the Amazon rainforest.
- They aim to be carbon neutral by 2050. (this is way too late)
- They feel it needs to be fair so other countries need to do their bit if they are going to make an effort.
- They reminded everyone that they were responsible for the Amazon countries signing the Belem agreement to sustainably develop the Amazon rainforest- although that is old news as this happened before the last COP.
- They are getting strict on trying to stop illegal logging and made $16million dollars by fining people doing this. They have reduced deforestation by 25% compared to 2023. This means that only an area of 70x that of Guernsey or about the size of Dubai was deforested this year. Compared to 1970 levels there is 79% of the rainforest left. Unfortunately an area 3347x the size of Guernsey or the size of Belarus, was ravaged by wild fires.
- The worst in 14 years due to drought conditions brought on by global warming.
Let’s end on a high note today with the nice glossy video for all achievements from the first three days.
