#climate reparations

[climate-crisis]

US special envoy on climate change told a congressional hearing that the United States will not, under any circumstances, pay reparations to developing countries hit by climate-fueled disasters.

The US did however back the creation of a funding mechanism to address the damage caused by environmental disasters, which have become more frequent and severe due to the climate crisis.

The US just seems to talk the talk without any intent of actually walking the walk 😡

[bumblebeeappletree]

The people and industries of the world's richest countries have done the most to heat the planet. But they're terrified of being held liable for extreme weather they've made more violent. Meanwhile, the poorest can't afford to pay for the consequences of other people's pollution. So should the rich world be paying for climate damages – and what's the best way to do so?

Credits

Reporter: Ajit Niranjan

Video Editor: Markus Mörtz

Supervising editor: Kiyo Dörrer & Joanna Gottschalk

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #Reparations #Climate

Read more:

COP27 agreement on loss and damage payments: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/file...

Historical CO2 emissions since 1850 from fossil fuels, cement and land use change: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...

Pakistan floods weather attribution study: https://www.worldweatherattribution.o...

Progress toward the $100 billion pledge: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/finance...

Fair shares of climate finance: https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/A...

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:10 Background

02:55 COP27

06:13 Climate Reparations

08:48 Tax Big Oil

10:04 Pollution Levies

10:46 Cancel Debt

11:47 Conclusion

[brianbachochin]

Prophecy Brief: Persevere in perilous times

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:1-4:8, 1 Timothy 4:1-2

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Humanity is on a highway to hell, with our foot on the accelerator. The message from the UN secretary general to more than 110 world leaders at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt could not have been clearer: change course now, or face “collective suicide”.

Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise this year, research published this week has shown, despite stark warnings from climate scientists in the past year. The prospects of sticking to the 1.5C limit above pre-industrial levels that scientists tell us is necessary have receded to a “narrow window”.

Many of the heads of state and government gathered in Egypt for the first days of the UN Cop27 climate summit, where 45,000 people from 196 countries are halfway through their two weeks of talks on the climate crisis, had their own dispatches to add from the frontline of the global emergency.

Poor countries argue that the rich, source of most greenhouse gas emissions, must provide assistance to the poor that are most afflicted. “Loss and damage is not charity – it’s climate justice,” Nabeel Munir, Pakistan’s climate envoy, said.

The amount of cash needed for climate finance, including loss and damage, can seem daunting. In a report jointly commissioned by the UK, host of last year’s Cop26 summit, and the Egyptian hosts of Cop27, published on Tuesday, the climate economist Lord Stern calculated that about $2tn a year would be needed by 2030 for the entire developing world, except China.

However, that amount is not substantially more than what would be needed to invest in those economies in any case, using fossil fuels.

Despite the focus on loss and damage, there has been little cash forthcoming at this conference so far. The UK said it would allow some debt payment deferrals for countries hit by climate disasters, while Austria and New Zealand put forward funding for loss and damage, and John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, unveiled a plan to use carbon offsetting to raise cash.

Even as young people protested, and those facing the most severe impacts of the climate crisis bore witness, the halls of Cop27 were host to a shady group with quite different intentions. Oil and gas companies are enjoying an unprecedented bonanza amid record fossil fuel prices, sent soaring by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They have sent lobbyists to Cop27 in force – there are more than 600 of them enjoying access to the talks, according to analysis by Global Witness published on Thursday. That is more than the delegations of many of the most vulnerable countries combined.

Africa is particularly in their sights. This is the first African Cop in six years, and some African leaders have come with a specific purpose: to gain backing to exploit their gas reserves. Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, asked in an interview: “Why not? Why should Africa not do this?”

Climate campaigners are distraught at the prospect, warning of a “neocolonial” gas grab that would benefit only the gas multinationals and the country elites, while poor people would suffer even worse consequences from global heating.

But western countries are wary of appearing hypocritical in urging African countries not to exploit their gas, and besides, many European countries especially want to import African gas to ease their own cost of living crisis.

Negotiations at Cop27 will carry on for the next week, and countries are hoping for substantial progress on loss and damage, and climate finance more generally. But there will be no final settlement of loss and damage here. The most that can be hoped for is to set out a framework and parameters for how a loss and damage funding facility could be achieved, with a deadline on when it should be in operation.

[thoughtlessarse]

Britain faces growing calls at this week’s Commonwealth summit to pay billions of pounds in reparations to poorer countries for causing climate change as well as slavery. The leaders of some of the nations at most risk from the effects of climate change plan to use the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa to lobby for reparative justice from the UK and other wealthy countries that are among the biggest polluters. Philip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, told the Observer that his country needed help from the UK and others to pay for damage caused by extreme weather events and to help save it from the worst effects of rising sea levels. Davis said: “The Commonwealth is the ideal forum for making progress on reparations. Our very name echoes the principles and values of the necessary stewardship of the wealth we hold in common – our shared planet. “Bringing together some of the richest nations on the world with some of the most vulnerable gives us the urgent responsibility for finding a solution to the global shocks that threaten the loss of lives and livelihoods.” He added: “For island states – which make up nearly half of the membership of the Commonwealth – it’s a threat which is truly existential. If we cannot find ways to make our countries more resilient to these shocks, we will not survive.” Davis, whose low-lying island nation is the richest in the West Indies with a per capita GDP of around $31,000, and other Caribbean leaders will also be seeking reparations for slavery when they meet Keir Starmer and other prime ministers from the 56-nation association at CHOGM in the Samoan capital Apia this week. It is the first time the biennial summit has been held in a Pacific island state and the first attended by the King as head of the Commonwealth.

continue reading

I'm shocked they would ask for billions. It should be trillions.

[reasonsforhope]

Reblogging to add in very key/relevant info on the Pacific Island nations that are the most vulnerable to this. I was going to go back and add this in before this posted, but my queue spit it out sooner than I thought. My bad - because it would absolutely be remiss of me to talk about rising sea levels without talking more about the Pacific Islands

The situation for the Pacific Islands less good news and less optimistic. But it's not "underwater by 2025" or "certain doom" either by any means:

Of course and unfortunately, the first countries in the line of fire are island nations, mostly in the Pacific and Micronesia, that are inhabited. There are from what I can find, two countries that are predicted by some scientists to potentially be underwater by 2050, Kiribati and the Maldives. Many, many people on these islands are already being badly affected by rising sea tides. There are absolutely things we can do to help save them, which you can read about here, including "hard engineering" to artificially create and shore up islands. However, this would require really substantial aid from wealthy countries, which are currently only offering some (relatively paltry) resettlement aid. (Which is particularly appalling because most of these islands are still deeply suffering from the aftereffects of Western imperialism and especially United States, British, and French nuclear testing and nuclear waste in the region.)

Like in the initial post, the good news is there are real, concrete ways to help. The bad news is fucking colonialism might mean it's not enough. The other good news is that the spread of the internet and social media mean that the people living on these islands are finally getting the attention of journalists/the media, and with it, dramatically increased means to advocate for themselves. If climate reparations happen (and I think there's a very good chance they will, in the somewhat-near-ish future), these countries will absolutely be among the first in line for reparations.

Is it true some parts will be under water in 2025? I'm kinda of worried cause someone told me about it bc it was on the news

Eh, not really. Like, technically, but that's a very dramatic way to put it.

What that person told you about was probably this prediction, which says that some roads on some of the Florida Keys might be underwater by 2025.

Does that suck? Yes. But it's also pretty limited in scope.

(And by the way, that's probably not "underwater all the time." There will probably be a number of years of "the roads will be underwater at high tide specifically." I can't currently find a source on this, but that's how tides work, and the Florida Keys article does specifically mention them as a main problem.)

The areas in danger first are pretty universally small, very low islands. Actually, a dozen or so small islands have already gone underwater in the Pacific Ocean, but very importantly, none of those islands were inhabited.

They were mostly small reef islands (that is, the entire island is exposed coral reef detritus) and other uninhabited shoals. Mostly, they were so small scientists had to check old satellite images to even figure out that they disappeared. Literally, we're talking about chunks of land that are just 100 square meters/300 square feet. Again, not great, but still very limited in scope.

As this Live Science article thankfully explains, it's pretty unlikely that any countries at all will disappear before 2100.

Also, just because land is below sea level doesn't mean it will be underwater, and there are very real steps we can take to defend a lot of endangered cities/islands.

For example:

Much of the Netherlands is already below sea level, but the country isn't disappearing, because the Dutch have put a lot of work into building and maintaining coastal defenses.

Multiple surveys (including the one that found the missing islands in Micronesia) also found that not all low-lying islands are vulnerable to erosion and flooding. This is because many islands are protected by mangrove forests, lagoons, or both

Mangrove reforestation in particular is genuinely a super effective anti-flooding strategy that is being deployed pretty widely, and is expected to increase a lot in the coming years. Mangroves are effective at not only preventing short-term flooding, but also mitigating sea-level increases (in part by preventing erosion)

Some islands, esp Pacific Islands, have actually grown during the past couple decades, not shrunk. It really depends on what the island is made up of. Not all land is automatically doomed

You can read more about how sinking countries are fighting back here, and the lessons we can learn from them:

-via Time, June 13, 2019

And finally, and this is good news for reasons I'll explain in a second:

Some of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world are at the top of the danger list. (Note: the predictions at that link are based on some fairly severe warming predictions. They do NOT necessarily reflect what's going to happen or when.)

The cities that are going to be in danger the soonest (still away btw) include New York, London, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Dubai. Lots of very rich people in those cities! Who would really like to not have to move (any of their ten different homes lol)

So, flooding aside, we're going to (by necessity) get a lot better at figuring out the quickest, cheapest, most scalable, and most effective types of coastal defenses real fast.

Are rich countries going to be way more able to get strong coastal defense systems up quickly? Yes. Does that suck? Sure fucking does!! But these solutions don't all require a lot of money or tech to implement, even at a large scale, especially when it's local communities driving the effort.

And, importantly, when rich countries pour a ton of money into figuring this out, that will hugely expand our understanding of what techniques work best, why, and how best to deploy them in different situations. Unlike physical structures, that's valuable knowledge that can be shared very, very widely.

And any technology that comes out of this is going to work like solar panels and other green energy: as more people use it, it will get cheaper and cheaper. Probably really quickly.

So, all told, no one's going to be swallowed up in the next few years. We have time to work on this and a lot of people are already doing so.

Mostly, experts predict that the first wave of large-scale issues will be happening around 2050.

Three decades doesn't sound like enough time, in the face of something like this. But you know what? Responses to climate change are speeding up exponentially, and different types of responses are multiplying and magnifying each other.

We went from inventing flight to landing on the moon in just 66 years.

I wouldn't count us out of the climate change fight yet.

(...I wouldn't count on retiring to Florida either, though)

[atompowers]

6 Powers The New Legend of Zelda "Tears of the Kingdom" Equips You With to Build the Sequel to Our Climate Future

"May The Light Of Blessing Grant You The Strength You Seek."

1. Soar & Dive: Go Deeper to Find Roots

Systemic evil forces are accelerating ruin much farther under surfaces than most have dared venturing. To get all through the climate caves and decarbonization dungeons needed, it’s critical to face the real causes of The Upheaval tearing our world apart.

2. Ascend: Higher than the Boldest Horizons

The challenges ahead ask us to traverse great distance, find renewable energies of empowerment, and ride the winds of change to paraglide onwards. So that all can experience the beauty of a thriving, green world.

3. Companion: Working Together in Community

“It’s Dangerous To Go Alone! Take This.” —Old Man, The Legend of Zelda

On your quests, you’ll partner with people of all backgrounds. Uplift and support heroes who’ve been held at the margins. And collaborate with companions who’ll show you new ways to save the world.

4. Ultrahand: Multi-Solving Sustainably

Over your journey, you’ll face many tough trials with few easy answers. But by working sustainably with the world around you, you can build bigger bridges and dynamic vehicles, turning and attaching multiple solutions for massive impact.

5. Fuse: Justice & Equity into Every Solution

If it doesn’t solve the problem, is it a solution? With multiple species of systemic injustice stalking the vulnerable, reanimating calamity with the rising blood moon— any and every solution that truly solves our planet’s puzzle requires reparation, restoration, and systemic justice.

"Courage Need Not Be Remembered, For It Is Never Forgotten." —Zelda, Zelda:Breath Of The Wild

6. Recall: It’s Not Too Late

To face climate disruption and center solutions that actually solve the root causes. Don’t give into the darkness of despair the fossil-fueled and supremacist forces of evil want us to die by. Our Future is not a destination on the map, but a light we create. We can seal the darkness together on our collective adventure to save the kingdom.

Let's go!

Originally Posted on my Climate Poetry Blog Here

[commiepinkofag]

[probablyasocialecologist]

Almost 90% of the excess emissions are down to the wealthy global north, while the remainder are from high-emitting countries in the global south, especially oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

[...]

“Climate change reflects clear patterns of atmospheric colonisation,” said Jason Hickel, co-author and professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “Responsibility for excess emissions is largely held by the wealthy classes [within nations] who have very high consumption and who wield disproportionate power over production and national policy. They are the ones who must bear the costs of compensation.”

Demands are mounting to compensate climate-vulnerable countries for the threats they face due to the excessive greenhouse gas emissions of others, as part of a broader climate justice movement to make polluters pay for the climate crisis and green energy transition.

[...]

According to research published last month, the world’s top oil, gas and coal companies are responsible for $5.4tn (£4.3tn) in drought, wildfires, sea level rise and melting glaciers among other climate catastrophes expected between 2025 and 2050. This was the first study quantifying the economic burden caused by individual companies that have extracted – and continue to extract – wealth from planet-heating fossil fuels.

[koheletgirl]

ok so i don't personally believe in the 2 states solution (for a myriad of reasons i won't get into now), but why does it seem like everyone who supports it these days is labeled as a zionist? i know why i might think that, but i doubt it's for the same reasons so i'm genuinely asking here

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter 6. Revolution

How will reparations for past oppressions be worked out?

If government and capitalism disappeared overnight, people would still be divided. Legacies of oppression generally determine where we live; our access to land, water, a clean environment, and necessary infrastructure; and the level of violence and trauma in our communities. People are accorded vastly differing degrees of social privilege according to skin color, gender, citizenship, economic class, and other factors. Once the exploited of the earth rise up to seize the wealth of our society, what exactly will they inherit? Healthy land, clean water, and hospitals, or depleted soil, garbage dumps, and lead pipes? It depends largely on their skin color and nationality.

An essential part of an anarchist revolution is global solidarity. Solidarity is the polar opposite of charity. It does not depend on an inequality between giver and receiver. Like all good things in life, solidarity is shared, thus it destroys the categories of giver and receiver and neither ignores nor validates whatever unequal power dynamics may exist between the two. There can be no true solidarity between a revolutionary in Illinois and a revolutionary in Mato Grosso if they must ignore that the one’s house is built with wood stolen from the lands of the other, ruining the soil and leaving him and his entire community with fewer possibilities for the future.

Anarchy must make itself wholly incompatible with colonialism, either a colonialism that continues to the present day in new forms, or a historical legacy which we try to ignore. Thus an anarchist revolution must also base itself in the struggles against colonialism. These include people in the Global South who are trying to reverse neoliberalism, indigenous nations struggling to regain their land, and black communities still fighting to survive the legacies of slavery. Those who have been privileged by colonialism — white people and everyone living in Europe or a European settler state (the US, Canada, Australia) — should support these other struggles politically, culturally, and materially. Because anti-authoritarian rebellions have been limited in scope thus far, and meaningful reparations would have to be global in scale because of the globalization of oppression, there are no examples that fully demonstrate what reparations would look like. However, some small-scale examples show that the willingness to make reparations exists, and that the anarchist principles of mutual aid and direct action can accomplish reparations more effectively than democratic governments — with their refusal to acknowledge the extent of past crimes and their embarrassing half measures. The same goes for revolutionary governments, which typically inherit and cover up oppression within the states they take over — as exemplified by how callously the governments of the USSR and China took their places at the heads of racial empires while claiming to be anti-imperialist.

In the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, the Zapatistas rose up in 1994 and won autonomy for dozens of indigenous communities. Named after Mexican peasant revolutionary Zapata and espousing a mix of indigenous, Marxist, and anarchist ideas, the Zapatistas formed an army guided by popular “encuentros,” or gatherings, to fight back against neoliberal capitalism and the continuing forms of exploitation and genocide inflicted by the Mexican state. To lift these communities up out of poverty following generations of colonialism, and to help counter the effects of military blockades and harassment, the Zapatistas called for support. Thousands of volunteers and people with technical experience came from around the world to help Zapatista communities build up their infrastructure, and thousands of others continue to support the Zapatistas by sending donations of money and equipment or buying fair-trade goods[105] produced in the autonomous territory. This assistance is given in a spirit of solidarity; most importantly, it is on the Zapatista’s own terms. This contrasts starkly with the model of Christian charity, in which the goals of the privileged giver are imposed on the impoverished receiver, who is expected to be grateful.

Peasants in Spain had been oppressed throughout centuries of feudalism. The partial revolution in 1936 enabled them to reclaim the privilege and wealth their oppressors had derived from their labors. Peasant assemblies in liberated villages met to decide how to redistribute territory seized from large landowners, so those who had labored as virtual serfs could finally have access to land. Unlike the farcical Reconciliation Commissions arranged in South Africa, Guatemala, and elsewhere, which protect oppressors from any real consequences and above all preserve the unequal distribution of power and privilege that is the direct result of past oppressions, these assemblies empowered the Spanish peasants to decide for themselves how to recover their dignity and equality. Aside from redistributing land, they also took over pro-fascist churches and luxury villas to be used as community centers, storehouses, schools, and clinics. In five years of state-instituted agrarian reform, Spain’s Republican government redistributed only 876,327 hectares of land; in just a few weeks of revolution, the peasants seized 5,692,202 hectares of land for themselves.[106] This figure is even more significant considering that this redistribution was opposed by Republicans and Socialists, and could only take place in the part of the country not controlled by the fascists.

[quotesfrommyreading]

In November, world leaders at the most recent big climate meeting, known as COP27, agreed to set up a “loss and damage” fund, bankrolled by rich countries, to help poor countries harmed by climate change. Now comes the hard part of figuring out the details: This week, a special United Nations committee set up to plan the fund will meet for the first time, in Luxor, Egypt. Delegates will start negotiating which nations will be able to draw from the fund, where it will be housed, where the money will come from, and how much each country should pitch in. At this point, the fund is “an empty bucket,” says Lien Vandamme, a senior campaigner at the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law, who is in Egypt for the negotiations. “Everything is still open.” Other meetings will follow, and the committee will make its recommendations to the world this fall in Dubai at COP28.

If the past several decades of climate negotiations are anything to go on, the loss-and-damage fund will be poorly endowed, or filled with money that got moved over from some other fund and relabeled, or in the form of loans rather than grants. If that happens, it will likely be perceived by poorer nations as yet another inadequate response by the same countries that messed up the climate in the first place. And those that are wronged are unlikely to simply suffer in silence.

The loss-and-damage fund would be separate from what is currently the dominant form of climate funding that flows to the global South: money to help low-income nations reduce their emissions. And it would also be separate from “adaptation,” money to help areas prepare for disasters or avoid the harms of warming. Instead, the new fund would be provided by rich countries to compensate poor countries that have already suffered losses. In a word, it would be reparations.

The agreement to establish a fund for this purpose was initially opposed by some rich countries. The U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in the fall that helping the developing world cope with climate change is “a moral obligation”—but he wanted that help to flow through existing funds and institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries, however, demanded a new, dedicated fund, and they ultimately prevailed. Almost all the details were left to be finalized at COP28 in Dubai, after the committee has worked to iron out specifics. But by agreeing that a loss-and-damage fund should exist, countries seem to be reluctantly acknowledging that they bear some moral accountability for climate change. “It is very clear that developed countries have a historical responsibility,” says Liane Schalatek, a climate-finance expert at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Washington, D.C., who is also in Luxor this week.

Funds are especially needed for the “day after” problems—the ongoing work of rebuilding and recovering after a flood or a heat wave is over and the emergency foreign aid has dried up, Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s delegate to this week’s meeting, told me. People don’t just need tarp tents and bowls of rice. They need “social support, a way to return livelihoods,” Nasr said.

But how much is enough? One analysis suggests that the true scale of the financial losses due to climate change outside of the West may be as much as $580 billion a year by 2030, and some groups are considering a figure in that ballpark to be the minimum acceptable amount. Another analysis estimated that America owed $20 billion for global climate losses in 2022, a number that would rise to about $117 billion annually by 2030. Nasr demurred on naming specific amounts, suggesting that the workings of the fund be negotiated first. The needs are enormous, and mentioning figures at this point would only “scare people,” he said. “If you put a number on at the beginning, the focus will only be on the number,” he told me. But he did add that “it will be in the billions.”

Given that the standing UN goal for all types of climate funding from rich countries to poorer ones—$100 billion—has never been met, filling the loss-and-damage fund with hundreds of billions of dollars feels like an almost impossible lift. “It will be a huge challenge to get countries to agree on the amount that is needed,” says Leia Achampong of the European Network on Debt and Development. For many delegates from the global South, a key demand is that the fund not come in the form of loans. Many poor countries, including Pakistan, are already dealing with debt, which is affecting their ability to provide for their own citizens. More loans would just add to this debt burden. “If a country is in debt, you have the World Bank and the IMF calling for austerity, and the first thing that usually goes is the social safety net,” Schalatek told me.

  —  The West Agreed to Pay Climate Reparations. That Was the Easy Part

[mcpuffin-fax]

Everyone, PLEASE read this post. It will save the lives of many people who understand exactly what is going on behind the scenes of Climate Change.

We all need to take charge in taking down these industrial monsters that continue to make profits off of our fears and limited knowledge of what they are TRULY doing when they say that they’re HELPING us tackle climate change.

[brianbachochin]

Prophecy Brief: A discussion on the ground-level impact of global economic trends

Had a great opportunity to do our first ever interview on the Parson’s Pad Podcast, sitting down with a good friend and financial advisor, to discuss the ground-level impact of some of the larger looming economic concerns of our day.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

In this episode, Christina De La Rocha talks to Dr Hélène Jacot Des Combes, Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation Advisor to the National Disaster Management Office of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. They discuss sea level rise, infrastructure that can adapt to climate change, and land reclamation and protection. Dr Des Combes speaks passionately about reparations (for decades of colonialism, the US’s testing of atomic weapons on the atolls of the Marshall Islands, forced relocation of the Marshallese people, climate injustice, and much more) and advocates for the Marshallese peoples’ right to their own lands.

You can read more about the Marshall Islands' unique position at the forefront of sea level rise at PacificaRisa.org. For further reading, check out the Republic of the Marshall Islands' Climate Change website here, you can read up on the Government of the Marshall Islands' Adaptation Communication (Dec 2020) here, and the World Bank's page on the Marshall Islands has some informative visuals.

Connect with Solarpunk Magazine at solarpunkmagazine.com and on Twitter @solarpunklitmag

Connect with Solarpunk Presents Podcast on Twitter @SolarpunkP, Mastodon @solarpunkpresents@climatejustice.rocks, or at our blog https://solarpunkpresents.com/

Connect with Ariel at her blog, on Twitter at @arielletje, and on Mastodon @arielkroon@wandering.shop

Connect with Christina at her blog, on Twitter @xtinadlr, and on Mastodon @xtinadlr@wandering.shop