carbon trading

Absent Trump looms large over COP30

Following another year of record temperatures and powerful storms, world leaders are gathering in Belém, Brazil, for the opening of the COP30 climate talks. But the leaders attending—notably, they do not include US President Donald Trump—will be confronted by a fraying global consensus on climate change, amid difficult geopolitical headwinds. A major risk to multilateral climate action is the presidency of Trump, who has described global warming as the world's "greatest con job." Reuters reported that some European officials have been bracing for a possible intervention by the Trump administration—despite the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Washington recently torpedoed a carbon levy on shipping, and European officials are worried that the Trump administration could make threats with tariffs or visa restrictions to influence the COP talks too. "If they pull the same tactics, I think there's zero chance of having any sort of rallying around the Paris Agreement in response," one official told Reuters. (Photo: CounterVortex)

UN climate pledges miss the mark for Paris goals

The international process to tackle climate change is still alive—but the vital target of restricting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels under the 2015 Paris Agreement might not be. More than 100 countries submitted their national climate plans to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The "nationally determined contribution" policies (NDCs) are crucial for collective global progress to reduce greenhouse emissions. The fact that officials turned up with documents in hand is itself notable in a year fraught with international tension and growing climate-denialist narratives. (Donald Trump in his speech to the General Assembly dismissed climate change as "the greatest con job ever.") But the NDCs are nothing close to sufficient to meet the 1.5°C "survival limit," said Romain Ioualalen, policy chief at Oil Change International. "Not all countries bear equal responsibility for this collective failure," added Ioualalen. "A handful of wealthy Western countries, led by the United States…have doubled down on oil and gas production for the past decade with no intention of changing course, mocking any notion of justice and equity in the transition." (Photo: United Nations Photo via Flickr)

Podcast: Meanwhile, the planet is dying….

Two landmark rulings on the urgent responsibility of states to address the climate crisis are issued—by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a proceeding brought by Chile and Colombia, and by the World Court in a proceeding brought by the threatened Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu. Meanwhile in the USA, the Trump regime withdraws from the Paris Agreement, removes greenhouse gases from EPA oversight, drops subsidies for solar energy—and even destroys NASA's climate-monitoring satellites! This as receding Arctic ice sheets and sea ice begin to destabilize the climate-regulating Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), melting glaciers unleash deluges from the Swiss Alps to the Himalayas of Nepal, wildfires rage from Canada to California to the Mediterranean, and ocean acidification crosses a "'planetary boundary" that portends global biosphere collapse. In Episode 290 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unflinching look at the long odds for humanity's future—even if we manage to avoid nuclear war. (Image: blende12/Pixabay)

Global forest loss shattered records in 2024

Global forest loss surged to record highs in 2024, driven by a catastrophic rise in fires, according to new data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) Lab, made available on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform. Loss of tropical primary forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares—nearly twice as much as in 2023 and an area nearly the size of Panama, at a rate of 18 soccer fields each minute. For the first time on record, fires—not agriculture—were the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, accounting for nearly 50% of all destruction. This marks a dramatic shift from recent years, when fires averaged just 20%. Meanwhile, tropical primary forest loss driven by other causes also jumped by 14%, the sharpest increase since 2016. (Photo via Mongabay)

New York state climate law makes polluters pay

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law empowering the state government to levy heavy fines on fossil fuel companies. The fines will go to a "superfund" that pays for addressing environmental damages caused by human-driven climate change. The Climate Change Superfund Act creates an adaptation cost recovery program which will be paid for by fossil fuel companies and is estimated to raise $75 billion over 25 years. Climate change is expected to cost New York taxpayers half a trillion dollars in repair and preparations for extreme weather between now and 2050. (Photo of East River Power Plant, New York City, via Wikimedia Commons)

Global carbon emissions hit record high in 2024

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high in 2024, with still no sign that they've peaked, according to a "carbon budget" assessment by the UK-based Global Carbon Project. Researchers found that burning of oil, gas and coal emitted 41.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2024, a 0.8% increase over 2023. When added to emissions generated by land-use changes such as deforestation, a total of 45.8 billion tons of CO2 was emitted in 2024. At this rate, the researchers see a 50% chance that global warming will exceed the 1.5 Celsius warming target set by the Paris Agreement within six years. The findings come as the UN climate talks open in Azerbaijan, where the parties are ostensibly negotiating ways to meet the Paris targets. But the leaders of the biggest carbon emitters—those nations responsible for 70% of 2023 emissions—did not bother to attend the gathering. (Photo of Azerbaijan oilfields: Indigoprime via Wikimedia Commons)

AI, nuclear power and the end of the Earth

Tech companies now acknowledge that they are failing to meet their carbon emission reduction goals because of the mega-computing necessary for artificial intelligence—as if AI were something good and inevitable rather than ultra-dystopian. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry exploits carbon concerns to lubricate its comeback—with even countries like Kenya now planning reactors, amid oppressive and iniquitous social conditions. Even apart from the risk of devastating accidents, the normal functioning of nuclear power constitutes an ongoing disaster due to the dilemmas of waste disposal and the despoliation of indigenous lands by uranium mining. Climate disaster versus nuclear disaster is a false choice posed by omnicidal techno-capitalism. The only way to salvage a dignified human future lies in the abolition of fossil fuels, nuclear power and artificial intelligence alike. So argues Bill Weinberg in Episode 234 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Image: Earth First! Newswire)

Did Africa’s first climate summit miss the point?

The inaugural biennial Africa Climate Summit, attended by some 30,000 delegates including 17 heads of state, wrapped up in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, following three days of discussions largely centred on the opportunities for "green" economic growth on the continent. The summit issued the Nairobi Declaration, containing a slew of pledges and demands, including calls to accurately value the continent's natural carbon sequestration assets (such as its forests). The declaration also called on wealthy countries to live up to their existing commitments to cut emissions and to deliver funds for adaptation—by properly launching, for example, the Loss & Damage Fund agreed to at last year's COP27 in Egypt. However, the summit was also dogged by controversy and protests, with more than 500 civil society organizations signing an open letter claiming its agenda had been hijacked to market "false solutions" such as carbon markets. (Photo: Evan Habil/Greenpeace)

Protest against oil drilling during Amazon summit

Protesters demonstrated in Belém, Brazil, during the international Amazon Dialogues summit, against the state oil company Petrobras' proposal to begin offshore drilling at the mouth of the Amazon River. The proposed project is located in deep waters off the Brazillian state of Amapá. The company's application for a license was rejected by the Brazilian Institute of Environment & Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) due to "technical inconsistencies." Petrobras filed an appeal against Ibama’s decision, contending they had fulfilled all technical requirements. However, Marina Silva, Brazil's minister of Environment & Climate Change, affirmed that the central government would uphold IBAMA's decision. The Amazon Dialogues were hosted by Silva's ministry, and brought together representatives from governments across the Amazon Basin. (Photo via Twitter)

Podcast: climate change and the global struggle III

In Episode 151 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes a tellingly ironic juxtaposition of simultaneous news stories: the COP27 global climate summit in Egypt and the World Cup games in Qatar—where mega-scale stadium air-conditioning betrays the fundamental unseriousness of our civilization in addressing the impending climate apocalypse. The COP27 agreement for a "loss and damage" fund stops short of demands for climate reparations—a critical question for island nations that stand to disappear beneath the waves, flood-devastated Pakistan, and indigenous peoples of the fire-ravaged Bolivian Amazon. Petro powers like Russia and Saudi Arabia formed a bloc to bar any progress on limiting further expansion of oil and gas exploitation, while the Ukrainian delegation called for a boycott of Moscow's hydrocarbons, and pointed to the massive ecological toll of Russia's war of aggression. Meanwhile, the world population reached 8 billion, providing an excuse for groups like PopulationMatters to proffer the Malthusian fallacy even as the rate of population growth is actually slowing. Worldwide indigenous and peasant resistance to hydrocarbon exploitation points to a revolutionary response to the crisis. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Bolivian campesino volunteer fire-fighter. Credit: Claudia Belaunde via Mongabay)

Planet Watch

Podcast: climate change and the global struggle II

UN Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned Russia's largest yet wave of drone and missile attacks in Ukraine, especially noting strikes that disrupted the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), endangering nuclear safety. Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also warned of the persisting "extremely fragile" situation at Europe's largest nuclear facility. Russia's latest air-strike against the ZNPP marked the ninth time power was broken off to the plant since the war began in February 2022. Although external power has been restored, Grossi cautioned that the situation remains unsafe. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Planet Watch

UN: no ‘credible pathway’ to Paris climate goals

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia unanimously upheld the criminal contempt conviction against Chief Dsta'hyl (Adam Gagnon), finding him in breach of a court injunction by protesting against a pipeline project in the territories of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation. In 2019, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an injunction banning protests in the construction area of the Coastal GasLink pipeline project. Defying the injunction, Chief Dsta'hyl organized a blockade in an attempt to block the construction in 2021. At trial, he contended that the protests were necessary to uphold the traditional Wet’suwet’en law of trespass and fulfill his duties as a chief to preserve and protect their yintah (territory). The trial judge rejected the defense, holding that it was an impermissible "collateral attack" on the injunction. Amnesty International declared Chief Dsta'hyl Canada's first prisoner of conscience. (Image: Front Line Defenders)