It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
CBC
Tue, February 6, 2024
The Quest Carbon Capture and Storage facility at Shell's Scotford complex northeast of Edmonton. (Kyle Bakx/CBC - image credit)
Federal New Democrats say it's time for Canada to do to the fossil fuel industry what it did to tobacco companies by banning misleading ads that market the industry as offering a solution to climate change.
The NDP's natural resources critic Charlie Angus tabled a private members bill (C-372) in the House of Commons this week. The bill would ban what the party describes as misleading fossil fuel advertising, similar to the way cigarette ads were restricted in the 1990s.
At a news conference Tuesday, Angus said Canada's oil industry is shifting its "propaganda" strategy by promoting its products as clean and claiming they can be part of the climate solution.
"That's like Benson and Hedges telling you that they can help end lung cancer," Angus said. "This is because big oil has always relied on the big tobacco playbook of delay and disinformation."
In 1997, the Canadian government enacted new tobacco control legislation after the Supreme Court struck down a 1989 law which the tobacco industry challenged as an unconstitutional restriction of freedom of expression.
The new bill would outlaw marketing that downplays the climate-altering emissions and health hazards associated with the industry, or promotes fossil fuels in ways that are false, misleading or deceptive.
Health Canada estimates that air pollution caused primarily by burning fossil fuels in North America contributes to 15,300 premature deaths per year in Canada. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) cites research that states fossil fuel air pollution in Canada leads to 34,000 premature deaths annually.
CAPE was among the stakeholders standing with Angus at Monday's news conference. It's also one of the groups that complained to the Competition Bureau about an organization that represents the six largest oil and gas companies, the Pathways Alliance.
CAPE claims Pathways's net-zero ads were misleading because the consortium has not fully accounted for how it would achieve net-zero emissions.
"This is false. Oil can never be net-zero because 80 per cent of the life cycle emissions are released when oil is burned," said Leah Temper, CAPE's director of health and economic policy.
Burning coal, oil and gas accounts for 75 per cent of global climate-altering emissions and 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions, according to the UN.
The Pathways Alliance was not immediately available to comment on the bill. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said it follows Canadian advertising laws.
"Advertising is one way we can reach Canadians to ensure they are informed of the progress their oil and natural gas industry is making on these critical matters," said Lisa Baiton, CAPP's president and CEO.
In a statement, the office of Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said the federal government is holding the oil and gas sector accountable for its emissions through measures like a proposed framework to cap oil and gas emissions. The statement stopped short of supporting Angus's bill.
"We welcome the NDP's bill to the House. Advertisement has a big role to play in public perception, and the industry is racking in record profits," said Kaitlin Power, press secretary to the environment minister. "We will carefully assess their bill and look forward to productive debates and discussions around this important issue."
Saturday, January 27, 2024
COVID-19 pandemic perceived as less serious than other health problems
UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
A large seven-country study has shed light on how serious people find the COVID-19 pandemic compared to other major public health problems. The results were surprising and provide guidance to healthcare providers as well as policymakers.
Researchers from seven Environment for Development (EfD) centers plus the EfD Global Hub, located at the University of Gothenburg, have conducted an extensive survey on how serious people perceive COVID-19. This study is now bearing fruit in the form of publications, the first being: Perceptions of the seriousness of major public health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in seven middle-income countries.
Respiratory illnesses ranked more serious
Over 10,000 respondents ranked the seriousness of the seven health problems (alcoholism and drug use, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, lung cancer and respiratory diseases caused by air pollution and smoking, and water-borne diseases like diarrhea).
Their answers revealed that in most countries respiratory illnesses were perceived to be a more serious problem than COVID-19. Surprisingly, in six of the seven countries, respondents ranked waterborne diseases as the least serious health problem. In the seventh country (South Africa) it was ranked next to last. In Africa, people felt that alcoholism and drug use were also more serious than COVID-19.
Don’t crowd out ordinary healthcare
These findings are important because they show that people still care about the health problems they were facing before the pandemic.
“An important lesson for health ministries is to not get too carried away by what media focuses on a particular point in time. It is important to avoid crowding out ordinary health services,” says Dale Whittington.
“It’s also clear that public perceptions of the seriousness of health problems can differ considerably within and across countries and population segments defined by demographics and knowledge.”
EfD Director Gunnar Köhlin notes that the study is unique in the way it has tied together researchers from seven countries in the Global South with leading researchers in the US and Sweden in a joint data collection and analysis effort.
“A study like this can put novel phenomena, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, into a perspective of the more persistent challenges the countries in the Global South face,” he says.
About the study:
Countries included in the study: Colombia, South Africa, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Vietnam.
The study was led by professors Richard Carson, Dale Whittington, and Michael Hanemann. The researchers designed a survey and used the research company YouGov’s internetpanel to send it to over 10,000 recipients in seven countries, in early 2022.
Contact:
For more information, contact: Gunnar Köhlin, Director EfD, gunnar.kohlin@efd.gu.se, +46 31 786 4426.
JOURNAL
Communications Medicine
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Perceptions of the seriousness of major public health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in seven middle-income countries
Turning up the heat on clean energy: The impact of electric cooking on reducing no2-related diseases in urban china
NANJING INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, MEE
Air pollution, a critical global public health issue, includes indoor air pollution from household fossil fuel consumption, notably from gas cooking in urban areas. In urban China, where population growth and urbanization are on the rise, NO2, a byproduct of gas cooking and outdoor pollution, poses a significant health threat. A groundbreaking study reveals the significant public health benefits of transitioning from gas to electric cooking in urban China. Researchers found that such a switch could reduce the economic losses associated with diseases caused by nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure by 35%.
On a new study (DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2023.10.003) published in the journal Eco-Environment & Health, researchers from Tsinghua University used modeled NO2 exposure concentrations, exposure-response relationships with lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes mellitus, and baseline DALYs to estimate the disease burden attributable to NO2 exposure in urban China in 2019. The result showed that approximately 1,675 thousand DALYs and 138 billion Chinese yuan in economic losses were attributed to NO2 in 2019. The study also estimated the potential reduction in disease burden that could be achieved by switching from gas to electric stoves for household cooking. Remarkably, transitioning from gas to electric cooking in households could reduce these losses by 35%.
"This study highlights the importance of considering both outdoor and indoor sources of NO2 exposure when assessing the health impacts of air pollution," said Prof. Zhao, lead author of the study. "Switching from gas to electric stoves is a simple and effective way to reduce NO2 exposure and improve public health."
The study's findings challenge the conventional view of gas as a clean energy source for cooking. It emphasizes the significant public health benefits of switching to electric cooking in urban settings. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of comprehensive strategies targeting both indoor and outdoor NO2 emissions to effectively mitigate pollution and its associated health risks.
###
References
DOI
Original Source URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eehl.2023.10.003
About Eco-Environment & Health
Eco-Environment & Health (EEH) is an international and multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal designed for publications on the frontiers of the ecology, environment and health as well as their related disciplines. EEH focuses on the concept of "One Health" to promote green and sustainable development, dealing with the interactions among ecology, environment and health, and the underlying mechanisms and interventions. Our mission is to be one of the most important flagship journals in the field of environmental health.
JOURNAL
Eco-Environment & Health
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Reconsidering Gas as Clean Energy: Switching to Electricity for Household Cooking to Reduce NO2-attributed Disease Burden
Monday, January 22, 2024
Can giant air cleaners solve the air pollution crisis?
China has constructed the world’s largest experimental air-purifying tower
By Elizabeth Xu — Published January 21, 2024
In 2016, researchers in Xi’an, China — a city long plagued by air pollution — constructed the world’s largest experimental air-purifying tower. The researchers, from the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that the surrounding area of over three square miles has improved in air quality.
Data collected in the vicinity of the experimental tower shows that this kind of tower presents promising solutions for cities contending with the escalating air pollution crisis. If similar initiatives were implemented globally, their impact could extend beyond individual cities, resulting in significant benefits for public health.
Air quality: The current landscape
Awareness of air pollution’s detrimental effects dates back several decades, when the US government was one of the first countries to introduce legislation to reduce air pollution: the Air Pollution Control Act, signed in 1955, provided funding for air pollution research. The enactment of the 1970 US Clean Air Act allowed regulators to limit emissions from both industrial sources and transportation, leading to efforts to reduce air pollution emissions, such as investments in the development of cleaner, less carbon-intensive technologies.
Despite increased awareness of air pollution, data reveals that hardly any place on Earth is spared from unhealthy air conditions. A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal found that only approximately 0.2 per cent of global land has been exposed to fine particulate matter — any particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter, also known as PM2.5 — at concentrations lower than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended annual limit of five micrograms per cubic metre.
This means that more than 99 per cent of global land is exposed to dangerous concentrations of fine particulate matter, which originates as a byproduct of industrial combustion and poses a significant threat to human health due to its ability to be inhaled deep into the lungs.
A 2022 WHO report looked at findings from over 6,000 cities across 117 countries that are monitoring air quality. About 99 per cent of the global population breathes air that’s over WHO’s quality limits, with the most significant impacts on low and middle-income countries.
WHO’s data from 2019 showed that regions with high industrial activity, like areas in southern and eastern Asia, face a heightened risk of air quality issues. In some of these places, air quality is over WHO’s daily limit — 15 micrograms of gaseous pollutants per cubic metre — for over 90 per cent of the year. This leaves the majority of the global population vulnerable to the health risks associated with chronic exposure to air pollution, such as lung cancer and heart diseases, resulting in 6.7 million premature deaths worldwide.
How does the giant air filter work?
Standing at over 100 metres tall — and costing the Shaanxi provincial government roughly 2.69 million CAD to build — Xi’an’s air-purifying tower produces clean air at a rate of about eight cubic metres per second. The tower operates using solar energy that traps solar heat in the tower, which heats up polluted air drawn in through the tower’s base in an effect similar to the greenhouse effect. This heated air then rises through the filters within the tower.
Since its activation, the tower has cleansed more than 10 million cubic metres of air daily, significantly enhancing the air quality in its vicinity. Plans are underway to construct more towers across China in areas with unhealthy air quality levels, including Guangzhou, Hebei, and Henan.
To assess the impact of these experimental air purifiers, Xi’an placed over a dozen pollution monitoring stations across a 10-square-kilometre area around the tower. In just a few months, preliminary results found a 15 per cent reduction in PM2.5 levels during episodes of heavy pollution.
With promising preliminary results and expansion plans to introduce these projects to more Chinese cities, other countries are taking note. Kurin Systems, an air purification company based in India, was inspired by the giant air purifier tower in Xi’an and intends to install a 12-metre purification tower in New Delhi, long plagued with poor air as one of the world’s most polluted cities, with hopes to purify 1,130 cubic metres of air per day within an area of about five square kilometres.
Limitations and concerns for giant air purifiers
While large air filter towers hold potential for providing clean air to surrounding communities, their capacity remains local. Cao Junji, a chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Key Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics in Xi’an, proposed building up to half a dozen purifying towers around the city to significantly reduce air pollution. Furthermore, these air purifiers cannot replace indoor air filtration systems for buildings in highly polluted areas, such as factories and airports. In such cases, air purifiers and air filters remain the best solution for safe indoor air quality.
Critics argue that without more data regarding the power consumption for these filtration towers, the energy input required for operating these giant air purifiers seems like they might not be the best use of energy. Redirecting the same amount of power to generate clean electricity or reducing pollution at the source could also significantly reduce pollution. Other scientists worry that these towers may not effectively filter toxins that can be precursors to harmful particulate matter or liquids capable of penetrating the lungs and causing health problems, such as sulphur dioxide gas or secondary gaseous pollutants like ozone.
Nevertheless, giant air cleaners offer hope in areas where air quality is a major concern. While they may have limits and cannot single-handedly purify the air for entire cities, they serve as a valuable resource for improving air quality in regions of dangerous air quality levels where the reduction of air pollution is very difficult. They can potentially provide a temporary solution as scientists and policymakers work on strategies to reduce air pollution at its source.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
Mon, December 11, 2023
For Dr. Aaron Hultgren, the wake-up call was Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when the young emergency physician returned from an overseas trip and found his hospital without power, its doors closed to the public.
Dr. Lakshmi Balasubramanian, an oncologist in Austin, Texas, signed up to study climate medicine after the death of a patient who was trapped in her home during a freak winter storm two years ago.
Dr. Paul Charlton, a physician with the Indian Health Service in northwest New Mexico, was motivated by 2023’s summer heat wave, when temperatures cracked 100 degrees Fahrenheit for nearly a week straight in July, setting all-time records.
Hultgren, Charlton and Balasubramanian traded these stories in early November as they gathered in College Station, Texas, midway through a first-of-its-kind diploma program that will mint them as certified experts in “climate medicine.” The course is the brainchild of Dr. Jay Lemery, director of the Climate and Health Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
“This is our first foray into training a climate-savvy health care workforce,” Lemery said. “We need credible, knowledgeable and effective leaders, and we want to send a message to clinicians that these are critically important skills for mitigating climate-driven health effects.”
This past weekend, at the UN climate conference in Dubai, 123 countries signed an acknowledgment that climate change is having a major impact on human health, along with announcements of nearly half a billion dollars in funding commitments to bolster health systems and reduce overall harms to human health.
Lemery, who was at the meeting, says, “We just saw huge pledges and initiatives to double down on resiliency and decarbonisation, and yet no one has been trained to do this.”
Awareness of climate’s harms has been building, especially since 2009, when the journal The Lancet called climate change the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Warming temperatures extend the range of disease-carrying pests like mosquitoes. Heat and drought disrupt crop cycles, leading to food shortages. Between 2030 and 2050, according to a World Health Organization report in October, climate change will cause an extra 250,000 deaths per year just from malnutrition, malaria, diarrheal disease and heat stress.
Warnings like this are a growing part of US medical education. Since 2019, the number of US medical schools requiring coursework on the effects of climate change has more than doubled. Universities and public health graduate programs offer majors and concentrations, but the Colorado diploma program goes a step further and aims to turn working medical professionals into leading experts on climate and health.
“It’s specifically designed for working clinicians who are seeking a ‘heavyweight’ credential,” said Lemery, an emergency physician by training. “We wanted to build a program that has real gravitas.”
Lemery’s program offers five separate certificate programs, each of which satisfies requirements for continuing medical education credits.
To earn a diploma, students complete all five, over a period of more than two years. The most recent module was designed to help participants prepare for and simulate a response to a major weather disaster.
Following readings and class discussions — over Zoom, since participants live in all corners of the country — course directors Dr. Terry O’Connor and Dr. Bhargavi Chekuri booked two days at a unique training facility. “Disaster City” is sprawled across 52 acres near the Texas A&M campus, where visitors will find upside-down train cars, smashed cars and buses and pile after pile of concrete rubble. Physicians are not the usual clientele; firefighters, EMTs and disasters come for the facility’s world-renowned search-and-rescue training.
The November training didn’t include any rubble piles, but the climate medicine students ran through tabletop simulations posing challenges like: What does your hazard vulnerability assessment need to include? How do you convince hospital administrators to pay for expensive, disaster-proofing upgrades that may never be used? If your hospital’s backup generator runs out, do you evacuate all the patients?
Lemery says the simulations cut straight to the essence of medical training. “Practice makes perfect. We can’t possibly be good at something unless we flex those muscles, go through the paces and learn how to make it better. When disasters hit, we want our medical teams and hospitals to say, ‘Don’t worry, we got this.’ We don’t want them pacing around wondering where we keep the emergency action plan.”
The federal government and states have strict requirements for hospitals to avoid catastrophic power failures, but as the simulation exercise made clear, that may not be enough. Generators flood. Evacuation routes may be blocked.
Dr. Karen Glatfelter, a physician from Lawrence, Massachusetts, told the group that supply chain issues are common.
“After Hurricane Maria, hospitals across the country ran into IV saline shortages that took months to work through,” she said.
Arien Hermann, who oversees a regional hospital coordinating center in southern Illinois, noted that not all electrical outlets are connected to a generator. At one hospital in Hermann’s network, this included the entire kitchen.
“So if you lost power, you weren’t going to have a microwave; you weren’t going to have refrigeration; you weren’t going to have electric stoves; you weren’t even going to have lights.”
Feeding patients and staff, the group agreed, would be a problem.
Hurricane Sandy underscored the vulnerability of many major hospitals. The storm killed at least 147 people and caused $82 billion in damage, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Even Sandy faded into a mere tropical storm, a massive storm surge flooded 51 square miles of New York City, put much of Lower Manhattan underwater, led six hospitals to close and forced the evacuation of 6,500 patients. Hultgren, like many others, was utterly unprepared. “I never in a million years imagined that we would even lose power. It was a complete shock.”
Since Sandy, the number of weather disasters causing $1 billion or more in damage has soared; this year alone has seen 23 such events. But a changing climate is only one reason. A major factor is the higher cost of rebuilding, due to inflation, coupled with increased housing density in flood-, fire- and storm-prone areas. As a 2022 report from NOAA points out, “Much of the growth has taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts, the wildland-urban interface, and river floodplains.”
But recent years have also seen an apparent rise in storms like Hurricane Harvey, which dropped nearly 60 inches of rain on Houston while barely moving for five days, and Hurricane Idalia, which shocked forecasters in September by growing into a Category 4 storm nearly overnight. Such storms put an additional premium on planning and flexibility.
Unpredictable hurricanes aren’t the only threat from climate change, but they are part of what many people describe as climate “weirding,” new weather patterns that upend patterns of sickness and health.
Charlton, the Indian Health Service physician, whose home base of Gallup, New Mexico, sits at 6,500 feet of elevation, says he never imagined he would see the kind of extended heat that baked the town this summer. “Until now, we haven’t had to have cooling centers.”
Dr. Hilary Ong, a pediatric emergency physician from San Francisco, says doctors are taught to expect a cold and flu season that lasts from October to February. “Now, what I see in the pediatric emergency room is that respiratory season is lasting from September up to August. There was no break.”
Ong regularly cares for young patients who are dehydrated from extreme heat or struggling with asthma flare-ups after being exposed to wildfire smoke. She wonders, “Why am I seeing kids with asthma exacerbations all year ‘round?”
Being “climate-informed” helps clinicians do their daily jobs better, Chekuri says. She offers the example of a patient who comes in with a nagging cough. “A climate-informed physician might be aware of the fact that our pollen seasons are longer, sometimes more intense” and unpredictable. “If you’re not thinking about that change in the environment, then you can’t ask whether someone has had allergies before.”
Most doctors don’t think about climate on a day-to-day basis.“The realization about climate impacts on everyday patients was slow to come to me,” said Dr. Joanne Leovy, a physician from Las Vegas who is pursuing the climate medicine diploma. “People come into the office all the time with climate-related disease that we don’t recognize. And until you learn about the connections, you’re not going to see it.”
Many of the first doctors to focus on climate were emergency physicians or disaster relief workers. Those specialties are well represented in the Colorado program, but the group at Disaster City also includes three oncologists, a psychiatrist, an infectious disease specialist, a pediatrician, a family practitioner, two nurses and Hermann, a paramedic, Marine Corps veteran and hospital system administrator. Several students are already deeply involved in efforts to reduce waste and reduce the carbon footprint of the hospitals where they work; they point out that the US health care system is responsible for nearly 9% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Glatfelter pushed her hospital to switch out the standard gases used for anesthesia - replacing desflurane, the use of which in hospitals produces greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a million cars - with a less-harmful alternative.
Dr. Elizabeth Cerceo, a hospitalist who chairs the “green team” at Cooper University Hospital in southern New Jersey, says there’s a laundry list of improvements that most hospitals can make, from re-examining their supply chains to simply replacing standard light bulbs with LEDs. Often, she says, it’s simply inertia that blocks change.
Dr. Katie Lichter, an oncology resident at the University of California, San Francisco, co-founded the GreenHealth Lab at UCSF, which generates research reports about the environmental impact of health care practice and “how climate change may reduce patient access to essential care.”
Lichter’s big moment of clarity came during the first days of her residency training at UCSF. Just a few months after she moved to San Francisco in 2020, Northern California was struck with a string of severe wildfires that sent a heavy blanket of smoke across the region. Locals still refer to “orange-sky day,” when the thick smoke generated its most surreal views.
Lichter had just admitted a patient into the ICU with Covid-19 as well as worsening cancer and lung disease. “He had missed weeks of crucial chemo and radiation because he couldn’t travel because of the wildfires,” she said. Pulling off her mask and gloves and home that night, she had an epiphany: “Climate change was going to impact my patients directly. This would be part of my career in medicine.”
Indeed, Lichter’s published research shows that cancer patients treated during times of wildfires have worse outcomes. Although cancer isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to climate change, Lichter says it shows how climate’s effects ripple through everything the health system touches.
“It’s the whole continuum of care,” she said. “Climate change increases exposure to carcinogens through air pollution and increased exposure to viral causes of cancer. And with screening, climate disasters impact access, like a patient’s ability to go get a mammography.”
The ability to access treatment, too.
Balasubramanian, the Austin-based oncologist, can’t say for sure that a winter storm killed her patient, but the woman had been fine a few days earlier. “She was thriving and doing very well,” the doctor recalls. “She was an avid volunteer and an advocate for pets and other women with breast cancer.”
The Colorado team encourages participants in the diploma program to be advocates on climate-related issues. Says Ong, “That’s really my motivation [for taking this course], to learn about this kind of medicine, to be a better physician and in order to lead and advocate and educate my peers and colleagues.”
Lemery points out that even after the height of the Covid pandemic, doctors and nurses typically rank high as trusted sources of information. “It’s important to bring the best science forward with candid-evidence based risk assessments. Our job is to train practitioners to be confident and proficient in doing just that.”
Mike Bethel, a nurse in Fresno, California, says he feels a duty “to speak out, as that trusted source, about things we know are true. We know that climate change is happening, and we know that it’s impacting our health negatively. When we don’t speak out about that as a profession, I think we do a disservice.”
Bethel says air pollution blocks views of the coastal mountain range that were visible almost every day when he was a Boy Scout roaming the mountains not far from where he lives today. He goes on to list other ominous signs. In Fresno, he says, “summers are longer. Summers are hotter. Our wildfire seasons have extended; they’re starting earlier and ending later. I mean, we’re already beyond a point of no return. There’s some damage that is irreparable, and if we continue, we’re going to damage the planet to the point where maybe it’s just not habitable.”
This dark view is shared by many here, but it’s tempered by a strong streak of idealism. Hultgren, who was an elementary school teacher before going to medical school, says he’s excited about forging a new path.
“As an emergency medicine physician, you always want to be at the front line, and I feel like I am at the front line, really trying to do something. We’re trying to change and hopefully impact our future for the better.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Disaster City is located near the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas.
Monday, December 04, 2023
By MATT DRAKE
DAILY MAIL
3 December 2023
There is 'no science' behind phasing out fossil fuels and the policy will take the world 'back to caves', according to the head of COP28.
The president of the Dubai climate change summit, Sultan al Jaber, made the comments during an online question and answer session at a She Changes Climate event.
As well as running Cop28, Al Jaber is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates' state oil company, Adnoc.
His appointment as head of the Cop28 was branded 'completely ridiculous' by eco-warrior Greta Thunberg.
Sultan al Jaber made the comments during an online question and answer session at a She Changes Climate event
It is believed that cutting out fossil fossils will stop the world's temperatures rising by 1.5C (Stock photo)
Al Jaber has allegedly used the climate summit to bag more oil and gas deals for his national petro-firm Adnoc
Pope Francis calls for the elimination of fossil fuels at Cop28
In the recently emerged video, obtained by The Guardian, the sultan was responding to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change.
Ms Robinson said: 'We're in an absolute crisis that is hurting women and children more than anyone... and it's because we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuel.
'That is the one decision that Cop28 can take and in many ways, because you're head of Adnoc, you could actually take it with more credibility.'
Al Jaber replied: 'I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation.
Critics say Sultan Al Jaber shouldn't head both a UN climate summit and a massive oil firm
More than 70,000 officials, campaigners, and experts are expected to attend COP28 in Dubai
'I'm not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.
'There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5C.'
He added: 'Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.'
Video of the question and answer session took place on November 21 but it only emerged on Sunday.
More than 100 countries already support a phase-out of fossil fuels.
It is believed that cutting out fossil fossils will stop the world's temperatures rising by 1.5C.
The sultan's appointment as head of the Cop28 was branded 'completely ridiculous' by eco-warrior Greta Thunberg
There have also been accusations that he plans to hash out new oil and gas deals on the sidelines of Cop28 (Stock photo)
The video emerged days after UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called on the world to cut emissions to 'save' the planet.
Mr Guterres told the conference: 'The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels.
'Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.'
Climate leaders have since reacted with fury over the sultan's controversial remarks.
Chief executive of Climate Analytics Bill Hare said the comments were 'verging on climate denial'.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Adow director of Power Shift Africa said: 'The recent comments from the COP28 president show how entrenched he is in fossil fuel fantasy and is clearly determined that this COP doesn't do anything to harm the interests of the oil and gas industry.'
When the United Arab Emirates announced in January that Sultan Al Jaber would lead this year's COP28 climate talks, the news was met with high praise and harsh criticism in equal measure.
For some, Al Jaber - who earned his PhD in business and economics from Coventry University - was a fantastic choice.
In 2006, he was put in charge of Masdar, the UAE's renewable energy vehicle, and set off on a global fact-finding mission to assess obstacles and opportunities.
The UAE has since invested heavily in its nuclear and solar sector, building a massive state-of-the-art nuclear power plant, and Masdar has made shrewd investments in technologies in over 40 countries - moves which have earned Jaber a reputation for getting results.
But for others, there's one incontrovertible problem.
Because for all his work on renewable energy, 'Dr Sultan' also happens to be the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company - a giant producer of fossil fuels which plans to up its output to 5 million barrels of oil per day by 2027.
And Amnesty International has accused him of being responsible for instituting a stringent media censorship programme when he served as chairman of the National Media Council (NMC).
The backlash following the announcement earlier this year was significant, with some campaigners comparing the decision to 'appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures'.
Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at ActionAid, made a similar comparison, likening the appointment to 'putting the fox in charge of the henhouse'.
There have also been accusations that he plans to hash out new oil and gas deals on the sidelines of Cop28.
They are the latest claims to cast doubt on whether the talks will boost efforts to cut emissions of planet-heating gases, or are more akin to a public relations exercise for the Gulf petro-monarchy.
The Cop28 is the United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC.
This is the 28th conference and it is being held from November 30 until December 12 at Epo City, Dubai.
Cop28 is to serve as a formal meeting to negotiate and agree on action about how to tackle climate change.
The event has attracted such big names as King Charles III and Pope Francis. US President Joe Biden is however skipping the talks.
More than 70,000 officials, campaigners, and experts are expected to attend COP28 in Dubai.
One of the largest demonstrations in the Cop28 venue on Sunday called for a ceasefire in Gaza
By Megan Darby and Sebastian Rodriguez
Do you find it hard to reconcile the Sultan Al Jaber the climate champion with Sultan Al Jaber the oil chief? So does he, if an unscripted moment reported by the Guardian is anything to go on.
In a live event with former UN special envoy Mary Robinson in November, Al Jaber momentarily forgot his PR-approved lines and reverted to industry talking points.
“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” he said.
He dismissed Robinson’s call for a phase-out as “alarmist” and said it would “take the world back into caves”.
Leading scientists Jean-Pascal van Ypersele and Michael Mann wrote Al Jaber an open letter in response.
Speaking for the climate system, “the most difficult party… which has only red lines and no flexibility,” they said, “humanity needs to phase out fossil fuels by 2050”.
Carbon capture and storage can only mitigate “a very small fraction” of fossil fuel emissions, the letter said.
That last point is critical, as the oil and gas sector cites scenarios that show some residual fossil fuel use with CCS to justify production on a much larger scale.
Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, unpacks the CCS myth together with Emmanuel Guerin in an article for Climate Home News.
“People in the oil and gas industry know there is zero probability of [a] high-CCS scenario coming true,” they write. “The reality is they are just fooling us one more time, to buy time we can’t afford to waste in dealing with the climate crisis.”
Al Jaber’s slip of the tongue shows why precision matters in negotiations. Phase down can mean something very different to phase out, and “unabated” fossil fuels need further defining.
The latest headlinesDon’t be fooled: CCS is no solution to oil and gas emissions – Laurence Tubiana and Emmanuel Guerin, European Climate Foundation
Vietnam charts uncertain coal path as finance falls short
US tees up Congress battle with $3bn Green Climate Fund pledge
Health at the table
In a Cop first, health ministers took over plenary discussions on Sunday. Over 120 countries have signed a health declaration coordinated by the Cop28 presidency.
The declaration, and most ministerial statements, focused on strengthening healthcare systems as a means of climate adaptation.
It does not mention fossil fuels, or how burning coal, oil and gas releases harmful air pollutants besides greenhouse gases.
Sweden was one country to join the dots. “A decision here at Cop28 to phase out fossil fuels will contribute to [health] outcomes. The health of people and the planet cannot be separated,” said Mattias Frumerie, Swedish head of delegation.
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of climate and health at the World Health Organization, took the same view in a press conference.
“Talking about action on climate change without talking about fossil fuels is like talking about lung cancer without mentioning tobacco,” he said.
The ministerial plenary is an “important and delayed step”, but health discussions need to start mentioning fossil fuels, said Dr Arvind Kumar, founder of the Lung Care Foundation. Otherwise “the problem will not get solved”.
“Little cosmetic changes here and there are not going to make much of a difference,” he said.
In brief
Bad excuse? – Brazilian president Lula da Silva said in a meeting with NGOs that he is joining OPEC to “convince oil producing countries that they need to prepare for the end of fossil fuels”. Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro argued oil producers already know they have to move past oil.
Big polluters – Electricity generation in China and India, and oil and gas production in the US caused the biggest emissions rises since 2015, analysis published by Climate Trace shows. The figures are based on a database of 352 million emissions sources. Since the signing of the Paris Agreement emissions grew 8.6%.
Slow entrance – Crowds have eased at Cop28 since world leaders left town, yet long queues at the entrance still held up negotiations, Earth News Bulletin reports. More than 100,000 delegates are registered for Cop28, according to UN Climate Change.
Read more on: Cop28 | Cop28 newsletter
People walk through the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit as the sun sets, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)Photos
BY MARY KATHERINE WILDEMAN AND MICHAEL PHILLIS
December 3, 2023
At least 1,300 employees of organizations representing fossil fuel interests registered to attend this year’s United Nations climate talks in Dubai, more than three times the number found in an Associated Press analysis of last year’s talks, as new rules took effect requiring attendees to disclose their employment.
Aside from the new disclosure rules, the figure may have been boosted by a surge in attendance as Earth staggered through a year of record heat and devastating extreme weather attributed to climate change — conference registrations are nearly double that of last year’s talks. The United Nations body responsible for running the conference also released the details of far more attendees than in past years, including people not considered part of official state delegations.
The hundreds of fossil fuel-connected people make up just a tiny share of the 90,000 people who registered to attend the climate summit known as COP28. But environmentalists have repeatedly questioned their presence at an event where meaningful negotiations have to take aim at the heart of their businesses.
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Demonstrators display signs reading “end fossil fuels” at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Bob Deans, director of strategic engagement for the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said his group is hoping this year’s talks are the point where oil and gas “might begin to shift from being the biggest part of the climate problem to finally being part of the fix.”
“The industry needs to turn away from a business model that relies on destroying the planet,” said Deans, whose own group registered nearly two dozen people to attend. “That business model needs to change. Dubai must be the starting point.”
The companies represented by the 1,300-plus employees make up a big part of global emissions — which is also why they should have a place at the conference, they said.
5 reasons why COP28, the UN climate talks, are worth your attention
COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber fielded criticism in the months leading up his role presiding over COP28 because of his other job — heading up the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company. Al-Jaber alluded to the question about the proper role for fossil fuel companies in his opening remarks.
“Let history reflect the fact that this is the Presidency that made a bold choice to proactively engage with oil and gas companies,” al-Jaber said. He went on to praise many of those companies for commitments to reduce emissions, but added: “I must say, it is not enough, and I know that they can do more.”
On Saturday, al-Jaber announced that 50 oil companies representing almost half of global production had pledged to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring by 2030. Experts and environmentalists called it significant and meaningful, but still not enough.
COP28 comes as the planet faces a mounting imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming reached 1.25 degrees Celsius in October compared to pre-industrial levels, according to the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. And the UN warned in a pivotal September report “the window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all is rapidly closing.”
The Chevron Richmond Refinery operates in Point Richmond, Calif., Oct. 24, 2023.
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Fossil fuel companies have long had a hand in the talks, the first of which was in 1995. Research by the advocacy group Kick Big Polluters Out Coalition shows four of the “big five” oil and gas companies — Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and BP — have sent representatives to the annual climate talks nearly every year.
The four companies each said in statements they attend COP in order to advance green or low-carbon technologies and work toward their net-zero commitments. Low-carbon can mean such things as biofuels, hydrogen development and carbon capture and storage. All four have pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
The AP arrived at its tally for COP28 by analyzing the United Nations list of likely attendees to review details they offered upon registration, including the company they represented. Those details were checked against lists of operators and owners of coal mines, oil fields and natural gas plants, as well as manufacturers of carbon-intensive materials like steel and cement. It also included trade associations that represent those interests.
TotalEnergies registered to send a dozen people to COP28, the UN data shows. Paul Naveau, the company’s head of media relations, said TotalEnergies would have six experts on climate, carbon markets and biodiversity at the talks, and its CEO Patrick Pouyanné is speaking at a side event.
“The subjects broached at these events lie at the heart of the company’s ambition; our experts attend to listen to the discussions and support collective action,” Naveau said.
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Naveau said in response to AP questions that no TotalEnergies employees take part — or are even present for — the negotiations between countries.
Naveau highlighted the company’s plans for a third of its capital spending through 2028 to go toward “low carbon” energy. He also said the company is transparent about its attendees in Dubai “in order to kill the (false) idea that our company’s presence could be negative.”
A sign for the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit is displayed, Nov. 29, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
The Kick Big Polluters Out analysis, which covers 20 years, showed that Shell has sent the most people to the talks overall and most consistently. The company averaged six people over the last 20 years, though that’s likely an undercount since the U.N. didn’t require attendees to list their “home organizations” before this year.
Shell’s international policy positions support phasing out coal, expanding renewables, and treating natural gas as a “partner” to renewable sources of energy. Natural gas emits less carbon than most other fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency, but it still contributes to climate change. The IEA describes it as having “a limited role” in transitioning from coal to renewables.
The Kick Big Polluters Out research also identified the most frequent attendees.
Arthur Lee, a 30-year employee of Chevron, has been to every COP since 1999, he said on his LinkedIn page, and is registered to attend COP28. He was a contributor to the fourth IPCC assessment, the official UN climate report, as an expert on carbon capture and storage.
David Hone, Shell’s chief climate adviser, is in Dubai for at least his 17th appearance at the annual climate talks. Hone wrote in a blog post ahead of the talks that net-zero emissions goals “will require a major emphasis on the development of carbon removal practices and technologies.”
Neither Shell nor Chevon would make the two men available for interviews.
Fossil fuel companies are depending heavily on carbon capture to meet their net zero targets, even as some experts have expressed doubt about scaling it up sufficiently. At the moment, it’s preventing about 0.1% of the energy sector’s carbon emissions from reaching the atmosphere, according to the IEA.
Rachel Rose Jackson is director of climate research and international policy at Corporate Accountability, a group in the coalition that produced the Kick Big Polluters Out analysis, said carbon capture and storage are unproven technologies at the scale that would be required.
“It’s a massive diversion of resources, capacity and money that could be going to solutions that we know work, that are cost effective, that do reduce emissions and keep fossil fuels in the ground,” she said. “These so-called solutions are often dangerous distractions.”
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Kerry: Coal power plants shouldn't be "permitted anywhere in the world"
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said at COP28 Sunday that coal-fired power plants should no longer be permitted.
What he's saying: "The reality is the climate crisis and the health crisis are one and the same," Kerry said at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai, citing a study that found coal "doubles the number of deaths" compared to other sources of air-carried pollution.
- "Now, we don't need that necessarily to tell us we ought to be transitioning out of coal," he added.
- "There shouldn't be any more coal fired power plants permitted anywhere in the world. That's how you can do something for health. And the reality is that we're not doing it."
The big picture: Kerry has been outspoken in his concerns, given coal is a particularly carbon-intensive fuel and new plants are unlikely to be shut down for many years, Axios' Andrew Freedman notes.
- The U.S. and China are the world's two largest emitters and Kerry raised during meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, ahead of COP28 his concerns about Beijing being the largest coal consumer, approving new coal power plants at a rapid rate.
Go deeper: Coal has lots of staying power
US joins in swearing off coal power to clean the climate
AP – The United States (US) committed to the idea of phasing out coal power plants, joining 56 other nations in kicking the coal habit that’s a huge factor in global warming.
US Special Envoy John Kerry announced that America was joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which means the Biden Administration commits to building no new coal plants and phasing out existing plants. No date was given for when the existing plants would have to go, but other Biden regulatory actions and international commitments already in the works had meant no coal by 2035.
“We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities,” Kerry said in a statement. “The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants.”
Coal power plants have already been shutting down across the nation due to economics, and no new coal facilities were in the works, so “we were heading to retiring coal by the end of the decade anyway”, said climate analyst Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G. That’s because natural gas and renewable energy are cheaper, so it was market forces, he said.
As of October, just under 20 per cent of the US electricity is powered by coal, according to the US Department of Energy. The amount of coal burned in the US last year is less than half what it was in 2008.
Coal produces about 96 kilogrammes (kg) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide per million BTUs of energy produced, compared to natural gas which produces about 53kg and gasoline which is about 71kg.
COP28: There must be no room for greenwashing, says UN Secretary-General
04-12-2023 |
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that there must be no room for greenwashing.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that there must be no room for greenwashing. At the ongoing COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, the UN Chief called for early warnings for all initiative to provide protection from hazardous weather, water or climate events by the end of 2027 is an effective way to save lives and protect vulnerable communities.
The UN Secretary-General added that the fossil fuel industry is finally starting to wake up and the commitment on the elimination of methane by 2030 is a step in the right direction. The target of achieving net zero by 2050 fails to mention anything about eliminating emissions from fossil fuel consumption. Guterres called for clarity on the pathway to reaching net zero by 2050 which is absolutely essential to ensure integrity.
He further stressed that phasing out fossil fuels within a timeframe compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius is needed. However, he mentioned that current actions are not enough to tackle the issue.
“To meet the 1.5-degree limit of the Paris Agreement, greenhouse gas emissions must fall 45 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. But under national plans that are currently known they are set to increase by 9 per cent.”
Advocating for early warnings, Guterres said that a delay in action results in more deadly and extreme weather conditions and destructions. Further, those in the front line face the wrath of climate crisis, especially the developing nations. In order to achieve the 2027 target, all major multilateral development banks, the global climate funds and the key financing mechanisms have coalesced around the Early Warnings for All initiative.
The UN chief urged all countries to continue to be bold and ambitious and to double the speed and scale of support in 2024.