President Joe Biden has invited 40 world leaders to his virtual Whitehouse Summit on Climate in 2 week’s time.
It remains to be seen who turns up and it will be interesting to see what Scott Morrison brings to the table. Here are two items on the agenda he may have trouble with:
- Galvanizing efforts by the world’s major economies to reduce emissions during this critical decade to keep a limit to warming of 1.5 degree Celsius within reach.
- Discussing opportunities to strengthen capacity to protect lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, address the global security challenges posed by climate change and the impact on readiness, and address the role of nature-based solutions in achieving net zero by 2050 goals.
Read the full invitation here
It is a relief to hear there is a focus at the summit on reducing emissions during this decade. The miserable 26-28% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, as Australia offers, would seriously compromise our chance of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
Watch this space for details of the livestreaming on 22 and 23 April.
And news today from Science Alert:
Even after a year of coronavirus lockdowns and shutdowns, global emissions of greenhouse gases are still increasing at an unrelenting rate.
Today, according to initial measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global levels of carbon dioxide emissions are higher than they have been at any given time in the past 3.6 million years. Annual methane emissions – a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2 – just experienced their largest year-on-year increase since records began in 1983.
See the full article here