Climate Change

[Editor note: from the Council of Canadians]

Today is a historic day: as tens of thousands of people filled the streets of Paris, politicians finalized a major new global climate agreement.

The deal in Paris includes an agreement to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, with an aim of 1.5 degrees, and achieve climate 'neutrality' that will require phasing out fossil fuels soon after mid-century. That’s not what we hoped for, but it’s still a deal that sends a signal that it’s time to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and for investors to cut their ties with coal, oil and gas by divesting.

Today, after two weeks of tortuous negotiations – well, 21 years, really – governments announced the Paris Agreement. This brand new climate deal will kick in in 2020. But is it really as ‘ambitious’ as the French government is claiming?

PARIS — Several thousand climate activists from across Europe and many from farther afield gathered peacefully near the Arc de Triomphe on Saturday to protest the outcome of the COP 21 climate conference about 12 miles away.

Until governments undertake to keep fossil fuels in the ground, they will continue to undermine agreement they have just made

By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.

Global leaders may be on the brink of approving a historic climate change agreement in Paris, but James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and pioneer of climate science, says it won’t matter.

Hansen told The Guardian that, absent a commitment to tax greenhouse gases, any accord is just a vehicle for empty promises.

Leading climate sceptic who will testify at Ted Cruz senate hearing today agrees to write pro-fossil fuel paper secretly funded by oil company

A Greenpeace undercover investigation has exposed how fossil fuel companies can secretly pay academics at leading American universities to write research that sows doubt about climate science and promotes the companies’ commercial interests.