Climate Home News

Canada, Australia and Germany head to the polls, as climate-sceptic Donald Trump becomes US president again. All countries are due to submit their NDCs before COP30 in Belem. Will that summit deliver the boost in ambition the UN climate process - and the planet - so urgently need? Are 'peak emissions' in sight? 2025 marks the halfway point in the critical decade for keeping the Paris Agreement goals alive. What's your guess for the most important climate topic for 2025? Tell us here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eGVST8Xb

IUCN and numerous other experts and organisations argued before the International Court of Justice in The Hague that countries have a binding legal responsibility to fight climate change. "As others like Vanuatu have argued, in failing to act on climate, states are undermining the human rights of vulnerable communities – particularly the right to life, health, housing and culture. By failing to reign in climate change, states are also undermining nature’s ability to provide communities with food, fisheries, productive farmland, and other services – impacting lives and livelihoods," writes Grethel Aguilar, IUCN's Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Read her full piece here 👇

🇨🇦 The Canadian government has announced a new target to reduce planet-heating emissions 45-50% from 2005 levels by 2035, despite its official advisors on the Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB) - Groupe consultatif pour la carboneutralité (GCPC) recommending a 50-55% goal and climate campaigners calling for an 80% cut. The new target is in addition to an existing goal to cut emissions 40-45% by 2030. Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the 2035 target “keeps us on track to keep the promise to our kids and grandkids that the world we leave behind for them will be safe, sustainable, affordable and prosperous”.

Last month, The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) gave its high-quality label to three methodologies for producing carbon offsets that aim to reduce deforestation under so-called REDD+ projects – the first to be approved for forest offsets. But carbon market experts Lambert Schneider and Juerg Fuessler have now come out publicly against the decision which they say sets a “problematic precedent” and calls into question the ICVCM’s assessment process. They both announced this week they had stepped down from the body’s expert panel which plays an advisory role in the ICVCM’s decision-making. Schneider formally left the post in September.

At #COP16Riyadh the discussions are all about combatting land degradation, desertification, and drought. This impacts African pastoralists—around 200- 300 million—who are seeing their livelihoods at risk. More and more land traditionally used by herders is being given over to other uses: large-scale commercial farming, mining or energy operations, urbanisation and even conservation areas. Read the full story 👇

With just $69 million in the bank account of the fledgling loss and damage fund so far, its new executive director, Ibrahima Cheikh DIONG, was urged to keep running costs as low as possible at his first board meeting this month. Board members from 26 governments around the world questioned the Loss and Damage Fund's current and planned spending on consultants, business-class plane tickets and the need to have a deputy executive director. Joe Lo writes about it. Read the full story 👇

Global demand for #nickel - an essential component of electric vehicle (#EV) batteries - has surged, as countries shift away from fossil fuels.   #Indonesia’s abundant nickel reserves are crucial for a low #carbon world. But extracting them is ruining local peoples’ lives and causing rampant #deforestation, writes our campaigner Perrine Fournier in Climate Home News.   #Mining companies have been granted access to mine around three-quarters of #Kabaena, a tropical island in one of the country’s so-called ‘nickel provinces’. Only a few mining concessions are currently operating, and the human and environmental damage is already apparent.   Amal, a local student, shares his experience: “The mining company broke our forests. They made us lose our river.”   Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eD8yNyHp

In his first – and most likely last – visit to sub-Saharan Africa as US President this week, Joe Biden chose to focus on the planned upgrade of a cross-border railway that is set to take minerals needed for the energy transition out of Central Africa to the coast and on to the United States. Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy will require huge amounts of copper to carry electricity and cobalt for batteries. The US and China are competing to source limited supplies of these materials for their electric vehicle manufacturers. Biden told his African peers that the Lobito Corridor railway project would be a “game changer”, transporting copper. Read more here 👇

From tearful speeches to the walkouts that occurred before the end (with a finance deal pushed through in controversial circumstances), #COP29 saw many dramatic moments. Climate Home had a reporting team in Baku throughout, and now we're sharing our list of the most dramatic moments during those two weeks.

The historic hearings on climate change at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), scheduled for December 2-13, may help advance the case for climate reparations. The Court’s pronouncements can produce tangible impacts. While advisory opinions do not settle specific conflicts between states, they are definitive interpretations of binding law – and even considered instruments of preventive diplomacy. People whose rights are harmed by climate impacts deserve remedy and reparation – and legal clarity from the Court would be a first step in achieving it. Read more in this comment piece by Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)'s Lien Vandamme & Joie Chowdhury.