#Climate Reparations

[climate-crisis]

US special envoy on climate change told a congressional hearing that the United States will not, under any circumstances, pay reparations to developing countries hit by climate-fueled disasters.

The US did however back the creation of a funding mechanism to address the damage caused by environmental disasters, which have become more frequent and severe due to the climate crisis.

The US just seems to talk the talk without any intent of actually walking the walk 😡

[bumblebeeappletree]

The people and industries of the world's richest countries have done the most to heat the planet. But they're terrified of being held liable for extreme weather they've made more violent. Meanwhile, the poorest can't afford to pay for the consequences of other people's pollution. So should the rich world be paying for climate damages – and what's the best way to do so?

Credits

Reporter: Ajit Niranjan

Video Editor: Markus Mörtz

Supervising editor: Kiyo Dörrer & Joanna Gottschalk

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #Reparations #Climate

Read more:

COP27 agreement on loss and damage payments: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/file...

Historical CO2 emissions since 1850 from fossil fuels, cement and land use change: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...

Pakistan floods weather attribution study: https://www.worldweatherattribution.o...

Progress toward the $100 billion pledge: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/finance...

Fair shares of climate finance: https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/A...

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:10 Background

02:55 COP27

06:13 Climate Reparations

08:48 Tax Big Oil

10:04 Pollution Levies

10:46 Cancel Debt

11:47 Conclusion

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

The countries most vulnerable to climate change claim they have lost a fifth of their wealth due to climate change-driven increases in temperature and inconsistent rainfall patterns over the last 20 years.

The result is a widespread loss of livelihood and displacement that’s only accelerating as temperatures rise. What’s more, these losses are primarily suffered by low- and middle-income nations that were late to industrialize, and therefore did little to contribute to global warming historically. According to the World Meteorological Organization, natural disasters caused 2 million deaths worldwide between 1970 and 2019; more than 90 percent were in developing countries.

In international negotiations, these climate-related outcomes are grouped under the compact moniker “loss and damage.” The origin of the phrase can be traced to 1991, four years before the first United Nations conference of parties, or COP, on climate change.

The proposal didn’t go anywhere, but the term slowly took on a life of its own. By 2007, COP formally recognized the need for “means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries.” Loss and damage became known as the third pillar of the Paris Agreement that was signed in 2016, when the world’s countries agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In the years since, the clamor in favor of acknowledging loss and damage, and funding restitution for it, has grown louder. Increasingly, climate advocates and developing nations have framed loss and damage funding as a form of reparations.

Loss and damage is expected to take center stage at the 27th United Nations climate change conference, or COP27, in Egypt next month. Famine-level drought in Somalia and devastating floods that left one-third of Pakistan, a country responsible for less than 1 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, underwater have only added urgency to the issue.

Activists and developing nations hope to leave COP27 with a sustainable system for funding loss and damage restitution over the long term. In the past, countries have pledged funds to pay for climate projects in poor countries, with the assistance of the United Nations. The most prominent of these is the Green Climate Fund, which was established in 2010 with the goal of raising $100 billion per year to help developing nations respond to climate change. The fund does not cover loss and damage, and developed nations have only raised roughly $80 billion in loans and grants. Accessing money from the fund has also been a frustrating process plagued by bureaucratic delays for vulnerable countries.

[brianbachochin]

Prophecy Brief: Persevere in perilous times

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:1-4:8, 1 Timothy 4:1-2

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Humanity is on a highway to hell, with our foot on the accelerator. The message from the UN secretary general to more than 110 world leaders at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt could not have been clearer: change course now, or face “collective suicide”.

Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise this year, research published this week has shown, despite stark warnings from climate scientists in the past year. The prospects of sticking to the 1.5C limit above pre-industrial levels that scientists tell us is necessary have receded to a “narrow window”.

Many of the heads of state and government gathered in Egypt for the first days of the UN Cop27 climate summit, where 45,000 people from 196 countries are halfway through their two weeks of talks on the climate crisis, had their own dispatches to add from the frontline of the global emergency.

Poor countries argue that the rich, source of most greenhouse gas emissions, must provide assistance to the poor that are most afflicted. “Loss and damage is not charity – it’s climate justice,” Nabeel Munir, Pakistan’s climate envoy, said.

The amount of cash needed for climate finance, including loss and damage, can seem daunting. In a report jointly commissioned by the UK, host of last year’s Cop26 summit, and the Egyptian hosts of Cop27, published on Tuesday, the climate economist Lord Stern calculated that about $2tn a year would be needed by 2030 for the entire developing world, except China.

However, that amount is not substantially more than what would be needed to invest in those economies in any case, using fossil fuels.

Despite the focus on loss and damage, there has been little cash forthcoming at this conference so far. The UK said it would allow some debt payment deferrals for countries hit by climate disasters, while Austria and New Zealand put forward funding for loss and damage, and John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, unveiled a plan to use carbon offsetting to raise cash.

Even as young people protested, and those facing the most severe impacts of the climate crisis bore witness, the halls of Cop27 were host to a shady group with quite different intentions. Oil and gas companies are enjoying an unprecedented bonanza amid record fossil fuel prices, sent soaring by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They have sent lobbyists to Cop27 in force – there are more than 600 of them enjoying access to the talks, according to analysis by Global Witness published on Thursday. That is more than the delegations of many of the most vulnerable countries combined.

Africa is particularly in their sights. This is the first African Cop in six years, and some African leaders have come with a specific purpose: to gain backing to exploit their gas reserves. Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, asked in an interview: “Why not? Why should Africa not do this?”

Climate campaigners are distraught at the prospect, warning of a “neocolonial” gas grab that would benefit only the gas multinationals and the country elites, while poor people would suffer even worse consequences from global heating.

But western countries are wary of appearing hypocritical in urging African countries not to exploit their gas, and besides, many European countries especially want to import African gas to ease their own cost of living crisis.

Negotiations at Cop27 will carry on for the next week, and countries are hoping for substantial progress on loss and damage, and climate finance more generally. But there will be no final settlement of loss and damage here. The most that can be hoped for is to set out a framework and parameters for how a loss and damage funding facility could be achieved, with a deadline on when it should be in operation.

[atompowers]

6 Powers The New Legend of Zelda "Tears of the Kingdom" Equips You With to Build the Sequel to Our Climate Future

"May The Light Of Blessing Grant You The Strength You Seek."

1. Soar & Dive: Go Deeper to Find Roots

Systemic evil forces are accelerating ruin much farther under surfaces than most have dared venturing. To get all through the climate caves and decarbonization dungeons needed, it’s critical to face the real causes of The Upheaval tearing our world apart.

2. Ascend: Higher than the Boldest Horizons

The challenges ahead ask us to traverse great distance, find renewable energies of empowerment, and ride the winds of change to paraglide onwards. So that all can experience the beauty of a thriving, green world.

3. Companion: Working Together in Community

“It’s Dangerous To Go Alone! Take This.��� —Old Man, The Legend of Zelda

On your quests, you’ll partner with people of all backgrounds. Uplift and support heroes who’ve been held at the margins. And collaborate with companions who’ll show you new ways to save the world.

4. Ultrahand: Multi-Solving Sustainably

Over your journey, you’ll face many tough trials with few easy answers. But by working sustainably with the world around you, you can build bigger bridges and dynamic vehicles, turning and attaching multiple solutions for massive impact.

5. Fuse: Justice & Equity into Every Solution

If it doesn’t solve the problem, is it a solution? With multiple species of systemic injustice stalking the vulnerable, reanimating calamity with the rising blood moon— any and every solution that truly solves our planet’s puzzle requires reparation, restoration, and systemic justice.

"Courage Need Not Be Remembered, For It Is Never Forgotten." —Zelda, Zelda:Breath Of The Wild

6. Recall: It’s Not Too Late

To face climate disruption and center solutions that actually solve the root causes. Don’t give into the darkness of despair the fossil-fueled and supremacist forces of evil want us to die by. Our Future is not a destination on the map, but a light we create. We can seal the darkness together on our collective adventure to save the kingdom.

Let's go!

Originally Posted on my Climate Poetry Blog Here

[probablyasocialecologist]

Almost 90% of the excess emissions are down to the wealthy global north, while the remainder are from high-emitting countries in the global south, especially oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

[...]

“Climate change reflects clear patterns of atmospheric colonisation,” said Jason Hickel, co-author and professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “Responsibility for excess emissions is largely held by the wealthy classes [within nations] who have very high consumption and who wield disproportionate power over production and national policy. They are the ones who must bear the costs of compensation.”

Demands are mounting to compensate climate-vulnerable countries for the threats they face due to the excessive greenhouse gas emissions of others, as part of a broader climate justice movement to make polluters pay for the climate crisis and green energy transition.

[...]

According to research published last month, the world’s top oil, gas and coal companies are responsible for $5.4tn (£4.3tn) in drought, wildfires, sea level rise and melting glaciers among other climate catastrophes expected between 2025 and 2050. This was the first study quantifying the economic burden caused by individual companies that have extracted – and continue to extract – wealth from planet-heating fossil fuels.

[koheletgirl]

ok so i don't personally believe in the 2 states solution (for a myriad of reasons i won't get into now), but why does it seem like everyone who supports it these days is labeled as a zionist? i know why i might think that, but i doubt it's for the same reasons so i'm genuinely asking here

[commiepinkofag]

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

In the 2000 film The Beach, a young Leonardo DiCaprio, hot off Titanic fame, plays a young backpacker who discovers a tropical paradise in the form of a secluded beach, home to a community of travellers.

Despite its cult classic status, The Beach was a critical flop – DiCaprio was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for worst actor, and today the film ranks as one of the worst Danny Boyle ever directed. But though both the film’s director and stars moved on from the tropical-themed blip in their career, the filming location – located on southern Thailand’s Phi Phi Leh island – remains mired in an environmental crisis caused by the filming of the movie between 1998 and 1999, according to local officials.'

On Tuesday, Thailand’s Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling for the Royal Forest Department to continue with rehabilitation works on the beach and island. It also upheld a 2019 agreement made between the plaintiffs and the two film production companies – 20th Century Fox and Thai film studio Santa International Film Productions – to provide 10 million baht (around $273,000) for the rehabilitation project, funded by the U.S. firm.

When The Beach film crew arrived on the white sand beach of Maya Bay 24 years ago to shoot the movie’s most iconic scenes, they gave the area a makeover which included uprooting native plants and introducing alien species – changes that local officials say have severely damaged the local ecosystem.

The years following the movie’s release also saw hoards of tourists flock to Maya Bay and its surrounding islands, which put further pressure on the beach’s environment, as pollution from tourist activity destroyed nearby coral. In 2018, local officials shut the beach indefinitely as part of a rehabilitation plan, before reopening it in January this year.

Tuesday’s ruling came more than 20 years after the first lawsuit was filed. Back in 1999, local authorities and environmentalists sought 100 million baht in compensation in a civil lawsuit filed against senior Thai government officials and the two production studios involved in the filming of The Beach. However, the court only accepted their case in 2012, more than a decade after filming had wrapped.

Source

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter 6. Revolution

How will reparations for past oppressions be worked out?

If government and capitalism disappeared overnight, people would still be divided. Legacies of oppression generally determine where we live; our access to land, water, a clean environment, and necessary infrastructure; and the level of violence and trauma in our communities. People are accorded vastly differing degrees of social privilege according to skin color, gender, citizenship, economic class, and other factors. Once the exploited of the earth rise up to seize the wealth of our society, what exactly will they inherit? Healthy land, clean water, and hospitals, or depleted soil, garbage dumps, and lead pipes? It depends largely on their skin color and nationality.

An essential part of an anarchist revolution is global solidarity. Solidarity is the polar opposite of charity. It does not depend on an inequality between giver and receiver. Like all good things in life, solidarity is shared, thus it destroys the categories of giver and receiver and neither ignores nor validates whatever unequal power dynamics may exist between the two. There can be no true solidarity between a revolutionary in Illinois and a revolutionary in Mato Grosso if they must ignore that the one’s house is built with wood stolen from the lands of the other, ruining the soil and leaving him and his entire community with fewer possibilities for the future.

Anarchy must make itself wholly incompatible with colonialism, either a colonialism that continues to the present day in new forms, or a historical legacy which we try to ignore. Thus an anarchist revolution must also base itself in the struggles against colonialism. These include people in the Global South who are trying to reverse neoliberalism, indigenous nations struggling to regain their land, and black communities still fighting to survive the legacies of slavery. Those who have been privileged by colonialism — white people and everyone living in Europe or a European settler state (the US, Canada, Australia) — should support these other struggles politically, culturally, and materially. Because anti-authoritarian rebellions have been limited in scope thus far, and meaningful reparations would have to be global in scale because of the globalization of oppression, there are no examples that fully demonstrate what reparations would look like. However, some small-scale examples show that the willingness to make reparations exists, and that the anarchist principles of mutual aid and direct action can accomplish reparations more effectively than democratic governments — with their refusal to acknowledge the extent of past crimes and their embarrassing half measures. The same goes for revolutionary governments, which typically inherit and cover up oppression within the states they take over — as exemplified by how callously the governments of the USSR and China took their places at the heads of racial empires while claiming to be anti-imperialist.

In the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, the Zapatistas rose up in 1994 and won autonomy for dozens of indigenous communities. Named after Mexican peasant revolutionary Zapata and espousing a mix of indigenous, Marxist, and anarchist ideas, the Zapatistas formed an army guided by popular “encuentros,” or gatherings, to fight back against neoliberal capitalism and the continuing forms of exploitation and genocide inflicted by the Mexican state. To lift these communities up out of poverty following generations of colonialism, and to help counter the effects of military blockades and harassment, the Zapatistas called for support. Thousands of volunteers and people with technical experience came from around the world to help Zapatista communities build up their infrastructure, and thousands of others continue to support the Zapatistas by sending donations of money and equipment or buying fair-trade goods[105] produced in the autonomous territory. This assistance is given in a spirit of solidarity; most importantly, it is on the Zapatista’s own terms. This contrasts starkly with the model of Christian charity, in which the goals of the privileged giver are imposed on the impoverished receiver, who is expected to be grateful.

Peasants in Spain had been oppressed throughout centuries of feudalism. The partial revolution in 1936 enabled them to reclaim the privilege and wealth their oppressors had derived from their labors. Peasant assemblies in liberated villages met to decide how to redistribute territory seized from large landowners, so those who had labored as virtual serfs could finally have access to land. Unlike the farcical Reconciliation Commissions arranged in South Africa, Guatemala, and elsewhere, which protect oppressors from any real consequences and above all preserve the unequal distribution of power and privilege that is the direct result of past oppressions, these assemblies empowered the Spanish peasants to decide for themselves how to recover their dignity and equality. Aside from redistributing land, they also took over pro-fascist churches and luxury villas to be used as community centers, storehouses, schools, and clinics. In five years of state-instituted agrarian reform, Spain’s Republican government redistributed only 876,327 hectares of land; in just a few weeks of revolution, the peasants seized 5,692,202 hectares of land for themselves.[106] This figure is even more significant considering that this redistribution was opposed by Republicans and Socialists, and could only take place in the part of the country not controlled by the fascists.

[deadpoetsmusings]

what I read

On movies, books, and culture:

Memento millennial: conversation on the end of an era, its "main characters", web 2.0 & the real difference between Gen Z and Millenials

‘The History Boys’ and the Eternity of Adolescence 

In Praise of Four Lions, ‘the Muslim Blazing Saddles’

Fiction in a Post-Truth Age by Pankaj Mishra

Love in the inbox: the epistolary pleasures of the Tom Hanks–Meg Ryan rom-com

The Lost Redemption Arc

The political legacy of John Berger's art criticism

Conversations with artists I love: 

Marilynne Robinson, art of fiction

Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner: ‘I’m comfortable with the idea that things don’t have to be a pop song

Jeremy Strong Knows What You Think

Climate crisis:

How the climate crisis is driving stronger storms further inland

Pakistan floods have displaced millions of people, most of them already poor and vulnerable, if we are serious about climate justice, the first thing to do is to speak up for the global south which is already suffering its worst effects. Debt relief and debt forgiveness, along with a demand for climate action now is the least we can do right now. Perhaps a talk about climate reparations needs to be had as well. 

Pakistan has been hit by its worst floods in recent memory

What Is Owed to Pakistan, Now One-Third Underwater 

‘There is nothing for us’: Pakistan’s flood homeless start to despair

DONATE FOR FLOOD RELIEF IN PAKISTAN (no amount is small. Every little bit helps. Even though the flooding has ended, rehabilitation is a long and tiring road ahead. Help if you can.)

[brianbachochin]

Prophecy Brief: A discussion on the ground-level impact of global economic trends

Had a great opportunity to do our first ever interview on the Parson’s Pad Podcast, sitting down with a good friend and financial advisor, to discuss the ground-level impact of some of the larger looming economic concerns of our day.

[kp777]

By Rachel Frazin

The Hill

Nov. 7, 2022

For the first time, countries have put reparation funds for climate damage on the negotiating agenda at this year’s global climate summit.

At the conference, known as COP27, which kicked off this week in Egypt, countries will discuss providing funding for countries that have suffered a disproportionate amount of “loss and damage” from climate change. 

While the impacts of climate change are being felt worldwide, its impacts are not expected to be felt evenly. Both geographical and monetary factors make many developing countries more vulnerable, even though they have historically low fossil fuel use compared to major powers. 

Fossil fuels have been a major force in both industrialization and climate change. As a result, many developing countries have long argued for specific funding to address the climate change-related suffering they have undergone. 

Read more.