Carbon Emissions News – theguardian

From climate change to the budget, we see politicians pretend they think something then do the opposite

You don’t need to observe politics for too long before realising that hypocrisy is the natural scent of the politics.

It is a stench that pervades much of what is said and policy that is enacted. There are two particular types – the hypocrisy where politicians pretend they care about something and then do nothing, and the one where they pretend to think something and do the opposite.

Related: Coalition's fervour for a budget surplus cools as prospects turn to toast | Greg Jericho

Related: Bring-forwards and underspends: the smoke and mirrors of the budget surplus

Related: Budget ‘surplus’ and coronavirus: Morrison is caught between a slogan and a hard place | Peter Lewis

The Liberal moderate says a 2050 target will bring Australia into line with its commitments under the Paris agreement

• Australian politics live podcast with Trent Zimmerman: ‘I don’t think we should fund new coal-fired power plants’

The Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman says the Morrison government should work towards adopting a target of net zero emissions by 2050 to bring itself into line with commitments Australia made under the Paris agreement, and to align Canberra’s policy with emissions reduction targets adopted by the states.

In an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast, Zimmerman said it was reasonable for the prime minister to want to do due diligence on what net zero would cost, and to consider what a policy roadmap would look like, “but this is something that we should be looking very seriously at”.

Related: Coalition likely to give $11m to Vales Point coal-fired power station for upgrade

Related: Zali Steggall to unveil climate change bill and push for a conscience vote for MPs

Related: 'I don't think we should fund new coal-fired power plants': Trent Zimmerman on climate and the Liberals

The Future We Choose, a new book by the architects of the Paris climate accords, offers contrasting visions for how the world might look in thirty years (read the worst case scenario here)

• Christiana Figueres, author: ‘This is the decade and we are the generation’

It is 2050. We have been successful at halving emissions every decade since 2020. We are heading for a world that will be no more than 1.5C warmer by 2100

In most places in the world, the air is moist and fresh, even in cities. It feels a lot like walking through a forest and very likely this is exactly what you are doing. The air is cleaner than it has been since before the Industrial Revolution. We have trees to thank for that. They are everywhere.

Drones organised along aerial corridors are now delivering packages, further reducing the need for vehicles

Activists aim to raise awareness of sustainable design and the need to reduce emissions from flights

Activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) blocked traffic outside a London fashion week venue on Saturday and also staged a protest at Gatwick airport.

Dozens of demonstrators prevented traffic from passing through a busy intersection leading to the Strand in Westminster, where the fashion trade show was being held.

Airline is committing $1bn over next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global business

Delta announced an ambitious plan on Friday to become the first US airline to go carbon neutral, committing $1bn over the next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global business.

The move by Delta will put pressure on other airlines to follow suit at a time when the UN is warning that airplane emissions of carbon dioxide will triple by 2050.

Related: Can the aviation industry really go carbon neutral by 2050?

The company will seek to reduce its carbon footprint by decreasing the use of jet fuel and increasing efficiency.

Delta will seek to offset its carbon emissions by investing in carbon removal programs in forestry, wetland restoration, grassland conservation, marine and soil capture and other negative emissions technologies.

The company will seek coalitions with its employees, suppliers, global partners, customers, industry colleagues, investors and other stakeholders to reduce their carbon footprint.

Plan to form coalition of developing countries at COP 26 to help support efforts

The UK is to spearhead a major global crackdown on illegal timber and deforestation, with plans to form a coalition of developing countries against the trade as part of its hosting of crunch UN climate talks this year.

Deforestation is a leading factor in rising global greenhouse gas emissions, but many developing nations lack the means and institutions to combat illegal logging and regulate forest industries. The Department for International Development (DfID) will shortly lay out plans to help countries strengthen the rule of law, support the trade in responsible forestry and provide on-the-ground assistance to stamp out illegal logging.

New CEO Bernard Looney reveals plan to invest more in low-carbon businesses

BP’s new chief executive has set an ambitious target to shrink the oil firm’s carbon footprint to net zero by 2050 by cutting more greenhouse gas emissions every year than produced by the whole of the UK.

Bernard Looney, who replaced Bob Dudley as chief executive this month, said it was clear that BP needed to change. He said BP would aim to become a net zero company by 2050 or sooner by tackling “all the carbon we get out of the ground as well as all the greenhouse gases we emit from our operations”.

Related: Revealed: big oil's profits since 1990 total nearly $2tn

Transport secretary’s disclosure of earlier target likely to rattle carmakers

The government could ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars in 2032, three years earlier than previously suggested, the transport secretary has said.

A consultation launched last week suggested all cars with internal combustion engines could be banned from 2035 but Grant Shapps told BBC radio on Wednesday the ban could come within 12 years.

Nationals MP also calls for expansion of Australia’s coal seam gas industry

The new minister for resources, Keith Pitt, says he sees no case to increase the level of taxation on the booming gas industry, despite concerns from experts that large multinationals are avoiding paying tax, and the budget is missing out on valuable revenue.

The Queensland National, who replaced Matt Canavan in the portfolio after Canavan resigned to back Barnaby Joyce’s unsuccessful tilt at the party leadership, told Guardian Australia: “I think the taxation levels are reasonable where they are, and it will be steady as she goes.”

Related: Trevor St Baker says Collinsville coal plant would need shielding from climate policy change

An expansion of Australia’s controversial coal seam gas industry, including the contentious Santos project in north-west New South Wales, arguing the industry had worked to fix problems and “the technology is proven”. “I think we should open up Narrabri and others,” Pitt said. “If we can drive down domestic gas prices, everyone’s lives are made easier, particularly business.”

More exploration of carbon capture and storage, even though CCS has not been commercially viable despite years of development. Pitt said there were “real opportunities” with the technology that could be combined with ultra super critical coal plants to reduce emissions. He said he was firmly technology-neutral when it came to power generation, but “coal will continue to be an important part of not only the economy, but what happens in regional areas for a long time to come”.

Campaigners concerned about lack of urgency over talks due to be hosted in Glasgow

Climate protesters and youth activists must play a leading role in the UN climate talks to be hosted in Glasgow this year, Nicola Sturgeon has said, as she vowed to find ways to include civil society more fully in the negotiations.

“It’s very important that we make sure COP26 is inclusive. I want a broad range of events to help ensure that everyone feels they have a part to play in this,” Scotland’s first minister said at a conference in London. “That’s the kind of movement we need to create around this, that can be a hugely powerful voice for change.”

The hike in industrial carbon pollution over the past 15 years sets Australia on a path to missing its Paris target

Industrial greenhouse gas emissions in Australia have risen 60% in the past 15 years, putting the country on a path that, if it continues, will lead to it missing the target set at the Paris climate conference.

That is the conclusion of an analysis by energy and carbon consultants RepuTex, which examined the rise in industrial carbon pollution – including from oil and gas extraction, mining and large-scale transport – in the period covered by Australia’s 2030 emissions target, starting in 2005.

Related: Scott Morrison says the government is acting on emissions. Is it true?

Related: Ross Garnaut: three policies will set Australia on a path to 100% renewable energy

Related: Big polluters again allowed to lift emissions without penalty

Jennifer Westacott, the BCA chief, tells audience Australia should aim to meet 2030 targets without using Kyoto carryover credits

Australia should legislate a target of net zero emissions by 2050, the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia has said.

Appearing on Monday night’s Q&A panel, Jennifer Westacott told the audience “we have to do net zero by 2050”.

Related: Essential poll: Morrison still in the doldrums with voters after bushfires and sports grants

Related: Two moderate Liberal MPs say government should not back new coal plants

Can we fully absorb the scale of the climate crisis without becoming paralysed by fear? This is a big question, with more than one answer. But it helps, I think, to recognise the extent of the challenge to our imaginations. The Indian writers Arundhati Roy and Amitav Ghosh have expressed this best. Roy used the image of a mountain filled with valuable bauxite to ask whether we could ever care enough about our environment to leave resources in the ground. Last year she spelled out her belief that the answer goes beyond politics, since what is needed is an “imagination that neither the left or the right has. To decide how you’re going to manage without” the wealth derived from mineral resources.

Ghosh’s book The Great Derangement argues that humanity’s alienation from nature is a delusion more than two centuries in the making – and one that writers and artists have proved as unable to resist as everyone else. “Let us make no mistake,” he writes, “the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination.”

It’s an idea that is easy to mock, I know. All the more so when leading UK cultural institutions have refused to cut ties with fossil fuel giants

Related: ‘Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety

Related: Activists try to occupy British Museum in protest against BP ties

Microsoft billionaire’s innovative and eco-fuelled 112m Aqua vessel to launch after 2024

This article is under review following a statement from the Dutch yacht design firm Sinot that its concept yacht is not linked to Bill Gates. See footnote

Bill Gates has ordered the world’s first hydrogen-powered superyacht, worth an estimated £500m ($644m) and featuring an infinity pool, helipad, spa and gym.

The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has commissioned the Aqua ship – a 112-metre (370ft) luxury vessel completely powered by liquid hydrogen – which was publicised last year at the Monaco yacht show by the Dutch design firm Sinot.

The Gillard government actually implemented a carbon price. Why are we so lacking in ambition now?

While listening this week to the Guardian Australia editor, Lenore Taylor, on the Full Story podcast speaking with sadness and exasperation about the past 30 years of climate change policy, I thought about good intentions and perfection.

We often hear that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It’s one of those sayings that, when you really think about it, is just a squib.

Related: Julie Bishop: Coalition should lead world on climate despite 'missteps' on bushfires

Related: This is the age of the megafire – and it’s being fuelled by our leaders | Tim Flannery

Related: Is the Australian government really ‘meeting and beating’ its emissions reduction targets?

The ‘safeguard mechanism’ promised to limit industry’s carbon pollution, but in two years has approved more than 7m tonnes of extra emissions

Mining and heavy industry companies, including BHP and Alcoa, have again been allowed to lift their greenhouse gas emissions without penalty under a climate change policy that the Australian government promised would prevent national pollution increasing.

Under changes posted online on Thursday, BHP coal and iron ore mines in Western Australia and Queensland, Alcoa’s Portland aluminium smelter in Victoria and a Boggabri coalmine in New South Wales were each given the green light to emit more under the scheme known as the “safeguard mechanism”.

Related: Coalition's climate policy has allowed heavy industry to increase emissions by nearly a third

Related: Is the Australian government really ‘meeting and beating’ its emissions reduction targets?

Given the take-off in passenger numbers, critics have dubbed the Net Zero pledge as greenwash. It is plausible ... but only just

Like all great pledges, it is just the right side of implausible. The UK aviation sector this week committed to making flying “net zero” by 2050, wiping out its carbon emissions despite taking more than 100 million extra passengers into the air each year.

At a celebratory event in London, the bosses of airports, airlines and aircraft manufacturers queued to scrawl their signatures on a giant Net Zero pledge card from the Sustainable Aviation [SA] campaign.

Related: UK air industry sets zero carbon target despite 70% more flights

He has a history of ‘not getting’ global heating but his desire for Britain to be a world leader could be the planet’s hope

Will Boris Johnson please listen to his own father, rather than Jeremy Corbyn’s climate sceptic brother, on the subject of climate change? It may go against the prime minister’s instincts, but it is the best hope for Britain to live up to its responsibilities in a crucial year for our species.

Johnson cannot do this on his own. That much was clear this week during the shambolic London launch of the COP 26 UN climate summit, which will take place in Glasgow in November. This will be the most important international conference in five years and as host the UK will play a leading role in deciding whether it ends in success or failure.

Related: UK unprepared for COP 26 conference, warn climate leaders

Related: A trade deal with Trump’s America would shred Britain’s climate ambitions | Stephen Buranyi

Ursula von der Leyen’s signature proposal co-opts the slogans of climate activism, but has none of the substance

Emergencies tend to reveal our true priorities. When our house is burning down or the storm waters are flooding in, we hold on to what we value most, and leave the rest behind.

A decade ago, the leaders of the European Union found themselves facing such a moment. With the French and German banks falling into a black hole, they did whatever it took to save them. Between 2009 and 2013, European governments channelled €1.6tn (£1.36tn) to Europe’s bankers, while imposing stringent austerity upon the European citizens they pledged to serve. When in 2015 they realised that more support was necessary, the European Central Bank printed €2.6tn over just four years.

Does it speak to the swathes of Greek or Portuguese people who cannot afford to care about carbon emissions in 2050

Related: It’s taken years, but at last there’s real hope for meaningful climate action | Caroline Lucas

Congratulations for your thorough analysis of the environmental impacts of High Speed 2 (Will HS2 help the climate – or will it make things worse?, 3 February; Barn owls, bats, butterflies, birds – all now at risk, 3 February). The escalating costs of HS2 call into question the way the UK designs and evaluates big infrastructure projects. We should take much more account of the impact on development and land values, especially if the uplift were shared with investors. Spending £3bn on land acquisition to date is surely wasteful. But little can be done without reintroducing regional and strategic planning.

Before we turn our backs on Europe, we should learn from how the French succeeded in growing their towns and economies while keeping down car use and pollution. The crucial difference is not going for one grand national project or another, but joining up investment in development and infrastructure at a city region level, as a comparison of Lyons or Lille with Leeds would show.