Jonathon Porritt on COP 26

Meanwhile,the insanity goes on - and as for CoP26, it’s almost as if it never happened - as I think Alok Sharma is himself beginning to realise!

CORBYN GOES TO COP 26 for his own four events

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to come to Scotland to hold an “alternative Cop26”.

Corbyn, through his Peace and Justice Project,  will hold four events, three in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, between November 8 and November 11.

Among the events is a “climate justice cabaret”, bringing together musicians and artists, as well as a panel with trade union leaders and two in conversation-style events.

Code red for humanity

The Islington MP said he would look to “raise up the voices of others” during the tour.

The climate emergency is a ‘code red for humanity’, is a critical warning.

We need radical and rapid change to our dangerously broken and destructive political and economic system.

Our future is being stolen from under us by a coalition of big polluters and big banks, propped up by weak politicians too scared to take them on.

I can’t wait to be in Scotland during Cop26 to add my voice – and more importantly raise up the voices of others – to propose radical and rapid change.”

Linked crises

Corbyn added:

That change must be environmental but also social and economic. Our crises of inequality, climate, Covid-19 and democracy are all linked.

The climate is a class issue at home and an international justice for the world. Those who have done the least harm suffer the most and the first.

That’s why the demands of workers and the global south need to be at the centre of our campaign for climate justice.

Our events will raise their demands through talks and discussions as well as music and art from hugely talented performers.

The Guardian's 'Pick' - two readers' thoughts that I liked!

Having just read the Editorial, it states that the proposed dates for the US withdrawal were already known at the time of the June G7 conference. Had Johnson not been so preoccupied with trying to get out of the Northern Ireland protocol he had only signed a few months earlier, he might have made known his views to the US then. Instead, he is trying to play catch-up, again. It bodes badly for Cop-26.

Meanwhile, it seems Afghanistan is already suffering severe food shortages, partly due to the internal refugee problem. Surely some arrangement could be reached here? A few more million pounds/dollars is small change compared to the money already paid by western governments.

Whether we were for or against the invasion in the first place, we really do owe the ordinary people some compensation for all they have suffered by our governments’ actions. After all, enough of us voted the bastards in.

We live in vile times. The worst in my living memory. I was born in the late 1970s. I can say the 21st century has been the worst of my life. That is around half my time on earth. Mr. B.Liar is a big part of that. Wars, crony capitalism, selfishness, individualism and divide and rule culture wars are now running rampant. It is against this backdrop that hundreds of thousands lives lost in illegal wars are just 'meh' to many, as are 150k covid deaths, at least half of which were avoidable.

Despite problems in the 80s and 90s, we were making progress with multiculturalism culminating in Sir William Macpherson's report on institutional racism in 1999. Since then race relations have been set back by 30 years and Islamophobia has become normalised giving an acceptable expression to the racism within.

As for those who decry the 1970s, my dad was able to buy a large Victorian house in inner London as an immigrant factory worker in the late 1970s (white flight meant houses were cheap) and council houses were still being built. The NHS was better resourced and there were no higher education tuition fees.

We are screwed, snookered but we must continue the fight and be frugal finite fossil fuel users

We are screwed, snookered but we must continue the fight and be frugal finite fossil fuel users.

Andy N, at last night's COP 26 mtg wrote, over the success of the Montreal Protocol, "fossil fuels is a massive chunk of the world economy. much harder to get movement."

He's right but it's worse than that!  Every time we turn the COLD tap on we are dependant on finite fossil fuels (fff) that in their use, every time, is yet another tiny screw in rising global av surface temps to bring the climate catastrophe we're seeing.  Fff pump water to our homes.

Although we are very slowly expanding renewable sources of energy that are much less dependant on fff, every £ we spend uses fff a lot along the line. That is why we have to spend ONLY on projects that will cut fff and their attendant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) urgently.  Not HS2, Metro, Sprint, armaments, WMD, new yacht Britannia, investments in fff exploitation, Nature turned into concrete, brick and tarmac ...

Guardian on bleak prospects for COP 26

Governments’ recovery plans are increasingly falling short of what is needed to reach existing climate goals, never mind new ones. Globally, carbon emissions are again set to rise in 2023, not fall. The world is in danger of losing the path towards net zero. That failure comes down partly to money and partly to politics. Today, as in the past, responsibility should be widely shared. European countries, the UK included, often talk a better game than they play. On Thursday, Angela Merkel admitted as much about Germany’s record. “We can’t continue at the current pace but have to up the tempo,” she conceded.

There is little concrete evidence that Britain, as the Cop26 host nation, has done enough to make sure this happens. The task remains urgent. Without big developing countries such as Brazil and India on board, agreement is difficult, and these countries know they have bargaining power. The biggest carbon emitter remains China, where totals are still rising, and the US, whose emissions are falling but historically (and per capita) far exceed China’s. Together they are responsible for 40% of global emissions, so without them nothing decisive is achievable. The US climate change special envoy, John Kerry, is pledging extra money to support global climate initiatives but insists there will be no trade-off with China on human rights in order to secure a stronger climate deal. If an adequate agreement can still be reached, then Cop26 may yet be a success. But the clock is ticking and the stakes are getting ever higher.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/23/the-guardian-view-on-the-climate-summit-100-days-to-save-the-world

To Climate Action Network W Midlands

Dear Simbi

Thanks for the email.

My climate action for the G7 and COP 26 is a mass (more than just me!) letter/email/text/twitter - writing and phoning campaign to names and addresses here

 September 2019 A5 flyer

and many others - to climate educate that, in burning our finite supply of fossil fuels we have unsuspectingly released a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences and horrors. We must now live much more lightly on the planet to minimise travel and maximise simpler lifestyles. "To tread more lightly on the planet" as Jonathon Porritt wrote many decades ago!

Spending = fossil fuels burnt = greenhouse gases emitted = the natural greenhouse effect dangerously enhanced = a runaway greenhouse effect that venus has = THE END! (venus is hotter than mercury even though mercury is nearer the sun)

Therefore, billions of greenhouse gases for extensions to HS2 (£106 bn), Metro (£15 bn), Sprint (£1 bn) is not a good idea when that money should be used, now, to cut greenhouse gases in the medium to long term and not make things even worse - and quite unnecessarily, too!

Or, am I completely wrong, mistaken, deluded? Is there anyone, out there, who agrees with me?!