elstel.org

Today I have read in the Salzburger Nachrichten how they cite the New Climate Institute: If we wanna meet the 1.5° target, they will have to agree on article 6, which is about carbon offsetting. A carbon offset credit is something where a developed country finances emission reductions in a developing country accounting the savings to its own climate bilance. The problem about it is that emissions continue unchanged in the developed country. On the accounting side however the emissions have been shifted to the developing country and these stay with it given that the reduction is not subtracted twice. Even if the developing country would save 100% of its CO₂ emissions it would keep the emissions it has sold on its account. To get rid of these emissions it would need to sell them by itself until the kitty bites into its own tail. The talk about net zero is thus nothing but a big lie. It can never be reached. It is about emissions that can no more be saved. Even worse many of the sold projects are projects that would either have been realised any way or projects that do not save anything in deed. At conservation projects indigenous people are expelled from their land to account for savings in the North. In reality this is climate and environment wrecking because deforestation is the lowest where indigenous people can keep their land. We recommend you to also read what Greenpeace writes about it. Back to the New Cimate Institute. It says to be managed by 6 partners, but it does not tell who they are or who has financed this institute. They can not be reached by telephone nor have they up to now responded on my email. Real progress would look like the COP26 ditching article 6 and deciding for a real zero rather than a net zero.

I have translated the article about greenhouse effect, sea level and global warming. It was one of the first articles that went online on Elstel 2009. The translation itself is also a few years old and completely done by hand, but the author has revised it again before publishing. At that time I did not release it because I wanted a native reader for correction (which I never got). Furthermore, I have now completely translated the article for hydrogen mobility (see previous message).

We have tried to make the NDCs (nationally determined commitments) that is the GHG (greenhouse gas) reduction committments of the top four emitters in this sequence 1:China, 2:USA, 3:India, 4:EU-28 comparable. The -50% of the US can not directly be compared with the -55% of the EU as the US calculates with a base year of high emissions that is 2005 and the EU with an elder year of low emissions that is 1990. We believe Joe Biden could in deed do more. Time and again we hear from protesters against tar sands and fracked gas infrastructure to be arrested. Tar sands are the dirtiest fossil fuels and they shall at best be ditched immediately. China´s target of -65%/2005 in relation to the GDP (gross domestic product) until 2030 is ambitious though it starts from a high level. Since the target varies on the level of future economic growth it is rather hard to say how it relates to the EU target of -55%. India´s -33% of GDP/2005 are least ambitious. Because of the economic growth the reductions is actually less than it appears to be. We think Narendra Modi could do more. India is planning to expand its coal mining by 37% until 2024 because India´s demand for coal is actually higher than what can be imported. An article in the Guardian says that India would currently not need to face an energy shortage if it had invested more in renewable energies. We will update our calculations here once we have new or better data.

Leaders like Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro and Joe Biden have presented a new agreement to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Major forested countries like Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea will all sign the commitment. Unfortunately it will allow for another decade of forest destruction! This is too much. The Amazon is already on the brink and can’t survive years more of deforestation. Indigenous Peoples are calling for 80% of the Amazon to be protected by 2025. Otherwise the rest of the Amazon could turn in to savannah. There is also little chance Bolsonaro would even abide by this entirely voluntary agreement. The 2014 New York Declaration was not abided to either. It would have demanded an end of deforestation in supply chains until 2020. Bolsonaro is currently still preparing a new law package that would encourage deforestation. With the lack of action to reduce demand for industrial meat and dairy there is no chance forest protection would be effective! That is why we still need the European forest protection law.
main link: success against deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia / see also statement of Greenpeace.

---

NRDC: What is happening at COP26?

Out of pure greed Chevron/Texaco has deliberately dumped millions of liters of toxic waste from oil production into ponds and rivers in Ecuador instead of returning them to the subsurface as would have been state of the art. The inhabitants have been dying of cancer as they did no more have unpolluted drinking water. The advocate Steven Donziger has defended Ecuador. He has refused to turn over his computer, cell phone and confidential case files to Chevron which would have been illegal to his clients. That is why the corrupt US-justice system has put him under house arrest, which did not want to end for more than two years. Yesterday a judge picked by Chevron has sent him to one of the most unsafe prisons in the country where many people already have died or got injured. Amnesty International, Protect the Protest Task Force, Amazon Watch, Law Students for Climate Accountability and actor and activist Lucy Lawless have now demanded in unison that Attorney General Garland and President Biden comply with the decision of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and immediately release Donziger.