Climate Change
World must share responsibility of climate migrants: Hasina
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the world has to share the responsibility of climate migrants and address the issue of losses and damages caused by climate change.
“Without ambitious mitigation efforts, only adaptation measures are not enough to slow, stop and reverse the adverse impacts of climate change,” she said.
The Prime Minister said this while delivering her keynote speech titled “Call for Climate Prosperity” at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday.
Speaker Alison Johnstone received Sheikh Hasina on her arrival at the Scottish Parliament. Sheikh Rehana and CVF Thematic Ambassador Saima Wazed Hossain were present.
Sheikh Hasina reiterated that the major gas-emitting countries must submit and implement aggressive nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Read: Effective climate plans not possible without funds: Hasina
She said the developed countries must fulfill their commitment of providing 100 billion dollars annually for addressing climate change to the developing countries, with a special focus on the climate vulnerable countries.
“These amounts should be in addition to the existing ODA, and there needs to be synergy among the different climate funds. The distribution of the climate fund should have a 50:50 ratio between adaptation and mitigation,” she added.
The Prime Minister emphasized the dissemination of green technology from developed countries to developing countries at an affordable cost.
She said the global leaders have gathered in Glasgow to demonstrate resolve and ambition on climate action combining their global collective efforts to respond to the unprecedented challenges and risks of the adverse impacts of climate change from which no country is immune.
Referring to the recently published IPCC 6 Assessment report, she said it is another wake-up call for all to take decisive action now to save the planet from temperature rise that cannot be reversed, and a climate disaster.
“We’re facing the most serious global challenge of humankind. It’s a major threat to climate-vulnerable countries like Bangladesh though we contribute less than 0.47 per cent of global emissions,” she observed.
Hasina mentioned that extreme temperature, erratic rainfall, flood and drought, more intense tropical cyclones, sea-level rise, seasonal variation, river erosion, ocean acidification are causing severe negative impacts on the lives and livelihoods of millions of the people of Bangladesh and other climate vulnerable countries.
“Sea-level rise induced by global warming is a serious threat for Bangladesh. With a 1-metre rise of sea level, tens of millions of people in the coastal area of Bangladesh will be displaced,” she said.
Hasina said every year 2 percent of the country’s GDP is lost due to the adverse impact of climate change, and it may go up to 9 percent in the coming decades. “Bangladesh has already six million climatically displaced population with an additional burden of 1.1 million Myanmar Rohingyas.”
Besides, the Covid-19 pandemic has created additional challenges to address, said the Prime Minister.
Read: Women bear the brunt of climate change: Hasina
The Prime Minister said although Bangladesh is climate vulnerable, it is globally recognised for its resilience. The government, with its own financing, has established the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF).
Under this fund, Bangladesh has taken 800 projects so far with the investment of USD 480 million, which mainly focuses on adaptation, mitigation, and climate change research, she said.
The government has adopted the "Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100", a comprehensive 100-year strategic plan aimed at gradual, sustainable development through adaptive delta management process targets to achieve a safe, climate-resilient and prosperous delta, Hasina added.
Currently, the country is advancing and formulating a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) that will significantly enhance its adaptation ambition, she added.
“Bangladesh revised and submitted an updated NDC on August 26, 2021, enhancing unconditional and conditional contribution with ambitious quantifiable mitigation targets,” the Prime Minister said.
Bangladesh is also committed to following a progressive approach to developing its economy on a low carbon pathway. “We’ve recently cancelled 10 projects of coal-based power plants worth 12 billion dollars of investment.”
In Bangladesh, she said, 6.5 million households have solar power for domestic use, one of the largest amounts of off-grid solar power generation in the world. “We’ve the target of generating 40 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2041.”
“We’re also procuring electric locomotives for our mass transit system, further reducing our carbon footprint,” she said.
Bangladesh has already started working to introduce a significant number of electric cars within the next few years. Charging stations for these cars will be set up all across the country, she added.
In celebration of the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, she said, “We are planting 30 million saplings across the country. Additionally, to reduce the risk of death from lightning strikes, the government has planted 5.4 million palm trees, further contributing to carbon sink.”
As the country needs to focus on overcoming risks and becoming prosperous despite those prevailing risks managing the adverse risks of climate change, so the government set its trajectory from one of vulnerability to resilience to prosperity (VRP), she said.
The Prime Minister said Bangladesh will soon launch the "Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan," a strategic investment framework to mobilise financing, including through international cooperation, for implementing renewable energy generation and climate resilient initiatives.
“Our Delta Plan 2100 has also been taken into account while developing the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan. We’re also planning to re-build and reinforce the embankments in the coastal region as well as in the areas prone to river erosion as part of our adaptation measures,” she added.
She hopes to establish solar panels and wind turbines on these embankments for supplying power to the national grid. The net metering system where even domestic households with solar panels can contribute to the national grid, and then get their bills adjusted accordingly, will also be an effective tool in our prosperity plan.
“We expect to achieve transformative change through MCPP by leapfrogging on a number of technological and economic fronts. We also hope to be able to access the global funds available for green investment and enhance the quality of education and capacity building of our youth,” she said.
This will help Bangladesh to reach the target of a developed country status faster, she hoped.
Leaders vow to protect forests, plug methane leaks at COP26
World leaders promised to protect Earth’s forests, cut methane emissions and help South Africa wean itself off coal at the U.N. climate summit Tuesday — part of a flurry of deals intended to avert catastrophic global warming.
Britain hailed the commitment by over 100 countries to end deforestation in the coming decade as the first big achievement of the conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow, known as COP26 — but experts noted such promises have been made and broken before.
The U.K. government said it has received pledges from leaders representing more than 85% of the world’s forests to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Among them are several countries with massive forests, including Brazil, China, Colombia, Congo, Indonesia, Russia and the United States.
More than $19 billion in public and private funds have been pledged toward the plan.
“With today’s unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “Let’s end this great chainsaw massacre by making conservation do what we know it can do, and that is deliver long-term sustainable jobs and growth as well.”
Read: At COP26, over 100 countries pledge to end deforestation
Experts and observers said fulfilling the pledge will be critical to limiting climate change, but many noted that such grand promises have been made in the past — to little effect.
“Signing the declaration is the easy part,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Twitter. “It is essential that it is implemented now for people and planet.”
Alison Hoare, a senior research fellow at political think tank Chatham House, said world leaders promised in 2014 to end deforestation by 2030, “but since then deforestation has accelerated across many countries.”
Brian Rohan, head of forests at environmental law charity ClientEarth, said that to succeed, the pledge “needs teeth.”
Forests are important ecosystems and provide a critical way of absorbing carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — from the atmosphere. But the value of wood as a commodity and the growing demand for agricultural and pastoral land are leading to widespread and often illegal felling of forests, particularly in developing countries.
“We are delighted to see Indigenous Peoples mentioned in the forest deal announced today,” said Joseph Itongwa Mukumo, an Indigenous Walikale and activist from Congo.
He called for governments and businesses to recognize the effective role Indigenous communities play in preventing deforestation.
“These are billions in investment towards environmental preservation, but it’s very difficult for this money to reach Indigenous communities, reach traditional communities,” said Chief Ninawa, a leader of the Huni Kui people from the Amazon attending the summit.
Luciana Tellez Chavez, an environmental researcher at Human Right Watch, said the agreement contains “quite a lot of really positive elements.”
The EU, Britain and the U.S. are making progress on restricting imports of goods linked to deforestation and human rights abuses, “and it’s really interesting to see China and Brazil signing up to a statement that suggests that’s a goal,” she said.
But she noted that Brazil’s public statements don’t yet line up with its domestic policies and warned that the deal could be used by some countries to “greenwash” their image.
The Brazilian government has been eager to project itself as a responsible environmental steward in the wake of surging deforestation and fires in the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands that sparked global outrage and threats of divestment in recent years. But critics caution that its promises should be viewed with skepticism, and the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is an outspoken proponent of developing the Amazon.
Read: COP26 must deliver a better future for everyone
COP26: Women leaders for improving women’s participation in climate actions
The global women leaders at a high-level event here on Tuesday adopted a declaration with a call to improve women's participation and leadership in all climate actions as well as to connect the fight against gender inequality closely with the fight against climate change.
The declaration was adopted at the High-level Panel on Women and Climate Change, held on the sideline of the COP26 World Leaders' Summit at Scottish Pavilion in Glasgow. The Scottish authority and the UN Women hosted the event to discuss the importance of women's leadership in addressing climate change and its gendered impacts.
In the declaration titled “Glasgow Women’s Leadership on Gender Equality and Climate Change,” they said Climate change is an urgent human rights issue posing a serious risk to the fundamental rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation, decent work and an adequate standard of living of individuals and communities across the world. Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities, including gender inequality, they added.
The women leaders said, “We believe that the fight against climate change must be closely connected to the fight against gender inequality, and agree that ensuring women's and girls' leadership is vital if global efforts to tackle climate change are to succeed.”
They said women and girls are commonly disproportionately affected by climate change and face greater risks and burdens from its impacts, particularly in situations of poverty.
“Despite increased vulnerability to climate impacts, we recognize that women and girls have been creating and leading innovative climate solutions at all levels. One of the great injustices of the climate crisis is that the people and countries who are worst affected are those who have contributed at least to its causes,” they added.
Read: BGMEA showcases RMG industry’s strides in sustainability in COP26
“We therefore call for all climate actions to recognize the differentiated impact of climate change by factors such as age, gender, disability and location, and ensure women's and girls' voice and agency and their full and effective participation and leadership in policy and decision. - making at community, national and international levels, and increase ambition in all sectors,” the leaders said.
Expressing their gratefulness to those who have led efforts to date at government, intergovernmental, private sector and civil society levels to advance the interests of women and girls in climate action, they said, “We particularly acknowledge women leaders, especially young women and girls at all levels who have championed this agenda, and commit to pushing forward their work including through increased financing, broadening partnerships, and advocacy.”
The women leaders welcomed the dedicated agenda item under the UNFCCC addressing issues of gender and climate change and the 5-year enhanced Lima work program on gender and its gender action plan agreed at COP 25. “We hope to see strong efforts by all stakeholders to implement the activities included in the GAP,” they said.
They acknowledged parallel efforts to promote gender equality in climate change policies, programs and initiatives, including the UN Secretary General's initiative on Gender and Climate Change, launched at the Global Climate Action Summit 2019, and the Feminist Action for Climate Justice action coalition under the Generation Equality Forum.
“We encourage all countries yet to pledge action under these important initiatives to do so before the sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) in March 2022. At CSW 66, we will work towards achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programs,” they added.
Read: At COP26, over 100 countries pledge to end deforestation
The leaders agreed on the importance of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, notably Sustainable Development Goal 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. “We agree that concrete actions are needed to improve women's and girls' participation and leadership in all climate actions,” they said.
The women leaders called all leaders - women and men - both in government and civil society - to commit to increased and sustained support for women and girls' climate change initiatives at the national and global levels in order to achieve sustainable progress towards meeting the challenges of the climate crisis.
The statement will remain open to further signatures from women leaders from across government, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, business and civil society till the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2022.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu and Iceland Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, among others, were present at the event.
Biden winds up G-20 summit with dings at Russia, China
President Joe Biden wrapped up his time at the Group of 20 summit on Sunday trying to convince Americans and the wider world that he’s got things under control — and taking Russia, China and Saudi Arabia to task for not doing enough to deal with the existential threat of climate change.
Biden’s overall take on his efforts: On climate change, he’s got $900 billion planned for renewable energy, and Congress will vote this coming week. On supply chains, he has plans to make the ports run better and tamp down inflation. For workers, he’s building an economy with pay raises. On diplomacy, world leaders trust him.
But he also acknowledged what he can’t yet achieve: bringing Russia, China and Saudi Arabia to the table with the broader international community to limit carbon emissions and move to renewable energy.
In a news conference Sunday, the U.S. president spelled out his belief that all politics is personal and that what progress was achieved at the Rome summit came from direct interactions with other leaders.
Read:PM Hasina off to Europe to join COP26, other events
“They know me. I know them,” Biden said of his fellow G-20 leaders. “We get things done together.”
“We’ve made significant progress and more has to be done,” Biden added. “But it’s going to require us to continue to focus on what Russia’s not doing, what China’s not doing, what Saudi Arabia’s not doing.”
For all the challenges confronting him, the president attempted to stay optimistic. As Biden departed the news conference, he offered a thumbs up when asked if West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — key Democratic votes — were on board with his $1.75 trillion spending package for families, health care and renewable energy. The president also shrugged off his recent decline in the polls, saying that numbers go up and down.
As for the potential significance of Biden’s thumbs-up on congressional negotiations, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, said, “As the President said during the press conference, he is confident we are going to get this done and the thumbs up was simply a visual restatement of that.”
Read: PM’s France visit to elevate Dhaka-Paris ties: FM
But the policy issues also seemed to fade for Biden when asked about his time Friday with Pope Francis. The president became deeply emotional, his hands appearing to fiddle with the mask he wore as a precaution because of COVID-19. He spoke of how the pope comforted the Biden family in a Philadelphia airport hangar after the death of his son, Beau, in 2015.
“When I won, (Pope Francis) called me to tell me how much he appreciated the fact that I would focus on the poor. focus on the needs of people who are in trouble,” Biden said. “He is everything I learned about Catholicism from the time I was a kid going from grade school to high school.”
The president did leave the G-20 with commitments by his fellow leaders on a global minimum tax that would make it harder for large companies to avoid taxes by assigning their profits to countries with low tax rates. He announced new funding to improve ports and shipping, in addition to a conference next year on supply chains. He patched up differences with the European Union on tariffs and differences with France on the sale of a nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
The president met Sunday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose office said the meeting was held in a “positive atmosphere” despite tensions over human rights and Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile system, among other issues.
Biden heads Monday to the U.N. climate summit in Scotland, where he’ll once again face questions about whether the world’s wealthiest are doing enough to stop the warming of the Earth by moving away from fossil fuels. The president on Sunday dismissed the contradiction that he’s fighting for climate change while also asking oil-rich countries to increase their production in order to lower gasoline prices for U.S. commuters.
“The idea that we’re not going to need gasoline for automobiles is just not realistic,” Biden said. “It has a profound impact on working-class families, just to get back and forth to work. So I don’t see anything inconsistent with that.”
G-20 leaders turn to climate change on last day of summit
Leaders of the world's biggest economies were set to tackle climate change Sunday, the final day of a weekend summit in Rome that is widely expected to set the tone for a major conference on the same issue taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, over the next two weeks.
The Group of 20 countries, which represent more than three-quarters of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, are looking for common ground on how to reduce emissions while helping poor countries deal with the impact of rising temperatures.
If the G-20 summit ends with only weak commitments, momentum could be lost for the larger annual talks in Glasgow, where countries from around the globe will be represented including poor ones most vulnerable to rising seas, desertification and other effects.
The future of coal, a key source of greenhouse gas emissions, has been one of the hardest things for the G-20 to agree on. However, the U.S. and other countries are hoping to get a commitment to end overseas financing of coal-fired power generation, said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview President Joe Biden's plans.
Read: Earth gets hotter, deadlier during decades of climate talks
Western countries have moved away from financing coal projects in developing countries, and major Asian economies are now doing the same: Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the U.N. General Assembly last month that Beijing would stop funding such projects, and Japan and South Korea made similar commitments earlier in the year.
China has not set an end date for building domestic coal plants at home, however. Coal is still China’s main source of power generation, and both China and India have resisted attempts for a G-20 declaration on phasing out domestic coal consumption.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said before the Rome summit that he tried but could not get a commitment on a coal phase-out from Xi, who did not travel to the gathering.
In Glasgow, Johnson said, “we want these leaders … to focus on the commitments they can make, moving away from the use of fossil fuels, moving away from coal-fired power stations domestically."
Climate campaigners were hoping that rich G-20 countries would take steps to meet a long-standing but yet-to-be-fulfilled commitment to raise $100 billion annually to help developing countries move toward greener economies and adapt to the changing climate.
Prince Charles, a long-time environmentalist, was set to address the G-20 on Sunday.
Read: ‘Everything is at stake’ as world gathers for climate talks
G-20 leaders also discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the uneven distribution of vaccines in the world. On Saturday they endorsed a global minimum tax on corporations, a linchpin of new international tax rules aimed at blunting fiscal paradises amid skyrocketing profits of some multinationals.
And after a meeting on the sidelines about Iran's nuclear program, Biden, Johnson, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron made a joint statement expressing their “determination to ensure that Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon.”
They also voiced concern that Tehran “has accelerated the pace of provocative nuclear steps” after halting negotiations on a return to the nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Earth gets hotter, deadlier during decades of climate talks
World leaders have been meeting for 29 years to try to curb global warming, and in that time Earth has become a much hotter and deadlier planet.
Trillions of tons of ice have disappeared over that period, the burning of fossil fuels has spewed billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the air, and hundreds of thousands of people have died from heat and other weather disasters stoked by climate change, statistics show.
When more than 100 world leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro in 1992 for an Earth Summit to discuss global warming and other environmental issues, there was “a huge feeling of well-being, of being able to do something. There was hope really,” said Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, one of the representatives for Native Americans at the summit.
Now, the 91-year-old activist said, that hope has been smothered: “The ice is melting. ... Everything is bad. ... Thirty years of degradation.”
Data analyzed by The Associated Press from government figures and scientific reports shows “how much we did lose Earth,” said former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly, who headed the American delegation three decades ago.
That Earth Summit set up the process of international climate negotiations that culminated in the 2015 Paris accord and resumes Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, where leaders will try to ramp up efforts to cut carbon pollution.
Back in 1992, it was clear climate change was a problem “with major implications for lives and livelihoods in the future,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the AP this month. “That future is here and we are out of time.”
Read: ‘Everything is at stake’ as world gathers for climate talks
World leaders have hammered out two agreements to curb climate change. In Kyoto in 1997, a protocol set carbon pollution cuts for developed countries but not poorer nations. That did not go into effect until 2005 because of ratification requirements. In 2015, the Paris agreement made every nation set its own emission goals.
In both cases, the United States, a top-polluting country, helped negotiate the deals but later pulled out of the process when a Republican president took office. The U.S. has since rejoined the Paris agreement.
New air travel, shipping taxes to help climate vulnerables with funds: UN
New taxes on air travel and maritime shipping could raise the billions of dollars needed to help the countries suffering most from climate change, a UN expert said Friday.
"Such levies, based on the well-established polluter-pays principle, could raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually to assist small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs) recover and rebuild from the damage caused by climate change," said David Boyd, UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment.
The climate crisis is also a human rights crisis, he said in a message directed at world leaders gathering in the UK's Glasgow for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) that starts Sunday.
"People living on these small islands and at least developed countries are already suffering devastating losses and damage from climate change – more frequent extreme weather events, floods, droughts, rising sea levels, and saltwater contamination of their water supplies and agricultural lands."
Read: EU lauds Bangladesh’s leadership on climate front
Oil giants deny spreading disinformation on climate change
Top executives of ExxonMobil and other oil giants denied spreading disinformation about climate change as they sparred Thursday with congressional Democrats over allegations that the industry concealed evidence about the dangers of global warming.
Testifying at a landmark House hearing, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said the company “has long acknowledged the reality and risks of climate change, and it has devoted significant resources to addressing those risks.″
The oil giant’s public statements on climate “are and have always been truthful, fact-based ... and consistent” with mainstream climate science, Woods said.
Also read: Records show slow response to report of California oil spill
Democrats immediately challenged the statements by Woods and other oil executives, accusing them of engaging in a decades-long, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming.
“They are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were,'' said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee.
She was referring to a 1994 hearing with tobacco executives who famously testified that they didn’t believe nicotine was addictive. The reference was one of several to the tobacco hearing as Democrats sought to pin down oil executives on whether they believe in climate change and that burning fossil fuels such as oil contributes to global warming.
Maloney said at the end of the nearly seven-hour hearing that she will issue subpoenas for documents requested by the committee but not furnished by the oil companies.
Republicans accused Democrats of grandstanding over an issue popular with their base as President Joe Biden’s climate agenda teeters in Congress.
Also read: Cleanup boats on scene of large Gulf oil spill following Ida
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the top Republican on the oversight panel, called the hearing a “distraction from the crises that the Biden administration’s policies have caused," including gasoline prices that have risen by $1 per gallon since January.
“The purpose of this hearing is clear: to deliver partisan theater for primetime news,″ Comer said.
The hearing comes after months of public efforts by Democrats to obtain documents and other information on the oil industry’s role in stopping climate action over multiple decades. The fossil fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change since at least 1977, yet spread denial and doubt about the harm its products cause— undermining science and preventing meaningful action on climate change, Maloney and other Democrats said.
“Do you agree that (climate change) is an existential threat? Yes or no?" Maloney asked Shell Oil President Gretchen Watkins.
“I agree that this is a defining challenge for our generation, absolutely,'' Watkins replied.
Watkins, Woods and other oil executives said they agreed with Maloney on the existence and threat posed by climate change, but they refused her request to pledge that their companies would not spend money — either directly or indirectly — to oppose efforts to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
“We're pledging to advocate for low-carbon policies that do in fact take the company and the world to net-zero” carbon emissions, said BP America CEO David Lawler.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who leads a subcommittee on the environment, said he hopes "Big Oil will not follow the same playbook as Big Tobacco'' in misrepresenting the facts to Congress.
“As I’m sure you realize, that didn’t turn out too well for them,'' Khanna said. “These companies must be held accountable.”
The committee released a memo Thursday charging that the oil industry’s public support for climate reforms has not been matched by meaningful actions, and that the industry has spent billions of dollars to block reforms. Oil companies frequently boast about their efforts to produce clean energy in advertisements and social media posts accompanied by sleek videos or pictures of wind turbines.
Maloney and other Democrats have focused particular ire on Exxon, after a senior lobbyist for the company was caught in a secret video bragging that Exxon had fought climate science through “shadow groups” and had targeted influential senators in an effort to weaken Biden’s climate agenda, including a a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping climate and social policy bill currently moving through Congress.
In the video, Keith McCoy, a former Washington-based lobbyist for Exxon, dismissed the company's public expressions of support for a proposed carbon tax on fossil fuel emissions as a “talking point.”
McCoy’s comments were made public in June by the environmental group Greenpeace UK, which secretly recorded him and another lobbyist in Zoom interviews. McCoy no longer works for the company, Exxon said last month.
Woods, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, has condemned McCoy’s statements and said the company stands by its commitment to work on finding solutions to climate change.
Chevron CEO Michael Wirth also denied misleading the public on climate change. "Any suggestion that Chevron has engaged in an effort to spread disinformation and mislead the public on these complex issues is simply wrong,'' he said.
Maloney and Khanna sharply disputed that. They compared tactics used by the oil industry to those long deployed by the tobacco industry to resist regulation “while selling products that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.″
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., accused the oil industry of “greenwashing” its climate pollution through misleading ads that focus on renewable energy rather than on its core business, fossil fuels. Shell spends nearly 10 times as much money on oil, gas and chemical production than it does on renewables such as wind and solar power, Porter said, citing the company’s annual report.
“Shell is trying to fool people into thinking that it’s addressing the climate crisis when what it’s actually doing is continuing to put money into fossil fuels,″ she told Watkins.
While U.S. leaders and the oil industry rightly focus on lowering carbon emissions, the world consumes 100 million barrels of oil per day — an amount not likely to decrease any time soon, said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group.
The industry group supports climate action, Sommers added, "yet legislative proposals that punitively target American industry will reverse our nation’s energy leadership, harm our economy and American workers, and weaken our national security.''
'Address climate change as child rights issue'
Bangladeshi children have urged the country's leaders to address the climate change crisis urgently as a child rights issue and demanded they be involved more in finding solutions to the issue, ahead of the global COP26 meet in Glasgow.
The children’s calls were captured in the Bangladeshi Children’s Climate Declaration that a group of children handed over to Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shahab Uddin, Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury and other leaders at an event in Parliament on Wednesday.
The children’s message to the government’s official COP26 delegation was clear: “Bring our appeal with you when you travel to Glasgow. Climate change is a child rights issue.”
Read:Extinct dinosaur lectures world leaders about climate change
The declaration was prepared in November 2020 at the first-ever Children’s Climate Summit by engaging over one million Bangladeshi children involved with the UNICEF-supported Generation Parliament initiative by Bangladesh Debate Federation (BDF).
The Bangladeshi Children’s Climate Declaration calls on the government to protect children against the impacts of climate change, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, increase investments in education, training and a green economy, and consult children on policies and decisions that impact their future.
“Climate change is threatening our survival, well-being and future. We are asking you to stand up for the children of this country and do more to fight climate change,” said 13-year-old Kaba Kaushin Arisha, who handed over the declaration on behalf of the children who participated in the 2020 Summit.
“Unless we act now and we act together, we will reach a point of no return. This is our call to you, and to COP26.”
Dr. Shirin Sharmin thanked the over one million children who united behind this Declaration, and UNICEF for bringing them – children and decision-makers – together. "It is only by listening to our children that we can shape a better future for all,” she said.
The government of Bangladesh is committed to upholding the rights of children and addressing climate change as a child rights issue.
"We will continue working -- with and for children -- for a better, safer, greener Bangladesh,” said Shahab Uddin, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, who is part of the official Bangladesh delegation to COP26.
Although Bangladesh is among the lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emitting countries in the world (bottom 20 percent), it is one of the countries that is most affected by climate change.
UNICEF’s first-ever Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI 2021) found that children in Bangladesh are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.
The Index ranked Bangladesh as the 15th country globally in terms of climate change risks and impacts on children.
UNICEF estimates that one in three children in Bangladesh, nearly 20 million children, bear the brunt of climate change every day.
Read: EU lauds Bangladesh’s leadership on climate front
Children are victims of extreme weather, floods, river erosion, sea level rise, and other environmental shocks driven by climate change.
Many end up adrift in city slums, their lives and prospects shattered. Millions of children are trapped in exploitive child labour, child marriage and trafficking.
“Children in Bangladesh are not responsible for the climate crisis, yet they face its most severe impacts, paying the highest price,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh.
"UNICEF stands with children in Bangladesh in their appeal for intergenerational solidarity. The needs of children must be at the centre of the climate change response.”
Extinct dinosaur lectures world leaders about climate change
World leaders at the UN headquarters got a discourse from a talking dinosaur -- an extinct species -- in a creative video launched by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help create awareness about climate change.
The short film, launched as the centerpiece of the UN agency's new ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ campaign, has also been tweeted by the United Nations.
Bursting into the iconic General Assembly Hall, famous for history-making speeches by leaders from around the world, the imposing dinosaur tells an audience of shocked and bewildered diplomats and dignitaries that “it’s time humans stopped making excuses and started making changes” to address the climate crisis.
“At least we had an asteroid,” the dinosaur warns, referring to the popular theory explaining dinosaurs’ extinction 70 million years ago. “What’s your excuse?”
Read: EU lauds Bangladesh’s leadership on climate front
This first-ever film to be made inside the UN General Assembly using computer-generated imagery (CGI) features global celebrities voicing the dinosaur in numerous languages, including actors Eiza González (Spanish), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Danish), and Aïssa Maïga (French).
The dinosaur goes on to highlight how financial support for fossil fuels through subsidies -- taxpayers’ money that helps keep the cost of coal, oil and gas low for consumers -- is irrational and illogical in the face of a changing climate.
“Think of all the other things you could do with that money. Around the world people are living in poverty. Don’t you think that helping them would make more sense than… paying for the demise of your entire species?” the dinosaur says.
"The film is fun and engaging, but the issues it speaks to could not be more serious,” said Ulrika Modéer, Head of UNDP’s Bureau for External Relations and Advocacy.
“The UN Secretary-General has called the climate crisis a ‘code red for humanity'. We want the film to entertain, but we also want to raise awareness of just how critical the situation is. The world must step up on climate action if we are to succeed in keeping our planet safe for future generations.”
Read: Australia to keep supporting Bangladesh in combating climate change: Envoy
UNDP’s ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ campaign and film aim to shine a spotlight on fossil fuel subsidies and how they are cancelling out significant progress towards ending climate change and are driving inequality by benefitting the rich, the agency said in a statement released Thursday.
UNDP research released as part of the campaign shows that the world spends an astounding USD 423 billion annually to subsidise fossil fuels for consumers -- oil, electricity generated by the burning of other fossil fuels, gas, and coal.
This could cover the cost of Covid-19 vaccinations for every person in the world, or pay for three times the annual amount needed to eradicate global extreme poverty.
The ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ film was created in partnership with Activista Los Angeles (a multiple award-winning creative agency), David Litt (US President Barack Obama’s speechwriter) and Framestore (the creative studio behind James Bond, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers End Game).