Climate Week: Post 5

The United States’ Secretary of State, John Kerry today announced big news in regards to environmental injustice. Action to combat the injustice, especially injustice towards impoverished or island nations has been a common topic of discussion in our Climate Studies class this past semester. In fact, it was even mentioned in many of our interpretations of the Pope’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si that developed nations had an obligation morally to contribute to the advancement of underdeveloped nations. Hopefully doing this in a manner that would skip fossil fuel use and begin with renewable energy. Well Kerry’s announcement brings the United States one step closer to meeting their responsibility.

            The Secretary of State has announced that the United States has promised to give $861 million in aid to underdeveloped countries that are most susceptible to climate change’s devastating effects. The goal is to reach the $861 million promise by 2020 and this is in addition to the $3 billion already promised to the Green Climate Fund, which specifically focuses on green energy development. Kerry’s address even coincides with the Pope’s message as he stated, “We have a moral responsibility today to adapt and prepare for those impacts.”

            Overall, it is refreshing to see The United States recognize its poor actions in the past in regards to climate change by really pushing to further the solidification of a worldwide agreement as they set examples through their initiatives. It was also very (for lack of a better term) cool to see everything connect back to class with the encyclical and even connect to the church’s message when the country is considered to be secular.

Climate Week: Post 4

Monday night, the United Nations awarded actor, Alec Baldwin, with the Equator Prize. Say what you will about his acting career, but even if you aren’t a fan of the 30 Rock star, it would be hard to not be impressed by the fact that he won an award from the UN that “recognizes the innovators making strides in poverty reduction and the protection of nature despite the manifold threats of climate change and extractive industries.” Seriously cool.

            This isn’t the first time that an entertainment star has been recognized for their positive environmental efforts, *cough-LeonardoDiCaprio-cough* but it makes it no less important. In American culture especially, celebrities hold a certain, large amount of attention. Other areas, like climate change may be lacking on their radar but oh, the latest celeb scandal is always something to chat about. With players like Baldwin, perhaps this could change.

            The actor’s positive outlook on climate change is focused directly with indigenous peoples and their disproportionate disadvantages due to climate change. And the best part is he’s smart and humble about it. “Drought in Central Africa is going to exacerbate the migration issue beyond anyone’s conception. You think what’s happening now in Europe is significant? It’s going to triple,” Baldwin states in the Grist interview. He goes on to say that he’s not too concerned with the award because, “Here are real people on the ground living in an area that’s their home, fighting with governments and industry to defend their land.”

            So just think about that next time you hear something from someone like Kim Kardashian talking about politics (“I had dinner with Obama once, and he just seemed very firm about the change, and that’s, like, his motto.”), be grateful that there are actual celebrity role models that could infiltrate the minds of the media-obsessed Americans in a positive way.

See Interview Here: http://grist.org/climate-energy/let-alec-baldwin-tell-you-why-he-is-an-optimistic-climate-warrior/

Climate Week: Post 3

            While choosing to focus on media and its effects on climate change for my larger project, another aspect of climate change I am very passionate about is environmental injustice. So, I couldn’t help but smile when I heard about AFR 100 and its launch at COP 21.

              AFR 100 stands for African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative and hopes to restore approximately 100 million hectares or 386,000 square miles of forest by 2030. This would be an attempt at restoring the over 700 million hectares of land in Africa that has been degraded. The initiative corresponds with the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 150 million hectares around the world by 2020, and the New York Declaration on Forests, which aims to restore 350 million hectares by 2030.

The World Resources Institute says that the benefits can be as great as follows:

·      “Boost landscape productivity”

·      “Improve food and water security”

·      “Increase climate change resilience”

·      “Reduce disaster risk”

·      “Combat desertification”

·      “Conserve biodiversity”

These would be tremendous if the project is able to rise above the challenge

that is presented. Funds and resources may be difficult to achieve but if the pledges follow through we are on a good start.

            One primary problem with this initiative however is that carbon is just temporarily stored within the trees. Once they die, the carbon they took out of the air will be released again. The benefit of this plan though is that although temporary, it could give us extra time to figure out a longer term solution.

Climate Week: Post 2

Thanks to another article from Grist (http://grist.org/climate-energy/5-important-developments-from-the-paris-climate-summit/), I found two really important acts of progress that have occurred in the COP 21 thus far. The first highlight was viewed as the number two biggest development by author Tim McDonnel, and it is the plan to increase clean energy in Africa. The second act, viewed as number one by my source is the increased divestment pledge.

                According to the article, nearly two-thirds of the continent is without access to electricity. Yesterday, the African Development Bank agreed to invest $12 billion in clean energy projects in order not only expand access, but do so in an environmentally friendly way. In connection to our Climate Studies class, this is HUGE. Now, yes it would be nice to see more developed countries pitching in to the cause, but it’s actually starting to happen. Underdeveloped nations are working towards making the jump from little/no energy use to clean energy, skipping the fossil fuel stage used by the United States and all other developed countries to gain their status. This $12 billion is one of the first steps in developing countries while simultaneously doing it in an eco-friendly way.

                Now, separately, a group of highly recognized individuals and institutions have made plans to divest even more. The assets owned by the group equals about $3.4 trillion, which is nearly a trillion dollars up from the $2.6 trillion that pledged in September. Although it is unclear exactly how much of those assets will actually be divested, even a fraction of that $3.4 is a large sum of money and could have a large influence on the fossil fuel industry. It will be interesting to see how large of a hit the industry takes and if the exact numbers of how much will be divested will be released. Even so, it is quite pleasing to see decently large steps towards a greener future being taken here in the first few days of the conference.