Tag Archives: We Are Still In

Mongabay: COP24 – US, Russia, Saudis downplay IPCC report in display of disunity

Tom Steyer, one of the United States’ most influential environmental activists, at COP24 in Poland. Photo by Justin Catanoso

Reporting for my first story — linked here — at my fifth United Nations climate summit started shortly I arrived at the sprawling venue in Katowice, Poland. There was a reception at the US Climate Action Center, the unofficial hub of acitivity on the part of the United States in the age of Trump, who refuses to pay for a national pavilion like other countries.

I got to hear Tom Steyer speak, someone I’ve been reading about for years. A billionaire from his Wall Street days, he has turned his fortune into political and environmental activism that helped stop the XL Pipeline and promote a youth vote in the 2018 midterm elections that helped Democrats retake the US House of Representatives. Interviewing him one-on-one, and then hearing him speak the following night at a private event, gave me my story idea. The Trump negotiators obstructive pettiness, which emerged in a Saturday evening session, ended up leading the story. Great editing by Glenn Scherer of Mongabay.

 

Mongabay: Putting the action in the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco

Signs like these at the Moscone Center were indicative of a climate action process that is necessarily moving beyond the inertia of national governments and unwilling presidents and prime ministers. Photo by Justin Catanoso

California Gov. Jerry Brown‘s Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco was nothing less than a poke in the eye to presidents and prime ministers of developed nations — not simply the intransigent and denialist Trump Administration. In holding this three-day summit (Sept. 12-14, 2018), and making governors, mayors, business executives, tribal leaders and scientists the stars, a clear message was sent: if the goals of the Paris Agreement are to be met, it will take the determined efforts of subnational leaders to get it done.

My story is linked here.

Having covered four year-end United Nation’s climate summits, including the historic meeting in Paris in December 2015, and one mid-year summit in Bonn in 2016, I have come to see the gatherings as largely rhetorical exercises in caution, delay and international lack of will with the countries most responsible for global warming. What the California summit lacked in international authority, it compensated for in actual action being taken in cities, states, indigenous lands and at corporations in the fight against climate change. Caveat, as I report: it’s not nearly enough to peak global emissions or slow the rate of climate change.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said through regulations and incentives, his city cut carbon emissions by 11 percent in 2017, which is equal to removing 737,00 cars from LA roads and highways. Photo by Justin Catanoso