Letter calls on G7 leaders to rapidly redirect financial flows, adopt a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty & finance climate resilient developmentEvery day, we are feeling and witnessing the effects of climate change—drought, wildfire, floods, extreme heat, hurricanes, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss—and this is just the beginning. The science is clear: governments must do more to avert climate catastrophe, but it is also possible and a cleaner-greener world awaits. The upcoming G7 Summit hosted by Germany presents a critical opportunity to demand change from leaders positioned to change the course of history. From June 26 to June 28 the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the USA, and the European Union will meet. The G7 countries account for nearly 40% of the global economy and the burning of 25% of global fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) for energy—the primary source (over 85 percent) of greenhouse gas pollution. In November 2021, Germany’s new coalition government pledged that Germany will use its G7 presidency to establish climate partnerships, along with an “international climate club” which would be open to all countries. From January 2022 to May 2022, a dozen Citizens’ Climate International (CCI) members from ten countries worked within and monitored carefully several Civil Society networks representing over 300 global organizations that sent demands to the G7 in Germany this year. The day after World Environment Day (June 5), CCI launched a digital letter campaign to urge the G7 leaders based on the key climate demands sent to the G7 leaders. The campaign is called “G7 Leaders Steer Us To Safety”. Currently, mire than 500 letters have been sent to the G7 leaders from 49 countries including 200 letters sent from the Global South. The G7 has shown itself capable of steering the G7 economies to safety during times of crisis. It emerged out of the energy crisis in the early 1970s. It navigated the economy out of the financial collapse in 2007-2008. The G7 in Germany June 26 to June 28 is their moment. The letter reads as follows: Dear Leaders of the G7, The word government comes from the Latin word “gubernare” which means “to steer”. The primary duty of our governments is to create policies that will steer us away from danger both immediate and long-term. These policies must be rooted in a human-rights and gender-justice framework. We are in danger. The three recent IPCC reports warn unequivocally that human activity is creating climate change and the impacts will be catastrophic unless rapid and drastic actions are taken within the next 8 years. These impacts are already frequent and severe and will continue to hit hardest those who least contribute to the climate crisis. At this critical moment, you have the power to transform our global economy and create a resilient and equitable world. Since the energy crisis of the early 1970s, you have been building the economic and social frameworks to steer us to safety at times of crisis. We can and must transform our economies away from fossil fuels at wartime speed. To protect us all from climate catastrophe, the G7 leaders must: Rapidly redirect financial flows away from fossil fuels and towards an equitable and resilient future. These policies must align with the Net Zero Scenario from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Negotiate the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to complement the Paris Agreement and financially support a rapid, equitable, and managed phase-out of fossil fuels. Finance successful adaptation and resilience measures to keep vulnerable communities safe from preventable harm. We are in a Code Red emergency. There is a narrow window of opportunity for successful climate-resilient development; we have no time to lose. Every action you take could save millions of lives. This is your moment. History has its eyes on all of you. No one is safe until we are all safe. Anyone wishing to send a letter asking the G7 leaders to steer us to safety can do so at citizensclimate.earth/g7 UPDATE ON FRIDAY LUNCHTIME Citizens’ Climate International added this information about G7 today: In just two days the G7 leaders will meet in Germany. Way back in November 2021, the newly-elected coalition in Germany pledged to use its G7 presidency to establish climate partnerships, along with an “international climate club” which would be open to all countries. The German Presidency formally invited Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa to the G7 Summit and hundreds of Civil society networks engaged with German G7 presidency this year – including us. A lot has happened in the past eight months. Amidst global ongoing conflict and humanitarian crises in Sudan and Afghanistan among others, Russian President Putin ordered the illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February. In March, Citizens’ Climate International joined more than 450 organizations in 50 countries in calling for a ban on the import of Russian oil and gas, which provide funding for Vladimir Putin’s war machine. We also joined in the call to move toward the phase out of all climate-destabilizing fuels. On Thursday, June 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accepted an invitation from the G7 president to attend the G7 Summit, too. Ukrainian Olha Boiko, coordinator of the Climate Action Network for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (CAN-EECCA) sent a message to climate allies, observing how civil society and community engagement made it possible for Ukrainians to stand up together against an illegal war: “Build civil society in your countries like your lives depend on it.” – Olha Boiko At CCI we have supporters in 189 countries around the world. And we have been engaging the Civil Society networks since 2011. We also know from the three recent IPCC reports that not only must we pivot off of fossil fuels quickly, it is possible to do so. Please send a letter to the G7 leaders today asking them to #SteerUsToSafety if you have not already done so.
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LikeOur chance to get the G7 acting on carbon pricing this year!
Citizens’ Climate International is asking us all to sign a letter petition to the G7 to ask that the call for just and effective global carbon pricing be heeded. Please add your voice to this call, it may be the most important petition you ever get the chance to sign!
Group of 7 Summit meetings will be taking place at Schloss Elmau, Germany on June 26th to 28th.
Citizens’ Climate International has reported that most of the civil society network advisors to the G7 talks are asking that carbon pricing policies be implemented to facilitate the rapidly reduction greenhouse gas pollution and a just transition for all…….
Powerful Carbon Pricing Demands from Civil Society to the G7 and G20
The Group of Seven (G7) Summit will take place from June 26 to June 28 in Germany. Leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union will meet to discuss sustainability, economic stability, and a better collective future. The G20 heads of state will meet in Indonesia in October, just before COP 27 in Egypt.
Civil society networks advising the G7 are the Y7 (Youth), S7 (Science), T7 (Think Tank), W7 (Women), C7 (an umbrella group for many civil society networks). The C20 is the global civil society network advising the G20.
In 2018, during the G7 meetings in Canada, Citizens’ Climate International was directly involved in the C7 and C20 networks. In 2021 and 2022, we were directly involved in the C7 and W7 networks and have been monitoring development in the Y7, T7 and C20 in 2022.
Historically, the primary climate demand of the C7, Y7, W7 and C20 have been to remove fossil fuel subsidies. This is something the G20 leaders promised at the G20 in 2009.
Research reported in a November 2021 article in Nature found that it will be possible to reach a 2C target while also increasing wellbeing, reducing inequality, and alleviating poverty globally if countries enacted a carbon fee with an equal per capita dividend policy.
Currently, the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Dashboard is reporting that 46 National governments price pollution and 23 percent of GHG emissions are covered by carbon pricing. Botswana was the latest country to join the countries that have put a price on fossil fuel pollution.
These facts are no longer lost on the diverse civil society groups advising the G7 and G20. They are now working towards making sure that carbon pricing policies rapidly reduce greenhouse gas pollution while being socially just. Here are the following asks:
- The Y7’s number one demand is carbon pricing
https://y7germany.org/fileadmin/redaktion/PDFs/Y7/Youth7_2022_COMMUNIQUE_final_EN.pdf - W7 included carbon pricing in their key demands
https://women7.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/W7-ImplementationPlan_pre-layout.pdf - The C7 asked the G7 to “redirect financial flows away from fossil fuels and towards a resilient and equitable future”, follow the IEA net-zero implementation plan, and support the implementation of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty. Although this is not carbon pricing, they are specific and comprehensive demands with power to significantly reduce emissions. Given the power of carbon pricing, meeting these asks will lead to more countries pricing carbon pollution.
https://civil7.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Civil7-Communique-2022-1.pdf - The S7 statement was: “Reinforce decarbonisation efforts by establishing a global CO2 pricing mechanism, complemented by more direct and fast-acting measures.” https://www.leopoldina.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publikationen/G7-Statements/Stellungnahme_Decarbonisation_G7_2022_final_web.pdf
- The T7 statement on carbon pricing reads as follows:
Create (open and inclusive) climate clubs with a G7 core in close partnership with the EU members and other countries willing to join to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels, including by […] e) a joint approach to carbon pricing with a common price floor and a differentiated and fair carbon border adjustment mechanism to avoid carbon leakage;
https://www.think7.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220520_T7_Communique.pdf - C20 included carbon pricing in its key climate demands
https://civil-20.org/index.php/environment-climate-justice-energy-transition/
ADD YOUR VOICE
New oil and gas fields are not the solution we need now (or in the future).
The commitments of COP26 seem to have been forgotten in the rush to approve new oil and gas fields, ostensibly justified by the need for energy security.
On June 1st the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty organisation (FFNPT) published the report Fuelling Failure, How oil, gas and coal are driving climate change and sabotaging the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The report points out that …Current international climate agreements primarily focus on emissions reductions and make no mention of fossil fuels. What is required is an international framework with binding commitments that constrain fossil fuel production globally to sit alongside the Paris Agreement and complement existing pledges to cut emissions, reverse biodiversity loss and curtail pollution….The fate of Earth’s climate and the SDGs are inextricably linked. Failing to tackle climate change and prevent the current crisis from intensifying will mean the aims and ambitions of all seventeen SDGs will slip further out of reach with some goals becoming impossible endeavours.
Limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C implies that fossil fuel production must be tightly constrained and ultimately phased out, rapidly and equitably. Such action, in the words of the IPCC, is “fundamental” to limiting global heating. Put simply, humanity cannot tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution or prevent irreparable climate-induced loss and damage around the world without ending the use of fossil fuels or leaving reserves safely in the ground.
A new approach is required that aligns efforts and initiatives to achieve all 17 of the SDGs with a fair and fast fossil fuel phase out.
A global, just carbon pricing policy as suggested by a rising number of organisations could complement the FFNPT’s proposed moratorium on the extraction of new fossil fuels reserves or contribute greatly to a just transition if the aims of the FFNPT are not achieved.
In the UK yesterday, (8th June), Michael Lewis, CEO of E.on spoke at the Accelerating the Transition from Fossil Fuels and Securing Energy Supplies evidence session, (Environmental Audit Committee), stating that insulating the 19 million poorly insulated UK homes (up to EPC rate C) would save the equivalent of six nuclear power plants worth of energy. He also tweeted that …“Solar panels on roofs is a no brainer to put on new build homes.” Dr Steve Pye, (UCL Energy Institute), pointed out that “To meet 1.5C, we need to think about the impact of our production in the global context. 60 % of oil and gas reserves globally need to stay in the ground. For the UK, we need to see a 6-7% reduction in production annually.”
Ramping up renewable energy and insulation instead of licensing new oil and gasfields would be quicker, cheaper and not break our Net Zero 2050 commitments. Putting a steadily rising carbon price on fossil fuels at source (rather than at point of emission) would send the message that further exploitation of fossil fuels is not the solution! Using the carbon fee as a dividend would more than offset the rising fossil fuel prices for most householders.
Positive news on CBAM and Alok Sharma argues that the geopolitical crisis calls for more rather than less renewables.
The G7 is considering beginning negotiations on a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) at its meeting in June. Liz Truss had appeared keen on promoting CBAM at the G7 last year but the idea seemed to have been put on the back burner and the Board of Trade Report in July , (21/7/21) promoted a laisssez faire approach. It appears that the idea is now back on the table in the UK. Lucy Frazer, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, has stated that..
“We are announcing that it is our intention to consult later* in the year on a range of carbon leakage mitigation options, including on whether measures such as product standards and a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) could be appropriate tools in the UK’s policy mix.
“A CBAM applies a carbon price to specified imports, in order to mitigate differences in carbon pricing between jurisdictions, and therefore reduce the risk of carbon leakage.”
On Monday, at a speech in Glasgow marking 6 months after COP26, Alok Sharma argued for the need to speed up the fight against climate change rather than renege because of the war in Ukraine; especially as wind and solar are now cheaper than oil and gas in the majority of the world….
“The actions of the Putin regime have pushed up fossil-fuel prices globally. That has thrown our situation into stark relief. We see clearly the dangers of energy systems powered by foreign fossil fuels.
“We see the benefits of low-cost homegrown renewables, the price of which cannot be manipulated from afar. In short, we see that climate security is energy security and that we must break our dependency on fossil fuels.”
Further information on BCAs:
Canada Laser talk on Border Carbon Adjustments (BCA)
BCAs – powerful if combined with just transition, article by OECD
BCAs in the EU – report by European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition
Article by Centre for Strategic and International Studies
CPS Report promoting CBAM, January 2022
* The Government is taking ambitious domestic action to tackle climate change and recently opened a consultation on developing the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), so the UK can become the world’s first net zero carbon cap and trade market[1]. While domestic action is critical, climate change is a global issue. When the UK took on the COP26 Presidency, only 30% of the world was covered by net zero targets – now over 90% of the global economy is committed to net zero. In 2021, the UK placed climate change and nature at the top of the international agenda during its G7 and COP26 presidencies, presiding over the agreement of the Glasgow Climate Pact, to speed up the pace of climate action.
The Government also wants to see other countries do more to drive down their own emissions and we continue to work on the global stage to support more ambitious international action. Recent global events and the resulting increase in energy prices reinforce the importance of transitioning to clean energy to ensure energy security and reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels.
In parallel, Government is considering domestic action to continue to ensure the integrity of UK action to reduce its carbon emissions against carbon leakage, as our existing carbon leakage protection measures, including free allowances under the UK ETS, evolve to achieve our net zero objectives. This will also ensure that UK businesses are not disadvantaged. Carbon leakage is the displacement of production, and associated emissions, from one jurisdiction to another, due to different levels of carbon pricing and climate regulation across those jurisdictions.
The best way to prevent carbon leakage would be for all countries to move together in pricing, regulating, and therefore reducing carbon emissions. We are strongly committed to working with our international partners to develop a common global approach to carbon leakage. Multilateral solutions can take time to develop, however, and while we will continue to work on international solutions with partners, options for domestic action must be considered in parallel.
The Government is therefore exploring a range of policies that could potentially mitigate future carbon leakage risk. These include policies to grow the market for low emissions industrial products, on which the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recently undertook a Call for Evidence. Today, we are announcing that it is our intention to consult later in the year on a range of carbon leakage mitigation options, including on whether measures such as product standards and a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) could be appropriate tools in the UK’s policy mix. A CBAM applies a carbon price to specified imports, in order to mitigate differences in carbon pricing between jurisdictions, and therefore reduce the risk of carbon leakage.
The Government is clear that any policy or policies would need to carefully balance a range of priorities for the UK, both domestically and internationally, including compliance with WTO rules and our staunch commitment to free and open trade, alongside taking into account the needs of developing countries. As we determine our approach to carbon leakage, we will continue our ongoing engagement with our domestic and international partners.
[1] : Developing the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Global Warming warning shock
The executive summary of the World Meteorological Organization Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update makes for sobering reading:
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update Target years: 2022 and 2022-2026
Executive Summary
The Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update is issued annually by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It provides a synthesis of the global annual to decadal predictions produced by the WMO designated Global Producing Centres and other contributing centres for the period 2022-2026. Latest predictions suggest that:
- The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1°C and 1.7°C higher than pre-industrial levels (the average over years 1850-1900).
- The chance of global near-surface temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels at least one year between 2022 and 2026 is about as likely as not (48%). There is only a small chance (10%) of the five-year mean exceeding this threshold.
- The chance of at least one year between 2022 and 2026 exceeding the warmest year on record, 2016, is 93%. The chance of the five-year mean for 2022-2026 being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) is also 93%.
- There is no signal for the El Niño Southern Oscillation for December-February 2022/23, but the Southern Oscillation index is predicted to be positive in 2022.
- The Arctic temperature anomaly, compared to the 1991-2020 average, is predicted to be more than three times as large as the global mean anomaly when averaged over the next five northern hemisphere extended winters.
- Predicted precipitation patterns for 2022 compared to the 1991-2020 average suggest an increased chance of drier conditions over southwestern Europe and southwestern North America, and wetter conditions in northern Europe, the Sahel, north-east Brazil, and Australia.
- Predicted precipitation patterns for the May to September 2022-2026 average, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest an increased chance of wetter conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and drier conditions over the Amazon.
- Predicted precipitation patterns for the November to March 2022/23-2026/27 average, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest increased precipitation in the tropics and reduced precipitation in the subtropics, consistent with the patterns expected from climate warming.
Alongside news of the extreme heat wave in Pakistan causing a glacial lake to flood and spring coming a month earlier than it did in the 1980’s in the UK – this report is all the more reason to argue for Climate Income to help, not hinder decarbonisation!
Finally, it needs repeating that the Government knows that, In its own words….Placing a price on carbon creates the incentive for emissions to be reduced in a cost effective and technology-neutral way, while mobilising the private sector to invest in emissions reduction technologies and measures…
UBI Center Analyses Impact of Carbon Dividends
UBI Center is a think tank whose mission is “To make universal basic income the world’s most thoroughly researched economic policy“. They have just published (23rd April) a blog discussing their analysis of carbon pricing with dividends in the UK and the results won’t surprise anyone in CCL. They start by pointing out that the recent IPCC report on mitigation of climate change mentions carbon pricing 680 times, more than any other single policy but they also point out that carbon prices impact the least well off more than better off families. And that brings them, inevitably, to the concept of a universal dividend.
For me, their key result is the plot I’ve borrowed from them below. It shows how poverty is substantially reduced by carbon-pricing plus a universal dividend. At a price of £100/tonne CO2, for example, poverty falls by over 12%. The UBI-center blog concludes “Experts agree that carbon dividends would help avert climate change and deaths from air pollution, and, like other poverty researchers, we’ve found that they would reduce poverty and inequality as well“. I think everyone in CCL will be delighted by that strong endorsement of Climate Income.
I’ve been looking at similar issues myself to try and understand better how Climate Income could help in the current cost-of-living crisis. I was considering the impact on Fuel Poverty in particular (defined as home energy costs exceeding 10% of disposable income) rather than overall poverty (defined as income below 60% of the median). However, I’ve redone my numbers using overall poverty and get results that are a little smaller than UBI-center’s more sophisticated approach. I’m in touch with them now to see if we can get to the bottom of the remaining discrepancy so that we can both have more confidence in the results we’re getting.
This moment is different. Climate disruption is now pervasive, and the window for successful climate resilient development is closing fast.
Statement from Joe Robertson, Executive Director, Citizens Climate International, reflecting on Earth Day 2022.
This moment is different.
What we do now will determine how billions of people live, and how safe they are, decades from now. We are living through a crucial moment on which human history and the health of planetary systems will hinge. That is the biggest takeaway from the three IPCC global climate science reports published since last August.
IPCC Working Group II found that to achieve successful climate resilient development, we cannot afford to keep making mistakes or delaying action.
- Working Group I (on the science) found that only with the most ambitious, immediate, sustained, and universal climate action, will we limit global heating to 1.5ºC or lower.
- Working Group II (on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) found that the window for successful climate resilient development is rapidly closing.
- Working Group III has now reported that we are not eliminating global heating pollution rapidly enough to avoid a state of pervasive, persistent climate emergency—though we do have the technology, the policy instruments, and the financial resources to do so.
We are facing multiple converging crises right now:
- Climate disruption has degraded ecosystems and productive agricultural land, reducing grain stocks and stressing food supplies.
- Impacts and vulnerability are now pervasive and compounding, adding more and more devastating costs year after year.
- Biodiversity is being depleted more quickly and more extensively than at any time since our species came into existence.
- Pollution is getting worse, with projections finding there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global food supplies, adding to an already dangerous rise in prices for basic needs.
Meanwhile, we are living through a pandemic that makes it harder to address each of these challenges. COVID-19 has taken at least 6,213,331 lives, at this writing. The pandemic and its wider effects are thought to have taken at least 18 million lives.
Most of these deaths are preventable. That we have not prevented this devastation is a lesson, and a warning. The World Health Organization has found that 24.3% of all deaths globally (13.7 million deaths per year) are due to environmental causes. All of those deaths are preventable.
We have not, as of Earth Day 2022, managed to create the socio-political infrastructure to stop virus spillovers, prevent pollution, protect nature, or adequately honor each other’s rights and humanity. So, we face a moment of world-shaping choice, while circumstances are only making it harder for us to make the best decisions and move quickly toward the best-case future outcomes.
Informed civics is critical.
In our Earth Day Citizens’ Forum, we heard from Olha Boiko, coordinator of the Climate Action Network for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (CAN-EECCA). She brought a message of hard-won wisdom, from the perspective of a society facing a direct and overwhelming threat to human safety, rights, and sovereignty. Her message: Civil society is strength.
The degree to which a society is practiced at organizing locally, working together to solve problems large and small, and collaborating across different perspectives, determines how well that society can respond to adversity. Adaptive capacity isn’t an authoritarian strength; it is a strength of open and cooperative societies.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has formally recognized the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. If that right is to be realized, we must also recognize that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights views every human being as “endowed with reason and conscience”, “entitled without any discrimination to equal protection”, enjoying “the right to education”, “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas”, and “to take part in [their] government”.
Authoritarian systems allow power-holders to control and conceal information. This makes it harder for the society to use knowledge to advance solutions, and it deprives people of basic and universally recognized rights. There is a right to know, and to act on knowledge, for the defense of human health and the improvement of the human condition.
To make sure we do not miss this critical moment of global consequence, we need stakeholders to get engaged, to learn from each other, to talk about policy, and to design the best possible sustainable pathway for their community, region, and nation. We need to expand the civic space, to make room for people of all kinds to exercise informed, locally rooted, personal political sovereignty.
Engaging to make change happen
This Earth Day, we are launching a new edition of the Engage4Climate Toolkit.
The Toolkit provides people in any circumstance straightforward, flexible guidance on organizing meetings of stakeholders, including across different perspectives and levels of experience, to discuss and address climate challenges. It provides meeting templates, an outline of 20-year future visioning and “back-casting” exercises, and ways to report findings to decision-makers.
One big question facing leaders and long-time advocates is: How do we prevent a repeat of the old cycle of reform and backsliding?
- Energy prices are high now, but they will collapse, and that will invite a flood of new investment into lower-cost, high-margin mainstream energy systems.
- Meanwhile, great damage can be done to human development prospects, if we make the wrong choices about future energy.
- So, we need to mobilize alternative sources of clean energy as quickly as possible, for as many people as possible.
- And, we need smart food security cooperation to save lives and prevent rogue regimes from projecting harm and chaos across the world.
Climate breakdown and conflict are causing food insecurity to spread. Climate-smart smallholder farming at scale will be vital for future food security.
Article 6, Paragraph 8 (Article 6.8) of the Paris Agreement calls for “non-market approaches” (NMA) to cooperative decarbonization. In a brief to the UNFCCC process, we outline 12 distinct areas of financial, policy, trade, and fiscal measures that could turn this call into real-world climate action. We have also identified ways NMAs can be used to foster future food security.
Around the world, CCI volunteers are working to build political will for a livable climate future. To cite just a few examples:
- This week, volunteers in Europe are lobbying European Union officials in Brussels.
- At the beginning of May, volunteers in Canada will lobby the Parliament. They are also pushing to expand emissions reduction efforts to include volatile anaesthetics.
- Volunteers in Nigeria organized a very productive media roundtable on the recent IPCC report.
- In Gambia and Bangladesh, plans are in the works for meetings with public officials in the coming weeks.
- In Colombia, volunteers are working to address the displacement of frontline communities, the need for ecosystems restoration, and are calling for ratification of the Escazú Agreement and protection of environmental and human rights advocates.
- Last year in Australia, volunteers organized 100 Days of Action leading up to COP26, focusing on Net Zero by 2050 as a unifying goal.
Building momentum
In June, we will hold the first Global Week of Action, in which citizen volunteer policy advocates in more than 70 countries will:
- Schedule direct policy discussions with public officials;
- Spread their message in local media;
- Organize, if they choose, educational meetings in their communities;
- Connect with trusted leaders, to build political will locally;
- Engage in focused trainings to develop the critical skills of volunteer policy advocates and organizers.
Citizens’ Climate volunteers are also building a global community of support for an open letter to the G7. The letter will build on the ongoing work within civil society networks to advance decarbonization, carbon pricing, and inclusive sustainable finance, to safeguard the civic space, and to advance equity and empowerment through the Women7 Advisors process.
We invite people of all backgrounds and contexts to get involved and engage in concrete and specific ways to change what is possible politically and in terms of inclusive sustainable transformation. We cannot afford to miss this moment.
Please support Fuel Poverty Action’s #EnergyForAll campaign.
Fuel Poverty Action campaigns against the shocking levels of fuel poverty in the UK (the highest in Western Europe) and the energy industry policies and failure to adequately improve housing stock which exacerbate fuel poverty. Its latest campaign, #EnergyForAll was reported on by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian on the 21st April.
This is the statement about the petition from the Change.org site…..
Energy bills have risen dramatically in the last year – and the price cap is now to increase by 54% in April. This rise will leave millions of people like me struggling with cold homes. Many of us are facing damp, ill health, darkness, hunger and misery. Before the pandemic and the price increase around 10,000 people died each winter in the UK’s cold homes. Now even more will die.
I’m a pensioner living on a council estate in south London, and even before the recent price increases it was a struggle for me and my neighbours to keep warm. I am asthmatic, and many of us have health problems, as well as problems with our housing conditions. My grandchildren don’t even visit me because my house is too cold. I’ve been working with Fuel Poverty Action for more than ten years now. There are too many people who cannot afford or struggle to keep warm.
To end this outrage, Fuel Poverty Action is calling for #EnergyForAll.
#EnergyForAll means giving everyone a free amount of energy – that is enough energy, free, to cover the basics like heating, cooking, and lighting – to give us all the security we need, taking account of people’s actual needs related to their age, health, and housing. To pay for this new pricing system, Energy for All, we’re urging the Government to introduce a Windfall Tax on the profits of oil and gas producers, traders and suppliers, and to STOP subsidising fossil fuels with millions of pounds every day.
The UK is a wealthy nation, with many billionaires – now more than ever due to fortunes made in the pandemic. Many companies, including energy companies, are clocking up exceptional profits – while we struggle to pay the prices they are charging.
No one should get ill or die because of cold homes. No one should spend days in libraries or shopping centres to keep warm. Every home should be well repaired and insulated so we don’t need so much energy in the first place. We need your help to stop the outrage of fuel poverty – please sign and share this petition!
The government says we will get £200 back – but that will be a loan which we’ll have to repay in future bills. I have no idea where that money will come from in the future. They also say most people will get an extra £150 – very welcome, but far from enough. From April, many will see an increase of around £700 per year – more if your home is poorly insulated, or if you are on a prepayment meter, like many people on low incomes.
Instead of filling the pockets of fossil fuel companies, taxpayers money should be used to make sure everyone can keep warm. And the pricing system should be fair.
At present, we pay more per unit of gas or electricity if we use less of it. At present, we pay a high standing charge even when we use very little energy, or none at all. Our new pricing system, Energy for All, would eliminate that injustice and turn pricing right side up.
Please join my campaign to ensure we get #EnergyForAll.
Note: “e4a: Energy for All” is a proposal for a new pricing structure for energy, and is entirely distinct from energy4all.co.uk which supports community renewable energy projects. Fuel Poverty Action also strongly supports the aims and cooperative initiatives of Energy4All.
Fuel Poverty Action acknowledges the need for an energy policy to stop the scourge of fuel poverty without using it as a reason to argue for more fossil fuel exploitation…..
We know that bringing down the bills goes hand in hand with fighting climate change, which is already causing flooding and extreme weather in the UK and across the world. We seek alternatives to expensive and polluting forms of energy like oil and gas that will bring down the bills for good. We want warm, insulated homes and cleaner and cheaper renewable energy, generated from the sun, the wind, and the waves.
We urge you to support this campaign which offers a redistributive solution to the current crisis which, like Climate Income, delivers a price signal to change behaviour and hasten decarbonisation.
IPCC WG3 AR6 – What?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the body of scientists tasked with reporting to the UNFCCC (that’s the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) every 5 or 6 years. There are three working groups within the IPCC that work on:
- The science of climate change. What’s happened to the climate and what could happen next?
- The impact of climate change. What dangers are we facing?
- Mitigation. What can we do to limit the damage?
It’s working group 3 (WG3) that have just reported today (WG1 reported last November, if I remember correctly, and WG2 reported back in February). Oh, and this set of three reports is the 6th one since the whole process was set up in the early 1990s hence 6th assessment report (AR6).
So, that’s what the jargon means but what does the report actually say? Well, so far, I’ve only scanned through the “summary for policy makers” but I’m looking in particular for items that relate directly to CCL policies of carbon pricing, dividends and border adjustments. You can read about the other aspects of the report (e.g. it’s increased emphasis on carbon dioxide capture) elsewhere in the many media reports you’re going to see over the next few days.
So what’s in it of relevance to CCL policy? For a start they assess the costs of tackling climate change and conclude that a price of $100/tonne of CO2(eq) would halve emissions in 2030 compared to 2019. Even a price of $20/tonne would drop emissions by 25% by the end of this decade. That’s a pretty big endorsement of carbon pricing and the prices are close to those we’d propose to introduce. The report also states that the net benefits of avoided climate damage outweigh the costs to economies of these carbon prices.
And then, towards the end, the summary for policy makers starts to get really interesting! On page 61 it states that “Economic instruments have been effective in reducing emissions, complemented by regulatory instruments mainly at the national and also sub-national and regional level (high confidence). Where implemented, carbon pricing instruments have incentivized low-cost emissions reduction measures, but have been less effective, on their own and at prevailing prices during the assessment period, to promote higher-cost measures necessary for further reductions (medium confidence). Equity and distributional impacts of such carbon pricing instruments can be addressed by using revenue from carbon taxes or emissions trading to support low-income households, among other approaches (high confidence). ”
That’s all I’ve found so far but I’ll look in more depth over coming days.
Progress Towards a UK Border Adjustment
Last October we submitted a CCL response to a consultation on Carbon Border Adjustments instigated by the House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee. They received 27 such submissions from organisations from the TUC to the WWF and even HM Treasury. The resulting report was released today and, I’m glad to say, it has many excellent recommendations which we can hope the Government will take notice of.
They’re not really talking about a full blown carbon-tax and associated border adjustment. Instead, this just relates to the UK’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) in which big emitters such as power stations and steel-works are required to pay for permits to pollute. However, as with a full carbon tax, the effect is to make UK businesses less competitive and, to compensate, the UK government at present gives free permit allocations to affected companies. This is not really a very good way to do things as the link between free-permits and exports/imports is rather tenuous. The consultation concerns whether tariffs on imports would be a better way to do things.
You might be wondering about another aspect of “border adjustments”—rebates of carbon-pricing to exporters—but one of the things I leaned from reading this report is that rebates are far more likely to fall foul of World-Trade-Organisation restrictions than import tariffs. I can’t say I’m very sure why but it is an interesting point for us to bear in mind when talking about CCL policies in this area.
On the whole, I’m quite pleased with what I have read. Our own submission gets referenced multiple times and we are even quoted on the issue of returning the tariff-income to ordinary citizens as a way to compensate for resulting increase in prices. The report will certainly help to put us on the map.
But it’s the committees own conclusion which please most. To pull out a few quotations:
“Effective carbon pricing is crucial to decarbonisation, but cannot be achieved without effective anti-carbon leakage policies in place. The Government’s current approach to addressing the risks of carbon leakage, including free allocation of Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) allowances, is insufficient on its own to incentivise industrial decarbonisation effectively. A clear policy response is needed to address this; we consider that a UK carbon border approach is the most appropriate response.”
“The UK’s carbon border approach needs to comprise a set of complementary policies, designed to drive industrial decarbonisation in the UK and globally.”
“We recommend that the Government clearly define its objectives for any carbon border approach at the outset, and ensure the choice of policy options and design consideration at each stage is led by these objectives. These should encompass the need to drive decarbonisation across the economy to address climate change, whilst ensuring low- and middle-income countries, vulnerable households and wider environmental goals, such as nature, are not adversely impacted”
“We recommend that the Government… Conduct analysis to understand any potential impact on consumers, including vulnerable and low-income households, and ensure the carbon border approach includes any measures needed to address this.”
Well, quite!