PAMACC News - A new report from West Coast Environmental Law, Net Zero or Net Reckless, warns that technofixes that aim to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere should play only a limited role in Canada’s future climate plans. The report pushes back against politicians and oil and gas industry leaders who have advocated for large-scale development of industrial “negative emissions technologies” instead of immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. West Coast is concerned that Canada’s Emissions Reduction Plan, released yesterday, proposes for the first time using negative emissions technologies to achieve its 2030 target but fails to clarify how and to what extent these technologies will be used. “Our review of the scientific literature is clear: the world needs reductions in fossil fuel pollution combined with a realistic - and very limited - use of negative emissions technologies.” said West Coast’s Climate Accountability Strategist, Fiona Koza. “The world needs these technologies to help restore the atmosphere and to capture the emissions from a small number of essential but extremely difficult to decarbonize processes, not as an excuse to delay emissions reductions or to continue oil and gas production and use.” Direct Air Capture and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage are two technologies used to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Both have only ever been implemented at a very small scale and have massive resource or land demands that severely limit their use. They are cousins to the better-known Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS), which reduces greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources, rather than removing them from the atmosphere, and which raises some of the same problems. Canada’s new Emissions Reductions Plan predicts that by 2030, Direct Air Capture in Canada will suck approximately seven hundred thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year, but it says nothing about its role in the climate plan, who will pay for it, or the massive energy, land and water impacts, and potential impacts on Indigenous Peoples that it brings. The Net Zero or Net Reckless report finds that, depending on the technology used, how it is powered, and what is done with the captured carbon dioxide, even that modest amount of Direct Air Capture could require tens of millions of Gigajoules of energy and millions of tonnes of water, and could even increase greenhouse gas emissions. “Done right, a small amount of negative emissions technologies can be part of the solution,” said Koza. “But done badly they are a subsidy to the fossil fuel industry that can make climate change worse.” West Coast Environmental Law will be monitoring implementation of Canada’s new Emissions Reduction Plan to see if technological solutions are limited to the role that science demands.

GENEVA, Switzerland (PAMACC News) - Experts at the 2020 Global Biodiversity Negotiations in Geneva have slammed particularly developed countries for lacking the will to stem the tide of biodiversity loss, which threatens up to one million species with extinction within decades. According to Brian O’Donnell, the Director of Campaign for Nature, the progress with the negotiations has been painfully slow, and the level of ambition with financing remains woefully inadequate. “Unfortunately, the negotiations in Geneva have not reflected the urgency that is needed to successfully confront the crisis facing our natural world," said O’Donnell. However, he noted that there is emerging consensus in support of the science-based proposal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030, which is encouraging. As well, , there is growing recognition of the need to better safeguard the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, who must be central to achieving the world’s biodiversity goals. In the same breath, the activist pointed out that there remain serious challenges that will require renewed leadership from governments around the world. "In order for any deal to be meaningful, donor countries must commit to far more ambitious financing targets, and all world leaders will need to more clearly demonstrate that addressing the biodiversity crisis and finalizing a global agreement at COP15 is a priority for their country and for the planet,” said O’Donnell. While this year's round of negotiations was designed to be the last before a global biodiversity agreement is finalized at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Kunming, China, the overall lack of progress has bogged down the process with too many unresolved issues, requiring another in-person negotiation to be held in June (21-26). The COP15 is scheduled to conclude in September, almost exactly two years after it was initially planned to occur. Despite these challenges,the meetings in Geneva delivered some positive progress, including on the proposal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030. The following are several takeaways from the Geneva negotiations and the issue that must be resolved in the weeks and months ahead. Areas of Progress: An Emerging Consensus on 30x30. The proposal to protect or conserve at least 30% of the planet’s land and ocean - currently Target 3 in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework - continues to be the target with the most overwhelming support. There are now 91 members of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, an intergovernmental coalition that was formed to champion the 30x30 proposal. During the negotiations, several other countries expressed their support for the target for the first time. The target is a global one, not one that every country will be able to meet within their own borders, and countries that had previously questioned the target indicated their comfort with it so long as it remains clear that countries will determine their contributions in accordance with their national circumstances. One country blocked the ambition of…

BELETWEYNE, Somali (PAMACC News) - On the outskirts of Beletweyne town in southern Somalia, Maryam Muse Duale breaks up small sticks in her hands, stoking a fire in the dirt to keep her young children warm at night. Maryam has made a flimsy shelter of sticks and cloth; it doesn’t keep the cold night air out. Her children sit on a mat, waiting for food from humanitarian agencies. When it comes, she shares among the children first. Parents eat whatever is left. Like many other rural Somalis, Maryam is facing a new reality; it is a far cry from her life as an agro-pastoralist just a few months before. The drought in Somalia, which began in late 2020, has only been spreading and deepening. Not so long ago, Maryam’s family used to raise goats, collect firewood and do some rain-fed farming to support themselves. But after three failed rainy seasons, the land has dried up, her goats are dead, and her family has been left destitute. “Before the drought, we had a cart and a donkey, and we used to harvest wood. We had no camels, but we did have goats. Now that is all gone,” she said. With no options left, her family made the tough choice to leave their home and head to the town of Beletweyne in search of help. “We came to the town here in search of life.” Maryam’s family has also had to separate as a survival mechanism. The women have taken the children to town for help, while the men search for odd jobs and stay in their village to protect what’s left of their belongings. They don’t know when they will be reunited. In the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp where Maryam and her children have found temporary shelter, everything must be provided for them – food, water, medicine. Living amongst strangers and away from the protection of their relatives, displaced women and children are also at a higher risk of gender-based violence and physical harm, not to mention disease outbreak. The decision to flee from home comes with a heavy economic and psycho-social toll. “There is a big difference between our past and our present because in our past, we were living in our homes, and if we needed anything, we had a place to go,” said Maryam. She is now entirely dependent on the goodwill of others for her survival and that of her family’s. Like Maryam, some 667 000 people have already been displaced by the drought, and this number is predicted to rise exponentially in the second quarter of 2022, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). With other agencies providing support to those in IDP camps, FAO is in the drought affected areas, providing cash transfers, livelihood assets and other support to people in their villages, giving them the option to stay and helping to decrease the massive displacement and pressure on already crowded IDP camps. With funding from United States…

GENEVA, Switzerland (PAMACC News) - Within the next five years, everyone on Earth should be protected by early warning systems against increasingly extreme weather and climate change, according to an ambitious new United Nations target announced today. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has tasked the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to lead the effort and present an action plan to achieve this goal at the next UN climate conference in Egypt this November. The announcement was made on World Meteorological Day on 23 March, which this year has the theme Early Warning and Early Action. “Human-caused climate disruption is now damaging every region. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change details the suffering already happening. Each increment of global heating will further increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events,” said Mr Guterres. “We must invest equally in adaptation and resilience. That includes the information that allows us to anticipate storms, heatwaves, floods and droughts,” said the UN chief. However, one-third of the world’s people, mainly in least developed countries and small island developing states, are still not covered by early warning systems. In Africa, it is even worse: 60 per cent of people lack coverage. “This is unacceptable, particularly with climate impacts sure to get even worse,” said Mr Guterres. “Early warnings and action save lives. To that end, today I announce the United Nations will spearhead new action to ensure every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years. I have asked the World Meteorological Organization to lead this effort and to present an action plan at the next UN climate conference, later this year in Egypt,” Mr Guterres said in a video message to the World Meteorological Day ceremony. “We must boost the power of prediction for everyone and build their capacity to act. On this World Meteorological Day, let us recognize the value of early warnings and early action as critical tools to reduce disaster risk and support climate adaptation.” Climate change is already very visible through more extreme weather in all parts of the world. We are seeing more intense heatwaves and drought and forest fires. There is more water vapor in the atmosphere, which leads to extreme rainfall and deadly flooding. The warming of the ocean fuels more powerful tropical storms and rising sea levels increase the impacts. Over the past 50 years (1970-2019), a weather, climate or water-related disaster has occurred on average every day – taking the lives 115 people and causing US$ 202 million in losses daily, according to a 2021 WMO report on disaster statistics. The number of recorded disasters increased by a factor of five over that 50-year period, driven by human-induced climate change, more extreme weather events and improved reporting. But thanks to improved early warnings and disaster management, the number of lives lost decreased almost three-fold over the same period thanks to better weather forecasts and proactive and coordinated disaster management. “The growing number of disasters due to climate change…