My 3 weeks in Scotland have been very pleasant outside the Blue Zone of the
@COP26
. The highlight was being invited for tea at the residence of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in Edinburgh! Already planning next steps on Loss and Damage Fund towards COP27 next year in Egypt!
We actually don't expect so many deaths from floods in Bangladesh! We get a lot of floods which cause a lot of damage but we no longer have so many deaths! We would be happy to share our knowledge with Germany!
Get back up here and drive this deal over the line... 🚆
First Minister of Scotland
@NicolaSturgeon
calls on Boris Johnson to return to
#Glasgow
and push the climate agreement through.
#KayBurley
#COP26
UF
Heading in to do battle on the extra day of
@COP26
We cannot afford to give up, so will fight until the last minute! One thing I have learned from attending ALL the COPs so far, is to always buy my return journey TWO days after the official closing date! It never ends on time!
Just got my badge for my 26th COP in Glasgow. Had to brave cancelled and delayed trains (due to climate change impacts!) to get to Glasgow. Looking forward to seeing many friends here soon (make sure to bring galoshes and weatherproof clothes!).
The G20 countries promised to deliver their emission reduction plans in line with staying below 1.5 Degrees (we are actually headed for 2.7 Degrees!). Also rich countries promised to deliver 100 B$ in 2020 (they failed) and another 100B in 2021 (not met)
BBC World Service reprimands
@SaleemulHuq
live on air for getting angry & calling the failure of rich countries to create a climate loss&damage fund “bullshit”. I’d say that’s a pretty genteel word for what is being done to the countries being worst affected by climate damage..
Dear global media and journalists, kindly note that the costs of inaction are many, many times the costs of taking action to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change. So when you question leaders you need to ask why they aren't spending what is needed to avert the crisis?
One reason that
@COP26
is new is that we now have to deal with two climate change problems: the old one of preventing catastrophic impacts for everyone if we go above 1.5 Degrees and a new one of dealing with the loss and damage already happening due to increase of 1.1 Degrees!
Saturday 19th November in
@COP27P
venue a full day after the COP was supposed to end and still no agreement!! Only a few hours left to agree the
@LossandDamage
Fund or the COP will be a failure!!
The proposal for setting up the
#GlasgowLossandDamageFacility
was submitted by all the 138 developing countries representing 5 billion people was in the text yesterday but removed from the final text by the US UK and EU! This was how the rich polluters treat their victims!
#COP26
has failed to establish a
#GlasgowLossandDamageFacility
for finance. This is a travesty for developing countries and has grave implications for human rights.
Resolutions for the new year: Instead of climate change "problem" let's call it an "emergency". Instead of "climate deniers" they are now "climate criminals". Instead of trying to achieve collective global decisions, build coalitions of the willing!
Happy new year to everyone!
Our oceans are under attack like never before with the Trump Administration's pro-polluter plan to auction off huge swaths of our coasts to Big Oil.
We can't stand for this.
Join us and
#ProtectOurCoast
:
Having travelled from Bangladesh to Glasgow to attend
@COP26
and suffering
@LossDamage
from climate change once I got to Scotland! Trains cancelled and delayed due to floods.
Hundreds told to evacuate homes as torrential rain triggers ‘major’ flooding
This so-called 'plan' to deliver funds promised many years ago is nothing but a joke! They were supposed to deliver 100 B$ a YEAR from 2020 onwards. They still cannot make it until 2023! They are simply taking the developing countries for fools!
The
@G20
ministers talk about 'the 100 Billion' as if it is a one off payment to be delivered now! It was pledged as an annual amount every year from 2020 onwards. It was NOT delivered in 2020 so that has to be delivered first and ANOTHER 100 Billion is now due for 2021!
Finally, G20 “highlight the global need to address adaptation and the importance of integrating adaptation in budgetary processes and in national planning” and “look forward” to new climate finance commitments “well ahead of COP26” towards the 100 billion.
For those of you at
@COP27
who want to know where my 'office' is: I am in the Capacity Building Hub (turn left when you enter the premises and it is the last room on the left before the Exhibition Hall). Come see me here!
You are quite correct
@GeorgeMonbiot
. However what you are seeing now in the rich countries has been happening here in Bangladesh and other poor countries for many years already. Perhaps now the rich countries will treat it like the global emergency that it truly is!
For 20 years, the billionaire press told us "we can easily adapt to a warmer world".
Try telling that to people in Germany, Belgium and the western seaboard of North America.
And this is just one degree of heating.
The media did this, as surely as the fossil fuel companies.
Language on
@LossDamage
has in fact gone BACKWARDS from yesterday's text! It seems
@COP26
Presidency has been nobbled behind closed doors by the US! Unacceptable!
Quick impressions on changes in new
#COP26
draft cover decisions text: on adaptation finance adds base year of 2019 from which to "at least double", so still $40bn by 2025; no ref to loss & damage funding facility but establishes a "dialogue" to discuss "arrangements" for funding
And the developed countries couldn't come up with a mere 100 Billion USD they had promised to tackle climate change which is a greater threat to global peace than any local or regional conflict! We are Indeed living in an upside down world!
Who were the top 10 military spenders in 2020?
1) USA🇺🇸
2) China🇨🇳
3) India🇮🇳
4) Russia🇷🇺
5) UK🇬🇧
6) Saudi Arabia🇸🇦
7) Germany🇩🇪
8) France🇫🇷
9) Japan🇯🇵
10) South Korea🇰🇷
Together they spent $1482 billion, accounting for 75% of global military spending ➡️
People are asking me whether the vibe in Glasgow before
@COP26
, is like Copenhagen (which was a failed COP) or Paris (a successful COP)? I am afraid it feels worse than Copenhagen! I very sincerely hope that I am wrong and Glasgow may be better than Paris. It is up to leaders!
Impacts of human induced climate change will not be like falling off a cliff but rather like walking through a minefield where the density of mines keeps increasing! Also the poor and rich countries are going on different paths where the density of mines is lower for the rich!
Just arrived at the
@COP27P
venue on Saturday afternoon (a day after the official end of COP27!). Still no agreement!! If there is no agreement on setting up the
@LossandDamage
Fund here by tonight the whole COP will have been a failure. Only a few hours left to prove me wrong!
Better for whom? Speaking for the most vulnerable communities in the world it was a disgraceful abdication of responsibility by the rich polluting countries!
I understand the impulse to condemn the proposed COP26 agreement as inadequate given the scale of the crisis, but it really is a lot better than its critics are claiming.
Pleased to announce that we achieved a deal to set up the fund for
@LossandDamage
at
@COP27P
. Congratulations to all the negotiators involved! Great victory for the vulnerable developing countries and people
Just arrived at the
@COP27P
venue on Saturday afternoon (a day after the official end of COP27!). Still no agreement!! If there is no agreement on setting up the
@LossandDamage
Fund here by tonight the whole COP will have been a failure. Only a few hours left to prove me wrong!
The US, UK and ÉU have been bullying the Vulnerable Developing countries behind closed doors to persuade them to accept the unacceptable text and swallow the bitter pill of a failed
@COP26
by not calling out its failure! Governments may be bullied but the people won't accept it!
Climate change is no longer just a “problem” but an “emergency “ and it is no longer a “debate “ but a “war” between polluters and victims of pollution (ie poor people around the world and children everywhere over time). Everyone has to choose a side!
Conrad Black: "Whatever is happening to the climate, we don’t know the extent of it, the direction, whether it will be positive or negative, whether human activity influences it," Another trashy climate-denial article. via
@nationalpost
-
#climatecrisis
Dear
@antonioguterres
, why not appoint Nicola Sturgeon as your Special Envoy for
@LossandDamage
from human induced climate change to make sure the
@COP27P
decision is implemented? After all, she was the first global leader to commit funding for victims of climate change!
That is absolutely correct. The failure of the COP is not a collective failure of all nations but rather a cynical sabotage of the process by a few nations acting in the interests of the fossil fuel companies rather than their own citizens!
Blaming the "COP model" on the lack of climate progress and distributing blame broadly provides cover for the relatively small number of bad petrostate actors who are blocking progress for rest of world. It actually enables them.
Burning all fossil fuels would scorch Earth: study
Using up all known fossil fuel reserves would render Earth even more unliveable than scientists had previously projected,
Dear
@UNFCCC
, the setting up of the Transitional Committee to establish the
@LossandDamage
funding mechanism is overdue already. When will it be set up and when and where will it meet? I hope Observers are allowed as I plan to attend!
Saturday 19th November in
@COP27P
venue a full day after the COP was supposed to end and still no agreement!! Only a few hours left to agree the
@LossandDamage
Fund or the COP will be a failure!!
As we near the end of
@COP26
with an extremely wishy washy 'Cover Decision' here is a way for
@AlokSharma_RDG
and
@BorisJohnson
to redeem some credibility: announce the formation of the Glasgow Financial facility for Loss and Damage. With details to be worked out in COP27
It is very true that every COP runs into extra time, when most of the vulnerable developing countries negotiators have to leave, and when they get home, and see the result they see everything they fought for has been deleted as they were not present at the end! This is deliberate
#COP27
now enters its inevitable farcical phase. Like every COP before, negotiators are insulting our intelligence. They have added a day, NOT because they want to search for a solution, but because they will ensure none is found. EVERY COP ends this way.
From January 2022 the climate change emergency is no longer about plans/promises for 2050 or even staying below 1.5 Degrees but about dealing with the 1.1 Degrees of warming already caused. In the era of
@LossandDamage
each and everyone of us must act every single day from now on
Accepting that coal has to be phased out to tackle climate change but then taking 20 years to phase out, reminds me of the slave owners of the 18th Century who agreed that slavery was bad and needed to be ended, but took several decades to minimise the burden on slave owners!
BREAKING News: Germany will
#EndCoal
, no additional coal plants will be built and the
#HambacherForest
is saved.
But there’s a problem: A coal exit by 2038 is too late for the
#climate
While wishing all my followers a safe and happier 2022 than we had in 2021, let me reiterate that in the new era of
@LossandDamage
we can expect a record breaking extreme weather event to take place somewhere in the world every day for many years to come! This is now the reality!
If there is one investment that was a game changer for the last fifty years of Bangladesh's development it was in girls education. It led to reducing births and garment industry. The best investment for next fifty years is in the next generation of girls!
The Spinning game is about to begin!
@COP26
Presidency under
@AlokSharma_RDG
and
@BorisJohnson
have certainly failed the vulnerable developing countries in Glasgow. We will take up the struggle again in COP27 next year in Egypt!
Now as
#COP26
is coming to an end, beware of a tsunami of greenwashing and media spin to somehow frame the outcome as “good”, “progress”, “hopeful” or “a step in the right direction”.
Adding an extra day of negotiations is a tactic of the rich and powerful countries who know that the poor and vulnerable countries negotiators will not be able to stay the extra day to defend their red lines. So they find that their words have disappeared from the final text !
Entering the
#Cop25Madrid2019
venue on final day plus one, halls are empty, few people and certainly most ministers/senior delegates have gone home
Why does
@UNFCCC
leave the difficult stuff until the very end? Is this a deliberate negotiating strategy?
#ClimateEmergency
There is still a failure to recognise that the post
@COP26
world is no longer about preventing future climate change impacts by staying below 1.5 Degrees but about dealing with the
@LossandDamage
due to the 1.1 Degrees global temperature rise already!
The
@COP26
decision was to allow unabated Loss and Damage from human induced climate change to continue ! Trying to dress that up as 'progress' is a cruel joke by the rich polluting countries!
For the first time, Loss and Damage was included in the cover decision at
#COP26
.
Recognising that loss of life, livelihoods and ecosystems is already occurring, and urging providers to improve finance and technical support.
Learn more about what was agreed ⬇️
For those interested in who is actually paying for the
@LossDamage
from human induced climate change: studies in Bangladesh show that the victims who are mostly poor households pay around 10 times what the government pays to help them and the international funds are less than 1 %
Dear
@POTUS
, I hear you want to make the United States into a leader on tackling climate change.
@NicolaSturgeon
has put 2 Million Pounds on the table towards a new
@LossDamage
fund. She is the true leader, while you are restricting any mention of finance in the
@COP26
text!
Wonderful to meet you
@NicolaSturgeon
and thanks for agreeing to stick with the vulnerable developing countries and people as we build the Snowball of Loss and Damage Fund which you started last week in Glasgow. We are already attracting others to chip in so we are just starting!
A pleasure to catch up with
@SaleemulHuq
in wake of
#COP26
to pledge my continued support for a Loss & Damage fund - which is an obligation the developed world owes to countries suffering impacts of climate change now - and to work with others to build momentum ahead of COP27
This year, I visited Pakistan, the Sahel & other places affected by the climate crisis.
I could see first hand that leaders worldwide aren't doing enough to address the climate emergency.
We need more
#ClimateAction
to realize everyone’s right to a healthy environment.
The rich countries have been offering the 100 Billion USD from 2009 and then again in 2015 to be delivered each year by 2020 but failed to deliver. They are still playing bait and switch! Time to acknowledge they have no intention of paying it!
The secret weapon unleashed by
@GretaThunberg
is friendship and solidarity of young people across countries and continents. This will prove to be more powerful than money or politics! They have only just begun.
Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread.
Every fraction of a degree warming matters.
We need maximum ambition – from all countries on all fronts – to keep the 1.5 degree warming goal of the
#ParisAgreeement
alive.
It's time to go into emergency mode.
Glasgow l is being battered by heavy rains and flooding causing severe delays to trains! Climate change got here before
@COP26
even started! Delegates will have to walk long stretches through this inclement weather to talk about what they should do! Actions needed not words!
On a boat at Khulna about to sail into Sundarbans holding a roundtable discussion inside the Sundarbans tomorrow on Conserving the Sundarbans mangrove forest.
@ICCCAD
Dear negotiators from Australia who questioned the need to discuss action on
@LossDamage
at
@COP25CL
in Madrid: this is what Non-economic
@LossDamage
from Climate Change looks like!
I am often advised not to use the terms loss and damage because many people (they mean in the North!) Don't understand the terms. My answer is that they need to learn the terms as they will face the reality soon enough!
Due to the tireless & effective interventions of many activists & country negotiators, in the last month, Loss & Damage has moved from an issue unknown to even climate buffs to a core aspect of the conversation. What an incredible foundation for justice those leaders have built.
Students around the world are striking today to demand action on climate change. Many were inspired by 16-year-old
@GretaThunberg
, who was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Watch Greta's full TED Talk here:
#ClimateStrike
The biggest evacuation in Australian history. Residents in areas the size of European countries are being told to leave.
This is not business as usual.
The
@IPCC
needs to prepare a Special Report on
@LossandDamage
from human induced climate change
What is the IPCC AR6 synthesis report and why does it matter?
Taking the
@COP25CL
into extra days is not only inefficient but deeply unfair to the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries, as their delegates cannot stay the extra days, and hence decisions (mostly against their interests) are made in their absence!
At midnight stocktaking session of
#COP25
, COP President
@CarolaSchmidtZ
thanks delegates for working very late hours: "I request all your strength to get an ambitious agreement. I count on you to reach consensus". Next stocktake plenary announced for 3:30 a.m., on 15 December.
The secret weapon that
@GretaThunberg
has unleashed is friendship and solidarity amongst youth from different countries and continents! This will prove more powerful than money and politics and has only just started!
“I think naivety and childishness are sometimes a good thing.” The great thing about youth, she says, is you’re not blinded by realpolitik and the assumption of compromise. “I do think older people make things more complicated than they actually are.”
Amongst all the competing narratives out there about
@COP26
here is one I find most telling: the vulnerable developing countries of
@TheCVF
demanded a 'Glasgow Climate EMERGENCY Pact' and
@AlokSharma_RDG
made it the 'Glasgow Climate Pact' ! No emergency! Business as usual only!