Obama Adm. Unveils Final Climate Vision, Big Businesses Agree: Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry told a packed audience in Marrakech that climate action in the US is not something that “can or will be reversed” and called on the private sector to help ratchet up the transition to a low-carbon future. The White House also released and
formally submitted a detailed
mid-century strategy report for deep decarbonizationto slash emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, giving a glimpse of the opportunities available to the US to combat climate change.
On Wednesday,
hundreds of US companies urged Trump not to back out of the Paris Agreement, writing in a joint letter that “failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk.” (
Kerry: AP,
Guardian,
Climate Home,
Pacific Standard,
ThinkProgress,
Christian Science Monitor,
Reuters,
Wall Street Journal $,
The Hill,
VOA News,
Independent,
Xinhua,
Clean Technica.
Business letter: New York Times $,
Financial Times $,
CNBC,
Bloomberg BNA,
BBC,
PV-Tech.
Strategy report: Washington Post $,
Politico Pro $,
LA Times $,
InsideClimate News,
TIME,
Huffington Post,
Edie)
Bannon on Climate: Trump’s nomination of Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon as chief strategist has put the spotlight on Bannon’s influence on Trump and ignited widespread criticism for his racist and anti-Semitic worldviews. Under Bannon’s guidance, Breitbart editor James Delingpole was allowed to regularly attack climate scientists on the site. Delingpole’s climate “coverage” included using a fake TIME cover as evidence for “global cooling,” calling alternative energy “madness,” and comparing climate activism to underage human trafficking. (InsideClimate News)
China, Posed to Lead on Climate, Rebukes Trump “Hoax” Claims: In a briefing with reporters, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin noted that Donald Trump’s now-infamous Tweet that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese could not possibly be true. “If you look at the history of climate change negotiations, actually it was initiated by the IPCC with the support of the Republicans during the Reagan and senior Bush administration during the late 1980s,” Liu said. Many speculate that a possible international leadership vacuum on climate caused by a Trump presidency may pave the way for China to take the lead — and it has offered strong signals of its intention to take up the challenge. (News: Bloomberg, The Hill, TIME, USA Today, Global Times, Guardian, Vox, Christian Science Monitor, LA Times $, SBS, Washington Post $, Verge, CNN, Mashable, Gizmodo, New York Daily News, Cosmopolitan, Guardian. Commentary: Global Times, Kathleen Naday column; South China Morning Post, Li Jing analysis)
Protecting the World Economy: Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C is feasible and would avoid $12 trillion in economic losses by 2050 when compared to a 3°C rise, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme. The study also finds that staying within a 1.5°C rise would reduce the length of extreme heatwaves each year by a whole month.(Thomson Reuters Foundation, Independent)
