USA
Thursday 6 May 2021, by Barry Sheppard
President Biden held a metting of some world leaders to discuss climate change in late April, to call for new commitments on carbon emissions. Climate activist and leader Greta Thunberg sent out a video the day before the conference began, denouncing it as “bullshit.”
“At the Leaders Climate Summit, countries will present their new climate commitments, like net-zero emissions by 2050. They will call these hypothetical targets ‘ambitious.’ But when you compare their insufficient targets with the overall current best available science, you clearly see that there’s a gap. There are decades missing.”
What are the missing decades? The science she is referring to is the conclusion that we must reduce global emissions to zero by 2030 to avoid catastrophic consequences.
“At the Leaders Climate Summit, countries will present their new climate commitments, like net-zero emissions by 2050. They will call these hypothetical targets ‘ambitious’. But when you compare their insufficient targets with the overall current best available science, you clearly see that there’s a gap. There are decades missing.”
What are the missing decades? The science Thunberg is referring to is the conclusion that we must reduce global emissions to zero by 2030, to avoid catastrophic consequences.
To reach that target, we should have already begun to cut back carbon emissions, but instead the world continues to move in the opposite direction.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by the Presidential Cabinet members, pose for a Cabinet portrait Thursday, April 1, 2021, in the Grand Foyer of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz). By Adam Schultz - The White House, Public Domain, Link
Laurence H. Shoup is a California author and activist. He is the author of five books, including
The U.S. working class, led by people of color, has, at least temporarily, defeated the criminal Trumpian regime and the specter of the consolidation of gangster neofascism. Among its many crimes, this racist regime tried to overturn the results of a U.S. national election. Let us turn to an analysis of the new Joe Biden regime and the personnel and policies it is likely to follow, especially on the all-important questions of the climate crisis and U.S. grand strategy toward China.
SHARE:
New York politics have featured Green New Deals for more than a decade. Howie Hawkins, the 2018 Green Party gubernatorial nominee, ran under the banner of confronting climate change and the damage done to disadvantaged communities by fossil fuels in one legislative go. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have their own respective plans. Add Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan to the list.
The upstate Democrat recently unveiled his own 21st Century homage to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt s signature initiatives against the Great Depression. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency in buildings and spurring economic activity based in the transition to renewable energy all have a place in the plans that Ryan unveiled earlier this month. What makes his plan unique is how it might show how county governments might tackle climate change.