Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 06, 2022 News
– As latest int’l report calls for deep cuts in emissions; details more devastating impacts of climate change
Kaieteur News – The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), one of the key working groups of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on the human-induced phenomenon, has released yet another damning report on the extent to which the world will suffer if emissions are not significantly reduced.
On the heels of this 3,675 page report, a well known civil society group, A Fair Deal for Guyana – A Fair Deal for the Planet has renewed its call for citizens to sign their petition (located on its website at: https://fairdealforguyana.org/about.html) which calls for ExxonMobil and the Government of Guyana to halt the development of over 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources in the Stabroek Block. The group holds the view that the burning of the Stabroek Block resources could easily release over 4 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas and therefore turn Guyana into a carbon bomb.
Given the impacts Guyana’s oil projects can have via emissions as well as from an unmitigated oil spill, the civil society campaign is demanding there be a pause on oil and gas operations until ExxonMobil guarantees that proper environmental safeguards are in place to protect lands, ocean and climate; that there be a halt until ExxonMobil guarantees that it will pay for all environmental, social and economic damage across Guyana and the Caribbean as a result of any well blow-out or oil spill from their operations. It also believes the oil production must be paused until the Government of Guyana provides independent evidence that the benefits to the Guyanese people from the oil projects outweigh the costs.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Heinrich Boell Foundation, a German, legally independent political foundation, recently published an analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability — the second part of the Sixth Assessment Report released February 26, 2022. Both organisations noted that the report confirms that irreversible damage is already occurring to natural ecosystems, communities, and human rights, and will accelerate to an unprecedented scale and pace if global temperature rise surpasses 1.5°C.
“In this latest report, the IPCC doesn’t just address the severe risks of irreversible harm posed by climate change itself. It also examines the significant risks introduced by human responses to climate change and how misguided measures may compound damage, erode resilience, and exacerbate vulnerabilities,” said Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate & Energy Program at CIEL.
“Some of Working Group II’s most sobering findings were diluted or deleted from the final Summary for Policymakers approved by State Parties. But while Parties can water down wording, they cannot negotiate away the science,” continued Reisch.
The CIEL official said the underlying chapters of the WGII report, including the technical summary, leave no doubt: surpassing 1.5°C will lead to irreparable harm, whether or not a return to lower temperatures is even possible, while adding that technological carbon dioxide removal schemes will take decades to deploy at meaningful scales, in which time severe and irreversible harms could occur.
The Director stated too that risky and uncertain technologies like Solar Radiation Management would not address the drivers of the climate crisis and would create significant new risks. In addition to this, the CIEL Director said policy choices that lock the world into overshooting 1.5°C and gambling on return, rather than immediately and drastically slashing emissions — including through rapid phase-out of fossil fuel production and use and a halt to deforestation — “invite permanent loss and irreversible damage to humans and ecosystems around the world. In the face of this latest IPCC report, such choices are indefensible.”
Lien Vandamme, Senior Campaigner at CIEL also commented on the report, noting that for far too long, attempts to address the climate crisis have paid too little attention to social and environmental justice, including Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge and gender dimensions.
Vandamme said the report acknowledges this and affirms that human rights-based climate action must be placed at the core of international climate negotiations and their implementation while adding that supporting indigenous self-determination, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and Indigenous knowledge-based adaptation accelerates climate-resilient development pathways.
The Senior Campaigner said too that the report once again confirms that governments are failing the countries least responsible and most impacted by the climate emergency. The CIEL official said redress for these harms is a moral imperative, an obligation under international human rights law, and long overdue. “This report is (yet another) wake-up call for leaders to finally summon the courage to make strong decisions and deliver funding for loss and damage while phasing-out fossil-fuels to prevent the global temperature rise from ever exceeding 1.5°C,” the Senior Campaigner concluded.
Since 1989, CIEL has used the power of the law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society.
With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, CIEL’s team of attorneys, policy experts, and support staff work to provide legal counsel and advocacy, policy research, and capacity building across three programme areas: Climate and Energy, Environmental Health, and People, Land and Resources.
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