Ma Nature Gets "Enforcers"!!!

[Mr. Shaman]

August 29, 2016 - "Warning that climate change amounts to the "mother of all risks", three of the world's biggest insurance companies this week are demanding that G20 countries stop bankrolling the fossil fuels industry.

Multi-national insurance giants Aviva, Aegon, and Amlin, which together manage $1.2tn in assets, released a statement Tuesday calling on the leaders of the world's biggest economies to commit to ending coal, oil, and gas $ub$idie$ within four years.

"Climate change in particular represents the mother of all risks—to business and to society as a whole. And that risk is magnified by the way in which fossil fuel subsidies distort the energy market," said Aviva CEO Mark Wilson. "These subsidies are simply unsustainable."

According to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), fossil fuel companies receive an estimated $5.3T a year in global subsidies—a figure that included, as the IMF put it, the "real costs" associated with damage to the environment and human health that are foisted on populations but not paid by polluters.

"We're calling on governments to kick away these carbon crutches, reveal the true impact to society of fossil fuels and take into account the price we will pay in the future for relying on them," Wilson added.

Indeed, insurance companies are increasingly shouldering many of the costs associated with a warming planet, whether it be from extreme weather damage or reimbursing farmers for lost crops.

In 2009, G20 leaders agreed to "rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption."

Five years later, this goal rings "empty" to Shelagh Whitley, research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), which estimates that such assistance amounts of roughly $444bn each year.

"These subsidies fuel dangerous climate change," said Whitley. "If we are to have any chance of meeting the 2°C target set at the Paris climate summit then governments need to start a program of rapid decarbonization. The finance sector recognizes the importance of moving away from fossil fuels, governments need to realize they may be the only ones left not moving."

http://www.commondreams.org/news/20...giants-call-g20-stop-bankrolling-fossil-fuels​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

September 3, 2016 - "President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China formally committed the world’s two largest economies to the Paris climate agreement here on Saturday, cementing their partnership on climate change and offering a rare display of harmony in a relationship that has become increasingly discordant.

On multiple fronts, from cyber-hacking to maritime security, ties between China and the United States have frayed during the seven-and-a-half years of Mr. Obama’s presidency. The friction has worsened since the ascension of Mr. Xi as a powerful nationalist leader in 2013.

Yet the fact that he and Mr. Obama could set aside those tensions to work together yet again on a joint plan to reduce greenhouse gases attests to the pragmatic personal rapport they have built, as well as to the complexity of the broader United States-China relationship, a tangle of competing and congruent interests.

At a ceremony in this picturesque lakefront city, the two leaders hailed the adoption of the Paris agreement as a critical step toward bringing it into force worldwide. Together, China and the United States generate nearly 40 percent of the world’s emissions, not far from the threshold of 55 percent required for the global pact to take effect.

“Despite our differences on other issues, we hope our willingness to work together on this issue will inspire further ambition and further action around the world,” Mr. Obama declared."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/world/asia/obama-xi-jinping-china-climate-accord.html?_r=0​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

September 18, 2016 - "The 27 states challenging Obama’s Clean Power Plan in court say the lower emissions levels would impose are an undue burden

. But most are likely to hit them anyway.

Already, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Dakota appear to be meeting the CPP's early targets. And changes in the power market, along with policies favoring clean generation, are propelling most of the rest toward timely compliance, according to researchers, power producers and officials, as well as government filings reviewed by Reuters.

“We are seeing reductions earlier than we ever expected,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an interview. “It’s a great sign that the market has already shifted and people are invested in the newer technologies, even while we are in litigation.”

States engaged in the legal battle that is set for an appellate court hearing later this month say their concerns go beyond whether they can meet the mandate. The states, most of them led by Republican governors, say they object to what they view as federal overreach by Obama and the Democrats

and want to maintain flexibility to make energy decisions at the state level that reflect changing market conditions."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-lawsuit-insight-idUSKCN11O0E1​