Rich countries continue to fail to live up to pledge of $100 billion dollars a year to poor countries to help climate mitigation

The worlds international deals of all kinds rely on countries doing what they promise, though it is true that if a small country promises a big country, then the big country can make them fulfil their pledge.

What should happen here? It is by definition the case, that the poor countries are those that has been promised the money.

The USA and the UK will fall short of their pledge for 2022.

The amount of this support that each country was responsible was worked out, on the basis of historical emissions and their gross national income. In other words, this split was done as fairly as possible – getting those countries that are responsible for the majority of emissions over time to pay the most, taking into account the countries current ability to pay.

Unfortunately, the USA has the biggest gap between what it has paid, and what it owes. In 2020, the USA paid just 5% of its share, indeed, despite having an economy that is 40% bigger than the EU it paid just 1/12 of what the EU did.

While the UK did better, it is still in default. In 2020 we paid just half of its fair share, and the plan is for this to only reach 2/3 by 2025. Australia paid only 23% and Canada just 18%, and neither have pledged to improve this in the next few years.

The only rich countries that are paying what they owe, are Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France and Japan.

Currently, of the promised $100 billion each year, only 83% is being met.

What is alarming, is the amount that was agreed (the $100 billion) is extremely small compared to the losses suffered by these poor countries as a result of the weather that has been triggered by global warming.

This is a big problem. If all these poor countries simply ignored science and destroyed their environment, it would be devastating for the west. Yet currently we are not doing what was promised.

25 biggest European banks are failing on their own green pledges

Over the last decade or so, the laws of countries across the developed world have not kept up with changes in our knowledge of threats to the natural world. As a result, promises to not fund projects that destroy ecosystems are what consumers have to go on in choosing which bank to let use your money.

Yet, out of the 25 biggest European banks none are actually living up to their promises. ShareAction, the body which carried out the research, did state that some banks such as NatWest are doing well on net zero targets, and restricting funding for fossil fuel projects.

Continue reading “25 biggest European banks are failing on their own green pledges”

The palm oil giant Wilmar is making clear its deforestation commitments mean nothing

An area of around 1500 football pitches has been cleared on an oil palm plantation during last year. The concession is managed by PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras a supplier to Wilmar. Wilmar is the worlds largest palm oil trader, and includes amongst their customers huge companies such as Kelloggs nestle and unilever.

Rather than denying the deforestation occurred, Wilmar has claimed that less land was cleared than is claimed (this is a foolish claim to make as we have satellite pictures from before and after), and then claims that they are not responsible anyway and that the clearing was done by smallholder farmers.

Continue reading “The palm oil giant Wilmar is making clear its deforestation commitments mean nothing”
See Animals Wild