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THE WORLD’S MOST powerful economies urged “strong and effective action” on climate change, catapulting the issue up the G20 agenda in a new boost for campaigners after a surprising Sino-US breakthrough.
The grouping, which includes the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters — the United States and China, also threw its support behind a United Nations fund aimed at helping poorer countries deal with the problem.
“We support strong and effective action to address climate change,” G20 leaders said in a communique after weekend talks in Brisbane.
“We reaffirm our support for mobilising finance for adaptation and mitigation, such as the Green Climate Fund.”
The G20 talks follow the breakthrough between China and the United States on curbing carbon emissions last week, and calls from US President Barack Obama and European leaders demanding action at the G20 on climate.
Australian host Prime Minister Tony Abbott had pushed economic issues to be the main thrust of the two-day talks, focussing on a push towards extra economic growth of 2.1 percent and creating jobs.
Abbott, who since coming to power a year ago has dismantled a carbon tax designed to combat climate change, had resisted some language on climate proposed for the G20 communique, with one European diplomat likening the negotiations to “trench warfare”.
But he insisted that it “goes without saying that G20 leaders, all of us, support strong and effective action to address climate change”.
“Our actions will support sustainable development, economic growth and certainty for business and investment and of course we will all work constructively towards the climate change conference in Paris next year,” he told reporters.
Climate change real
In their declaration, G20 leaders said they aimed to support sustainable development, economic growth, and certainty for business and investment and would press for a post-Kyoto deal in the French capital in December next year.
The declaration also called on members to communicate their national contributions well in advance of this meeting, preferably by the first quarter of 2015 if possible.
“Australia has always believed that climate change is real, that humanity makes a contribution and that strong and effective action against it should be taken,” Abbott said, adding his government was committed to reducing harmful emissions.
“I don’t say that there weren’t at different times discussions about what is the ‘mot juste’ but certainly it has been a very harmonious, constructive and collegial process.”
Tony Abbott / Twitter#G20Brisbane Leaders Photo pic.twitter.com/BXsBSd1PhQ
— Tony Abbott (@HonTonyAbbott) November 15, 2014
Japan confirmed plans to give up to $1.5 billion to the UN-backed Green Climate Fund, joining a US pledge of $3 billion to mitigate the impact of global warming on poorer nations.
The GCF is designed as a way for wealthy countries to help poorer ones to become greener and to bolster their defences against the effects of climate change.
France and Germany have already pledged to contribute $1 billion each to the UN’s new climate framework while world leaders have spoken repeatedly of climate change ahead of the G20 summit.
In Brisbane, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon labelled it “the defining issue of our times” while Obama said he wanted to halt global warming so his grandchildren could visit Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “50 years from now”.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi added his voice to the calls for action, saying Sunday the damage humans had done to the planet over the centuries was heavy.
Campaigners, who had taken to the sweltering streets of Brisbane in vibrant protests during the week, said climate change had prevailed as a dominant economic agenda item for G20 leaders.
“Brisbane G20 may well become known as the ‘de facto’ climate change summit,” said WWF-Australia chief Dermot O’Gorman, adding that Turkey had promised to make climate change a top priority when it hosts the group next year.
- © AFP 2014.
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They are just called koalas, they aren’t bears.
Thanks for changing it.
No problem L :)
Was in the heading but changed now.
Who really cares? Anyone want to comment on the content of the article?
Allow me. Abbott’s plan for tackling climate change is two simple steps:
1. Pray.
2. Kill off renewable technologies.
“Climate change? No worries mate. I just flap me eeys, like an iliphant.” – Tony Abbott
How did they all get to Brisbane I wonder,seeing as they are all so dedicated to the global warming problem
Re Sean
Humans and their endeavours account for 2-3‰ of CO2 emissions on Earth. Nature makes up the other 97%. They can fly as often and as far as they want. We’ll be ok.
The fact is that the world’s entire scientific community now agrees that the amount of CO2 we have put into the atmosphere in the past 100 years or so has tipped our environment into an extremely dangerous state where ‘positive feedbacks, tipping points and domino effects are very likely to lead to runaway global climate change that will very likely be catastrophic for life on earth and will persist for thousands of years.
With their agreement, are we expected to believe instead posters on news websites who have no expertise whatsoever? http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Here’s a good summary of the main misunderstandings and myths around climate change:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/may/06/top-ten-global-warming-skeptic-arguments-debunked
Re Michelle
I see you have swallowed the whole global warming theory in full. According to models temperatures should have risen dramatically in the past 15 years die to the huge amounts of CO2 produced by humans and released into the atmosphere. No temperature rises for 17 years. Hmm…
Plants prefer CO2 at 1600 ppm, currently at 400 ppm. Hmm…
You mentioned NASA. NASA has said previously activities sea ice has not to do with CO2 or ‘global warming’ but is primary down to the winds. Google it.
While your at it why don’t Google sanity.
All of these denialist memes have their origin in the fossil fuel industries and the institutes they set up, and senators they funded, to cast doubt on the robust science that proves manmade global warming. Here’s an example in this HYSTERICAL satirical video from Jon Stewart on the embarrassing lack of knowledge of the (fossil fuel funded) Republican Senators who are (unbelievably) on the House Committee for Science in the USA – these are the guys who are blocking action on climate change.
You have to go into about 2:40 for the bit where the scientist patiently deals with the idiot senators’ questions!
Horgay, your views are in direct opposition to the view of the world’s scientific community. There is no global warming theory. There is hard painstaking scientific evidence and observations that have demonstrated that global temperatures are rising rapidly, that the main cause can only be manmade emissions, and that it is a cause for grave concern. Models are only a small part; the actual painstaking observations of thousands of expert scientists in a range of different scientific disciplines over decades have led science to this conclusion.
You can persist in having a different view, but there is no reason for anybody to believe it without any scientific evidence behind it.
Denialist memes try to give the impression that there is huge difference of opinion in the scientific community or lots of conflicting evidence. This simply is not true. However, it is well documented that around a billion dollars has been ploughed into the effort to undermine the science on climate change by vested interests. That is the only reason that the idea that there is some great scientific difference of opinion exists.
I might add that links to reputable scientific sources of proof might be more productive on your part than personal attack.
My reason for being on here countering unscientific arguments is not ideological at all; it is because I find it so awful that profit motives and immorality can get away with blocking action to, quite literally, preserve a planet that our children can survive on.
Again, just in case you missed it Michelle. No temperature rises for 17 years. With many scientists predicting a temperature drop of 1 degrees celcius(due to Sun). I hope you realise what a let down it is in a few years
Can someone help me with this one please. Now I know the mainstream media is nothing more than a tool to control the masses with presstitutes two a penny but how is it that we still have the media relentlessly drinking on about global warming.
There has not been any temperature rises for 17 years.
In fact we are having record breaking levels of sea ice etc. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/arctic-sea-ice-extent-at-its-highest-level-in-over-a-decade/
Even the old polar bears are thriving, they breeding like rabbits and the numbers are the highest on record yet we still see the old poor polar bear adds on TV rambling on about how due to global warming they are endangered.
@horgay – Because we can’t let the facts get in the way of a good climate slush fund.
Wow! The graph goes back a whole decade. That’s all the proof we need. /s
Wow , the records go back hundreds of years. Except when the warmistas feel like cherry picking.
“South Eastern America is seeing its earliest and deepest snow falls in over 100 years, whilst temperature records have also been broken. The cold spell is drawing predictions of a new mini ice age between at least 2015 and 2035, or possibly for the rest of this century. Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Georgia all saw unexpected snow, in some places up to a foot deep.”
Much of Siberia is covered in half a meter of snow,, months earlier than usual and the Northern Hemisphere has the third highest snow cover since records began.
Everything you say flies in the face of the scientific view!
2014 set to be the warmest globally since records began… http://www.noaa.gov/
Steven Goddard has no credibility and is not a climate scientist. That link does not count as scientific evidence – the fact is that all the evidence points in a different direction.
As regards the Arctic, how about a view from the National Snow and Ice Data Center?
“Arctic sea ice extent is declining, and air temperatures are rising. Vegetation is changing, with tundra being replaced by shrubs. Permafrost is warming and thawing over parts of the Arctic. Some of these changes, such as the replacement of of white reflective sea ice with dark open water, are setting in motion feedbacks that contribute to even further warming.”
http://nsidc.org/soac/upsetting-balance
This is what Polar Bears International have to say about global warming and its effect on polar bears:
How are polar bears affected by global warming?
“Polar bears have evolved for a life on the sea ice, which they rely on for reaching their seal prey. But the arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing due to a warming Earth, affecting the entire arctic ecosystem, from copepods to seals to walruses. For polar bears, sea ice losses mean:
Reduced access to food
Drop in body condition
Lower cub survival rates
Increase in drowning
Increase in cannibalism
Loss of access to denning areas
Declining population size”
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/global-warming#Affect
Everything you say flies in the face of the scientific view!
2014 set to be the warmest globally since records began… http://www.noaa.gov/
Steven Goddard has no credibility and is not a climate scientist. That link does not count as scientific evidence – the fact is that all the evidence points in a different direction.
As regards the Arctic, how about a view from the National Snow and Ice Data Center?
“Arctic sea ice extent is declining, and air temperatures are rising. Vegetation is changing, with tundra being replaced by shrubs. Permafrost is warming and thawing over parts of the Arctic. Some of these changes, such as the replacement of of white reflective sea ice with dark open water, are setting in motion feedbacks that contribute to even further warming.”
http://nsidc.org/soac/upsetting-balance
Nee -naw – nee naw sirens and flashing lights — here comes Michelle, chief inspector of the Green church of climate change Police!
Uncle Mort, there is a common misunderstanding among lay people about the difference between climate and weather!
It has now been documented that the undisputed rapid warming in the Arctic feeds warm air into the atmosphere that has caused the polar vortex to slow, wobble and go into bigger loops, bringing prolonged freezing weather down further than in the past. All part of the ‘global weirding’ we have been seeing in weather across the globe.
This really has been documented by actual real experts, so best leave it to the experts eh?
The fact is that using colder winter weather in a few regions of the world as some kind of proof that global warming is not happening is something that does not stand up to any kind of scientific scrutiny whatsoever.
Here’s a simple explainer: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jul/17/global-warming-causing-extreme-weather-jet-stream-waves
@Michelle – Professor Richard Lindzen on the carbon tax, alarmism and so forth… http://youtu.be/6PDNhzjE9I4
Paul, he’s all climate change sceptics have, since he is in such a tiny minority and his statements have consistently been debunked by the 97% of climate scientists who disagree with him.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm
Here’s a good beginners guide, from real working and publishing climate scientists, on the science behind climate change with plenty of link to evidence from reputable sources: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
@Michelle – Are you still peddling that fraudulent 97% figure that by the way includes skeptic scientists. http://youtu.be/kotqWXZkZS0
He’s an ultra-conservative, involved with the Heartland Institute, which is funded by the fossil fuel industry, and typical of the tiny minority of ‘experts’ that the US Senate usually calls to testify on climate change, which is not surprising given that so many of the senators on the Senate Scientific Committee are heavily funded directly by donations from fossil fuel companies. He is not a climate scientist.
There have been a number of independent studies that have confirmed the 97% consensus among climate scientists figure – where is your evidence that the consensus is not true and it is from a reliable source?
In addition, you may with to consider that there are no national or international scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute anthropogenic climate change. NOT ONE!
Check out this HYSTERICAL VIDEO from Jon Stewart exposing the complete lack of scientific knowledge of the Republican senators on the so-called Senate Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who are such embarrassingly inept deniers of climate change… these guys have real power and he reveals how much funding each gets from fossil fuel businesses…
@Michelle – I was once like you Michelle, but thank God I’ve been set free from this climate cult.
@Paul: Do you make your own tin foil hats, or can you buy them?
@Kevin – No idea what you’re getting at mate – except you’re probably employing the tactic used by all green climate church members toward those that disagree..I.e. Put a label on them (skeptic, denier, tinfoil etc) in order to silence them so as to avoid any discussion on the topic in question. We don’t have an answer to their legitimate points so let’s just drown them out by invoking the consensus argument (upon which science is NOT based) and so forth.
Putins is stuffed and mounted by now. ..
World Hedgemony’ist talking from both sides of their collective ‘harmonious, collegiate’ mouths!
It’s not ‘Koala Bears’. They’re already bears. They’re just ‘Koalas’.
Here’s what a low-carbon footprint country looks like http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/photo/country/korea/north-korea.jpg
That is really a bit desperate, isn’t it?!
Norway is nearly at 100% of its energy from renewable energy and that is the way the whole world is going – towards clean energy. There has been a huge move in divestment from fossil energy as well – 50 billion divestment in the US so far and growing every day (even the Rockefellers!) – people are seeing the writing on the wall for fossil fuels… http://gofossilfree.org/commitments/
have your say