Cop26: We have to change behaviour if we’re going to cut emissions, say health chiefs – day eight live | Environment

With 4 days to go earlier than the official finish of COP26 on Friday, there may be rising unease amongst delegates concerning the lack of progress made in discussions thus far.

“All the pieces remains to be to play for however there’s an extended method to go to make sure Glasgow is remembered for the proper causes,” stated Tracy Carty, local weather change coverage and advocacy lead at Oxfam.

At a press convention hosted by the Local weather Motion Community, she stated there have been excessive hopes for an additional textual content due out tomorrow, “however when it comes to the traditional rhythm of issues, we’d count on to be the place we are actually a lot earlier, issues are working very late.”

“I believe ending COP on Friday may be very bold, so be ready to alter your trains,” she added. “Obama got here right here recognising the massive diplomatic raise that’s wanted now. Perhaps Boris Johnson can come again to assist transfer issues alongside. That’s the extent of political engagement we want.”

Additionally talking on the occasion was Iemaima Vaai from the Pacific Convention of Church buildings who spoke of the alarm amongst indigenous communities on the gradual tempo of progress. “We discuss 2030. For us low-lying international locations by then an entire nation may very well be relocated and displaced,” she stated.

“Our local weather actuality within the Pacific is now having to just accept relocation as an adaptation measure. Coastal communities have needed to transition, taking over new abilities and information on farming and relocating inland. And worst, they’ve needed to pay these relocation prices regardless that they contribute the least to the local weather disaster.”

On the entrance to the blue zone, a bunch of Indigenous Activists are staging a memorial to spotlight the hyperlink between “the continuing violence in the direction of Indigenous ladies, queer, trans, and two-spirit peoples and the extractive industries that created the local weather disaster”.

“We reject colonising messages that inform us what existence are proper or unsuitable, says Panganga Pungowiyi, from Alaska. “We see the parallels between the abuse of our land and the abuse of our individuals.”

Nuskmata from the Nuxalk group on the Canadian border stated: “Now we have a freeway within the north known as the freeway of tears, the place so a lot of our ladies and women have been stolen. Now we have mining extraction with out consent, deforestation, industrial salmon farms, all these items are linked.”

Hallo, I’ll be following occasions at Cop26 for the subsequent couple of hours. My colleague Libby Brooks has simply filmed these moderately wonderful drummers exterior the convention centre.

That’s it from me as we speak. Thanks for studying and contributing. I’ll hand over now to my colleague Bibi, and go away you with this story – about two delegates from the Cop26 negotiations visiting a charity store in Glasgow that specialises in benefitting the previously homeless individuals who reside and work there.

Chile’s Gonzalo Muñoz and the UK’s Nigel Topping toured the the Emmaus store and group constructing on Ellesmere Road in Hamiltonhill.

Emmaus helps individuals with expertise of homelessness learn to restore and upcycle donations which may in any other case go to landfill, sorting gadgets, testing merchandise and stripping items for worthwhile steel.

Muñoz reportedly purchased a teapot.

The final lap is the toughest in any race and that’s the place the Cop26 local weather summit is because it enters its previous few days. The glitzy opening ceremony with world leaders is a fading reminiscence and now it’s the arduous yards of negotiation and compromise for his or her ministers.

They have to finalise the principles of the 2015 Paris deal so international locations can not cheat their method to the carbon-cutting end line of internet zero. The advanced, technical texts belie their significance – disputes over a single phrase may provoke stroll outs by some negotiators.

So what’s on the desk?

“Transparency” – code for normal UN-led checks on how international locations’ are delivering. That is seen because the spine of the Paris settlement by many. The US may be very eager, China shouldn’t be.

“Article 6” – the principles for a global market in carbon credit by which nations can offset their very own air pollution by paying for cuts elsewhere. That’s an important method to minimize carbon effectively, or a rip-off to delay cuts, relying on who you ask. African nations say a minimize from credit score gross sales ought to be used to fund adaptation to excessive climate in weak international locations, however the US sees that as an unacceptable tax.

“Loss and injury” – maybe probably the most delicate of all the problems, that is cash from the wealthy nations that principally brought on world heating to the poor nations that principally undergo. Reparations say some, with Scotland the primary to supply money, however many countries are reluctant.

There’s extra. Will the “cowl resolution” agreed by all nations firmly goal a temperature restrict of 1.5C, which scientists now say is important, or follow the extra imprecise “below 2C” of Paris? Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is lobbying for the latter. Will international locations conform to improve their emissions pledges yearly, moderately than each 5? Will a decade-old promise of $100bn to fund clear improvement in low-income international locations lastly be delivered, and can this improve in future?

These are the arduous yards that matter if the local weather disaster is to finish. You may’t cheat atmospheric physics. So the world has to win this race clear and win it quick, with the clock at a minute to midnight. The Guardian might be reporting from the Glasgow end line with this in thoughts: successful the local weather race slowly is solely one other means of dropping.

A viral video posted by the superstar chef and famous fool Salt Bae through which he serves steak lined in gold leaf to the top of Vietnam’s delegation to the Cop26 local weather change summit has drawn criticism of hypocrisy, greenwashing and basic forehead-smacking weirdness.

To Lam, the minister of public safety of the nominally communist nation, left the summit in Glasgow to journey to London, the place he visited the grave of Karl Marx, based of communism.

He then visited the restaurant of Nusret Gökçe, Salt Bae’s actual title, who posted the video to TikTok displaying him feeding Lam gold-covered meat straight into his mouth. Meals on the restaurant, slated hilariously in an oblique evaluation by my colleague Jay Rayner, can price 1000’s of kilos.

As Vice journal put it: “There’s nothing extra 2021 than Salt Bae feeding a communist occasion official gold-plated steak after a local weather change summit.”

Patrick Vallance has echoed Barack Obama’s name to stay to the goal of 1.5C.

Modifications in behaviour are wanted to sort out the local weather emergency, the UK’s chief scientific adviser instructed the summit. He stated behaviour change was beginning to occur however wanted to go additional and stated he now cycled to work, ate much less meat and had taken the practice to the local weather summit in Glasgow.

He additionally stated that the local weather disaster was a far greater drawback than coronavirus and would kill extra individuals if modifications weren’t made now.

Canada’s chief scientific adviser, Mona Nemer, stated there would have to be a “profound behavioural and cultural change when it comes to our relation to the Earth”.

Talking to my former Guardian colleague Adam Vaughan, now at New Scientist, Vallance added:

There’s truly various hope. The applied sciences we want are both right here or in improvement. The second cause for hope is we’ve acquired an entire era that’s completely decided to do that. There’s behaviour change occurring proper the best way throughout the globe. Third is: among the commitments at this convention are going to make a distinction in getting individuals collectively.”

India’s indigenous Adivasi individuals have denounced Narendra Modi for hypocrisy, saying he proclaimed his inexperienced credentials at Cop26 whereas planning to massively develop coal mining on their lands.

The India prime minister’s plan to open 55 new coal mines, develop 193 present ones and produce 1 billion tonnes of coal a 12 months would destroy the land and livelihood of many Adivasi individuals, they stated, noting that 80% of the brand new mines might be on Adivasi land.

They level to the Hasdeo Forest in Chhattisgarh, residence to a roughly 20,000-strong Adivasi group, the place two coal mines are already operational, and a 3rd, Parsa, to be operated by the mining big Adani, has been authorized.

The ripple results of Cop26 are being felt proper throughout Glasgow as companies search to spice up their inexperienced credentials in gentle of the occasion.

In its personal distinctive tackle renewable vitality, Glaswegian nightclub SWG3 is hoping to turn out to be the primary on this planet to create a heating system powered by the physique warmth of dancers. The human physique emits 100 watts of warmth when resting, and extra when exercising.

SWG3’s Bodyheat mission will see this warmth captured by air-con and piped by to 12 150m-deep boreholes beneath the venue. The vitality can then be used instantly to chill the viewers, or saved underground for months till it’s wanted to warmth the constructing.

“The beauty of this mission is that it talks on to our viewers and it’s accessible the place individuals can come to a gig or a membership and contribute to this method,” managing director Andrew Fleming-Brown instructed the Scotsman.

The venue had deliberate to trial the brand new expertise throughout Cop26 however its completion date has been pushed again to early 2022.

“That is our revolutionary contribution to a world subject, and can assist us to dramatically lower our vitality consumption – bringing us one step nearer to turning into a carbon-neutral venue within the not so distant future,” stated Fleming-Brown.

The local weather activist group Glasgow Calls Out Polluters blockaded a enterprise dinner final evening, some chaining bicycles throughout the highway and others glueing themselves to the principle door of the venue. The dinner was organised by the World Enterprise Council on Sustainable Growth and was themed round Adaptation, Loss and Harm – a key agenda merchandise at Cop26.

Jonny Marsh from the group instructed BBC Radio Scotland this morning that the occasion theme “positively falls below the umbrella of greenwashing”.

“Among the corporations and other people in that room reminiscent of Claire Perry, one of many administrators and an ex-president of Cop, have recognized for the reason that 80s about detailed analysis into local weather change, so to have them posit themselves as the answer is ridiculous after they’ve recognized about it for many years.”

Marsh added: “We had been there to amplify the voices of those that haven’t been invited to such an exclusionary occasion, the indigenous of us of the world and the worldwide south who’re most affected by local weather change don’t have a seat on the desk.”

There have been 16 arrests on the protest.

A weekly ballot carried out by YouGov and launched this morning means that concern over the atmosphere within the UK is greater than ever.

Of the respondents, 40% named atmosphere as certainly one of their high three points for the nation, together with well being and the economic system.

“That is the best stage of concern we’ve got ever seen, nearly actually because of the influence of Cop26 on public consciousness,” stated Anthony Wells, director of YouGov’s political and social opinion polling.

“What stays to be seen is whether or not local weather change stays such a excessive precedence as soon as the convention strikes on.”

Praised for his clarion name yesterday not to surrender on the said Cop26 aim of maintaining world temperature rise to 1.5C, Barack Obama can also be taking a wee bit of warmth for mixing his monikers.

The previous US president referred to Scotland because the “Emerald Isle”. Cue outrage.

Subsequent we’ll be listening to he doesn’t like Irn-Bru.

All 4 UK well being secretaries are pledging to construct climate-resilient well being providers this morning as they decide to turn out to be internet zero, alongside 46 different international locations making related commitments as a part of Science and Innovation Day at Cop26.

Well being providers are at present a big supply of greenhouse gasoline emissions, accounting for round 4.6% of the worldwide whole, that means in the event that they had been one nation, well being programs can be the fifth-largest emitter.

The pledge will match with the UK authorities’s dedication to your complete nation being internet zero by 2050. The NHS in Scotland has dedicated to being a internet zero carbon emissions well being service by 2045, whereas in Wales the ambition is for the general public sector to be collectively internet zero by 2030.

The well being and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, stated: “As a well being group, we can not merely sit on the sidelines – we should reply to local weather change by pressing motion, with world collaboration at its core.”

Talking at NHS Scotland’s Sustainability Convention as we speak, Scotland’s well being secretary, Humza Yousaf, underlined the truth that the local weather emergency isn’t just an environmental disaster but in addition a public well being disaster.

The world’s greatest automotive corporations are reportedly refusing to signal a deal to finish new automotive emissions by 2040, which is about to be unveiled within the last days of the Cop26 summit.

In response to the FT, Volkswagen and Toyota, the 2 largest motor giants, are holdouts, with the previous reportedly refusing the deal outright.

Two UK officers additionally stated Germany, China and the US had not signed, though there may be some optimism that the Individuals may but overcome fears of the home backlash and ink the deal.

Varied causes have been given for not signing the deal, together with the carmakers’ perception that the transition to inexperienced automobiles is not going to occur quick sufficient in a few of their key markets.

Volvo, GM, Ford and Daimler have all agreed to signal. The collective pledge would work towards ending gross sales of polluting automotive fashions by 2040.

Moby, the McCartneys, Joaquin Phoenix and Gandhi’s grand-daughter Ela are among the many celebrities who’ve urged Cop26 to undertake the Plant Based mostly Treaty marketing campaign as we speak.

Modelled on the higher recognized Fossil Gasoline Treaty, the treaty goals to “put meals programs on the forefront of combating the local weather disaster”. It requires a shift to more healthy, sustainable, plant-based diets to mitigate the results of the environmental injury attributable to rearing animals for meat.

In a joint assertion, the McCartney household, who launched the Meat Free Monday marketing campaign in 2009, stated: “We imagine in justice for animals, the atmosphere and other people. That’s why we assist the Plant Based mostly Treaty and urge people and governments to signal it.”

Ela Gandhi added:

I imagine that the indiscriminate breeding of animals for consumption is dangerous each for well being in addition to for the atmosphere. The animal trade has additionally contributed, to a big extent, to the deterioration of the fertility of our soil and thus the atmosphere. Massive forests have needed to make means for cattle farmers all around the world.

Gandhiji in his bid to remodel his modestly prosperous way of life in 1904 was pushed by three essential issues of which one was {that a} life price residing is that of the tiller of the soil and the handicrafts individual. Dwelling near nature was a part of his teachings. [The] Plant Based mostly Treaty is looking for simply that.”

The overseas minister of Tuvalu, the low-lying Pacific island nation, has recorded a video speech for Cop26 whereas standing knee-deep in seawater.

Simon Kofe stood in a swimsuit and tie to ship his speech about Tuvalu’s battle in opposition to rising sea ranges.

“We’re sinking,” he stated. “However so is all people else.”

Good morning, and thanks for following our protection thus far. It’s gender day at Cop26, in addition to science and innovation day, and all eyes might be on the Local weather Motion Tracker report launched this afternoon.

Bear in mind: the important thing aim of Cop26 is to maintain the prospect of limiting world heating to 1.5C alive. However there may be a lot work to do to attain this within the summit’s last week.

In the meantime, the information in a single day is {that a} billion individuals might be affected by excessive warmth stress if the local weather disaster raises the worldwide temperature by simply 2C, based on analysis launched by the UK Met Workplace.

The Met Workplace assessed wet-bulb temperature, which mixes each warmth and humidity. As soon as this measure reaches 35C, the human physique can not cool itself by sweating and even wholesome individuals sitting within the shade will die inside six hours.

Learn Damian Carrington’s report: