COP 25 Madrid

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</font></p><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories-en/2020/02/11/the-heartland-lobby/">https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories-en/2020/02/11/the-heartland-lobby/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A joint investigation from CORRECTIV and Frontal21 reveals how the American Heartland Institute is supporting climate change deniers in Germany with the goal of undermining climate protection measures. We went undercover to meet with the institute’s chief strategist. He told us how the network of climate change deniers works, how donations are disguised and how they intend to use a German YouTuber affiliated with the AfD to reach young people. In the end, he made us a concrete offer.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Shortly before the crucial conversation, shortly before Heartland’s chief strategist tells us how it’s all orchestrated, we sit together, some enjoying steaks. The German lobbyist and YouTuber, Heartland’s chief strategist from America, a British lord and Trump’s former security advisor are all present.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s the evening of Dec. 3, 2019. The location: Madrid, in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel. Gray marble flooring, expensive furniture high columns. A few kilometers away, heads of states and governments are negotiating at the World Climate Conference on how the global rise in temperature can be curbed.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We are tracking an international network of climate change deniers, ranging from conservative American billionaires to the German AfD. We want to understand their links and strategies. We tried to get the information by going through the normal channels, but we failed. There was only one way to get into the inner circle: We had to go undercover. That’s why we’re sitting at this table – and that’s why we’re nervous.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We keep checking the hidden cameras, one of them in Katarina’s pen, which she’s wearing on her conference blazer. We try to keep the cameras stable while acting naturally and making small talk.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The people around the table consider the negotiations at the Climate Conference nonsense – yet they have come to Madrid to meet in the shadows of the World Climate Conference with an international lobby of climate change deniers .</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Their goal: to spread doubt about human responsibility for current global warming. Their opponents are anyone who recognize this responsibility: politicians, activists, journalists and climate researchers.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRECTIV reporters Jean and Katarina are not at the table. Instead, meet Mathias and Karina, two public relations consultants who work for a strategic communications agency in Berlin. We pretend to probe for potential donor opportunities for our clients in the automotive industry and energy sector, who want to anonymously support the work of climate deniers with money. Big money.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The New Right, particularly the AfD, put the fight against climate protection high on their agenda last year.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;They continue to fight against young activists like Greta Thunberg and present themselves as the defender of the diesel car.&nbsp;<b>Former AfD leader Alexander Gauland</b>&nbsp;recently proclaimed that climate change was a new key topic for his party: “Criticism of the so-called climate protection policy is the third major issue for the AfD after the Euro and Immigration”. It is a polarizing topic.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The AfD relies on an international network of climate change deniers. Here, in the hotel lobby, many of the key players have gathered. One of them is EIKE, aopaque German association that provides politicians with arguments against climate protection. We want to learn as much about them as possible, but we can’t be too pushy. We need to play our roles, discreetly and firmly. We can’t get busted.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>At some point Mathias gets up and speaks to James Taylor, chief strategist and director of climate policy at the Heartland Institute,</b>&nbsp;a libertarian thinktank based in the US. We suspect many of the threads that we’ve been following will convene at Taylor. If we want to learn how this network spreads doubts about human-induced climate change, we need to talk to him.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mathias politely asks if he has a moment for a question.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor understands: It’s time for business.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They get up and head to a seating area a few meters away. It’s not completely isolated, but sufficiently enough that nobody can eavesdrop. While walking, Mathias starts to explain:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I have a client.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Throughout the next half hour, Taylor shares the inner workings of his disinformation toolbox</b>. He believes that Mathias, the PR agent sitting opposite him, wants to help his clients funnel cash into the intricate network of climate change deniers.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Taylor explains how he is able to raise awareness of topics in exchange for money, how people can make tax-deductible donations anonymously through a U.S. foundation, and how the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Institute’s publications mimic the tone of the New York Times</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;so o<b>bscure ideas are taken more seriously. He detailed how he intends to make a young YouTuber from Germany the star of climate denier, and how he works closely with German partners whose ideas are consistently cited by the AfD in the Bundestag.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then a few weeks later, Taylor will send an offer in writing. It is something like a strategy document for a PR campaign in Germany: A campaign that the public will not recognize for what it really is, making it even more effective.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The goal: No more prohibitive climate laws. Diesel instead of electric cars, energy from coal instead of wind turbines, industry growth instead of environmental protection.&nbsp;</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The document, a product of our joint investigation with ZDF Frontal21, gives exclusive insight into the million euro business of climate change deniers. It proves how disinformation is professionally scattered around society with the help of supposed experts, corrupt scientists, intentional spin and YouTube.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A Fight</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Against Science</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is a worldwide consensus among climate researchers that climate change is largely caused by humans. Hundreds of climate researchers regularly evaluate the current state of scientific knowledge in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their forecasts are conservative, yet dramatic.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Climate change deniers are disputing the results of the IPCC – supposedly based on the same methods. They call themselves “climate skeptics” or “climate realists” and conduct scientific studies to cast doubt on human-induced climate change. They write papers and magazines, organize conferences and dedicate time to lobbying. They are waging an information war to disseminate doubts about human-induced climate change.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If it were up to them, then their self-proclaimed “science“ would be confronting science. Thus, the question of whether human-induced global warming actually exists would be a question of opinion – with good arguments on both sides.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">However, hardly any climate researchers or scientists agree with them. The facts speak clearly.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The communication practiced by the Heartland Institute has nothing to do with science. These are definitely politically motivated statements,” said Kathleen Mar, a scientist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Throughout the US there is a traditional belief that competition and continued growth are good for the economy. It is a mindset fundamentally intertwined with the rejection of state intervention in such economic matters. Libertarian think tanks like the Heartland Institute — financed by the foundations of wealthy entrepreneurs like the Mercer family and, until a few years ago, the Koch brothers – are founded in this tradition. In Germany, this current of opinion is relatively small. But it is getting louder when it comes to the topic of human-induced climate change.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The AfD is using the frustration over climate policy to gain momentum.</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s a good topic for populist politics, given that policies meant to halt climate change often involve placing restrictions that threaten personal comfort: less driving, less garbage production, less meat consumption, less travel. The AfD is increasingly using the arguments of climate change deniers at the EIKE association by inviting representatives to technical conferences and Bundestag committees. But the spin doctors are somewhere else.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There Is No Other Choice</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But To Work Undercover</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We wanted to understand the extent of the climate change denial network, exactly how it’s funded, and how it’s members think and work. So we started our investigation by looking into climate change deniers in Germany. We made the decision to go undercover because we believed it was the only way to get authentic insight.<b>CORRECTIV is well known among the German EIKE association, as their publications regularly fail our fact checks&nbsp;</b>– and they frequently publish furious counter-articles. In 2018, a journalist at</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;CORRECTIV was banned from participating in one of EIKE’s conferences when she tried to obtain press credentials. Also that year, the head of EIKE violently threatened a reporter from the ARD magazine, Monitor. We carefully weighed our decision. In the end it was clear to us that we would not get very far following the typical path.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>So we built our undercover identities: Karina and Mathias, two PR agents who, on behalf of a client from the automobile industry, wanted to learn how to send money to climate change deniers in Germany –discretely, without attracting attention.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We create a fictional agency called “Faidros”, printed business cards to reinforce our fake identities, got a second pair of cellphones with new numbers and set up a website. We pretended to be experienced consultants who increase public awareness of climate-skeptical arguments on behalf of industrial clients.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Our undercover journey started in Munich. To be able to participate in an EIKE conference as private individuals, we paid 220 euros each to the association. We used PayPal because it allows you to change your name without being immediately exposed by online searches. Then we received an email confirming that the money had arrived and the venue would soon be announced. A cumbersome way to organize a conference.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">An Invitation</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to Madrid</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Munich, late November. The tables are organized in long rows. A desk and a large screen are in front. Roughly 250 people walk through the entrance hall of the closed Munich-Riem Airfield, the so-called Coat of Arms Hall. They are mostly older men, some with doctorates or professorships, many of them already retired. We stand among them, equipped with business cards, wearing conference clothing and hidden cameras. We are significantly younger than the average attendee. Karina is a woman under 30. We stand out.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">EIKE’s annual conference had almost been canceled. After protests, the contract between the original hotel and EIKE was terminated. But shortly before the planned start, we received an email with the new venue.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>EIKE stands for “Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie” (European Institute for Climate and Energy)</b>. Many channels of self-proclaimed “climate realists” meet at this association in Germany, which states on its website that human-induced climate change is a “hoax affecting the general public”.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Like Heartland, the non-profit organization claims to be a scientific think tank and advertises its online studies as “peer reviewed”.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“They take scientific terms and misuse them for political purposes. They are not interested in scientific work at all,” said Potsdam sustainability researcher Mar about the self-appointed climate experts. “I would immediately ask myself who these scientists are, what their qualifications are.”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Holger Thuss, the chairman of EIKE who threatened the Monitor’s reporter last year, kicked off the Munich conference. He set the framework for the conference by saying<b>climate protests have assumed “terrorist proportions”</b>.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then we saw James Taylor, the chief strategist of the Heartland Institute, for the first time. He went on stage in good spirits to give a lecture. He looks like a company manager, slightly stocky, black hair pulled back, ironed shirt, a smile on his lips. A smart man with a meaty American accent, and an engaging speaker. Standing on the stage, he congratulates everyone for making it to the conference and says that the original hotel’s cancellation is encroachment on freedom of expression.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor is a successful lobbyist and spin doctor who says of himself that he is more libertarian than conservative. He considers hostility to be praise for his work. Taylor also appears frequently on American television, and for some time he wrote a column in Forbes magazine.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the next two days, the group of almost exclusively white men present scientific-looking graphs, diagrams and tables. There are those who consider themselves to be on the side of science, presenting their methods, explaining, arguing and evaluating series of experiments.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And then there are the conspiracy theorists, the esotericists and the ultra-religious. A man sitting next to us in the audience says it is contempt of God to judge whether something God created is good or bad. He was talking about CO2.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>EIKE was founded in 2007 and has close ties to the AfD.&nbsp;</b>Michael Limburg, the organization’s vice-president, is employed by the office of Karsten Hilse, a member of the German Parliament, the Bundestag. He confirmed this to CORRECTIV. Limburg is an AfD member himself, and he participated in drafting of the AfD’s party program on climate policy as well as ran for the Bundestag in 2017 on the Brandenburg state list.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[graf]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Transatlantic Network Over the past 20 years, the Heartland Institute has received funds from various companies and wealthy families</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in the United States for the purpose of denying the climate change. It has also helped EIKE to spread its ideas in Germany.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Police officer Karsten Hilse sits on the environmental committee of the Bundestag on behalf of the AfD. He gave a speech in the Bundestag in March 2018. At the time, while being laughed at by members of other government parties, he declared war on the “false doctrine of human-induced climate change”. A year later, he distributed leaflets that contained a quiz to demonstrators of “Fridays for Future”, who he intended to embarrass.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hans-Joachim Lüdecke, EIKE’s press officer, wrote an expert statement for the environmental committee at the invitation of the AfD. Now, members of EIKE’s entourage are writing for a new wave of right publications such as “Freie Welt” (Free World). The blog is run by the right-wing association “Zivile Koalition” (Civil Coalition), which is led by the deputy federal spokeswoman for the AfD, Beatrix von Storch.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We asked members of EIKE what kind of relationship the association has with the Heartland Institute. Michael Limburg, EIKE’s Vice-President, answered in writing: “We maintain a good relationship based on similar interests.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After the conference, we invited Heartland lobbyist Taylor to dinner. We talked about his Institute, which is based in Chicago with just 40 employees.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While making small talk, Taylor explains that he knows how to convince people: “I think I present the actual logic, but people aren’t motivated by an actual logic. So you have to go and argue emotions.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Things are going smoothly and we indicate our reason for meeting with him without revealing too much. We are successful, too: At the end of the evening we receive an invitation.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;In 10 days, climate change deniers will meet once again on the sidelines of the World Climate Conference in Madrid. The organizer of the counter-conference is the Heartland Institute.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Our event will take place on December 3,” said Taylor. “We have eight or nine speakers and a five-hour program.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The next stop for these consultants from “Faidros”: Madrid.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Denial Lobbyists</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Among Themselves</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The “Climate Reality Forum” takes place on the first floor of the Marriott Hotel in Madrid, a small room with suspended ceilings. There are about 20 people, half of whom will give lectures today. Water in tetra packs with an environmental seal are on the tables.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The conference is significantly smaller than the one in Munich. It is shorter, without journalists, and the Heartland Institute does the filming and online streaming itself with two large cameras.</b>&nbsp;The World Climate Conference was originally scheduled to take place in Chile, but a month earlier the Chilean President cancelled it due to protests against social inequality that took place throughout the capital city, Santiago de Chile. Climate change deniers also had to reschedule, rebook flights and hastily organize a new conference.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>We met some acquaintances from Munich and greeted each other amicably. “It’s nice to see you again,” said one of the few women in the room. She is a YouTube influencer, 19 years old and blonde. Later on we would learn that she is supposed to become the star of the scene.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the speakers is William Happer, professor emeritus of physics and former security advisor to US President Donald Trump. In 2015, a team from Greenpeace, disguised as an oil and gas company, asked Happer to write a scientific paper to prove the benefits of high CO2 emissions for plants. Happer, then a professor at Princeton University, agreed – for an hourly rate of $250.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I don’t know how far this&nbsp;<b>shrillness</b>&nbsp;will get,” said Happer, visibly aged, in Madrid. “First global warming, then climate change and now climate crisis and climate emergency – what else?”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>German climate change deniers are also present. Wolfgang Müller, Secretary General of EIKE, praised the Heartland Institute before his lecture: “Heartland is a paragon in the fight against this climate madness.</b>”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Christopher Monckton</b>, an English lord residing in the Scottish Highlands, speaks later. Monckton advised neoliberal British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s – and does the same today for the British right-wing populist party UKIP. His suggestions include asking to quarantine people who are HIV positive. Monckton is a dazzling character, always polite and eloquent, who happens to also represents some of the crudest beliefs.<b>&nbsp;On stage he pretends to give a speech to country representatives at the World Climate Conference. The delegates, he says, promote a cult of death through their ignorance. “Everything on which this conference in Madrid is based is fundamentally wrong.”</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A few hours later, when the conference is over, Lord Monckton sits contentedly at the grand piano in the hotel lobby, playing a few songs. The other speakers sit a few meters away, ordering drinks and snacks to their table.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We sit in between, asking questions, laughing, answering without getting too personal. Secretly, we check the undercover cameras we are carrying with us.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The YouTuber talks about studying economics in Münster: She stopped because the program was too socialist for her. She also says that she is going to work for the Heartland Institute soon.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The YouTuber did not respond to a request for comment after the conversation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Later at the bar, Karina met Debbie, who introduces herself as a cattle rancher from the States. After a while Debbie pulls a pen out of her pocket and points to the hidden camera at the end. She says she intends to secretly film people at the official UN Climate Conference. “You have no idea about what people will tell you if they don’t know who you are.” The pen is the same model, even the same color as the pen tucked into Karina’s blazer pocket.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Moment of Truth</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Finally, Mathias asks Taylor for a private meeting. This is the moment we have been working for over the past few weeks. Taylor sits relaxed in the armchair, his white shirt unbuttoned at the top, with a glass of red wine in his hand.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Business talk.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From the start, Mathias directs the conversation towards the possibility of donating to groups that deny climate change anonymously. His client, he says, is interested in a long-term investment — but requires that under no circumstances can he be linked to the transactions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>If the donor does not want to be named, there are some groups in the US, Taylor says. “One is Donors Trust.” You can tell them which group the money should go to – Donors Trust will then channel the funds.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donors Trust’s activities are not illegal, but they do bypass the otherwise quite extensive transparency regulations in the US. Both Donors Trust and Donors Capital Trust are tax-exempt foundations that redistribute corporate donations to conservative and market-liberal think tanks. US tax law requires them to disclose to whom the funds are given. However, they are allowed to keep the name of the donor undisclosed on the grounds of anonymous. In practice, this means oil and coal companies can support anti-climate campaigns via Donors Trust or Donors Capital without having to reveal their financial support.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the past, big players in the fossil industry like Exxon Mobil and Koch brothers were among Heartland’s major donors — but they withdrew public support a few years ago. We checked this by looking at tax returns, which are largely public in the US.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now, Donors Trust is now one of the association’s biggest donors. The American magazine “Mother Jones” described Donors Trust in 2013 as a “Black Box ATM”. You could say that the foundation lends its name to the actual donors. Taylor confirmed this during the conversation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Donors Trust is now directing between two thirds and three quarters of its budget to Heartland to support its climate-skeptical positions, says Taylor. He sells this as his personal doing.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Soon after, Taylor starts to speak about the German YouTuber sitting at the table a few meters away.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We’re looking to bring her on board,” says Taylor, pointing in her direction.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mathias asks: “The young lady?”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“To do some videos for us. Presenting to young people.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The young influencer is to start forming new groups. She should be a dropout from mainstream society, with whom as many as young people as possible should identify.&nbsp;<b>According to a Facebook post by the Rhineland-Palatinate Association of “Junge Alternative” (Young Alternative), she is a member of the AfD’s youth organization</b>. The AfD and its members regularly distribute her videos. Taylor says the fight against climate protection measures needs a better image, to move away from old white men and instead showcase a younger generation. The YouTuber is going be the new face of the movement. She is Taylor’s media strategy for the masses.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor also knows how to reach those who are not on YouTube but do vote in parliament. For a long time, he published a monthly brochure that the Heartland Institute sent to politicians.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He says it was specifically written “We do it as if it were for The New York Times or any other leftist newspaper.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">He explains that the rule for their editors is to write it as if they were news stories. They cannot write anything that looks like it is opinion. “You present our angle on it, but you do it by who you decide to quote”, he says”.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor’s team uses supposedly journalistic standards to raise doubts about human-induced climate change. What he is not interested is rigor and balance.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And he succeeds at that, or at least that’s what he says. There are people who will realise it is Heartland how is writing these articles, he explains, but others feel it is something they could use, and this is how they get to them.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor repeatedly emphasizes the good work done by EIKE. He says it is amazing what they can do in a year with such a small budget, and claims that the organization has 200,000 euros available. They help each other, he says, by participating in each other’s conferences. Heartland also gave EIKE a small sum of money for the Munich conference in late November. When asked about EIKE’s budget, the organization’s representatives said that their “donation volume” per year is “significantly below the stated amount”.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But whenever Mathias steers the conversation toward our client’s possible investment, Taylor brings his own institution into play — even though Mathias emphasizes several times that the client wants to donate to EIKE because he is mostly concerned about the European market.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Then he tries to convince me to give my client’s money directly to Heartland, instead of EIKE“, Mathias recalls. Taylor politely adds that EIKE could, of course, use it much better in Europe. Then, a few seconds later, he talks about the benefits of Heartland establishing and disseminating specific information at the request of the client in exchange for money.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A half hour has passed. Taylor and Mathias promise to stay in touch before returning to the other conference goers. Mathias writes down the conversation so he can jog his memory later.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is far more than we had hoped for. Taylor has given us a deep insight into the business of climate change deniers. We now know about some of the strategies they use to disseminate disinformation.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But we want to have it in writing.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Phone Call</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A few weeks later, we call Taylor for a follow-up. How does Taylor intend to get into business in Germany? Would it even be possible to purchase content as a donor?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We mention our client from the auto industry and bring up the current diesel bans in Germany and the growing popularity of electric cars, which are hurting his business.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Again, Taylor advertises the 19-year-old YouTuber as a promising social media strategy in Germany.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mathias asks: Can his client decide what she says in her videos?</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Taylor hesitates, but doesn’t say no. Of course, she would have to agree with and feel comfortable with what is going to be said. And he’s pretty sure that everyone involved wants the same thing.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mathias: “Perhaps we could agree on certain buzzwords. Disseminate certain information.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor: “Absolutely. Key points, keywords, the way to present something.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Content in exchange for money. It’s like a deal in the advertising industry. The only difference is that the content is political.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor thinks he’s in business with Mathias. Shortly after our phone call, we text Taylor to send us a written offer to convince our client.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He agrees.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Two Hours Later:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Offer</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The document arrives via email, just two hours after our conversation. It’s three pages long, with the title: “Funding Proposal: Germany Environmental Issues”.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the proposal, Taylor summarizes what we discussed over the phone – and goes into even more detail. He outlines a plan for a possible campaign against climate protection policies in Germany. It’s an immoral offer formulated in the advertising language of a pitch. Recognize the problem, present the solution.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>He describes German climate policy as “unwise”.&nbsp;</b>Conventional power plants could be closed and replaced by expensive, unreliable wind turbine systems. Diesel vehicles could be banned. “These restrictive environmental programs are largely unnecessary”, says the proposal. Even worse: Other countries would be negatively impacted by Germany, which is often viewed as a pioneer.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Taylor suggests that the Heartland Institute instead draws attention to projects that “raise German living standards through common-sense environmental stewardship.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For climate change deniers, this means one thing: As few environmental protection measures as possible.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor uses the same language utilized by Heartland and EIKE, the same language pushed by climate change deniers on social media and also by the AfD in the Bundestag: Climate alarmists are thoughtless and hysterical people who jeopardize economic growth. So, in reaction, they stand up: the climate realists, the only sensible people in the debate.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The central pillar of the German campaign is to be the AfD-affiliated YouTube influencer praised by Taylor in Madrid,</b>&nbsp;“(…) she is eager to direct her viewers to topics on environmental overreach that harm German households,” writes Taylor. The funding will allow Heartland to equip her in such a way that she can produce a series of effective videos.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the first time, Taylor is also involving staff from his institute. Their titles and degrees are intended to ensure credibility beyond YouTube.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Peter Ferrara, a graduate in economics from Harvard University and former advisor to US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, is to join the team. Ferrara can “(…) research and present important information on the severe economic costs of German environmental restrictions”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor also has a plan to counter the argument that diesel car emissions are harmful to health.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>To tackle this particular issue, he plans to get a physician and a biostatistician in on the plan. The two scientific professionals, Dunn and Milloy,&nbsp;</b>“are two of the science experts Heartland would – if properly funded – like to utilize calling attention to the minimal health impacts of diesel engines, coal power plants, and other conventional energy sources”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Their degrees and job descriptions will give off a supposed level of expertise.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The strategy is similar to the one used by Heartland US. Without mentioning EIKE explicitly, Taylor writes that “Heartland would proactively explore opportunities to galvanize our friends and allies to advocate in conjunction with our Germany Environmental Issues project.“</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Taylor proposes two US trusts as payment vehicles, with confidentiality and legality guaranteed: Donors Trust and National Philanthropic Trust. “Donors fund an account with the organization and then direct the organization how it would like to distribute the funds” In exchange: One percent of the donated amount will be debited quarterly.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is an offer designed to be convincing. And it actually is convincing, because it shows how strategically and discreetly the climate change denier network functions. It establishes topics, tailors communication strategies and offers entire campaigns while granting the donors and masterminds complete anonymity.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After the conversation, we offered the Heartland Institute the possibility to make a statement. However, they did not response to our comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Influencers</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Other people in the climate change denier network are, however, in the public eye: young influencers on YouTube as well as older men who present themselves as professionals at conferences, in interviews and in pseudo-scientific discussions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The network of climate change deniers extends across the Atlantic and grows increasingly closer to the authorities. They use professional communication strategies, funded by anonymous donations.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Heartland functions as a kind of model for its German counterpart, EIKE – even if the latter has only a fraction of the budget at its disposal. Still, under German law, EIKE does not have to disclose its finances. The association itself reports that it has “almost only small and very small donors”.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the US, Heartland’s ideas have reached the President. In Germany, EIKE benefits from the fact that the AfD now uses climate policy for itself, framing it in the context of the euro and immigration.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Heartland had already extended its hand into Europe before we went undercover. Our reporting confirms that for years, Heartland and EIKE jointly sponsored conferences, even though an EIKE spokesman</b>&nbsp;said he was not aware of this when we reached out for comment. The German association is an ally to Heartland: they share the same goals and attend each other’s conferences. And on Heartland’s website, the chairman of EIKE, Holger Thuss, is listed as an “expert”. We also learned that that Heartland will run campaigns for German foundations and corporations in exchange for donations.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Climate change denial is spreading not just in the US, but also in Germany. Members of the movement do not outright deny climate change itself, instead preferring to question whether it is the fault of man’s fault, and if it even poses a serious risk. This frames their ideas as diverse, and presents the possibility that everyone else is simply hysterical. They paint their challengers as hotheads who want to introduce socialism instead of protecting individual freedoms.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thus, the wording of the “false doctrine” of climate change, of the hysterical and erring “climate alarmists” – conceived and disseminated by institutions such as Heartland and EIKE – ends up on social media and in the Bundestag. Look no further than AfD member Karsten Hilse,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">who spoke of “the false doctrine of human-induced climate change” – the same language used by the YouTube influencer. Numerous members of EIKE and speakers at Heartland conferences use the same rhetoric.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A few weeks after the Madrid conference, a video appeared on Heartland’s YouTube channel. It shows fragments from the speech given by the 19-year-old influencer at the conference in Madrid, intermittent with statements by Greta Thunberg. The video ends with a question: Who do you believe more?</div></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=02b13915b0&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">UN Climate Talks Stymied by Carbon Markets' 'Ghost from the Past'</a></span><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BY: LESLIE HOOK, FINANCIAL TIMES
With the COP25 negotiations failing to agree on carbon market rules, it will be up to the UK to bring the world together at the crucial 2020 summit.&nbsp;<span style="text-decoration-line: none;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=95323267e5&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Read More</a></span></span></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">icn</font></span></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/united-nations/scant-us-media-coverage-fails-expose-conflict-interest-core-un-climate-talks"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/united-nations/scant-us-media-coverage-fails-expose-conflict-interest-core-un-climate-talks</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">madrid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=&nbsp;</font></div><div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; margin: 0.5em 0px;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dispatches from COP 25 Climate Change Conference in Madrid</font></strong></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://default.salsalabs.org/T7c56aadc-26b9-47cb-9e22-2a210677a02f/ac94ac0d-31ce-11e7-960b-0a8abee05f34" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Alex Carlin</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;December 13th, 2019&nbsp;at&nbsp;7:07 PM (CST)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientist’s concerns over “abrupt climate system change” lead him to reluctant support for controversial Solar Radiation Management strategies and show urgent need for climate restoration.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: both; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://default.salsalabs.org/T0f756222-0161-4092-97b2-4c308b02429b/ac94ac0d-31ce-11e7-960b-0a8abee05f34" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Read more>></font></a></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">madrid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-growers-defend-large-scale-farming-2641596692.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ecowatch.com/us-growers-defend-large-scale-farming-2641596692.html</font></a></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="post-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 6px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">C<a href="http://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/12/09/cop25-indigenous-delegation-links-missing-and-murdered-women-to-fossil-fuel-industry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">OP25: Indigenous Delegation Links Missing and Murdered Women to Fossil Fuel Industry</a></font></h3><div class="post-author-details" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="block-poston" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 8px 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; line-height: 1; min-height: 17px;">Posted on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.risingupwithsonali.com/2019/12/09/cop25-indigenous-delegation-links-missing-and-murdered-women-to-fossil-fuel-industry/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s; text-transform: capitalize;">December 9, 2019December 9, 2019</a></span><span class="comment_count" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 8px 7px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1; min-height: 17px;"><span class="fa fa-comments" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px 8px;">0</span></span></font></div><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 9px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FEATURING OZAWA BINESHI ALBERT - As the latest Conference of Parties or COP25 meeting on taking action on climate change continues into its second week in Madrid, Spain, indigenous communities</font></p></div></div></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><div class="news_label visible-lg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 10px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: text-bottom; display: inline; opacity: 0.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DEC 12, 2019</font></span></div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" margin="margin" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><a data-ga-action="Home: Story Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/12/greta_thunberg_speech_cop_time_magazine" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Greta Thunberg Slams COP25, Says Response to Climate Crisis Is “Clever Accounting and Creative PR”</font></a></h3><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">12/11/19 youth swarm stage, keep oil in soil, indig rights DN</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><div class="news_label" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: text-bottom; display: inline; opacity: 0.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DEC 13, 2019</font></span></div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" margin="margin" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><a data-ga-action="Home: Story Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/13/cop25_developing_countries_charge_ahead_with" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">COP25: Developing Countries Charge Ahead with Bold Climate Plans as Rich Countries Drag Their Feet</font></a></h3><div><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;this year’s United Nations climate summit wraps up in Madrid, Spain, many activists, scientists, indigenous and grassroots climate leaders say that rich countries most responsible for the climate emergency have spent the talks dialing back ambition and blocking progress. This comes as deadly droughts, flooding, cyclones and wildfires rage around the world. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This week, more than 70 developing countries have announced they will accelerate their climate plans, and 72 countries have signed onto goals to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But major emitters Australia, China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have made no such promises, while the U.S. is slated to pull out of the Paris Agreement entirely by next year. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For more on the negotiations at COP25, we speak with Saleemul Huq, climate scientist and the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh. He is advising the bloc of Least Developed Countries in the climate talks.</span></font></span></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;This is&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em>&nbsp;I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, as we broadcast from inside the U.N. climate summit here in Madrid, Spain, in its final days.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong>&nbsp;“While deadly droughts, flooding, cyclones and wildfires rage outside the conference center, the rich countries most responsible for the climate emergency have spent the talks dialing back ambition and blocking progress. That’s what activists, scientists, indigenous and grassroots climate leaders are charging in the last days of this year’s climate conference as two weeks of negotiations wrap up without crucial commitments from the countries most responsible for global emissions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;This week, more than 70 developing countries have announced they’ll accelerate their climate plans, and 72 countries have signed onto goals to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But major carbon emitters Australia, China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have made no such promises, while the U.S. is slated to pull out of the Paris Agreement entirely by next year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Meanwhile, a new&nbsp;<a href="https://belonging.berkeley.edu/climaterefugees" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">study</a>&nbsp;finds that the climate crisis is already leading to a massive increase in the number of refugees being displaced around the world.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Berkeley, California, we’re joined by a policy analyst with the <b>Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley</b>. He’s the co-author of the new report, “Climate Refugees: The Climate Crisis and Rights Denied.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;And here in Madrid, Spain, we’re joined by Saleemul Huq, climate scientist, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, advising the bloc of Least Developed Countries in the climate negotiations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We welcome you both to&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em>&nbsp;Saleemul Huq, let’s begin with you. I mean, you have, as so many have said, these climate emergencies taking place around the world right now. You have got the wildfires in Australia. You’ve got the floods. You’ve got the droughts. You’ve got climate migration at a level we haven’t seen. What is happening here? Is this a cop-out? And what role is the U.S. playing?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Well, I think the year 2019 will, in hindsight, be seen as the tipping point, when human-induced climate change became reality.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> We can now attribute many of the things you just said, the magnitude of them being way over anything we’ve seen before. And that can now be attributed to the fact that we have already increased global temperature by well over 1 degree centigrade, and that is already having impacts. And we’re headed for 3 degrees and nowhere near the one-and-a-half degrees that we want to do.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, what we are seeing in reality is that the impacts are causing damage. They’re causing loss of life, loss of biodiversity. And what we need the Conference of Parties to do is step up to that challenge that has been given from the rest of the world, particularly the young children of the world who were out here in Madrid, a half a million of them last Friday. But I don’t see a lot of signs of the negotiators responding to that. And the U.S. has been particularly difficult.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;What is the U.S. doing? I mean, on the one hand, Trump is pulling the U.S. out of the climate conference. But they are also, as each day goes by, working to dilute any kind of lead-up to next year, the evaluation of the Paris climate accord.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;So, the specific technical point here in Madrid, in the 25th Conference of Parties, is something called the review of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage. The developing countries have a united front here. We want that review to take it forward with an implementation arm and a finance arm. And the finance part is something that the United States is completely against. And so far we haven’t got a decision on that.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Explain finance.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Funding for loss and damage, as opposed to funding for adaptation and mitigation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Right. That’s a lot of U.N. speak.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Yes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Most people don’t really get it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;All right. So, basically,<b> giving some funding to the victims of the impacts of climate change that we are now seeing, </b>allowing funding to be raised for the victims.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Well, you know, Saleemul, if you could just give a broader sense? I mean, we’ve been coming to the climate summit for many years, as indeed have you. Many people argue that even though the pace of change is very, very slow, it’s an important venue for developing countries to be able to express, in solidarity, their position to the richer countries. What do you see is the significance of these annual meetings, where it seems every year very little gets achieved that’s in the interest of the people who have been suffering the most from the effects of the climate crisis?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Well, we live in an unjust and unequal world. And as the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> vulnerable poor countries, the Least Developed Countries, that I advise —&nbsp;47 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, including my country, Bangladesh — this is the only game in town where we have a seat at the table, where we can actually say something and hope that the other side will listen. A lot of the time they don’t listen, but sometimes they do. We’re hoping in Madrid we will get them to listen within the next few hours that we have left here.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Describe what’s happening in your own country of Bangladesh.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SALEEMUL</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">HUQ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;So, my country, Bangladesh, is one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We are a delta — live on a delta of two of the major rivers of the world, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. We have a population of 160-plus million people living in less than 150,000 square kilometers, so a population density of over a thousand per square kilometer —&nbsp;very vulnerable, very generally poor, but nevertheless one of the most resilient countries. We have found —&nbsp;we have one of the best cyclone warning and shelter systems in the world. We can warn and evacuate more than two-and-a-half million people. We recently had a major cyclone where we did that. And so, we are struggling, but we are rising to the challenge of dealing with the impacts of climate change. But there’s a limit to what we can do. One-and-a-half degrees, we can manage. Three degrees, we can’t.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;We’re going to go to a break, and then we’re going to come back to this discussion, and we’re going to talk about this massive crisis of climate migration. We’re talking millions and millions of people, the numbers only promising to grow. We’re with Saleemul Huq from the Bangladeshi climate movement, a climate scientist. Joining us also will be Hossein Ayazi at the University of California, Berkeley, who just left [<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">sic</i>] but did a report here on climate refugees.</font></p></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see "truth squad"</font></p><p><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/11/cop25-climate-science-deniers-attend-behalf-trump-affiliated-lobby-group"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/11/cop25-climate-science-deniers-attend-behalf-trump-affiliated-lobby-group</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">US</span>&nbsp;thinktank with close ties to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;has obtained accreditation for a delegation of climate science deniers to the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UN</span>&nbsp;summit currently underway in&nbsp;Madrid.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Organisations accredited to attend on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received significant funding from oil giant ExxonMobil and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-family-foundations" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Koch family</a>, include the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UK</span>’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/centre-policy-studies" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Centre for Policy Studies</a>, the Chicago-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/european-institute-climate-and-energy" style="text-decoration-line: none;">European Institute for Climate and Energy</a>.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">World leaders are in Madrid, Spain for this year’s two-week&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UN</span>&nbsp;climate talks, known as&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">COP25</span>. A&nbsp;<a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/COP%2025_Provisional%20List%20of%20Participants.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">list</a>&nbsp;of delegates shows the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;had obtained accreditation for eight individuals, many of whom are known for spreading climate science denial. The list is provisional, with a final list due to be released on Friday as the conference&nbsp;ends.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/william-happer" style="text-decoration-line: none;">William Happer</a>, a retired physics professor who left&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>’s National Security Council in September after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061113085" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">failing</a>&nbsp;to persuade the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">US</span>&nbsp;president to conduct a review of mainstream climate science, is also on the list of&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;delegates</span>.&nbsp; Happer directs a global network called the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/co2-coalition" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="caps" style="">CO2</span>&nbsp;Coalition</a>, which advocates for greater greenhouse gas emissions. In 2015, he was exposed offering to write a report on the benefits of carbon dioxide for a Middle Eastern oil company in an&nbsp;<a href="https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">undercover investigation</a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;Greenpeace.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others accredited on behalf of the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;include&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/rupert-darwall" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Rupert Darwall</a>, a critic of renewables who wrote a book in 2017 entitled&nbsp;<em>Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex</em>. Darwall is currently a Senior Fellow at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/centre-policy-studies" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Centre for Policy Studies</a>, which is part of a network of pro-Brexit, libertarian think tanks and lobby groups based in and around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/55-tufton-street" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">55 Tufton Street</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;Westminster.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Anthony Watts</b></a>, a former television meteorologist who founded the&nbsp;<em>Watts Up With That</em>&nbsp;climate science denial blog, is also listed as a&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;delegate, on behalf of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>, along with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/jim-lakely" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James Lakely</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/james-taylor" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James Taylor</a>&nbsp;and Keely&nbsp;Drukala.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wolfgang Mueller, General Secretary of the Germany-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/european-institute-climate-and-energy" style="text-decoration-line: none;">European Institute for Climate and Energy</a>&nbsp;(<span class="caps" style="">EIKE</span>), a climate science denial group that has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/afd-seeks-votes-by-opposing-climate-protection-a-1265494.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">worked closely</a>&nbsp;with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, and Samantha Mathew from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/committee-constructive-tomorrow" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (<span class="caps" style="">CFACT</span>)</a>, are also on the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This is not the first time climate science deniers have attended a&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">COP</span>&nbsp;meeting as part of the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;delegation.</b> In 2016,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/marc-morano" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Marc Morano</a>, Communications Director at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/committee-constructive-tomorrow" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="caps" style="">CFACT</span></a>&nbsp;and Executive Director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4621" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Depot</a>&nbsp;website, attended the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">COP22</span>&nbsp;Marrakech summit on a&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;badge and was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/16/climate-science-deniers-representing-organisation-donald-trump-s-epa-pick-booted-un-cop22-talks" style="text-decoration-line: none;">kicked out</a>&nbsp;after pulling a media stunt about Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris&nbsp;Agreement.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morano is also understood to be at the Madrid talks, where&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CFACT</span>&nbsp;has been&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191212142435/https://www.cfact.org/2019/12/11/gretas-person-of-the-year-but-her-climate-kids-are-emotional-and-vacuous-at-cop-25/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">handing out</a>&nbsp;a report with “skeptical talking points” to delegates. The “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191212142623/http://1ggye33lc4653z56mp34pl6t-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Climate-Talking-Points-Report-December-2019-Delivered-to-UN-Climate-Summit-in-Madrid_FINAL.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Truth File 2020</a>” document, prepared by Morano, dismisses “global warming hype and hysteria” and claims there is a&nbsp;“lack of connection between higher levels of&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CO2</span>&nbsp;and&nbsp;warming”.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">No-one formally affiliated with the</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">CEI</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">, including</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/myron-ebell" style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">Myron Ebell</a><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">, Director of Energy and Environment at the Chicago-based free-market think tank, is accredited to attend this year’s</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">COP</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ebell was put in charge of Donald Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, helping decide who staffed the agency once the President took office. He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2017/01/30/climate-science-denying-gwpf-host-trump-s-fossil-fuelled-environment-advisor-myron-ebell-delivers-message-uk" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told</a>&nbsp;a press conference hosted in 2012 by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/global-warming-policy-foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Global Warming Policy Foundation (<span class="caps" style="">GWPF</span>)</a>, the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UK</span>’s main climate science denial group, that Brexit presented an “opportunity” to get rid of unwanted&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">EU</span>&nbsp;environmental&nbsp;regulations.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">CEI</span>&nbsp;did not respond to a request for&nbsp;comment.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Counter climate&nbsp;summit</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opponents of action on climate change gathered in Madrid for what has become an annual event organised by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>, a&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">US</span>&nbsp;thinktank known for spreading climate science&nbsp;denial.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On the second day of the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">COP</span>, Heartland&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191211122221/https:/www.heartland.org/multimedia/videos-climate-change/heartland-at-cop25---rebutting-the-climate-delusion-of-the-un-in-madrid" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hosted</a>&nbsp;a series of talks away from the official delegate area in an attempt to “rebut” what it describes as the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UN</span>’s “climate&nbsp;delusion”.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The afternoon included sessions on “The Renewable Power Nightmare in Europe” and “Wind and Solar Power: Expensive, Diffuse, Unreliable and Environmentally&nbsp;Damaging”.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guus Berkhout, founder of the Netherlands-based Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel), gave a presentation about the group’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/09/06/climate-science-deniers-planning-coordinated-european-misinformation-campaign-leaked-documents-reveal" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“There is no Climate Emergency” campaign</a>, which claims that rising carbon dioxide levels are “beneficial for nature” and that climate change “has not increased natural&nbsp;disasters”.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since launching the initiative in September, Clintel has organised events across Europe, including one&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/11/26/tory-party-s-eu-group-hosts-climate-science-denial-group-days-meps-debate-climate-emergency" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hosted</a>&nbsp;last month by the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UK</span>&nbsp;Conservative Party’s political grouping in the European&nbsp;Parliament.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Christopher Monckton</a>, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher who often falsely styles himself as a Lord and was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/07/doha-climate-talks-ukip-lord-monckton" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">banned</a>&nbsp;from the official climate talks in 2012 for impersonating a Burmese delegate, also spoke at the Heartland&nbsp;event.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/11/cop25-polluting-companies-blamed-for-slow-progress"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/11/cop25-polluting-companies-blamed-for-slow-progress</font></a></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Big polluters are to blame for slow progress in the annual&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">UN</span>&nbsp;climate negotiations in Madrid, Spain, according to activists — with several companies sponsoring the talks&nbsp;<a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/spains-biggest-polluter-is-sponsoring-the-latest-un-cli-1840153678" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in exchange for tax breaks</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sponsors of the talks, known as&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="">COP25</span>, include the electrical utilities company Iberdrola, which produced 24.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, and Endesa, which through its operations produced 61.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.corporateaccountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/FACTFILE-COP25-Corporate-Sponsors.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">analysis</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonetheless, representatives from major oil and gas companies have been invited to speak on panels taking place throughout the&nbsp;meeting....</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/why-a-green-new-deal-might-not-be-enough-and-we-could-leave-developing-countries-with-an-ugly-choice/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/why-a-green-new-deal-might-not-be-enough-and-we-could-leave-developing-countries-with-an-ugly-choice/</font></a></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Why a Green New Deal might not be enough — and we could leave developing countries with an ugly choice</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Written by Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute December 3, 2019</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In Madrid, Spain, the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference—known as COP25—began on December 2. Representatives of the world’s countries gathered to discuss what is decidedly a serious problem for the planet; no one, except dangerous political forces in the neofascist right, denies the reality of climate change. What prevents a transfer from carbon-based fuel to other fuels is not the stubbornness of this or that country. The main problems are three:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The right wing that denies climate change;</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sections of the energy industry that have a vested interest in the continuation of the use of carbon-based fuels;</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The refusal by the Western advanced countries to admit both that they have caused the problem and that they should use their vast wealth to finance the transfer from carbon-based fuels to other fuels in countries whose wealth has been siphoned off to the West.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The first two blockages—the right wing and sections of the climate industry—are related, since it is often money from the climate industry (the Koch brothers, for instance) that finances the climate deniers and sows confusion about the immense reality that confronts us.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The third blockage is serious, and it has prevented the United Nations process from bearing fruit. At the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, the countries of the world negotiated a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In that document—which was ratified at the General Assembly two years later—the governments agreed to a key principle, namely that the impact of colonialism cannot be divorced from discussions of the climate crisis.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The global nature of climate change,” the parties wrote, “calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Common and Differentiated Responsibilities</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The main phrase here to consider is “common but differentiated responsibilities.” This means that the problem of climate change is something that is common to all countries, and that no one is immune to its deleterious impact; at the same time, the responsibility of countries is not identical, and some countries—which benefited for centuries from colonialism and carbon fuel—have a greater responsibility for the transition to a less damaging energy system.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There is little scholarly debate on the fact that certain countries—the West—benefited inordinately from both colonialism and carbon fuel. A look at the data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center’s Global Carbon Project shows that the United States of America—by itself—has been the largest dispenser of carbon dioxide emissions since 1750. The main carbon emitters were all colonial powers, namely European states and the United States of America. From the 18th century, these countries have not only dispensed the bulk of the carbon into the atmosphere, but they also continue to exceed their share of the Global Carbon Budget.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Carbon-fueled capitalism—enriched by the wealth stolen through colonialism—enabled the countries of Europe and North America to enhance the well-being of their populations. The extreme inequalities between the standard of living for the average European (742 million people) and the average Indian (1.4 billion people) is as stark as it was a century ago. The reliance by China, India, and other developing countries on carbon—particularly coal—is high; but even this use of carbon has not raised the per capita emissions of China and India above that of the United States, whose per capita emissions are almost twice as much as China’s per capita emissions.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Green Climate Fund</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Framework Convention recognized the importance of colonialism, the geographical divergence of industrial capitalism, and its impact on the carbon budget. That is why the countries at Rio agreed to create a Green Climate Fund. The West was asked to make substantial contributions to the fund, whose capital would then be used to assist developing countries to “leapfrog” carbon-fueled social development.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>It was hoped that the fund would draw in $100 billion—at a minimum—by 2020. The United States pledged $3 billion but has only contributed $1 billion</b>. Trump has blocked any further contributions to the fund (Bernie Sanders, in contrast, said he would pay $200 billion into the fund, while the UK’s Jeremy Corbyn pledged to use his country’s leverage over the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds toward “climate justice for the Global South”). Australia and Russia have also paused contributions. No real appetite exists to expand this fund; there is little expectation that it—or the concept of leapfrogging—will be taken seriously at COP25.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The $100 billion figure is very conservative. The International Energy Agency suggests each year in its World Energy Outlook that the actual figure is in the trillions. None of the Western powers has intimated anything like a commitment of that scale to the fund.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Attack on Coal</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It is far easier to attack China and India, and other developing countries.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In early November, UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed the press after his participation in the UN-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. He mentioned neither the concept of “common but differentiated responsibility” nor the Green Climate Fund.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tellingly, the secretary-general made three proposals, each of which says nothing to the main principle of “differentiated responsibility”:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Taxes must be placed on carbon emissions.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels must end.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Construction of coal-fired power stations must end by 2020.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">None of these proposals per se would raise eyebrows. In fact, given the gravity of the reports coming in from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there is no doubt that action is necessary.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But what kind of action? These three proposals would directly strike at the energy sources for countries that have not yet provided electrification for their populations, or where their people are far from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Southeast Asia, where Guterres made these remarks, only anticipates full electrification of the region by 2030.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Advanced industrial states—such as the United Kingdom and Germany—have said that they will phase out coal by 2040. These are countries that have created the Powering Past Coal Alliance (backed by the Bloomberg New Energy Finance, one of the major capital funds that seeks to make money off the Green New Deal). There is money to be made here for venture capitalists; they are not going to contribute the billions needed for the Green Climate Fund. No philanthropy by the billionaires will be willing to donate their money into the fund; the tax-free money they make on the “green transition” will eclipse the tiny amounts of money they will donate for a non-carbon future.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ugly Choice</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Meanwhile, developing countries have an ugly choice before them: to forgo carbon, the cheapest fuel, and then forgo social development for their populations; or to continue to use carbon and threaten the planet. These are the only choices if the advanced industrial states refuse to fund the Green Climate Fund, and if they refuse to transfer technology for wind and solar to countries without any financial obligation.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A Green New Deal in the West is not going to be sufficient if this deal does not include trillions of dollars into the UN’s Green Climate Fund and the transfer of technology as a social practice and not for profit.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017). He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UN report</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26112019/unep-emissions-gap-report-paris-climate-greenhouse-gas-peak-2030" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" height="%2213%22" width="%2213%22" version="%221.1%22" cg="Cg" transform="%22translate%28-36.467808%2C-258.39005%29%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" d="%22m40.55%2C263.9c0-0.6213%2C0.6213-0.6213%2C0.6213-0.6213%2C1.864%2C0.6213%2C3.107%2C1.864%2C3.728%2C3.728%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0.6213-0.6213%2C0.6213-1.243-1.864-1.864-2.485-3.728-3.728z%22/%3E" c="C" g="g" e="E" rgb="rgb" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" font-size="font-size" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:cc="%22http://creativecommons.org/ns%23%22" xmlns:data="data" xmlns:dc="%22http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/%22%3E" xmlns:rdf="%22http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns%23%22">World’s Emissions Gap Is Growing, with No Sign of Peaking Soon, UN Warns</a>&nbsp;11/19.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><header class="page-header article-header" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><h2 class="page-subtitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;"><span class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated,'&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: normal;">said UNEP's Inger Andersen. 'If we do not do this, the 1.5°C goal will be out of reach before 2030.'</span></font></span></h2><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><h4 class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY LESLIE HOOK, FINANCIAL TIMES</font></h4><div class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 0.5em; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOV 26, 2019</font></div></div></header><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item " style="box-sizing: inherit;"><figure id="file-273780" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg with-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><figcaption class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 2em; line-height: 1.6; border-right: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-left: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); border-image: initial; border-top: none;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the Paris climate agreement, countries pledged to keep global warming under 2°C. But their current promises of emissions cuts would still lead to about 3.2°C (5.8°F) of warming by the end of the century, the 2019 UN Emissions Gap Report says. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images</font></p></div></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A new United Nations report lays bare the yawning gap between the sharp cuts in emissions required to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord and current projections, concluding that the window is closing to prevent the worst effects of damaging climate change.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The definitive annual assessment of global climate pledges found "no sign" that levels of emissions in the atmosphere would peak soon, despite the fact that meeting the Paris goals requires global emissions reductions of at least 2.7 percent each year for the next decade.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Paris accord of 2015 aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F), with efforts to keep it below 1.5°C (2.7°F), in order to limit the worst impacts of&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">climate change</a>. Yet existing pledges are so inadequate that they correspond to about 3.2°C (5.8°F) of warming by the end of the century, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/cut-global-emissions-76-percent-every-year-next-decade-meet-15degc" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Emissions Gap Report</a>&nbsp;published Tuesday said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated," said Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Program. "If we do not do this, the 1.5°C goal will be out of reach before 2030."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">To be on track for 2°C of warming, the report said, emissions in 2030 would need to be 25 percent lower than today.</span><font style="text-align: center;"><input type="text" name="b_7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0_29c928ffb5" tabindex="-1" value="" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1rem; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; margin: 0px; width: 250px; max-width: 100%; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(231, 231, 231); border-radius: 6px; padding: 0.75rem 1rem;" /></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To limit warming to 1.5°C, emissions would need to be slashed by 55 percent. Last year, global carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.7 percent.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Every year that action is delayed, emissions reductions need to be steeper," said Joeri Rogelj, climate change lecturer at Imperial College London and an author of the report. This is the 10th year in a row that the UN has released an emissions gap report. "It is really the accumulation of bad news every year."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confirmation that rising emissions are putting existing global goals further out of reach came on the eve of the&nbsp;<b>COP 25 climate summit that begins in Madrid&nbsp;</b>on Monday.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The meeting will be the first big climate gathering since President Donald Trump began the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. Brazil's president has also questioned the deal's relevance.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto;"><figure id="file-273626" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="Chart: The Fossil Fuel Production Gap" title="Chart: The Fossil Fuel Production Gap" height="678" width="529" class="media-element file-image-centered-medium" data-delta="1" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/icn_centered_medium/public/image_large/FossilFuelProductionGapChart.png?itok=blkyA7Gw" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto;" /></figure></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New data from the World Meteorological Organization published on Monday showed that global average concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million in 2017.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The increase is the result of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels.&nbsp;Another&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20112019/fossil-fuel-production-climate-change-goals-subsidies-policies-un-report" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">UN report last week</a>&nbsp;showed that if the world's top fossil fuel-producing nations follow through on their current plans, they will produce about 50 percent more oil, gas and coal by 2030 than would be compatible with the international goal of keeping global warming under 2°C,&nbsp;and two times more than would be allowable to stay under 1.5°C.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenhouse gas emissions have risen 1.5 percent each year on average over the past decade, despite a slight levelling off during 2014-16.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement," said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3 to 5 million years ago," he added. "Back then, the temperature was 2 to 3°C warmer, and sea level was 10 to 20 meters higher than now."</font></p></div></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>