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pledge...pledge...

Conservation and farming groups are digesting the impact of a pledge by Australia to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade.

Australia is one of the 105 countries that has signed the declaration at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Underpinning the deal is an investment of $25 billion in public and private funds to protect and restore forests.

 

“We will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the pact.

A joint statement at COP26 was backed by leaders of countries,  including Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85 per cent of the world’s forests.

Mark Howden from the ANU specialises in climate change, land use and agriculture and said the pledge “is a good aspirational goal” for Australia.

He told AAP while the pledge seems to be mostly directed towards developing countries it would still have implications for Australia.

Because the states and territories are responsible for land clearing management there is a question as to how the Commonwealth could implement the pledge, Professor Howden said.

“Queensland and NSW will be the ones where in particular there appears to be restlessness about land clearing restrictions,” he noted.

Queensland grazier Angus Emmott spoke to AAP from his property south-west of Longreach, where he has already adapted farming practices because of climate change.

The Farmers for Climate Action member said Australia becoming a signatory to the pledge is a positive move.

 

“There are people all over Australia in agriculture, already adapting and mitigating against climate change and doing whatever they can to make their farming operations more sustainable,” he said.

Mr Emmott said while he’s keen to see how the pledge will work in practice he supports it in theory.

“Deforestation across the world is a major issue that needs to be addressed,” he added.

“It’s part of the solution towards healthy ecosystems, towards sustainable agriculture, and towards acting on climate, it’s part of the big picture, but I have no idea how it will roll out.”

The grazier said Australian farmers are already changing the way they operate because climate change is “biting”.

“I support the sentiment, but actually knowing what is involved is hard to know at this point … we do need sustainable agriculture and that means we need to halt environmental degradation, and we need to look at tree cover, grass cover, we need to look at healthy soils.”

Travis Tobin is CEO of the peak body for cattle farmers and said he doesn’t expect the deal to have a huge impact on local production because tree cover in Australia’s beef country is increasing.

“Balanced grazing landscapes are important to encourage biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and maintain soil health, by managing and conserving grasses, shrubs, and trees,” he said.

“The (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has ranked Australia highest amongst OECD countries with the largest net gain in forest area since 2010.”

Conservation group WWF Australia, which earlier this year declared eastern Australia as among the worst offenders in relation to global deforestation, has welcomed the pledge.

“It must be followed by rapid concerted action. We can’t afford to see the same weak progress that followed the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests,” CEO Dermot O’Gorman said.

“At least 370,000 hectares of forests and woodland were bulldozed across Australia in 2018. That is equivalent to 2913 times the area of Flemington Racecourse.

“Australia’s forests store 22 billion tonnes of carbon, the seventh largest forest carbon store on Earth.”

Mr O’Gorman said forests are highly effective carbon sinks, and provide the natural infrastructure needed to combat climate impacts by reducing erosion, providing shelter, retaining moisture, and allowing species diversity.

“Landholders must be supported in transitioning from bulldozing trees to conserving them so that food production can benefit from all that a forest provides,” he said.

“This would support the beef and farm sectors to become carbon neutral, remove deforestation from their global supply chains, and maintain trade access for their agricultural exports.”

Nathaniel Pelle from the Australian Conservation Foundation said the plan needs to be accompanied by regulatory change.

However Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously told farmers there would be no mandates issued in relation to his government’s net-zero emissions plan.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/11/02/pledge-to-halt-deforestation-queries/

scomo's belching cows...

Scott Morrison pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in climate finance and new steps in the government’s controversial plans for carbon offsets through the Pacific, talking up moves in Glasgow he claimed would make a “big difference” in our region.

But even as he attempted to shake off Australia’s reputation among some as a climate laggard, Mr Morrison’s commitments at the COP26 summit were derided as “measly” and a “handbrake”, with environmental experts begging the government to do more.

“Our PM stood up in front of the world and effectively promised to do nothing,” claimed the Climate Council’s Professor Tim Flannery.

 

Just days after formally locking in his government’s plan for Australia to reach net zero by 2050 – a middling target by world standards, described by many as the “price of entry” to the Glasgow summit – Mr Morrison came to Scotland bearing gifts and announcements.

But by Tuesday night, Australia was still noticeably absent from the list of nations that had signed up to a US and EU-led effort to slash the potent greenhouse gas, methane.

The Global Methane Pledge, which was first announced in September, now includes half of the top 30 methane emitters accounting for two-thirds of the global economy.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/11/02/morrison-glasgow-cop26-summit/

 

Scomo's plan is so simple, there is nothing in it...

 

See also: 

cowthanol...

 

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palm sugar capers...

Indonesia has criticised the terms of a global deal to end deforestation by 2030, signalling that the country may not abide by it.

Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the authorities could not "promise what we can't do".

She said forcing Indonesia to commit to zero deforestation by 2030 was "clearly inappropriate and unfair". 

Despite President Joko Widodo signing the forest deal, she said development remained Indonesia's top priority.

The deal, agreed between more than 100 world leaders, was announced on Monday at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. It was the event's first major announcement.

It promises to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, and includes almost £14bn ($19.2bn) of public and private funds.

 

In a Facebook post (in Indonesian), Ms Nurbaya argued that the country's vast natural resources must be used for the benefit of its people.

She cited the need to to cut down forests to make way for new roads.

"The massive development of President Jokowi's era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation," she said, referring to Mr Widodo by his nickname.

"Indonesia's natural wealth, including forests, must be managed for its use according to sustainable principles, besides being fair," she said.

Experts welcomed the agreement, but they warned a previous deal in 2014 had "failed to slow deforestation at all" and said commitments needed to be delivered on.

Felling trees contributes to climate change because it depletes forests that absorb vast amounts of the warming gas CO2.

 

Meanwhile, Indonesia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mahendra Siregar said that describing the deal as a zero-deforestation pledge was "false and misleading".

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59169547

 

 

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biden's cut...

Rick Bass says he does not consider himself a “typical tree hugger.” The 63-year-old Texas transplant is an avid hunter and started his professional life as an oil and gas geologist. But Bass fell in love with the Rocky Mountains in college, and in 1987, he moved to a “blank spot on the map”—the remote wilderness of the Yaak Valley in Northwestern Montana.

Bass, never quite at home anywhere else, found himself surrounded by a rugged landscape of rocky peaks and coniferous forests, including the Kootenai National Forest. To hear him tell it, there is nowhere quite like the Yaak Valley.

On Biden’s watch, the US Forest Service is quietly moving forward with a series of Donald Trump–era plans to open up commercial logging in the Kootenai, despite the fact that the impacts of these projects were never subjected to rigorous analysis.

It wouldn’t take long for Bass to realize that the area was under constant threat from road construction and commercial logging, because of the untapped timber in the area. In 1997, Bass and three other social activists cofounded the Yaak Valley Forest Council (YVFC) to protect the natural habitat of the “sensitive, threatened, and endangered species” around him, including grizzly bears and lynxes.

More than two decades later, they’re still fighting—and they say the Joe Biden administration isn’t helping.

On Tuesday, president Joe Biden was one of 100-plus world leaders who pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. His Build Back Better framework, similarly, pledges “historic” investment in forest management.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, Biden has been plowing ahead with his predecessor’s approach to deforestation of public lands in the Kootenai National Forest.

On Biden’s watch, the US Forest Service is quietly moving forward with a series of Donald Trump–era plans to open up commercial logging in the Kootenai, despite the fact that the impacts of these projects were never subjected to rigorous analysis.

Bass says he was initially relieved about Biden’s presidential win in 2020, hoping it would bring about a shift away from the Trump administration’s permissive environmental stewardship. But the continuation of logging projects have left him feeling betrayed.

“This is not the man I voted for, and in my opinion, he is not keeping his word about science and climate change,” Bass says. “Our national forests absorb 12% of CO2. Please do the math, Joe.”

‘THE SPAWN OF A TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER’

Located south of Canada’s boreal forest, the Kootenai is a picturesque old-growth forest, meaning it contains trees that are hundreds of years old. Douglas fir, subalpine fir, lodgepole pine, western red cedar, and other trees make up its canopies. The ecosystem is one of the most diverse in the state of Montana, serving as a vital corridor for a number of threatened species, including grizzlies.

Wayne Kasworm, a wildlife biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, tells us that there are 55 to 60 grizzlies in the region. The region’s bear population has been listed as endangered for years, and Kasworm says that for the population to stabilize, there would need to be at least 100 bears in the area connected to surrounding populations either in the United States or Canada.

“Continued growth is dependent upon low levels of human-caused mortality and the continued habitat protections put in place, largely through motorized access management,” says Kasworm, referring to a system for establishing limits on road density and keeping core areas free of roads.

 

 

read more:

https://therealnews.com/joe-biden-is-continuing-donald-trumps-deforestation-plans

 

Read from top.

 

 

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