Category: Climate

Five ways to improve net zero action – our new research highlights lessons from the past

Cycling is not only a way to reduce carbon emissions, it also has huge health benefits. LeManna/Shutterstock

by Karen Bickerstaff, University of Exeter; Alice Moseley, University of Exeter, and Patrick Devine-Wright, University of Exeter

The current UK government and its recent predecessors have shown a reluctance to encourage and enable lifestyle changes that reduce our collective demand for energy.

Fearing a backlash from voters, many UK politicians neglect key weapons in the fight to mitigate climate change. These include directing investment away from building roads to public transport, establishing reliable infrastructure for the charging and repair of electric vehicles, and making reduction of car travel a key priority for urban planners.

As researchers focusing on how to accelerate climate action, we argue that shying away from changing the way we live is counterproductive. Conflict and disagreement are part of social change, but there are positive ways forward.

The problems and, critically, the solutions have overwhelmingly been presented by UK governments as technological. But many of these technologies are still only in development.

Practical use of nuclear fusion (the energy-generating mechanism that powers the sun), for example, has long been spoken of as “30 years away”. The efficacy of direct air capture (a set of technologies that extract CO₂ directly from the atmosphere) remains a matter of conjecture.

Meanwhile, demand reduction and lifestyle changes – solutions we know make a difference – are being left in the background.

In the run-up to the 2024 UK general election, we conducted a survey of almost 3,000 UK citizens – of which just over half (51%) expressed support for a net zero carbon emissions target. Given the apparent indifference or outright opposition of a substantial proportion of voters, it is not surprising that politicians seek to minimise objections to net zero policy by downplaying any suggestion of personal disruption.

Our survey also asked about people’s willingness to make specific lifestyle changes (to home energy, diet and travel) for climate reasons. On average, 43% were already acting or firmly planning to do so. Another 28% said they might be prepared to make such changes in the future.

Willingness to make climate-related lifestyle changes:

Bar graph showing that people are more likely to change their travel habits than their home energy or their diet.
Study participants were asked ‘which of the following actions have you undertaken, or might undertake in future, to try and make an impact on climate change?’ https://accessnetwork.uk/making-a-net-zero-society-follow-the-social-science/

This ties in with other research which indicates that people are open to significant changes in their lifestyle to support net zero, if the conditions are right. So, how can this potential for change be realised?

The answer, we argue, lies in the recent past. Over the last year, as part of a social science taskforce on net zero, we looked back at a diverse range of case studies of societal change to draw lessons for future policy. We now propose that five key steps are needed for effective net zero action.

1. Galvanise people

When seeking to build support for contentious change, it is vital to identify issues that can galvanise people. These will often relate to other (non-net zero) benefits. For instance, “school streets” projects have been successful, where other traffic reduction policies have failed, because they emphasise the benefits to the health and wellbeing of children.

Similarly, the rapid switch from coal heating to gas central heating in the 1960s and ’70s was partly connected to a popular movement for cleaner, “decent” homes.

team of people sat around table discussing an idea, drinking coffee
Identifying issues that unify people can galvanise support from local communities. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

2. Focus on fairness

In our survey, just 37% of people saw a fairer society as a likely outcome of net zero actions, while 63% identified individual finances as a major challenge to achieving net zero. Regulation needs to establish a close connection between net zero measures and equity, so that no groups are unfairly burdened or advantaged. This requires an honest discussion about downsides and trade-offs.

Measures that focus on cheaper bills, affordable devices, accessible transport and the alleviation of fuel poverty will build optimism. In the successful Danish transition to district heating from the mid-1970s, ensuring affordable and reliable energy was vital in gaining support, as was giving residents a say in decision-making.

3. Make the policy process relatable

We noticed that survey participants expressed a lot of cynicism and uncertainty about government action on net zero. Nearly half (46%) doubted that the net zero target was achievable, while most people (62%) had serious concerns about vested interests, under-resourced local authorities (59%), and a lack of government investment in infrastructure (59%).

People also feel disconnected from decision-making. Many said they had little or no influence on climate policy (59%), and felt there was a lack of power in communities (51%).

Local authorities, businesses, community groups and other third-sector organisations can help bridge these gaps between national government and everyday life. They should play a key role delivering net zero policies that fit with local needs and issues.

When Denmark switched to district heating, the delegation of powers to municipal authorities was crucial in supporting community ownership models and empowering residents and community groups. Properly resourced local climate commissions – town- and city-wide groups that bring together local organisations and businesses – can provide an independent, trusted voice to help drive climate action at a local level.

4. Listen to other people

People need the chance to listen to and engage with each other. If they doubt their opinions and concerns are recognised, or if their worries are viewed as nothing more than obstacles, conflict becomes more likely.

Proper dialogue through collaborations like climate citizens’ assemblies can improve understanding of different positions, aspirations and capabilities. Once legitimate concerns and unintended consequences have been identified, potential solutions can be explored.

There is certainly support for this more interactive approach: 40% of people in our survey felt that affected communities should have a considerable influence on climate policies, alongside local authorities (40%) and elected MPs (42%).

Without these ongoing conversations, projects can fail. A Dutch carbon capture and storage project, using a depleted gas field under the town of Barendrecht to store CO₂ from a nearby refinery, was cancelled in 2010 following intense local opposition. The government and industry had failed to get public engagement right from the start.

5. Accept some opposition

Change to net zero is going to be difficult, and no step the UK government takes will completely eliminate the possibility of disruption and conflict. In our survey, nearly a quarter of respondents were opposed to the UK net zero target. So, politicians need to be more robust and interventionist in making a positive case for net zero, recognising that not everyone is going to agree.

However, there are grounds to be optimistic that action itself may help unlock support for net zero. Research that has followed school streets projects, for example, shows that once schemes are in place, support among residents and parents increases when anticipated problems (such as traffic displacement) do not materialise – and when the benefits, in terms of children walking and cycling more, become clear.

Karen Bickerstaff, Professor in Human Geography, University of Exeter; Alice Moseley, Associate Professor, Politics, University of Exeter, and Patrick Devine-Wright, Professor in Human Geography, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Expansive climate governance: Advancing transformative climate justice through the six pillars of climate action

Ciplet, D. (2025). Expansive climate governance: Advancing transformative climate justice through the six pillars of climate action. Climate and Development, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2025.2486369

Abstract

Existing frameworks within international climate governance present a largely binary understanding of the core strategies available to address climate change and related forms of inequality: mitigation and adaptation. Advancing climate justice in a transformative fashion requires a more expansive, nuanced, and comprehensive understanding of the types of climate-related actions that are available and feasible. The ‘expansive climate governance’ framework introduced in this article includes six governance pillars that extend across a continuum. On the left side of the continuum are mitigative strategies that are preventative of changes to the greenhouse, including ‘restructuring’ and ‘decoupling’. In the middle of the continuum are stabilizing strategies to limit exposure to harm related to an altered greenhouse, including ‘greenhouse restoration’ and ‘climate management’. On the right side of the continuum are adaptive strategies to adjust and respond to climatic changes and impacts, including ‘adaptation’ and ‘restitution’. The article discusses the history of the existing pillars of climate governance, defines and describes each of the six pillars of expansive climate governance, presents four arguments for why this approach is needed to advance transformative climate justice, and outlines steps to utilize this framework in practice.

Governors are leading the fight against climate change and deforestation around the world, filling a void left by presidents

Forests like the Amazon play vital roles in balancing the environment, from storing carbon to releasing oxygen. Silvestre Garcia-IntuitivoFilms/Stone/Getty Images

by Mary Nichols, University of California, Los Angeles

When the annual U.N. climate conference descends on the small Brazilian rainforest city of Belém in November 2025, it will be tempting to focus on the drama and disunity among major nations. Only 21 countries had even submitted their updated plans for managing climate change by the 2025 deadline required under the Paris Agreement. The U.S. is pulling out of the agreement altogether.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the likely absence of – or potential stonewalling by – a U.S. delegation will take up much of the oxygen in the negotiating hall.

You can tune them out.

Trust me, I’ve been there. As chair of the California Air Resources Board for nearly 20 years, I attended the annual conferences from Bali in 2007 to Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, in 2023. That included the exhilarating success in 2015, when nearly 200 nations committed to keep global warming in check by signing the Paris Agreement.

In recent years, however, the real progress has been outside the rooms where the official U.N. negotiations are held, not inside. In these meetings, the leaders of states and provinces talk about what they are doing to reduce greenhouse gases and prepare for worsening climate disasters. Many bilateral and multilateral agreements have sprung up like mushrooms from these side conversations.

What states and provinces are doing now

The real action in 2025 will come from the leaders of states and provinces, places like Pastaza, Ecuador; Acre and Pará, Brazil; and East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

While some national political leaders are backing off their climate commitments, these subnational governments know they have to live with increasing fires, floods and deadly heat waves. So, they’re stepping up and sharing advice for what works.

State, province and local governments often have jurisdiction over energy generation, land-use planning, housing policies and waste management, all of which play a role in increasing or reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Their leaders have been finding ways to use that authority to reduce deforestation, increase the use of renewable energy and cap and cut greenhouse gas emissions that are pushing the planet toward dangerous tipping points. They have teamed up to link carbon markets and share knowledge in many areas.

In the U.S., governors are working together in the U.S. Climate Alliance to fill the vacuum left by the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle U.S. climate policies and programs. Despite intense pressure from fossil fuel industry lobbyists, the governors of 22 states and two territories are creating policies that take steps to reduce emissions from buildings, power generation and transportation. Together, they represent more than half the U.S. population and nearly 60% of its economy.

Tactics for fighting deforestation

In Ecuador, provinces like Morona Santiago, Pastaza, and Zamora Chinchipe are designing management and financing partnerships with Indigenous territories for protecting more than 4 million hectares of forests through a unique collaboration called the Plataforma Amazonica.

Brazilian states, including Mato Grosso, have been using remote-sensing technologies to crack down on illegal land clearing, while states like Amapá and Amazonas are developing community-engaged bioeconomy plans – think increased jobs through sustainable local fisheries and producing super fruits like acaí. Acre, Pará and Tocantins have programs that allow communities to sell carbon credits for forest preservation to companies.

Map shows mostly deforestation and little forest gain in the Southern Hemisphere. Northern Hemisphere gain and loss are mixed.
Global Forest Watch uses satellite data to track forest cover change. Green shows areas with at least 30% forest cover in 2000. Pink is forest loss from 2003-2023. Blue is forest gain from 2000 to 2020. Global Forest Watch, CC BY

States in Mexico, including Jalisco, Yucatán and Oaxaca, have developed sustainable supply chain certification programs to help reduce deforestation. Programs like these can increase the economic value in some of foods and beverages, from avocados to honey to agave for tequila.

There are real signs of success: Deforestation has dropped significantly in Indonesia compared with previous decades, thanks in large part to provincially led sustainable forest management efforts. In East Kalimantan, officials have been pursuing policy reforms and working with plantation and forestry companies to reduce forests destruction to protect habitat for orangutans.

It’s no wonder that philanthropic and business leaders from many sectors are turning to state and provincial policymakers, rather than national governments. These subnational governments have the ability to take timely and effective action.

Working together to find solutions

Backing many of these efforts to slow deforestation is the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, which California’s then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped launch in 2008. It is the world’s only subnational governmental network dedicated to protecting forests, reducing emissions and making people’s lives better across the tropics.

Today, the task force includes 43 states and provinces from 11 countries. They cover more than one-third of the world’s tropical forests. That includes all of Brazil’s Legal Amazon region, more than 85% of the Peruvian Amazon, 65% of Mexico’s tropical forests and over 60% of Indonesia’s forests.

From a purely environmental perspective, subnational governments and governors must balance competing interests that do not always align with environmentalists’ ideals. Pará state, for example, is building an 8-mile (13 kilometer) road to ease traffic that cuts through rainforest. California’s investments in its Lithium Valley, where lithium used to make batteries is being extracted near the Salton Sea, may result in economic benefits within California and the U.S., while also generating potential environmental risks to air and water quality.

Each governor has to balance the needs of farmers, ranchers and other industries with protecting the forests and other ecosystems, but those in the task force are finding pragmatic solutions.

A man in short sleeves walks with a group behind him.
Pará State Gov. Helder Barbalho arrives for the Amazon Summit in August 2023. Eight South American countries agreed to launch an alliance to fight deforestation in the Amazon at the meeting. Evaristo SA / AFP via Getty Images

The week of May 19-23, 2025, two dozen or more subnational leaders from Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia and elsewhere are gathering in Rio Branco, Brazil, for a conference on protecting tropical rainforests. They’ll also be ironing out some important details for developing what they call a “new forest economy” for protecting and restoring ecosystems while creating jobs and boosting economies.

Protecting tropical forest habitat while also creating jobs and economic opportunities is not easy. In 2023, data show the planet was losing rainforest equivalent to 10 soccer fields a minute, and had lost more than 7% since 2000.

But states and cities are taking big steps while many national governments can’t even agree on which direction to head. It’s time to pay attention more to the states.

Mary Nichols, Distinguished Counsel for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UH launches real-time weather dashboard as Hawaiʻi Mesonet expands statewide

Read the full story from the University of Hawaiʻi.

A new real-time dashboard launched by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa offers public access to live weather data from nearly 70 monitoring stations across the state, marking a major milestone in the Hawaiʻi Mesonet project. The launch coincides with Wildfire Awareness Month and represents a pivotal moment in the effort to make climate data available to the public.

Hawaiʻi’s diverse geography and microclimates present unique challenges that require precise monitoring to accurately capture weather events. Annual rainfall in parts of Maui, for example, can vary by more than 140 inches within a single mile. The Hawaiʻi Mesonet’s data has the potential to inform planning and decision-making in emergency management, agriculture, water resource, conservation and many other sectors.

Methane emissions: Food firms’ disclosures ‘omit critical context’

Read the full story at Dairy Reporter.

Big business should spell out how it’s tackling methane emissions to influence industry discourse, a non-profit says.

The EPA didn’t release its annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions report, but we got the data. Here’s what we found

Read the full story from CBS News.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Environmental Protection Agency did not publish a mandatory annual report detailing the pollution produced in the United States that contributes to climate change.

As a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the U.S. is required to submit a national greenhouse gas emissions inventory report by April 15 each year. The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sink Inventory report is critical for the government and the public to understand where the majority of the country’s greenhouse gas pollution comes from, so policies can be crafted to reduce it and help reach reduction goals.

When the deadline passed for the publication’s 2025 report, and it was still not available to the public, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental nonprofit, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the report and published it publicly last week.

The report, which examines greenhouse gas data from 1990-2023, found that while the U.S. is making progress to reduce its most potent greenhouse gas emissions, it’s not doing it fast enough to reach certain climate goals, and environmental groups worry that new policies passed by the Trump administration might make carbon pollution worse in the future. 

NOAA removes “Teaching Climate” resources from Climate.gov

Read the full post from the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative.

This post is part of the EDGI Website Monitoring Team’s “Highlights from the Change Log” blog series. The purpose of this series is to highlight interesting changes we have observed in the language used on, or access to, federal websites. We want to share these changes to encourage public engagement with and discussion of their significance, as well as understanding of the ephemeral nature of website information. These website changes happened in April 2025 and feature the deletion of “Teaching Climate” resources from NOAA’s Climate.gov website footer.

Alabama study reveals hurricane resilience programs are paying off for homeowners and insurers

Read the full story from the Associated Press.

A new Alabama study of hurricane-affected homes sends a clear message to insurers and homeowners nationwide: climate-resilient construction methods can protect homes, and save a lot of money.

The first-of-its-kind analysis, released this week, reviews thousands of insurance claims linked to Hurricane Sally, which struck Alabama’s coast in 2020 with wind speeds up to 105 miles per hour. Homes retrofitted or built to Fortified standards, a voluntary construction code created by the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Building and Home Safety (IBHS) for wind and rain mitigation saw significantly fewer and less costly claims.

How to build resilience in hard times

Read the full story from Yale Climate Communications.

Hard times are upon us. For ourselves, our communities, and the planet, resilience is key to enduring, recovering, and transforming through the hard times.

25 years of Everglades restoration has improved drinking water for millions in Florida, but a new risk is rising

The Everglades has often been referred to as a vast river of grass. National Park Service/B.Call via Flickr

by John Kominoski, Florida International University

Do you know where your drinking water comes from?

In South Florida, drinking water comes from the Everglades, a vast landscape of wetlands that has long filtered the water relied on by millions of people.

But as the Everglades has shrunk over the past century, the region’s water supply and water quality have become increasingly threatened, including by harmful algal blooms fueled by agriculture runoff. Now, the water supply faces another rising challenge: saltwater intrusion.

An aerial view with waterways and an area of open water in the Everglades.
Waterways cut through the Everglades. South Florida Water Management District/Flickr, CC BY-ND

Protecting South Florida’s water hinges on restoring the Everglades. That’s why, 25 years ago, the federal government and universities launched the world’s largest ecosystem restoration effort ever attempted.

I’m involved in this work as an ecosystem ecologist. The risks I see suggest continuing to restore the Everglades is more crucial today than ever.

What happened to the Everglades?

The Florida Everglades is a broad mosaic of fresh water, sawgrass marshes, cypress domes and tree islands, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows all connected by water.

But it is half its original size. In the early 1900s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began installing canals and levees to control flooding in the Everglades, which allowed people to build farms and communities along its edges. The Tamiami Trail became the first road across the Everglades in 1928. It connected Tampa to Miami, but the road and canals cut off or diverted some of the natural water flow in South Florida.

Maps show how the Everglades changed over time. Source: USGS.

Since then, Florida’s economy, agriculture and population have exploded – and with them has come a nutrient pollution problem in the Everglades.

The major crop, sugarcane, is grown in a region south of Lake Okeechobee covering 1,100 square miles that’s known as the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nearly 80 tons of phosphorus fertilizer from federally subsidized farm fields runs off into the Everglades wetlands each year. And that has become a water quality concern. Drinking water with elevated nitrogen is linked to human health problems, and elevated phosphorus and associated algal blooms can cause microbes to accumulate toxins such as mercury.

Healthy wetlands can filter out those nutrients and other pollutants, cleaning the water.

Some of the ways the Everglades filters water contaminated with phosphorus. South Florida Water Management District

Rain falling in the Everglades percolates through the porous limestone and recharges the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies drinking water for 1 in 3 Floridians.

But wetlands need time and space to function properly, and the damage from farm pollution has harmed that natural filtering system.

By the 1990s, Everglades wetlands and the wildlife they support hit a critical stress level from elevated concentrations of phosphorus, a nutrient in fertilizer that washes off farm fields and fuels the growth of toxic algal blooms and invasive species that can choke out native plant populations.

The changes led to seagrass die-offs and widespread invasion of sawgrass marshes by cattail and harmful algal blooms. Degraded wetlands can themselves become pollution sources that can contaminate surface water and groundwater quality by decreasing oxygen in the water, which can harm aquatic life, and releasing chemicals and nutrients as they decay.

A vast restoration campaign

Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000 to support reducing phosphorus concentrations by recreating large wetlands areas to remove excess nutrients and reestablishing more of the natural water depth to bolster native populations.

That restoration effort is making progress in reconnecting wetlands to natural water flows by rehydrating large areas that were cut off. Phosphorus levels are lower in many wetlands that now remain hydrated longer, and in these wetlands fresh water is recharging the aquifer, helping sustain the drinking water supply.

However, delays in critically important components of that work have left some wetlands in degraded conditions for longer than expected, especially in regions near and downstream of the Everglades Agricultural Area, where phosphorus concentrations remain stubbornly high.

Bright green swirls of algae across from a farm.
An algal bloom spreads in Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, at the heart of the Everglades. Nicholas Aumen/USGS

South Florida continues to experience harmful algal blooms from phosphorus reaching rivers and the coast, resulting in fish kills and the deaths of manatees. Red tide can shut down fishing and keep beach-going tourists away, harming local economies. This pollution is estimated to have cost Florida’s economy US$2.7 billion in 2018.

The unexpected risk: Saltwater

Map shows saltwater going several miles into the coast beneath Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The red line shows how far saltwater had intruded into aquifers beneath Fort Lauderdale as of 2019. South Florida Water Management District

An unforeseen threat has also started to creep into the Everglades: saltwater.

As sea level rises, saltwater reaches further inland, both in rivers and underground through the porous limestone beneath South Florida. Saltwater intrusion also occurs when wells draw down aquifers to provide water for drinking or irrigation. That saltwater is causing parts of the Everglades marshes, often referred to as a river of grass, to collapse into open water.

The loss of these freshwater marshes reduces the capacity of the Everglades to remove phosphorus from the water. And that means more nutrients flowing downstream, contaminating aquifers and causing harmful algal blooms to form in coastal waters.

Scientists have learned that marsh plants need freshwater pulses during the wet season, from April to November, to avoid saltwater intrusion.

For example, saltwater intruded about one mile inland between 2009 and 2019 in parts of the Fort Lauderdale area. More fresh water is needed to push the saltwater back out to sea.

However, the restoration effort was never intended to combat saltwater intrusion.

Reasons for optimism

Despite the continuing challenges, I am optimistic because of how scientists, policymakers and communities are working together to protect the Everglades and drinking water.

I lead part of that restoration work through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research program. The effort started at Florida International University on May 1, 2000, the same year the Everglades restoration plan was authorized by Congress.

Our research was used to set the levels of nutrients allowable to still protect the region’s water supplies, and we have been working for 25 years to reduce saltwater intrusion and phosphorus pollution to ensure drinking water for South Florida remains both fresh and clean. We continually use our research to inform water managers and policymakers of the best practices to reduce saltwater intrusion and pollution.

A pink bird with a flat beak like a paddle wades along the edge of a mangrove. Restoration work to protect water supplies has also improved the habitat for waterbirds.
A roseate spoonbill hunts for dinner in Everglades National Park. National Park Service, R. Cammauf, via Flickr

As saltwater intrusion continues to threaten South Florida’s freshwater aquifer, Everglades restoration and protection will be increasingly important.

Everyone in the region can help.

By rehabilitating degraded wetlands, allowing for more fresh water to flow throughout the Everglades ecosystems, reducing the use of fresh water on lawns and crops, and reusing municipal water for outdoor needs, South Florida can keep its drinking water safe for generations of future residents and visitors. This is something that everyone can contribute to.

Mangroves form a tunnel over the river.
Mangroves along Turner River in the Everglades. Chauncey Davis/Flickr, CC BY

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Miami’s renowned conservationist who helped establish the Everglades National Park, often said, “The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet.”

John Kominoski, Professor of Biological Sciences, Florida International University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cut back your roses? Berkeley sets new rules for its most wildfire-prone areas

Read the full story in The Guardian.

The city of Berkeley has a new message for residents of its most fire-prone neighborhoods: it’s time to cut back your gardens.

People living in the most high-fire-risk areas of the California city will be required to remove plants and other flammable materials close to their homes as part of strict new wildfire safety rules the city moved to adopt this week.

Homeowners pay price for insurance industry’s reluctance to address climate change, consumer groups say

Read the full story in the Chicago Sun-Times.

The insurance industry’s continued embrace of fossil fuel projects is worsening climate change, which ultimately hits consumers in the form of higher premiums for homeowners insurance, consumer groups said Wednesday.

The four organizations — U.S. PIRG, Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen — blasted the insurance industry on the same day lobbyists for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association were on Capitol Hill for their annual “Legislative Action Day.”

The association, with offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C., represents home, auto and business insurers.

Will cow-burp supplement spark new backlash?

Read the full story at Food Navigator Europe.

Scientists have discovered a way to cut methane emissions in cattle – stopping them burping. But will this anger consumers?

Fashion is only 8.6% toward 2030 emissions deadline. Here’s how to speed up

Read the full story at Trellis.

Halfway to a deadline for cutting emissions, apparel and footwear companies need help. The Apparel Impact Institute has some thoughts.

Climate change isn’t fair but Tony Juniper’s new book explains how a green transition could be ‘just’

Author Tony Juniper leans against a tree.
Tony Juniper. Jason Bye, CC BY-NC-ND

by Alix Dietzel, University of Bristol

Inequality – between the rich and poor or between the powerful and the weak – is the main factor stalling action on environmental problems including biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change, according to British environmentalist Tony Juniper.

In his new book, Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet, he argues that “if we want to build a secure future, both environmental priorities and social justice must be pursued together”. Much of this is about how decisions are made: “Disadvantaged groups rarely have a say, while those deciding on policy continue to comprise a narrow social segment.”

It is interesting to see Juniper’s views on the topic of a just transition, given his decades of experience. Juniper has served as the executive director of environmental charity Friends of the Earth, he was a Green party parliamentary candidate in the 2011 general election and previously led The Wildlife Trusts. He is currently chair of Natural England, the official government organisation working for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment.

His views on this subject certainly matter. His key message that social justice is at the heart of solving environmental problems helps to explain why we have collectively failed to address these.

This injustice is an issue that has been raised for decades by those most affected by environmental issues, those who work in the environment sector and academics like me who focus on environmental justice.

The UK environment sector, for example, is notoriously one of the least diverse, with only 3.5% of those working in environmental jobs identifying as an ethnic minority. In addition, the climate change movement is sometimes portrayed by the media as a middle-class preoccupation. Research shows a tendency for mainstream media to position environmentalism as a position of the wealthy. That’s reflected by the use of distancing terminology such as “middle-class tree huggers”.

However, 39% of UK working class voters experience climate anxiety. That’s only slightly below the 42% of middle-class voters.

Levels of climate concern have stayed high throughout both the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crises, while support for government action on climate mitigation policies, such as decreased meat consumption and flying, has remained steady.

At the global level, there have always been tensions between developed and developing countries in terms of what is “fair”. Entrenched power dynamics ensure that developed countries have historically won out when deciding what a fair future looks like.

Most recently, those tensions have been evident in the lack of clarity around how loss and damage will be funded and managed – who will pay out when an island disappears, or a village becomes inhabitable to due drought, for example? There’s also much debate around how a new finance goal should be defined, with huge disagreements between the developed and developing countries.

As Juniper explains, not only is it unclear what fairness means at global negotiations, there is clear evidence that these tend to favour the more powerful countries, such as the US or members of the EU, and create an unjust regime. Steven Vanderheiden, one of the earliest climate justice philosophers, claims that developing nations are usually offered a “take it or leave it” deal, such as the new finance goal of US$300 billion (£232 billion) or about half of what developing countries were asking for, once developed nations have made decisions without them.

A fairer vision

In response to these inequalities and ongoing tensions, Juniper sets out a vision for a fairer, greener society – also known as a just transition.

A just transition is hard to define. It was once a relatively well demarcated and clearly grounded concept associated with worker’s rights.

Over time, it has become an increasingly all-encompassing policy objective, untethered from any specific policies, political objectives or priorities. Indeed, while there are certainly overlaps between the different visions of a just transition, significant aspects directly contradict one another.

book cover, Tony Juniper Just Earth
Just Earth by Tony Juniper is out now. CC BY-NC-ND

Many of the messages in Juniper’s book have been shouted by those less privileged for decades. By using his platform to amplify the importance of climate justice, he is striving to make a difference. However, the voices of those from affected communities in developing countries, the working class in richer countries, and women (who will be hardest hit by climate change) are somewhat absent.

Juniper neatly encompasses 40-plus years of global negotiations on climate change and biodiversity, reflecting on core issues blocking progress, such as populism and fossil fuel interests. Getting your head around negotiations is a complex task – and it’s one that Juniper executes very well.

Juniper also discusses rising inequality, especially post-COVID, and the intersecting relationship between affluence and environmental destruction, with the richest consuming far more than the poorest and the top 10% wealthiest individuals having emitting more greenhouse gases than the poorest 50%.

He sets out the impacts of consumption, particularly of the wealthiest, and the unfairness of those being hit hardest consuming the least. He carefully dissects why indefinite growth of GDP can no longer be taken as a given.

Then he sets out his vision for a just transition with a ten-point agenda, including new measures of progress. He suggests focusing on wellbeing and sustainable consumption, not GDP.

He highlights the importance of financing the future and raising the transition war chest – that involves carbon tax regimes and additional public resources for environmental protection to build climate resilience. He advises switching subsidies to green energy rather than fossil fuels, and also advocates for the use of ecocide law to protect future generations.

While progress is possible, Juniper is a realist. He outlines how much our culture needs to shift away from consumption, competition, devaluing nature, and towards a fairer society for all. As he puts it: “We have nowhere else to go. There is just Earth.”

Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.