Citadel & Sidewalk

Assembled by Mike Soron for personal research & communal use

Filed under: climate

Figueres Warns Of 'Climate Chaos,' Urges Militaries To Invest In Prevention

Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate secretariat, warned of the destabilizing effects created by growing water stress, declining crop yields and damage from extreme storms in some of the world's poorest countries, which could set off mass international migration and regional conflicts.

Figueres said the world's military budgets grew by 50 percent in the first nine years of this century. Rather than continue that growth in weaponry, she said, the generals should invest in preventative budgets to "avoid the climate chaos that would demand a defense response that makes even today's spending burden look light." []

Figueres said much of the funding that pays for the growth of armies today could help curb carbon emissions that fuel global warming. It also could help poor countries in the most vulnerable and unstable parts of the world to protect themselves from the most devastating effects of climate change.

via huffingtonpost.com

Canadians hold People's Assemblies on Climate Justice

The Council of Canadians has announced that during the 2010 Cancun climate summit, over a dozen communities in Canada will hold People's Assemblies on Climate Justice.

"People's Assemblies on Climate Justice emerged during the failing Copenhagen negotiations as a vehicle for people to come together and talk about real and false solutions to the climate crisis," says Andrea Harden-Donahue, Energy and Climate Justice Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. "The assemblies taking place across Canada are in keeping, bringing people together on a community basis to have a dialogue on climate justice and how to transform this into local action."

With predictions that a deal coming out of Cancun is unlikely and the recent killing of the Climate Change Accountability Act by the Senate, local actions that address the climate crisis and advance equity are increasingly being seen as critical to advancing climate justice.

According to the release, these local actions include discussions on topics including:

climate debt, human and ecological rights and how unsustainable and inequitable production, consumption and trade patterns contribute to the climate crisis... Campaigning for public and community ownership of renewable energy, challenging a proposed polluting project and supporting a "transition town" are potential areas of action.

Hopefully a disastrous year for government and business action on climate change can conclude with concerete announcements from communities across the country. 

Will this produce actual, new community energy projects or transitions towns? Or boost countermovements to the expanding fossil and business advocacy by government?

Read the full Council of Canadians press release.

Canadian Forces preparing to intervene in climate change disasters, conflicts

An unpublished report acquired by Le Devoir shows the Canadian Forces are preparing to respond to more disasters, fighting, and general insecurity as a result of climate change and peak oil and other resource shortages.

The 176-report, L'environnement de la sécurité future 2008-2030 was approved by General Staff Headquarters of Defense in January 2009.

From Le Devoir (translated from French):

Conflict for control of resources within fragile states, including guerrillas, are expected. It will probably be necessary to conduct humanitarian missions to rescue people deprived of everything after a disaster, and possibly stabilization missions or reconstruction if civil unrest and instability lead to conflicts between peoples” military strategists write.

By 2030, environmental problems and scarcity of food and water, threaten to destabilize entire regions, they still feel. “It could be that the pressures caused by migration and the influx of refugees or displaced persons cause a resurgence of ethnic tensions, religious or territorial, instability and perhaps the collapse of states. These effects manifest themselves more in coastal areas (where lives 75% of world population), especially among groups of individuals, economic sectors and localities >that are already economically or environmentally sensitive to climate >variations. ”

And a specific reference to peak oil:

Operations which will also increasingly difficult to achieve as the oil will be scarce. The expected decline in fossil fuel resources and the simultaneous rise in oil prices will force the MoD to find alternative energy sources for military equipment. Rising fuel prices will drive the cost prohibitive, not to mention the cost of operations in the country or even abroad, which will strain an already tight budget. It will primarily carry out research and development to find forms of alternative fuels.

More at Le Devoir.

This is consistent with planning by other armed forces for climate change and peak oil related-conflict.

UPDATE: Although Le Devoir claims the document had been previously unpublished, this does not appear to be the case. It is available in English, from the Department of National Defence, with a date modified stamp of 2010-08-26. Full report in PDF, in English.

UN: Climate change threatens human progress

The United Nations warned today that a continued failure to tackle climate change was putting at risk decades of progress in improving the lives of the world's poorest people.

"For human development to become truly sustainable, the close link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions needs to be severed," the UN said in its annual human development report (HDR).

"Climate change may be the single factor that makes the future very different, impeding the continuing progress in human development that history would lead us to expect. While international agreements have been difficult to achieve and policy responses have been generally slow, the broad consensus is clear: climate change is happening, and it can derail human development.

via the Guardian.
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