Carbon emission reduction: News and technology

[macdoc]

Very cool approach

[Brian Peacock]

Brief explanation of the (possibly) game-changing ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, which states that all nations have binding legal obligation to conform to the UNFCCC because all nations are libel for the trans-national impacts of their emitting. (15 mins).

[Sean Hayden]

Who’s going to hold them accountable?

[pErvinalia]

The US.

[Brian Peacock]

Who’s going to hold them accountable?

Yeah, I see what you mean.

But still, national govts have clear obligations and individual legislative bodies have a clear route to challenge not only govt inaction but the implementation of policies which run counter to national obligations under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Basically, legally speaking, national govts can't opt out of climate action. What'll happen in practice is unclear.

[Brian Peacock]

Public strongly backs aim of 30% of land and sea set aside for nature, poll finds

Much of the world favours protecting 30% of the world’s land and water for nature by 2030, according to new research that has found overwhelming public support for the goal across eight countries on five continents.

...

Research published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, suggests that more than 80% of the public across eight sampled countries support the policy.

Aksel Sundström, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a co-author of the study, said: “There has been a sentiment among policymakers that they are not sure if people are actually interested in having this massive expansion. But I think from these data points, we can say that public opinion does not seem to be a big hurdle in terms of making this expansion possible or viable.”

...

Researchers found that people were more supportive of the target when the responsibility to protect nature was divided equally among countries and governments were not allowed to pay their way out of domestic protection or pay to protect areas in other countries rather than invest in conservation at home.

There was also a strong consensus that richer countries should shoulder most of the costs to achieve the target.
...

Paper: Mass support for conserving 30% of the Earth by 2030: Experimental evidence from five continents, Michaels et al, 25 Aug 2025 (PDF)

[Brian Peacock]

So, 89% of the world's population want to see stronger climate action from their govts, and 80% of the public endorse the 30x30 conservation commitments made in Montreal 2023 (see above). And yet populists and mainstream political parties and govts of the centre and right are pushing even harder against climate change, Paris, net zero etc etc. That's got to tell us something about the state of our democracies.

[pErvinalia]

Owned by Big Fossil and other moneyed interests.

[Brian Peacock]

Owned by Big Fossil and other moneyed interests.

If that's the case then the solution has got to be a different kind of democratic politics.

[pErvinalia]

89% want more action on climate change. So why aren't they all voting Greens? Why do they keep voting for parties that do nothing or the bare minimum on climate change?

[JimC]

Because wanting more action on climate change is not their sole (or possibly even not their main) motivation. They may well distrust other aspects of the Green's political platform.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah. Greens are commies!

[JimC]

Watermelons! Green on the outside, red in the middle!

[pErvinalia]

Interestingly when people are surveyed the things they support are strong points of the Greens. Somewhere it goes wrong. I think scare campaigns and an establishment media play a big part.

[Brian Peacock]

89% want more action on climate change. So why aren't they all voting Greens? Why do they keep voting for parties that do nothing or the bare minimum on climate change?

Because their sources of social, economic, and environmental information are determined and provided by the same interests that control our politics and essential resources maybe? Also, we all got rent to pay.