To secure decent living standards for all while reducing global energy use to avert #climatebreakdown, governments need to:
↗️public services
↗️income equality
↘️extractive industries
❌economic growth in affluent countries
8 hours and 1000 flawed arguments and biased procedures later, Leeds City Plans Panel voted 9-5 for airport expansion and the false promises of economic growth.
For “what Leeds needs is a premier-league football club and a premier-league airport”
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1/ There was a lot of "I do care about climate change, BUT" – followed by a lot of blah blah. Blah blah economic growth. Blah blah connectivity. Blah blah competitiveness. Blah blah Manchester. Blah blah Westminster. Blah blah offsetting. Blah blah electric planes. Blah blah blah
2/ Also a lot of "I do have sympathy for residents suffering from planes flying over their roofs at night, BUT” - followed by more blah blah.
One councillor kindly offered his advice: “the way to less noise is more planes”. Right, Sherlock. Want to try that in your backyard?🤦♂️
Despite COVID, emissions are still way too high.
To limit global warming to 1.5 C, we need to *rapidly*
(i) decarbonise energy use AND
(ii) reduce energy use AND
(iii) decarbonise land use AND
(iv) reduce land use
Yes, ALL of these things SIMULTANEOUSLY.
How are we doing?
THREAD
1/ To limit warming to 1.5 C, global energy use must be completely decarbonised.
But the opposite is happening! Emissions per unit of energy use (‘carbon intensity of energy’) have been INCREASING since 2000 (largely due to increases in the share of coal, primarily in China).
2/ Rapid decarbonisation of energy use requires both a rapid roll-out of renewables AND a rapid phase-out of fossils. Not either-or: both-and.
✈️Can Leeds meet its climate targets if Leeds City Council allows expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA)?
No.
Is LBA’s own climate impact assessment accurate?
No.
Here’s the latest evidence. I urge Leeds City Plans Panel to
read this and act on it conscientiously.
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2/ Leeds City Council has adopted a CO2 target for Leeds based on a CO2 budget in line with 66% chance of staying below 1.5 C (black dotted curve) and committed to work towards net-zero CO2 by 2030, roughly met by @LeedsClimateCom's net-zero 2033 trajectory (grey dotted curve).
3/ Both trajectories exclude LBA emissions (~18% of Leeds emissions). I adjusted them to account for LBA emissions. Dark green dotted curve = budget-based CO2 target for Leeds incl. LBA; light green dotted curve = net-zero 2033 trajectory scaled by current share of LBA emissions.
@Matthuber78 states that any environmental politics must secure people’s basic needs, strengthen the working class and tackle inequalities. Great, couldn't agree more!
But then why does Matt completely overlook the LONG list of Degrowth policies that do precisely that?
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A few examples of such Degrowth policies:
-Decommodify basic needs
-Universal Basic Services
-Universal Basic Income
-Cancel illegitimate debts
-job guarantee
-living wage
-reduce working time
-re-allocate productivity gains into work time reduction and job creation
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@pauleastwd@JKSteinberger@jasonhickel@WIRED It's in the IPCC SR1.5C report, Fig. 2.5. Of the scenarios meeting 1.5C with no or little overshoot, only one doesn't heavily rely on negative emissions technologies: That one is the "Low Energy Demand" (LED) scenario, which indeed involves large reductions in energy demand.
@pauleastwd@JKSteinberger@jasonhickel@WIRED New research from @exergy_paul & co however suggests that the LED energy demand reduction rates are unlikely to be reconcilable with the simultaneously assumed high rates of GDP growth: this would require a step change in energy/GDP decoupling well beyond historical precedents.