A small win for the Norwegian environmental movement!

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This week has shown us how a united, climate educated and alert environmental movement managed to put a stop to the the Norwegian oil ministers wish of opening for oil licensing in vulnerable areas. In Norway, the 24th License round was recently opened up (on the 30th of August) making it possible for oil companies to nominate areas where they want to drill for oil. One of these areas that were on the new map was the Lofoten archipelago and previously unopened areas on the coast of Møre. The trouble with licensing out blocks in the Lofoten archipelago, in addition to how it contains: 

- The area is unique in a global context because the worlds last and largest cod tribe spawns here

- It contains the worlds largest cold water coral reef 

- 70% of the fish we fish in Norway has its key area in the Lofoten area

In addition to these figures, its also a part of the governmental coalitions agreement that these areas shall remain untouched in this governmental periode (ending in the late summer of 2017). When the two coalition parties (the Christian Democrats and the Liberals) that did not agree with this sneak opening joined forces with a united climate movement, then there could be no real argument from the oil pro remains of the government, and they had to backtrack their statement. The environmental movement used both social media to get the message across, in addition to the written press and TV news to inform the people of Norway what was happening and how outraged they were about this process. This is a massive win for Norway, as it shows how open democratic processes should work, and Norway has very open process so as a citizen it is easy to engage yourself and be part of the process. 

Thank you for reading. 

Why we need to keep the global temperature below 1,5 degrees

This is one of the most pressing issues within the climate movement. The difference between the 2 degrees celsius target (above 1990-level) and the 1,5 degrees celsius is the difference between life and death for several small island developing states (often referred to as SIDS in climate literature) or Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis). 

Within the UN world of climate negotiations, this group consist of 44 countries, mainly small, low-lying states in Africa, the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Pacific and South China Sea, including Belize, Cape Verde, the Maldives, Jamaica, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. The difference to the hundreds of millions of people who live in these places are whether or not their homes are inhabitable. Some islands, like Tuvalu has already lost significant landmass to the ocean, and it is only losing more each year. 

There is also a disproportionate spiraling effect that sets in when the climate change with half a degree more. The difference between 1,5 and 2 degrees will for example lead to: 

• Heat waves and rainstorms will last longer, with higher intensity
• Certain crops could become scarce
• Tropical coral reefs would cease to exist 
• Sea-level would rise by roughly one third more, and is likely to keep rising long after air temperature is stabilized. 

The sea level rising is a topic for another blog post, but to illustrate it for now, I will include an infographic that shows which cities would disappear first if sea levels were to rise from anywhere from 1 to 8 meters. (for the source http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/when-sea-levels-attack-2/) 

as always, thank you for reading. 

Progress on the Paris agreement!

The biggest climate news of this week is that both China and the US ratified the Paris agreement. This means that they made it legally binding, and it also sends a strong signal to countries that have yet to ratify it. If you follow this link  http://www.paris-agreement.fr you can see which countries that have agreed, and how long we are into the process of having it ratified globally. 

A quick summary of what the Paris agreement contains:  

- A promise to keep the global warming emissions below 2 degrees celsius, and try to limit it to below 1,5 degrees (a blog post on why this is so will come soon)

- Will contribute with adaptation and loss and damages from the effects of climate change, and secure the financial part of the low emission development

- The agreement will take effect when at least 55 countries - who are contributing to at least 55 % of the global climate emissions - formally has signed the agreement

- So far 177 countries have signed the agreement and 24 countries have ratified it