How to Stop Ecocide 👊
Understanding COP and latest news from COP28
Dear Earth Protectors,
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) is currently underway. As world leaders debate on the current climate breakdown we’re facing, we share with you instead a very inspirational story on Jojo Mehta and ecocide—a movement trying to make environmental destruction an international crime.
🗞️ In Climate News
🛶 Over 100 kayakers arrested in Australia while shutting down world’s largest coal port.
🌊 Widespread floods kill hundreds and displace millions in East Africa.
🌡️ 2023 declared hottest year on record as UN slams climate inaction
🇧🇷 Unprecedented drought in the Amazon threatens to release huge stores of carbon.
☁️ Microplastics found in clouds could affect weather and global temperatures.
📖 Understanding COP
“Perhaps it’s unsurprising that, of 27 summits completed so far, 25 have been abject failures, while two (1997’s Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement, in 2015) have been half-successes. If any other process had a 3.7% success rate, it would be abandoned in favour of something better. But the world’s governments carry on doing the same thing in the expectation of different results. You could almost imagine they wanted to fail.”
🗞️ In COP28 News
⛽ Failure to agree fossil fuel phase-out at COP28 ‘will push world into climate breakdown’.
🇦🇺 Australia ends finance for fossil fuel expansion overseas – now focus turns to local subsidies.
😅 COP28 President says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels.
📃 Leaked documents show UAE planned to use COP28 climate talks to make oil deals.
💸 Record number of fossil fuel lobbyists (2,566) at COP undermines critical climate talks.
🇨🇳 China ‘would like to see agreement to substitute renewables for fossil fuels’.
🤝 Agreement on loss and damage deal reached on first day of COP28 talks.
⚡ Over 117 countries have committed to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
🐄 Over 155 countries have pledged a global methane pledge to reduce methane emissions by 2030.
🥩 Big meat and dairy lobbyists turn out in record numbers at COP28.
🌍 COP28 failing on climate adaptation finance so far, African group warns.
🐋 Maori leaders at COP28 call UN to grant whales personhood. Sign their petition.
📈 Cool Trends
♾️ eco-story
👩⚖️ How to Stop Ecocide
Jojo Mehta is a force of nature. Her connection to the Earth was inspired by her Mother, a songwriter and poet, whose inspiration emanated from an emotional and spiritual connection to land.
“I think of her as a kind of English/Celtic Indigenous voice, and the kind of music she writes is largely from the English folk tradition.”
Jojo grew up swimming in the waters of her Mother’s environmental worldview, in the beautiful landscape of Stroud, a small town in the Cotswolds in the south west of the UK. “Of course, as a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get to the city and jump into life”, so her 20s and 30s were centred in London, working in travel, design and manufacturing, along “a meandering path… with a common thread of communication”. At 32 she got married, and her husband suggested moving to the countryside so their kids could grow up with a connection to nature.
🌏 The Culture Column
📺 What we’re watching: COP31 by JuiceMedia
📸 Profile of the week: @rewild
🎧 What we’re listening to: Why unprecedented drought in the Amazon is so dangerous for the planet, The Conversation Weekly Podcast
🤯 Scary fact we learnt this week: Earth is on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade.