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Want to land a "green job? 3 tips from LinkedIn's Sue Duke
Upgrading your resume with some "green" skills to get a job in the future low-carbon economy? First, think long-term because whatever's good for you will be good for the planet, says Sue Duke, vice president and head of public policy at LinkedIn. Second, get training that aligns with your company's climate targets, and third, expand your network to make it "greener." Watch her interview with Tony Maciulis, chief content officer at GZERO Media, during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
GDP should reflect cost of polluting planet, says Microsoft's John Frank
As the 76th UN General Assembly gets underway, dealing with the pandemic is still the top priority for world leaders. But for John Frank, vice president of UN Global Affairs at Microsoft, COVID is not the only major challenge the world faces today.
One of them — included in the UN Secretary-General's new Common Agenda for strong, inclusive pandemic recovery — is a different way to measure economic growth beyond the traditional productivity-led GDP model by taking more into account the cost of pollution, one of the main causes of climate change.
"We need a common international standard and system for measuring carbon production and a ledger system, so that we can look back to our supply chain and people we supply can look to us," says Frank, who fears we're putting a lot more carbon into the air than we currently think.
Watch the above video for more insights from Frank, who sat down with Tony Maciulis, GZERO Media's chief content officer, as part of our ongoing Global Stage partnership with Microsoft.
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Germany's floods make climate, competence top issues for election
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
What will be the effects on the politics of Germany after the immense flooding?
Well, it's really been a catastrophe, nearly 200 people dead in Germany alone. First effect, naturally, questions about the competence of the government, has enough been done? And secondly, climate issues will be much more in forefront of the election campaign.
What are the details of the green package that was unveiled by the European Commission the other day?
Details, there are many. But there are two pillars of it. The first is the radical enlargement and strengthening of the ETS, the Emissions Trading System, to include housing and include transport. That's a fairly firm mission. Secondly is what is called a carbon border adjustment mechanism. That is a carbon tax on imports from countries that are less stringent on climate. Both of these are fairly significant measures. There will be a lot of debate both inside Europe and around the world about the effects that they will have, but if Europe is going to achieve the 55% reduction by 2030, that has been promised and is necessary, ain't much of an alternative.
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Is the climate apocalypse upon us?
The heat is on. In recent weeks, different parts of the world have experienced extreme heat waves resulting in scores of deaths, raising a crucial question: is the climate apocalypse upon us?
There have been heatwaves before. Is this really about climate change? Experts say that the answer is a resounding yes. That's because the warming of the planet as a result of greenhouse gas emissions has made extreme weather events — like the current heatwave — more frequent, longer, and more severe.
Scientists say that the massive heat dome plaguing North America's Pacific Northwest — causing temperatures in western Canada to outpace arid Dubai — is indeed alarming, but shouldn't surprise those who have been paying attention. As early as the 1980s, a report warned that "temperature changes within several decades will become large enough to have major effects on the quality of life for mankind in many regions." Clearly, the future is now.
But climate-induced heat waves are having disparate effects on high- and low-income countries. Here are some case studies.
British Columbia (Canada) and the Pacific Northwest (US). British Columbia, home to bustling Vancouver, reported almost 500 heat-related deaths in under a week, a staggering 195 percent increase compared to what would usually occur during that period. Similarly, US cities like Portland and Seattle have also experienced record-high temperatures in recent days, leading to heat-related illnesses that have sent hundreds to hospital.
Indeed, these usually mild-temperature cities were caught off-guard by the recent heat apocalypse. (Seattle and Portland have the lowest number of air-conditioned homes in the US.) State infrastructure there is also woefully underprepared in dealing with a once-in-a-generation heatwave: power cables melted, roads caved, and people clamored for reprieve from their overheating homes.
But where many homes don't have cooling, local and state governments quickly stepped in to set up "cooling centers" for people to escape the suffocating heat. That's important in a place like New York City, also experiencing sky-high temperatures, where fewer than one half of public housing residents have air conditioning in their homes. The US states of Oregon and Washington, meanwhile, also lifted COVID restrictions limiting the number of attendees at cinemas and malls to boost access to air-conditioned facilities. Still, Canadian weather experts have warned residents to brace for worse in the days ahead.
Iraq.Iraq, already one of the hottest countries in the world, has recently been paralyzed by a deadly heat wave that's taken much of its power grid offline. Even by Iraq's scorching standards, this June has been brutally hot, recording temperatures eight degrees (celsius) higher than average for this time of year. It's also given rise to a political crisis after cash-strapped Iran cut off power supplies to Iraq, demanding Baghdad pay its dues. Cranking up of air conditioning (for those who have it) has also placed mounting pressure on the country's shabby power grid, raising fears of mass unrest (last year, power shortages across Iraq caused protests that rocked the nation).The Iraqi government, meanwhile, is powerless to help residents — and officials fear that hospitals and homes could continue to be without power as temperatures soar.
Madagascar. The island nation, home to 28 million people, has been battered by climate-induced extreme weather events in recent years. Now, scorching temperatures and lack of rainfall have produced the worst drought in four decades. This came into focus last week when the World Food Programme chief warned of "unprecedented famine of biblical proportions" in nations like Madagascar, where over 1 million people are now food-insecure. One of the world's poorest countries, Madagascar does not have the resources or infrastructure to help residents weather the upcoming "lean season" — the period between planting and harvesting, when food supplies are even scarcer. The WFP is asking international donors to cough up $6 billion in aid to help 41 million people on the edge of famine in the region.
When GZERO Media asked David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, whether these recent events might change the calculus of wealthy states vis-a-vis climate action, he said, "we've seen many similar 'wake-up' moments in the recent past like last year's California wildfires, which burned twice as many acres as any fire season had before and turned San Francisco dark at noontime with smoke, or those in Australia which burned through 46 million acres and killed a billion animals."
"The recent ambitious net-zero pledges made by so many of the world's nations and corporations are, in part, a reflection of the awakening produced by the climate disasters of the past few years, '' he said. "If there's an additional awakening coming, I suspect it will be on the adaptation side — not what can be done to limit warming, but what must be done to allow us to live with it, particularly in the parts of the world least well-resourced to respond to climate impacts as they continue to mount."
Climate is personal. A recent study found that 37 percent of all global heat deaths can be attributed directly to climate change, and that's only a sliver of deaths related to climate-fueled disasters.
Government representatives often bicker at international summits over carbon footprint levels and emissions reduction goals. But at the end of the day, ordinary people's livelihoods — and lives — are on the line as the world gets hotter each year.
Do individual carbon footprints really matter?
Do we spend too much time thinking about our own carbon footprints and not enough time thinking about bigger factors? Climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert acknowledges it's necessary for individuals to make changes in the way they live, but that isn't the number one priority.
"What would you do to try to move this battleship in a new direction? It requires public policy levers. And it requires … some pretty serious legislation." Ian Bremmer spoke with Kolbert, an award-winning journalist and author and staff writer at The New Yorker, on a new episode of GZERO World, airing on US public television.
Watch the episode: Can We Fix the Planet the Same Way We Broke It?
The climate crisis: how screwed are we?
How bad is the climate crisis? Every year, the UN's Emissions Gap Report shows a large gap between the trajectory we're on and the trajectory we ought to be on, explains climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. "Every decade now is warmer than the decade before. And we're seeing the damage pile up," says Kolbert, whose latest book is Under A White Sky: The Nature of the Future. "We saw the tremendous wildfire season in California last fall. The hurricane season in the Gulf. These are all connected to climate change, and we're just going to keep seeing more of that." She spoke with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, airing on US public television stations starting April 16. Check local listings.
Watch the episode: Can we fix the planet the same way we broke it?
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