The spotlight

Hey there, Looking Forward fam. Happy Earth Day (and Earth Week, and Earth Month) — a time of year when sustainability is elevated in the global consciousness, and my inbox is full of vaguely greenwashy PR pitches.

Each April, I (and every other climate journalist) revisit the same debate: whether to “cover Earth Day” in some way, or ignore it on account of the fact that we’re immersed in these issues every day. But it struck me that Earth Day 2024 has a particularly timely theme: Planet vs. Plastics. The official Earth Day organization has been assigning yearly themes since at least 1980, and Planet vs. Plastics is hitting in the year when U.N. members are supposed to be finalizing a global treaty to address plastic pollution.

“We’ve had research for 30 years now saying that plastics are dangerous to our health,” said Aidon Charron, director of End Plastic Initiatives at EarthDay.org. But he and others at the organization chose plastics as this year’s focus because they saw a gap in public knowledge, both about the harm that plastics can cause and about the policy solutions that are currently being debated on an international stage. Discussions about plastic tend to focus on individuals doing their part by reducing, reusing, and recycling, Charron said — but “we’re not going to simply recycle our way or technology our way out of this problem.”

Charron and other advocates have been pushing for ambitious targets in the global plastics treaty, and EarthDay.org is circulating a petition, which currently has over 22,000 signatures, for some of its key objectives, which include banning the export and incineration of plastic waste and a “polluter pays” principle. “What we don’t want to see is something similar to the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Charron. “While that was a great agreement, the issue is it’s voluntary, and so countries can opt in and opt out. And there’s also no punishment if somebody doesn’t meet the standards they set for themselves.”

On Sunday, EarthDay.org and other campaigners organized a march in Ottawa, demanding a strong and ambitious global plastics treaty. EARTHDAY.ORG

But the negotiations on the treaty have been fraught with competing interests — and even as the deadline nears, much remains to be sorted out. This week, delegates and advocates are gathering in Ottawa, Canada, for the fourth intergovernmental negotiating committee, or INC-4 — the second-to-last session on the books before the U.N.’s self-imposed deadline to finalize the agreement at the end of this year. As the parties have failed to make significant progress at the previous three meetings, the stakes at INC-4 are high.

So, today, I’m turning the newsletter over to the capable hands of my colleague Joseph Winters, who covers the plastics industry and has been following the negotiations of the global plastics treaty for the past two years. Read on a primer on the history of the treaty, the solutions being proposed in it, and where things stand as negotiators head into another round of discussions this week.

— Claire Elise Thompson

To understand the global plastics treaty, it’s helpful to go back to the 2022 U.N. Environment Assembly meeting, where delegates agreed to write it. By then, plastics had long been considered an environmental scourge. The world was — and still is — producing more than 400 million metric tons of the material every year, almost entirely from fossil fuel feedstocks. Just five years prior, researchers had shown that 91 percent of the world’s plastics were not recycled due to high costs and technological barriers.

Agreeing to write some kind of treaty was seen as a big success, but the icing on the cake was the promise to address not only plastic litter, but “the full life cycle” of plastics. This opened the door to discussions around limiting plastic production, which most experts consider to be a nonnegotiable part of an effective mitigation strategy for plastic pollution. They liken it to an overflowing bathtub: better to “turn off the tap” — i.e., stop making plastic — rather than try to mop up the floor while the water’s still running.

Experts see the treaty as a critical opportunity to stop the fossil fuel industry’s pivot to plastic production, as the world begins to phase out oil and gas from transportation and electricity generation. None of the details are even close to being finalized — but observers have called the treaty the “most significant” international environmental deal since 2015, when countries agreed to limit global warming under the Paris Agreement. And advocates hope that this agreement will ultimately have even more teeth.

Under a very optimistic scenario, it could include global, legally binding plastic production caps for all U.N. member states, plus some details on how rich countries should help poorer ones achieve their plastic reduction targets. The treaty might ban particular types of plastic, plastic products, and chemical additives used in plastics, and set legally binding targets for recycling and recycled content used in consumer goods. It could also chart a path for a just transition for waste pickers in the developing world who make a living from collecting and selling plastic trash. But such a far-reaching agreement is by no means guaranteed; some countries and industry groups are working hard to water down the treaty’s ambition, and have thus far limited negotiators’ progress.

When delegates first met in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in November 2022, it became clear that a vocal minority of countries — mostly oil-producing states including Saudi Arabia and Russia, as well as the U.S., to some extent — wanted to bend the treaty away from plastic production limits by focusing instead on better recycling and cleanup efforts. Petrochemical companies are also pushing for a focus on recycling, despite their trade groups knowing since the 1980s that plastics recycling would be unable to keep up with booming production.

This disagreement — production versus pollution — has been central to each meeting since then, stalling progress at every turn. Although delegates have held important discussions on plastic-related chemicals and the impact of the treaty on frontline communities, by the end of INC-3 last November, negotiators still hadn’t written anything beyond a so-called “zero draft,” basically a laundry list of options and suboptions for various parts of the treaty. They also failed to agree on an agenda for “intersessional” work between INC-3 and INC-4, meaning they could not use those intervening months to continue formal discussions, although several countries arranged unofficial meetings.

In a provisional note released ahead of this week’s negotiations, INC chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso made paring down the revised zero draft a key priority for delegates at INC-4. The committee should “streamline” the document, he wrote, and set an agenda for intersessional work to be completed in the months between INC-4 and INC-5.

“INC-4 is going to be likely the most important of all the INCs,” said Ana Rocha, global plastics program director for the nonprofit Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

The march on Sunday began with a rally outside of Parliament Hill, where crowds heard from activists and Indigenous leaders who traveled from all over the world to join the demonstration. EARTHDAY.ORG

One of the key priorities for advocates is some kind of quantitative production limit. “If the goal is to end plastic pollution, it’ll be really hard to do without a cap on virgin plastic production,” said Douglas McCauley, an associate professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Some of the most specific recommendations are based on plastic’s contribution to climate change. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the nonprofit Pacific Environment calculated last year that global plastic production should be cut by 75 percent by 2050, compared to a 2019 baseline. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives has proposed a 12 to 17 percent reduction every year starting in 2024.

A so-called “high-ambition coalition” of countries — including Norway, Rwanda, Canada, Peru, and a host of small island and developing states — say they support production limits as part of the plastics treaty, although they have not yet rallied around a particular target. It’s also possible that the treaty will have to rely on indirect measures to restrict plastic production, like bans on single-use plastics or a tax on plastic packaging.

Public health has emerged as another major, and surprisingly popular, priority for the treaty. Even in the two short years since world leaders first agreed to broker a treaty, lots of new evidence has emerged to highlight the human and environmental health risks associated with plastics. Last month, scientists raised the number of chemicals known to be used in plastics from 13,000 to 16,000. More than 3,000 of these substances are known to have hazardous properties, while a much larger fraction — about 10,000 — have never been assessed for toxicity. According to one recent analysis from the nonprofit Endocrine Society, plastic-related health problems cost the U.S. $250 million per year.

As of last November, more than 130 countries supported incorporating human health into the treaty’s primary objective, and many explicitly said they wanted the agreement to somehow control problematic chemicals. This is currently reflected in the zero draft, in proposals to prioritize “chemicals and polymers of concern,” putting them first in line for bans and restrictions. Some substances that would likely be included on this list are polyvinyl chloride, or PVC — the plastic used to make water pipes and some toys — as well as endocrine-disrupting chemicals like phthalates, bisphenols, and PFAS.

Bjorn Beeler, general manager and international coordinator for the nonprofit International Pollutants Elimination Network, said that chemicals are the most “matured” part of the treaty.

Other sections, however — like the financial details of how countries will pay for the provisions of the agreement — have been largely unaddressed. With so much left to negotiate and so little time, questions are swirling around whether there will have to be an additional meeting after INC-5, or perhaps an INC-4.1 during the summer.

For now, many environmental advocates say it’s important that negotiators stick to the original schedule, running INC-4 under the assumption that they can and will finish the treaty by 2025. Should they need an extension, they can consider how best to coordinate that at a later date. Rocha, with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said she’d rather extend the timeline than rush through a weak agreement.

“More important than an ambitious timeline is an ambitious treaty,” she said.

— Joseph Winters

More exposure

• Read: some of Joseph’s previous reporting on the global plastics treaty negotiations (Grist)
• Watch: a short video summary of what’s being proposed in the treaty (Reuters)
• Read: how Indigenous peoples in the Arctic are advocating for strong protections in the treaty (Inside Climate News)
• Read: more about EarthDay.org’s plastics advocacy, tied to its 2024 theme (Forbes)
• Read: a recent report analyzing the deceptive promotion of recycling by Big Oil and plastic manufacturers (The Center for Climate Integrity)

See for yourself

Last call for the Looking Forward drabble contest! This is the final week to share your 100-word vision for a clean, green, just future, for a chance to win presents.

To submit: Send your drabble to lookingforward@grist.org with “Drabble contest” in the subject line, by the end of Friday, April 26 (two days away)!

Here’s the prompt: Choose ONE climate solution that excites you, and show us how you hope it will evolve over the next 100 years to contribute to building a clean, green, just future. We’ve covered a boatload of solutions you could draw from (100, in fact!) — so if you need some inspiration, peruse the Looking Forward archive here.

Drabbles offer little glimpses of the future we dream about, so paint us a compelling picture of how you hope the world, and our lives on it, will evolve.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

• Descriptive writing that makes us feel immersed in the scene and setting.
• A sense of time. You don’t have to put a specific timestamp on your piece, but give us some clue that we are in the future (not an alternate reality), approximately 100 years from now, and that certain things have changed.
• A sense of feeling. Is this vignette about joy? Frustration? Excitement? Nervousness? The mundane pleasure of living in a world where needs are met? Make us feel something!
• 100 words on the dot.

The winning drabbles will be published in Looking Forward in May, and the winners will receive presents! Some Grist-y swag, and a book of your choice lovingly packaged and mailed to you by Claire.

A parting shot

On Monday (Earth Day), in collaboration with a conservation organization called Oceana Canada, EarthDay.org projected an illuminated message onto the Canadian Supreme Court building in Ottawa, reading “plastic is toxic.” Similar messages were also projected onto Parliament Hill and the Canadian National Arts Centre, sending a clear message to leaders ahead of the treaty negotiations this week.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Grist

Spotlight: EARTHDAY.ORG

Parting shot: EARTHDAY.ORG and Oceana Canada

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline On the agenda this Earth Day: A global treaty to end plastic pollution on Apr 24, 2024.

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Last fall, I invited a stranger into my yard. 

Manzanita, with its peeling red bark and delicate pitcher-shaped blossoms, thrives on the dry, rocky ridges of Northern California. The small, evergreen tree or shrub is famously drought-tolerant, with some varieties capable of enduring more than 200 days between waterings. And yet here I was, gently lowering an 18-inch variety named for botanist Howard McMinn into the damp soil of Tacoma, a city in Washington known for its towering Douglas firs, bigleaf maples, and an average of 152 rainy days per year.

It’s not that I’m a thoughtless gardener. Some studies suggest that the Seattle area’s climate will more closely resemble Northern California’s by 2050, so I’m planting that region’s trees, too.

Climate change is scrambling the seasons, wreaking havoc on trees. Some temperate and high-altitude regions will grow more humid, which can lead to lethal rot. In other temperate zones, drier springs and hotter summers are disrupting annual cycles of growth, damaging root systems, and rendering any survivors more vulnerable to pests.

The victims of these shifts include treasured species from around the globe, including certain varietials of the Texas pecan, the towering baobabs found in Senegal, and the expansive fig trees native to Sydney. In the Pacific Northwest, I’ve seen summer heat domes turn our region’s beloved conifers into skeletons and prolonged dry spells wither the crowns of maples until the leaves die off in chunks.

The world is warming too quickly for arboreal adaptation, said Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, an ecologist at Western Sydney University who researches the impact of climate change on trees. That’s especially true of native trees. “They are the first ones to suffer,” he said.

Urban arborists say planting for the future is urgently needed and could prevent a decline in leafy cover just when the world needs it most. Trees play a crucial role in keeping cities cool. A study published in 2022 found that a roughly 30 percent increase in the metropolitan canopy could prevent nearly 40 percent of heat-related deaths in Europe. The need is particularly acute in marginalized communities, where residents — often people of color — live among treeless expanses where temperatures can go much higher than in more affluent neighborhoods.

While the best solution would be to stop emitting greenhouse gases, the world is locked into some degree of warming, and many regional governments have begun focusing on building resilience into the places we live. Urban botanists and other experts warn that cities are well behind where they should be to avoid overall tree loss. The full impact of climate change may be decades away, but oaks, maples, and other popular species can take 10 or more years to mature (and show they can tolerate a new climate), making the search for the right varieties for each region a frantic race against time. 

In response, scientists and urban foresters are trying to speed up the process, thinking strategically about where to source new trees and using experiments to predict the hardiness of new species. Beyond that, many places are moving past the idea that native species are the most sustainable choice by default. 

“Everybody is looking for the magic tree,” said Mac Martin, who leads the urban and community forestry program at Texas A&M’s Forest Service. He went on to say that one kind of tree isn’t enough. We need “a high number of diverse trees that can survive.”

In other words, a whole new urban forest.

In late 2023, that quest took Kevin Martin, no relation to Mac, to the arid forests of Romania. As the head of tree collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he spent a week hiking through pine-scented forests to gather beech acorns. He brought seeds from seven species back to the U.K. and planted them in individual pots at the botanical garden’s nursery. Now, he waits.

He hopes the trees will thrive in London’s drier springtime soils, which are making it hard for old standbys like the English oak to survive the hotter summers that follow. The research is part of a bigger change for the botanical garden, Martin said, which historically focused on collecting rare plant specimens. “We’re flipping that on its head and looking at what we want to grow,” he said. “We want a good outcome for humanity.”

Under normal conditions, trees are among the best defenses against heat, and not just because they provide a shady place to rest. As their leaves transform sunlight into energy, trees give off water vapor through tiny holes called stomata, cooling the air around them with “nature’s own air conditioning,” Martin said. 

But increasingly hot temperatures can shut down this process. In extreme dry heat, the cells slacken and the stomata close, stopping water from escaping. The point at which this happens is called the turgor loss point, and it’s like the leaves on a houseplant wilting. If a stressed tree doesn’t get water, its leaves will overheat and die before the fall, sometimes across entire sections of the crown. In highly humid conditions, the air holds too much water vapor to absorb any more, leaving leaves waterlogged and beckoning rot. Even if a tree in this condition looks healthy, it can’t cool cities as well as it used to. Making matters worse, distressed plants are more vulnerable to pests like the borer beetle.

Native trees are particularly at risk for climate stress, and in many cities, they make up a significant chunk of urban tree cover. Eighty-seven percent of the trees in Plano, Texas, are native species, for example. That number is 66 percent in Santa Rosa, California, and 30 percent in Providence, Rhode Island. 

To be sure, non-native trees have been a part of human settlements for a long time. Plants often spread with human migration, and European colonists brought many species to other continents. Many of these newcomers grow faster than the indigenous varieties, and some have proven better suited to urban areas. 

However, flora introduced from far away can also experience climate shock. Currently, non-native trees typically come from climates similar to those trees they now stand alongside. Until the seasons started going haywire, this made them well-suited to their adopted homes. For example, the London plane, a cross between an American sycamore and a plane tree from western Asia, lines streets in temperate zones around the world. Now, scientists are worried about the tree’s future in its namesake city as dry springs and hot summers leave them weak and susceptible to pests. 

To find solutions, researchers are studying which trees could do better than those currently struggling in rapidly warming cities, with an eye toward species that have already adapted to drier regions hundreds or even thousands of miles away. In Canada, for example, scientists have matched trees from the northern United States with the expected climates in cities including Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Ottawa. Urban foresters in Sydney are considering the trees in Grafton, an Australian city about 290 miles closer to the equator. 

Thinking of a future U.K., Kevin Martin started evaluating trees from the steppes of Romania more than 1,000 miles away. To find the right places to collect acorns, Martin looked at both temperature and the amount of water available in the soils of Romanian forests, explaining that trees in moist soils in tropical rainforests or near rivers will keep going even in hot conditions.

He will have to wait two years for the acorns to sprout and grow into saplings. Only then can he begin stress-testing the specimens to see if the trees are a good fit for the growing conditions of London in 2050 and beyond. Martin plans to study at what point the trees’ leaves hit turgor loss in dry, hot conditions. But crucially, the trees must also be able to adapt to London’s cold winters, which are expected to stay freezing even as drought and heat waves increase. 

Examining leaf turgor loss can’t be used to assess trees for every neighborhood in a city. Parts of Sydney are facing increasingly humid summers in an otherwise temperate climate. With this in mind, the municipal forestry department used a database that matches a far-off location’s current humidity with what experts expect for the city in 2050. In addition to considering temperature, officials hope to increase tree canopy to cover 27 percent of the city in the next quarter century. They are also mindful that the climate will change gradually and have laid out a phased planting plan. Trees that thrive in the Sydney of 2060 may struggle in 2100. 

Such factors are on Mac Martin’s mind as his department updates Texas A&M’s online tree selector, a statewide database that recommends species, to include varieties that are likely to flourish in the future.

Texas is slated to experience a triple climate whammy of hotter summers, colder winters, and changing humidity, with some places becoming intolerably dry and others getting more muggy. It’s a complex weather pattern to plant for — and that’s assuming cities are prepared to adapt once the right species are identified.

As risky as it may seem to hold on to endemic species in the face of climate change, some governments continue to create policies that favor native trees over non-natives. Canada, for example, has funded the planting of thousands of native trees in urban areas through its 2 Billion Trees project.

Botanists like Henrik Sjöman, who oversees collections at the Gothenburg Botanical Gardens in Sweden, say native-only thinking can leave cities unprepared to adapt to climate change. But he doesn’t believe cities must completely abandon native species. He hopes that some species can be saved with a process he calls “upgrading.” The idea is to find trees from the same species that are already growing in harsher conditions, and propagate seeds from those plants. To grow more resilient English oaks in the U.K., for example, scientists could grow them from acorns sourced from western Asia, where the tree also grows. These acorns would come from trees thriving in a more arid region, so they could potentially yield hardier varietals that will one day thrive in a drier London.

Additionally, locale-adapted native species might continue thriving in woodlands like large city parks or green spaces. Sjöman said it’s possible that trees in undeveloped areas will have more time to adapt to climate change, because rainfall more easily soaks into the ground and fills the water table. That’s not the case in highly paved and built-up neighborhoods, where decreasing rainfall hurts trees more.

“Everything’s pushed to its limit in urban environments,” Sjöman said.

That reality has many locales taking a “block-by-block” approach to planting guidelines. Toronto, for example, plants trees from the region’s ecosystem whenever possible, said Kristjan Vitols, the city’s supervisor of forest health care and management. That’s especially true of its iconic ravines, where newly planted trees must be endemic — and raised from locally sourced seeds when possible. But the city is also open to non-native species where plants face harsh conditions along streets.

The rules for Toronto’s ravines are based on the idea that a species will develop traits specific to a location as they grow over many generations. As a result, trees grown from seeds gathered in Toronto may be more likely to blossom when native pollinators are active than seeds from the same species grown at a lower latitude.

Foresters say there’s another valid argument for trying to keep as many native trees as possible. For some First Nations and Indigenous people with deep ties to particular varieties, phasing them out could add to the long history of cultural and physical dispossession. 

In the Pacific Northwest, for example, the Western redcedar (written as one word because it’s not a true cedar) is central to Native American cultural practices for many local tribes. Some groups refer to themselves as the “people of the cedar tree,” using the logs for canoes, basketry, and medicine.

But drying soils mean the tree is no longer thriving in many parts of Portland, Oregon, said Jenn Cairo, the city’s urban forestry manager. The city has faced deadly heat domes and drier conditions in recent years. As a result, Portland only recommends planting the species in optimal conditions in its list of approved street trees. “We’re not eliminating them,” she said, “but we’re being careful about where we’re planting them.”

A similar tactic is being used in Sydney, where the Port Jackson fig tree is struggling, but a close relative, the Moreton Bay fig, is thriving. Head of urban forestry Karen Sweeney said the city is looking at irrigated parklands as potential homes for native species that are dying elsewhere in the city. “We often say we’re happy to do it where we can find a location,” she said.

When introducing new tree species to supplement the urban canopy, they must be sure any newcomers won’t spread invasively — dominating their new habitats and causing damage to native species.  

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There are plenty of examples of what to avoid. The Norway maple, native to Europe and western Asia, has escaped the bounds of North American cities, creating excessive shade and crowding out understory plants — they’re one of the invasive species pushing out natives in the ravines of Toronto. Tree of heaven, native to China, deposits chemicals into the soil that damage nearby plants, letting it establish dense thickets and drive out native species; it is illegal to plant in parts of the U.S., including Indiana, where residents are urged to pull it up wherever they see it. The highly flammable eucalyptus, native to Australia, has put down roots all over the world, bringing increased wildfire danger along with it. 

Urban tree experts don’t expect introduced species to cause major disruptions to native wildlife. Done right, adding some variety to cities dominated by one kind of tree could reduce the problems caused by waves of pests or disease. A patchwork of species could create a buffer against tree-to-tree infection among the same species. While it’s possible that new plant species displace plants used by animals that depend on one kind of plant to survive, those cases are the exception, Esperon-Rodriguez, the ecologist at Western Sydney University, said. 

Some native animals do surprisingly well alongside their new plant neighbors. Introducing trees that are closely related to what’s already there could provide additional food and shelter for the local fauna. Animals might already be eating fruit from a new tree that grows somewhere else in their range.

If it thrives, my Howard McMinn manzanita could attract Anna’s hummingbird with its pale blossoms in the Pacific Northwest, just as it would in its native California hills. 

For now, my manzanita is a small bush. (Manzanita straddles the line between shrub and tree, which is not a clear-cut distinction. The definition of a tree is something that ornithologist David Allen Sibley said “one could quibble endlessly over.”) The plant made it through a cold snap this winter, and I was happy to see the bright green new leaves growing at the tips of its little branches after temperatures warmed.

Eager for a sign of spring, I leaned in close and found what I was looking for: clusters of tiny, unopened flower buds.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As the climate changes, cities scramble to find trees that will survive on Apr 24, 2024.

This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, Native News Online, and APTN.

More than 20 years ago, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, held its annual meeting with a focus on youth, and educating and nurturing them. This year, the forum’s 24th gathering, the emphasis was again on youth — but this time on listening to them. 

Meet seven of the young leaders who spoke at this year’s forum. 

Name: Michael Severin Bro

Age: 32

Peoples: Inuit

Home: Ilulissat, a small town on the western coast of Greenland. His family calls him Mikaali. 

What he wants people to know: Bro believes Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities are especially vulnerable in Greenland. 

“We have been struggling within society, and we need to be included in decision-making,” he said. “I refer to myself as Sipineq, which is our word in Inuit language defining everything about queerness, or all letters of the LGBTQIA+.”

Advocating for both issues is complicated. “It’s like wearing two hats,” he said. 

More: As climate change warms the Arctic four times faster than global temperatures, Bro said that Greenland’s Inuit are facing difficulties in seal hunting. 

Name: Gervais NdIhokubwayo

Age: 30

Peoples: Batwa 

Home: Bujumbura, Burundi

What he wants people to know: Batwa children need more support for their education, including infrastructure and school supplies.

The Batwa are one of the oldest Indigenous cultures in Africa. In Burundi, they receive little support from the government. The Batwa in Uganda experience health disparities due to climate change. 

More: The focus on youth at this year’s forum was exciting.

“Compared to last year, there’s a noticeable advancement in prioritizing youth perspectives, fostering collaboration, and advocating for Indigenous rights on a global scale,” he said. 

Name: Kseniia Bolshakova

Age: 24

Peoples: Dolgan

Home: Popigai in Siberia, Russia 

What she wants people to know: Her community in Siberia has difficulties getting access to fresh drinking water, because of colonization and climate change. Bolshakova would like to seek help to get a salination station near her village that converts sea water into fresh water.

“There is no funding for this,” she said through a translator. “This challenge is very costly and that’s why the problem has not been solved.”

She’s writing a book on language revitalization, and the effects of climate change on her homeland.

More: When she was still in Russia, she participated in a protest against the war in Ukraine. Afterward, she felt under threat and left the country, and believes it would be unsafe for her to return. She currently lives in New Hampshire.

Name: Jakirah Telfer

Age: 21

Peoples: Kaurna

Home: Aldelade, on the coast of southern Australia 

What she wants people to know: She feels responsible for fixing climate change brought on by colonialism, but also powerless if Australia won’t listen to Aboriginal people. She started to cry in frustration during a panel discussion at the UNPFII, because she was reminded of her grandmother who was part of the Stolen Generation, a dark chapter in Australia’s colonial history when Aboriginal children were taken from their parents to be assimilated into colonial society. 

“I sort of had to reflect, because I hated myself for crying. I think one thing the U.N. is missing is emotion and vulnerability,” she said. “I hated myself for crying, but I also felt so nurtured and safe in that space with so many other Indigenous peoples. I just feel like youth brings that passion.”

More: She thinks about her relationship with the land as a language. 

“When we listen to the land, the land will listen to us. It’s a language. Climate change is creating a language barrier.” 

Name: Nilla-Juhán Valkeapää

Age: 19

Peoples: Sámi

Home: Helsinki, Finland 

What he wants people to know: Finland is forcing the Sámi Parliament to redo an election and include some 70 residents of the homeland who are not Sámi, a move that leaves Valkeapää concerned. The Sámi believe this is an infringement on their self-determination.

If the Sámi Parliament is treated with so little respect, then Valkeapää feels especially invisible because of his youth.

“People are like, ‘Youth are the future, listen to the youth.’ But when it comes to actually listening to us they are like, ‘Nah let the adults do this stuff,’” he said.

He is proud of being Sámi in Finland, so this recent infringement on the Sámi electoral process makes him nervous about the future. Especially after a recent U.N. report outlined that Finland still needs to do more to address the historical removal of the Sámi from their lands and suppression of their language. 

More: Green energy projects have threatened the Sámi homeland over the last few years, including an illegal wind farm in Norway. 

Name: Majo Andrade Cerda

Age: 29 

Peoples: Kichwa 

Home: Puyo, Ecuador

What she wants people to know: She’s an activist who wants to better protect the Amazon rainforest, a place very important to the Kichwa. While she believes there has been progress in getting more young people involved in the United Nations, she still sees barriers, especially with people for whom English is a second or third language.

“I recognize my privilege in being able to learn English, so if [member states] want to help, they would help with the language barrier,” she said.

More: Cerda is a member of Yuturi Warmi, the first Indigenous women guard that protects the Ecuadorian rainforest, and she is also a community organizer for Escuela Runa Yachay.

Name: Morgan Brings Plenty

Age: 29

Peoples: Cheyenne River Sioux 

Home: Eagle Butte, South Dakota

What they want peolpe to know: Brings Plenty is two-spirit, an umbrella term that encompasses an array of Indigenous gender identities. An activist since they were 12, they are critical of the push for electric cars as a way to stop using fossil fuels, since few people think about the burden that puts on tribal lands through mining.

“People say ‘go green,’ but there are a lot of false solutions,” they said. “Like there’s electric cars, but you have to mine lithium.” 

As an example, they point to the potential for lithium mines in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred space for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, Omaha, and many other tribes.

“[It] goes into the water and gets into Indigenous communities,” they said. “There are health concerns there,” they said. 

More: Brings Plenty wanted to make sure their colleagues also got credit for their work at the U.N. —  Annalee Yellowhammer, 20, and Maya Runnels, 22, from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

“We are a team. We are a group effort,” they said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline From Australia to the Arctic, young Indigenous changemakers speak out on Apr 24, 2024.

From April 23 to 29, the United Nations Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee is holding its fourth session to develop a legally binding international treaty on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada.

However, countries are divided over what the contents of the landmark agreement should be.

“This process is without doubt an accelerated and ambitious one, because we don’t have decades to act,” said Inger Andersen, UN Environment Programme’s executive director, as Reuters reported.

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Plastics production globally accounts for approximately five percent of fossil fuel emissions, but could increase to 20 percent by the end of the century if left unchecked, a report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States said last week.

In 2022, nations agreed to come to a legally binding accord by December of 2024 that tackles the entire plastics lifecycle.

As talks began, there was pushback from some governments and petrochemical interests in response to calls for bans or production limits on some fossil fuel chemicals.

“We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word that we need to take into account,” said chair of the summit, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who is also Ecuador’s vice foreign affairs minister, as reported by The Guardian. “This is a negotiation, there are regions and countries with a specific position that we understand. We know plastic pollution is affecting the environment, we know it’s affecting human health because of the substances in plastics.”

Valdivieso said delegates would be divided into working groups to discuss issues that had yet to be resolved, such as what should be included in the treaty and how to carry it out, Reuters reported.

“Time is not our best ally,” Valdivieso said, as reported by Reuters. “We need to start negotiating on opening day.”

Most plastic ends up in landfills and the environment, polluting waterways and harming humans and wildlife. Nearly a fifth globally is burned, releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

“Only 10% of it gets recycled, something needs to be done and that is why these negotiations are so important. We need to have the whole life cycle approach,” Valdivieso said, as The Guardian reported.

It remains to be seen whether countries like Saudi Arabia and China, which have argued against production limits and bans, will be able to be persuaded by the majority of countries who want them, reported Reuters.

Negotiators from the U.S., the largest plastic waste producer, have suggested requirements to deal with single-use plastics and specific chemicals that have caused public health concerns.

“It is very important we are negotiating this treaty now. The world is in a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. But while there are agreements in place for the first two, we have no legislation, no global agreement on plastic pollution,” Valdivieso said, as The Guardian reported.

The post Negotiators Divided as UN Plastics Treaty Talks Begin in Ottawa appeared first on EcoWatch.

In its new Global EV Outlook 2024, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said electric vehicle (EV) sales will reach 17 million this year — up from 14 million in 2023.

In 2024, EVs are projected to make up roughly one out of nine cars sold in the United States, one in four in Europe and 45 percent of total car sales in China, an IEA press release said.

“Electric cars continue to make progress towards becoming a mass-market product in a larger number of countries,” the report said. “Tight margins, volatile battery metal prices, high inflation, and the phase-out of purchase incentives in some countries have sparked concerns about the industry’s pace of growth, but global sales data remain strong.”

More than one-fifth of cars sold globally in 2024 are predicted to be electric, with growing demand set to substantially reduce oil consumption used for road transportation over the coming decade, the press release said.

The pace of EV sales means road transportation’s oil demand is expected to peak around 2025, according to the IEA report, as Reuters reported.

The report added that around six million barrels of oil per day would be cut from oil demand by 2030, with an 11 million barrel reduction by 2035 if countries meet their stated climate and energy policies.

By 2030, EVs are projected to make up nearly one in five cars on the roads in the U.S. and European Union and one in three in China.

In the first quarter of this year, EV sales went up approximately 25 percent compared to 2023, which was similar to the same period in 2022, but from a wider base. Global EV sales from January through March 2024 were roughly equal to all EV sales in 2020.

Last year, nearly two-thirds of EVs sold in China were less expensive than their internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalents.

“Electric cars are generally getting cheaper as battery prices drop, competition intensifies, and carmakers achieve economies of scale,” the report said. “In most cases, however, they remain on average more expensive than ICE equivalents.”

The IEA added that the need for more charging infrastructure to meet rising demand would present an important challenge, with a need for charging networks to increase six-fold by 2035.

“Ensuring that the availability of public charging keeps pace with electric vehicle sales is crucial for continued growth, according to the report. The number of public charging points installed globally was up 40% in 2023 relative to 2022, and growth for fast chargers outpaced that of slower ones,” the press release said. “[P]olicy support and careful planning are essential to make sure greater demand for electricity from charging does not overstretch electricity grids.”

Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director, emphasized that, rather than slowing down, the EV market was still growing

“The continued momentum behind electric cars is clear in our data, although it is stronger in some markets than others,” Birol said in the press release. “Rather than tapering off, the global EV revolution appears to be gearing up for a new phase of growth. The wave of investment in battery manufacturing suggests the EV supply chain is advancing to meet automakers’ ambitious plans for expansion.”

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Extreme heat stress is affecting much of Europe at record rates, according to a new report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

According to the European State of the Climate 2023 report, temperatures in Europe were consistently high, with higher than average temperatures for 11 months last year. The report also noted that for 2023, Europe experienced its warmest September on record.

Further, the report found that there is an increasing number of days with heat stress in Europe, alongside a decreasing number of days with cold stress. There were a record number of days in 2023 with “extreme heat stress,” defined as days with a temperature that feels higher than 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

While the number of days with extreme heat stress is rising, so too are the number of deaths linked to heat stress. According to the report, heat-related deaths increased by an estimated 94% in Europe over the past 20 years.

The findings revealed increasing heat waves as well, with a reported 23 of the 30 most severe heat waves in Europe happening since 2000, and five of the most extreme heat waves happening in just the past three years.

“If humans continue to burn oil, gas and coal, heatwaves will continue to get hotter and vulnerable people will continue to die,” Friederike Otto, a climate scientist with Imperial College London who was not a report contributor, told The Guardian. Otto also told the publication that the number of deaths could possibly be even higher because of fossil fuel emissions.

The report showed other extreme events linked to climate change happening in Europe during 2023, such as a loss of about 10% of the remaining volume of glaciers in the Alps, fewer than average snow days in parts of Europe and record-high sea surface temperatures around the continent.

“In 2023, Europe witnessed the largest wildfire ever recorded, one of the wettest years, severe marine heatwaves and widespread devastating flooding,” Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, said in a statement. “Temperatures continue to increase, making our data ever more vital in preparing for the impacts of climate change.”

Overall, Europe was revealed in the report to be the fastest-warming continent, heating up about twice the average rate of the rest of the world.

While the report did reveal concerning data linked to climate change and raise concerns over public health, it also included some good news linked to renewable energy. As WMO reported, Europe reached a record 43% proportion of renewable electricity generation.

With the increase in storm activity in late fall and early winter, there was added wind power production potential, according to the report. Increased precipitation and river flow also boosted energy generation potential from hydropower. Some parts of Europe also benefited from higher than usual solar energy generation potential.

The report highlighted that reducing emissions and curbing climate change, in part through a focus on renewables, will be important in avoiding worsening heat waves, ice melt, flooding and other extreme events.

“Robust environmental information, underpinned by data from the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, is revealing significant changes across our planet,” Mauro Facchini, head of unit for Earth Observation at the Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space of the European Commission, said in a statement. “The data presented in the European State of the Climate are alarming, but this research is also a vital tool in our aims to transition towards sustainable energy, reduce net greenhouse gas emissions, and become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.”

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