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COP25: Citizens and scientists unite behind climate injustice / Geographical

Indigenous activist Daiara Tukano of Brazil speaks to press during a demonstration against the slow pace of climate negotiations at COP25 (Image: Christine Thao Tyler)

Brandon Wu is director of campaigns and policy at Action Aid USA and he has just been reunited with his jacket. He’s spent a few chilly hours outside the COP25 United Nations climate summit in Madrid after being ejected from the venue. Earlier he had been part of an organised but extra-official protest in which youth, trade union, Indigenous, women and gender delegation groups beat empty pans and unfurled banners. ‘Police linked arms,’ he told Geographical, ‘forcibly marching people out of the door.’

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The second in my three part series from the 2019 UN Conference of the Parties, where world representatives met this December to try to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees. 

COP25: World leaders debate global carbon trading playbook / Geographical

Any good parent knows you should never make a rule that you can’t enforce. In the first week, however, of the UN COP25 climate change conference, the troublesome Article Six policy of the Paris Agreement was a 2015 promise some nations were perhaps beginning to regret. Article Six allows countries and companies to potentially leverage emissions savings they create overseas for continued or even increased emissions at home. The mechanism is currently as vague as it sounds….

Continue reading at Geographical

The first in my three part series from the 2019 UN Conference of the Parties, where world representatives met this December to try to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees. 

 

Chile’s crisis set to reframe UN climate conference – Geographical

Climate change is affecting the world’s most vulnerable. The protests over inequality and corruption in Chile have deep roots and connection with environmental destruction. Before the cancellation of the pivotal UN climate change conference in Santiago, I asked how the spotlight on inequality could reframe the focus of the global summit. 

Read the article for Geographical published here

 

 

Chile’s “Sacrifice Zones” – Geographical

The Chilean President collected a prize for his commitments to tackling climate change this September, then almost as he stepped off the stage appeared to backtrack on his promise to close coal plants that leave children excreting blood in the coastal sacrifice zones.  The day the socio-economic riots began in Chile, I headed to Quintero to meet the people affected by the President’s environmental hypocrisy. 

Read the story for Geographical magazine. 

Thunberg strikes back against climate denial machine / Geographical

Photography by Robin Loznak http://robinloznakphotography.blogspot.com/

Swedish 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg testified alongside the Juliana plaintiffs to the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis this September 19th in the US Congress. With a panel of congressman selected under a climate sceptic president, the conversation took some strange turns. 

You can read my analysis for Geographical here. (opens in new tab)

I have been following the rise and rise of the youth climate movement for Geographical magazine since 2017. You can read my April cover story in full, here.

Andean plane mystery / Geographical

How do you engage people on a big scary issue like climate change?

This February filmmaker I headed into the Andes with two other British mountaineers to try and find the 1947 crashed plane Star Dust. In 2019 it’s emerging from the glacier-ice on 6570m Tupungato due to global warming. Told for the June 2019 issue of Geographical. 

“So you want to travel to the Lancastrian?” From a mid-winter Bristol suburb, my call has rung through to the Refugio Plaza military base, high in the mountains southwest of the Malbec-growing hills of Mendoza, Argentina. Sergeant Casado of the 11th Mountain Regiment listens to my request.

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