- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
MELBOURNE, Thursday 13 June 2024 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists dressed as koalas have climbed an iconic McDonald’s store in Melbourne, kicking off a campaign highlighting the fast food giant’s failure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.
A banner reading ‘Take Deforestation off the Menu’ was dropped under the golden arches of the iconic Clifton Hill store around 3pm with the koalas, driven from their trees by bulldozers, attracting the attention of onlookers.
The ‘Take Deforestation off the Menu’ campaign launch spotlights the role of McDonald’s, one of Australia’s biggest beef purchasers, in driving deforestation and nature destruction. Independent research commissioned by Greenpeace revealed 668,665 hectares of threatened koala habitat was bulldozed for beef production in the last five years alone — 2,400 times the size of Sydney CBD.
In a shocking video from industry event Beef Week in Rockhampton, a senior McDonald’s executive confirmed the company does not monitor deforestation down to a property level and does not exclude purchasing beef from deforested properties. He also confirmed McDonald’s is using a weak definition of deforestation to monitor forest destruction.
Australia has one of the worst rates of deforestation in the world, driven primarily by the bulldozing of forests for beef cattle grazing. Australian beef supplies 65% of McDonald’s stores globally meaning that customers around the world could be eating burgers from threatened koala habitat that was bulldozed for beef production. As global markets including the EU move rapidly towards deforestation-free beef, Australia’s big beef purchasers will need to prove there is no deforestation in their supply chains.
Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said despite the glossy marketing campaigns, McDonald’s is failing to adequately address the destruction of forests and nature in its supply chain.
“Right now the beef industry in Australia is killing native wildlife and the big beef purchasers are corporations like McDonald’s, whose customers would be shocked to learn their Big Mac is fuelling the deforestation crisis and pushing globally-iconic animals like the koala to the brink of extinction.
“Our Deforestation Scorecard assessed 10 of Australia’s biggest beef purchasers, including McDonald’s, against their commitment towards being deforestation-free by 2025 and every single one failed.
“Given deforestation has been a persistent issue in Australian beef supply chains for decades, this seriously calls into question the environmental performance of companies like McDonald’s who can not say with certainty their products are not linked to forest destruction.
“We’re sick of the PR spin from big corporations that have no idea where their beef comes from — deforestation is happening on their watch.
“We’re calling on McDonald’s to publicly aim for, and achieve, conversion and deforestation-free supply chains by 2025, using global best practice definitions, which includes protecting important regenerated forest and threatened species habitat.
“If big corporations like McDonald’s take action to change their practices, we can stop the destruction of our native wildlife and the places they call home — a vital step towards achieving the government’s election commitment to ‘no new extinctions’ in Australia.”
—ENDS—
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Kimberley Bernard on +61 407 581 404
Notes to Editor:
- High res images and interviews of today’s activity can be found here in the Greenpeace Media Library, and B Roll of the action before 4.30pm AEST
- For more information, visit: act.gp/mcdonald’s
- Greenpeace’s 2024 Deforestation Scorecard and full report can be found here
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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Paris Agreement committee snubbed over missing NDC climate plans
Many governments have still not submitted a nationally determined contribution to the UN, breaching a key requirement of the Paris Agreement
In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
The post Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs appeared first on Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs
Countries have failed – for the sixth time running – to agree on the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next set of influential reports.
The IPCC’s