The big issues at COP29 are policies to limit global warming and climate financing from the major polluters of the Global North to enable climate change-impacted countries of the Global South to adapt to an ever-worsening climate crisis. Yet the Paris Agreement target of no more than a plus 1.5C of warming was already attained by 2023, the requisite application of a true, damage-related Carbon Price is ignored, and COP29, like COP28, COP30 and possibly COP31, is hosted by a major climate criminal nation.
The hosting of COPs by countries notorious for huge Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions is utterly bizarre and underscores the resolute refusal of those running the World to take effective action on the man-made climate change that existentially threatens Humanity and the Biosphere.
(1). COP28 (2023) in climate criminal UAE failed – a 0.8% increase in global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels in 2024.
COP28, the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November to 13 December 2023. The purpose of the conference was to agree on policies to limit global warming and adapt to climate change, but the futility and failure COP28 was underscored by its being hosted by a major fossil fuel exporter, the UAE.
The World Resources Institute summarized the glacial progress at COP28: “The COP28 climate talks began with a new fund [Loss and Damage Fund] to address the increasingly severe losses and damage vulnerable countries face from climate impacts and concluded with the first international agreement to tackle climate change’s main driver: fossil fuels… The decision to transition away from “fossil fuels” was the first time the term appeared in a COP’s formal outcome since UN climate negotiations began 30 years ago. Despite immense pressure from oil and gas interests, key country negotiators stood their ground and landed a deal that marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era — a fitting close to the hottest year on record… The lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group of 39 nations, said that while the agreement has many good elements, the deal’s support for carbon capture technology and other items are concerning. She said the course correction needed to avert the climate crisis “has not yet been secure”… Adaptation targets lacked detail. Finance got short shrift on many fronts; it remains unclear how the world will pay for the massive clean energy transition it’s now committed to. Next year’s climate summit in Azerbaijan (COP29) needs to offer breakthroughs on thorny and fundamental questions about finance” [1].
Annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide from 1970 to 2023 show a remorseless, quasi-linear increase as a function of time [2], graphic testament to the failure of the world and the COPs from COP1 to COP28 to act effectively on GHG emissions.
The astonishing lack of political urgency at COP28 was at variance with the latest findings of Professor James Hansen and colleagues (2 November 2023): “Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation” [3].
With the help of an El Nino event, global warming relative to the pre-Industrial era reached the 2015 Paris Agreement target of plus 1.5 degrees Centigrade (+1.5C) was reached in 2023 [4]. Thus 2023 was about 1.48C warmer than the pre-industrial average, with the Pacific Ocean El Niño phenomenon contributing to this and the likelihood that this warming trend will continue in 2024 [4]. According to the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service C3S, April 2024 was warmer than any previous April in records dating back to 1940, 1.58C warmer than the pre-industrial average, and was the 11th month in a row of record high temperatures [5]. Carlo Buontempo (director of the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) commenting on 11 months of record-breaking global temperatures: “El Niño peaked at the beginning of the year and the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are now going back towards neutral conditions. However, whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records” [6].
90% of the extra heating is in the ocean with the consequences of greater evaporation, greater precipitation and higher energy tropical storms and sea surges. Conversely, increased warming means drying out of forests and catastrophic forest fires [3, 7]. We are now getting used to higher energy tropical storms, record flooding events and catastrophic forest fires around the world on a weekly basis – in Europe, East Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, Australia, Oceania, South America, North America and Africa. There was a 0.8% increase in global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels in 2024, compared to a 1.4% increase in 2023 [9].
“Tackling climate change” means decreasing GHG emissions, and not increasing GHG emissions.
(2). COP29 (2024) in climate criminal Azerbaijan is set to fail – a paltry Loss and Damage Fund and fatal non-recognition of a true damage-related Carbon Price.
The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) is being held from 11-22 November 2024 at Baku Stadium in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan [10]. Ilham Aliyev (President of Azerbaijan ): “Being elected by unanimous decision as the host country for COP29 is really a big honour for us. We consider it as a sign of respect from the international community to Azerbaijan and what we are doing, in particular, in the area of green energy” [10]. Noting that International Energy Agency data show that oil and gas account for about 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports, Ilham Aliyev further stated of fossil fuels: “Quote me that I said that this is a gift of God, and I want to repeat it today here at this audience… Fake news media of the country which is [the] number one oil and gas producer in the world [the US] and produces 30 times more oil than Azerbaijan, call us [a] ‘petrostate’. They better look at themselves” [11].
COP28 established a Loss and Damage Fund to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to respond to loss and damage. However the pledges totalled a mere $702 million [12]. Antonio Guterres (UN Secretary-General) responded to this paltry commitment thus (12 November 2024): “Our world is getting hotter and more dangerous. And this is not a matter for debate. It is a matter of fact. We’ve just had the hottest day, the hottest months, the hottest years, and the hottest decade in the history books. Climate disasters are piling up – harming those who’ve done the least, the most. We see economies wrecked, lives taken, livelihoods lost, and development denied. And meanwhile, those that contribute more to the destruction – particularly the fossil fuel industry – continue to reap massive profits and subsidies. The creation of the Loss and Damage Fund is a victory for developing countries, for multilateralism, and for justice. But its initial capitalization of $700 million doesn’t come close to righting the wrong inflicted on the vulnerable. $700 million is roughly the annual earnings of the world’s ten best-paid footballers. It does not even account for a quarter of the damage in Viet Nam caused by Hurricane Yagi in September… In an era of climate extremes, loss and damage finance is a must. I urge governments to deliver. In the name of justice” [13].
UN News noted that in January-September 2024 global warming was 1.54C above the pre-industrial average and summarized the demands Antonio Guterres put to COP29: “UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday that leaders gathered in Baku for the COP29 Climate Action Summit must take immediate steps to cut emissions, safeguard people from climate chaos, and “tear down the walls to climate finance” in response to the “masterclass in climate destruction” that the world has witnessed in 2024… With all this in mind, Mr. Guterres said, “developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed” and urged world leaders at COP29 to focus on three areas for immediate action: (1). Make emergency emissions reductions – cutting emissions by nine per cent every year towards 43 per cent of 2019 levels by 2030. This is the clearest pat to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. (2). Do more to protect people from the ravages of the climate crisis. The gap between adaptation needs and finance could reach up to $359 billion a year by 2030. The missing dollars are not abstractions on a balance sheet: they are lives taken, harvests lost, and development denied. (3). Tear down the walls to climate finance by agreeing [to] a new finance goal that contains a significant increase in concessional public finance; a clear indication of how public finance will mobilise the trillions of dollars developing countries need; taps innovative sources; sets out a framework for greater accessibility, transparency, and accountability; and boosts lending capacity for bigger and bolder multilateral development banks… “On climate finance, the world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price,” emphasized the UN chief telling world leaders that “you and your governments must be guided by a clear truth: Climate finance is not charity, it’s an investment; climate action is not optional, it’s imperative”” [14].
The paltry $700 million pledged for the Loss and Damage Fund for vulnerable Global South countries (notably those of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) existentially threatened by climate change) is in stark contrast to the Global Carbon Debt of $250 trillion that is $250 million million /$700 million = 360,000 times greater. Experts from the IMF and Lord Stern to Pope Francis demand that the social and environmental cost of pollution be fully borne by the polluters [7, 15-31]. Experts from Cambridge and Columbia Universities estimate a damage-related Carbon Price of $200 per tonne of CO2-equivalent, whereas in horrible reality the world average Carbon Price is a miniscule $2 per tonne of CO2-equivalent [19, 22, 24]. Carbon Debt is simply the damage-related cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution that if not addressed now will inescapably have to be paid by future generations [7, 17, 21-26]. However greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise inexorably, and there is no global program to draw down CO2 and other GHGs from the atmosphere [7, 32-38].
While young people are demanding massive climate action, inescapable global Carbon Debt is $200- $250 trillion, increasing by $16 trillion each year, and increasing by $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [17, 23, 26]. The gigantic and remorselessly increasing Carbon Debt will inescapably have to be paid by young people and future generations. Whereas conventional debt can be variously eliminated by default, bankruptcy or printing money (quantitative easing), Carbon Debt is inescapable – thus, for example, unless sea walls are built, cities, towns, villages and arable land will be inundated. There is need for a Climate Revolution (non-violent of course) as adumbrated by Greta Thunberg and the School Strike Movement. Climate criminals must be made to pay [7, 39-41].
COP29 has a few days to go but the pledges to the Loss and Damage Fund for vulnerable Global South countries will be negligible compared to the inescapable global Carbon Debt that is $200- $250 trillion, and increasing by $16 trillion each year. Eminent economist Lord Stern famously described the failure to take into account the externality of the damage-related cost of carbon pollution: “The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem is global and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale” [31]. No doubt COP29 will continue to entrench this failure.
(3). COP30 (2025) in Amazon-killing Brazil – the existentially threatened Amazon rainforest is a key climate tipping point.
COP30 will be held from 10 November to 21 November 2025 in Belém, in the heart of the Amazon, “the lungs of the Earth” [44]. The present Brazilian Government headed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula; elected 1 January 2023) is better than its neo-fascist, climate change denialist, Amazon-destroying, neoliberal, anti-science and Trumpist predecessor, but deforestation in the Amazon rainforest still continues [45]. However nearly 40% of the areas of the Amazon rainforest most critical to curbing climate change (in the far southwest of the Amazon in Peru and the far northeast in Brazil, French Guiana and Suriname) has not been granted special government protection as either nature reserves or indigenous reserves [46]. Further, a combination of an El Niño occurrence and global warming has caused massive drought resulting in continuing massive loss of Amazon rainforest to forest fires [47].
Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes. Total destruction of the Amazon rainforest is happening in the south for cattle ranching and soybean. The fear is that the Amazon could reach a tipping point (perhaps when 20-40% is lost) and an irreversible transition from a tropical forest carbon sink to a dry savannah. However 31% of the eastern part of the Amazon rainforest has been lost and this is crucial because it is involved in the evapotranspiration-based cycling of moisture through the forest from east to west, creating up to 50% of all rainfall across the Amazon (evapotranspiration is loss of water from soil through evaporation and from plants through transpiration). Deforestation leads to the following positive feedback loop: deforestation -> cumulative deforestation -> less evapotranspiration -> less rainfall -> increased drought -> fires -> more deforestation. The tipping point is predicted to occur by about 2050 [48-51].
Leading climate scientists have identified 9 key tipping points including the Amazon rainforest, the North American boreal forest and the Amazon-impacting Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC): (1). Amazon rain rainforest (estimated tipping point at 20% – 40% deforestation with about 17% lost since 1970; the world’s largest rainforest, it contains 1 in 10 known species, has a continent-scale climate impact, and is presently burning on a huge scale). (2). North American boreal forest (warming in the sub-Arctic has led to insect pest population explosion, boreal (high latitude) tree die-off and fires; some boreal forest regions are converting from being carbon sinks to a carbon sources). (3). West Antarctica (Amundsen Sea embayment) (the tipping point may have been exceeded and this could destabilize the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet leading to circa 3 metres of sea-level rise on a timescale of 100s to 1000s of years, noting that this has happened in the past). (4). East Antarctic ice sheet (Wilkes Basin) (approaching a tipping point for 3-4 metres in sea level rise on a timescale of 100s of years).(5). Greenland ice sheet (melting at an increasing rate and the tipping point may be the circa +1.5C expected in about 2030 with 7 metres sea level rise over 1000s of years). (6). Arctic sea ice (massive sea ice loss already – at +2C there is a 10–35% probability of near-total summer sea ice loss). (7). Coral reefs (mass coral bleaching worldwide and loss of 50% of the coral of Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef due to warming, ocean acidification, pollution and Crown of Thorn predator population explosion; 99% of tropical corals are predicted to be lost at +2C with massive loss of marine biodiversity and fisheries). (8). Arctic permafrost (irreversible thawing and release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) with Arctic warming about 2 times bigger than the global average; CH4 has an estimated Global Warming Potential (GWP) as low as 21 relative to the same mass of CO2 on a 100 year time-scale, but on a 20 year time scale and with aerosol impacts included it is 105). (9). Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) (this key salt- and heat-conveying Atlantic Ocean circulation system has been subject to a 15% slow-down since the mid-20th century; Arctic sea-ice loss is increasing regional warming; Arctic warming and Greenland melting are putting fresh water into the North Atlantic; slowdown in the AMOC is destabilizing the West African monsoon, impacting drought in the Sahel region, drying the Amazon, disrupting the East Asian monsoon and warming the Southern Ocean with increased Antarctic ice loss) [7, 52, 53].
Global tree loss has increased in a quasi-linear fashion as a function of time since 2000 [54-59]. Will COP30 meet the challenge?
(4). COP31 (2026): among world-leading climate criminal nations in 20 ways, climate criminal and egregiously mendacious Australia is shamelessly bidding to host the event.
Australia is among world leaders in 20 areas of climate criminality. Thanks to the homicidal greed of climate criminal countries such as Australia, the present plus 1.5C temperature rise is already devastating Island Nations, and a catastrophic plus 2C warming is now effectively unavoidable in the next decade or so on present trends. Climate criminal Australia is among world leaders for the following 20 climate criminal activities or parameters: (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, (2) live methanogenic livestock exports, (3) natural gas exports, (4) recoverable shale gas reserves that can be accessed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), (5) coal exports, (6) land clearing, deforestation and ecocide, (7) speciescide or species extinction, (8) coral reef destruction, (9) whale killing and extinction threat through global warming impacting on krill stocks, (10) terminal carbon pollution budget exceedance, (11) per capita Carbon Debt, (12) ultimately GHG generating iron ore exports (iron oxide is reduced to metallic iron using carbon with generation of CO2), (13) climate change inaction, (14) climate genocide and approach towards omnicide and terracide, (15) increasing Domestic GHG pollution in 2023-2024 despite Paris commitments to lower GHG pollution, (16) complicity in 9 million annual air pollution deaths from burning carbon fuels, Australia’s share being 75,000 overseas and 10,000 Domestically, (17) lying and climate action deceit, (18) fraudulent use of carbon credits based on non-existent cessation of deforestation, (19) massive expansion of new iron ore, gas and coal extraction in defiance of expert opinion to the contrary, and (20) Australia has 0.33% of the world’s population but its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is 5.4% of the World’s total GHG emissions [7, 60, 61].
Anti-racist Jewish American journalist I.F. Stone famously opined that “Governments lie” [62] and no better examples are the governments of look-the-other-way, climate criminal Australia who resolutely lie by commission and omission over the Australian GHG emissions and the contribution made by natural gas [60, 63]. Methane (CH4) is 85% of natural gas, leaks, and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included. At a gas leakage of 2.6% (the average in the US is 3%) the global warming effect of the leaked gas is the same as that from burning the remaining 97.4% of gas [64]. Such considerations reveal that Australia with 0.33 % of the world population has annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are 2.5% of the world’s, and annual Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions that are 5.4% of the world’s annual GHG pollution. Claims by pro-fossil fuels Australian politicians and media that “gas is clean” or “gas is cleaner than coal” are utterly false. The “Methane Bomb” in the warming Arctic represents a worsening threat to Humanity. Failure to adequately monitor gas leakage in climate criminal Australia amounts to massive fraud akin to failure to apply a proper Carbon Price [7, 60, 61, 63- 70].
Nation state commitments to the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference mean a catastrophic plus 3.2C temperature rise. Thousands of scientists around the world have signed up to detailed analyses of how the world is remorselessly heading in the wrong direction in about 30 key areas related to climate change [54-59]. In the absence of requisite climate action, 10 billion people are predicted to die prematurely this century in a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only about 1 billion) [7, 15, 71-77]. Of course some countries will be among the first to suffer massive devastation, notably tropical Island Nations already subject to the horrific impacts of sea level rise, high intensity tropical storms, sea surges, salination and inundation. Mendacious, climate criminal and rich Australia gives modest aid to relatively impoverished South Pacific Island Nations and thus softens criticism by these existentially-threated countries of the acute threat posed by Australia’s world-leading fossil fuel exports.
Final comments and conclusions.
The core ethos of Humanity is Kindness and Truth but this is grossly violated by climate criminal countries hosting and attending the COP climate conferences, as set out here. The Brazilian Government is trying to do the right thing but the Amazon rain forest, the lungs of the Earth, continues to be eaten away by chain saws and fire. Granting COP31 hosting to mendacious and climate criminal Australia will simply continue the terracidal farce. The only thing that will save the Earth (there is no Planet B) will be application of a true, damage-related Carbon Price that makes the polluters pay. The cost of the environmental and social damage due to greenhouse gas emissions (past, present and future) must be inescapably fully borne by the polluters.
References.
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[46]. Jake Spring, “Nearly 40% of Amazon rainforest most vital to climate left unprotected, data show”, Reuters, 11 September 2024: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nearly-40-amazon-rainforest-most-vital-climate-left-unprotected-data-show-2024-09-11/ .
[47]. Bruno Meyerfeld, “The Amazon continues to burn despite decline in deforestation”, Le Monde, 22 July 2024: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2024/07/22/the-amazon-continues-to-burn-despite-the-decline-in-deforestation_6693185_114.html .
[48]. Liz Kimbrough, “How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation”, Mongabay, 30 September 2022: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/how-close-is-the-amazon-tipping-point-forest-loss-in-the-east-changes-the-equation/ .
[49]. Orla Dwyer, “‘Unprecedented’ stress in up to half of the Amazon may lead to tipping point by 2050”, Carbon Brief, Plants and Forests, 14 February 2024: https://www.carbonbrief.org/unprecedented-stress-in-up-to-half-of-the-amazon-may-lead-to-tipping-point-by-2050/ .
[50]. Bernado M. Flores et al., “Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system”, Nature, volume 626, pages 555–564, 2024: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06970-0 .
[51]. Jonathan Watts, “Amazon rainforest could reach ‘tipping point’ by 2050, scientists warn”, Guardian, 15 February 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/14/amazon-rainforest-could-reach-tipping-point-by-2050-scientists-warn .
[52]. Timothy Lenton, Johan Rockstrom, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmsdorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against” , Nature 575, 592-595, 27 November 2019: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0 .
[53]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Scientists: Planetary Emergency, Planet In Peril, Act Now”, 3 December 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/climate-scientists-planetary-emergency-planet-in-peril-act-now/ .
[54]. William J. Ripple et al., 15,364 signatories from 184 countries, “World scientists’ warning to Humanity: a second notice”, Bioscience, 13 November 2017: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/bix125/4605229 .
[55]. Gideon Polya, “Over 15,000 scientists issue dire warning to humanity on catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss”, Countercurrents, 20 November 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/11/20/over-15000-scientists-issue-dire-warning-to-humanity-on-catastrophic-climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss/ .
[56]. William Ripple et al.., “World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency”, BioScience, 5 November 2019: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806 .
[57]. Gideon Polya, “Extrapolating 11,000 scientists’ climate emergency warning to 2030 catastrophe”, Countercurrents, 14 November 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/11/extrapolating-11000-scientists-climate-emergency-warning-to-2030-catastrophe .
[58]. W.J. Ripple et al., “The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory”, BioScience 73, 841-850, 2023: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/73/12/841/7319571 .
[59]. W.J. Ripple et al., “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth”, BioScience,8 October 2024: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595 .
[60]. Gideon Polya, “Methane Leakage Makes Australia A World Leading Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Polluter”, Countercurrents, 18 February 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/02/methane-leakage-makes-australia-a-world-leading-per-capita-greenhouse-gas-polluter/ .
[61]. Gideon Polya , “Australia ‘s Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May, 2012: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
[62]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/home .
[63]. Gideon Polya, “ABC & Mainstream Media Lying By Omission Enabled Trumpist & Climate Criminal Australian Coalition Victory”, Countercurrents, 28 May 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/05/abc-mainstream-media-lying-by-omission-enabled-trumpist-climate-criminal-australian-coalition-victory/ .
[64]. Gideon Polya, “The lie that gas is cleaner”, Green Left, 7 October 2020: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/lie-gas-cleaner .
[65]. Gideon Polya, “Revised Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution For All Countries – What Is Your Country Doing?”, Countercurrents, 6 January, 2016: https://countercurrents.org/polya060116.htm .
[66]. Gideon Polya, “Exposing And Thence Punishing Worst Polluter Nations Via Weighted Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution Scores”, Countercurrents, 19 March 2016: https://countercurrents.org/polya190316.htm .
[67]. “Gas is not clean energy”: https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/home .
[68]. “2011 climate change course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .
[69]. “Methane Bomb Threat”: https://sites.google.com/site/methanebombthreat/.
[70]. Gideon Polya, “Australian commitment to unlimited gas exploitation threatens planet & invites global blowback”, Countercurrents, 8 April 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/04/australian-commitment-to-unlimited-natural-gas-exploitation-threatens-planet-invites-global-blowback .
[71]. “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths .
[72]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
[73]. “Nuclear weapons ban , end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .
[74]. “Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
[75]. Gideon Polya, “Post-Covid-19 Needs-based Economy, Zero Emissions, UBI, Green New Deal & Free University Education”, Countercurrents, May 3, 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/05/post-covid-19-needs-based-economy-zero-emissions-ubi-green-new-deal-free-university-education/ .
[76]. 300.org: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .
[77]. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm CO2”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org—return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (2003). He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2021), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008, 2022), “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020), “Free Palestine. End Apartheid Israel, Human Rights Denial, Gaza Massacre, Child Killing, Occupation and Palestinian Genocide” (2024), and contributed to Soren Korsgaard (editor) “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published – Dangerous Deception Exposed!” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ .
