COP25 climate change summit, update

This 6 December 2019 video says about itself:

COP25: Alternative Climate Summit Honors Those “Suffering the Crimes of Transnational Corporations”

We broadcast from Madrid, Spain, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP25, began Monday and will continue through next week, as environmental leaders from around the world gather to negotiate global solutions to the climate crisis.

Activists have converged on Madrid for the conference and are hosting an alternative summit of their own: Cumbre Social por el Clima — the Social Summit for the Climate. The alternative summit has been organized by social justice and environmental groups to draw attention to the ongoing political repression in Chile, corporate influence on the climate summit, Spain’s own failure to address the climate crisis and the Eurocentrism of the climate conference. This is the third year in a row that the conference is being held in Europe. We speak with Tom Kucharz, one of the organizers of the alternative climate conference. He is a journalist and activist with the group Ecologists in Action.

This 6 December 2019 video says about itself:

Why Are Some of Spain’s Biggest Polluters Sponsoring U.N. Climate Summit?

A group of climate activists walked out of a panel at the U.N. climate summit in Madrid on Thursday to protest the presence of Shell, BP and Chevron. Representatives from the oil companies were taking part in an event organized by the International Emissions Trading Association.

This comes as the Spanish government is facing criticism for reaching out to Endesa, Spain’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas polluter, to sponsor the U.N. climate talks. We speak with Pascoe Sabido, a researcher and campaigner for the Corporate Europe Observatory, who has been organizing toxic tours of Madrid to expose the corporations and financiers driving the climate crisis.

This 6 December 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

“It’s Our Future”: Meet the Youth Activists Behind Fridays for Future Movements in Uganda and Chile

In Spain, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has arrived in Madrid to take part in today’s strike as well as a major march set for 6 p.m. local time. Greta began the climate strike movement last year when she started skipping school every Friday to stand in front of the Swedish parliament, demanding action to prevent catastrophic climate change. Her protest spread, quickly going global.

We speak with two youth climate strikers: Hilda Flavia Nakabuye is the founder of Fridays for Future Uganda and Angela Valenzuela is a coordinator with Fridays for Future in Chile, where this year’s U.N. climate summit had been scheduled but massive protests against neoliberalism forced the Chilean government to cancel the talks.

FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES GET HUGE PLAY AT UN MEETINGS  The Spanish utility Endesa is the country’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for approximately 9% of the nation’s planet-warming emissions. Along with an enormous newspaper ad buy, the company paid more than $2 million to be a top-level sponsor of the 2019 U.N. climate talks. [HuffPost]

This 6 December 2019 video says about itself:

Fridays for Future activist says Chile avoided scrutiny by dropping out as COP25 host

This week, we’re broadcasting from the 2019 United Nations climate change conference in Madrid, otherwise known as COP25. The conference was originally intended to take place in Santiago, Chile, but was moved to Madrid after hikes in the subway fare sparked a wave of nationwide protests.

The decision to relocate was a “strategic move” on the part of the government to shift focus away from the mounting anti-government demonstrations, says Chilean activist Angela Valenzuela. “Our president was not willing to listen to people and have an open dialogue,” she says. Valenzuela is an artist and a coordinator with Fridays for Future in Chile.

USA: A new study in the journal PLOS One says Glacier National Park’s iconic mountain goats are in dire need of air conditioning. Researchers from the University of Montana, Glacier National Park, and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) found that mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) in Glacier National Park seek out patches of snow in the summertime to reduce heat stress. When they do, breathing rates went down, a behavioral strategy that results in less energy expended: here.