We start The Sustainable Hour no 388 on 10 November 2021 by listening to clips from Victorian Animal Justice Party’s MP Andy Meddick and City of Greater Geelong’s Councillor Belinda Moloney talking at Sunday’s Floating Gas Hub Protest Picnic at Moorpanyal Park which overlooks the channel where the LNG tankers will go if Viva’s proposed “floating gas hub” gets approved. To find out more about the Geelong Renewables Not Gas campaign, go to www.geelongrenewablesnotgas.org

Mik Aidt then starts a discussion on what will happen as the temperature rises – no joy there, but that’s where we are at. That’s why we face a climate emergency.

Our first guest today is John Pead in a live cross to an Extinction Rebellion protest action outside Health Minister Greg Hunt’s electoral office, where John he is the Police Liaison Officer. John very articulately describes the action he sees unfolding around him for us.

Our next guests are from Hobsons Bay. They are firstly young mum Deborah Frankel who successfully lobbied Council earlier this year to subsidise the cost of reusable nappies for residents and ratepayers in the jurisdiction. Deborah explains why she pitched this idea to council who unanimously approved the funding to allow it to go ahead.

Hobson Bay Mayor Jonathon Marsden gives his perspective on why Deborah’s project was accepted. He goes on to explain other sustainability initiatives that his council is undertaking in its quest to get its emissions as low as it possibly can. If you would like to find out more about Hobson Bay’s sustainability initiatives, go to www.hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook begins this week in Glasgow – where else? – where Greta Thunberg led a protest march of 100,000 mostly young people calling for more and faster action from COP26 which she described as the ‘Blah Blah Blah’ PR event of global leaders talking then flying out. There were more than 1,000 similar protest marches throughout the United Kingdom on the same subject. Meanwhile, the COP26 talks continue without world leaders except Boris Johnston.

Away from the protest heat, scientists have taken a cooler look at the talks so far, and their opinion was that this COP had made considerable progress – but not enough. They found a number of positives to come from the COP26 meetings and a momentum that seems to be real. There were increased national CO2 reductions commitments, as well as pledges to reduce methane and end deforestation, mostly found by credible analysts to have the potential to reduce warming. There was also significant movement on an international movement to kill off the coal power sector as fast as possible. If all the actions pledged at COP26 hold firm, global warming could peak at 1.9° degrees Celcius this century according to that analysis.

But that’s if every nation keeps its promises – and all the money pledged is forthcoming. And to put that 1.9° degrees into perspective, a pre-Glasgow analysis placed the world on a trajectory for a 2.7° degree temperature rise, while the talks’ objective was to hold it to below 1.5°C.

In India the Diwali Hindu festival of light has taken place against the background of COP26.