Articles 2020

HAMBOURG — Depuis quelque temps déjà, les climatologues débattent d’une hypothèse inquiétante : le réchauffement climatique est-il en train de s’accélérer ? La Société allemande de physique et la Société météorologique allemande mettent désormais en garde contre ce phénomène dans une déclaration commune. L’hebdomadaire allemand Die Zeit s’est entretenu à ce sujet avec Klaus Richter, président de la Société allemande de physique, et Frank Böttcher, président de la Société météorologique allemande.

The decline in the health of nature around the world poses a threat to the UK's security and prosperity, an intelligence committee has concluded in a long-awaited report. The document warns of "cascading risks" from the degradation of some of the planet's most important ecosystems, including conflict, migration and increased competition for resources.

Like living beyond your financial means, using more water than nature can replenish can have catastrophic results.

Flagship report calls for fundamental reset of global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins beyond recovery

US demand to own Greenland leaves little scope for compromise, and forcing the issue would entail end of Nato Greenland, with a population of fewer than 57,000, might not seem to be the territory on which the future of the relationship between Europe and the US, the viability of Nato as the world’s most successful defence alliance, or even the fractured relations between the UK and Europe would be determined. But battlefields are sometimes the product of chance, rather than choice. It now feels as if Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on eight fellow Nato states for sending troops last week to support Greenland’s sovereignty may be one of those clarifying moments in which Europe had no option. Successive European leaders condemned Trump’s blackmail and intimidation on Sunday and they sounded as if they meant it.

Satellite analysis warns that widespread land subsidence threatens 1.6 billion people by 2040, with 86% of the at-risk population concentrated in Asia

The “Fueling Ecocide” investigation, led by Environmental Investigative Forum (EIF) and European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), reveals that oil and gas licences overlap with 7,000 protected areas worldwide. The total overlap is 690,000 km², an area bigger than the size of France — despite existing regulations and ongoing efforts to safeguard key biodiversity zones.

From floods to droughts, erratic weather patterns are affecting food security, with crop yields projected to fall if changes are not made

Rob Hopkins has spent the past decades exploring one question: what if we could fall in love with the future? As co-founder of Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes, and author of four books, he travels the world helping communities cultivate imagination, longing and possibility. He believes that the transition we so urgently need depends on one thing above all: imagination.

Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%

I always say that models are not predictions; they are qualitative illustrations of what the future could be. But as the future gets closer to the present, models can start being seen as predictive tools. It is the weather/climate dichotomy, so aptly exploited to confuse matters by politically minded people in the discussion about climate. Right now, we are getting close to the point that we could forecast a collapse in the same way as we can forecast the trajectory of a tropical storm. So, you remember how “The Limits to Growth” generated a long term forecast in 1972. Here it is

The UK has announced much harsher rules for asylum seekers including the prospect of more deportations for those whose applications fail. The US is trebling the size of its deportation force. The EU is doubling its border budgets. And in the coming decades, hundreds of millions of people might be displaced by ecological changes.

Antibiotic use in farming is now rampant. How meat is produced in China may mean the drugs you need here won’t work, says Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Brazil, advocacy groups are pushing for companies and governments to set meaningful emissions targets to lower emissions from livestock.

A climate-focused report out of Europe throws serious shade at plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars, pointing out that they emit nearly as much carbon dioxide emissions as combustion engine-powered vehicles. In fact, it highlights how real-world emissions from supposedly greener PHEVs has increased over the years above officially recorded figures to nearly five times. Yikes! The findings come from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), a clutch of non-government organizations focused on sustainable transport policy across the continent. The report has been published ahead of a review of automotive CO2 emission standards, which would see Europe continue to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles beyond 2035, when they're set to be phased out in order to meet EU climate targets.

German scientists warn global warming is accelerating faster than expected, raising the risk of a 3 °C rise by 2050 and forcing Europe to confront unthinkable adaptation plans.

The Production Gap Report finds that 10 years after the Paris Agreement, governments plan to produce more than double the volume of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, steering the world further from the Paris goals than the last such assessment in 2023.

Much attention today focuses on uncertainties affecting the future evolution of oil and natural gas demand, with less consideration given to how the supply picture could develop. However, understanding decline rates – the annual rate at which production declines from existing oil and gas fields – is crucial for assessing the outlook for oil and gas supply and, by extension, for market balances. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has long examined this issue, and a detailed understanding of decline rates is at the heart of IEA modelling and analysis, underpinning the insights provided by the scenarios in the World Energy Outlook. This new report – based on analysis of the production records of around 15 000 oil and gas fields around the world – explores the implications of accelerating decline rates, growing reliance on unconventional resources, and evolving project development patterns for the global oil and gas supply landscape, for energy security and for investment. It also provides regional insights

A UN commission has found Israel’s war in Gaza ranks among history’s greatest crimes. The UK government must stop hiding behind legal fictions and recognise the reality

De door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering maakte de droogte die Zuid-Europa dit voorjaar trof 10 keer waarschijnlijker. Dat besluiten klimaatwetenschappers van het collectief World Weather Attribution. Die droogte leidde tot verwoestende zomerbranden in onder andere Turkije, Griekenland en Cyprus. Als de klimaatverandering zich verder doorzet, dreigen zulke megabranden nog veel alledaagser te worden dan ze vandaag al zijn.