Watchdogs warn of rights violations as governments crack down on disruptive protests.
Misinformation by fossil fuel companies is slowing down the energy transition and global efforts to tackle climate change, warns the UN.
SAO PAULO, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The number of fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region surged to a record high for the month of July in almost two decades, government data showed on Thursday, amid a drought in the region fanned by climate change. The Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, plays a vital role in curbing global warming because of the vast amounts of greenhouse gas it absorbs.
Unprecedented wildfires in Canada and parts of Amazonia last year were at least three times more likely due to climate change and contributed to high levels of CO2 emissions from burning globally, according to the first edition of a new systematic annual review.
The temperatures of the Mediterranean Sea in recent days have reached heat records set last summer, the main Spanish maritime research center told AFP Tuesday, with marine heat waves in some places exceeding 30 degrees Celsius.
An extensive new multi-proxy database of paleo-temperature time series (Temperature 12k) enables a more robust analysis of global mean surface temperature (GMST) and associated uncertainties than was previously available. We applied five different statistical methods to reconstruct the GMST of the past 12,000 years (Holocene). Each method used different approaches to averaging the globally distributed time series and to characterizing various sources of uncertainty, including proxy temperature, chronology and methodological choices. The results were aggregated to generate a multi-method ensemble of plausible GMST and latitudinal-zone temperature reconstructions with a realistic range of uncertainties. The warmest 200-year-long interval took place around 6500 years ago when GMST was 0.7 °C (0.3, 1.8) warmer than the 19th Century (median, 5th, 95th percentiles). Following the Holocene global thermal maximum, GMST cooled at an average rate −0.08 °C per 1000 years (−0.24, −0.05). The multi-method ensembles and th
In Virginia, a small conservation group is leading the fight against the powerful and secretive data center industry.
UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies
The floods displaced more than 80,000 people, led to over 150,000 being injured and, on the 29th of May, to 169 fatalities with 44 people still missing (Governo do Estado de Rio Grande do Sul, 2024). Essential services were also disrupted, leaving 418,200 households without electricity and over a million consumer units without water. Dozens of municipalities lost telephone and internet services.
Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco experienced extreme heat in July 2024, causing at least 23 fatalities, widespread wildfires and bringing public life to a hold.
Research shows climate change carries greater risks for unborn babies than previously thought. Some of the alarming effects of global warming may include worsening health and wellbeing in later life.
The world is currently seeing the fastest-spreading, largest-ever outbreak of H5N1, a highly contagious, deadly strain of avian influenza. Scientists say this virus now presents an existential threat to the world’s biodiversity, with the risk to humans rising as it continues to leap the species barrier, reaching new host species.
The story of Greenland keeps getting greener—and scarier. A new study provides the first direct evidence that the center—not just the edges—of Greenland's ice sheet melted away in the recent geological past and the now-ice-covered island was then home to a green, tundra landscape.
Under current emission trajectories, temporarily overshooting the Paris global warming limit of 1.5 °C is a distinct possibility. Permanently exceeding this limit would substantially increase the probability of triggering climate tipping elements. Here, we investigate the tipping risks associated with several policy-relevant future emission scenarios, using a stylised Earth system model of four interconnected climate tipping elements. We show that following current policies this century would commit to a 45% tipping risk by 2300 (median, 10–90% range: 23–71%), even if temperatures are brought back to below 1.5 °C. We find that tipping risk by 2300 increases with every additional 0.1 °C of overshoot above 1.5 °C and strongly accelerates for peak warming above 2.0 °C. Achieving and maintaining at least net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2100 is paramount to minimise tipping risk in the long term. Our results underscore that stringent emission reductions in the current decade are critical for planetary stabili
La destruction de l'Amazonie est un phénomène qui s’étend au-delà de la déforestation mais les neuf pays qui partagent cette ressource naturelle sont engagés à la protéger.
The EU Observatory on deforestation and forest degradation aims to monitor changes in the world’s forest cover and related drivers. Besides providing access to global forest maps and spatial forest and forestry-related information, this Observatory will facilitate access to scientific information on supply chains, linking deforestation, forest degradation and changes in the world’s forest cover to Union demand for commodities and products. Data and information provided on this Observatory play a supporting role but do not assure compliance or imply non-compliance with EU Regulations, other legal frameworks or commitments, or international agreements.
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) helps communities hold oil and gas corporations accountable for the massive costs of climate change.
From farmers to disaster survivors, new plaintiffs and progressing lawsuits are putting pressure on industry polluters.
The airline blamed difficulties securing more efficient aircraft and sustainable jet fuel.
There is increasing concern that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may collapse this century with a disrupting societal impact on large parts of the world. Preliminary estimates of the probability of such an AMOC collapse have so far been based on conceptual models and statistical analyses of proxy data. Here, we provide observationally based estimates of such probabilities from reanalysis data. We first identify optimal observation regions of an AMOC collapse from a recent global climate model simulation. Salinity data near the southern boundary of the Atlantic turn out to be optimal to provide estimates of the time of the AMOC collapse in this model. Based on the reanalysis products, we next determine probability density functions of the AMOC collapse time. The collapse time is estimated between 2037-2064 (10-90% CI) with a mean of 2050 and the probability of an AMOC collapse before the year 2050 is estimated to be 59±17%.
In 2023, the CO2 growth rate was 3.37 ± 0.11 ppm at Mauna Loa, 86% above the previous year, and hitting a record high since observations began in 1958[1], while global fossil fuel CO2 emissions only increased by 0.6 ± 0.5%[2,3]....
The wildfire destruction to Jasper National Park has reverberated across all of Canada.
Temperatures reach 45C in parts of the country and 225 people seek treatment for heatstroke
Scientists now fear that there is little more than five years left to prevent irreversible climate damage and stark changes to the Earth’s weather patterns from global carbon emissions, Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan has warned.
A new study finds that the mining and processing of the metal critical to EV batteries and renewable energy storage projects depletes and contaminates surface water, often in already vulnerable communities.
Offsetting allows corporations to increase emissions, while getting credit for pseudo-reductions elsewhere
Sudden cut in pollution in 2020 meant less shade from sun and was ‘substantial’ factor in record surface temperatures in 2023, study finds
The contaminants have also recently been found in testes and semen amid concerns about falling male fertility
Scientists warn of ‘scary’ feedback loop in which fires create more heating, which causes more fires worldwide
Small increase in temperature of intruding water could lead to very big increase in loss of ice, scientists say
Melting of ice is slowing planet’s rotation and could disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS
Jakarta’s subsidence crisis illustrates the conflation of two threats: global climatic sea-level rise and the local environmental crisis. It also sheds light on the city’s longstanding issues of urban flooding and chronic piped water supply shortages.
As the climate crisis causes heavier and more frequent floods across the US, one in four small businesses are one disaster away from shutting down
Months of scorching temperatures sometimes over 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in parts of India this year left hundreds dead or ill. Official government records put the number of heat-related deaths this year as 110, but public health experts say that number is more likely in the thousands. Poor data collection methods and reporting are stopping the country from getting a more accurate picture of how deadly the heat is. Experts are concerned that it's hindering efforts to better prepare for future heat waves.
Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them
Warning after intensification of storm aided by unusually hot ocean waters in much of Beryl’s path. Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.
Breathless reporting on when the present global heat anomaly will begin to fall is understandable, given heat suffering around the world. However, fundamental issues are in question and a reflection on time scales is in order, for the sake of understanding ongoing climate change and actions that need to be taken.
A carbon bomb is any fossil fuel extraction project that will generate more than one gigatonne of carbon dioxide (1GtCO2) over its remaining life.
Numerous prominent petroleum geologists have been warning for years about the resources limitations of oil both in the U.S. and globally. It’s now looking like the wolf is nearing the door.
Monthly global surface air temperature anomalies (°C) relative to 1850–1900 from January 1940 to June 2024, plotted as time series for all 12-month periods spanning July to June of the following year. The 12 months from July 2023 to June 2024 are shown with a thick red line, while all other 12-month periods are shown with thin lines shaded according to the decade, from blue (1940s) to brick red (2020s).
Simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions are a threat to global food security. Concurrent weather extremes driven by a strongly meandering jet stream could trigger such events, but so far this has not been quantified. Specifically, the ability of state-of-the art crop and climate models to adequately reproduce such high impact events is a crucial component for estimating risks to global food security. Here we find an increased likelihood of concurrent low yields during summers featuring meandering jets in observations and models. While climate models accurately simulate atmospheric patterns, associated surface weather anomalies and negative effects on crop responses are mostly underestimated in bias-adjusted simulations. Given the identified model biases, future assessments of regional and concurrent crop losses from meandering jet states remain highly uncertain. Our results suggest that model-blind spots for such high-impact but deeply-uncertain hazards have to be anticipated and acc
Overexploitation and habitat loss pose extinction threats for migratory fish, birds and others, worldwide
New research shows the company’s scientists were as “skillful” as independent experts in predicting how the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet and bring about climate change.
Resilience here, then, is not the naïve faith in riding the storm and putting the world back together more or less as it was, issue by issue, but recognising the necessity to fundamentally reorganise and reorient human society in ways that can allow human flourishing and ecological sustainability in symbiotic and mutually supportive relations of reciprocity and regeneration - and in a multiplicity of ways.
Huge patches of forest in Tasmania have rapidly turned brown over recent months, with many trees dying after a dry summer. As climate change causes hotter and drier weather, can we expect more tree deaths in the future?
Economic growth allows the few to grow ever-wealthier. Ending poverty and environmental catastrophe demands fresh thinking
Blog edited by Sam Carana, with news on climate change and warming in the Arctic due to snow and ice loss and methane releases from the seafloor.
Mainstream media are ignoring a scientist who is whistleblowing the climate profession. During the five years since new kinds of activism brought the climate issue into the headlines like never before, the topic has more clearly become one where people respond due to their preexisting worldviews. It’s not just believers and sceptics, but there are those who think technology can save us, those who think it’s too late; those who think the science is clear, others who think it is open; those who believe humans will muddle through and those predicting human extinction. Climate scientists themselves now range from those emphasizing ‘we can do this’ to those that express their grief and outrage by gluing themselves to buildings. Meanwhile, misleading narratives are amplified by a variety of vested interests, including fossil fuels, nuclear, and clean tech. Climatologist Dr Wolfgang Knorr is an unusual voice in this cacophony because he has been ‘blowing the whistle’ on the climate science itself and how it is being
We must tackle the environmental nightmare of 4x4s by taxing them off the road, says George Monbiot.
Carbon Brief provides an updated analysis of when the world will likely exceed the Paris 1.5C limit
Summary for Policymakers. A Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Historical responsibility for climate change is radically shifted when colonial rule is taken into account, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
Since the Paris Agreement in 2016, the world’s 60 largest private banks financed fossil fuels with USD $6.9 trillion. Nearly half – $3.3 trillion – went towards fossil fuel expansion. In 2023, banks financed $705 billion in fossil fuel financing with $347 billion going to fossil fuel expansion alone.
Abstract. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles. We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report. We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activit
Natural ecosystems store large amounts of carbon globally, as organisms absorb carbon from the atmosphere to build large, long-lasting, or slow-decaying structures such as tree bark or root systems. An ecosystem’s carbon sequestration potential is tightly linked to its biological diversity. Yet when considering future projections, many carbon sequestration models fail to account for the role biodiversity plays in carbon storage. Here, we assess the consequences of plant biodiversity loss for carbon storage under multiple climate and land-use change scenarios. We link a macroecological model projecting changes in vascular plant richness under different scenarios with empirical data on relationships between biodiversity and biomass. We find that biodiversity declines from climate and land use change could lead to a global loss of between 7.44-103.14 PgC (global sustainability scenario) and 10.87-145.95 PgC (fossil-fueled development scenario). This indicates a self-reinforcing feedback loop, where higher levels
With current policies the Earth is on track to a warming of around 3 °C above preindustrial temperatures, a level of heat our planet has not seen for millions of years. Ecosystems, human society and infrastructure are not adapted to these temperatures. Due to non-linear effects, the impacts will be much more severe than just three times as bad as after 1 °C of warming. Land areas will continue to warm much more than the global average, many regions twice as much or even more. Extreme heat will become far more frequent and a major cause of human mortality, making large parts of the tropical land area essentially too hot to live. In addition, extreme rainfall and flooding, droughts, wildfires and harvest failures will increase in frequency and severity. The destructive power of tropical cyclones will also increase. Sea-level rise will accelerate further, and the destabilization of ice sheets will commit our descendants to loss of coastal cities and island nations. The risk of crossing devastating and irreversib
If currently implemented policies are continued with no increase in ambition, there is a 90% chance that the Earth will warm between 2.3°C and 4.5°C, with a best estimate of 3.5°C.
Women and gender-diverse people bear the brunt of climate change’s negative affects. If Australia wants to be taken seriously on climate action, this needs addressing.
“Timeless, masterful. . .A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller. Jacobsen expertly delivers a madman’s portrait of Armageddon, one made all the more impactful by the thought that it could literally occur at any moment. Almost novel-like in its presentation, Nuclear War: A Scenario represents the equivalent of an existential gut punch, a sickening and necessary reminder of how fragile every 21st century convenience becomes in the face of a blinding flash of light and near-instantaneous shockwave. Exhaustively researched and featuring interviews with professionals who truly understand just how close we continue to creep toward thermonuclear annihilation Nuclear War: A Scenario should be required reading for everyone alive today, especially for the politicians and policymakers who literally hold the precarious fate of our species in their hands.” — Forbes
This year elections are taking place across the globe, covering almost half of the world’s population. It is also likely to be, yet again, the hottest year recorded as the climate crisis intensifies. The Guardian asked young climate activists around the world what they want from the elections and whether politics is working in the fight to halt global heating.
Climate scientist Kevin Anderson is one of the world's leading authorities on carbon budgets. He told DW keeping global warming below 2 degrees is a choice — but it's one we have to make it fast.
The new report evokes a mild sense of urgency, calling on governments to mobilise finance to accelerate the uptake of green technology. But its conclusions are far removed from a direct interpretation of the IPCC’s own carbon budgets (the total amount of CO₂ scientists estimate can be put into the atmosphere for a given temperature rise).
In recent months we have seen lifechanging technological advances in the capabilities and use of artificial intelligence. At the same time, we are witnessing new, life-threatening risks as a result of AI – from the propagation of disinformation, to mass surveillance, to the prospect of lethal autono
Le sepsis est une affection potentiellement mortelle qui survient lorsque le système immunitaire réagit de façon extrême à une infection, entraînant une dysfonction d’organe (4). Cette réaction immunitaire provoque des lésions tissulaires et organiques et peut entraîner un état de choc, une défaillance multiviscérale et parfois le décès, surtout si elle n’est pas détectée tôt et traitée rapidement. Le sepsis peut toucher n’importe qui, mais les personnes âgées, les jeunes, les femmes enceintes ou les personnes souffrant d’autres problèmes de santé sont exposées à un risque plus élevé.
Insight and inspiration in turbulent times. People have widely varying beliefs about climate change. A surprising number still think that it’s a hoax, or that it’s a trivial problem. At the other end of the opinion spectrum, some say it signals the end of the world and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Between those extremes are lots of folks who believe climate change is a serious dilemma, but we can deal with it by installing solar panels, nuclear power, solar radiation management technologies, and/or machines to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, after which we will continue to live mostly the way we do today.
This essay takes up and extends an analysis of the ambitions of the energy transition presented during the conference entitled “L’erreur fondamentale de la transition”, held in Lausanne in December 2022, at the annual Switzerland ShiftersDay. The intervention questioned the conceptualization of energy transition, given possible inaccuracies, or errors in the categorization of reality. It is not certain that the energy contained in the wind, solar radiation, or atoms is equivalent to hydrocarbon energy for human societalneeds. Although all energies are theoretically convertible into one another, the assumption that any type of energy can always be replaced by another is likely to prove false. An energy transition based on the substitution of energies would then be inconceivable.
Climate Obstruction Across Europe, coordinated by the Climate Social Science Network (CSSN), is the first book to document the development and nature of climate obstruction activities across Europe, which are efforts to deliberately slow or block climate action. Climate obstruction strategies range from outright denial to more subtle forces of delay and the spread of disinformation
As the public conversation on climate change evolves, so too does the sophistication and range of arguments used to downplay or discount the need for action (McKie, Reference McKie2019; Norgaard, Reference Norgaard2011). A mainstay of this counter-movement has been outright denial of the reality or human causation of climate change (Farrell et al., Reference Farrell, McConnell and Brulle2019), supplemented by climate-impact scepticism (Harvey et al., Reference Harvey, Van Den Berg, Ellers, Kampen, Crowther, Roessingh and Mann2018) and ad hominem attacks on scientists and the scientific consensus (Oreskes & Conway, Reference Oreskes and Conway2011). A fourth strategy has received relatively little attention to date: policy-focused discourses that exploit contemporary discussions on what action should be taken, how fast, who bears responsibility and where costs and benefits should be allocated (Bohr, Reference Bohr2016; Jacques & Knox, Reference Jacques and Knox2016; McKie, Reference McKie2019). We call these ‘
Climate Obstruction Across Europe, coordinated by the Climate Social Science Network (CSSN) and published via Oxford University Press, reveals extensive networks impeding climate action within the region and surrounding states. In Italy and Germany, far-right networks spread misinformation by questioning climate science’s validity, while in Spain and the UK, blame-shifting and deflecting responsibility for climate action are common. European-based fossil fuel industries, like Shell, engage in greenwashing, by framing gas as a ‘bridging technology crucial for the energy transition’, delaying genuine progress.
China’s CO2 emissions fell by 3% in March 2024, ending a 14-month surge that began when the economy reopened after the nation’s “zero-Covid”
Human-caused climate crisis brought soaring temperatures across Asia, from Gaza to Delhi to Manila
Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before—shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies.
Cultured meat is an emerging biotechnology that aims to produce meat from animal cell culture, rather than from the raising and slaughtering of livestock, on environmental and animal welfare grounds. The detailed understanding and accurate manipulation of cell biology are critical to the design of cultured meat bioprocesses. Recent years have seen significant interest in this field, with numerous scientific and commercial breakthroughs. Nevertheless, these technologies remain at a nascent stage, and myriad challenges remain, spanning the entire bioprocess. From a cell biological perspective, these include the identification of suitable starting cell types, tuning of proliferation and differentiation conditions, and optimization of cell–biomaterial interactions to create nutritious, enticing foods. Here, we discuss the key advances and outstanding challenges in cultured meat, with a particular focus on cell biology, and argue that solving the remaining bottlenecks in a cost-effective, scalable fashion will req
Winter downpours also made 20% wetter and will occur every three years without urgent carbon cuts, experts warn
Sharp declines in critical mineral prices mask risks of future supply strains as energy transitions advance - News from the International Energy Agency
‘Catastrophic’ global decline due to dams, mining, diverting water and pollution threatens humans and ecosystems, study warns
Europe is no exception when it comes to the consequences of climate change. It is the fastest warming continent, with temperatures rising at around twice the global average rate.
The modern agricultural production system relies heavily on the use of synthetic pesticides, but over the course of recent decades various concerns have been raised on the associated negative externalities touching a variety of dimensions, such as human health and the environment. Yet, the magnitude of those effects is still unclear and data availability is scattered and heterogenous across dimensions, regions, and time. The public sector is called upon to develop and implement strategies to face those externalities and their associated social costs. This study aims to provide an assessment of social costs of pesticides in France in the prospect of an integration to the public budget spending, helping public authorities to identify financial flows of public funding with an impact perspective, within a methodological framework based on the social norms at the core of the public system. The results show that the social costs attributable to synthetic pesticide use in France amounted to 372 million euros, of whi
Global temperature (12-month mean) is still rising at 1.56°C relative to 1880-1920 in the GISS analysis through April (Fig. 1). [Robert Rohde reports that it is 1.65°C relative to 1850-1900 in the BerkeleyEarth analysis.[3]] Global temperature is likely to continue to rise a bit for at least a month, peak this summer, and then decline as the El Nino fades toward La Nina. Acceleration of global warming is now hard to deny. The GISS 12-month temperature is now 0.36°C above the 0.18°C/decade trend line, which is 3.6 times the standard deviation (0.1°C). Confidence in global warming acceleration thus exceeds 99%, but we need to see how far temperature falls with the next La Nina before evaluating the post-2010 global warming rate.
An intense heat wave gripping South and South-East Asia since late March comes as no surprise to leading meteorologists who have been warning of steadily rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean.
Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’
Record-breaking temperatures were recorded across the globe in 2023. Without climate action, adverse climate-related health impacts are expected to worsen worldwide, affecting billions of people. Temperatures in Europe are warming at twice the rate of the global average, threatening the health of populations across the continent and leading to unnecessary loss of life. The Lancet Countdown in Europe was established in 2021, to assess the health profile of climate change aiming to stimulate European social and political will to implement rapid health-responsive climate mitigation and adaptation actions. In 2022, the collaboration published its indicator report, tracking progress on health and climate change via 33 indicators and across five domains.
Climate scientists have told the Guardian they expect catastrophic levels of global heating. Here’s what that would mean for the planet
Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds
Here, we show that the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) provides a stronger constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), the global warming from increasing greenhouse gases, after accounting for temperature patterns. Feedbacks governing ECS depend on spatial patterns of surface temperature (“pattern effects”); hence, using the LGM to constrain future warming requires quantifying how temperature patterns produce different feedbacks during LGM cooling versus modern-day warming. Combining data assimilation reconstructions with atmospheric models, we show that the climate is more sensitive to LGM forcing because ice sheets amplify extratropical cooling where feedbacks are destabilizing. Accounting for LGM pattern effects yields a median modern-day ECS of 2.4°C, 66% range 1.7° to 3.5°C (1.4° to 5.0°C, 5 to 95%), from LGM evidence alone. Combining the LGM with other lines of evidence, the best estimate becomes 2.9°C, 66% range 2.4° to 3.5°C (2.1° to 4.1°C, 5 to 95%), substantially narrowing uncertainty compared t
Exclusive: Survey of hundreds of experts reveals harrowing picture of future, but they warn climate fight must not be abandoned
Editorial: Top experts believe global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. That frightening prediction must spur us to action
RealClimate: For various reasons I'm motivated to provide an update on my current thinking regarding the slowdown and tipping point of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). I attended a two-day AMOC session at the IUGG Conference the week before last, there's been interesting new papers, and in the light of that I have been changing
The Global Tipping Points Report was launched at COP28 on 6 December 2023. The report is an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society. Global Tipping Points is led by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with the support of more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries.
Jumping into the future head first, blindfolded, handcuffed, and in darkness
Mitigating climate change necessitates global cooperation, yet global data on individuals’ willingness to act remain scarce. In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. Countries facing heightened vulnerability to climate change show a particularly high willingness to contribute. Despite these encouraging statistics, we document that the world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, wherein individuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act. This perception gap, combined with individuals showing conditionally cooperative behaviour, poses challenges to further climate action. Therefore, raising awareness about the broad global support for climat
Unesco joint research dating back 15 years found violence and intimidation against about 750 reporters and 44 murders
Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed. Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.
Fear appeals are a polarizing issue, with proponents confident in their efficacy and opponents confident that they backfire. We present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis investigating fear appeals' effectiveness for influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. We tested predictions f …
Knowing how to appeal to apocalyptic fear, political fear, and private fear will help a leader name reality in a credible manner and assess which fear to prioritize at a given time.
Over the past 50 years, humans have extracted the Earth’s groundwater stocks at a steep rate, largely to fuel global agro-economic development. Given society’s growing reliance on groundwater, we explore ‘peak water limits’ to investigate whether, when and where humanity might reach peak groundwater extraction. Using an integrated global model of the coupled human–Earth system, we simulate groundwater withdrawals across 235 water basins under 900 future scenarios of global change over the twenty-first century. Here we find that global non-renewable groundwater withdrawals exhibit a distinct peak-and-decline signature, comparable to historical observations of other depletable resources (for example, minerals), in nearly all (98%) scenarios, peaking on average at 625 km3 yr−1 around mid-century, followed by a decline through 2100. The peak and decline occur in about one-third (82) of basins, including 21 that may have already peaked, exposing about half (44%) of the global population to groundwater stress. Most
Plastics in the marine environment have become a major concern because of their persistence at sea, and adverse consequences to marine life and potentially human health. Implementing mitigation strategies requires an understanding and quantification of marine plastic sources, taking spatial and temporal variability into account. Here we present a global model of plastic inputs from rivers into oceans based on waste management, population density and hydrological information. Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies. Rivers provide a m
Decarbonization efforts and sustainability transformations represent highly contested socio-political projects. Yet, they often encounter various forms of depoliticization. This article illuminates how a grand socio-ecological challenge like the energy transition gets depoliticized by an unusual suspect, namely Germany's Green Party. Based on a qualitative content analysis of Green Party programs, party conventions, and additional documents published between 1980 and 2021, this article traces how the Green Party has depoliticized the energy transition over time, emphasizing a shift from radical societal change to ecological modernization. The changing stance of the German Greens on the country's energy transition reflects more profound changes of a future society the party collectively envisions through their energy and climate change agenda. These changes result from a struggle between moderates advocating incremental political reforms and radicals aiming for more fundamental and systemic societal change.
Cost of environmental damage will be six times higher than price of limiting global heating to 2C, study finds
Global projections of macroeconomic climate-change damages typically consider impacts from average annual and national temperatures over long time horizons1–6. Here we use recent empirical findings from more than 1,600 regions worldwide over the past 40 years to project sub-national damages from temperature and precipitation, including daily variability and extremes7,8. Using an empirical approach that provides a robust lower bound on the persistence of impacts on economic growth, we find that the world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent of future emission choices (relative to a baseline without climate impacts, likely range of 11–29% accounting for physical climate and empirical uncertainty). These damages already outweigh the mitigation costs required to limit global warming to 2 °C by sixfold over this near-term time frame and thereafter diverge strongly dependent on emission choices. Committed damages arise predominantly through changes in average tempe
Marcus Decker dared to protest the climate crisis and was punished. Now he could be deported, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
This report written by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Oliver Wyman, provides an in-depth economic analysis of how climate change will reshape health landscapes over the next two decades. It highlights increased risks from new pathogens, pollution and extreme weather events and shows how these will exacerbate current health inequities, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable populations.
The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by 2030
Oil in the North Sea is expected to be net-energy negative by 2031. This means that in 2031, it’ll cost more energy to extract the fossil fuels than we would gain by using them, rendering extraction unfeasibly expensive. Yet, rather than use our remaining years of access to these fuels to turbo-charge new energy infrastructure, fossil fuels are being extracted and burned for business as usual: quick cash. Around the world, the lights will go off in nations that don’t have back-up renewables. That’s most of them.
Over the past year, there has been a vigorous debate among scientists – and more broadly – about whether global warming is “accelerating”.
A long-term sea level dataset shows ocean surface heights continuing to rise at faster and faster rates over decades of observations. Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023, a relatively large jump due mostly to a warming climate and the development of a strong El Niño. The total rise is equivalent to draining a quarter of Lake Superior into the ocean over the course of a year.
Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled
If the anomaly does not stabilise by August, ‘the world will be in uncharted territory’, says climate expert
Carbon Brief explores which countries are or have targets to be net-negative, and the moral and scientific arguments for such a milestone.
The rapid growth of clean energy technologies is driving a rising demand for critical minerals. In 2022 at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), seven major economies formed an alliance to enhance the sustainability of mining these essential decarbonization minerals. However, there is a scarcity of studies assessing the threat of mining to global biodiversity. By integrating a global mining dataset with great ape density distribution, we estimated the number of African great apes that spatially coincided with industrial mining projects. We show that up to one-third of Africa’s great ape population faces mining-related risks. In West Africa in particular, numerous mining areas overlap with fragmented ape habitats, often in high-density ape regions. For 97% of mining areas, no ape survey data are available, underscoring the importance of increased accessibility to environmental data within the mining sector to facilitate research into the complex interactions betw
New research suggests 75% of the rainforest has become less resilient to stress since the early 2000s.
A recent paper suggested damaging climate tipping points could be closer than first thought.
Humanity at risk if we keep thinking everything is under control
We ran computer programs that simulate ecosystems 70,000 times and the results are very worrying.
Environmental pledges are being shredded to please agribusiness and appease extremists. It’s a terrible mistake, says environmental writer Arthur Neslen
World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds
An international team of scientists has warned against relying on nature providing straightforward 'early warning' indicators of a climate disaster, as new mathematical modeling shows new fascinating aspects of the complexity of the dynamics of climate. It suggests that the climate system could be more unpredictable than previously thought.
Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed. Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed.
.Contribution to (a) effective radiative forcing (ERF) and (b) global surface temperature change from component emissions for1750–2019based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models and (c) net aerosol ERF for 1750–2014 from different lines of evidence.
Dr Sarah Benn has long been concerned about the climate crisis, diligently recycling until she was “blue in the face”. But the rise of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion in 2019 inspired her and her husband to go further. “We thought: well, if we don’t do it then who else is going to?”
Bengaluru has a huge chunk of the country's techies, who have flocked to the IT hub for the opportunities it offers. Now, they are looking at work-from-home options
Elizabeth Kolbert on a record-breaking rise in global sea-surface temperatures, which suggests that scientists may not understand how fast the climate is changing.
Evidence shows a continuing increase in the frequency and severity of global heatwaves1,2, raising concerns about the future impacts of climate change and the associated socioeconomic costs3,4. Here we develop a disaster footprint analytical framework by integrating climate, epidemiological and hybrid input–output and computable general equilibrium global trade models to estimate the midcentury socioeconomic impacts of heat stress. We consider health costs related to heat exposure, the value of heat-induced labour productivity loss and indirect losses due to economic disruptions cascading through supply chains. Here we show that the global annual incremental gross domestic product loss increases exponentially from 0.03 ± 0.01 (SSP 245)–0.05 ± 0.03 (SSP 585) percentage points during 2030–2040 to 0.05 ± 0.01–0.15 ± 0.04 percentage points during 2050–2060. By 2060, the expected global economic losses reach a total of 0.6–4.6% with losses attributed to health loss (37–45%), labour productivity loss (18–37%) and i
Global investment in the clean energy transition grew by 17% in 2023, showing resilience despite geopolitical tensions, high interest rates, and inflation. But was it enough to keep the world on track to hit net zero by 2050? To answer this question, we compare 2023 clean energy investment by sector with what’s annually needed to reach net zero by 2050, in partnership with the National Public Utilities Council.
Dangers of wildfires, extreme weather and other factors outgrowing preparedness, European Environment Agency says
Activist accuses Sweden of being ‘very good at greenwashing’ as group sits outside building’s main entrance. Greta Thunberg has accused Sweden of being “very good at greenwashing” as she staged a protest along with about 50 other activists outside her home country’s parliament.
European and US oil and gas majors have made profits of more than a quarter of a trillion dollars since Russia invaded Ukraine, according to a new analysis by Global Witness marking two years since the conflict began. After posting record gains in 2022 off the back of soaring energy prices, the big five fossil fuel companies paid shareholders an unprecedented $111 billion in 2023. In the hottest year ever recorded, this figure is some 158 times what was pledged to vulnerable nations at last year’s COP28 climate summit.
Microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) are emerging as a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease in preclinical studies. Direct evidence that this risk extends to humans is lacking.
Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteries
EN
New study reveals insight into which animals are most vulnerable to extinction due to climate change
(08/03) - University of OxfordA new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has used the fossil record to better understand what factors make animals more vulnerable to extinction from climate change. The results, published today in the journal Science, could help to identify species most at risk today from human-driven climate change.
Scientists have been debating the start of the Anthropocene Epoch for 15 years. I was part of those discussions, and I agree with the vote rejecting it.
In a previous post, I defined this graph as “the most amazing graph of the 21st century.” It shows how the US oil production restarted growing in 2010, picking up speed and surpassing the historical record of the “Hubbert Peak,” which took place in 1970. It overcame the dip caused by the Covid pandemic and, two years after my first post on this subject, it keeps growing.
Current methods to calculate the so-called social cost of carbon largely leave out how many future people our emissions will kill. This study tries to correct that.
All local communities affected by mining projects should have the right to have a say on whether mining activities will start or continue in their backyard. This belief in community involvement in political, economic, and environmental decision-making is epitomised in a Right to Say No (RTSN), which is the inalienable and collective right of a community to say no (or yes) to extractive projects on the territories/lands they are living within. Currently, there is no real ‘Right’ to Say No outside of iterations of the indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — it is a right we are asserting, not something we can yet claim. This toolbox will elaborate on the rights local communities already have and those rights that still need to be recognised and enforced, to establish a Right to Say No.
ELDORADO - The Struggle for Skouries is an urgent documentary chronicling the struggle against environmental destruction through high-risk gold mining at Europe's largest mining project located in Northern Greece. Chronicling the resistance against high-risk gold extraction and the criminalization of the anti-mining movement by the Greek government, it is an urgent document of neoliberal ideals and human rights abuses playing out in one of the most crisis-ridden countries of Europe. Find out more here: www.eldorado-documentary.com
Near-real time updates of key global climate variables from the the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
A UN meeting this week considered a motion on a suite of technologies known as ‘solar radiation modification’, but no consensus could be reached on the controversial topic.
We owe all children a planet Earth as wonderful as the one we have enjoyed!
You would think that we have more than sufficient troubles caused by global warming, pollution, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, ecosystem disruption and a few more. But there is a problem that’s not directly related to the natural world, but by a purely human construction: the financial market. Here is a discussion by Ian Schindler — maître de conference émérite (emeritus professor of mathematics) at the University of Toulouse 1, France, who proposes that we are close to a financial collapse.
Marine heat waves will become a regular occurrence in the Arctic in the near future and are a product of higher anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a study just released by Dr. Armineh Barkhordarian from Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS. Since 2007, conditions in the Arctic have shifted, as confirmed by data recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Between 2007 and 2021, the marginal zones of the Arctic Ocean experienced 11 marine heat waves, producing an average temperature rise of 2.2 degrees Celsius above seasonal norm and lasting an average of 37 days. Since 2015, there have been Arctic marine heat waves every year.
In Munich I heard both Ukrainians and Alexei Navalny’s widow tell us why Putin must be defeated, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash
Temperatures in Iran are hitting record highs, rivers and lakes are drying up, and prolonged droughts are becoming the norm, highlighting a water crisis that is turning much of the country’s territory to dust. The desertification of Iran is occurring at a staggering pace, with officials last month warning that more than 1 million hectares of the country’s territory -- roughly equivalent to the size of Qom Province or Lebanon -- is essentially becoming uninhabitable every year.
Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible
Scientists now have a better understanding of the risks ahead and a new early warning signal to watch for.
The Amazon rainforest is facing a barrage of pressures that might tip it into large-scale ecosystem collapse as soon as 2050, according to new research Wednesday warning of dire consequences for the region and the world. The Amazon, which holds more than 10 percent of the world's biodiversity, helps stabilize the global climate by storing the equivalent of around two decades of emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), called today on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza. Addressing the Council at its monthly meeting on Gaza, Lockyear also called for the unequivocal protection of medical facilities, staff, and patients. “Meeting after meeting, resolution after resolution, this body has failed to effectively address this conflict,” Lockyear said. “We have watched members of this Council deliberate and delay while civilians die. This death, destruction, and forced displacement are the result of military and political choices that blatantly disregard civilian lives. These choices could have been—and still can be—made very differently.” After more than four months of war, nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza amid Israel’s constant bombing and attacks. Approximately 1.7 million people—nearly 75 percent of the population—are estimated to be forcibly displace
Since the eradication of smallpox, there have been increases in poxvirus infections and the emergence of several novel poxviruses that can infect humans and domestic animals. In 2015, a novel poxvirus was isolated from a resident of Alaska. Diagnostic testing and limited sequence analysis suggested …
EN
In a world built by plutocrats, the powerful are protected while vengeful laws silence their critics
(02/02) - George MonbiotIn the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
The planetary boundaries concept presents a set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come
Annual Conference 2023 "THE FAILURE OF GREEN CAPITALISM: FINDINGS, OBJECTIONS, ALTERNATIVES"15 September 2023Chair: Sighard Neckel (Spokesperson DFG Humaniti...
A post for the anniversary of the execution of Sophie Scholl by the German Nazis in 1943
As space travel and lunar exploration becomes a near-future reality, we should consider the impact of human activities on the lunar environment.
The auto industry is making too many cars powered by fossil fuels.
Rapid ocean warming and unusually hot winter days recorded as human-made global heating combines with El Niño
Companies knew for decades recycling was not viable but promoted it regardless, Center for Climate Integrity study finds
Anthropogenic emissions drive global-scale warming yet the temperature increase relative to pre-industrial levels is uncertain. Using 300 years of ocean mixed-layer temperature records preserved in sclerosponge carbonate skeletons, we demonstrate that industrial-era warming began in the mid-1860s, more than 80 years earlier than instrumental sea surface temperature records. The Sr/Ca palaeothermometer was calibrated against ‘modern’ (post-1963) highly correlated (R2 = 0.91) instrumental records of global sea surface temperatures, with the pre-industrial defined by nearly constant (<±0.1 °C) temperatures from 1700 to the early 1860s. Increasing ocean and land-air temperatures overlap until the late twentieth century, when the land began warming at nearly twice the rate of the surface oceans. Hotter land temperatures, together with the earlier onset of industrial-era warming, indicate that global warming was already 1.7 ± 0.1 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2020. Our result is 0.5 °C higher than IPCC estim
Here are the real reasons we’re not building clean energy anywhere near fast enough.
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others. Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction.
RealClimate: A new paper was published in Science Advances today. Its title says what it is about: "Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course." The study follows one by Danish colleagues which made headlines last July, likewise looking for early warning signals for approaching an AMOC tipping point (we discussed it here),
Exclusive: Meeting took place days after BP reported record profits while households were squeezed by high energy bills
Climate records tumbled "like dominoes" in 2023, with temperatures far above any recorded level.
The global economy urgently needs to bend its emissions curve downwards
Existing production destroys more value than it creates due to medical and environmental costs, researchers say
There was an interesting interview with Gavin Schmidt recently. He is one of the most senior climatologists in the world, heading up NASA’s department on climate science. Refreshingly, unlike the other senior climatologists, he didn’t sidestep how recent weather was not predicted by mainstream climatology. He told the American science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson that climatology significantly underpredicted current warming. He said there was “total failure” to predict what happened in 2023. See for yourself, for 3 minutes from 4 minutes in. Gavin is one of the more approachable of the senior climatologists. He provided specific written criticisms of my 2018 Deep Adaptation paper. That was in stark contrast to others who misrepresented it, and me, so as to discourage people from considering that the party is over for modern societies.
EUCityCalc has officially launched its free, open source online platform that allows local councils and other stakeholders to visualise and simulate low-carbon scenarios for their towns and cities, as well as to assess the trade-offs related to available choices.
The European Commission has received an open letter signed by 110 academics, businesses, civil society organisations and research institutions urging the EU to separate emissions reductions, land-based sequestration and permanent carbon removals in the EU’s post-2030 climate framework. This separation should be at the heart of both the setting and the implementation of the 2040 target and associated plans.
At a time when we need to shift our collective climate action up a gear, the influence of the fossil fuels lobby is succeeding in slowing down ambition both at COP27 and in the EU.
Overall losses from natural disasters in 2023: US$ 250bn; more than 74,000 fatalities Insured global losses of US$ 95bn close to five-year average (US$ 105bn) and above the ten-year average (US$ 90bn) Earthquake in Turkey and Syria was the year’s most devastating humanitarian disaster Thunderstorms in North America and Europe more destructive than ever before: overall losses of US$ 76bn; insured losses US$ 58bn 2023 was the hottest year ever, with a large number of regional records broken
The Goddess is said to be benevolent and merciful, but she may get angry and become cruel and ruthless. We are used to discussing major events that may destroy civilization, or even the whole humankind. Most are related to global warming: tipping points, “hothouse Earth,” famines, tsunamis, and all the rest. Then, there are other human-made disasters, including the nuclear holocaust and homemade exterminations that can be carried out with simple tools such as machetes. Recently, it became fashionable to cite artificial intelligence as a threat to human beings.
DataBank is an analysis and visualisation tool that contains collections of time series data on a variety of topics. You can create your own queries; generate tables, charts, and maps; and easily save, embed, and share them. Enjoy using DataBank and let us know what you think!
The new version of the “Seneca Effect” blog on Substack is doing reasonably well, so I thought it was time to prepare a page that explains what the Seneca Effect is and what it can teach us. (image by Dall-E) During the 1st Century AD, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca observed the start of the disintegration of the Roman Empire. It was a process that would take a few more centuries to complete, but that was already evident to those who were willing to look beyond the surface of the still powerful Empire.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) have been the subject of endless hype in recent years but in fact, no SMRs have ever been built, none are being built now and in all likelihood none will ever be built because of the prohibitive costs. SMRs are defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) or less with serial factory production of reactor components (or ‘modules’). No SMRs have been built, but dozens of small (<300 MW) power reactors have been built in numerous countries, without factory production of reactor components.
Total is 20% higher than thought and may have implications for collapse of globally important north Atlantic ocean currents The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences for humanity.
To truly evaluate your impact on the environment, you have to go way beyond recycle bins and energy bills...
New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.
Exclusive: First months of conflict produced more planet-warming gases than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in a year, study shows
Jacqueline “Jackie” Gerson knows very well how “artisanal gold mining” sounds to people who haven’t heard the phrase before.
Biotech firms are using climate goals opportunistically in an attempt to force through the deregulation of genetically modified crops.
A focus on economic stability in the near-term makes the climate crisis worse in the long-term.
James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s
Last year I was fortunate enough to be joined by four remarkable women in the British environmental movement. We were speaking at a Deep Adaptation conference in Glastonbury. The way the discussion…
An easy way to start a long, heated debate is to mention global population. Thomas Malthus famously ignited furious arguments in the eighteenth century when
Population likely to peak sooner and lower than expected with beneficial results – but environment is priority
This year's heat and drought in the Amazon intensify worries that it is approaching a tipping point.
A new paper published in the journal Science has warned that melting areas in the Arctic have become 'frontlines for resource extraction', describing it as a 'modern day gold rush'.
In recent years, droughts have had substantial impacts on nearly all regions of the EU, affecting several critical systems such as agriculture, water supply, energy, river transport, and ecosystems. These impacts are projected to further increase due to climate change. While some of the drivers of drought risk are well known for some systems and regions, drought risks and impacts remain hard to assess and quantify. The European Drought Risk Atlas is a step towards impact-based drought assessment and can support the development and implementation of drought management and adaptation policies and actions. It characterises how drought hazard, exposure and vulnerability interact and affect different but interconnected systems: agriculture, public water supply, energy, riverine transport, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The Atlas presents both a conceptual and quantitative approach to drought risk for these systems. The conceptual drought risk models (impact chains) are the result of a review of the literat
The State of the Cryosphere 2023 – Two Degrees is Too High report shows that all of the Earth’s frozen parts will experience irreversible damage at 2°C of global warming, with disastrous consequences for millions of people, societies, and nature. Confirming that just 2°C of global warming will trigger irreversible loss to Earth’s ice sheets, mountain glaciers and snow, sea ice, permafrost, and polar oceans, it updates the latest science and highlights the global impacts from cryosphere loss.
the starkest warning yet that human activity is pushing Earth into a climate crisis that could threaten the lives of up to 6 billion people this century, stating candidly: “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.” Writing in the journal Biosciences, the coalition of 12 researchers, spanning North America, Europe and Asia, state in unusually stark language: “As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023.”
Global warming is accelerating because the drive for warming, Earth’s energy imbalance, has doubled in the past decade. Measurement of the acceleration is hampered by unforced tropical (El Nino/La Nina) variability, but a good measuring stick is provided by warming between successive large El Ninos. Strengthening of the current (2023-24) El Nino has raised it to a level similar to the 1997-98 and 2015-16 El Ninos. The first six months of the current El Nino are 0.39°C warmer than the same six months of the 2015-16 El Nino, a global warming rate of 0.49°C/decade, consistent with expectation of a large acceleration of global warming. We expect the 12-month mean temperature by May 2024 to eliminate any doubt about global warming acceleration. Subsequent decline of the 12-month temperature below 1.5°C will likely be limited, confirming that the 1.5°C limit has already been passed.
Alberta owns a new record. The province is home to an abandoned and unplugged gas well that leaks methane, an explosive greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere at the highest rate ever recorded in North America.
New path to transition away from fossil fuels marred by lack of finance and loopholes COP28 in Dubai sends an important signal on the end of fossil fuels but leaves more questions than answers on how to ensure a fair and funded transition that is based on science and equity
The critical annual update revealing the latest trends in global carbon emissions
Oil cartel warns ‘pressure may reach a tipping point’ and that ‘politically motivated campaigns put our prosperity’ at risk
Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms
Without a phase out of fossil fuels, by 2100, 1 in 12 hospitals worldwide will be at high risk of total or partial shutdown from extreme weather events — a total of 16,245 hospitals. Without a phase out of fossil fuels, all of these 16,245 hospitals will require adaptation, where suitable. Even with this enormous investment, for many, relocation will be the only option.
The effect of increasing the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on global average surface air temperature might be expected to be constant, but this is not the case. A study published in the journal Science shows that carbon dioxide becomes a more potent greenhouse gas as more is released into the atmosphere.
We owe all children a planet Earth as wonderful as the one we have enjoyed!
After yet another summer of increased extreme weather events caused by the burning of fossil fuels, some of the world’s richest oil and gas companies are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up their extraction of new oil and gas.
Referring to the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping Earth from warming no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, the number has become a rallying cry for climate advocates and scientists, who say the goal is humanity’s best bet on avoiding the most catastrophic outcomes of climate change by the end of the century. Venturing even 0.5 degrees past that threshold could drastically increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather, biodiversity loss, famine and water scarcity, as well as make it more likely that tipping points accelerate warming further, climate scientists say.
With the help of the contingency concept, the article explores the reasons behind these surprises by introducing a new category of threats that complements the ones in the existing literature on surprise. It adds the concept of ‘known—corporally unknown’ threats to the list of known-unknowns, unknown-unknowns as a way to emsphasize the difference between abstract knowledge of ‘facts and figures’ (of e.g., global warming) and the acquiring of knowledge through personal, bodily experience (tangere) (of flooding and draughts). T
Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’
After all, Western economies – and their economic growth – depend utterly on labour and resources from the South...
Plastic waste in aquatic environments may be severely disrupting the reproductive behavior of marine animals.
Societies and political structures, like the humans they serve, appear to become more fragile as they age, according to an analysis of hundreds of pre-modern societies.
World Meteorological Organization says 2023 will be hottest year on record, leaving ‘trail of devastation and despair’
UN Climate Change News, 14 November 2023 – A new report from UN Climate Change finds national climate action plans remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Even with increased efforts by some countries, the report shows much more action is needed now to bend the world’s emissions trajectory further downward and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
In 1987, the Montreal Protocol established a ban on substances responsible for destroying the ozone layer, which is essential for protection against the sun’s rays.
It’s obscene that the super-rich can criminalise protest, while they burn the world’s resources and remain untouched by the law, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”. Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.
Daily atmospheric carbon dioxide data from Hawaiian volcano more than double last decade’s annual average
Some research suggests that while fear can prompt us to spring into action, hope actually gives us something to do.
Link to climate activism is seven times stronger for anger than it is for hope, say Norwegian researchers
Global fall averaged 4.2% between 2010 and 2022 but would have been far more if vehicle sizes stayed same
Policy-makers seeking to limit the impact of coal electricity-generating units (EGUs, also known as power plants) on air quality and climate justify regulations by quantifying the health burden attributable to exposure from these sources. We defined “coal PM2.5” as fine particulate matter associated with coal EGU sulfur dioxide emissions and estimated annual exposure to coal PM2.5 from 480 EGUs in the US. We estimated the number of deaths attributable to coal PM2.5 from 1999 to 2020 using individual-level Medicare death records representing 650 million person-years. Exposure to coal PM2.5 was associated with 2.1 times greater mortality risk than exposure to PM2.5 from all sources. A total of 460,000 deaths were attributable to coal PM2.5, representing 25% of all PM2.5-related Medicare deaths before 2009 and 7% after 2012. Here, we quantify and visualize the contribution of individual EGUs to mortality.
World Meteorological Organization sees ‘no end in sight to the rising trend’, largely driven by fossil fuel burning
The fate, effects, and treatment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), an anthropogenic class of chemicals used in industrial and commercial production, are topics of great interest in recent research and news cycles. This interest stems from the ubiquity of PFAS in the global environment as well as their significant toxicological effects in humans and wildlife. Research on toxicity, sequestration, removal, and degradation of PFAS has grown rapidly, leading to a flood of valuable knowledge that can get swamped out in the perpetual rise in the number of publications. Selected papers from the Journal of Hazardous Materials between January 2018 and May 2022 on the toxicity, sequestration, and degradation of PFAS are reviewed in this article and made available as open-access publications for one year, in order to facilitate the distribution of critical knowledge surrounding PFAS. This review discusses routes of toxicity as observed in mammalian and cellular models, and the observed human health effects i
Mapped: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Around the World According to Our World in Data, the global population emits about 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) each year. Where does all this CO₂ come from? This graphic by Adam Symington maps out carbon emissions around the world, using 2018 data from the European Commission that tracks tonnes of CO₂ per 0.1 degree grid (roughly 11 square kilometers). This type of visualization allows us to clearly see not just population centers, but flight paths, shipping lanes, and high production areas. Let’s take a closer look at some of these concentrated (and brightly lit) regions on the map.
Exclusive: UK climate campaign group Possible calls for ‘polluter pays’ tax based on vehicle size
One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.
Dear COP 28 President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, This year, world leaders gathering in the UAE to take stock of their climate commitments will for the first time engage in official programming focused on health. We, the signatories of this letter, support your leadership in bringing health front and center at COP28.
When Rishi Sunak granted 27 new North Sea licences this week, he wasn’t thinking about the survival of the living world, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
CarbonBombs.org is a tool to follow the evolution of carbon bombs in the world.
Earth just had the hottest September on record – and by a record-breaking margin, according to leading international datasets which are used by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for its State of the Global Climate monitoring reports.
Joint action is essential for planetary and human health Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency. The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th UN Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded: “Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem … can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and max
Ocean-driven melting of floating ice-shelves in the Amundsen Sea is currently the main process controlling Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level rise. Using a regional ocean model, we present a comprehensive suite of future projections of ice-shelf melting in the Amundsen Sea. We find that rapid ocean warming, at approximately triple the historical rate, is likely committed over the twenty-first century, with widespread increases in ice-shelf melting, including in regions crucial for ice-sheet stability. When internal climate variability is considered, there is no significant difference between mid-range emissions scenarios and the most ambitious targets of the Paris Agreement. These results suggest that mitigation of greenhouse gases now has limited power to prevent ocean warming that could lead to the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The authors use a regional ocean model to project ocean-driven ice-shelf melt in the Amundsen Sea. Already committed rapid ocean warming drives increased melt, regard
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy use and industry could peak as soon as this year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of figures from the IEA.
Scientists warn of unlivable heat and food shortages after analyzing 35 planetary vital signs.
This volume addresses political action in Anthropocene and tension between the Promethean project of modernity and post-Promethean approach.
UK has led the way, with countries across the continent making mass arrests, passing draconian new laws and labelling activists as eco-terrorists
September 2023 smashed the prior global temperature record. Hand-wringing about the magnitude of the temperature jump in September is not inappropriate, but it is more important to investigate the role of aerosol climate forcing – which we chose to leave unmeasured – in global climate change. Global temperature during the current El Nino provides a potential indirect assessment of change of the aerosol forcing. Global temperature in the current El Nino, to date, implies a strong acceleration of global warming for which the most likely explanation is a decrease of human-made aerosols as a result of reductions in China and from ship emissions. The current El Nino will probably be weaker than the 1997-98 and 2015-16 El Ninos, making current warming even more significant. The current near-maximum solar irradiance adds a small amount to the major “forcing” mechanisms (GHGs, aerosols, and El Nino), but with no long-term effect. More important, the long dormant Southern Hemisphere polar amplification is probably com
By putting in place climate change adaptation measures, NATO has an opportunity to both strengthen operational resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Dr. Michael E. Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM). Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research interests include the study of Earth's climate system and the science, impacts and policy implications of human-caused climate change.
In this sweeping work of science and history, the renowned climate scientist and author of The New Climate War shows us the conditions on Earth that allowed humans not only to exist but thrive, and how they are imperiled if we veer off course.
This Handbook explains the complexity of the concept of the Anthropocene, scientific and a political concept and also an ideological concept.
The renowned US scientist’s new book examines 4bn years of climate history to conclude we are in a ‘fragile moment’ but there is still time to act
But the decline in oil, gas and coal will not be steep enough to limit global warming to 1.5C
Le Premier ministre Alexander De Croo s'est adressé à l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies à New York.
Read Prime Minister Alexander De Croo's full speech at the climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh here. In his speech, the Prime Minister made the case for inclusivity and cooperation to tackle the climate crisis. Young, old, private, public sector, north, south, we must all go all-in to tackle today's challenges
To prevent catastrophe, these countries must stop new extraction projects n: Just 20 countries, led overwhelmingly by the United States, Canada and Russia, are responsible for nearly 90 percent of new greenhouse gas emissions threatened by new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between now and 2050. If these extraction projects are allowed to proceed, they will lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future.
In the past two years Les Soulèvements de la Terre, a network of ecological activists and groups, has used direct confrontations with polluters and developers to threaten industrial agriculture’s monopoly on the French countryside.
EN
Unprecedented levels of damage from storms this year is upending US towns and the insurance industry
(09/08) - MICHELLE CHAPMANWaves of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. during the first half of this year led to $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time as climate change contributes to the frequency and severity of violent meteorological events. The reinsurer Swiss Re Group said Wednesday that damages from convective storms in the U.S., which can come with hail, lightning, heavy rain and high winds, accounted for nearly 70% of the $50 billion in global catastrophic damages so far this year. The storms in the U.S. were so severe, there were 10 that resulted in damages of $1 billion or more, almost double the average over the last decade.
Ahead of the UN’s SDG Summit (18-19 September), ground-breaking analyses shows how by enacting five ‘extraordinary turnarounds’ SDGs implementation can be accelerated.
BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies found to be leading a multi-pronged influencing campaign that could lock in fossil gas across both continents, with push back coming from more renewables-focused European energy players.
An independent think tank producing data-driven analysis on how business and finance are impacting the climate crisis
The world’s first study of the increase in pollution from landscape fires across the globe over the past two decades reveals that over 2 billion people are exposed to at least one day of potentially health-impacting environmental hazard annually – a figure that has increased by 6.8 per cent in the last ten years.
Guardian investigation finds 98% of Europeans breathing highly damaging polluted air linked to 400,000 deaths a year
ibrio are bacteria that cause an estimated 80,000 illnesses each year in the United States. About a dozen species of Vibrio are pathogenic to humans. V. parahaemolyticus causes the most infections in the United States, accounting for about 40% of reported cases of vibriosis, followed by V. alginolyticus, which accounts for about 20%. Most people with Vibrio infection have diarrhea. Some people might also have stomach cramping, nausea, vomiting, fever, and chills. One species, V. vulnificus, is known to cause life-threatening infections. About 150–200 V. vulnificus infections are reported to CDC each year and about one in five people with this infection die—sometimes within 1–2 days of becoming ill.
Human activities are threatening to push the Earth system beyond its planetary boundaries, risking catastrophic and irreversible global environmental change. Action is urgently needed, yet well-intentioned policies designed to reduce pressure on a single boundary can lead, through economic linkages, to aggravation of other pressures. In particular, the potential policy spillovers from an increase in the global carbon price onto other critical Earth system processes has received little attention to date. To this end, we explore the global environmental effects of pricing carbon, beyond its effect on carbon emissions. We find that the case for carbon pricing globally becomes even stronger in a multi-boundary world, since it can ameliorate many other planetary pressures. It does however exacerbate certain planetary pressures, largely by stimulating additional biofuel production. When carbon pricing is allied with a biofuel policy, however, it can alleviate all planetary pressures. In the light of nine Earth Syst
Take part in the new scientific discussion about looming abrupt changes in the Earth system. This new webinar series invites scientists interested in tipping elements and the broader public to attend.
California has sued five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, alleging that they engaged in a 'decades-long campaign of deception' about climate change and the risks posed by fossil fuels.
Mass extinctions during the past 500 million y rapidly removed branches from the phylogenetic tree of life and required millions of years for evolution to generate functional replacements for the extinct (EX) organisms. Here we show, by examining 5,400 vertebrate genera (excluding fishes) comprising 34,600 species, that 73 genera became EX since 1500 AD. Beyond any doubt, the human-driven sixth mass extinction is more severe than previously assessed and is rapidly accelerating. The current generic extinction rates are 35 times higher than expected background rates prevailing in the last million years under the absence of human impacts. The genera lost in the last five centuries would have taken some 18,000 y to vanish in the absence of human beings. Current generic extinction rates will likely greatly accelerate in the next few decades due to drivers accompanying the growth and consumption of the human enterprise such as habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption. If all now-endangered genera
Human activity has caused species groups to go extinct 35 times faster than they have over the past 500 years
We are developing a first-of-a-kind methodology for transforming industrial sabotage and other forms of direct action into carbon offsets. Browse our repository of case studies or propose a new one for analysis.
Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists
Planetary Boundaries - summary and implications for policymakers 05.12.2022 Respecting planetary boundaries is essential to preserve the stability of ecosystems and human societies, including in Switzerland. Incorporating this principle into our legal system is consistent with the pursuit of our ...
During the past decades, the idea of acting to counteract the damage done to the ecosystem by humankind's activities has moved along at least two planning stages.
First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged
Whilst fossil fuel companies' history of climate denial is common knowledge, there are still a worrying number of revolving door cases between fossil fuel companies and our EU politicians, Martha Myers writes.
Scientists have raised concerns about whether high-income countries, with their high per-capita CO2 emissions, can decarbonise fast enough to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement if they continue to pursue aggregate economic growth. Over the past decade, some countries have reduced their CO2 emissions while increasing their gross domestic product (absolute decoupling). Politicians and media have hailed this as green growth. In this empirical study, we aimed to assess whether these achievements are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and whether Paris-compliant decoupling is within reach.
Techniques such as solar radiation management may have unintended consequences, scientists say
If you've ever seen the movie Soylent Green, you know it's not about cannibalism. It's about the banality of social collapse. It's not quick. It's a slow burn. Nobody shows any sense of urgency about anything. Everyone still watches talk shows, even if they have to pedal a bike to generate electricity for their television. Nobody under 50 remembers anything better. Here's the plot twist: It's not that corporations are using people as the main ingredient in everyone's favorite new food. It's
For the first time, an international team of scientists is able to provide a detailed outline of planetary resilience by mapping out all nine boundary processes that define a safe operating space for humanity.
This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered. The transgression level has increased for all boundaries earlier identified as overstepped. As primary production drives Earth system biosphere functions, human appropriation of net primary production is proposed as a control variable for functional biosphere integrity. This boundary is also transgressed. Earth system modeling of different levels of the transgression of the climate and land system change boundaries illustrates that these anthropogenic impacts on Earth system must be considered in a systemic context.
Capitalism's endless growth paradigm can't be squared with sustainability. But no one – from politicians to the protest movement – is willing to admit the truth
Ice-free summers inevitable even with sharp emissions cuts and likely to result in more extreme heatwaves and floods
State Farm will almost entirely stop issuing new policies in California – with climate-exacerbated wildfires and bad public policy a large reason why
Colombia was the deadliest country and a fifth of the 177 recorded killings took place in the Amazon rainforest, says Global Witness
Study highlights conflict between Washington’s claims of climate leadership and its fossil fuel growth plans
Forecast downturn still ‘nowhere near steep enough’ to limit temperature rise to 1.5C, says watchdog
Daily Sea Surface Temperature
[Infographie] Daily Sea Ice Extent
I'm an independent healthcare analyst with more than 24 years of experience analyzing healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Specifically, I analyze the value (costs and benefits) of biologics and pharmaceuticals, patient access to prescription drugs, the regulatory framework for drug development and reimbursement, and ethics with respect to the distribution of healthcare resources. I have approximately 110 publications in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to hundreds of articles in newspapers and periodicals. I have also presented my work at numerous trade, industry, and academic conferences. From 1999 to 2017 I was a research associate professor at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Prior to my Tufts appointment, I was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and I completed my PhD in economics at the University of Amsterdam. Before pursuing my PhD I was a management consultant at Accenture in The Hague, Netherlands. Currently, and for the past 6 years, I work on a freelance ba
Access to robust and current information is essential for ensuring evidence-based policy and practice and identifying research gaps. For these purposes, more than 90 authors from about 30 national public authorities and institutions contributed to a comprehensive synthesis of the current evidence in Germany, published as 14 articles in the Journal of Health Monitoring.
Lancet study finds 'green growth' policies fall far short of what's needed to prevent dangerous change…
Background Scientists have raised concerns about whether high-income countries, with their high per-capita CO2 emissions, can decarbonise fast enough to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement if they continue to pursue aggregate economic growth. Over the past decade, some countries have reduced their CO2 emissions while increasing their gross domestic product (absolute decoupling). Politicians and media have hailed this as green growth. In this empirical study, we aimed to assess whether these achievements are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and whether Paris-compliant decoupling is within reach.
Bonn and Geneva, 6 September 2023 (ECMWF and WMO) - Earth just had its hottest three months on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by ECMWF. Global sea surface temperatures are at unprecedented highs for the third consecutive month and Antarctic sea ice extent remains at a record low for the time of year.
This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century; threats that cannot be contained or controlled and that have the potential to bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly what can be done to manage them effectively.
The celebrated science broadcaster and environmental activist says we have to stop elevating the economy and politics over the state of our world
More than 1 billion cows around the world will experience heat stress by the end of the century if carbon emissions are high and environmental protection is low, according to new research published in Environmental Research Letters. This would mean cattle farming would face potentially lethal heat stress in much of the world, including Central America, tropical South America, Equatorial Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.
A major New York Times investigation reveals how the United States’ aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities. The Times reports that Kansas corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix, Arizona, and rivers across the country are drying up as aquifers are being drained far faster than they are refilling.
A coalition of British Columbians are organizing their municipalities to take oil and gas companies to court over the costs of the climate crisis
Population ecologist William Rees, with the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning, is reminding denizens of Earth that the planet can only support so many people. In his paper published in the journal World, he points out that many models have been developed over the years that show that only a certain number of animals (such as rats) can live in a given environment—they all show that at some point, a population correction occurs.
f global warming reaches or exceeds two degrees Celsius by 2100, University of Western Ontario's Joshua Pearce says it is likely that mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century. The oil and gas industry, which includes many of the most profitable and powerful businesses in the world, is directly and indirectly responsible for more than 40% of carbon emissions—impacting the lives of billions of people, many living in the world's most remote and low-resourced communities. A new study proposes aggressive energy policies that would enable immediate and substantive decreases to carbon emissions and recommends a heightened level of government, corporate and citizen action to accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy, aiming to minimize the number of projected human deaths.
When attempting to quantify future harms caused by carbon emissions and to set appropriate energy policies, it has been argued that the most important metric is the number of human deaths caused by climate change. Several studies have attempted to overcome the uncertainties associated with such forecasting. In this article, approaches to estimating future human death tolls from climate change relevant at any scale or location are compared and synthesized, and implications for energy policy are considered. Several studies are consistent with the “1000-ton rule,” according to which a future person is killed every time 1000 tons of fossil carbon are burned (order-of-magnitude estimate). If warming reaches or exceeds 2 °C this century, mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans through anthropogenic global warming, which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter. On this basis, relatively aggressive energy policies are summarized that would enable im
Just Stop Oil is a coalition of groups working together to ensure the Government commits to halting new fossil fuel licensing and production.
Energy return on investment (EROI) is a biophysical and ecological economics concept that is useful to think about how organisms, ecosystems and societies must obtain enough surplus energy returned from energy gathering activities to live, reproduce, and thrive. EROI can help us overcome the false dualism between nature and society. EROI is a useful metric for economics because it is based on immutable physical laws rather than sometimes arbitrary human preferences. It is essential for assessing useful power, energy trade-offs, efficiencies (and inefficiencies), resource depletion trends, resource quality, and surplus potentials of different fuels and technologies that power, or might power, our socio-economic systems. Apparent inconsistencies in the literature can generally be reduced or eliminated by paying careful attention and explicitly stating boundaries and definitions. We argue that proper use of EROI is critical to understand the interconnections among the environment, energy, and socio-economic deve
A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative.
In March and April 2023, some Earth scientists began to point out that average sea surface temperatures had surpassed the highest levels seen in a key data record maintained by NOAA. Months later, they remain at record levels, with global sea surface temperatures 0.99°C (1.78°F) above average in July. That was the fourth consecutive month they were at record levels.
Le laboratoire travaille sur le projet "Mission 100 jours", un objectif extrêmement ambitieux qui consiste à mettre au point un vaccin contre une nouvelle menace en 100 jours.
The UN Secretary-General’s Early Warnings for All Initiative (EW4All) is rapidly gaining ground. Action plans are being rolled out around the world to ensure that people know when dangerous weather is headed their way. Tajikistan has held a two-day national consultation, co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and the UN Resident Coordinator in Tajikistan, and bringing together key stakeholders from state and international organizations, media and civil society. Ethiopia also held an inception workshop.
There is a growing body of evidence for serious health consequences of exposure to ambient air pollution. The general question of who is susceptible is one of the most important gaps in current knowledge regarding particulate matter (PM)-related health effects. Who is susceptible depends on the specific health endpoint being evaluated and the level and length of exposure. Here, we restrict the review on the impact of fine particle exposure on children's health to the following outcomes: infant death, lung function, respiratory symptoms and reproductive outcomes.
Gestational exposure to ambient fine particles (PM2.5) increases the risk of stillbirth, but the related disease burden is unknown, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We combine state-of-the-art estimates on stillbirths, and multiple exposure–response functions obtained from previous meta-analyses or derived by a self-matched case-control study in 54 LMICs. 13,870 stillbirths and 32,449 livebirths are extracted from 113 geocoded surveys from the Demographic and Health Surveys. Each stillbirth is compared to livebirth(s) of the same mother using a conditional logit regression. We find that 10-µg/m3 increase of PM2.5 is associated with an 11.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.4, 15.7) increase in the risk of stillbirth, and the association is significantly enhanced by maternal age. Based on age-specific nonlinear PM2.5–stillbirth curves, we evaluate the PM2.5-related stillbirths in 137 countries. In 2015, of 2.09 (95% CI: 1.98, 2.20) million stillbirths, 0.83 (0.54, 1.08) million or 39.7%
Heatwaves, wildfires and floods are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, leading climate scientists say
As we mark 100 days until the COP28 UN climate summit, the urgency of addressing the climate crisis has never been more palpable. Global failures to mitigate emissions and adapt to the impacts continue to wreak havoc on the planet, and we’re seeing this in a range of ways. Unprecedented extreme weather events have occurred with frightening regularity in 2023. In March, over 500 people lost their lives when Cyclone Freddy struck Malawi. Last month, flooding in the Philippines caused by Typhoons Doksuri and Khanun displaced more than 300,000 people, and the recent wildfires that ravaged Hawaii – in part exacerbated by climate change – continue to make for distressing headlines. This list is likely to become even longer by the end of the year, when COP28 gets underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Youth Climate Justice Fund supports with core flexible funding to emerging youth climate justice collectives. Groups can apply for a grant of up to USD 10,000, which can be used for a period of 12 months.
A new paper suggests that variations in warming of the Pacific Ocean were actually triggered by changing aerosol emissions from human activity.
New data on WRI's Aqueduct platform ranks the world's most water-stressed countries. One-quarter of the global population regularly use up their entire water supply.
Cooperation is not only in the best interests of all countries, but is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet
Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and global climate change have attracted worldwide attention. PFAS have been found all across the planet, from the polar regions to the global ocean. Global oceans have emerged as a substantial sink for the carbon in the environment due to their remarkable capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon. Oceans absorb around 24% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Thus, the ocean plays a prominent role in the earth’s carbon cycle. However, the widespread application of PFAS in a wide range of products and the inefficient management of PFAS-containing wastes made them ubiquitous pollutants, which are increasingly getting as a pollutant of emerging concern. Marine PFAS pollutants can produce harmful effects on gas exchange and the ocean’s carbon cycle. Thus, it leads to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which eventually adversely affects global warming and climate change. Consequently, threats of marine PFAS to oceans carbon sequestration are discussed in this paper. Marine PFA
Global coal consumption climbed to a new all-time high in 2022 and will stay near that record level this year as strong growth in Asia for both power generation and industrial applications outpaces declines in the United States and Europe, according to the IEA’s latest market update.
News of fusion has the effect of temporarily permitting people to shed the anxiety and embrace the dream all the more strongly.
Bernie Sanders represents Vermont in the U.S. Senate.
Human-caused climate disruption and El Niño push temperature in mountains to 37C
Beware of these three false solutions to climate change: carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), hydrogen and offsets.
Antarctica’s sea ice levels are plummeting as extreme weather events happen faster than scientists predicted
Winter temperatures have neared 40 degrees Celsius in parts of South America, which is up to 20C higher than normal for this time of year and the equivalent of Sydney hitting 35C in the first week of August.
The role of health professionals In January 2023, the science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the doomsday clock forward to 90 seconds before midnight, reflecting the growing risk of nuclear war.1 In August 2022, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the world is now in “a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”2 The danger has been underlined by growing tensions between many nuclear armed states.13 As editors of health and medical journals worldwide, we call on health professionals to alert the public and our leaders to this major danger to public health and the essential life support systems of the planet—and urge action to prevent it. Current nuclear arms control and non-proliferation efforts are inadequate to protect the world’s population against the threat of nuclear war by design, error, or miscalculation. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commits each of the 190 participating nations
The CEO of one of Infosys' other major clients, Shell, also joined Rishi Sunak's new business council two weeks ago.
There has been a strong push to promote increased investments in new nuclear power as a strategy to decarbonize economies, especially in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). The evidence base for these initiatives is poor. Investments in new nuclear power plants are bad for the climate due to high costs and long construction times. Given the urgency of climate change mitigation, which requires reducing emissions from the EU electricity grid to almost zero in the 2030s (Pietzcker et al.1), preference should be given to the cheapest technology that can be deployed fastest. On both costs and speed, renewable energy sources beat nuclear. Every euro invested in new nuclear plants thus delays decarbonization compared to investments in renewable power. In a decarbonizing world, delays increase CO2 emissions. Our thoughts focus on new nuclear power plants (not phasing out existing plants) in the US and Europe. In Europe, new nuclear power plants are planned or seriously discussed in France, Czechia, Hu
More than a century of research shows that burning fossil fuels warms the climate – that’s exactly why granting new North Sea oil and gas licenses is a bad idea.
It’s the middle of winter in South America, but that hasn’t kept the heat away in Chile, Argentina and surrounding locations. Multiple spells of oddly hot weather have roasted the region in recent weeks. The latest spell early this week has become the most intense, pushing the mercury above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while setting an August record for Chile.
The baby boomer dream of tanning on the beach is fading as temperatures rise. We are going to have to reinvent July and August.
Exclusive: Long list of ‘sensitive’ topics for petrostate include oil and gas production, emissions and Yemen war crimes
A collapse would bring catastrophic climate impacts but scientists disagree over the new analysis
According to ERA5 data from the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record. These temperatures have been related to heatwaves in large parts of North America, Asia and Europe, which along with wildfires in countries including Canada and Greece, have had major impacts on people’s health, the environment and economies.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a major tipping element in the climate system and a future collapse would have severe impacts on the climate in the North Atlantic region. In recent years weakening in circulation has been reported, but assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) model simulations suggest that a full collapse is unlikely within the 21st century. Tipping to an undesired state in the climate is, however, a growing concern with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Predictions based on observations rely on detecting early-warning signals, primarily an increase in variance (loss of resilience) and increased autocorrelation (critical slowing down), which have recently been reported for the AMOC. Here we provide statistical significance and data-driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future emi
Climate Reanalyzer
As the northern hemisphere burns, experts feel deep sadness – and resentment – while dreading what lies ahead this Australian summer
EN
Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change
(25/07) - World Weather AttributionFollowing a record hot June, large areas of the US and Mexico, Southern Europe and China experienced extreme heat in July 2023, breaking many local high temperature records.
The method used to conduct an attribution study consists of eight steps, described here. The first step is the selection of an extreme event to study. After selecting an extreme weather event to study, the first step is to define the event, which provides a framework for the study. Researchers determine the geographical boundaries of the most impacted area, the best index to quantify the meteorological extreme (eg. maximum temperature, average rainfall, etc), and the duration of the event.
After hottest day ever, researchers say global heating may mean future of crop failures on land and ‘silent dying’ in the oceans
Our work complements and enhances the work of others in the fields of science, health, business, industry, culture, finance, academia, politics and civil society. Established in 2012, the GSCC is a collaborative network of people working across a number of different organisations operating across six continents and covering themes such as climate science and impacts, food and nature, finance and economics, energy, transport, industry, and multilateral climate processes.
James Hansen, who testified to Congress on global heating in 1988, says world is approaching a ‘new climate frontier’
According to the latest update to the NBB’s Climate Dashboard, it appears unlikely that the world will be able to limit global warming to 1.5 °C.
Three brush fires burning in rural areas across Riverside county, where 1,000 homes are under evacuation orders
Energy firms have made record profits by increasing production of oil and gas, far from their promises of rolling back emissions
Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
Plastic debris is thought to be widespread in freshwater ecosystems globally1. However, a lack of comprehensive and comparable data makes rigorous assessment of its distribution challenging2,3. Here we present a standardized cross-national survey that assesses the abundance and type of plastic debris (>250 μm) in freshwater ecosystems. We sample surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs, distributed across gradients of geographical position and limnological attributes, with the aim to identify factors associated with an increased observation of plastics. We find plastic debris in all studied lakes and reservoirs, suggesting that these ecosystems play a key role in the plastic-pollution cycle. Our results indicate that two types of lakes are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination: lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized areas and large lakes and reservoirs with elevated deposition areas, long water-retention times and high levels of anthropogenic influence. Plastic concentrations vary
A novel tool for flexible spatial and temporal analyses of much of the observed and projected climate change information underpinning the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, including regional synthesis for Climatic Impact-Drivers (CIDs).
Plutonium spike in Canadian lake sediments marks dawn of new epoch in which humanity dominates planet
Presently, there is a scientific debate about which epoch we are in. The discussion centers around the Holocene vs Anthropocene question.
The Anthropocene defines Earth's most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans. The word combines the root "anthropo", meaning "human" with the root "-cene", the standard suffix for "epoch" in geologic time. The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period either after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period.
Groundbreaking assessment of all life on Earth reveals humanity’s surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact
Sweden formally renounces EU net zero roadmap championed by the likes of Germany.
Just Collapse is an activist platform dedicated to socio-ecological justice in face of inevitable and irreversible global collapse. Just Collapse advocates for a Just Collapse and a Planned Collapse to avert the worst outcomes that will follow an otherwise unplanned, reactive collapse. Just Collapse recognises that there will be no justice in an unplanned collapse.
Climate change is not a uniquely modern threat. From the Ancestral Puebloans to the Mayans, many ancient civilizations crumbled due to climate change.
In a speech about climate change from April 4th of this year, UN General Secretary António Guterres lambasted “the empty pledges that put us on track to an unlivable world” and warned that “we are on a fast track to climate disaster” (1). Although stark, Guterres’ statements were not novel. Guterres has made similar remarks on previous occasions, as have other public figures, including Sir David Attenborough, who warned in 2018 that inaction on climate change could lead to “the collapse of our civilizations” (2). In their article, “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021”—which now has more than 14,700 signatories from 158 countries—William J. Ripple and colleagues state that climate change could “cause significant disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies, potentially making large areas of Earth uninhabitable”
Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?
Letter: Scientists and academics including Prof Gesa Weyhenmeyer and Prof Will Steffen argue that we must discuss the threat of societal disruption in order to prepare for it
This week, the world broke the daily temperature record. This is yet another demonstration that climate change is out of control and one reason more for increased #ClimateAction ambition and justice. Emissions continue to grow while leaders persist in delaying the key measures needed to change this. This is the moment when we all need to assume our responsibilities. #climatechange
Permafrost and glaciers in the high Arctic form an impermeable ‘cryospheric cap’ that traps a large reservoir of subsurface methane, preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. Cryospheric vulnerability to climate warming is making releases of this methane possible. On Svalbard, where air temperatures are rising more than two times faster than the average for the Arctic, glaciers are retreating and leaving behind exposed forefields that enable rapid methane escape. Here we document how methane-rich groundwater springs have formed in recently revealed forefields of 78 land-terminating glaciers across central Svalbard, bringing deep-seated methane gas to the surface. Waters collected from these springs during February–May of 2021 and 2022 are supersaturated with methane up to 600,000 times greater than atmospheric equilibration. Spatial sampling reveals a geological dependency on the extent of methane supersaturation, with isotopic evidence of a thermogenic source. We estimate annual methane emissions from prog
As the Arctic warms, shrinking glaciers are exposing bubbling groundwater springs which could provide an underestimated source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, finds new research published in Nature Geoscience. The study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University Center in Svalbard, Norway, identified large stocks of methane gas leaking from groundwater springs unveiled by melting glaciers.
EN
The biggest gold rush in history is about to start in the deep sea – leaving devastation in its wake
(07/07) - Guy StandingApplications to mine the seabed in our ocean commons can be made from 9 July, says Guy Standing, author of The Blue Commons
Many of those who drowned near Greece last month were escaping environmental crises in Pakistan, says author Fatima Bhutto
Europe at the forefront of the climate challenge The European Union is a global leader in the transition to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy. Playing a crucial role in international political efforts to tackle the climate challenge, Europe is one of the main players moving with urgency toward the Paris Agreement objectives. Now, with a European Green Deal and a commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 55% by 2030, Europe has a clear, tangible roadmap to deliver such ambition. A wave of mass mobilisation, from climate marches to school strikes, is pressuring politicians to go further and faster. As a free-market democracy and the world’s largest single market, Europe is a key laboratory for innovative business and progressive social reform. It promises to bring groundbreaking change to globalised industries, from shipping to finance to aviation. Europe also has the power to demonstrate to the world that tackling climate change can go hand in hand with economic growth, social justice and a better qualit
Rishi Sunak has confirmed that a fossil fuel-funded think tank helped to draft his government’s laws targeting climate protests.
Hopes of the UK government meeting its domestic and international climate targets have “worsened” over the past year, according to the CCC.
Almost every country in the world has signed up to the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping warming well-below 2C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C.
Although humans have long been predators with enduring nutritive and cultural relationships with their prey, seldom have conservation ecologists considered the divergent predatory behavior of contemporary, industrialized humans. Recognizing that the number, strength and diversity of predator-prey relationships can profoundly influence biodiversity, here we analyze humanity’s modern day predatory interactions with vertebrates and estimate their ecological consequences. Analysing IUCN ‘use and trade’ data for ~47,000 species, we show that fishers, hunters and other animal collectors prey on more than a third (~15,000 species) of Earth’s vertebrates. Assessed over equivalent ranges, humans exploit up to 300 times more species than comparable non-human predators. Exploitation for the pet trade, medicine, and other uses now affects almost as many species as those targeted for food consumption, and almost 40% of exploited species are threatened by human use. Trait space analyses show that birds and mammals threaten
Mexico and the Caribbean are experiencing the most intense heatwave in their recorded history. The Mexican Plateau is being seared by harsh dry heat, while the Caribbean contends with deadly humid temperatures. On June 12, 2023, the mercury soared above 45 °C (113 °F) in several areas, including regions of high altitude. The city of Torreón, sitting at 1 123 m (3 684 feet) above sea level, saw temperatures rise to 43.3 °C (109.94 °F) on June 12, while Durango Airport, located at 1 872 m (6 142 feet) altitude, experienced 40.4 °C (104.72 °F) heat. La Bufa, perched even higher at 2 612 m (8 570 feet) above sea level, broke all-time records with a temperature of 33.4 °C (92.12 °F).
This Research Plan was prepared in response to a requirement in the joint explanatory statement accompanying Division B of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to provide a research plan for “solar and other rapid climate interventions.”
Flash drought, characterized by unusually rapid drying, can have substantial impact on many socioeconomic sectors, particularly agriculture. However, potential changes to flash drought risk in a warming climate remain unknown. In this study, projected changes in flash drought frequency and cropland risk from flash drought are quantified using global climate model simulations. We find that flash drought occurrence is expected to increase globally among all scenarios, with the sharpest increases seen in scenarios with higher radiative forcing and greater fossil fuel usage. Flash drought risk over cropland is expected to increase globally, with the largest increases projected across North America (change in annual risk from 32% in 2015 to 49% in 2100) and Europe (32% to 53%) in the most extreme emissions scenario. Following low-end and medium scenarios compared to high-end scenarios indicates a notable reduction in annual flash drought risk over cropland. Flash droughts are projected to become more frequent unde
If Nature were to draw a map of the world, what would it look like? One Earth presents a novel biogeographical framework called Bioregions 2023, which delineates 185 discrete bioregions organized within the world's major biogeographical realms.
Rivers are a major source of plastic waste in the oceans. We estimate that 1000 rivers, are accountable for nearly 80% of global annual riverine plastic emissions, which range between 0.8 – 2.7 million metric tons per year, with small urban rivers amongst the most polluting.
Top oil and gas companies have made little progress in turning away from hydrocarbons and towards the goals of the 2015 Paris climate deal, multinational nonprofit platform CDP said on Thursday.
World Bank says subsidies costing as much as $23m a minute must be repurposed to fight climate crisis...
With the Montreal Protocol, life on Earth dodged a bullet we didn’t even know was headed our way.
Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts
Around the world, rainforests are becoming savanna or farmland, savanna is drying out and turning into desert, and icy tundra is thawing. Indeed, scientific studies have now recorded "regime shifts" like these in more than 20 different types of ecosystem where tipping points have been passed. Around the world, more than 20% of ecosystems are in danger of shifting or collapsing into something different.
The Energy Institute is, as of 2023, the home of the Statistical Review of World Energy, published previously for more than 70 years by bp. The Statistical Review analyses data on world energy markets from the prior year. It has been providing timely, comprehensive and objective data to the energy community since 1952.
Abstract. The summer of 2022 was memorable and record-breaking, ranking as the second hottest summer in France since 1900, with a seasonal surface air temperature average of 22.7 ∘C. In particular, France experienced multiple record-breaking heatwaves during the meteorological summer. As the main heat reservoir of the Earth system, the oceans are at the forefront of events of this magnitude which enhance oceanic disturbances such as marine heatwaves (MHWs). In this study, we investigate the sea surface temperature (SST) of French maritime basins using remotely sensed measurements to track the response of surface waters to the atmospheric heatwaves and determine the intensity of such feedback. Beyond the direct relationship between SSTs and surface air temperatures, we explore the leading atmospheric parameters affecting the upper-layer ocean heat budget. Despite some gaps in data availability, the SSTs measured during the meteorological summer of 2022 were record-breaking, the mean SST was between 1.3 and 2.6
A new climate case was filed this week. Multnomah County, the Oregon county that includes Portland, filed suit against several oil majors for their role in exacerbating the climate change that led to the county's "heat dome" in June 2021, which killed 69 people. But the case doesn't just place
Major fossil fuel entities and trade associations including Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Western States Petroleum Association, as well as consulting behemoth McKinsey & Company, were slapped with the latest climate liability lawsuit today with the filing of a complaint in the Oregon Circuit Court in Multnomah County, Oregon.
During the last days of June 2021, Pacific northwest areas of the U.S. and Canada experienced temperatures never previously observed, with records broken in many places by several degrees Celsius.
Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed
Emmanuel Macron’s government is at least doing the bare minimum to avert the planetary crisis – and putting the UK to shame, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
Electrical blackouts like the ones in California are becoming more common. So are heat waves. A new study published in the journal of the National Institute of Health attempts to predict what will happen when both occur at the same time.
Read the latest news headlines and analysis about politics, sports, business, lifestyle and entertainment from award winning Irish and British journalists.
It’s not that our models can’t simulate small-scale weather – they’re basically the same models we use for weather forecasting – it’s just very computationally expensive to have them zoom in and run in “weather mode” to get a highly detailed simulation.
Research allays fears that rapid scaling back of production would hit people’s savings and pensions hard
A major concern for the world’s ecosystems is the possibility of collapse, where landscapes and the societies they support change abruptly. Accelerating stress levels, increasing frequencies of extreme events and strengthening intersystem connections suggest that conventional modelling approaches based on incremental changes in a single stress may provide poor estimates of the impact of climate and human activities on ecosystems. We conduct xperiments on four models that simulate abrupt changes in the Chilika lagoon fshery, the Easter Island community, forest dieback and lake water quality—representing ecosystems with a range of anthropogenic interactions. Collapses occur sooner under increasing levels of primary stress but additional stresses and/or the inclusion of noise in all four models bring the collapses substantially closer to today by ~38–81%. We discuss the implications for further research and the need for humanity to be vigilant for signs that ecosystems are degrading even more rapidly than previo
Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn
WMO's annual State of the Climate in Europe report explores changes in climate indicators, extreme events and climate policy.
Taxing world’s wealthiest people could help poorer countries shift economies to low-carbon and recover from climate damage
Potential external cost savings associated with the reduction of animal-sourced foods remain poorly understood. Here we combine life cycle assessment principles and monetarization factors to estimate the monetary worth of damage to human health and ecosystems caused by the environmental impacts of food production. We find that, globally, approximately US$2 of production-related external costs were embedded in every dollar of food expenditure in 2018—corresponding to US$14.0 trillion of externalities. A dietary shift away from animal-sourced foods could greatly reduce these ‘hidden’ costs, saving up to US$7.3 trillion worth of production-related health burden and ecosystem degradation while curbing carbon emissions. By comparing the health effects of dietary change from the consumption versus the production of food, we also show that omitting the latter means underestimating the benefits of more plant-based diets. Our analysis reveals the substantial potential of dietary change, particularly in high and upper-
Heat and cold are now established health risk factors, with several studies reporting important mortality effects in populations around the world.1, 2, 3 The associated health burden is expected to increase with climate change, especially under the most extreme scenarios of global warming.4, 5 However, robust estimates of excess mortality in the current and future periods are still challenging to obtain due to the numerous factors influencing vulnerability to heat and cold, including climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic conditions.6 These factors represent the main drivers of variation in mortality risks, which have been shown to differ geographically and across age groups.
Fearful that the Able Archer 83 exercise was a cover for a NATO nuclear strike, the U.S.S.R. readied its own weapons for launch
Land-based nuclear weapons are world-ending accident waiting to happen, and completely superfluous to a reliable deterrent.
Arctic Sea Ice : Forum*Read All About Arctic on ASI Blog – Watch all Graphs on ASI Graphs
If the system can’t contact military leaders, it checks for signs of a nuclear strike. Should its computers determine that an attack occurred, it would automatically launch all remaining Soviet weapons at targets across the northern hemisphere. As in the film, the Soviet Union long kept Dead Hand completely secret, eliminating any strategic benefit, and rendering it a pointless menace to humanity. You might think the United States would have a more sensible nuclear launch policy. You’d be wrong.
Vanuatu is asking two questions to the ICJ: what are the legal obligations of states in regard to climate justice, and what are the legal consequences for states that do not meet these obligations.
Only if there is a fundamental change in the way we manage land we can reach the targets of climate-change mitigation, avert the dramatic loss of biodiversity and make the global food system sustainable.
We can’t call these supercharged seasonal infernos our ‘new normal.’ There’s nothing natural about how we changed the Earth’s climate
As climate policy is weakened, extreme weather intensifies and more refugees are driven from their homes – and the cycle of hatred continues, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
Hundreds of students and graduates vow not to work for ‘climate wreckers that insure those responsible for the climate crisis’
Greer’s assumption of slow collapse is built on shaky ground because industrial civilization differs from all past civilizations in four crucial ways.
Examination of trees alive at the time shows three years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures and famine
Climate Whistleblowers (CW) seeks to defend whistleblowers, as well as strategically litigate and advocate on their behalf where their disclosures speak to climate-related issues.
Since the late 1990s, I’ve covered energy, beginning with the rise and fall of Enron — first as a magazine writer before becoming a columnist and editor. For more than 11 years, I’ve been a columnist for Forbes. My focus has shifted from the ‘old energy economy’ to the ‘green energy economy.’ My stories, which cover the globe, have appeared in, and have been cited by, dozens of publications and broadcasts. I’m also the editor-at-large for Environment+Energy Leader and the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which represents 53 rainforest countries worldwide. My job is to research and write about these countries, helping them get to net zero to fulfill their Paris pledges. My features and my columns have won several national awards. Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein. Email: ken@silversteineditorial.com
Without more legally binding and well-planned net-zero policies, the world is highly likely to miss key climate targets.
Current climate policies will leave more than a fifth of humanity exposed to dangerously hot temperatures by 2100, new research suggests. The paper, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, is entitled "Quantifying the Human Cost of Global Warming."
Climate change refers to long-term variation in Earth's climate effected by heating imbalances from natural (e.g., solar, volcanic, and internal dynamics) and human sources (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions and land use). Following the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and particularly since the 1960s, global climate has warmed primarily as a consequence of rising greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere related to industrial activity. This page provides a selection of template maps and timeseries depicting changes in temperature, precipitation, and other aspects of climate over the past century, and how they are projected to change in the future.
Recycled and reused food contact plastics are “vectors for spreading chemicals of concern” because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds.
Climate change and human activities increasingly threaten lakes that store 87% of Earth’s liquid surface fresh water. Yet, recent trends and drivers of lake volume change remain largely unknown globally. Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992–2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption, whereas sedimentation dominates storage losses in reservoirs. We estimate that roughly one-quarter of the world’s population resides in a basin of a drying lake, underscoring the necessity of incorporating climate change and sedimentation impacts into sustainable water resources management.
The sixth assessment report of the IPCC assessed that the Arctic is projected to be on average practically ice-free in September near mid-century under intermediate and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, though not under low emissions scenarios, based on simulations from the latest generation Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models. Here we show, using an attribution analysis approach, that a dominant influence of greenhouse gas increases on Arctic sea ice area is detectable in three observational datasets in all months of the year, but is on average underestimated by CMIP6 models. By scaling models’ sea ice response to greenhouse gases to best match the observed trend in an approach validated in an imperfect model test, we project an ice-free Arctic in September under all scenarios considered. These results emphasize the profound impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic, and demonstrate the importance of planning for and adapting to a seasonally ice-free Arctic in the near
The UN Climate Change secretariat’s 2022 Annual Report highlights achievements and milestones by the secretariat and the intergovernmental Process in addressing the climate emergency, and towards achieving the long-term objectives of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The 2022 edition covers the historic decision taken at COP27 to establish a dedicated fund and funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage, stepping up adaptation and transparency support, and the logistical operations that went into organizing COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh – among the largest climate change conferences to date. Special features chart the thirty-year journey of the UNFCCC Process and preparatory work towards the first global stocktake, while opening words by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Climate Change Simon Stiell provide context to the secretariat’s work in the wider, global push to tackle climate change and its impacts. The report also look
Abstract. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement that will conclude at COP28 in December 2023. Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles. We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report. We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radia
The UK’s advertising watchdog has banned a group of big oil and gas company advertisements for being misleading as part of crackdown on “greenwashing”, or making something appear more sustainable than it really is.
Unearthly skies and unhealthy air resulting from Canadian wildfires may persist for days.
..on a higher-resolution illustration of World3’s ‘runaway global warming’ scenario (∼8–12 °C+). Our simulation indicates rapid decline in food production and unequal distribution of ∼6 billion deaths due to starvation by 2100. ..
The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1–3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are alrea
Terrestrial ecosystems have taken up about 32% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the past six decades1. Large uncertainties in terrestrial carbon–climate feedbacks, however, make it difficult to predict how the land carbon sink will respond to future climate change2. Interannual variations in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate (CGR) are dominated by land–atmosphere carbon fluxes in the tropics, providing an opportunity to explore land carbon–climate interactions3–6. It is thought that variations in CGR are largely controlled by temperature7–10 but there is also evidence for a tight coupling between water availability and CGR11. Here, we use a record of global atmospheric CO2, terrestrial water storage and precipitation data to investigate changes in the interannual relationship between tropical land climate conditions and CGR under a changing climate. We find that the interannual relationship between tropical water availability and CGR became increasingly negative during 1989–2018 compared to 1960–1989
A major reason for the growth in the use of renewable energy is the fact that if a person looks at them narrowly enough--such as by using a model--wind and solar look to be useful. They don't burn fossil fuels, so it appears that they might be helpful to the environment. Energy modeling misses important points. I believe that profitability signals are much more important.
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change implies that fastfeedback equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2 . Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era – including “slow” feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases – supports this ECS and implies that CO2 was about 300 ppm in the Pliocene and 400 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, thus exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming including slow feedbacks for today’s human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing (4.1 W/m2) is 10°C, reduced to 8°C by today’s aerosols. 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. Under the current geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will likely pierce the 1.5°C ceiling in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming pumps up hydr
The UN-backed ‘Carbon Removal Pioneers’ stoke the development dreams of African countries but crash against the reality of climate science.
Going beyond climate disruption, the report by the Earth Commission group of scientists presents disturbing evidence that our planet faces growing crises of water availability, nutrient loading, ecosystem maintenance and aerosol pollution. These pose threats to the stability of life-support systems and worsen social equality.
While this is not holiday cheer, I thought everyone should know about the following recent climate change research. James Hansen and 14 co-authors recently released a preprint (not yet peer reviewed) paper titled “Global Warming in the...
A pathway to bridge the climate neutrality, energy security and sustainability gap through energy sufficiency, efficiency and renewables
A United Nations-convened climate alliance for insurers suffered at least three more departures on Thursday including the group's chair, as insurance companies take fright in the face of opposition from U.S. Republican politicians.
Solastalgia: the Origins As environmental philosopher at The University of Newcastle I had a reputation within my region as an activist and advocate for environmental conservation and I had published a number of academic and media articles on the environmental history and sustainability of the Hunter Region.2 Residents within the region would often ring me at work and talk to me about their concerns about particular environmental issues and I would advise and help as best I could. However, I began to notice the increasing number of people who were concerned about the sheer scale of the environmental impacts in the Upper Hunter Region of NSW. In their attempts to halt the expansion of open cut coal mining and to control the impact of power station pollution, individuals would ring me at work pleading for help with their cause. Their distress about the threats to their identity and well-being, even over the phone, was palpable.
Conceptual frameworks in the realm of climate-related policy, attitudes and behavior frequently argue that moral emotions play a crucial role in mobilizing pro-environmental action. Yet, little is known about the direct impact of moral emotions on environmental attitudes and behavior. Drawing on emotion research in the context of intergroup relations, the current paper investigates the role of guilty conscience (guilt and shame) as well as other emotions (anger, sadness, pride, and emotional coldness) in motivating pro-environmental behavior intentions and actual behavior as a specific form of reparative action. When confronted with human-caused (vs. seemingly natural) environmental damages, participants (N=114) reported significantly more guilty conscience. Importantly, participants in the humancaused condition were significantly more likely to spontaneously display actual proenvironmental behavior (sign a petition addressing environmental issues). Highlighting its psychological significance in motivating pr
In 1973, Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist cross-trained in philosophy, sociology, and psychiatry, invoked consciousness of self and the inevitability of death as the primary sources of human anxiety and repression. He proposed that the psychological basis of cooperation, competition, and emotional and mental health is a tendency to hold tightly to anxiety-buffering cultural world views or “immortality projects” that serve as the basis for self-esteem and meaning. Although he focused mainly on social and political outcomes like war, torture, and genocide, he was increasingly aware that materialism, denial of nature, and immortality-striving efforts to control, rather than sanctify, the natural world were problems whose severity was increasing. In this paper I review Becker’s ideas and suggest ways in which they illuminate human response to global climate change. Because immortality projects range from belief in technology and materialism to reverence for nature or belief in a celestial god, they act bo
Kristina Searle Kathryn Gow, (2010),"Do concerns about climate change lead to distress?", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 2 Iss 4 pp. 362 - 379
In early May, a groundbreaking study from the University of California, San Francisco of 171 pregnant women found more than 9 in 10 had measurable amounts of 19 different chemicals and pesticides in their bodies. Researchers said many of those substances pass through the placenta and into developing fetuses, adding evidence to a National Institutes of Health report that warned babies are born "pre-polluted" with chemicals.
World is on track for 2.7C and ‘phenomenal’ human suffering, scientists warn. Up to 1 billion people could choose to migrate to cooler places, the scientists said, although those areas remaining within the climate niche would still experience more frequent heatwaves and droughts. However, urgent action to lower carbon emissions and keep global temperature rise to 1.5C would cut the number of people pushed outside the climate niche by 80%, to 400 million.
Net-zero targets imply that continuing residual emissions will be balanced by carbon dioxide removal. However, residual emissions are typically not well defined, conceptually or quantitatively. We analysed governments’ long-term strategies submitted to the UNFCCC to explore projections of residual emissions, including amounts and sectors. We found substantial levels of residual emissions at net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, on average 18% of current emissions for Annex I countries. The majority of strategies were imprecise about which sectors residual emissions would originate from, and few offered specific projections of how residual emissions could be balanced by carbon removal. Our findings indicate the need for a consistent definition of residual emissions, as well as processes that standardize and compare expectations about residual emissions across countries. This is necessary for two reasons: to avoid projections of excessive residuals and correspondent unsustainable or unfeasible carbon-removal level
Humanity is not on track to avoid the deadliest effects of climate change, according to University at Buffalo researcher Holly Jean Buck. "Our plans are not adequate to meet the goal of limiting the Earth's temperature increase to no more than 1.5℃ by 2050," said Buck, Ph.D., assistant professor of environment and sustainability....
Record sea surface temperatures suggest the Earth is headed for ‘uncharted territory’ in terms of sea level rise, coastal flooding and extreme weather
This report examines the economic and business models needed to address the impacts of the plastics economy.
We’re sharing the open letter published to accompany the start of the “Beyond Growth” conference at the European Parliament, and signed by members of the Zagreb Degrowth Conference team.
Report calls for better safeguards to prevent bioterrorists from weaponizing new technology
Higher rates slow the renewable energy transition and shield oil and gas producers from competition by low-carbon producers
Captation LIMIT - 30''
Chemicals yield profit of about $4bn a year for the world’s biggest PFAS manufacturers, Sweden-based NGO found
Abusive, often violent tweets denying the climate emergency have become a barrage since Elon Musk acquired the platform, say UK experts
Global CO2 emissions for 2022 increased by 1.5% relative to 2021 (+7.9% and +2.0% relative to 2020 and 2019, respectively), reaching 36.1 GtCO2. These 2022 emissions consumed 13%–36% of the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5 °C, suggesting permissible emissions could be depleted within 2–7 years (67% likelihood).
CRED became a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in 1980 and has expanded its support of the WHO Global Programme for Emergency Preparedness and Response. Since then, it has increased its international network substantially. It has collaborative status with the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-DHA), and also works in collaboration with the European Union Humanitarian Office (ECHO), the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA-USAID) as well as with non-governmental agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Croissant (ICRCRC, Switzerland). During the 1990's, the Centre actively promoted the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR).
Fourth year in a row in which number of people facing food crises increased substantially
An open-access academic journal on degrowth
Climate change has important implications for the health and futures of children and young people, yet they have little power to limit its harm, making them vulnerable to climate anxiety. This is the first large-scale investigation of climate anxiety in children and young people globally and its relationship with perceived government response.
This paper catalogues current efforts to address climate change within multilateral economic and financial institutions and related organizations. It also proposes a minimum set of policy measures that need to be prioritized by such institutions to support climate change mitigation and adaptation. The proposals include expanding public climate finance via multilateral development banks, doing more to mobilize private investment, mainstreaming climate considerations across institutional operations, making climate disclosures mandatory, and addressing sovereign debt distress to unlock private climate finance.
SACRAMENTO -- Data from the California Energy Commission (CEC) shows that 59 percent of the state’s electricity came from renewable and zero-carbon sources in 2020. The CEC estimates that in 2020, 34.5 percent of the state’s retail electricity sales were served by Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS)-eligible sources such as solar and wind. When sources of zero-carbon energy such as large hydroelectric generation and nuclear are included, 59 percent of the state’s retail electricity sales came from non-fossil fuel sources in 2020. In 2019, over 60 percent of the state’s electricity came from renewable and zero-carbon sources. The decrease in 2020 is due to decline in hydroelectric generation caused by severe drought, as well as pandemic-related delays to new renewable energy projects.
Energy and extractive industry giants are targeting environmentalists with racketeering charges.
The WFPHA proposes to lead a discussion about global aid and Global Health Initiatives (GHIs), beginning in these Federation Pages. In this issue (JPHP 31.1), we have invited authors from the Department of Public Health from the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium, and from the Federal Ministry of Health, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss the ‘New dichotomy in health systems’ strengthening and the role of global health initiatives’. Next, the WFPHA will take a very active part in the upcoming Geneva Forum, 19–21 April 2010, entitled Globalization, Crisis & Health Systems: Confronting Regional Perspectives (http://www.ghf10.org/). The problems of GHIs will be the topic of a special session. In it, the organisers will integrate views of researchers, such as the contributors here, along with those of GHIs professionals, and participants from recipient countries.
In recent years, governments of several low-income countries have taken decisive action by removing fully or partially user fees in the health sector. In this study, we review recent reforms in six sub-Saharan African countries: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal and Uganda. The review d …
In the last few years, one of the solutions envisaged for improving access to healthcare – seen by some as a step toward universal access – is to remove part of the financial barrier to healthcare ...
Several climate court cases have been stuck in legal limbo for years. Now they're about to get a lot more interesting.
The 21-year-old Iraqi, who lived by a smoke-choked oilfield, died of cancer. His message must be heard, says journalist Jess Kelly
Recent leaks from oil sands tailings ponds have contaminated water, sowing mistrust among local First Nations people
Eco-fascism, for the uninitiated, is best known as the ideology embraced by the mass shooter who killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket last year. The shooter, as E&E News reported at the time, was motivated by “the racist conspiracy theory that the ruling class is using immigration to politically and culturally ‘replace’ white people.” The Buffalo shooter called on others “to view immigration as ‘environmental warfare,’” and to “reclaim environmentalism in the name of white nationalism.” His calls echoed those of the mass shooter who killed 23 people in an El Paso, Texas Walmart in 2019, who was also a self-proclaimed eco-fascist.
The problem with American electric vehicles is the same problem as with our gas-powered models: They’re too dang big. The Ford F-150 has been the top-selling automobile in the country for many years, and the electric version — while admittedly quite nifty — weighs 3.25 tons. The new electric Hummer is even more ridiculous, coming in at 9,000 pounds, with a 212-kilowatt-hour battery that weighs more than a Mazda Miata.
Andreas Malm says he has no hope in ‘dominant classes’, and urges more radical approach to climate activism.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline makes a case for sabotage, but hope remains that we can build rather than destroy, says campaigner Natasha Walter
The politics of this new, extreme individualism will make collective responses to social crises impossible, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty
- For economist Timothée Parrique, our survival depends on our ability to change our economic model to degrowth towards a post-growth economy.A researcher in...
Several nations plan to build new coal power plants, with China alone approving nearly 100 gigawatts. Each gigawatt is the equivalent of installing more than 3 million solar panels.
Climate disorder won’t be remedied through an orderly march of green energy. The world must also rein in consumption.
The Anthropocene Working Group is voting on a so-called Golden Spike, a sedimentary layer somewhere on Earth that best exemplifies the global impact of humans on planet Earth. It's the last, big task in formally defining the Anthropocene, which is being proposed as a new age in geologic time.
Those with higher levels of PFAS in their blood had 40% lower chance of conceiving within a year of trying
Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth
The collapse of modern societies has already begun. That is the conclusion of two years of research by the interdisciplinary team behind Breaking Together. How did it come to this? Because monetary systems caused us to harm each other and nature to such an extent it broke the foundations of our societies. So what can we do? This book describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously and creatively.
the biophysical limits of food production are being reached. Second, current food production systems are actively destroying the very resource base upon which they rely. Third, the majority of food production and all its storage and distribution is critically dependent upon fossil fuels, not only making the food supply vulnerable to price and supply instability, but also presenting an impossible choice between food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Fourth, climate change is already negatively impacting the food supply and will do so with increasing intensity as the Earth continues to warm and weather destabilises. Fifth, the trajectory of increasing food demand that cannot easily be reversed. Sixth, the prioritisation of economic efficiency and profit in world trade has undermined food sovereignty and the resilience of food production at multiple scales, making both production and distribution highly vulnerable to disruptive shocks. Considered individually, each one of the hard trends presents a
The total concentration of greenhouse gases and other forcing agents, including cooling aerosols, reached 465 parts per million CO2 equivalents in 2020. This is around the peak level that the International Panel on Climate Change states 'should not be exceeded if — with a 67% likelihood and not allowing a temperature overshoot — the global temperature increase is to be limited to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels'. When allowing for a temperature overshoot, the peak level could be exceeded in 2024. The peak concentrations corresponding to a temperature increase of 2oC by 2100 could be exceeded between 2027 and 2030.
From October 28-31, 2021, public hearings has been held in the 'Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes' (CICC) against various transnational corporations ...
Although interest in colonisation has grown throughout the West in recent years, it is mostly limited to historical colonialism. Little attention is paid to the ways in which we colonise the future. However, this is done with the same ruthlessness and short-sightedness with which regions around the world were invaded in earlier times. During the 50th edition of the Huizinga Lecture, David Van Reybrouck focuses on the way in which humanity is currently plundering and enslaving future generations. And further, the violence is not limited to human but affects all life on earth.
Wind and solar reached a record 12% of global electricity in 2022, and power sector emissions may have peaked.
Professor Joseph Tainter is an American anthropologist and historian studied anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. As of 2012 he holds a professorship in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. In this interview Professor Tainter discusses the thesis of his widely acclaimed work “The Collapse of Complex Societies”, 25 years after its publication in 1988. His book is among great classics of the study of collapse. In my view a work whose quality and relevance is comparable to Limits to Growth.
Seafloor landforms reveal that ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres per day.
“As we speak, oil is spilling in my community every day, people are dying. “If you don’t have money, you can’t drink water. It’s like we are living in a desert, while we are living on the water.”
Backed by the UN, an alliance of conservationists and policymakers is devising new ways to finance the preservation of biodiversity by placing economic values on ecosystems. Some analysts say such schemes have the potential to boost conservation, but others are skeptical.
Nature-based initiatives, such as planting mangroves and revitalizing wetlands, have proven effective in making communities more resilient to climate change. But international funding has shortchanged such solutions in favor of more costly and less efficient engineering projects.
Governments are ignoring calls to stop fossil fuel expansion—despite there being little time left to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
A small but growing number of Americans are moving to New England or the Appalachian Mountains, which are seen as safe havens from climate change.
Ask climate-related questions to the IPCC reports
NEW YORK – Bloomberg today released a research paper detailing the development of BloombergGPTTM, a new large-scale generative artificial intelligence (AI) model. This large language model (LLM) has been specifically trained on a wide range of financial data to support a diverse set of natural language processing (NLP) tasks within the financial industry.
Since 1992, the IPCC has highlighted rising greenhouse gases, marking their ‘widespread and unprecedented’ impacts by 2014
UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year
An unprecedented rise in plastic pollution has been uncovered by scientists, who have calculated that more than 170tn plastic particles are afloat in the oceans. They have called for a reduction in the production of plastics, warning that “cleanup is futile” if they continue to be pumped into the environment at the current rate.
Campaigners say Rosebank, with a potential yield of 500m barrels, would seriously undermine legal commitment to net zero
The Greenland Ice Sheet covers 1.7 million square kilometers (660,200 square miles) in the Arctic. If it melts entirely, global sea level would rise about 7 meters (23 feet), but scientists aren't sure how quickly the ice sheet could melt. Modeling tipping points, which are critical thresholds where a system behavior irreversibly changes, helps researchers find out when that melt might occur.
Protecting and enhancing populations of key wildlife species across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage and play a critical role mitigating climate change, according to new YSE-led research.
After unusually low amounts of rain and snow this winter, the continent faces a severe water shortage.
Climate change is reducing output and raising safety concerns at nuclear facilities from France to the US. But experts say adapting is possible—and necessary.
Tiny plastic particles can travel worldwide, ending up in urban, rural, and remote areas. They take an even faster transport pathway than oceanic currents: the atmosphere.
Nuclear Winter or a Climate-Change-Induced Nuclear Summer? Let’s not be shy. If there’s one word that comes to mind (mine anyway) at the moment, it’s madness.
We investigate the potential implications of large language models (LLMs), such as Generative Pretrained Transformers (GPTs), on the U.S. labor market, focusing on the increased capabilities arising from LLM-powered software compared to LLMs on their own. Using a new rubric, we assess occupations based on their alignment with LLM capabilities, integrating both human expertise and GPT-4 classifications. Our findings reveal that around 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs, while approximately 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks impacted. We do not make predictions about the development or adoption timeline of such LLMs. The projected effects span all wage levels, with higher-income jobs potentially facing greater exposure to LLM capabilities and LLM-powered software. Significantly, these impacts are not restricted to industries with higher recent productivity growth. Our analysis suggests that, with access to an LLM, about 15%
An investigation by conservationists has found evidence that deep-seabed mining of rare minerals could cause “extensive and irreversible” damage to the planet.The report, to be published on Monday by the international wildlife charity Fauna & Flora, adds to the growing controversy that surrounds proposals to sweep the ocean floor of rare minerals that include cobalt, manganese and nickel. Mining companies want to exploit these deposits – which are crucial to the alternative energy sector – because land supplies are running low, they say.
The damage functions in the models, which relate GDP to temperature and sea-level rise, account for impacts on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, floods, road infrastructure, energy supply and demand, and labor productivity. Using this novel approach, the researchers estimate that the avoided damages are 1.5-3.9 times higher than the costs of climate mitigation. In other words, one euro invested in climate solutions saves the world about 1.5 to 4 euros in effects from climate change.
Increasing risks posed by climate change are causing rare extreme events that can kill more than 10 million people or lead to damages of $10 trillion-plus, posing threats of total societal collapse, a UN report finds.
Words matter. It’s vital terms like ‘crisis’ and ‘calamity’ don’t become rhetorical devices devoid of real content as we argue about what climate action to take.
Emily Stochl is a writer with a focus on the climate crisis, the second-hand fashion industry, ethical labor practices and sustainability. She is a climate activist with the grassroots organization, Sunrise Movement. She is also the host and creator of Pre-Loved Podcast.
Machine learning is producing impressive results, and, for better or worse, researchers are now using it to address the climate crisis, writes Frederick Hewett.
Microplastic pollution reduces energy production in a microscopic creature found in freshwater worldwide, new research shows. Paramecium bursaria contain algae that live inside their cells and provide energy by photosynthesis. The results of a NEW STUDY showed a 50% decline in net photosynthesis—a major impact on the algae's ability to produce energy and release oxygen
Six KCs among more than 120 mostly English lawyers to sign pledge not to act for fossil fuel interests
Avian flu has decimated the marine creatures on the country’s Pacific coastline and scientists fear it could be jumping from mammal to mammal
Pie-in-the-sky fantasies of carbon capture and geoengineering are a way for decision-makers to delay taking real action
I cannot support laws that defend those who destroy the planet, and criminalise those who try to protect it, says Jolyon Maugham KC
Humanity received a “final warning” Monday from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The bottom line of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report is to “act now, or it’s too late,” the Guardian wrote. The scale of the emergency screams out from almost every page — climate change is already displacing and killing millions of people globally — but the report also provides what UN Secretary-General António Guterres called a roadmap for defusing the “climate time bomb.”
Freshwater availability is changing worldwide. Here we quantify 34 trends in terrestrial water storage observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites during 2002–2016 and categorize their drivers as natural interannual variability, unsustainable groundwater consumption, climate change or combinations thereof. Several of these trends had been lacking thorough investigation and attribution, including massive changes in northwestern China and the Okavango Delta. Others are consistent with climate model predictions. This observation-based assessment of how the world’s water landscape is responding to human impacts and climate variations provides a blueprint for evaluating and predicting emerging threats to water and food security. Analysis of 2002–2016 GRACE satellite observations of terrestrial water storage reveals substantial changes in freshwater resources globally, which are driven by natural and anthropogenic climate variability and human activities.
Misguided policies are hurting the poorest in society; our focus should be on reducing inequality not increasing GDP
IPCC report says only swift and drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to world
AR6 Synthesis Report
Summary for Policymakers
INTERLAKEN, Switzerland, March 20, 2023 -- There are multiple, feasible and effective options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change, and they are available now, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today. ...
The IPCC is currently in its Sixth Assessment cycle, during which the IPCC will produce the Assessment reports of its three Working Groups, three Special Reports, a refinement to the methodology report and the Synthesis Report. The Synthesis Report will be the last of the AR6 products, due for release in March 2023.
Vast releases of gas, along with future ‘methane bombs’, represent huge threat – but curbing emissions would rapidly reduce global heating
With the continent holding enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt, polar scientists are scrambling for answers
Research finds waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage plants probably responsible for significant source of water pollution
The excessive use of phosphorus is depleting reserves vital to global food production, while also adding to the climate crisis
It looks like we have to wait a little more to see the end of the oil age. Our desire to burn more and more stuff knows no limits — at least not when talking about the foreseeable future. Statements like “oil will be needed for at least another 10 years” or “independent experts agree that global oil and natural gas demand will increase over the next 30 years” suggest that transitioning to ‘renewables’ will have to wait a little. Will we burn as much carbon as we see fit then? Well, as usual, reality will have a thing or two to say in the matter.
By replacing thousands of equations with just one, ecology modelers can more accurately assess how close fragile environments are to a disastrous “tipping point.”
The rapid decline of Earth’s most numerous animals is a major threat to the biosphere
Carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires, which have been gradually increasing since 2000, spiked drastically to a record high in 2021, according to an international team of researchers led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine.
Far worse things than Covid are on the horizon, last week, a think tank called the Centre for Long-Term Resilience released a report into the most likely extreme risks that humanity faces, and what Britain in particular can do to prepare for them. Covid-19 has cost millions of lives and tens of trillions of dollars so far — but it could have been a lot worse. The extreme risks that the report is talking about range from those that kill 10% or more of the total human population, to those that kill every last one of us. And it suggests that the two most likely causes of a disaster of this magnitude are bioengineered pathogens, and artificial intelligence.
Our rising power finally reached the point where we could destroy ourselves – the first point at which the risks to humanity from within exceeded the risks from the natural world. These extreme risks – high-impact threats with global reach – define our time. They range from global tragedies such as Covid-19, to existential risks which could lead to human extinction. By our estimates – weighing the different probabilities of events ranging from asteroid impact to nuclear war – the likelihood of the world experiencing an existential catastrophe over the next 100 years is one in six. Russian roulette.
The lack of interest in climate adaptation and mitigation among national-security policymakers reflects a profound misunderstanding of the risks that climate change poses to global stability. To avert catastrophe, the international community must help the world’s most vulnerable countries strengthen their resilience.
The sharp rise in fossil fuel subsidies is just one example of why activists say climate treaties are so often meaningless.
Les fourneaux du monde brûlent maintenant environ 2 millions de tonnes de charbon par an. Lorsque le charbon est brûlé, qu’il est assemblé à l’oxygène, cela ajoute environ 7 millions de tonnes de dioxyde de carbone dans l’atmosphère chaque année. (…) Ceci tend à faire de l’atmosphère une véritable couverture plus ‘efficace’ pour la planète, ce qui a pour effet d’augmenter sa température. L’effet sera probablement considérable dans quelques siècles.
More than 17 000 sites all over Europe are contaminated by the “forever chemicals” PFAS, an exclusive, months-long investigation from 18 European newsrooms shows. The investigation “The Forever Pollution Project” reveals an additional 21 000 presumptive contamination sites due to current or past industrial activity. The contamination revealed by this project spreads all over Europe.
Former UN secretary general calls for rich countries to honour promises made to the developing world after years of failure
Guardian analysis of data in light of Ohio train derailment shows accidental releases are happening consistently
Last year, 3 million were displaced in the US. Millions more will follow – and neither they, the government or the housing market are ready
It’s not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ if campaigners cannot explain their motivations to a jury, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
The steady destruction of wildlife can suddenly tip over into total ecosystem collapse, scientists studying the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history have found. Many scientists think the huge current losses of biodiversity are the start of a new mass extinction. But the new research shows total ecosystem collapse is “inevitable”, if the losses are not reversed, the scientists said.
The climate crisis has begun to disrupt human societies by severely affecting the very foundations of human livelihood and social organisation. Climate impacts are not equally distributed across the world: on average, low- and middle-income countries suffer greater impacts than their richer counterparts. At the same time, the climate crisis is also marked by significant inequalities within countries. Recent research reveals a high concentration of global greenhouse gas emissions among a relatively small fraction of the population, living in emerging and rich countries. In addition, vulnerability to numerous climate impacts is strongly linked to income and wealth, not just between countries but also within them.
Major mapping project reveals PFAS have been found at high levels at thousands of sites
We are a species that is superb at killing, says veteran oceanographer, who calls for us to stop treating fish like crops and give them the respect they deserve
The world’s reliance on hi-tech capitalist solutions to the climate and ecological crises is perpetuating racism, the outgoing UN racism rapporteur has warned. Green solutions including electric cars, renewable energy and the rewilding of vast tracts of land are being implemented at the expense of racially and ethnically marginalised groups and Indigenous peoples, Tendayi Achiume told the Guardian in an interview.
People in developing countries are feeling increasingly angry and “victimised” by the climate crisis, the US climate envoy John Kerry has warned, and rich countries must respond urgently. “I’ve been chronicling the increased frustration and anger of island states and vulnerable countries and small African nations and others around the world that feel victimised by the fact that they are a minuscule component of emissions,” he said. “And yet [they are] paying a very high price. Seventeen of the 20 most affected countries in the world, by the climate crisis, are in Africa, and yet 48 sub-Saharan countries total 0.55% of all emissions.”
Past governments blamed the growing of coca – the base component of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise
A train derailed and flooded a town with cancer-causing chemicals. But something larger, and more troubling, is at work.
This website introduces my research in behavioural ecology, focussing on the evolution of mammalian societies and mating systems
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made clear Monday that securing a livable planet depends on stopping the "bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers."
The world is at risk of descending into a climate “doom loop”, a thinktank report has warned. It said simply coping with the escalating impacts of the climate crisis could draw resources and focus away from the efforts to slash carbon emissions, making the situation even worse.
Flying is a highly controversial topic in climate debates. It accounts for around 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions, but 3.5% when we take non-CO₂ impacts on climate into account.
Community displacement has emerged as an unintended cost of climate resilience efforts. Here’s how cities can boost both livability and equity.
Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planet
Researchers found that exceeding the 2C increase has a 50% chance of happening by mid-century
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets
Dozens of people have been imprisoned, as changes in the law are used to curb protest. Is it part of a turn towards a more authoritarian state?
Letters: I risked prison to stand up against an system that will lead to ecological and societal collapse – we must look for alternative economic models, writes Zoe Cohen
Claimants ClientEarth say the oil company’s plan puts the company at financial risk as the world transitions to clean energy, The directors of oil major Shell are being personally sued over their climate strategy, which the claimants say is inadequate to meet climate targets and puts the company at risk as the world switches to clean energy.
Black Mountains College in Wales aims to prepare students for life during a planetary emergency. The college is this year offering a radical new degree course designed to prepare students for a career in times of climate breakdown, and build a generation with the innovative skills and ideas required to tackle the crisis.
Canadian author and professor of climate justice cautiously hails loss and damage agreements at Cop27. " I think the most important thing is to just find other people. Trying to think through this by yourself is a recipe for feeling like a failure and getting dispirited very, very quickly. The benefit of being part of a broader movement is knowing that some people are doing some things, and other people are doing other things, and nobody has to do everything."
The fallout when the industry fails to act is still smaller than the rewards for pumping out more pollution
An increase in the pace at which sea levels are rising threatens “a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale”, the UN secretary general has warned. The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise faster than for 3,000 years, bringing a “torrent of trouble” to almost a billion people, from London to Los Angeles and Bangkok to Buenos Aires, António Guterres said on Tuesday. Some nations could cease to exist, drowned under the waves, he said.
We are writing to urge you to push the United Arab Emirates to withdraw the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, as President-designate of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 28 (COP 28). The decision to name the chief executive of one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies as president of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference risks jeopardizing climate progress from successive U.N. Climate Conferences. To help ensure that COP 28 is a serious and productive climate summit, we believe the United States should urge the United Arab Emirates to name a different lead for COP 28 or, at a minimum, seek assurances that it will promote an ambitious COP 28 aligned with the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings and take concrete steps to demonstrate domestic and regional leadership toward this end.
CUNNAMULLA, Australia — Carol Godfrey gazed out her helicopter cockpit at the miles of mulgas glowing green and gold in the dawn light. For decades, the bushy trees had been little more than a last resort for farmers needing to feed their cattle in the arid Outback. But recently, the humble mulgas have become a hot commodity. It’s not the hardwoods themselves that are valuable, however. It’s what they store: carbon.
The new study shows that every increment of sea level rise will cover more than twice as much land as older models predicted, and marks another advance in providing more accurate models of rising seas
Electric utilities are likely responsible for the nation’s higher than expected emissions of sulfur hexafluoride, a greenhouse gas 25,000 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide.
Mexico announced this Tuesday a set of measures to ban solar geoengineering experiments in the country, after a US startup began releasing sulfur particles into the atmosphere in the northern state of Baja California.
An alternate timeline that ends with a Nobel prize for Exxon’s CEO.
The deployment of low-tech requires taking into account the human factor and changing design practices.
Many people believe that wind, solar and electric vehicles are solutions to our energy problems. In this post I talk about the important role complexity plays. Growing complexity uses energy in hidden ways. The result tends to be more energy use, rather than less, as complex solutions such as wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles are added. Many measures of energy desirability give unreasonably favorable ratings to wind and solar and electric vehicles. The problem is that dual systems are needed, driving up energy consumption. Without enough energy, economies tend to collapse. This is a form of simplification.
D'une grenouille australienne qui a avalé ses propres œufs aux mammouths laineux, les scientifiques sont de plus en plus près de pouvoir ramener d'entre les morts des espèces disparues depuis longtemps.
The team led by Robert Cowie, a research professor at the University of Hawaii, argues that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species was too focused on the loss of bird and mammal species — and not focused enough on invertebrates, a much larger group.
Ecosystems rely on interconnectedness — bees pollinate the flowers, predators eats prey, and so on. But these webs, though highly evolved, can be delicate. One link goes missing, and a ripple effect is felt throughout the entire system. As more species are lost, that balance becomes increasingly fragile, sometimes to the point of collapse.
Here is a model which gives future temps., pH, and productivity for the earths large water masses. In discussions you can download the full article.
An international team of scientists painstakingly gathered data from more than 50 years of seagoing scientific drilling missions to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of organic carbon that falls to the bottom of the ocean and gets drawn deep inside the planet.
Recent news articles about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research heralded the potential for “limitless” energy. Whenever I read that word limitless I wince, because I’ve learned to view it as a subtle instruction to readers to “please stop thinking now.” After decades of false promises to delive
It beggars belief that the UN thought it a good idea to allow an authoritarian petro-state to host the already compromised summit, says Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of climate hazards
Carbon credits and offsets do not have a great record but the funds they raise are a vital part in fight against deforestation
Carbon offsets can help achieve emissions goals, some experts argue, while others say they are actively dangerous
Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating
Atlanta wants to build a police training facility in a forested area amid community opposition
More than 40% of land vertebrates will be threatened by extreme heat by the end of the century under a high emissions scenario, with freak temperatures once regarded as rare likely to become the norm, new research warns. Reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals are being exposed to extreme heat events of increasing frequency, duration and intensity, as a result of human-driven global heating. This poses a substantial threat to the planet’s biodiversity, a new study warns. Under a high emissions scenario of 4.4C warming, 41% of land vertebrates will experience extreme thermal events by 2099, according to the paper, published in Nature.
Several US states say news that Exxon scientists predicted global heating accurately strengthens their lawsuits against company
Three “super-tipping points” for climate action could trigger a cascade of decarbonisation across the global economy, according to a report. Relatively small policy interventions on electric cars, plant-based alternatives to meat and green fertilisers would lead to unstoppable growth in those sectors, the experts said. But the boost this would give to battery and hydrogen production would mean crucial knock-on benefits for other sectors including energy storage and aviation.
Over the past week, police have taken brutal steps to suppress ecological movements in Europe and the United States. In Germany, police evicted and destroyed the long-occupied village of Lützerath in a massive operation in order to expand an ecologically devastating open pit coal mine.
A comprehensive new study led by Professor Gwen Robbins Schug at UNC Greensboro traces the impact of rapid climate change events on humans over the past 5,000 years and offers lessons for today's policymakers. The meta-analysis of approximately a decade's worth of bioarchaeology data was published today as a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences perspective article by a team of 25 authors representing 21 universities.
30 years into the era of cooperation for Sustainable Development, this model is turning out to be a conceptually flawed and failed solution to both poverty and ecological conservation. Its near-hegemonic grip on international development agencies may well have done more harm than good, by stifling more radical alternatives while leaving communities more vulnerable to incipient climate breakdown. That is why it is high time that those of us who are employed to work on either environmental or social issues now drop the ideology of Sustainable Development
The accelerating thaw of Antarctica might drive sea levels up by more than five metres by 2300 unless governments act quickly to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a UN report said on Wednesday.
Presidents of Senegal, DRC and Ghana travelled to Rotterdam to talk about adapting to climate change. Only one European leader was there to meet them
Climate endgame is the name some scientists have given to the hypothesis of a global societal collapse due to effects of climate change. The real chance of happening is considered small, but the researchers who warned most resoundingly about this danger in August 2022 seek to improve risk management by putting a higher priority on worst-case scenarios, to "galvanise action, improve resilience, and inform policy".
This is an essay that responds critically to the widely read essay in the New York Times that appears to be calming the nerves of climate professionals here at COP27 and beyond....
Industry funds ‘grassroots’ resistance to tougher rules while touting green credentials, study shows
Group says forcing polluters to store carbon dioxide underground is needed to help world reach net zero
Large misinformation campaigns on climate change science are being funded by a handful of sources with an interest in maintaining the status quo.
The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.
World Weather Attribution ties disasters and extreme conditions to climate change—providing crucial leverage for legal and policy battles.
Publications and communications
Scientists are getting a better handle on how fast Greenland's ice is flowing out to sea. Old models that used Antarctica as a baseline were way off the mark.
Longtermism is a perspective that there is a moral reason to consider how the actions and decisions we take today affect the lives of huge numbers of future people.
At the Hay Festival, BBC Future assembled a panel of thinkers to discuss one of the most pressing questions of our time: how to tackle society’s habit of “short-termism”.
Studying the demise of historic civilisations can tell us about the risk we face today, says collapse expert Luke Kemp. Worryingly, the signs are worsening.
Behind the headlines about billionaire jaunts into space, there's a deeper motivation – the belief that spreading into the cosmos will save humanity's future. How did this idea emerge?
Prior research has posed a paradox of sorts: if the risk to humanity from natural hazards is so large, then why do we exist? The human species has existed for about 200,000 years, and our ancestors for even longer. Natural hazards have existed throughout this time. If they posed a significant risk, then humanity probably would have been wiped out a long time ago—yet here we are. Prior research has taken this observation about deep human history to imply a low ongoing global catastrophic risk from natural hazards, especially in comparison to anthropogenic hazards.
How do researchers gauge the probability and severity of nuclear war? Catastrophic risk expert Seth Baum explains.
If you weigh up the long-term impact of catastrophes on future generations, it is hard not to see their prevention as one of our greatest priorities, argues Seth Baum.
Wildfires, floods and soaring temperatures have made climate change real to many Americans. Yet a sizeable number continue to dismiss the scientific consensus that human activity is to blame. “Victory,” according to the American Petroleum Institute’s memo, “will be achieved when average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science… Unless ‘climate change’ becomes a non-issue… there may be no moment when we can declare victory.”
Over the past 12 months, courts from Indonesia to Australia have made groundbreaking rulings that blocked polluting power plants and denounced the human rights violations of the climate crisis. But 2023 could be even more important, with hearings and judgments across the world poised to throw light on the worst perpetrators, give victims a voice and force recalcitrant governments and companies into
The past year saw major developments in accountability cases against oil companies and national governments around the world, as well as setbacks for several high-profile fossil fuel projects.
In Europe, a large-scale war could cause the Baltic Sea to freeze over and severely compromise food security – potentially for decades and even centuries to come. An ever-growing body of work has shown that even a local nuclear conflict could usher in a climate catastrophe. As marine scientists, we have considered what this could specifically mean for the world’s oceans. In 1982, a group of scientists including Carl Sagan began to raise the alarm on a climate apocalypse that could follow nuclear war. Using simple computer simulations and historic volcanic eruptions as natural analogues, they showed how smoke that lofted into the stratosphere from urban firestorms could block out the sun for years.
Negotiators hope to put humanity on a path to harmonious coexistence with nature by 2050.
The EU have introduced a new regulation on the import of products linked to deforestation – but will this reduce deforestation globally?
Deforestation coupled with the rampant destruction of natural resources will soon have devastating effects on the future of society as we know it, according to two theoretical physicists who study complex systems and have concluded that greed has put us on a path to irreversible collapse within the next two to four decades.
Humanity is now a ‘geological superpower’ and declaring a new epoch is critical to tackling its impact, scientists say
In the U.K., Extinction Rebellion is shifting to a more moderate strategy in 2023. It could mark a tone shift for the climate movement.
Human activity is putting the Earth on a trajectory towards environmental collapse. The SDGs were adopted in2015 to reconcile human activity with planetary boundaries. So far, the SDGs have not lived up to their promise in European Union member states. Most EU countries have seen socioeconomic development alongside environmental degradation. Progress towards environmental sustainability only occurs in countries with slow or negative socioeconomic trends.
There could be 1.2 billion refugees in next 30 years. Many will be from my part of the world — Africa — where droughts, conflict, and food insecurity already threaten millions. The evidence shows the 'next Afghanistan' is not in the Middle East but in Africa, specifically West Africa, where religious violence, political corruption, weak states, and the devastating impacts of climate change have combined to create an unprecedente...
Fossil fuel companies that want a free pass to keep pumping oil and gas are making wildly unrealistic promises about 'capturing' their emissions at sites of pollution, or removing them from the atmosphere at later date. But the science says drastic emission cuts are needed now if we are to stay within 1.5ºC warming. Thus ‘net zero’ policies are in reality 'not zero', and effectively guarantee that we’ll overshoot 1.5ºC, triggering catastrophic climate impacts which we have no reason to believe can be reversed by speculative and unproven ‘carbon removal’ technologies.
En cette nouvelle année, il est indispensable de faire le bilan de la production d’électricité en 2022. Pour cela, nous comparerons l’Allemagne, souvent mise en avant par de nombreux politiques français pour son avance dans la transition énergétique, et la France, que ces mêmes politiques disent en retard. Attention, l’électricité ne représente que 20 à 25% de l’énergie consommée. De plus, l’empreinte carbone des habitants tient compte des importations (soit 50% pour un Français). Les émissions de CO2 présentées dans cet article ne concernent donc que celles liés à la production d’électricité.
The number of insects splattered on vehicle number plates in Britain fell by 64% between 2004 and 2022, according to a survey. Each summer citizen scientists record the number of insect splats on their number plates on an app after a journey. The latest Bugs Matter report, produced by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, found another drop in 2022 compared with 2021, with the long-term decrease jumping by five percentage points.
The coasts of Alaska are piled up with dead birds dying of starvation. Experts say that climate change is resulting in shifts in the food chain.
A community of Indigenous peoples worried that mercury used by gold miners was contaminating the fish they eat. So they created a DIY team to find out more.
Overall, however, the climate crisis is bleaker than it has ever been. In October, a slew of reports laid bare how close the planet had neared to irreversible climate breakdown, with one UN study stating there was “no credible pathway in place to 1.5C”, the internationally agreed limit for global heating, and that progress on cutting carbon emissions was “woefully inadequate”.
EN
‘Battle for the nation’s soul’: Norway faces debate about gas and oil wealth | Norway | The Guardian
(01/01) - Philip OltermannRussia’s war in Ukraine has earned Norway billions – and caused controversy. Thanks to oil and gas reserves in the waters off its coast, Norway is not only extremely rich but getting richer still. Already the World Bank’s seventh wealthiest country by GDP per capita at the start of this year, the resource-rich Scandinavian country’s profits have ballooned to record levels over the last 12 months, as prices on the energy markets tripled due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Norway replaced bellicose Moscow as Europe’s largest supplier of gas.
Scientists are to pick a location that sums up the current Anthropocene epoch when Homo sapiens made its mark
The climate protest group Extinction Rebellion is shifting tactics from disruptions such as smashing windows and glueing themselves to public places in 2023, it has announced. A new year resolution to “prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks”, was spelled out in a 1 January statement titled “We quit”, which said “constantly evolving tactics is a necessary approach”.
A beauty company has appointed a director to represent nature on its board, giving the natural world a legal say in its business strategy. Faith In Nature, which sells soap and haircare products, as well as household cleaners and shampoo for dogs, says it is the first company in the world to give nature a formal vote on corporate decisions that might affect it
Folks who do systems analysis have a great belief in “leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.
As it confronts environmental, geopolitical and economic shocks, Europe is in a position to show the way to climate neutrality and social equality, top advisor says.
Planned drilling projects across US land and waters will release 140bn metric tons of planet-heating gases if fully realised, an analysis shared with the Guardian has found. The study, to be published in the Energy Policy journal this month, found emissions from these oil and gas “carbon bomb” projects were four times larger than all of the planet-heating gases expelled globally each year, placing the world on track for disastrous climate change.
Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority
Governments must close gap between net zero rhetoric and reality, says International Energy Agency head
Soaring temperatures in subcontinent, which have caused widespread suffering, would be extraordinarily rare without global heating
Global coal demand is set to increase only marginally in 2022 but enough to push it to an all-time high amid the energy crisis, according to a new IEA report, which forecasts the world’s coal consumption will remain at similar levels in the following years in the absence of stronger efforts to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves. Denmark’s 55 existing oil and gas platforms, scattered across 20 oil and gas fields, will be allowed to continue extracting fossil fuels but the milestone decision to end the hunt for new reserves in the ageing basin will guarantee an end to Denmark’s fossil fuel production.
Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of heating, with severe long-term effects. The new research examined the interactions between ice sheets in West Antarctica, Greenland, the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream and the Amazon rainforest. The scientists carried out 3m computer simulations and found domino effects in a third of them, even when temperature rises were below 2C, the upper limit of the Paris agreement.
Most expensive storm cost $100bn while deadliest floods killed 1,700 and displaced 7 million, report finds
A new survey from YouGov asked Americans for their thoughts on climate change, including what they believe its potential impacts could be and whether they believe they and their country are doing enough to tackle climate change. The findings suggest that most Americans anticipate dire consequences to climate change, but many believe there are still ways to avoid the worst of it.
Around two thirds of the approvals (=CEPs, Certificate of Suitability of Monographs of the European Pharmacopoeia) required for the production of active
Climate Change Laws of the World is a global database of climate change laws, policies, climate targets and litigation cases
WEAll is a collaboration of organisations, alliances, movements and individuals working towards a wellbeing economy, delivering human and ecological wellbeing.
We face so many concurrent threats that commentators have argued that we now face an unprecedented "polycrisis" – where multiple interacting global crises produce greater harms to the planet and humanity than those crises would produce in isolation. The Wellbeing Economy Alliance has argued that the current economic design is at the root cause of this polycrisis, and with good reason.
For a small but growing network of countries, the world's go-to metric of economic health is no longer fit for purpose. Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. The coalition, which is expected to expand in the coming months, aims to transform economies around the world to deliver shared well-being for people and the planet by 2040.
Soils are known to be an enormous reservoir of carbon and represent an important and dynamic part of the global carbon cycle. However, this reservoir is under constant threat due to a combination of issues, including mismanagement, climate change and intensive agricultural production which has led to depletion of soil organic carbon. Understanding and fostering soil carbon sequestration reviews the wealth of research on important aspects of soil carbon sequestration, including its potential in mitigating and adapting to climate change and improving global food security. The collection explores our understanding of carbon sequestration in soils, detailing the mechanisms and abiotic factors that can affect the process, as well as the socioeconomic, legal and policy issues that can arise as a result of this use. In its extensive exploration of soil carbon cycling and capture, the book highlights how an informed understanding of carbon sequestration in a variety of soil types can contribute to achieving a more su
Climate change affects the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions by exposing previously frozen permafrost to thaw, unlocking soil nutrients, changing hydrological processes, and boosting plant growth. As a result, sub-Arctic tundra is subject to a shrub expansion, called “shrubification”, at the expense of sedge species. Depending on the intrinsic foliar properties of these plant species, changes in foliar mineral element fluxes with shrubification in the context of permafrost degradation may influence topsoil mineral element composition. Despite the potential implications of changes in topsoil mineral element concentrations for the fate of organic carbon, this remains poorly quantified. Here, we investigate vegetation foliar and topsoil mineral element composition (Si, K, Ca, P, Mn, Zn, Cu, Mo, V) across a natural gradient of permafrost degradation at a typical sub-Arctic tundra at Eight Mile Lake (Alaska, USA). Results show that foliar mineral element concentrations are higher (up to 9 times; Si, K, Mo for all spec
La Niña is present.* Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average across most of the Pacific Ocean. The tropical Pacific atmosphere is consistent with La Niña. La Niña is expected to continue into the winter, with equal chances of La Niña and ENSO-neutral during January-March 2023. In February-April 2023, there is a 71% chance of ENSO-neutral.*
Elizabeth Kolbert writes about this week’s summit on biodiversity, where delegates will consider ambitious new conservation targets—even though the old ones have yet to be achieved.
MIT researchers have confirmed that Earth harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to keep global temperatures within a steady, habitable range.“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback,” says Constantin Arnscheidt, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.”
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change implies that fast- feedback equilibrium climate sensitivity is at least ~4°C for doubled CO2 (2×CO2), with likely range 3.5-5.5°C. Greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing is 4.1 W/m2 larger in 2021 than in 1750, equivalent to 2×CO2 forcing. Global warming in the pipeline is greater than prior estimates. Eventual global warming due to today’s GHG forcing alone – after slow feedbacks operate – is about 10°C. Human-made aerosols are a major climate forcing, mainly via their effect on clouds. We infer from paleoclimate data that aerosol cooling offset GHG warming for several millennia as civilization developed. A hinge-point in global warming occurred in 1970 as increased GHG warming outpaced aerosol cooling, leading to global warming of 0.18°C per decade. Aerosol cooling is larger than estimated in the current IPCC report, but it has declined since 2010 because of aerosol reductions in China and shipping. Without unprecedented global actions to
Wheat is an important global crop, but new research suggests that fungal toxins have contaminated half of all European wheat produced for food. the widespread presence of vomitoxin in our food is concerning. It is not yet known how constant, low-level dietary exposure to mycotoxins can affect human health in the long term. This is compounded by the fact that one-quarter of the wheat contaminated with vomitoxin also contained other FHB mycotoxins, raising concerns of synergism, where toxins interact with each other and cause greater harm than the sum of the individual toxins acting alone.
It’s not just indifference. It’s an active, and deadly, cavalier attitude towards the lives of others: an example other nations follow
More than two decades on from the protocol, country shows enthusiasm for nuclear restarts over renewables
On June 30, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in West Virginia v. EPA that substantially limited the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Because the opinion concerned the proper scope of executive agency rulemaking, the decision may have profound effects on other regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today proposed rule changes that would require registrants to include certain climate-related disclosures in their registration statements and periodic reports, including information about climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on their business, results of operations, or financial condition, and certain climate-related financial statement metrics in a note to their audited financial statements. The required information about climate-related risks also would include disclosure of a registrant’s greenhouse gas emissions, which have become a commonly used metric to assess a registrant’s exposure to such risks.
In 1998, as nations around the world agreed to cut carbon emissions through the Kyoto Protocol, America’s fossil fuel companies plotted their response, including an aggressive strategy to inject doubt into the public debate.
We know that the easiest way for a politician to secure power is to appease those who already possess it, those whose power transcends elections: the oil barons, the media barons, the corporations and financial markets. We know that this power appoints the worst possible people at the worst possible time. We know how, as elderly billionaires seek to grab ever more of the life that slips from them, they create a death cult....
A climate protester who blocked a lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge has been sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months, with human rights advocates labelling the punishment “disproportionate”.
For decades fossil fuel majors tried to fight the consensus – just as big tobacco once disputed that smoking kills.
Caterpillar successfully demonstrates first battery electric large mining truck and invests in sustainable proving ground. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) announced a successful demonstration of its first battery electric 793 large mining truck and a significant investment to transform its Arizona-based proving ground into a sustainable testing and validation hub of the future.
Shane White from www.worldenergydata.org has put together three very useful charts breaking down coal, oil and gas extraction by nation.
Fossil fuels, fisheries and farming: the world’s most destructive industries are protected – and subsidised – by governments
If 15 planned coal mining projects in Australia enter operation they would boost the country’s methane emissions from the dirtiest fossil fuel by nearly a fifth, according to an analysis from energy think tank Ember.
Small patches of land given over to wildlife-friendly planting can make a big difference to pollinator conservation, a new study suggests. Bee and other pollinator populations in Europe and North America are in decline due to a range of factors including habitat loss and insufficient flowers for food.
An Australian court has blocked a proposal for a huge coal mine, saying the emissions produced by the fuel would threaten human rights. The Galilee Coal Project would add 1.58 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over its lifespan — more than triple Australia’s annual domestic emissions — and impact the human rights of future generations, the Queensland Land Court ruled on Friday.
Grzegorz has given up driving for a far more lucrative line of work as Poland grapples with energy shortages: illegal mining. Around his home in the Lower Silesian city of Walbrzych, coal sits as little as a meter below the surface in fields, recreation areas and even gardens. A four-man team can unearth a ton in an hour and make 1,000 zloty ($220) each for half a day’s work, roughly 60% of what an average person earns in a week.
Years ago, James Schlesinger noted that human beings have only two operational modes: complacency and panic. It is an observation that rings true and that we can generalize in terms of groups: some humans are catastrophists, and some are cornucopians. I tend to side with the catastrophists, to the point that I created the term "Seneca Effect" or "Seneca Cliff" to define the rapid decline that comes after that growth stops. Indeed, catastrophes are a common occurrence in human history, but it is also true that sometimes (rarely) a catastrophic decline can be reversed: I termed this effect the "Seneca Rebound."
"KEEP 1.5 ALIVE" has been the mantra of recent global climate conferences. But more and more mainstream organisations now say our politicians have already failed, and that average global temperature increases higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels are now inevitable. So, who are we to believe?
All students at the University of Barcelona will have to take a mandatory course on the climate crisis after the establishment agreed to meet the demands of activists conducting a sit-in occupation. The announcement came after a seven-day occupation by a group from the anti-fossil fuel organisation End Fossil Barcelona.
The Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a non-partisan institute of the Council on Strategic Risks, has a team and distinguished Advisory Board of security and military experts. CCS envisions a climate-resilient world which recognizes that climate change threats to security are already significant, unprecedented and potentially existential, and acts to address those threats in a manner that is commensurate to their scale, consequence and probability.
The Sea Port Oil Terminal, 30 miles off the Texas coast, is the first of four proposed offshore terminals designed to dramatically expand the U.S. oil export capacity.
The climate talks are going into overtime with little progress toward the emissions cuts required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
More climate scientists say emissions cuts are not enough and we face imminent catastrophe unless deliberately altering the climate. What are the options and challenges? Jem Bendell interviewed Dr Ye Tao who is proposing we use massive amounts of mirrors to reduce harm in the short term.
...after borders reopened, our fossil fuel addiction returned with a vengeance. In fact, the International Energy Agency projects net income for oil and gas producers will double in 2022 to an alarming US$4 trillion. As social scientists, this is both horrifying and fascinating to observe. How is it that a technologically advanced society could choose to destroy itself by failing to act to avert a climate catastrophe?
Recent studies from around the world show insects are disappearing fast. If this continues, this will have profound consequences for mankind and for our planet, for insects provide a myriad of vital ‘ecosystem services’, such as pollination, pest control, decomposition and recycling. This lecture looks at the causes of this crisis, at possible solutions including more sustainable farming systems, and at what we can do individually to create insect-friendly habitats.
In 1968, the best-seller “The Population Bomb,” written by Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned of the perils of overpopulation: mass starvation, societal upheaval, environmental deterioration. The book was criticized at the time for painting an overly dark picture of the future. But while not all of the Ehrlich’s dire predictions have come to pass, the world’s population has doubled since then, to over seven billion, straining the planet’s resources and heating up our climate.
The map shows the Climate Shift Index (CSI) for the daily average temperature. High CSI values mean climate change made the temperatures more likely.
In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on. According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.
The specific fallout products released following a nuclear detonation depend on the characteristics of the device detonated and the nature of the detonation. Generally, these products can be organized by the following three categories, based on their mode of generation...
The destruction of global forests slowed in 2021 but the vital climate goal of ending deforestation by 2030 will still be missed without urgent action, according to an assessment. The area razed in 2021 fell by 6.3% after progress in some countries, notably Indonesia. But almost 7m hectares were lost and the destruction of the most carbon- and biodiversity-rich tropical rainforests fell by only 3%. The CO2 emissions resulting from the lost trees were equivalent to the emissions of the entire European Union plus Japan.
Rich countries must urgently develop a plan to assist countries suffering the ravages of extreme weather, as failure to take early action on the climate crisis has left them increasingly vulnerable, developing nations have said. The V20 – made up of the 20 vulnerable countries facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and least able to cope with them – set out its proposals on Monday for how rich countries should pay for the “loss and damage” caused by the climate crisis.
The EU is on track to break a promise to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 made due to a “policy vacuum” on livestock emissions, a report has warned.Most of Europe’s methane emissions come from agriculture – particularly livestock – but the EU has avoided using policy levers such as its €387bn common agricultural policy to directly tackle the problem
Many countries' pledges to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions rely partly on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, using methods such as planting trees and restoring degraded ecosystems. But a report out today has revealed they are relying too heavily on these carbon drawdown schemes to fulfil these promises. The Land Gap Report, which was released today by the University of Melbourne and includes input from more than 20 international researchers, has calculated countries would collectively need 1.2 billion hectares of land to meet their Paris Agreement goals.
On Sept. 10, 1969, six and a half miles south of Rulison, Colorado, a 40-kiloton nuclear bomb exploded in the subterranean depths of the Piceance Basin. The device, more than twice as powerful as the weapon at Hiroshima and with muscle equivalent to 40,000 tons of TNT, was an unorthodox tool in a grand experiment to free natural gas and kickstart a boom. The nuclear age wanted to give the oil and gas age a hand up.
Hundreds of climate activists breached a runway Saturday at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to try to stop private jets from taking off, in the latest demonstration by protesters aimed at drawing attention to the climate crisis. Greenpeace Netherlands said “more than 500” Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion activists were at the airport, one of Europe’s largest, on Saturday afternoon, in a press release. A spokesperson for the Schiphol security forces could not confirm that figure.
National climate pledges would collectively require 1.2 billion hectares (about 3 billion acres) of land, researchers have found in a new study, The Land Gap Report. More than half of this land is already currently used for something else. This demand for land will put pressure on ecosystems, Indigenous lands, small farmers and food security. Protecting existing forests and securing Indigenous and community land rights are more effective than carbon capture plans requiring land-use change, including reforestation.
Research published this summer found that falsehoods about global warming continue to flourish on social media sites and are often framed through the lens of Western culture wars, placing climate change alongside other hot button topics like gay and transgender rights and gun control. A separate analysis released last month found “a sprawling online network” of Spanish speakers on Twitter, TikTok and other major social platforms who “consistently amplify” climate misinformation and other right-wing conspiracy theories.
Climate change is landing blow after blow upon humanity and the planet, an onslaught that will only intensify in the coming years even if the world begins to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2022: Too Little, Too Slow – Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk finds that the world must urgently increase efforts to adapt to these impacts of climate change.
The sediments preserved in these cliffs in Devon were laid down in the early Triassic period, just after the greatest mass extinction in the history of multicellular life that brought the Permian period to an end 252m years ago. Around 90% of species died, and fish and four-footed animals were more or less exterminated between 30 degrees north of the equator and 40 degrees south.
Scientists warn world ‘is heading in wrong direction’ amid rise in nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane.Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases have reached record highs, according to a study by the World Meteorological Organization, which scientists say means the world is “heading in the wrong direction”.
Materials put into domestic compost are failing to disintegrate after six months – the only solution is to use less. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research.
Methane emissions in the UK could be cut by more than 40% by 2030 with a raft of inexpensive policies, according to an environmental thinktank. The government has pledged to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the global heating power of CO2, by at least 30% by 2030. The move was trumpeted by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister after the UK joined more than 100 other countries to make the pledge at Cop26 in Glasgow.
Vast carbon store may be close to point where it could flip from absorbing CO2 to releasing it, research shows. The Congo peatlands are a huge carbon “timebomb” that could be triggered by the climate crisis, research has shown.
A dramatic increase in funding for climate adaptation is needed to save millions of lives from “climate carnage”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said. Climate adaptation includes preparing defences against rising floods, shelters against intensifying cyclones and emergency plans to protect people during worsening heatwaves and droughts. Guterres said only a small fraction of the required finance was given by rich nations to protect vulnerable people.
From the seemingly inexorable increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the rapid growth in green energy
Africa is the continent most vulnerable to the climate crisis, but with the right support at Cop27 it can build a stronger, greener future
Healthy teenagers are more prone to irregular heartbeats after breathing in fine particulate air pollution, according to the first major study of its impact on otherwise healthy young individuals. The findings have raised concern among researchers because heart arrhythmias, which can increase the risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death, appear to be triggered even when air pollution is within common air quality limits.
Filter-feeding whales are consuming millions of particles of microplastic pollution a day, according to a study, making them the largest consumers of plastic waste on the planet. The central estimate for blue whales was 10m pieces a day, meaning more than 1bn pieces could be ingested over a three- to four-month feeding season. The weight of plastic consumed over the season was estimated at between 230kg and 4 tonnes.
António Guterres says gap between developed world and poorer countries is biggest issue facing Cop27 talks
This study evaluates how Europe can fulfil its goal of “achieving resource security” and “reducing strategic dependencies” for its energy transition metals, through a demand, supply, and sustainability assessment of the Green Deal and its resource needs.
As automakers around the world set bold targets for vehicle electrification, many in the industry are looking to nickel — an integral component of most lithium ion batteries — as a major hurdle.
The current energy transition is powered by the realization that avoiding the catastrophic effects of climate change requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This infographic provides historical context for the ongoing shift away from fossil fuels using data from Our World in Data and scientist Vaclav Smil.
António Guterres is heading to Cop27 for what is likely to be another blistering attack on complacency and foot-dragging
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe...
There is a big shortfall between the amount of food we produce today and the amount needed to feed everyone in 2050. There will be nearly 10 billion people on Earth by 2050—about 3 billion more mouths to feed than there were in 2010. As incomes rise, people will increasingly consume more resource-intensive, animal-based foods. At the same time, we urgently need to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural production and stop conversion of remaining forests to agricultural land.
This report synthesizes information from the 166 latest available nationally determined contributions communicated by 193 Parties to the Paris Agreement and recorded in the registry of nationally determined contributions as at 23 September 2022.
Semafor launched last week with the goal of “reinventing the news story.” The news story needs reinventing, they say, because people can no longer tell the difference between unbiased fact and opinion. According to the Observer, Semafor has already raised more than $25 million, the majority of which is coming from eight corporate sponsors who want to help the news outlet address distrust in media. One of those sponsors appears to be Chevron, the second biggest climate-polluting company in the world.
From deadly floods in Nigeria to devastating drought in Somalia, Africa has faced a run of severe – and sometimes unprecedented – extreme weather events since the start of 2022. But while the US hurricane season and 40C heat in the UK have captured headlines, many of Africa’s most extreme and life-changing weather events went largely unreported in global-north media.
UN Climate Change News, 26 October 2022 – A new report from UN Climate Change shows countries are bending the curve of global greenhouse gas emissions downward but underlines that these efforts remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
“The geopolitical situation is more difficult now than it was in 2016, but I can’t imagine that it is more difficult than in 1959,” says Brooks. “Antarctica is a space where we can do extraordinary things, and we’ve seen what countries can do when they come together in the face of crisis.” The question is whether or not the size of the climate crisis in Antarctica outweighs the political crisis in the rest of the world.
As part of a major reform of the EU’s anti-pollution legislation, the European Commission said it planned to tighten air quality standards, including on one of the most dangerous pollutants, fine particulate matter. Water standards are also going to be stricter, with 25 substances added to a control list, such as the category of PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”), the substance Bisphenol A, pesticides including glyphosate, and antibiotics.
Key UN reports published in last two days warn urgent and collective action needed – as oil firms report astronomical profits The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe.
Joint committee on national security strategy criticises ‘severe dereliction of duty’ by ministers as threat grows
Failure to cut carbon emissions means ‘rapid transformation of societies’ is only option to limit impacts, report says
A large majority of the UK public supports nonviolent direct action to protect the environment, according to an opinion poll. People also strongly backed solar power on farmland and opposed fracking. The poll indicates the unpopularity of a recent swathe of government policies, with more than twice as many people saying they trusted Labour to protect the environment as said they trusted the Conservatives.
Lost nets, lines and hooks trap wildlife for years as they float in the ocean, sink to the bottom or are washed ashore
Loss and damage from climate change is already costing vulnerable communities dearly. These communities have played almost no role in causing the climate crisis, yet they are now paying for it with damaged and destroyed homes and schools, lost crops and livelihoods, and the loss of loved ones.
This full length briefing explains what Non-Economic Loss and Damage (NELD) is, why and how it happens, where it happens, who is most affected, and importantly how it can be addressed. Featuring case studies from both the Global North and South, the brief captures the latest thinking on NELD all in one place whilst acting as an accessible introduction for those new to the topic.
The State of Climate Action 2022 report analyzed progress across 40 indicators of action needed by 2030 and 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, everything from increasing renewable energy uptake to halting deforestation to shifting to more sustainable diets. We found that none of the 40 indicators assessed are on track to achieve 2030 targets.
An international study on the future of insects under climate change scenarios has found the loss of insects will drastically reduce the ability of humankind to build a sustainable future. "A growing body of evidence shows many populations of insects are declining rapidly in many places. These declines are of profound concern, with terms like an emerging 'insect apocalypse' being increasingly used by the media and even some scientists to describe this phenomenon," Laurance said.
WMO records biggest increase in methane concentrations since start of measurements
Industry groups representing some of the world’s largest companies are “opposed to almost all major biodiversity-relevant policies” and are lobbying to block them, according to a new report. Researchers found that 89% of engagement by leading industry associations in Europe and the US is designed to delay, dilute and block progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis, which scientists say is as serious as the climate emergency.
Many pathways to stopping climate change involve overshooting 1.5°C temporarily. The latest synthesis of 34,000 references says that’s a bad idea.
The UK's advertising regulator has banned two HSBC advertisements for being "misleading" about the company's work to tackle climate change.
Governments and businesses failing to change fast enough, says United in Science report, as weather gets increasingly extreme. Despite intensifying warnings in recent years, governments and businesses have not been changing fast enough, according to the United in Science report published on Tuesday. The consequences are already being seen in increasingly extreme weather around the world, and we are in danger of provoking “tipping points” in the climate system that will mean more rapid and in some cases irreversible shifts.
Denmark ‘gets ball rolling’ at UN ahead of protests as poor nations call for greater collective commitment. Youth groups in Africa are preparing to embark on a series of climate demonstrations on Friday to highlight the problem of “loss and damage” to poor countries blighted by climate breakdown, as only one rich country has so far stepped up with funding for the problem.
With more governments embracing industrial policies to transform their economies, picking the right technologies to subsidize will become a key challenge. To navigate the minefield of entrenched interests, techno-hype, and political pressures, policymakers must embrace a mix of openness and caution.
The amount of heat accumulating in the ocean is accelerating and penetrating ever deeper, with widespread effects on extreme weather events and marine life, according to a new scientific review.
Concerns about climate change shrank across the world last year, with fewer than half of those questioned in a new survey believing it posed a “very serious threat” to their countries over the next 20 years.
Some two dozen climate liability suits have been making their way through the courts since 2015, bolstered by media investigations and attribution studies that are able to accurately pinpoint the precise contribution climate change has made to the damages inflicted by extreme weather events. A 2021 study in the journal Nature, for example, found that just over $8bn (£7bn) of the $62.7bn (£55.3bn) in damages caused by Superstorm Sandy across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is attributable to sea-level rise caused by climate change.
New coal power projects are becoming “effectively uninsurable” outside China because so many insurance companies have ruled out support for them, a report has found. Recent commitments to stop underwriting coal by prominent US insurers AIG and Travelers have brought the number of coal insurance exit policies to 41, according to the latest industry scorecard by the climate campaign Insure Our Future.
There are likely more than 57,000 locations, with sites in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, that are contaminated with the toxic forever chemicals known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Billboards hijacked across Europe to highlight role of airline emissions in climate crisis
The heat made the city’s roads buckle. Train rails warped, causing long commuter and freight delays. City workers watered bridges to prevent them from locking when the plates expanded. Children riding in school buses became so dehydrated and nauseous that they had to be hosed down by the Fire Department. Hundreds of young people were hospitalized with heat-related illnesses. But the elderly, and especially the elderly who lived alone, were most vulnerable to the heat wave....
Through this analysis of the heat wave Eric Klinenberg offers a loose model for sociologizing, and thereby denaturalizing, disasters that are generally constructed according to categories of common sense and classiffed in a vocabulary that effaces their social logic
The city council in Chicago refused to hold public hearings. Seven hundred and thirty-nine people died in a week. The city had totally bungled the policy response. Everyone's implicated. Next, the mayor organized his own commission. And what did they bury when they published the report? It did not have the words "heat wave" on the cover ... And there's a picture of a snowflake on the image of this report. You know, it was a report that was designed to hide everything inside of it....
In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced the deadliest heat wave in American history. Streets buckled, power grids failed, and when the heat finally broke, more than 700 people were dead. The questions of why so many people perished, and why their deaths were so easy to deny, ignore, or forget, preoccupied Eric Klinenberg. He uncovered unsettling forms of social breakdown – the isolation of seniors, the abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs – which led him to write "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago." Drawing on his experience as research director for the federal Rebuild By Design competition after Superstorm Sandy, he also discovered that global warming makes these issues all the more dangerous and argues that cities must adapt, or face worse incidents in the future.
The summary for policymakers (SPM) and the chapters of the Methodological assessment regarding the diverse conceptualization of multiple values of nature and its benefits, including biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services (referred to as the “assessment of the diverse values and valuation of nature”), were approved and accepted respectively by the IPBES Plenary during its ninth session, held from 3 to 9 July 2022 in Bonn, Germany. The background of this assessment dates to 2013, when at its second session (IPBES 2) in Antalya, Turkey, the IPBES Plenary approved the initiation of scoping for a methodological assessment. During the third session of the IPBES plenary, in Bonn, Germany in 2015, the expert group established for scoping the methodological assessment and developing a preliminary guide, was requested to revise the scoping report for the methodological assessment based on comments received following an open review by Governments and stakeholders. At IPBES 4, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2016
Governments may say they’re doing all they can to halt the climate crisis. Don’t fall for it – then we might still have time to turn things around ‘Stop setting things on fire’: nine great ideas to save the planet Greta Thunberg Greta Thunberg Sat 8 Oct 2022 09.00 BST Maybe it is the name that is the problem. Climate change. It doesn’t sound that bad. The word “change” resonates quite pleasantly in our restless world. No matter how fortunate we are, there is always room for the appealing possibility of improvement. Then there is the “climate” part. Again, it does not sound so bad. If you live in many of the high-emitting nations of the global north, the idea of a “changing climate” could well be interpreted as the very opposite of scary and dangerous. A changing world. A warming planet. What’s not to like?
conférence de Dennis Meadows, analyste des systèmes, initiateur et co-auteur du rapport Les limites de la croissance, Club de Rome, 1972 lundi 19 septembre 2022 ENS de Lyon, amphithéâtre Mérieux
I became a climate activist 16 years ago. Back then, not many people cared about climate change. The eye rolls were audible. Media coverage was scarce, and what little there was glibly included “both sides”. It was frustrating and tragic to see such a clear and present danger and to know that it was still mostly avoidable, yet ignored by society.
An international team of researchers have sounded new alarm bells about the changing chemistry of the western region of the Arctic Ocean after discovering acidity levels increasing three to four times faster than ocean waters elsewhere. The team, which includes University of Delaware marine chemistry expert Wei-Jun Cai, also identified a strong correlation between the accelerated rate of melting ice in the region and the rate of ocean acidification, a perilous combination that threatens the survival of plants, shellfish, coral reefs and other marine life and biological processes throughout the planet's ecosystem.
Investments of more than half a trillion euros will be needed to modernise Europe's energy grid this decade, if countries are to succeed in ramping up wind and solar power to break free from Russian gas, a draft EU document showed. The European Commission is set to publish next week a plan to "digitalise" Europe's energy system, as well as laying out new emergency measures to tame sky-high gas prices and help cash-strapped energy firms this winter. The draft plan, seen by Reuters, said electricity grid investments of 584 billion euros are needed until 2030, to support the planned rapid uptake of electric vehicles, renewable energy and heat pumps, and shift away from fossil fuels. Of this, around 400 billion euros would target the distribution grid. Some 170 billion of that would focus on ditigalisation, including the so-called "smart grids" that respond faster to local supply and demand fluctuations, helping waste less energy and benefit from cheaper periods.
This Southern Ocean warming and its associated impacts are effectively irreversible on human time scales, because it takes millennia for heat trapped deep in the ocean to be released back into the atmosphere. This means changes happening now will be felt for generations to come – and those changes are only set to get worse, unless we can stop carbon dioxide emissions and achieve net zero.
Ember modelling of least-cost power system pathways reveals that a clean power system (70-80% wind and solar) by 2035 should be at the core of energy planning for a net-zero continent by mid-century.
The European Union is embarking on an experiment that will expand its climate policies to imports for the first time. It’s called a carbon border adjustment, and it aims to level the playing field for the EU’s domestic producers by taxing energy-intensive imports like steel and cement that are high in greenhouse gas emissions but aren’t already covered by climate policies in their home countries.
le profil carbone de la France: In this country profile, Carbon Brief examines the state of climate and energy policies in France, a major emitter that nevertheless relies on fossil fuels less than any other industrialised nation.
Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create, but like everything they do, it has unintended consequences
Campaigners say protesters arrested for blocking roads getting ‘lost in prison system’ while on remand. Speaking from inside the jail, he said: “The only good thing about my situation is that it seems to give an extra platform for my views. I spend most afternoons writing speeches and they have been read out all over the world – Italy, Sweden, Canada.”
Nearly 60% of young people approached said they felt very worried or extremely worried. More than 45% of those questioned said feelings about the climate affected their daily lives. Three-quarters of them said they thought the future was frightening. Over half (56%) say they think humanity is doomed.
On estime qu'entre 100 millions et un milliard d'oiseaux meurent chaque année en heurtant des bâtiments aux États-Unis, les lumières artificielles jouant un rôle majeur dans ce bilan. Mais les effets de la pollution lumineuse sur le monde naturel seraient encore bien plus importants.
Eleven of the 20 largest economies got a C or worse on a renewable energy report card, which assessed their plans to reach net zero and their targets for producing and using renewable energy
As China's record heatwave starts to subside, farmers are assessing the damage caused by a prolonged drought and the government is urging them to replant or switch crops where they can.
The author and eminent climate scientist on the deniers’ new tactics and why positive change feels closer than it has done in 20 years
The National Drought Group of the UK predicts that yields of some vegetable crops—carrots, onion, and potatoes—could be cut in half. The European Drought Observatory says that almost half of the bloc is drier than it has been since the Renaissance. China’s agricultural ministry has urged farmers to undertake emergency switches to different crops following a historic heatwave.
New Jersey public school students will be the first in the country required to learn about climate change while in the classroom starting this school year. "Climate change is becoming a real reality," New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy, who spearheaded the initiative, told "ABC News Live" on Thursday. The new standards were adopted by the state's board of education in 2020, but because of the pandemic, the roll out was halted, giving educators and districts more time to prepare the lesson plans for all students in grades K-12.
It’s no longer possible for any reasonable person to deny the existence of human-generated climate change. And as Pakistan suffers under record flooding, Greenland’s ice melts in September, and countries around the world are hit by record-breaking heat wave after heat wave, the effects are starting to become painfully clear. It’s too late to prevent major climate change, but if we make a mighty effort we will be able to limit the damages.
The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for strengthened international solidarity to address pressing global issues. "My objective is to make it clear that …we need cooperation, we need dialogue, and the present terrible geopolitical divides are not allowing it to happen. We need to change course," Mr. Guterres said in a wide-ranging interview with UN News ahead of the General Assembly's annual high-level week. The UN chief is just back from a solidarity visit to flood-ravaged Pakistan, where he called repeatedly for fast – and serious – to not only end what he called "climate carnage" but to provide more support for the countries that are the most-impacted but have done very little to cause the phenomenon.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and almost 200 other health associations have made an unprecedented call for a global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. A call to action published on Wednesday, urges governments to agree a legally binding plan to phase out fossil fuel exploration and production, similar to the framework convention on tobacco, which was negotiated under the WHO’s auspices in 2003. “The modern addiction to fossil fuels is not just an act of environmental vandalism. From the health perspective, it is an act of self-sabotage,” said the WHO president, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Egypt's COP27 presidency vision is to move from negotiations and planning to implementation. Now is the time for action on the ground. It is therefore incumbent upon us to move rapidly towards full, timely, inclusive, and at-scale action on the ground. ...
Group says ‘climate disaster’ vehicles targeted in nine countries including the UK, France and Canada
The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.
The Daily Express removed an article quoting a prominent climate science denier, after an energy company that claims to sell power that is “good for the planet” and “good for your soul” said it was reviewing whether to remove its advertising from the website.
In DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database, you can browse our extensive research on the individuals and organizations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming.
In the past 50 years, the oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat caused by our carbon dioxide emissions, with one ocean absorbing the vast majority.
Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change
As those most responsible for the crisis recede into history, our energy is better spent responding to the world we have created
Understanding the recent history of Thwaites Glacier, and the processes controlling its ongoing retreat, is key to projecting Antarctic contributions to future sea-level rise. Of particular concern is how the glacier grounding zone might evolve over coming decades where it is stabilized by sea-floor bathymetric highs. Here we use geophysical data from an autonomous underwater vehicle deployed at the Thwaites Glacier ice front, to document the ocean-floor imprint of past retreat from a sea-bed promontory. We show patterns of back-stepping sedimentary ridges formed daily by a mechanism of tidal lifting and settling at the grounding line at a time when Thwaites Glacier was more advanced than it is today. Over a duration of 5.5 months, Thwaites grounding zone retreated at a rate of >2.1 km per year—twice the rate observed by satellite at the fastest retreating part of the grounding zone between 2011 and 2019. Our results suggest that sustained pulses of rapid retreat have occurred at Thwaites Glacier in the past
As the world remembers Hiroshima, it must also recommit to the increasingly fragile non-proliferation treaty. The alternative is unthinkable
Three months before COP27, new research suggests the most ambitious climate pledges are also most credible.
Shallow deposits of frozen methane beneath oceans may be more vulnerable to thawing than previously known.
Levels of the gas are growing at a record rate and natural sources like wetlands are the cause, but scientists don’t know how to curb it.
Urgenda has become synonymous with a particular kind of lawsuit brought against a state for inaction on climate change. What impact it has had both in the Netherlands and internationally?
In her urge for a just society in which humankind and nature live together in harmony, CATAPA focuses on the impact of mining. The exploitation of non-renewable raw ressources always comes with a social and ecological impact and fuels conflict. As a means to reach this just world, CATAPA denounces the injustices caused by mining. On the other hand, CATAPA actively looks for alternatives to mining. CATAPA actively contributes to the tempering of global warming and the loss of biodiversity, as the extraction of resources like minerals and fuels accounts for a significant share of the worldwide CO2-emissions and the loss of biodiversity on earth. As a whole, CATAPA strives for a model in which non-renewable raw materials can stay where they naturally belong, in the soil.
Earth For All is both an antidote to despair and a road map to a better future. Using powerful state-of-the-art computer modeling to explore policies likely to deliver the most good for the majority of people, a leading group of scientists and economists from around the world present five extraordinary turnarounds to achieve prosperity for all within planetary limits in a single generation.
Résumé fr - Alain Vézina - Au cours des 11 700 dernières années, pendant lesquelles la civilisation humaine s'est développée, la Terre a vécu dans ce que les géologues appellent l'époque holocène. Aujourd'hui, la science nous dit que l'époque de l'Holocène s'est achevée sur l'échelle des temps géologiques et qu'elle a été remplacée par une nouvelle époque, plus dangereuse, l'Anthropocène, qui a débuté vers 1950. L'époque de l'Anthropocène se caractérise par une "faille anthropique" dans les cycles biologiques du système terrestre, marquant un changement de réalité dans lequel les activités humaines sont désormais la principale force géologique ayant un impact sur la terre dans son ensemble, générant en même temps une crise existentielle pour la population mondiale. Qu'est-ce qui a provoqué ce changement massif dans l'histoire de la Terre ? Dans cette étude exhaustive, John Bellamy Foster nous apprend qu'un système mondialisé d'accumulation du capital a incité l'humanité à faire son propre ni
Carbon capture and storage schemes, a key plank of many governments’ net zero plans, “is not a climate solution”, the author of a major new report on the technology has said. Researchers for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found underperforming carbon capture projects considerably outnumbered successful ones by large margins.
Global public subsidies for fossil fuels almost doubled to $700bn in 2021, analysis has shown, representing a “roadblock” to tackling the climate crisis. Despite the huge profits of fossil fuel companies, the subsidies soared as governments sought to shield citizens from surging energy prices as the global economy rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen style themselves as heralds of some very bad news: societal collapse on a global scale is inevitable, and those who manage to survive the mass death and crumbling of the world as we know it will have to live in drastically transformed circumstances. According to Jackson and Jensen, there’s no averting this collapse – electric cars aren’t going to save us, and neither are global climate accords. The current way of things is doomed, and it’s up to us to prepare as best we can to ensure as soft a landing as possible when the inevitable apocalypse arrives.
Largest scientific study of its kind finds climate anxiety affects the daily life and functioning of nearly half of children and young people surveyed globally.
Il est de plus en plus évident que le changement climatique modifie nos vies. Mais aujourd'hui, une équipe de l'université d'Hawaï (États-Unis) a publié une étude affirmant que le changement climatique a influencé plus de 200 maladies. L'étude, publiée en août dernier dans la revue scientifique Nature, visait initialement à déterminer si le changement climatique avait influencé l'émergence et la propagation du covid-19, mais elle a été élargie et recoupée avec les données de plus de 70 000 articles scientifiques et son incidence dans plus de 200 maladies.
Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth’s climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in almost all countries. Adaptation measures such as food waste reduction would have limited impact on increasing available calories. We estimate more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the United States and Russia—underlining the importance of global cooperation in preventing nuclear war.
IGAD’S Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) today announced that the October to December (OND) 2022 forecast shows high chances of drier than average conditions across most parts of the Greater Horn of Africa. In particular, the drought affected regions of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are expected to receive insufficient rainfall until the end of the year.
The fast fall of PG&E after California’s wildfires is a jolt for companies considering the uncertain risks of a warming planet
US and UK financial institutions have been among the leading investors in Russian “carbon bomb” fossil fuel projects, according to a new database of holdings from recent years.
The goal of our project is to compile in a systematic manner the evidence in support of transmittable diseases being aggravated by climate hazards. To ensure a systematic review, we scrutinized the first 200 references in Google Scholar that resulted from using as keywords each possible combination of ten climate hazards (i.e., warming, heatwaves, precipitation, floods, drought, fires, sea level, storms, natural cover change, ocean climate change) and “human diseases”. We selected papers that reported cases examples of diseases regardless of whether impacts were positive or negative. Selected papers were read and from them extracted any mention to cases examples ofdiseasesaggravated by climate hazards.
While more extreme threats are unlikely to be realised, sticking to the precautionary principle is just plain common sense. A middle of the road route would be to no one’s advantage – so, as for most situations wherein the risk is hard to quantify, there is only one sensible way forward: to hope for the best, while preparing for the worst.
This report introduces an analytical framework to better understand the drivers, triggers and impacts of internal displacement in the context of climate change.
Pennsylvania children living near fracking sites at birth are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia during early childhood than those who did not live near such facilities, a new study has found.
With the Australian Actuaries Institute Climate Index reaching the highest rainfall and temperature levels since the index was launched in 2018, it is not surprising that the Actuaries Institute’s latest Green Paper has warned of climate change’s impact on home insurance affordability in Australia.
An estimated 4.5tn tobacco filters are littered each year and many end up in oceans with deadly consequences
Pet cats kill songbirds by the million, as well as rodents and other wildlife. But how much of a threat do they really pose, and should they be kept indoors? Expert opinion is divided
A great upheaval is coming. Climate-driven movement of people is adding to a massive migration already under way to the world’s cities. The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent. To survive climate breakdown will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken.
What kind of economic system is most conducive to human wellbeing? That question has come to define the current era, because, after 40 years of neoliberalism in the United States and other advanced economies, we know what doesn’t work.
A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations
The United States and Saudi Arabia have hamstrung global efforts to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries, according to multiple sources at the United Nations environment assembly, taking place this week in Nairobi.
Are you a 'subject', a 'consumer'… or a 'citizen'? The authors Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad argue that our societies need a new narrative, and it starts by ditching the stories sold by authoritarianism and consumerism.
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
Report and executive summary
Carte interactive
oiseaux et déchets, photographies.
France’s troubled nuclear fleet a bigger problem for Europe than Russia gas Giles Parkinson 5 August 2022 44 frederic-paulussen-LWnD8U2OReU-unsplash - optimised nuclear 669 Shares Share 669 Tweet Before Peter Dutton’s Coalition charge off into yet another inquiry into the merits of nuclear power, they might want to take a closer look at what’s happening in Europe, where the failure of France’s huge nuclear power plant fleet is causing bigger problems for EU power supplies than Russia’s withheld gas supply. France has been delivering just a fraction of its energy production potential in recent months, and overnight the situation got worse when French power producer EDF announced another three power plants would curtail output because of rising temperatures. Rivers have become too hot in the latest heatwave to be used to cool the reactors. The majority of France’s 56 nuclear reactors are currently throttled down or taken offline due to a combination of scheduled maintenance, erosion damage (worryingly, mostly a
The eyes of history will pierce the fog of politics. Science has exposed the course upon which our quest for energy has set our planet. Consequences will fall mainly on young people, their children, and grandchildren — unless decisive political leadership abandons wishful thinking and superficial half-measures. Climate change is a global matter and demands a global perspective.
Russian energy company Rosneft announced the discovery of a massive oil resource in the Pechora Sea with an estimated 82 million tons of oil. A drilling campaign in the Medynsko-Varandeysky area led to the discovery of the field. “During the tests, a free flow of oil was obtained with a maximum flow rate of 220 cubic meters a day,” the company’s statement read on Wednesday, noting that the “oil is light, low-sulfur, low viscosity.” According to Rosneft, the exploratory work in the Pechora Sea confirmed the "substantial oil potential of the Timan-Pechora province on the shelf and served as the foundation for continuing the study and development of the region."
Today’s oceans are a tumult of engine roar, artificial sonar and seismic blasts that make it impossible for marine creatures to hunt or communicate. We could make it stop, so why don’t we?
We have here (in the Baltic Sea, about half a million tonnes of conventional munitions and about 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons. Some of the conventional munitions are armed and may explode if moved. As for poisoning people and fish, we don`t have enough data to speak of probability. However, the bombs leak poisonous substances, the seabed is contaminated in their immediate vicinity (up to 250 m).
Every one of us now has a duty to do something, if not for ourselves then for the survival of future generations
For every three trees dying from drought in the Amazon rainforest, a fourth tree – even though not directly affected – will die, too. In simplified terms, that’s what researchers have now found using network analysis to understand the complex workings of one of Earth’s most valuable and biodiverse carbon sinks. The regions most at risk of turning into savannah are located on the forest’s Southern fringes, where continuous clearing for pasture or soy has already been weakening the forest’s resilience for years.
A new database of extreme weather studies makes clear how far policymaking is lagging behind the reality of climate chaos
Protesters from Just Stop Oil may be breaking the law and yet still be morally right in the face of future disaster
Drought blighting country’s longest waterway continues as economic hub battles climate crisis
Germany’s Rhine, one of Europe’s key waterways, is just days away from being closed to commercial traffic because of very low levels caused by drought, authorities and industry have warned. Crucially, the impending crisis could lead energy companies to cut their output, one of the country’s biggest gas companies has said.
At his remote woodland home, Ben Green is trying to stay positive about a collapse of the food supply
Experts call for a new ‘Climate Endgame’ research agenda, and say far too little work has gone into understanding the mechanisms by which rising temperatures might pose a catastrophic risk to society and humanity.
Two of the UK’s leading hospitals have had to cancel operations, postpone appointments and divert seriously ill patients to other centres for the past three weeks after their computers crashed at the height of last month’s heatwave.
As Nobel laureate Solow said to Congress when criticizingeconomicmodelsforfailingtoanticipatethe“GreatReces-sion,” “Every proposition has to pass a smell test: Does itreally make sense?” (2). The methods and conclusions inDietzetal.(1)donotmakesense. ...
The world is experiencing unprecedented fuel price increases, energy blackmail between countries, up to 7 million air pollution deaths per year worldwide and one climate-related disaster after another. Critics contend that a switch to renewable energy to solve these problems will create unstable electricity grids and drive prices up further. However, a new study from my research group at Stanford University concludes that these problems can be solved in each of the 145 countries we examined — without blackouts and at low cost using almost all existing technologies.
We are an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge dedicated to the study and mitigation of existential risks
In the face of environmental collapse, humanity may need to turn to artificial replacements for nature – how might we avoid the most dystopian of these futures? Researcher Lauren Holt makes the case for a broader form of "offsetting" to help balance technology with natural systems.
An extreme technologically adapted future has not been defined in the literature. Such a future could be argued to be morally justifiable.However, a highly technologically mediated relationship with the biosphere introduces unique risks. These are likely to endanger humanity and future Earth-originating life-forms as well as creating moral hazard. An extreme technologically adapted future is therefore undesirable compared to restabilising the biosphere.
Thames Head is now more than 2 miles downstream as forecasters warn of further high temperatures to come
Scientists say there are ample reasons to suspect global heating could lead to catastrophe. The risk of global societal collapse or human extinction has been “dangerously underexplored”, climate scientists have warned in an analysis. They call such a catastrophe the “climate endgame”. Though it had a small chance of occurring, given the uncertainties in future emissions and the climate system, cataclysmic scenarios could not be ruled out, they said.
The U.N. nuclear chief warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their Feb. 24. invasion of Ukraine. “Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”
Global heating could become "catastrophic" for humanity if temperature rises are worse than many predict or cause cascades of events we have yet to consider, or indeed both. The world needs to start preparing for the possibility of a "climate endgame."
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses. We outline current knowledge about the likelihood of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, define key terms, and put forward a research agenda. The proposed agenda covers four main questions: 1) What is the potential for climate change to drive mass extinction events? 2) What are the mechanisms that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity? 3) Wh
A coal-fired power plant that had been mothballed has become the first of its kind to be put back on to the network in Germany, as debate rages over how Europe’s largest economy will cope without Russian gas. The facility in Lower Saxony, which is owned by the Czech energy company EGH, has received emergency permission to run until April in an attempt to boost energy production.
There’s a simple way to unite everyone behind climate justice – and it’s within our power
A study of healthy volunteers found that the combination of heat and humidity gets dangerous faster than many people realize
Over the past 60 years, the global forest area has declined by 81.7 million hectares, a loss that contributed to the more than 60% decline in global forest area per capita. This loss threatens the future of biodiversity and impacts the lives of 1.6 billion people worldwide, according to a new study published today by IOP Publishing in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Scientists think we need to pay attention to a measure of heat and humidity – and it’s edging closer to the limits of human survivability
In March, the north and south poles had record temperatures. In May in Delhi, it hit 49C. Last week in Madrid, 40C. Experts say the worst effects of the climate emergency cannot be avoided if emissions continue to rise
Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before can we head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist.
It’s hot and getting hotter. The first six months of the year are about 0.2°C cooler than the first six months of 2016 and 2020 (Fig. 1), but that’s only because the current La Nina continues to cool the tropics. Global temperature is rising despite the La Nina. Earth is out of energy balance (more solar energy absorbed than heat radiated to space) by an astounding amount – more than any time with reliable data – so, within a few years, we will be setting new global temperature records.
Energy prices are rocketing, inflation is soaring and millions are being starved of grain. Surely Johnson knew this would happen?
Mainstream energy analysts then and now assume that technology will continue to overcome resource limits in the immediate future, which is all that really seems to matter. Much of what is left of the peak oil discussion focuses on “peak demand”—i.e., the question of when electric cars will become so plentiful that we’ll no longer need so much gasoline. Nevertheless, those who’ve engaged with the oil depletion literature have tended to come away with a few useful insights....
The American West has gone bone dry, the Great Salt Lake is vanishing and water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two great life-giving reservoirs on the Colorado River basin, are declining with alarming speed. Wildfires are incinerating crops in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, while parts of Britain suffocated last week in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
School and university students all over the world are planning to take school strikes one step further and occupy our campuses to demand the end of the fossil economy. Taking a lesson from student activists in the 1960s, the climate justice movement’s youth will shut down business as usual. Not because we don’t like learning, but because what we’ve learned already makes it clear that, without a dramatic break from this system, we cannot ensure a livable planet for our presents and futures.
From the Amazon to the Andes and the snowy depths of Patagonia, extreme weather and climate change are causing mega-drought, extreme rainfall, deforestation and glacier melt across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, according to a UN report published on Friday.
a lot of corporations, including oil companies, that objected to the Kyoto accords in 1997. But most of them lobbied against the treaty on economic and fairness grounds that would cost the economy of the United States too much for the benefits promised, and also that it wasn’t fair that developing societies would be left out of the bargain. But Exxon did something that I think was fairly radical, which was that they chose to go after the science.
Civil unrest, political instability, food insecurity, mass migration and worsening human rights are the baked-in secondary impacts of climate change, but you wouldn’t know that from the undercooked approach of governments and business. As the extreme weather events the world is already experiencing become more frequent, they will trigger a cascade of these second-order climate risks across a huge swathe of countries.
Report says global south has been ‘used as place to dump waste’ and that people of colour are suffering disproportionately
Thirty years ago, a bold plan was cooked up to spread doubt and persuade the public that climate change was not a problem. The little-known meeting - between some of America's biggest industrial players and a PR genius - forged a devastatingly successful strategy that endured for years, and the consequences of which are all around us.
The 1972 book "The Limits to Growth" shared a somber message for humanity: the Earth's resources are finite and probably cannot support current rates of economic and population growth to the end of the 21st century, even with advanced technology. Although disparaged by economists at the time, it turns out that, 50 years later, the message still deserves our attention.
It’s not too late to avert the climate crisis from becoming even more deadly – but the window is closing
Residents of an Indonesian island threatened by rising sea levels have begun legal action against the cement producer Holcim. The claim for compensation, filed in Switzerland by three men and one woman, is understood to be the first major climate damages lawsuit against a cement company.
Bringing information on ocean acidification to scientists, policymakers and the public
Howard Dryden reached out to me to express his dismay at having been misquoted by the Sunday Post, which should have reported a "90% reduction in marine plankton in the Equatorial Atlantic, not the whole Atlantic." "The issue is that the findings are accurate and what is stated in the report are true. We are the first to identify the huge concentration of PCC, and the drop in Plankton. We are working with some academic institutes to prepare a formal peer reviewed report, but this takes time and I was so depressed by the results and the fact that we did not see a single whale or big fish, except for a few flying fish for 20 days at sea. This was the same for all the vessels and anyone now sailing in the equatorial Atlantic," Dryden told Ars. "The results should of course be verified independently, and it should be opened up to proper debate. This may be one of the few chances we have and others to pick up the issues and deal with them. If we fail to act and eliminate PCC pollution, microplastics and for e
How is it possible to own land? The current pattern of ownership and control of land lies at the heart of many of our biggest dysfunctions: the collapse of wildlife and ecosystems, the exclusion and marginalization of so many people, the lack of housing in many cities—indeed, in many parts of the world—the lack of public space in cities, our exclusion from the countryside. The pattern of land ownership underlies all of these massive issues, and indeed of many more. Yet we rarely question it.
Radical Transformation is a story about industrial civilization’s impending collapse, and about the possibilities of averting this fate. Human communities first emerged as egalitarian, democratic groups that existed in symbiotic relationship with their environments. Increasing complexity led to the emergence of oligarchy, in which societies became captive to the logic of domination, exploitation, and ecological destruction. The challenge facing us today is to build a movement that will radically transform civilization and once more align our evolutionary trajectory in the direction of democracy, equality, and ecological sustainability.
Climate scientists have expressed shock at the UK’s smashed temperature record, with the heat soaring above 40C for the first time ever on Tuesday. Researchers are also increasingly concerned that extreme heatwaves in Europe are occurring more rapidly than models had suggested, indicating that the climate crisis on the European continent may be even worse than feared. Temperature records are usually broken by fractions of a degree, but the 40.2C recorded at Heathrow is 1.5C higher than the previous record of 38.7C recorded in 2019 in Cambridge.
Joe Biden is under pressure to declare a national climate emergency as temperatures soar across the US and Europe. Facing political gridlock in Washington, the president could make such an announcement – which would unlock federal resources to address the crisis – as soon as this week, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The Age of Extinction Is Dawning by the Day — And We’re Doing Too Little Too Late to Stop It
Climate scientists are clear that it’s already too late to go back to the kind of weather we used to have, but can we stop things from getting a whole lot worse? Professor Michael E Mann – from Penn State university in the United States – and author of ‘The New Climate War’ explains the radical change needed to avert catastrophic temperature rises.
Can we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You know, the only subject that ultimately counts – the survival of life on Earth. Everyone knows, however carefully they avoid the topic, that, beside it, all the topics filling the front pages and obsessing the pundits are dust. Even the Times editors still publishing columns denying climate science know it. Even the candidates for the Tory leadership, ignoring or downplaying the issue, know it. Never has a silence been so loud or so resonant.
Persistent heat extremes can have severe impacts on ecosystems and societies, including excess mortality, wildfires, and harvest failures. Here we identify Europe as a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes over the past 42 years. This accelerated trend is linked to atmospheric dynamical changes via an increase in the frequency and persistence of double jet stream states over Eurasia. We find that double jet occurrences are particularly important for western European heatwaves, explaining up to 35% of temperature variability. The upward trend in the persistence of double jet events explains almost all of the accelerated heatwave trend in western Europe, and about 30% of it over the extended European region. Those findings provide evidence that in addition to thermodynamical drivers, atmospheric dynamical changes have contributed to the increased rate of European heatwaves, with implications for risk management and potent
An all-electric future depends heavily on copper, and looming supply shortfalls could hamper nations’ goals of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, according to a new report from S&P Global. Unless significant new supply becomes available, climate goals will be “short-circuited and remain out of reach,” the report says.
Chief meteorologist says extreme temperatures ‘entirely consistent’ with human-induced climate crisis
He has weaponised food, energy and refugees, spreading economic and political pain across the continent. Sanctions don’t work, a land for peace deal would be a disaster. Only the military route remains
On September 14, 1869, 25,000 people marched through New York to celebrate the centennial of the birth of German scientist Alexander von Humboldt.
Extreme event attribution aims to elucidate the link between global climate change, extreme weather events, and the harms experienced on the ground by people, property, and nature. It therefore allows the disentangling of different drivers of extreme weather from human-induced climate change and hence provides valuable information to adapt to climate change and to assess loss and damage. However, providing such assessments systematically is currently out of reach. This is due to limitations in attribution science, including the capacity for studying different types of events, as well as the geographical heterogeneity of both climate and impact data availability. Here, we review current knowledge of the influences of climate change on five different extreme weather hazards (extreme temperatures, heavy rainfall, drought, wildfire, tropical cyclones), the impacts of recent extreme weather events of each type, and thus the degree to which various impacts are attributable to climate change.
Climate-changing pollution reaches record levels, driving unprecedented heating
Corporations and politicians edited the Policy Summary to omit the scientists’ most powerful conclusions
A huge leak of documents seen by BBC News shows how countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change. The leak reveals Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among countries asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.
Nuclear energy is too expensive to be considered an option to help Australia reduce its carbon emissions, at least in the next decade, according to the latest report by the CSIRO.
Europe is in danger of highly damaging “very, very strong conflict and strife” this winter over high energy prices, and should make short-term return to fossil fuels to head off the threat of civil unrest, the vice-president of the European Commission has warned. Frans Timmermans, the second most senior official in the EU, said the threat of unrest this winter, a deliberate outcome of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, must take precedence over the climate crisis.
Most people think Brexit has gone badly, a UK survey finds, and Johnson has left behind a mess of problems for a new PM
Greenhouse gas has undergone rapid acceleration and scientists say it may be due to atmospheric changes
Humanity has triggered the sixth mass extinction episode since the beginning of the Phanerozoic. The complexity of this extinction crisis is centred on the intersection of two complex adaptive systems: human culture and ecosystem functioning, although the significance of this intersection is not properly appreciated. Human beings are part of biodiversity and elements in a global ecosystem.
Anotion prominent in the news today is that the world of 2019 and the decades leading up to it were some kind of “normal” to which civilization might return after the COVID-19 pandemic. Talk of such a return dramatically underlines the educational system's failure to inform most people about human history and our present predicament
Anthropogenic activities are increasingly affecting ecosystems across the globe. Meanwhile, empirical and theoretical evidence suggest that natural systems can exhibit abrupt collapses in response to incremental increases in the stressors, sometimes with dramatic ecological and economic consequences. These catastrophic shifts are faster and larger than expected from the changes in the stressors and happen once a tipping point is crossed.
The US supreme court is helping to destroy our climate. But it was a much smaller decision, closer to home, that was the final straw for me
In 2005, I was the lead counsel on behalf of the US in one of the biggest corporate accountability legal actions ever filed. That trial proved that the tobacco industry knew it was selling and marketing a harmful product, that it had funded denial of public health science, and had used deceptive advertising and PR to protect assets instead of protecting consumers.
The federal effort could set the stage for more studies into the feasibility, benefits and risks of one of the more controversial means of combating climate change.
In Madrid, the organisation showed a great sense of purpose. But beware a divided Europe and a US still tired of paying for the continent’s security
in English
The EPA ruling means it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its greenhouse gas emissions goal
In a major environmental case, the court has made clear that it would rather represent the interests of corporations and the super-rich than the needs and desires of the vast majority of Americans – or people on Earth
We have reviewed the first two chapters of the new book Limits and Beyond. The reviews can be found at The Yawning Gap (Chapter 1) and No More Growth (Chapter 2). In this post we take a look at the third chapter, written by Dennis Meadows, a co-author of the original Limits to Growth. Dr. Meadows reports that he has delivered over a thousand speeches to a very wide variety of audiences. In this chapter the author summarizes “19 of the most common questions, comments and objections” that he has received over the years. Some of his insights are as follows:
Cancer affects the lives of many Europeans. Environmental and occupational exposure to air pollution, radon, UV radiation, chemical carcinogens, asbestos and other risks contributes significantly to the high burden of cancer in Europe. However, all environmental and occupational cancer risk factors are largely preventable. This web report provides a brief overview of the evidence on the environmental and occupational determinants of cancer in Europe and of EU policy responses.
Degrowth offers perspectives that should be integrated into the Green New Deal, argue the authors of a new book, The Future Is Degrowth.
We need to break free from the capitalist economy. Degrowth gives us the tools to bend its bars.
President Zelenskiy and Ukraine want it finished by winter, but Russia still holds the balance of power
It may sound like Marxism, but the proposal aimed at taming prices and cutting Putin’s funds came from the G7
THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY CHARTER CONSOLIDATED ENERGY CHARTER TREATY
Following guidance from the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy and the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the AWG have completed a binding vote to affirm some of the key questions that were voted on and agreed at the IGC Cape Town meeting in 2016. The details are as follows:
The book Limits and Beyond, edited by Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alwarez Pereira, provides a 50th anniversary review of the seminal report Limits to Growth (LtG). The following is from the back cover of the book. 50 years ago the Club of Rome commissioned a report: Limits to Growth. They told us that, on our current path, we are heading for collapse in the first half of the 21st century. This book, published in the year 2022, reviews what has happened in the intervening time period. It asks three basic questions:
California has taken on a major source of climate change pollution: the carbon emitted from cement used in the construction of buildings and highways. Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed SB 596, which will require carbon emissions per ton of cement produced to be cut by 40 percent below 2019 levels by 2035.
Over the past 20 years, cement manufacturers have quietly doubled their carbon dioxide emissions, highlighting a sector that has received relatively little public scrutiny despite contributing nearly three times as much to global warming as the airline industry. With cement production only expected to increase through mid-century, a growing number of people are now calling for a more concerted effort to tackle concrete’s expanding carbon footprint.
Methane has a mixture of both natural and anthropogenic sources. Around 40% of methane emissions comes from natural sources, while 60% comes from anthropogenic sources such as agriculture, fossil fuel exploitation and landfills.In situ methane measurements from 2020 showed the largest annual increase of methane concentrations since the 1980s, with this record surpassed in 2021. The year of 2020 was unique owing to the global pandemic, yet methane concentrations continued to rise despite a reduction in economic activity.
Agriculture has come a long way in the twenty-first century. From precision irrigation systems to face recognition in livestock to deploying drones for improved crop yield, emerging technologies are reinventing farm country. Whether it’s hyperspectral monitoring (scanning soils and plant health) or tracking cattle’s movement and health, computing advances are making new technologies – powered by data – readily accessible for agriculture. The revolution in agriculture is delivering savings along with improved productivity. It is also big business: precision agriculture is expected to grow to a $11.1 billion industry in the next five years.
“A powerfully disruptive book for disrupted times. Jason Hickel takes all we've been told about growth and development and turns it inside out, offering instead a radically possible vision of a post-growth future. If you’re looking for transformative ideas, this book is for you.” — Kate Raworth, economist and author of Doughnut Economics
Our World at Risk: Transforming Governance for a Resilient Future
New analysis says that particulate pollution is the greatest threat to human health in India.
A report released Wednesday warns that rising lake levels, strong wind gusts and high waves are inching closer to flooding hazardous spots in northern Illinois, including coal, nuclear and Superfund sites.
The growing popularity of SUVs is making it even harder to cut carbon dioxide emissions and meet climate goals. “Policy-makers need to find ways to persuade consumers to choose smaller and more efficient cars,” says Petropoulos.
So it makes sense that, of all the patents found by the researchers, 47% belonged to Baden Aniline and Soda Factory (BASF), the largest chemical-producing company in the world. Collectively, Germany-based BASF owns 5,701 patents on sea life genes—more than any of the other 220 gene-patenting companies combined. Other major players include Dow Dupont, Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta
Projected growth in rocket launches for space tourism, moon landings, and perhaps travel to According to new NOAA research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, a 10-fold increase in hydrocarbon fueled launches, which is plausible within the next two decades based on recent trends in space traffic growth, would damage the ozone layer, and change atmospheric circulation patterns.
Well, cacao plants seem to be increasingly victims of fungal disease and climate change. Climate change may increase coastal flooding, worsen wildfires and hurricanes, foster the spread of insect-borne diseases, destroy coral reefs, threaten hundreds of animal species, and erode our current way of life, but jeopardize chocolate? .....
Climate change has been relatively kind to banana suppliers so far – but in the decades to come, friend may turn to foe. Temperatures are likely to get so hot that the annual production gains enjoyed by banana suppliers will begin to drop. And in some places, total banana yields will begin to decline.
there is growing consensus among experts that climate change will severely affect coffee crops over the next 80 years. By 2100, more than 50 per cent of the land used to grow coffee will no longer be arable.
To prevent crop damage, over the last 30 years farmers have increased the altitude at which they plant potatoes by more than 1,000 metres, said Mamani. The curator of the CIP germplasm bank, Rene Gómez, predicts that at this rate of prolonged drought and high temperatures for much of the year, followed by severe frost and plunging temperatures that freeze up the fields, potatoes are “absolutely at risk” in Peru’s highlands. “I estimate that in 40 years there will be nowhere left to plant potatoes [in Peru’s highlands],” ...
Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) is an international research centre on resilience and sustainability science
After two years and 14 negotiation rounds to modernise the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), the signatory states meet on 24 June 2022 to try to find a compromise.Three days before the conference, there are still no prospects of a genuinely ambitious reform, let alone one in line with the Paris Agreement. The only proposal on the table on which they may agree on June 24th will maintain the ECT protection of existing foreign investment in EU countries in fossil fuel for at least another decade and in gas power plants until 2040. In case an agreement in principle is reached by June 24th, the ECT might well be extended to several countries that host large fossil fuel investments.
A new Imperial analysis has found that biogas and biomethane, while more climate friendly, leak up to twice as much methane as previously thought. Although biogas and biomethane remain climate-friendlier than non-renewable alternatives, the researchers call for better monitoring and fixing of leaks to ensure biogas and biomethane continue to live up to their green credentials.
When more than one type of pollution gets wrapped up in the same space, the result can be pretty darn yucky—not to mention dangerous. And the gobs scientists discovered recently on the beaches of the typically picturesque Canary Islands certainly fits the bill.
A wildfire racing across a hillside has become emblematic of climate change. And for good reason: a quarter of the world’s natural landscapes now face longer fire seasons as a result of warming and shifts to rainfall, according to a recent landmark climate report.
This exposé of the coterie of rightwing scientists hell-bent on destroying the cause of environmentalism is outstanding
As the climate movement hits another impasse, activists Luisa Neubauer and Kumi Naidoo explain why we need to mobilise many more people from all walks of life
António Guterres compares climate inaction to tobacco firms dismissing links between smoking and cancer
Building a world of resilient communities
Years before the climate crisis was part of national discourse, this memo to the president predicted catastrophe
An investor’s rant gives an insight into the City’s short-termist view of the environment crisis
Researchers call for recognition of latest online strategies used to derail climate action
Heatwaves becoming more frequent and are beginning earlier, according to Spanish meteorological office
Governments not listening to people with disabilities despite them being at high risk, say researchers
An alarming trend shows average temperatures have increased by at least 2F since 1970, with even higher spikes in the west and south-west
Models indicate that there could be between 25 and 30 extreme events a year by mid-century
Climatenomics lays out how ‘supply chain disruptions’ has become a euphemism for the effects of climate change
From the Heart of the World - The Elder Brothers Warning is a documentary about the Kogi people who inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain in northern Colombia. Direct descendants of the Tayrona people they survived Spanish Conquistadors - a feat no other tribe can claim. Long thought extinct, they reappeared from their mountain home to warn the world about the harmful damage it was causing.
The electric car will be an important part of a green transition. But our main focus should be moving toward green collective mobility like public transportation and away from the dominance of personally owned cars.
There is a 42% probability that the world may already be committed to at least 1.5 oC of warming relative to pre-industrial temperatures, even if emissions are halted immediately, according to a modelling study published in Nature Climate Change. This probability rises to 66%, however, if emissions are not cut until 2029, emphasizing the need for immediate action to avoid committing to peak levels of warming.
Worldwide tourism accounted for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2009 to 2013, new research finds, making the sector a bigger polluter than the construction industry.
For the first time, the world's tourism footprint has been quantified across the supply chain—from flights to souvenirs—and revealed as a significant and growing contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Tourism is unquestionably beneficial to both economies and anyone seeking to visit new lands. However, your international vacation has a serious dark side.
The publication provides a summary on the state of the climate indicators in 2021 including global temperatures trends and its distribution around the globe; most recent finding on Green House Gases concentration, Ocean indicators; Cryosphere with a particular emphasis on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, greenland ice sheet and glaciers and snow cover; Stratospheric Ozone; analysis of major drivers of inter-annual climate variability during the year including the El Niño Souther Oscillation and other Ocean and Atmshperic indices; global precipitation distribution over land; extreme events including those related to tropical cyclones and wind storms; flooding, drought and extreme heat and cold events. The publication also provides most recent finding on climate related risks and impacts including on food security, humanitarian and population displacement aspects and impact on ecosystems.
Since the beginning of March, India and Pakistan and large parts of South Asia experienced prolonged heat, that at the time of writing, May 2022, still hasn’t subsided.
On degrowth in general
According to a new study from the Aarhus University in Denmark, humans will continue to wipe out mammalian species for the next 50 years, so much so that Earth will need three to five million years to recover its evolutionary diversity.
We may lose up to three meters of coastline in the Arctic every year by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The authors also warn about bigger waves due to increasing temperatures, making the coastline very vulnerable to further losses due to erosion.
Humans will cause so many mammal species to go extinct in the next 50 years that the planet's evolutionary diversity won't recover for 3 to 5 million years, a team of researchers has found.
Reaching climate neutrality by 2050 will require 35 more times lithium and up to 26 more times the amount of rare metals compared to today’s limited use, according to a study by a team of researchers from the Belgian university KU Leuven. The study “Metals for Clean Energy” was commissioned by Eurometaux, Europe’s association of metal producers.
the new study has uncovered five other events around the world which were even more severe but were never reported. “The recent heatwave in Canada and the United States shocked the world. Yet we show there have been some even greater extremes in the last few decades. Using climate models, we also find extreme heat events are likely to increase in magnitude over the coming century – at the same rate as the local average temperature,”
Microplastics are deposited in river floodplains and carried down to deeper levels, according to a study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Local topography, frequency of floods, and soil characteristics can affect the amount of plastic particles that are deposited and potentially carried into deeper soil.
To understand how long it will take to recover from this extinction event, a team of European scientists from Germany, Switzerland, the UK and The Netherlands decided to compare it with the previous mass extinction event, which occurred 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit our planet. This was a major event event that wiped off dinosaurs along with 75% of all species.
Mapping where the earth will become uninhabitable Lethal heat, flooded coastlines, powerful hurricanes, water scarcity: climate models show that by the end of the century, life as normal won’t be possible in many places. Find out where populations are projected to be hit hardest with our 3D interactive visualisation.
The Anthropocene Working Group has taken a major step towards identifying a “golden spike” location to be used in the formal definition of the Anthropocene. In public meetings held this week, during the Unearthing the Present conference in Berlin, the AWG introduced their Anthropocene short-list — 12 possible candidates for a unique reference location that clearly indicates the beginning of the new epoch.
For the first time the world is in a position to limit global heating to under 2C, according to the first in-depth analysis of the net zero pledges made by nations at the UN Cop26 climate summit in December.
Vegetated areas above the treeline in the Alps have increased by 77% since 1984, the study says. While retreating glaciers have symbolised the speed of global heating in the Alpine region, researchers described the increases in plant biomass as an “absolutely massive” change.
Three former UN climate heads say gap between government promises and actions will change environment irreversibly
“Carbon Bombs” - Mapping key fossil fuel projects, a study by Kjell Kühne, from the School of Geography is referenced in a Guardian special report on climate breakdown
EN
Rystad Energy - A perfect and unavoidable storm: LNG supply crisis will make landfall in winter 2022
(09/05) - Press ReleasesA liquified natural gas (LNG) crisis is brewing for European countries dealing with energy insecurity in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as demand will outstrip supply by the end of this year, Rystad Energy research shows. Although soaring demand has spurred the greatest rush of new LNG projects worldwide in more than a decade, construction timelines mean material relief is unlikely only after 2024. Global LNG demand is expected to hit 436 million tonnes in 2022, outpacing the available supply of just 410 million tonnes. A perfect winter storm may be forming for Europe as the continent seeks to limit Russian gas flows. The supply imbalance and high prices will set the scene for the most bullish environment for LNG projects in more than a decade, although supply from these projects will only arrive and provide relief from after 2024 The European Union’s REPowerEU plan has set an ambitious target to reduce dependence on Russian gas by 66% within this year – an aim that will clash with the EU’s goal of
En mars 2022, des scientifiques ont confirmé pour la première fois avoir trouvé des microplastiques dans le sang humain. Ces minuscules fragments se trouvaient dans 80 % des 22 personnes testées - qui étaient des membres ordinaires et anonymes du public. L'échantillon était de petite taille et il n'y a pas encore eu de confirmation explicite que leur présence cause un préjudice direct à la santé humaine, mais avec plus d’études, le temps le dira. Les microplastiques font l'objet d'un examen approfondi. Partout où nous les cherchons, nous les trouvons.
Restaurant menus across the West Coast of Canada will soon see an influx of squid and sardine dishes, while the popular sockeye salmon makes a slow exit. As it turns out, climate change may have something to do with this.
If our next federal government wants to save the reef, it must tackle the main reason it is in trouble by phasing out fossil fuel use and exports as quickly as possible. Otherwise it’s like putting bandaids on an arterial wound.
Despite decades of studies and climate summits, greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar. Energy scientist Vaclav Smil says it’s time to stop ricocheting between apocalyptic forecasts and rosy models of rapid CO2 cuts and focus on the difficult task of remaking our energy system.
Poland is the only European Union member that has actually ignored the EU’s climate neutrality goal, often denying the existence of the climate crisis, and increasing its investment in coal and gas. When the right-wing coalition government came into power in 2015, one of its very first decisions was to block wind power. ..
Strong climate action could wipe $756bn from individuals’ pension funds and other investments in rich countries
Climate tipping points in the Antarctica, the Arctic and the Amazon are at risk of being reached before or at the current level of global warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius, requiring a “major rethink” of global climate goals and the action necessary to achieve them, according to a recent report.
the IPCC’s latest report on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (we helped write the chapter on cities) made it explicit that people living in informal settlements in areas such as Bwaise are the most vulnerable urban populations to climate change.
The SEC today took a step to clamp down on greenwashing, proposing two major rule changes — one for investment product names and another for ESG disclosures made by advisers and investment companies.
Allhoff-Cramer claims that the automaker is partly responsible for the impact of global heating on the farming industry and wants Volkswagen to stop making combustion engines by 2030. "Farmers are already being hit harder and faster by climate change than expected," says Allhoff-Cramer.
Coal plants will be reactivated if Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens a gas cutoff, a government official said. That would trigger the second of a three-stage Germany’s gas emergency plan.
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego used an unprecedented technique to detect that levels of helium are rising in the atmosphere, resolving an issue that has lingered among atmospheric chemists for decades.
The melt is among the earliest in the last 30 years
Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.
For the past few years, scientists have been frantically sounding an alarm that governments refuse to hear: the global food system is beginning to look like the global financial system in the run-up to 2008.
The cost of decommissioning the UK’s seven ageing nuclear power stations has nearly doubled to £23.5bn and is likely to rise further, the public accounts committee has said. The soaring costs of safely decommissioning the advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs), including Dungeness B, Hunterston B and Hinkley B, are being loaded on to the taxpayer, their report said.
Long before the current political divide over climate change, and even before the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), an American scientist named Eunice Foote documented the underlying cause of today’s climate change crisis. The year was 1856. Foote’s brief scientific paper was the first to describe the extraordinary power of carbon dioxide gas to absorb heat – the driving force of global warming. Carbon dioxide is an odorless, tasteless, transparent gas that forms when people burn fuels, including coal, oil, gasoline and wood.
The Bank of England governor warned last week of ‘apocalyptic’ food price rises. Yet war in Ukraine, climate change and inflation are already taking their toll all over the world. Apocalypse is an alarming idea, commonly taken to denote catastrophic destruction foreshadowing the end of the world. But in the original Greek, apokálypsis means a revelation or an uncovering. One vernacular definition is “to take the lid off something”.
The IPBES #PandemicsReport is one of the most scientifically robust examinations of the evidence and knowledge about links between pandemic risk and nature since the COVID-19 pandemic began - with 22 of the world's leading experts from fields as diverse as epidemiology, zoology, public health, disease ecology, comparative pathology, veterinary medicine, pharmacology, wildlife health, mathematical modelling, economics, law, and public policy as authors of the report. The expertise of the 22 authors was further augmented by contributions and knowledge resources from the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and the World Health Organization - as well as a peer review process.
It doesn’t even work yet, but nuclear fusion has encountered a shortage of tritium, the key fuel source for the most prominent experimental reactors.
Deaths from exposure to emissions from vehicles, smoke stacks and wildfires have increased by more than 50 percent this century, with poorer countries bearing the brunt of the impacts.
Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say
What else is new? Hotspots are getting hotter. The major hotspot in April stretched from Iraq to India and Pakistan, and toward the northeast through Russia (Fig. 1). Temperature exceeded 45°C (113°F) in late April in at least nine Indian cities,[1] on its way to 50°C (122°F) in Pakistan in May,[2] where a laborer says “It’s like fire burning all around” and a meteorologist describing growing heatwaves since 2015 says “The intensity is increasing, and the duration is increasing, and the frequency is increasing.” Halfway around the world, Canada and north-central United States were cooler than their long-term average, but people in British Columbia and northwest United States remember being under their own record-breaking hotspot last summer.
A brutal heatwave that has enveloped parts of southern Asia since the end of April looks set to intensify, says the latest forecast from the Met Office. Nick Silkstone is a meteorologist with the Met Office’s Global Guidance Unit. He said: “Temperatures are expected to peak on Saturday, when maximum values could reach around 49-50°C in the hottest locations, such as Jacobabad, and the Sibi area of Pakistan.
When people talk about ways to slow climate change, they often mention trees, and for good reason. Forests take up a large amount of the planet-warming carbon dioxide that people put into the atmosphere when they burn fossil fuels. But will trees keep up that pace as global temperatures rise? With companies increasingly investing in forests as offsets, saying it cancels out their continuing greenhouse gas emissions, that’s a multibillion-dollar question.
As Earth’s climate warms, incidences of extreme heat and humidity are rising, with significant consequences for human health. Climate scientists are tracking a key measure of heat stress that can warn us of harmful conditions.
The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet.
Oil and gas majors are planning scores of vast projects that threaten to shatter the 1.5C climate goal. If governments do not act, these firms will continue to cash in as the world burns
Against the backdrop of the water crisis in the Colorado River Basin, where the country's largest reservoirs are plunging at an alarming rate, California's two largest reservoirs — Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville — are facing a similar struggle.
Countries should move from coal to renewable energy without shifting to gas as a “transition” fuel to save money, as high gas prices and market volatility have made the fossil fuel an expensive option, analysis has found. Natural gas has long been touted as a “transition” fuel for economies dependent on coal for their power needs, as it has lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal but requires similar centralised infrastructure, and gas-fired power stations take only a couple of years to build. Earlier this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Commission angered green campaigners by including gas as a “bridge” to clean energy in its guidebook for green investment.
There is a 50:50 chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years – and the likelihood is increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
In 1972, a book changed the world. The Club of Rome commissioned a report that shifted how we see what humans are doing to the planet. Looking back five decades later, what happened next, what did we do and not do, what did we learn, and what happens now? In The Limits to Growth, a team from MIT studied the way humans were using the resources of the earth. Using sophisticated computer modelling, the researchers developed scenarios to map out possible paths for humanity, the global economy and the impact on the planet.
The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will take place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 9 to 20 May 2022.
The focus of the opening day of the 17th session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF17) was a High-Level Roundtable on the UNFF response to, role in, and expectations from forest-related multilateral developments. Members of the Forum also started providing updates on their actions in support of the three UNFF thematic priorities for 2021-2022; these will continue on Tuesday.
Have you ever sat down in the middle of the road? I did it the other day, in Regent Street in central London, as part of a protest organised by Extinction Rebellion. There were 10 000 of us sitting in the road, from Oxford Street to Piccadilly Circus.
If not slowed, climate change over the next few centuries could lead to marine losses unlike anything Earth has seen in 252 million years, says a new study.
Our study assessed whether the opportunity to see many vertebrate animal species mattered to tourists visiting Costa Rica, and if so, how important it was compared with other features like hotels and beaches. in Costa Rica, our research shows that biodiversity needs to be paired with infrastructure like hotels and roads that enable access to nature.
Presentation of the book "Beyond the Limits," a new report to the Club of Roma edited by Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alvarez Pereira. It tells the story of the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" and its relevance 50 years later.
PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated
Just 20 companies are responsible for 35% of carbon emissions yet they continue to ignore calls for change
Climate Accountability Institute releases treasure trove of data on fossil fuel company operational and product-related emissions. "Our vision is for a world protected from the social, economic, and environmental damages of climate change."
Lucrative pay and share options have created an incentive for oil company executives to resist climate action, according to a study that casts doubt on recent net-zero commitments by BP and Shell. Compensation packages for CEOs, often in excess of $10m (£7.2m), are linked to continued extraction of fossil fuels, exploration of new fields and the promotion of strong market demand through advertising, lobbying and government subsidies, the report says.