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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

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.

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.

Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

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

Exclusive: Survey of hundreds of experts reveals harrowing picture of future, but they warn climate fight must not be abandoned

L’atome a le vent en poupe ? Peut-être mais cela reste à prouver. Selon le dernier rapport World Nuclear Industry Status Report, le nucléaire est désormais un marché de niche, dominé par deux pays.

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

Cost of environmental damage will be six times higher than price of limiting global heating to 2C, study finds

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.

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.

In 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

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

Belangrijkste les van het Wereld Economisch Forum? De klimaatproblematiek en het verlies aan natuur zijn een enorme bedreiging voor de bedrijfswereld. Heel wat CEO’s zijn zich daar intussen van bewust, maar de politiek moet nu het juiste kader scheppen, schrijft Julie Vandenberghe van WWF-België.

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!

Previously, anthropogenic ecological overshoot has been identified as a fundamental cause of the myriad symptoms we see around the globe today from biodiversity loss and ocean acidification to the disturbing rise in novel entities and climate change. In the present paper, we have examined this more deeply, and explore the behavioural drivers of overshoot, providing evidence that overshoot is itself a symptom of a deeper, more subversive modern crisis of human behaviour. We work to name and frame this crisis as ‘the Human Behavioural Crisis’ and propose the crisis be recognised globally as a critical intervention point for tackling ecological overshoot. We demonstrate how current interventions are largely physical, resource intensive, slow-moving and focused on addressing the symptoms of ecological overshoot (such as climate change) rather than the distal cause (maladaptive behaviours). We argue that even in the best-case scenarios, symptom-level interventions are unlikely to avoid catastrophe or achieve more

Population likely to peak sooner and lower than expected with beneficial results – but environment is priority

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.”

Als we binnen de grenzen van onze planeet streven naar welzijn voor iedereen, moeten we dringend nadenken over de manier waarop we onze grondstoffen en natuurlijke bronnen waarderen. Dat schrijft Mathias Schluep, algemeen directeur van het World Resources Forum.

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.

Une longue file d'attente qui serpente à l'entrée du site, aux portes du désert: la dure réalité de la popularité des COP s'est imposée aux dizaines de milliers de délégués, observateurs et journalistes accrédités à la COP28 de Dubaï.

L’équipe STEEP de l’INRIA Grenoble a pris l’initiative de populariser les questions que nous posent aujourd’hui le rapport The limits to growth et le modèle World3 issus de la commande du club de Rome à Dennis et Donella Meadows et leur équipe du MIT en 1972. Alors que 50 ans se sont écoulés depuis sa publication, nous avons constaté que peu de personnes du grand public, mais aussi de collègues en SHS, mais aussi parfois en sciences dures, connaissaient effectivement ce moment important de la pensée systémique sur les questions de modèle de croissance engageant des modes de vie. Son titre alors que nous devons faire face à une crise majeure liée à la non prise en compte des limites planétaires pointées pourtant dans ce rapport, mais aussi en amont, nous oblige.

After 50 years, there is still an ongoing debate about the Limits to Growth (LtG) study. This paper recalibrates the 2005 World3-03 model. The input parameters are changed to better match empirical data on world development. An iterative method is used to compute and optimize different parameter sets. This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business as usual scenario of the LtG standard run. The main effect of the recalibration update is to raise the peaks of most variables and move them a few years into the future. The parameters with the largest relative changes are those related to industrial capital lifetime, pollution transmission delay, and urban-industrial land development time.

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.

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.

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.

De son côté, le prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, ministre saoudien de l'énergie, a tenté de saper les dernières prévisions de l'Agence internationale de l'énergie selon lesquelles la demande mondiale de combustibles fossiles atteindrait le Pic Oil d’ici à 2030, alors que les énergies renouvelables, moins chères et plus propres, augmentent rapidement. Il est clair que si l’AIE annonce un pic oil, certains pays vont réfléchir à deux fois à continuer dans le pétrole et les investisseurs vont se gratter la tête.

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.

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

Inégalités environnementales et inégalités sociales sont deux facettes d’une même crise : celle de notre système économique. Les plus pauvres sont les plus touchés par la crise climatique, et la précarité verrouille souvent la transition écologique. Voilà pourquoi la transition doit être écologique, mais aussi sociale.

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.

Comme l'a expliqué Mme Von der Leyen, les États membres de l'UE devront faire des contributions complémentaires au budget de l'UE, à hauteur de 66 milliards d'euros au total. il se retrouve aujourd’hui pratiquement sans financement, en raison de l’aide « somptueuse » accordée à l’Ukraine. La Commission ne dispose plus que de tout juste 82,5 milliards d’euros. Des clopinettes ! Le programme vert devrait donc disparaître de la scène politique.

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.

Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources. For most of humanity’s evolutionary history, such expansionist tendencies have been countered by negative feedback. However, the scientific revolution and the use of fossil fuels reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth. This natural capacity is being reinforced by growth-oriented neoliberal economics—nurture complements nature. Problem: the human enterprise is a ‘dissipative structure’ and sub-system of the ecosphere—it can grow and maintain itself only by consuming and dissipating available energy and resources extracted from its host system, the ecosphere, and discharging waste back into its host. The population increase from one to eight billion, and >100-fold expansion of real GWP in just two centuries on a finite planet, has thus propelled modern techno-industrial society into a state of advanced overshoot. We are consuming and

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.

De extreme hittegolven deze maand in grote delen van de VS, Zuid-Europa en China zouden ‘vrijwel onmogelijk’ geweest zijn zonder de door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering. Dat is de conclusie van het World Weather Attribution-initiatief (WWA).

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.

Following 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.

Un guide sur l’attribution pour les journalistes - traduction

L'Energy Institute(1) a mis en ligne ce 26 juin le « Statistical Review of World Energy 2023 », rapport précédemment produit par BP(2) qui fait partie des principales publications statistiques portant sur l'énergie. État des lieux en infographies. La consommation d'énergie dans le monde et la hausse des prix en 2022

The world just had the hottest June on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and record low Antarctic sea ice extent, according to a new report.

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.

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.

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.

WMO's annual State of the Climate in Europe report explores changes in climate indicators, extreme events and climate policy.

Dans trente ans, la population mondiale avoisinera les 9,7 milliards d'habitants. Deux tiers de ces personnes vivront dans des zones urbaines densément peuplées et la planète connaîtra un boom de la construction sans précédent.

Examination of trees alive at the time shows three years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures and famine

Without more legally binding and well-planned net-zero policies, the world is highly likely to miss key climate targets.

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.

Les instances européennes sont-elles en train de reculer sur l’ambition de ses réformes sur la transition écologique et sociale des entreprises ? Il semble bien que oui…

La CSRD, dont les standards sont en discussion en ce moment dans les instances européennes, pourrait être finalement vidée de sa substance et de son ambition. Le texte, qui représentait un progrès significatif en matière d’obligations RSE et notamment d’obligation de reporting, est en ce moment l’objet d’une opposition vigoureuse des groupes d’intérêt et des lobbies, qui tentent d’affaiblir le texte. Alors, est-ce la fin annoncée de ce texte pourtant fondateur pour la responsabilité des entreprises opérant en Europe ? Revenons sur les dernières évolutions des discussions autour de la CSRD.

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.

Quel est l’efficacité des aires marines protégées en matière de protection des océans ? Quel impact écologique ? Quelles réglementations ?

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.

Quel sera l’impact de la sécheresse sur les rendements agricoles en 2023 ? Une catastrophe agricole se dessine alors que la sécheresse frappe plus que jamais la France.

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.

La mortalité des forêts en hausse pourrait, à terme, faire de nos forêts une source nette de carbone, contribuant ainsi au réchauffement climatique. Et si la forêt française n’était bientôt plus un puits de carbone ?

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.

Amper 6 landen ter wereld halen de luchtkwaliteitsnormen van de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO). In slechts 3 procent van de steden blijft de luchtvervuiling binnen de perken. Dat is de conclusie van het jaarlijkse World Air Report van het Zwitserse bedrijf IQAIr.

Research finds waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage plants probably responsible for significant source of water pollution

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 sharp rise in fossil fuel subsidies is just one example of why activists say climate treaties are so often meaningless.

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.

Helaas is de World Social Justice Day van de Verenigde Naties van vandaag 20 februari een bittere ervaring voor meer dan 1,5 miljoen Belgen die op of onder de armoedegrens leven”, aldus algemeen coördinator Heidi Degerickx van het Netwerk tegen Armoede (Cijfers Statbel). Het Netwerk stelt samen met de 61 verenigingen waar mensen in armoede het woord nemen vast dat de sociale rechtvaardigheid in Vlaanderen en Brussel steeds meer afbrokkelt.

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.”

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.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets

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.

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.

The Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020 (L'état des récifs coralliens dans le monde : 2020) est un rapport du Réseau mondial de surveillance continue des récifs coralliens (GCRMN), un réseau de l'Initiative internationale pour les récifs coralliens (ICRI). Ses conclusions montrent qu'entre 2009 et 2018, une perte progressive d'environ 14 % des coraux dans les récifs coralliens du monde a été enregistrée, principalement causée par des épisodes de blanchiment récurrents à grande échelle. Au total, environ 11 700 kilomètres carrés de coraux durs ont été perdus, ce qui représente plus de la totalité des coraux vivant actuellement dans les récifs coralliens de l'Australie.

Le réchauffement climatique modifie profondément le cycle de l’eau à l’échelle mondiale. Pluies et humidité sont en train de changer partout dans le monde, de différentes manières. Un récent rapport fait le point sur les changements observés dans le cycle de l’eau dans le monde en 2022.

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.”

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.