Veille 2.1

Nous avons demandé à 380 climatologues de renom ce qu’ils pensaient de l’avenir… Ils sont terrifiés, mais déterminés à continuer à se battre. Exclusif : Une enquête menée auprès de centaines d’experts révèle une image terrifiante de l’avenir, mais ils préviennent que la lutte contre le changement climatique ne doit pas être abandonnée.

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

Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteries

Traduction - C’est une exclusivité : La réunion a eu lieu quelques jours après que BP a annoncé des bénéfices records, alors que les ménages devaient faire face à des factures d’énergie élevées.

Exclusive: Meeting took place days after BP reported record profits while households were squeezed by high energy bills

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.

Oil cartel warns ‘pressure may reach a tipping point’ and that ‘politically motivated campaigns put our prosperity’ at risk

Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’

World Meteorological Organization says 2023 will be hottest year on record, leaving ‘trail of devastation and despair’

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.

World Meteorological Organization sees ‘no end in sight to the rising trend’, largely driven by fossil fuel burning

Michael Mann, de l’université de Pennsylvanie aux États-Unis, fait partie des climatologues les plus en vue depuis qu’il a publié, en 1999, le célèbre graphique en forme de crosse de hockey, qui montre comment les températures mondiales ont grimpé en flèche au cours du siècle dernier. Pour comprendre la situation difficile dans laquelle nous nous trouvons aujourd’hui, Michael Mann a remonté l’histoire du climat de la Terre afin d’avoir une vision plus claire de notre avenir potentiel. « Nous disposons d’une période de 4 milliards d’années dont nous pouvons tirer des enseignements », a-t-il déclaré dans une interview au Guardian.

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

First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

Heatwaves, wildfires and floods are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, leading climate scientists say

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

Le pic de plutonium dans les sédiments des lacs canadiens marque l’aube d’une nouvelle ère où l’humanité domine la planète. Les scientifiques ont choisi le site qui représentera le début de l’ère de l’Anthropocène sur Terre. Il marquera la fin de 11 700 ans d’un environnement planétaire stable dans lequel l’ensemble de la civilisation humaine s’est développée et le début d’une nouvelle ère, dominée par les activités humaines. Le site est un lac d’effondrement situé au Canada. Il abrite des sédiments annuels présentant des pics clairs dus à l’impact colossal de l’humanité sur la planète à partir de 1950, du plutonium provenant des essais de la bombe à hydrogène aux particules issues de la combustion des combustibles fossiles qui ont arrosé le globe.

Plutonium spike in Canadian lake sediments marks dawn of new epoch in which humanity dominates planet

World Bank says subsidies costing as much as $23m a minute must be repurposed to fight climate crisis...

Ice-free summers inevitable even with sharp emissions cuts and likely to result in more extreme heatwaves and floods

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.

Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth

Those with higher levels of PFAS in their blood had 40% lower chance of conceiving within a year of trying

Since 1992, the IPCC has highlighted rising greenhouse gases, marking their ‘widespread and unprecedented’ impacts by 2014

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.

Vast releases of gas, along with future ‘methane bombs’, represent huge threat – but curbing emissions would rapidly reduce global heating

Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Humanity is now a ‘geological superpower’ and declaring a new epoch is critical to tackling its impact, scientists say

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”.

From the seemingly inexorable increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the rapid growth in green energy

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.

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.

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.

Failure to cut carbon emissions means ‘rapid transformation of societies’ is only option to limit impacts, report says

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.

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.

"Les calottes glaciaires géantes, les courants océaniques et les régions de pergélisol pourraient avoir déjà franchi le point de basculement irréversible. Selon une importante étude, la crise climatique a conduit le monde au bord de plusieurs points de basculement "désastreux". Elle montre que cinq points de basculement dangereux ont peut-être déjà été franchis en raison du réchauffement planétaire de 1,1 °C causé par l'humanité à ce jour.

Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change

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.

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.

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.

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.

Strong climate action could wipe $756bn from individuals’ pension funds and other investments in rich countries

Soaring temperatures in subcontinent, which have caused widespread suffering, would be extraordinarily rare without global heating

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.

Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say

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

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.

Selon des données, l’Amazonie s’approche d’un point de basculement, après quoi la forêt tropicale disparaîtrait, ce qui aurait des conséquences «profondes» pour le climat mondial et la biodiversité.

Accusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date.