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The Latest Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse

The latest data on forest fires confirms what we’ve long feared: Forest fires are becoming more widespread, burning nearly twice as much tree cover today as they did 20 years ago.

Using data from a recent study by researchers at the University of Maryland, we calculated that forest fires now result in 3 million more hectares of tree cover loss per year compared to 2001 — an area roughly the size of Belgium — and accounted for more than one-quarter of all tree cover loss over the past 20 years.

Source : World Resources Institute

September 1, 2023

Rising methane could be a sign that Earth’s climate is part-way through a ‘termination-level transition’

Methane was about 0.7 parts per million (ppm) of the air before humans began burning fossil fuels. Now it is over 1.9 ppm and rising fast. Roughly three-fifths of emissions come from fossil fuel use, farming, landfills and waste. The remainder is from natural sources, especially vegetation rotting in tropical and northern wetlands.

Methane is both a driver and a messenger of climate change. We don’t know why it is now rising so rapidly, but the pattern of growth since late 2006 resembles how methane behaved during great flips in Earth’s climate in the distant past.

Source : The Conversation

August 24, 2023

Is Carbon Capture and Storage a Climate Solution?

Fossil fuel companies’ favorite climate solution has scored tens of billions of dollars in support from the Biden administration and Congress, but many environmentalists and scientists say it is a dangerous boondoggle.

Source : Inside Climate News

August 14, 2023

4 Actions Vulnerable Countries Need from COP28

The conclusion of the Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates this December will evaluate how much progress the international Paris Agreement on climate change has made in the fight against the climate crisis and what more is needed to accelerate climate action forward. But its findings will be no mystery: the world is way off track, and the most vulnerable countries are already disproportionately feeling the consequences.

Source : World Resources Institute

May 26, 2023

WMO annual report highlights continuous advance of climate change

From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts.

In Switzerland, 6% of the glacier ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 – and one third between 2001 and 2022. For the first time in history, no snow survived the summer melt season even at the very highest measurement sites and thus no accumulation of fresh ice occurred.

Source : World Meteorological Organization

April 24, 2023

10 Big Findings from the 2023 IPCC Report on Climate Change

March 20, 2023 marked the release of the final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), an eight-year long undertaking from the world’s most authoritative scientific body on climate change. Drawing on the findings of 234 scientists on the physical science of climate change, 270 scientists on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change, and 278 scientists on climate change mitigation, this IPCC synthesis report provides the most comprehensive, best available scientific assessment of climate change.

Source : World Resources Institute

March 29, 2023

New WWF Analysis: Greenhouse Gas Accounting Efforts Undermined by Disparate Tools & Frameworks

Variability in product-level greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting standards and methodologies can prevent companies from understanding both their true emissions and their progress in reducing them, according to a new analysis from World Wildlife Fund (WWF). While rigorous organization-level GHG accounting has enabled companies to identify and address emissions hotspots, greater harmonization in product-level accounting could accelerate progress and enable cross-organizational comparison.

Source : WWF

March 13, 2023

The stealth export of waste plastic clothes to Kenya

The trade of used clothing in Kenya has come to represent the export of plastic waste to countries in the Global South, and a lesser known source of vast quantities of plastic pollution. Our investigation sheds light on this broken system – the pressure realease value of the Global North’s overproduction and overconsumption of fast fashion, and the fashion industry’s overreliance on synthetic fibres

Source : Changing Markets Foundation

February 24, 2023

Indigenous Forests Are Some of the Amazon’s Last Carbon Sinks

Forests around the world play a major role in curbing or contributing to climate change. Standing, healthy forests sequester more atmospheric carbon than they emit and act as a carbon sink; degraded and deforested areas release stored carbon and are a carbon source.

Source : World Resources Institute

January 13, 2023

Warming beyond 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) will escalate risk of triggering multiple tipping points

Assessing more than 200 recent studies on climate modelling, authors of a new paper published in Science identified nine critical tipping points. These tipping points occur when changes in parts of the climate system become self-perpetuating above warming thresholds, and once triggered, these changes will likely lead to abrupt, irreversible and increasingly disastrous impacts for people around the world. Already, current levels of global warming (1.1 degree C or about 2 degrees F) put the world within range of reaching five tipping points, including the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and West Antarctic ice sheet, shutdown of the sub-polar gyre in the North Atlantic Ocean, widespread mortality of low-latitude coral reefs, and abrupt permafrost thaw in the boreal region. (Picture by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

Source : World Resources Institute / Science

December 22, 2022

Is the Amazon rainforest on the verge of collapse?

The Amazon has existed as a dense and humid rainforest teeming with life for at least 55 million years. But in a new paper, scientists claim that over 75% of the ecosystem has been losing resilience since the early 2000s due to climate change. This process appears to be most prominent in areas that are closer to human activity, as well as in those receiving less rainfall.


Source : The Conversation

November 2, 2022

New Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse

New data on forest fires confirms what has been long feared: Forest fires are becoming more widespread, burning nearly twice as much tree cover today as they did 20 years ago.

Using data from a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland, the World Resources Institute calculated that forest fires now result in 3 million more hectares of tree cover loss per year compared to 2001 — an area roughly the size of Belgium — and accounted for more than a quarter of all tree cover loss over the past 20 years.


Source : World Resources Institute

October 24, 2022

Ag’s challenging future in a changing climate

Climate, Food & Agriculture : Part 2
More drought and higher heat from climate change increase risks of devastating global food shock events.

Source : Yale Climate Connections

September 10, 2022

5 Under-recognized Impacts of Air Pollution

International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies (September 7) emphasizes the need for better air quality. Air pollution affects so much more than our health. In addition to causing 7 million premature deaths annually, dirty air fuels climate change, reduces crop yields, diminishes renewable energy output and more. WRI experts lay out the many ways air pollution affects our lives.

Source : World Resouces Institute

September 7, 2022

How climate change spurs megadroughts

The curious connection between the sky’s ‘thirstiness’ and the dry spell devastating the western U.S.

Source : Yale Climate Connections

August 26, 2022

Marine Expert Statement Calling for a Pause to Deep-Sea Mining

Signed by 653 marine science & policy experts from over 44 countries

The deep sea is home to a significant proportion of Earth’s biodiversity, with most species yet to be discovered. The richness and diversity of organisms in the deep sea supports ecosystem processes necessary for the Earth’s natural systems to function. The deep ocean also constitutes more than 90% of the biosphere, and plays a key role in climate regulation, fisheries production, and elemental cycling. It is an integral part of the culture and well-being of local communities and the seafloor forms part of the common heritage of humankind. However, deep-sea ecosystems are currently under stress from a number of anthropogenic stressors including climate change, bottom trawling and pollution. Deep-sea mining would add to these stressors, resulting in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning that would be irreversible on multi-generational timescales.

Source : Deep-Sea Mining Science Statement

August 10, 2022

Space Tourism Poses a Significant ‘Risk to the Climate’

Rockets launched by billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson emit black carbon in the stratosphere, where it is 500 times worse for the climate than it is on Earth. Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ rockets burn liquid hydrogen and oxygen and pose a lesser climate threat.

Source : Inside Climate News

July 1, 2022

How March 2022 produced a mind-boggling warm-up in eastern Antarctica (and the Arctic)

The bloodless term “anomaly” doesn’t do justice to the stupendous temperature departures seen across parts of both the Antarctic and Arctic in mid-March 2022. With the initial shock now behind them, scientists are taking stock of exactly what happened and what it might portend. keeps ticking in search of a fusion ‘solution.’

Source : Yale Climate Connection

April 1st, 2022

Does renewable energy threaten efforts to conserve biodiversity on land?

The world is facing a climate and ecological crisis. The two planetary crises occasionally pull in the same direction: restoring faltering coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves and saltmarshes, sequester carbon, buffer against more frequent extreme weather events and provide for nature.

Source : Carbon Brief

February 5, 2022

What Does “Net-Zero Emissions” Mean? 8 Common Questions, Answered

The latest climate science is clear: Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) is still possible. But to avoid the worst climate impacts, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will need to drop by half by 2030 and reach net-zero around mid-century.
But what does a net-zero target mean, what’s the science behind net-zero and which countries have already made such commitments?

Source : World Resources Institute

January 19, 2022

Three Myths About Renewable Energy and the Grid, Debunked

Renewable energy skeptics argue that because of their variability, wind and solar cannot be the foundation of a dependable electricity grid. But the expansion of renewables and new methods of energy management and storage can lead to a grid that is reliable and clean.

Source : Yale Environment 360

December 17, 2021

October 2021: Earth’s fourth-warmest October on record

October 2021 was Earth’s fourth-warmest October since global record-keeping began in 1880, 0.89 degree Celsius (1.60°F) above the 20th-century average, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information,

Source : Yale Climate Connections

November 19, 2021

Rise in greenhouse gas concentrations jeopardizes Paris Agreement temperature targets

Geneva, 25 October 2021 (WMO) – The abundance of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere once again reached a new record last year, with the annual rate of increase above the 2011-2020 average. That trend has continued in 2021, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

Source : World Meteorological Organization

October 25, 2021

Points of no return

As the world warms, these Earth systems are changing : SEA, ICE, LAND. Could further warming make them spiral out of contraol ?

Source : Grist

August 6, 2021

Reduce vs. Single-Use: Environment

The vast majority of LCA studies of food service ware show that reusables are better for the environment than single-use products and packaging.

Source : Upstream

June 7, 2021

Watching Climate Change at Work

An updated Google Earth feature shows climate change in action over the last four decades. Launched in collaboration with U.S. and European government agencies, Google Earth Timelapse contains 37 years worth of changes to Earth’s surface, many related to the climate crisis. In the Amazon, for example, the tool shows large swaths of forest traded for cattle ranches and soybean farms. In Greenland and Antarctica, users can see miles-long glaciers quickly melting away. Wildfire smoke fills the skies above Alberta, Canada; the coast of the Bahamas is devastated by a hurricane; and the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan loses 90 percent of its surface area in a matter of decades. The tool also shows how landscapes have changed as humans have demanded more energy. The user can witness fracking well pads popping up on the North Dakota landscape and mountaintop mining turning West Virginia forests from green to brown. But the timelapses also show society’s transition to cleaner energy, with millions of solar panels appearing across rural China and outside of Abu Dhabi, and strings of wind turbines dotting California’s landscape and Jordan’s mountaintops.

Source : Inside Climate News

April 19, 2021

Deforestation Increased 12% Between 2019 and 2020, Threatening Climate Progress

New data analysis from WRI shows that deforestation increased by 12% between 2019 and 2020, destroying a Netherlands-sized area of primary tropical forests. In addition to the troubling implications of this forest loss for biodiversity and communities that depend on forests for drinking water, food and livelihoods, new research also suggests that current rates of deforestation are causing global forests to transform from carbon sinks to carbon sources, which will make it more difficult for countries trying to achieve emissions-reductions.

Countries can learn much from indigenous communities about sustainable land and forest management. At least 36% of the world’s intact forests are on indigenous lands, and the deforestation rate on these lands is often lower than in other forest areas.


Source : World Resources Institute

April 14, 2021

RUNNING HOT

Europe’s companies are reporting impressive progress in their action on climate change – but not yet nearly the progress required to hit the 1.5°C target of the Paris agreement.

Source : Oliver Wyman

March12, 2021

Food system impacts on biodiversity loss

Our food system has been shaped over past decades by the ‘cheaper food’ paradigm.
Policies and economic structures have aimed to produce ever more food at ever
lower cost. Intensified agricultural production degrades soils and ecosystems,
driving down the productive capacity of land and necessitating even more intensive
food production to keep pace with demand. Growing global consumption
of cheaper calories and resource-intensive foods aggravates these pressures.

As a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, our food system is
also driving climate change, which further degrades habitats and causes species
to disperse to new locations. In turn, this brings new species into contact and
competition with each other, and creates new opportunities for the emergence
of infectious disease.

Source : Chatham House

The world was hit in 2020 by a record of 50 climate disasters each exceeding $1 billion in damage

Earth was besieged by a record 50 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2020, the most such disasters ever recorded after adjusting for inflation, said insurance broker Aon (formerly called Aon Benfield) in its annual report issued January 25. The previous record was 46 billion-dollar weather disasters, set in 2010 and 2011. The annual average of billion-dollar weather disasters since records began in 1990 is 29.

Source : Yale Climate Connections

Earth Is Losing Ice Faster Today Than in the Mid-1990s, Study Suggests

Earth’s ice is melting faster today than in the mid-1990s, new research suggests, as climate change nudges global temperatures ever higher. Altogether, an estimated 28 trillion metric tons of ice have melted away from the world’s sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers since the mid-1990s. And the annual melt rate is now about 57 percent faster than it was three decades ago.

Source : Reuters

As Big Energy Gains, Can Europe’s Community Renewables Compete?

Local wind and solar cooperatives have been instrumental in fostering Europe’s renewable energy growth. Now, as multinational corporations play an ever-larger role in efforts to decarbonize Europe’s economy, the EU is looking to bolster these grassroots clean-energy initiatives.

Source : Yale Environment 360

Carbon dioxide levels continue at record levels, despite COVID-19 lockdown

Geneva, 23 November 2020 (WMO) – The industrial slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has not curbed record levels of greenhouse gases which are trapping heat in the atmosphere, increasing temperatures and driving more extreme weather, ice melt, sea-level rise and ocean acidification, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Source : World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

New investor guide to negative emission technologies and land use

Corporate demand for forest-related carbon removal could generate $800bn in annual revenues by 2050, worth a market capitalisation of $1.2 trillion today, surpassing the current market capitalisation of oil & gas majors – new study commissioned by UN-supported investor body finds

Source : UNPRI

New study shows a vicious circle of climate change building on thickening layers of warm ocean water​

Global warming is deepening blankets of warmer water that alter ocean currents, hinder absorption of carbon, intensify storms and disrupt biological cycles, a new study warns. And it’s happening faster than scientists expected. “If anything, the impacts of climate change are proving to be worse than we predicted,” said Michael Mann, a co-author of the study.

Source : InsideClimate News

Flowers are changing their colors to adapt to climate change

As the world’s climate changes, plants and animals have adapted by expanding into new territory and even shifting their breeding seasons. Now, research suggests that over the past 75 years, flowers have also adapted to rising temperatures and declining ozone by altering ultraviolet pigments in their petals, Science Magazine reports

Source : Science Magazine

Climate scientists take their closest look yet at the warming impact of aviation emissions

A new study reaffirms that contrail clouds—those straight, wispy white markings of a plane’s path through the sky—produce more global warming than carbon dioxide emitted by the flights. Activists hope the finding will help spur the aviation industry to act more urgently to reduce their emissions as governments work to rebuild their pandemic-hit economies.

Source : insideclimatenews

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