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1.5 Degrees C: Understanding World’s Critical Warming Threshold

Nearly a decade ago, the world rallied around the Paris Agreement on climate change and the goal of holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). Since then, the “1.5C goal” has become the world’s North Star for climate action — a critical benchmark against which policies are set and progress is measured. But an alarming wave of recent data underscores just how close we are to surpassing this widely cited threshold.

Source: World Resources Institute

June 25, 2025

From nuts to kelp: The ‘carbon-negative’ foods that help reverse climate change

Eating low-carbon foods helps reduce emissions, but some foods actually suck up carbon from the atmosphere, leaving the climate in a better place.

We all know that producing most foods creates greenhouse gas emissions, driving climate change. These emissions come from hundreds of different sources, including tractors burning fuel, manufacturing fertiliser and the bacteria in cow’s guts. Overall, food production contributes a quarter of human caused greenhouse gas emissions.

However, there are some foods that remove more greenhouse gases than they emit, often referred to as “carbon negative” foods. These foods leave the climate better than they found it. Producing and eating more of these could help reduce the carbon impact of our food and, in some cases, restore ecosystems in the process.

Source: BBC Essential

January 7, 2025

Doctors raise alarm on children’s health crisis in Chile’s copper heartland

The world cannot achieve a green energy transition without copper. 

A highly conductive metal, copper is the cornerstone of virtually all electricity-related technologies that are needed to decarbonise power, heating and transport systems. As the roll-out of clean energy technologies accelerates, Chile’s copper is highly coveted. The South American country is the world’s top producer of the metal.  But in its northern copper mining region, doctors have picked up on a worrying trend: the number of children being diagnosed with severe autism is soaring.

Source: Climate Home News

December 17, 2024

What Would Cities Look Like With 3 Degrees C of Warming vs. 1.5? Far More Hazardous and Vastly Unequal

The world recently experienced a 13-month streak of record-breaking global temperatures. And as blistering heat waves punish communities across several continents, 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record. Global average temperatures are now perilously close to exceeding 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels, a threshold scientists warn will bring increasingly dangerous droughts, wildfires and other impacts of climate change. Researchers project nearly 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) of temperature rise by 2100 without significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: World Resources Institute

December 12, 2024

Mining Is Increasingly Pushing into Critical Rainforests and Protected Areas

Since the turn of the century, mining has increased by 52% due to surging demand for coal, iron, industrial minerals and other metals. In some cases, this extraction has come at the expense of forests, along with burdens to the communities who rely on them.

WRI analyzed tree cover loss data from the University of Maryland and a combination of studies on global mining extent and found that mining has increasingly pushed into forests around the world — especially tropical primary rainforests and protected areas. From 2001 to 2020, the world lost nearly 1.4 million hectares of trees from mining and related activities, an area of land roughly the size of Montenegro.

Felling these trees also released 36 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year into the atmosphere, an amount similar to Finland’s fossil fuel emissions in 2022.

Source: World Resources Institute

October 24, 2024

Amid Record-breaking Fires, Will Brazil Confront Its Climate Challenges?

Thick smoke, oppressive heat and eerily orange sunsets blanket both major cities and small villages. Hundreds of cities are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution while thousands of hectares of forest burn. The jarring images send out a clear distress signal: Something is fundamentally amiss. 

Everybody familiar with the scientific literature understands that climate change is accelerating, manifesting as heatwaves, severe droughts, more frequent floods and devastating fires, leading to urban calamities, biodiversity loss, economic impacts and health hazards. But this spate of fires is truly exceptional. Preliminary analyses by WRI’s Global Forest Watch initiative, which monitors tree cover loss in near-real time through satellite images, show that the current fires season in Brazil is the worst in at least a decade, with more than 47,000 high-confidence fire alerts from the beginning of the year through Sept. 16, 2024. MapBiomas data shows an 85% increase in area affected by fires, compared to the average since 2019.

Source: World Resources Institute

October 10, 2024

How Countries Can Use Behavior Change to Further Reduce Emissions

The fight against climate change may be missing a critical strategy: incorporating strategic policies that encourage people to integrate climate-friendly activities, like eating a plant-based diet or lessening reliance on gas-fueled cars, into their daily lives. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), adopting comprehensive behavior changes could cut climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 70% by 2050 compared to current national policies. Making sustainable living easy and affordable is essential for driving these reductions and securing our planet’s future.

Source: World Resources Institute

October 3, 2024

What We Know About Deep-sea Mining — and What We Don’t

In the race to cut greenhouse gas emissions and rein in climate change, demand for critical minerals is surging. Materials such as lithium, cobalt and graphite are essential components of EV batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and other low-carbon technologies increasingly powering the world’s energy systems. Mining for these materials on land is already underway, but with demand surging, some are now looking to tap the seafloor for its millions of square kilometers of metal ores.

With the future of deep-sea mining still under debate, here’s what we know so far about the proposed practice and its impacts — and what we don’t.

Source: World Resources Institute

June 21, 2024

The History of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities are now higher than at any point in our history. In fact, recent data reveals that global CO2 emissions were 182 times higher in 2022 than they were in 1850, around the time the Industrial Revolution was underway.

Source: World Resources Institute

June 17, 2024

Human-Made Noise Is Harming Ocean Life. Climate Change Could Make It Worse

Noise from shipping and other ocean industries are drowning out the natural sounds of the ocean, and climate change could soon turn up the volume. The global shipping fleet nearly quadrupled in size between 1996 and 2020, and fishing, oil and gas, wind farm construction and more have spiked in many ocean areas. This growth has been reflected in sound data as well; scientists estimate that shipping noise has doubled each decade since 1960. In fact, a 2022 study revealed that there are few “quiet” areas of the ocean left around the world. 

Source: Inside Climate News

June11, 2024

How much forest was lost in 2023?

According to new data analysis from WRI’s Global Forest Watch, the world lost 10 football (soccer) fields’ worth of primary forest per minute in 2023. The Tropics lost 3.7 million Hectares of Primary Forest. And while progress was made on fighting deforestation, it was not consistent around the world. 

The good news: Brazil and Colombia — home to the large and vastly biodiverse Amazon rainforest — showed dramatic reductions in primary forest loss due to strong policies and political will. The bad news: Significant decreases in Brazil and Colombia were counteracted by increases in other tropical countries like Bolivia, Laos and Nicaragua. Canada also experienced significant loss after a record-breaking wildfire season.

Source: World Resources Institute

June 4, 2024

Armed Groups Use Deforestation as a Bargaining Chip in Colombia

Guerillas once protected the forests that provided them with cover, but recently some factions see the trees, critical to the nation’s climate commitments, as leverage in new peace talks with the government.

Source: Inside Climate News

June 4, 2024

Is collapse of the Atlantic Ocean circulation really imminent? Icebergs’ history reveals some clues

A new study reconstructed iceberg production rates during the massive calving episodes of the last glacial period, called Heinrich events, when icebergs did affect ocean circulation. The authors found that present-day Greenland Ice Sheet calving rates are as high as during some of those events. However, because melting is causing the Greenland Ice Sheet to recede from the coasts of Greenland, where icebergs originate, its iceberg discharge should not persist long enough to cause major disruption of the Atlantic overturning circulation by itself.

Source: The Conversation

May 31, 2024

Complex Supply Chains Are Still a Major Barrier to Ending Deforestation

Almost 90% of the world’s forest loss is driven by the expansion of agriculture, thanks to growing consumer demand for commodities like coffee, cocoa, beef, soy, palm oil and timber. Because of this, governments, businesses and NGOs are increasingly targeting action to reduce deforestation in this sector. Several markets are developing policies that prohibit the sale or importation of products grown on deforested land, while hundreds of consumer goods companies have made zero-deforestation pledges.

Some of these regulations are still in the early stages of development or implementation so their potential positive impact remains to be seen, but existing measures have so far failed to stem the tide of deforestation. One of the major reasons is the persistent lack of traceability and transparency in supply chains.

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Source: World Resources Institute

March 8, 2024

The world’s spectacular animal migrations are dwindling. Fishing, fences and development are fast-tracking extinctions

 We can get a global glimpse of how migratory species are faring, in the first-ever stocktake produced by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species. The report shows falling populations in close to half (44%) the 1,189 species tracked by the convention. The problem is much worse underwater – 90% of migratory fish species are threatened with extinction.

Their decline is not inevitable. After all, the migratory humpback whale was headed for rapid extinction – until we stopped whaling.

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Source: The Conversation

February 19, 2024

More Critical Minerals Mining Could Strain Water Supplies in Stressed Regions

Demand for critical minerals is booming. Global efforts to fight climate change are driving up the need for lithium, cobalt, graphite and other such minerals essential for building electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean technologies. This compounds existing demand from the tech sector, where critical minerals are used in smartphones, laptops and other consumer electronics.

There’s no question the world will have to mine more of these minerals, and quickly, as the clean energy transition ramps up. But doing so also comes with risks — including the potential to sap water supplies.

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Source: World Resources Institute

February 10, 2024

Climate change, not El Niño, main driver of exceptional drought in highly vulnerable Amazon River Basin

Since mid 2023 the Amazon River Basin has been in a state of exceptional drought, driven by low rainfall and consistently high temperatures for the entire year 2023 across the basin. According to this study made by scientists from Brazil, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, the strong drying trend was almost entirely due to increased global temperatures, so the severity of the drought currently being experienced is largely driven by climate change.

Source: World Weather Attribution

January 26, 2024

The first map of undisclosed industrial activity at sea

A newly published study in the journal Nature combines satellite images, vessel GPS data and artificial intelligence to reveal human industrial activities across the ocean over a five-year period. Researchers at Global Fishing Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing ocean governance through increased transparency of human activity at sea, led this study, in collaboration with Duke University, University of California, Santa Barbara and SkyTruth.

It found that a remarkable amount of activity occurs outside of public monitoring systems.

Source: The Conversation

January 08, 2024

Deforestation jeopardises agribusiness and food security in Brazil and worldwide

The current drought situation in the Amazon, which has taken on a new level of severity this year, is influenced by two exceptional climatic conditions: the abnormally high temperature of the North Atlantic waters and the presence of the El Niño phenomenon. Despite these remarkable climatic conditions, however, the human footprint of this environmental tragedy is also visible.

Source: The Conversation

November 22, 2023

Amazon region hit by trio of droughts in grim snapshot of the century to come

The Amazon is facing an unprecedented drought that is projected to continue affecting the region at least until mid-2024. The lowest water levels in 121 years of river-level records have been recorded in the city of Manaus. Vast areas of the Amazon River’s bed have been exposed, and more than 150 dolphins died in a lake where water temperatures reached 39°C (2°C above human body temperature). Human populations along Amazonian rivers have been isolated, stripped of their livelihoods and lack basic necessities.

Source: The Conversation

November 22, 2023

Can we still avoid 1.5 degrees C of global warming?

Strictly speaking, it’s not yet impossible to keep from heating our world more than 1.5 degrees Celsius beyond the average global air temperature of the mid-to-late 1800s, when the Industrial Revolution was gaining momentum. In practical terms, though, the odds of keeping global warming to 1.5°C are dwindling fast — though just how fast has been a matter of sharp debate. Here are a few points to help you navigate this critical and contentious topic.

Source: Yale Climate Connections

November 2, 2023

Forest Pulse: How much forest was lost in 2022?

Tropical primary forest loss worsened in 2022, despite international commitments to end deforestation. The tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, according to new data from the University of Maryland and available on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform.

Source: World Resources Institute

October 02, 2023

The Global Benefits of Reducing Food Loss and Waste, and How to Do It

One-third of all food produced globally by weight is lost or wasted between farm and fork — that’s more than 1 billion tonnes. Converted into calories, this equates to 24% of the world’s food supply going uneaten. At the same time, 1 in 10 people globally remain malnourished.

Source: World Resources Institute

October 02, 2023

Vessel Strikes on Whales Are Increasing With Warming. Can the Shipping Industry Slow Down to Spare Them?

Rising ocean temperatures and marine heat waves are pushing whales closer to busy shipping lanes. Flexible speed reduction areas could help prevent ship collisions, scientists say. Last March, a California giant perished. The 49-foot humpback nicknamed Fran washed up on a beach in the coastal city of Half Moon Bay. Fran had visited these waters for the entirety of her 17-year life, easily recognized by Californians due to the distinctive markings and shape of her tail.

Source: Insight Climate News

October 10, 2023

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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