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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
Last year the oceans absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Source : The Guardian
January 13, 2022
Tiny proportion of world’s land surface hosts carbon-rich forests and peatlands that would not recover before 2050 if lost
Source : The Guardian
November 29, 2021
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
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
Climate intervention is laden with risk, but researchers are gingerly exploring the options.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
October 8, 2021
Even a planned facility 10 times larger would have almost no impact on the 33 billion tons of carbon to be emitted this year.
Source : Inside Climate News
September 9, 2021
A new report finds that up to 85 percent of threatened animal and plant species have had their habitat damaged by mining, agriculture or logging.
Source : Inside Climate News
September 6, 2021
The concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere hit their highest level ever recorded in 2020, while the year was overall the warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) annual review.
Source : The Hill
August 27, 2021
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
Cutting emissions more urgent than ever, say scientists, with forest producing more than a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year
Source : The Guardian
July 15, 2021
The Sámi people of Northern Sweden say blocking out the sun with reflective particles to cool the earth is the kind of thinking that produced the climate crisis in the first place.
Source : Inside Climate News
July 7, 2021
Nearly half a billion Indigenous people live off, and help preserve, the land. But a UN report concludes they are besieged as protectors of biodiversity.
Source : Inside Climate News
June 26, 2021
A new study finds that if all parts of the food system are included, food production is responsible for as much as 40 percent of global emissions.
Source : Inside Climate News
June 11, 2021
The Forest Trends report shows a 50 percent increase in deforestation of tropical woodlands, most of it for agriculture and much of it illegal, since the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests.
Source : Inside Climate News
May 25, 2021
The forest protection carbon offsetting market used by major airlines for claims of carbon-neutral flying faces a significant credibility problem, with experts warning the system is not fit for purpose, an investigation has found.
Source : The Guardian
May 8, 2021
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
New study finds the rate of capturing CO2 is increasing at a lower rate.
Source : The Guardian
March 29, 2021
Bottom-trawling for fish releases more carbon dioxide each year than Germany, a study has revealed, yet this is not included in national carbon accounts
Source : Climate Home News
March 19, 2021
When ocean heat waves and a sea star disease devastated kelp forests that are critical to sea life and the California urchin fishing industry, sea otters came to the rescue.
Source : Inside Climate News
March 16, 2021
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
Low costs of wind and solar power helped renewables pass coal in electricity generation; gas remains the leader.
Source : Inside Climate News
Pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year, more detailed analysis reveals
Source : The Guardian
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
Not all of the water from the planet’s melting glaciers is pouring into rivers and oceans. A surprising amount is building up behind unstable piles of rubble left behind by the retreating ice. As the Earth continues to warm, the swelling lakes threaten to burst through the glacial moraines holding them back and wash away the forests, towns and farms below.
Source : Inside Climate News
“The survey brings the voice of
the people to the forefront of the
climate debate. It signals ways in
which countries can move forward with
public support as we work together to
tackle this enormous challenge.”
Achim Steiner, Administrator,
United Nations Development Programme
With 1.2 million respondents, the Peoples’ Climate Vote is the largest survey of public opinion on
climate change ever conducted. Using a new and unconventional approach to polling, results
span 50 countries1
covering 56% of the world’s population
Source : UNDP
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’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
Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? This new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.
Source : The Conversation
New research suggests that, sooner than expected, trees may become carbon sources rather than carbon sinks, as a feedback loop of rising temperatures drives them to release more greenhouse gases.
Source : Inside Climate News
As the renewable energy sector grows, high-capacity long-life battery storage is fundamental to its success. How these batteries are designed and made will define their environmental impact for generations to come. Creating a circular economy for batteries is crucial to prevent one of the solutions to the current environmental crisis becoming the cause of another.
Source : Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Comment: The EU’s enthusiastic embrace of hydrogen risks undermining the clean energy transition and its newly-minted 2030 greenhouse gas target
Source : Climate Home News
Persistent and accelerating warming in the region is affecting local communities and ecosystems, as well as the rest of the global climate system.
Source : Inside Climate News
The finding counters scientists’ previous assumptions and indicates a reduction in the amount of carbon deciduous forests can remove from the atmosphere.
Source : Inside Climate News
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).
Single-use items — long the target of ire from environmentalists — are having a moment in the era of COVID-19. From disposable cups and take-out packaging to gloves and masks, safety concerns are pushing consumers and institutions in the direction of disposables.
Source : GreenBiz
A new study shows a few degrees of warming can trigger abrupt thaws of vast frozen lands, releasing huge stores of greenhouse gases and collapsing landscapes.
Source : Insideclimate News
The company says it is studying three designs for commercial air travel, but a host of complex problems remain related to producing “clean” hydrogen fuel.
Source : New York Times
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
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
The world's largest consumer goods companies have made progress towards increasing the amount of recycled plastic in their packaging, but are still largely failing to cut down on the amount of single-use packaging they generate.
Source : GreenBiz
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
