Before and after photos show the destruction of climate change
Not just a future problem: The world is changing before our eyes.
Source: Yale Climate Connections
March 21, 2025
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Not just a future problem: The world is changing before our eyes.
Source: Yale Climate Connections
March 21, 2025
Heat waves exacerbate the danger of the disease.
Source: Yale Climate Connections
February 7, 2025
Recycling e-waste can unlock a vast and sustainable supply of transition minerals but in India the sector relies on a neglected informal economy.
Source: Climate Home News
January 21, 2025
Studies show that in general women bear more risks from external pressures on collectively held lands no matter the tenure system. This is so even in Indigenous matrilineal communities, where women’s land rights are culturally legitimate.
Source: World Resources Institute
January 16, 2025
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
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
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
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
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
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
In its annual report, Global Witness affirms how dangerous it is to defend nature. More than 2,100 defenders have been murdered since 2012.
Source: Climate News
September 10, 2024
Canada’s 2023 wildfires made international headlines, causing billions of dollars in property damage, displacing thousands of people from their homes, and spewing air pollution that traveled as far as Europe and China. A new analysis shows that the wildfires also had a massive effect on greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: World Resources Institute
July 11, 2024
To avoid the Global South becoming a dumping ground for used ICE vehicles, part of the solution must be a normalization of scrapping them sustainably.
Source: Green Biz
June 28, 2024
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
In a setback to efforts to conserve 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, a third of the world’s largest MPAs allow destructive practices like mining and commercial fishing, while others are “paper parks” with no formal conservation measures.
Source: Inside Climate News
June 18, 2024
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
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
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
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
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
In the popular imagination, the Caribbean is paradise, an exotic place to escape to. But behind the images of balmy beaches and lush hotel grounds lies a crisis, the likes of which its residents have never experienced.
Source: The Conversation
May 17, 2024
New research reveals that one-third of great apes on the African continent are threatened by mining concessions, while inadequate protective measures are in place.
Source: Inside Climate News
April 3, 2024
It’s well known that fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. A dirty secret is that they’re also the source of toxic chemicals linked to rising rates of chronic and deadly diseases.
Source: Inside Climate News
March 19, 2024
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
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
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
Most of the public seems unaware that global temperatures will soon push past the target to which the U.N. hoped to limit warming, but researchers see social and psychological crises brewing.
Source: Inside Climate News
February 1, 2024
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
Researchers find we can now wash down the microplastics in our tofu, or steak, with a much larger quantity of nanoplastics in bottled water than previously known.
Source: Inside Climate News
January 16, 2024
More than 5% of global emissions are linked to conflict or militaries but countries continue to hide the true scale
Source: The Guardian
January 12, 2024
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
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
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
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
If humanity wants to have a 50-50 chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we can only emit another 250 gigatonnes (billion metric tonnes) of CO₂. This effectively gives the world just six years to get to net zero, according to calculations in a new paper published in Nature Climate Change.
Source: The Conversation
October 30, 2023
Large-scale tree planting projects aimed at sequestering carbon are oversimplifying the many values of forests, researchers reported.
Source: Inside Climate News
October 03, 2023
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
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
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
Climate change is humanity’s greatest threat, with extreme weather and intensified wildfires expected to devastate ecosystems and coral reefs. However, most economic models predict only a minor impact on GDP in the coming decades.
Source : The Conversation
October 3, 2023
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
Source : Inside Climate News
August 30, 2023
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
Source : Inside Climate News
August 16, 2023
Source : Inside Climate News
August 14, 2023
Source : Yale Climate Connections
July 14, 2023
Source : World Resources Institute
May 26, 2023
Source : Inside Climate News
May 17, 2023
Source : Inside Climate News
May 12, 2023
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
Last summer’s heat waves killed 15,000 people, and the odds for even hotter years keep rising.
Source : Inside Climate News
April 24, 2023
As relentless drought dries out subsistence farmers’ wells, vast eucalyptus and pine plantations, remnants of the Pinochet dictatorship, are torching their communities.
Source : Inside Climate News
April 10, 2023
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
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
With the continent holding enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt, polar scientists are scrambling for answers
Source : The Guardian
March 13, 2023
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
Sea ice helps protect glaciers and ice caps that would cause massive sea level rise when lost, scientists warn
Source : The Guardian
February 23, 2023
The year was the second-costliest on record for drought. It also had three mega-disasters costing at least $20 billion, plus a heat wave that killed over 40,000 people in Europe.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
February 6, 2023
Major global banks are standing in the way of climate targets with new data showing just 7% of their financing for energy companies went to renewables between 2016 and 2022.
Source : Climate Action / Sierra Club
January 31, 2023
Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating
Source : The Guardian
January 31, 2023
As companies race to expand renewable energy and the batteries to store it, finding sufficient amounts of rare earth metals to build the technology is no easy feat. That’s leading mining companies to take a closer look at a largely unexplored frontier – the deep ocean seabed.
Source : The Conversation
January 23, 2023
The heat of global warming will keep penetrating deeper into the oceans for centuries after greenhouse gas emissions cease.
Source : Inside Climate News
January 16, 2023
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
In a letter to NASA’s administrator, environmental advocates call for “rigorous” independent analysis of the climate implications of putting supersonic passenger jets back in the sky.
Source : Inside Climate News
January 12, 2023
Meteorologist Bob Henson answers pressing questions about a chilly winter weather phenomenon.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
December 29, 2022
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
Researchers behind the Land Gap Report say we can’t plant our way out of global warming—and it’s disingenuous to pretend that we can.
Source : Inside Climate News
November 2, 2022
Less than 1% of used clothing gets recycled into new garments, overwhelming countries like Ghana with discards.
Source : Bloomberg
November 5, 2022
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
Here are some pieces to help bring you up to speed on the fascinating nexus between your wardrobe, fashion, and beauty…and the world’s climate change challenges.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
October 24, 2022
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
Animals can only endure temperatures within a given range. The upper and lower temperatures of this range are called its critical thermal limits. As these limits are exceeded, an animal must either adjust or migrate to a cooler climate.
Source : The Conversation
October 7, 2022
Long heatwaves in Eurasia and North America baked soils dry, threatening ecosystems and food production, and contributing to a cascade of compounding impacts that can reduce power supplies and increase heat deaths.
Source : Inside Climate News
October 6, 2022
Globally, an astonishing 298 long-term weather stations – including 265 in China – set their all-time heat records in August.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
September 19, 2022
Climate, Food & Agriculture : Part 1
In recent decades, worrisome rises in drought, heat waves, and air pollution have stressed agriculture.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
September 10, 2022
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
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
The curious connection between the sky’s ‘thirstiness’ and the dry spell devastating the western U.S.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
August 26, 2022
The report by Changing Markets Foundation found that, at best, the certification programs provided a “patchy promise of sustainability. »
Source : Inside Climate News
August 19, 2022
The push to extract materials and food from the oceans at industrial scale menaces vulnerable communities and biodiversity.
Source : Inside Climate News
August 11, 2022
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
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
Global “food miles” emissions are higher than previously thought – accounting for nearly one-fifth of total food-system emissions – new research suggests.
Source : Carbon Brief
June 24, 2022
Petrochemicals are linked to diverse health problems from infertility to cancer, and now they’re building up in pregnant women.
Source : Inside Climate News
May 12, 2022
Agriculture is the biggest degrader of land, the authors say. Transforming farming practices could restore billions of acres by 2050 for less than is spent on developed-world farm subsidies.
Source : Inside Climate News
April 28, 2022
Water shortages leading to rising salt concentrations and sandstorms are eroding world’s ancient sites
Source : The Guardian
April 21, 2022
The month featured a $4 billion flood and a mass coral bleaching event in Australia, and an extreme heat wave in Antarctica.
Source : Yale Climate Connection
April 15, 2022
Solutions that work in concert with nature could help address climate risks, experts say, but barriers remain to widespread adoption by the railroad industry.
Source : Inside Climate News
April 9, 2022
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
Researcher’s then/now Alaska national parks images show drastic climate change impacts on landscapes over the years.
Source : Yale Climate Connections
February 5, 2022
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
Wealthy companies are using the facade of ‘nature-based solutions’ to enact a great carbon land grab.
Source : The Guardian
January 27, 2022
The researchers studied more than 15 million Medicare beneficiaries living in all major fracking regions and gathered data from more than 2.5 million oil and gas wells.
Source : Inside Climate News
January 27, 2022
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
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
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 New
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
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
The most important number you’ve never heard of
As the impacts of climate change add up, economists are trying to figure out what the true cost of a tonne of carbon really is.
Source : BBC Future
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
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
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
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
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
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
In China, scientists have turned vast swathes of arid land into a lush oasis. Now a team of maverick engineers want to do the same to the Sinai
Source : The Guardian
March 29, 2021
Planting trees is unfortunately not the silver bullet solution you are looking for.
Source : The Economist
March 23, 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
