Category Archives: Climate change

Britain now G7’s biggest net importer of CO2 emissions per capita, says ONS

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Fall in UK-produced emissions has been offset by those from increase in imported products

Britain has contributed to the global climate emergency by outsourcing its carbon emissions to developing nations, according to official figures, despite managing to weaken the domestic link between fossil fuels and economic growth.

The Office for National Statistics said the UK had become the biggest net importer of carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the G7 group of wealthy nations – outstripping the US and Japan – as a result of buying goods manufactured abroad.

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‘It has been polarising’: tube protest divides Extinction Rebellion

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Disrupting London trains was opposed by 72% of activists in poll, but has boosted coverage

The climate protests during which one activist was dragged from the roof of a London Underground train by angry commuters had been discussed within Extinction Rebellion [XR] for weeks.

But it was not until Wednesday morning, when a note was posted on the group’s website, that a decision appeared to have been taken.

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Higher temperatures driving ‘alarming’ levels of hunger – report

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Global hunger index finds countries affected by drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa have seen biggest increases in undernourished people

The climate crisis is driving alarming levels of hunger in the world, undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions, according to this year’s global hunger index.

The annual report, a ranking of 117 countries measuring hunger rates and trends, shows progress since 2000 but warns that the world still has a long way to go to reach the zero hunger target agreed by world leaders by 2030.

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Police ban Extinction Rebellion protests from whole of London

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City-wide Met police operation begins to clear Trafalgar Square and other protest sites

Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s camp in Trafalgar Square.

The Metropolitan police issued a revised section 14 order on Monday night that said “any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ ... must now cease their protests within London (MPS and City of London Police Areas)” by 9pm.

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Labor MPs condemn suggestion they adopt Coalition climate change policy

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Joel Fitzgibbon’s climate change ‘settlement’ is rejected but Labor will allow the government’s ‘big stick’ energy policy to pass

Joel Fitzgibbon has copped a blast in the left and right caucus meetings for declaring Labor should adopt the Coalition’s Paris emissions reduction target rather than pursue ambitious cuts to carbon pollution.

The internal unrest came as the shadow cabinet was expected to sign off on Monday night on a shift in Labor’s attitude to the controversial “big stick” policy of the Morrison government.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s voice cracks during speech on climate change – video

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US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a speech at a global mayors event on Friday, highlighting that the world's most advanced and richest economies are failing to take sufficient steps to combat climate change. Ocasio-Cortez's voice began to crack as she spoke about the future of any children she might have, stating that it was the current population's responsibility to steer the world away from environmental jeopardy 

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Inside Copenhagen’s race to be the first carbon-neutral city

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Green growth and ‘hedonistic sustainability’ have helped keep the public on board as the Danish capital seeks to reach its goal by 2025 – and so far it’s all going according to plan

“We call it hedonistic sustainability,” says Jacob Simonsen of the decision to put an artificial ski slope on the roof of the £485m Amager Resource Centre (Arc), Copenhagen’s cutting-edge new waste-to-energy power plant. “It’s not just good for the environment, it’s good for life.”

Skiing is just one of the activities that Simonsen, Arc’s chief executive, and Bjarke Ingels, its lead architect, hope will enhance the latest jewel in Copenhagen’s sustainability crown. The incinerator building also incorporates hiking and running trails, a street fitness gym and the world’s highest outdoor climbing wall, an 85-metre “natural mountain” complete with overhangs that rises the full height of the main structure.

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‘Ultimate gift to future generations’: plan to laser map all land on Earth

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Project to record cultural, geological and environmental treasures at risk from climate crisis

A project to produce detailed maps of all the land on Earth through laser scanning has been revealed by researchers who say action is needed now to preserve a record of the world’s cultural, environmental and geological treasures.

Prof Chris Fisher, an archaeologist from Colorado State University, said he founded the Earth Archive as a response to the climate crisis.

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US mayors seek to bypass Trump with direct role at UN climate talks

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‘If cities are invited to be at the table, I believe they will help accelerate the work that needs to be done’ said LA mayor Eric Garcetti

US mayors are seeking to go over President Trump’s head and negotiate directly at next month’s UN climate change conference in Santiago, they said as they met in Copenhagen for the C40 World Mayors Summit.

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, who rallied US mayors to commit to the Paris climate agreement after Trump announced his intention to withdraw the country in 2017, said he would ask the UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Thursday to give American cities a new role in UN climate talks.

“I’m going to bring it up with the UN secretary general,” Garcetti said. “If cities are invited to be at the table, I believe they will help accelerate the work that needs to be done. Hopefully, we can do it in concert with our national governments, but [we can do it] even where there is conflict.”

Garcetti, who was announced on Wednesday as the next chair of the C40 group of global cities, said he would use his position to seek “a more formal role in the deliberations” at the conference.

“The United Nations works directly with cities all the time ... so they shouldn’t feel feel scared about jumping down to that local level,” he said.

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Two-thirds of bird species in North America could vanish in climate crisis

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Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization

Two-thirds of bird species in North America are at risk of extinction because of the climate crisis, according to a new report from researchers at the Audubon Society, a leading US conservation group.

Related: Record numbers of Australia's wildlife species face 'imminent extinction'

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The climate crisis in 2050: what happens if cities act but nations don’t?

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It is cities, not national governments, that are most aggressively fighting the climate crisis – and in 30 years they could look radically different

She has barely ever been in a car, and never eaten meat or flown. Now 31, she lives on the 15th floor of a city centre tower from where she can just see the ocean 500 yards away on one side and the suburbs and informal settlements sprawling as far as the eye can see on the other.

Life is OK in this megacity. She earns the exact median income and is as green as she feels she can be: she has no children yet, her carbon footprint is negligible, and her apartment, built in the early 2000s, has been retrofitted for climate change with deep insulation, its own solar air-con and heating systems.

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‘Inspirational’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez applauds mayors’ Global Green New Deal

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Mayors of more than 90 of the world’s biggest cities voice support for bold proposal to fight climate change as they lambast ‘failed’ UN climate summit

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she was ‘inspired’ by the Global Green New Deal, a bold proposal to fight climate change announced today by the C40 group of global mayors.

To kick off their major summit this week the group, which represents more than 90 of the world’s biggest cities, voiced their backing for the plan and said it reaffirmed their “commitment to protecting the environment, strengthening our economy, and building a more equitable future by cutting emissions”.

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Extinction Rebellion: Johnson calls climate crisis activists ‘uncooperative crusties’

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PM hits out at protesters for ‘littering’ London with ‘heaving hemp-smelling bivouacs’

The prime minister has attacked the Extinction Rebellion activists protesting in London over the climate crisis, dismissing them as “uncooperative crusties” who should stop blocking the streets of the capital with their “heaving hemp-smelling bivouacs”.

Boris Johnson made the remarks at the launch of the final volume of a biography of Margaret Thatcher written by his former boss at the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore.

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It’s not just Greta Thunberg: why are we ignoring the developing world’s inspiring activists? | Chika Unigwe

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Young people in the global south have been tackling the climate crisis for years. They should be celebrated too

Ridhima Pandey was just nine years old in 2017 when she filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to take action against climate change. Pandey’s fierce, astounding passion for the environment is not accidental. Her mother is a forestry guard and her father an environmental activist; and the whole family was displaced by the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, which claimed hundreds of lives.

In Kenya Kaluki Paul Mutuku has been actively involved in conservation since college, where he was a member of an environmental awareness club, and has been a member of the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change since 2015. Raised in rural Kenya by a single mother, Mutuku’s vigorous activism, like Pandey’s, was inspired by the direct challenges his family (and wider community) faced from the effects of climate change: “Growing up, I witnessed mothers cover kilometres to fetch water,” he says.

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Iowa teens delighted as Greta Thunberg leads unexpected climate strike

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More than 3,000 people gathered in the shadow of the University of Iowa on Friday afternoon to hear Thunberg speak

Three days prior to Greta Thunberg’s surprise visit to Iowa City on Friday, the organizer and local climate activist, Massimo Biggers, a 14-year-old Iowa City high school student, was preparing to strike – as he has done every Friday, sometimes on his own, since the Global Climate Strike day Thunberg inspired on 15 March.

Out of the blue, a message arrived from the Swedish teen activist, with whom he had been in touch, asking him if he was planning to strike again this Friday. “Of course!” he replied, and for the last 48 hours, according to his father, Jeff, neither had slept. “This was truly a miracle to have the town pull this together,” he said.

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Reserve Bank warns climate change posing increasing risk to financial stability

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RBA says it is becoming increasingly important for investors and institutions to actively manage carbon risk

Australia’s central bank has delivered a clear warning that climate change is exposing financial institutions and the financial system more broadly to risks that will rise over time if action isn’t taken.

The RBA’s financial stability review, released Friday, concluded that while climate change is not yet a significant threat to financial stability in Australia, it is becoming increasingly important for investors and institutions to actively manage carbon risk.

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From Qatar to Vietnam, global heating is making the workplace deadly for millions

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Regular exposure to dangerously high temperatures poses a grave and growing threat to workers around the world

By now, many of us recognise that we are confronting a climate emergency on a vast scale, and that rising temperatures will threaten the lives of millions across the planet. Severe heat waves have already killed many thousands of people over the past decade, but what is less recognised is that rising temperatures are also, slowly but surely, bringing more dangerous heat stress into our daily lives.

Millions of people work outside or in uncooled indoor environments every day. People working in construction, agriculture, fishing, forestry or the military often work intensively in direct sun for extended periods of time. Millions of workers in indoor factories, warehouses and workshops are also exposed to excessive workplace heat. A study of a garment factory in Cambodia predominantly employing young women showed indoor temperatures as high as 37C.

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Bad ancestors: does the climate crisis violate the rights of those yet to be born?

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Our environmental vandalism has made urgent the question of ethical responsibilities across decades and centuries

What if climate breakdown is a violation of the rights of those yet to be born? Finally, this urgent question seems to be getting the attention it deserves. Last month an astonishing 7 million people from nearly 200 countries took to the streets as part of the youth-led global climate strike. Young people around the world recognise that the disastrous repercussions of the already present ecological crisis will fall disproportionately on their shoulders, and the shoulders of generations to come – in particular on those whose communities have emitted the smallest proportion of greenhouse gasses.

Greta Thunberg, whose “school strike for the climate” ignited a movement, often speaks on behalf of those who don’t yet exist. Addressing the UN climate action summit in Manhattan on 23 September she denounced the assembled adults for pursuing money over morality and embracing “fairytales of eternal economic growth” instead of facing the facts of hard science. “Young people are starting to understand your betrayal,” she said. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: we will never forgive you.”

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UK ‘needs billions a year’ to meet 2050 climate targets

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Report estimates up to £20bn a year in investment needed to build net-zero carbon economy

The UK will need investment worth billions of pounds every year to remove enough greenhouse gases from the air to meet its 2050 climate targets, according to a report commissioned by the government.

The report, by analysts at Vivid Economics, estimated that the UK would need as much as £20bn a year to remove up to 130m tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air.

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