Plume from unprecedented blazes forecast to reach Alaska as fires rage for third month
A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month.
The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.
Continue reading...Frank Bainimarama appeals to larger neighbour to ‘more fully appreciate’ climate risks and reduce carbon emissions
The prime minister of Fiji has warned Australia to reduce its coal emissions and do more to combat climate change as regional leaders prepare to gather in Tuvalu ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum this week.
Speaking in Tuvalu at a climate change conference ahead of the forum on Monday, Frank Bainimarama appealed directly to Australia to transition away from coal-powered energy and asked its government “to more fully appreciate” the “existential threat” facing Pacific nations.
Continue reading...Climate crisis is more than a meeting agenda item in a host country that could be left uninhabitable by rising sea levels
As the leaders of Pacific countries step off their planes at Funafuti airport this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, they are being met by the children of Tuvalu, who sit submerged in water, in a moat built around the model of an island, singing: “Save Tuvalu, save the world.”
The welcome sets the tone for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting that will not only have climate change at the top of the agenda – as it has been for many years – but is being hosted by a country that the UN says is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels, which could render it uninhabitable in the coming century.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg started her long journey to climate summits in the Americas by joining a treetop protest in Germany’s Hambach forest, where environmentalists have been fighting for years to stop the ancient woodland being torn up for open-cast coal mining.
The battle to save the last remaining oak and hornbeam trees reflects the young activist’s entwined fights to protect the natural world from human exploitation and to halt carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Potential impacts of rise in vertical shear include longer, bumpier and dearer flights
The climate crisis could be making transatlantic flights more bumpy, according to research into the impact of global heating on the jet stream.
Jet streams are powerful currents of air at the altitudes which planes fly. . They result from the air temperature gradient between the poles and the tropics, and reach speeds of up to 250mph (400kmph). They also sometimes meander.
Continue reading...Tragedy in Encinitas comes as nearly 75% of state’s coastlines erode, endangering lives, homes, and infrastructure
Three women were killed last week while sunning on a beach in Encinitas, California, when the bluff above them gave way.
The sudden tragedy that befell Anne Clave; her mother, Julie Davis; and her aunt Elizabeth Cox, who had gathered at the resplendent coastline in the seaside community north of San Diego to celebrate Cox surviving cancer, made headlines around the world. But cliff erosion continues to imperil people and property around the state. California is falling into the sea piece by piece, and coastal conditions will only grow more dire with worsening climate crisis.
Continue reading...Minister says archipelago in grave situation through no fault of its own as he unveils plan for net zero emissions and village relocation
Fiji will introduce one of the world’s most ambitious legislative programs to tackle the climate crisis, and has labelled the global community’s decision to set aside the call for global heating to be capped at 1.5C “grossly irresponsible and selfish”.
In a speech to the Fijian parliament on Wednesday morning announcing the upcoming climate change act, Fiji’s attorney general and minister for economy and climate change, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, called global heating “a fight for our lives and our livelihoods”.
Continue reading...New Mexico tops the list, followed by California, Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska as problem could intensify with global heating
A handful of US states – including New Mexico and California – are facing significant strains on their water supplies that will only intensify with global heating, according to new rankings.
Related: Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world's population, say experts
Continue reading...Scientists in Geneva warn that cutting carbon emissions from cars and factories is not enough
Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.
A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.
Continue reading...Scientists say July at least equalled and may have beaten hottest month on record
The record-breaking heatwave that roasted Europe last month was a one-in-a-thousand-year event made up to 100 times more likely by human-driven climate change, scientists have calculated.
Around the globe, July at least equalled and may have surpassed the hottest month on record, according to data from the World Meteorological Organization. This followed the warmest June on record.
Continue reading...It’s neat, easy – and a staggering £2bn global market. But as plastic grass takes over our cities, some say that it’s green only in colour
If your attention during the Women’s World Cup was on the pitch rather than the players, you might have noticed that the matches were all played on real grass. That was a hard-won change, made after the US team complained to Fifa that they sustained more injuries on artificial turf.
In private gardens, however, the opposite trend is happening: British gardens are being dug up and replaced with plastic grass. But this isn’t the flaky, fading stuff on which oranges were once displayed at the greengrocer. Today’s artificial grass is nearly identical to the real thing.
Continue reading...More than 100 portraits of president removed in symbolic civil disobedience movement
It was a quiet Monday afternoon in the picturesque town hall of Lingolsheim, outside Strasbourg. The school summer holidays had started and it was exceptionally hot. But at 4pm something extraordinary happened.
Eleven people calmly walked in, politely greeted the receptionists, then headed to the room usually reserved for council meetings. They carefully unhooked the picture of the French president, Emmanuel Macron – the type of portrait that hangs in all local administration buildings – gently placing it in a special protective pouch, and then walked out.
Continue reading...Campaigner calls out ‘hate and conspiracy campaigns’ after Australian’s attack
The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has hit back at the Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt for writing a deeply offensive column that mocked her autism diagnosis.
The Swedish schoolgirl posted a tweet overnight calling out the “hate and conspiracy campaigns” run by climate deniers like Bolt, adopting his insult that she was “deeply disturbed” and turning it back on him.
Continue reading...Redirecting small portion of subsidies would unleash clean energy revolution, says report
Switching just some of the huge subsidies supporting fossil fuels to renewables would unleash a runaway clean energy revolution, according to a new report, significantly cutting the carbon emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
Coal, oil and gas get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewables, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report found. Just 10-30% of the fossil fuel subsidies would pay for a global transition to clean energy, the IISD said.
Continue reading...From walking the dog at midnight to a dip in the canal, I tested the heatwave plan as the city reached 42.6C. Here’s how it went
Last week, as Paris faced down its hottest day since records began, the city authorities declared their readiness. Since the notorious heatwave of 2003 that killed thousands across France, the capital has put in place a heat strategy: cooling areas, a checking system for vulnerable people, shady parks kept open all night.
Could these strategies actually work against a predicted record temperature of 42C (107.6F)? A study released this week shows that the world has never warmed faster than now. By 2050, the average temperature in the hottest month in Paris will rise by six degrees. This heatwave might be the new normal.
Continue reading...Data also shows that none of Britain’s coldest years have happened since 1963
The UK’s 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2002, the Met Office has said. Its statistics stretching back to 1884 reveal a worrying trend, as the planet as a whole deals with the climate crisis.
In a further indication of how the climate is heating up, the records show that none of the UK’s 10 coldest years have occurred since 1963.
Continue reading...El Salvador will run out of water within 80 years unless radical action is taken, a study found, while corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problem
Just after 6am, Victor Funez fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water from a tap in the cemetery, balances it on his head and trudges home, where his wife waits to soak maize kernels so she can make tortillas for breakfast.
Funez, 38, stops briefly to help his daughter with some homework before heading back to the cemetery with the pink urn. This load fills large plastic milk and juice bottles used for drinking throughout the day.
Continue reading...Comparable death toll has been recorded only once before, says Norwegian Polar Institute
About 200 reindeer have been found dead from starvation in the Arctic archipelago Svalbard, an unusually high number, the Norwegian Polar Institute has said, pointing the finger at climate change.
During an annual census of the wild reindeer population on the group of islands about 1,200km (746 miles) from the north pole, three researchers from the institute identified the carcasses of about 200 deer believed to have starved to death last winter.
Continue reading...National ‘green legacy’ initiative aims to reduce environmental degradation
About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.
The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.
Continue reading...As part of the Running Dry series, the Guardian looks at how drought and famine are forcing Guatemalan families to choose between starvation and migration
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
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