The two US presidential contenders offer starkly different approaches as the world tries to avoid catastrophic global heating
Among the myriad reasons world leaders will closely watch the outcome of a fraught US presidential election, the climate crisis looms perhaps largest of all.
The international effort to constrain dangerous global heating will hinge, in large part, on which of the dichotomous approaches of Donald Trump or Joe Biden prevails.
Continue reading...Modelling shows moving towards a net zero emissions economy would unlock financial prospects in sectors including renewables and manufacturing
Australia could unlock an investment boom of $63bn over the next five years if it aligns its climate policies with a target of net zero emissions by 2050, according to new economic modelling.
The analysis, by the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), finds the investment opportunity created by an orderly transition to a net zero emissions economy would reach hundreds of billions of dollars by 2050 across sectors including renewable energy, manufacturing, carbon sequestration and transport.
Continue reading...City state follows Qantas in offering jaunts with no destination with ships half full and masks mandatory
Singapore is launching Covid-secure cruise holidays to nowhere, in the latest attempt to offer a long-distance travel experience with no stops.
Australian airline Qantas drew criticism from environmental groups last month after advertising a seven-hour round trip from Sydney including fly-pasts of famous sights including Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.
Continue reading...Backing for law demanding 60% reduction from 1990 levels puts capitals under pressure
EU capitals have been put under pressure to agree to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2030 compared with 1990, after the European parliament voted in favour of an “ambitious” climate law that would also oblige each member state to be carbon neutral by 2050.
The vote, which sets the chamber’s position as it goes into negotiations with the 27 member states and the European commission, won the backing of 392 MEPs, with 161 voting against and 142 abstaining.
Continue reading...Release of CO2 from UKCS rigs was much greater than Norwegian and Danish regions
Britain’s oil and gas rigs are the most polluting in the North Sea oil basin, according to industry data, with enough unwanted gas burned off every year to heat a million homes.
Oil rigs in the UK continental shelf (UKCS) released 13.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere last year, according to data from Rystad Energy, significantly more than those from the Norwegian and Danish regions of the North Sea, which produced 10.4m tonnes and 1.4m tonnes of CO2 respectively in the same year.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg leads protests as Covid rules restrict numbers compared with last year
School pupils, youth activists and communities around the world have turned out for a day of climate strikes, intended to underscore the urgency of the climate crisis even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Social distancing and other Covid-19 control measures dampened the protests, but thousands of activists posted on social media and took to the streets to protest against the lack of climate action from world leaders. Strikes were scheduled in at least 3,500 locations around the globe.
Continue reading...The climate crisis and Covid-19 are crying out for international cooperation, writes the prime minister of Bangladesh
One-third of my country was underwater last month. The heaviest rains in almost a decade began and have still not abated. More than 1.5 million Bangladeshis are displaced; tens of thousands of hectares of paddy fields have been washed away. Millions of my compatriots will need food aid this year.
Calamities, alas, never strike alone. The floods, which come in the wake of widespread destruction caused by Cyclone Amphan in May, are making it more difficult to contain the coronavirus. More than 2.4 million people had already been moved from the destructive path of the storm without delivering them into the even greater danger of Covid-19. Yet while the infection and death rates have been contained, concerns remain until a foolproof safeguard is acquired. Economic lockdowns have hit our textile industry and exports and forced hundreds of thousands of our international migrant workers to return home, with the vast majority remaining unemployed.
Continue reading...Charity says world’s fast-shrinking carbon budget should be used to improve lot of poorest
The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, according to new research.
Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25-year period, but the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half.
Continue reading...Now is a time for courage. It will take sacrifices from everyone for us all to survive, the president of the Marshall Islands writes
My country joined the United Nations nearly 30 years ago, in September 1991. But unless my fellow member states take action, we may also be forced from it: the first country to see our land swept away by climate change.
As the UN general assembly meets in New York, celebrating the 75th anniversary of its formation, we must ask: how many of the 193 nations that it brings together will survive to reach its centenary?
Continue reading...Tyre attachment designed by four students aims to reduce road transport pollution
A device that captures microplastic particles from tyres as they are emitted – and could help reduce the devastating pollution they cause – has won its designers a James Dyson award.
The Tyre Collective, a group of masters students from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, scooped the UK prize of the international competition with their solution for the growing environmental scourge of tyre wear caused by road transport.
Continue reading...A third of €100bn post-Covid package to be used for greener future, but critics say it falls short
Billed by the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, as a “big green recovery plan”, one-third of France’s €100bn (£90bn) post-Covid economic stimulus package will be spent, in the government’s words, on “ecological transition” and “greening the economy”.
Environmental groups said the plan, presented on Thursday by the prime minister, Jean Castex, and other cabinet members, marked a welcome first step – but criticised a missed opportunity to break decisively with a growth-driven, high-carbon economy.
Continue reading...Narendra Modi’s dream of a ‘self-reliant India’ comes at a terrible price for its indigenous population
Over the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, has pitted indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal.
Yet under a new “self-reliant India” plan by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to boost the economy post-Covid-19 and reduce costly imports, 40 new coalfields in some of India’s most ecologically sensitive forests are to be opened up for commercial mining.
Continue reading...Researchers say moderate reductions in CO2 emissions could halve their likelihood
Extreme droughts are likely to become much more frequent across central Europe, and if global greenhouse gas emissions rise strongly they could happen seven times more often, new research has shown.
The area of crops likely to be affected by drought is also set to increase, and under sharply rising CO2 levels would nearly double in central Europe in the second half of this century, to more than 40m hectares (154,440 sq miles) of farmland.
Continue reading...Researchers say potent climate-heating gas almost certainly escaping into atmosphere
The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists.
The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape.
Continue reading...Melting Arctic sea ice could cause starvation and reproductive failure for many as early as 2040, scientists warn
Scientists have predicted for the first time when, where and how polar bears are likely to disappear, warning that if greenhouse gas emissions stay on their current trajectory all but a few polar bear populations in the Arctic will probably be gone by 2100.
By as early as 2040, it is very likely that many polar bears will begin to experience reproductive failure, leading to local extinctions, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.
Continue reading...Last time CO2 was at similar level temperatures were 3C to 4C hotter and sea levels were 20 metres higher
The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is approaching a level not seen in 15m years and perhaps never previously experienced by a hominoid, according to the authors of a study.
At pre-lockdown rates of increase, within five years atmospheric CO2 will pass 427 parts per million, which was the probable peak of the mid-Pliocene warming period 3.3m years ago, when temperatures were 3C to 4C hotter and sea levels were 20 metres higher than today.
Continue reading...It may be best near-term way to remove CO2, say scientists, but cutting fossil fuel use remains critical
Spreading rock dust on farmland could suck billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed global analysis of the technique.
The chemical reactions that degrade the rock particles lock the greenhouse gas into carbonates within months, and some scientists say this approach may be the best near-term way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Continue reading...Green campaigners and housing experts warn Boris Johnson’s recovery plan could swiftly become a liability
Boris Johnson’s plan to build tens of thousands of new homes risks locking in high carbon emissions for decades to come, if they are built to today’s poor efficiency standards instead of being designed for net zero carbon.
The prime minister’s plans to “build, build, build” form the centrepiece of his “new deal” to lift Britain’s economy out of the coronavirus recession. About £12bn will go to building 180,000 new homes to relieve the housing crisis, while new hospitals and schools will be constructed to improve degraded public services.
Continue reading...Exclusive: IEA chief warns rebound in emissions would be missed economic opportunity
The US is to join with other major powers including China, India and the EU in formulating plans for a global green recovery from the coronavirus crisis, in the only major international summit on the climate emergency this year.
The idea of a green recovery to prevent a dangerous rebound in greenhouse gas emissions to above pre-Covid-19 levels has been gathering steam, but few governments have yet committed to plans.
Continue reading...Committee urges that companies must meet green standards to qualify for Covid-19 corporate bailouts
Ministers are bracing themselves for a powerful new rebuke from the government’s own advisers over the nation’s inadequate response to the climate crisis. In its annual progress report, to be published on Thursday, the Committee on Climate Change will lambast continuing failures by the government to tackle the issues of overheating homes, flash floods, loss of biodiversity and the other threats posed as our planet continues to overheat dangerously.
Last year, the committee complained that no areas of the UK’s response to the climate crisis were being tackled properly. “The whole thing is run by the government like a Dad’s Army,” said the committee’s chairman, Lord Deben.
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