Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
November 15, 2021
COP26 was the moment countries revisited climate pledges made made under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Six years ago, countries were asked to make changes to keep global warming "well below" 2C - and to try to aim for 1.5C.
COP stands for "Conference of the Parties", and the one in Glasgow was the 26th annual summit. Ahead of it, 200 countries were asked for their plans to cut emissions by 2030.
The goal is to keep cutting emissions until they reach net zero by mid-century.
November 7, 2021
Since 1994 the United Nations (UN) has convened almost every country on Earth for an annual summit known as the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This year's two-week 26th meeting, COP26, is described as "the most significant climate event since the 2015 Paris Agreement" which committed nations to limiting global warming to well below 2°C (preferably 1.5°C), and "the world's best and last chance to get runaway climate change under control."
United States President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo were among the 200 world leaders attending the first two days of the conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Malaysia is ably represented by the savvy Secretary-General of the Water and Environment Ministry Datuk Seri Dr Zaini Ujang.
The conspicuous absence of more senior representation, though, seemed to many a sign that Malaysians were nonchalant about the event. That is, until a big headline appeared saying that more than 100 world leaders had promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030.
February 27, 2021
A new report from the United Nations warns that global governments are "nowhere" near ambitious enough to adequately tackle climate change and meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. To fix this, the report shows that countries have to redouble their efforts and adjust their goals by the end of this year to limit global temperature rise by the end of the century.
The NDC Synthesis Report analyzes governments' climate action plans that have already been submitted to the UN as part of the global effort to reduce emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change. So far, 75 parties — making up roughly 30% of the world's total emissions — have submitted their plans. A second report is expected to be released prior to the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November.
February 19, 2021
Today marks the U.S.’s official reinstatement into the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Biden rejoined hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2021. As the U.S rejoins the world in this historic climate accord, the Campaign for Nature has issued the following statement:
Enric Sala, Explorer in Residence, National Geographic and the author of the award winning book The Nature of Nature, Why We Need the Wild. @enric_sala
“Today marks a new beginning for the U.S. It is an opportunity to reset its ambitions and to reestablish its leadership on the global stage in combating climate change. This move, along with the Biden administration’s signal to set the United States on a path to conserve 30% of the U.S – land and at sea – by 2030 (30x30), demonstrates that the country is prepared to lead on the two largest crises facing our planet.”
January 21, 2021
President Joe Biden returned the United States to the worldwide fight to slow global warming in one of his first official acts Wednesday and immediately launched a series of climate-friendly efforts that would transform how Americans drive and get their power.
“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.”
Biden signed an executive order rejoining the Paris climate accord within hours of taking the oath of office, fulfilling a campaign pledge. The move undoes the U.S. withdrawal ordered by predecessor Donald Trump, who belittled the science behind climate efforts, loosened regulations on heat-trapping oil, gas and coal emissions, and spurred oil and gas leasing in pristine Arctic tundra and other wilderness.
December 21, 2020
Climate mitigation technologies that harness natural processes to reduce or remove greenhouse gas -- plays an important role in mitigating the devastating effects of global warming, which is expected to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052, according to the projection by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Global warming has contributed to sea level rise and increased incidences of extreme and deadly weather events, researchers have found.
With the potential mitigation impact of 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide annually, NCS can provide over a third of the mitigation action needed to meet the Paris agreement targets by 2030, says the report issued by Conservation International, DBS Bank, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Temasek.
December 12, 2020
Five years ago, when the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change was adopted, storing planet-warming carbon in ecosystems such as tropical forests, wetlands and coastal mangroves was not seen as a major part of the solution.
Now officials and environmentalists say goals to limit global temperature rise cannot be met without nature’s help.
Ahead of a U.N. “Climate Ambition Summit” to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris accord on Saturday, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they said threats to plants, wildlife, human health and the climate should be confronted together.
December 11, 2020
On the 5th anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement, Nature Based Solutions are emerging as essential climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. In 2015, the biodiversity agenda and the climate agenda were seen as two separate tracks. It is now widely believed that protecting ecosystems could provide at least a third of the climate mitigation needed by 2030 under the Paris Climate Agreement. In the wake of Covid 19 and the growing understanding of the interdependence of biodiversity, climate and human health and their compound threat, it has become clear that the natural world should be included in climate solutions, and that global leaders should address all three crises in an integrated manner.
December 9, 2020
A green pandemic recovery could cut up to 25 per cent off predicted 2030 greenhouse gas emissions and bring the world closer to meeting the 2°C goal of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds.
UNEP’s annual Emissions Gap Report 2020 finds that, despite a dip in 2020 carbon dioxide emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still heading for a temperature rise in excess of 3°C this century.
However, if governments invest in climate action as part of pandemic recovery and solidify emerging net-zero commitments with strengthened pledges at the next climate meeting – taking place in Glasgow in November 2021 – they can bring emissions to levels broadly consistent with the 2°C goal.
September 19, 2020
The warning signs are flashing red. The California wildfires were surely made worse by the impacts of global heating. A study published in July warned that the Arctic is undergoing “an abrupt climate change event” that will probably lead to dramatic changes. As if to underline the point, on 14 September it was reported that a huge ice shelf in northeast Greenland had torn itself apart, worn away by warm waters lapping in from beneath.
That same day, a study of satellite data revealed growing cracks and crevasses in the ice shelves protecting two of Antarctica’s largest glaciers – indicating that those shelves could also break apart, leaving the glaciers exposed and liable to melt, contributing to sea-level rise. The ice losses are already following our worst-case scenarios.
January 10, 2020
The AMA and 23 other medical organizations declared in a letter to President Donald Trump that “there is no single step that will do more for the health of all Americans than remaining in and meeting our obligations to the Paris Climate Agreement.”
The letter, which states that “climate change is a public health emergency,” was released by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.
November 8, 2019
Four years after world leaders negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement, now signed by 195 countries around the world and ratified by 187, national policies and market signals are starting to reflect the urgency both of increasing finance for mitigation of and adaptation to the effects of climate change, and of making all financial flows consistent with a pathway toward low-carbon and climate-resilient development. However, much more ambition will be needed to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, including a push at the national level for countries to meet and exceed their climate action plans.
November 7, 2019
The 2015 Paris climate agreement was made possible when countries realized it was in their own interest to commit to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions. But a similar understanding of the need for stronger conservation policies has yet to take hold, putting the world's ecosystems increasingly at risk.
November 6, 2019
France and China have reasserted their mutual support for the "irreversible" Paris climate agreement, just days after the US made its first formal step to withdraw from the accord.
Speaking at a joint press conference on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping also maintained their "strong commitment to improving international cooperation on climate change."
November 6, 2019
A group of 27 countries met in Paris this month to raise $9.8 billion for the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations program that routes money from wealthier countries to poorer ones to combat climate change.
But climate activists said it was a disappointing haul for a program critical to meeting the goals of the Paris climate accord — where countries agreed to limit warming this century to less than 2 degrees Celsius, with an aspirational limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
