CNBC

January 26, 2021
The richest of the rich are polluting the world and driving climate change, while the poorest of the poor suffer the greatest consequences, according to a new report published Monday by Oxfam International. 

The richest 1% of the global population have used two times as much carbon as the poorest 50% over the last 25 years, the nonprofit’s report says.

When fossil fuels (which are carbon-based) are burned in factories or jets, for example, carbon dioxide is produced. Carbon dioxide emissions trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the warming of the planet. The burning of fossil fuels and processes that generate carbon dioxide emissions are major drivers of economic productivity and wealth. 

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The Hill

January 25, 2021
The leader of the United Nations warned Monday of “existential threats” to the global climate and biodiversity. 

Speaking to the World Economic Forum, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that today’s world suffers from “fragility,” invoking issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and resulting job losses. 

“We also see fragility in the climate and biodiversity crisis. Both are existential threats, and both are getting worse,” Guterres said. 

“We are waging war on nature and destroying our life support system, and nature is striking back,” he added. 

Later in his speech, he said 2021 is the “make-it-or-break-it year” and called on countries to commit to reaching carbon neutrality. 

“We need to make sure that countries present their nationally determined contributions in 2021 with a dramatic reduction in emissions up to 2030,” he added, referring to national goals to reduce emissions. 

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Science Alert

January 22, 2021
A new study suggests a potential change in tropical rain belt patterns could threaten the livelihoods and food security of billions of people.

Today, the tropical rain belt brings with it heavy precipitation along the equator, but as different parts of Earth's atmosphere heat up at different rates, this belt looks likely to become disrupted as it gets attracted to warmer regions of air – threatening biodiversity and taking away the water that people rely on, including growing crops.

Researchers analysed 27 of the most up-to-date climate models to reach their conclusions, but the full impact of the climate crisis on the tropical rain belt only became clear when they isolated the effects on the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, and studied them separately.

"Our work shows that climate change will cause the position of Earth's tropical rain belt to move in opposite directions in two longitudinal sectors that cover almost two thirds of the globe, a process that will have cascading effects on water availability and food production around the world," says atmospheric scientist Antonios Mamalakis, from Colorado State University.

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Associated Press

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.

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The Hill

January 14, 2021
In a new report released Thursday, the United Nations warned that countries need to work faster and allocate more resources toward adapting to climate change across both public and private sectors.

Outlined in the agency’s Adaptation Gap Report 2020, U.N. researchers underscore that despite some progress made in countries around the world adopting national adaptation strategies, levels of engagement and commitment vary.

Citing 2020’s natural disasters as some of the most cataclysmic on record and the record-breaking heat, U.N. authors emphasize the need for increased action amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Frontiers in Conservation Science

January 13, 2021
We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends. The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

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The Hill - OpEd

January 8, 2021
For four years, science has been under attack by an administration that has dismantled over 125 environmental policies, spanning protections for federal lands and endangered species to regulations that ensure clean air and water.

The Trump presidency has cost the planet valuable time in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Additionally, the harm to scientific integrity, public trust and the United States’ international reputation will linger well beyond Trump’s tenure.

The Biden White House will represent a new day — and new hope — in the fight for environmental protection and climate action. Under the Biden-Harris administration, America has the opportunity to rebuild our stature in the world and assert our leadership in combating the climate crisis. The Biden transition website contains numerous policies that have reinvigorated scientists and those who care about the environment, including plans to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, reach net-zero emissions by 2050, invest in environmental justice and conserve 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030.

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Bangkok Post

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.

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Our Daily Planet

December 17, 2020
Yesterday President-elect Joe Biden announced key nominations and appointments of his climate team:

• Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior

• Governor Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy

• Michael Regan, EPA Administrator

• Brenda Mallory, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality

• Administrator Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor

• Ali Zaidi, Deputy National Climate Advisor

A team that AP described as “dealmakers and fighters.”

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Reuters

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.

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Campaign for Nature

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. 

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UNEP

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.

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The Washington Post

December 2, 2020
This year will be one of the three hottest on record for the globe, as marine heat waves swelled over 80 percent of the world’s oceans, and triple-digit heat invaded Siberia, one of the planet’s coldest places. These troubling indicators of global warming are laid out in a U.N. State of the Climate report published Wednesday.

To mark the report’s release and to build momentum toward new climate action under the Paris accord, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres summarized the findings in unusually stark terms.

“To put it simply,” he said in a speech at Columbia University, “the state of the planet is broken.”

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The Independent

October 15, 2020
Last month, political leaders from 64 countries around the world all pledged to “reverse biodiversity loss” in the next decade by protecting 30 per cent of land and ocean by 2030.

This 30x30 goal aims to preserve lands, waterways and seas, in order to protect the natural world and fight the climate crisis.

A new study highlights the huge impact returning 30 per cent of ecosystems to their natural state would have, both in terms of saving huge numbers of species, and in reducing levels of the dangerous greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Some 27 researchers from 12 countries contributed to the report, which assessed forests, grasslands, shrublands, wetlands and arid ecosystems.

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The Guardian

October 5, 2020
Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned.

Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

New research shows that this tipping point could be much closer than previously thought. As much as 40% of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

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