Climate change
Build greener to tackle climate change, Arab cities urged
Cities in the Arab region should introduce stronger standards for green building and promote sustainable communities if they are to have a chance of tackling climate change, experts say. The United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-HABITAT) estimates that 56 percent of the Arab world’s population already lives in cities and urban centers, a proportion that more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2010. It is expected to shoot up to 75 percent by 2050. (altro…)
Lima climate talks: South American diplomats hopeful of progress on deal
South American diplomats expect to make progress towards a global climate deal at this week’s UN talks in Lima, despite growing criticism from NGOs that governments in the region are backtracking on pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment. Senior officials from the host, Peru, and biggest regional emitter, Brazil, told the Guardian they aimed to help negotiators draw up a draft agreement specifying measures to prevent global warming reaching catastrophic levels. (altro…)
Will Lima climate talks pave way for a binding treaty in Paris in 2015?
When, on Monday morning in Peru, 4,000 diplomats from the world’s 196 countries start their mammoth session to negotiate a new legally-binding global climate deal, they will know they are in the last chance saloon. COP 20 in Lima is the last full meeting before Paris in a year’s time, when the deal is due to be signed. If countries cannot bury most of their differences on the major issues by Friday week, then the chances of a meaningful agreement next year are slim. (altro…)
Usa-Cina, c’è l’accordo per ridurre il gas serra
La corsa per fermare il riscaldamento globale accelera. Stati Uniti e Cina hanno raggiunto un accordo per ridurre su base volontaria le emissioni di gas serra, finalizzato a diminuire i danni dell’inquinamento e favorire la firma di un nuovo trattato globale per rinnovare il Protocollo di Kyoto, al vertice in programma l’anno prossimo a Parigi. Così il presidente Obama, come anticipato lunedì da La Stampa incassa un successo internazionale che gli consente di far passare in secondo piano la sconfitta subita dal suo partito alle elezioni midterm del 4 novembre scorso. (altro…)
IPCC report: six graphs that show how we’re changing the world’s climate
On Sunday the world’s top climate scientists are expected to reiterate their warning that humanity’s influence on the climate is unequivocal, with wide-ranging impacts across the planet, from rising seas to melting ice. The UN’s climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is currently meeting in Copenhagen to thrash out the final wording of its so-called ‘synthesis’ report, the most comprehensive account of the state on climate science in seven years. (altro…)
Rising sea levels of 1.8 meters in worst-case scenario
The climate is getting warmer, the ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising — but how much? The report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 was based on the best available estimates of future sea levels, but the panel was not able to come up with an upper limit for sea level rise within this century. Now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute and their colleagues have calculated the risk for a worst-case scenario. The results indicate that at worst, the sea level would rise a maximum of 1.8 meters. The results are published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters. (altro…)
Scrap the Climate Change Act to keep the lights on, says Owen Paterson
Britain will struggle to “keep the lights on” unless the Government changes its green energy policies, the former environment secretary will warn this week. Owen Paterson will say that the Government’s plan to slash carbon emissions and rely more heavily on wind farms and other renewable energy sources is fatally flawed. He will argue that the 2008 Climate Change Act, which ties Britain into stringent targets to reduce the use of fossil fuels, should be suspended until other countries agree to take similar measures. If they refuse, the legislation should be scrapped altogether, he will say.
Climate Realities
ON Tuesday, world leaders will converge at United Nations headquarters in New York for a summit meeting on the climate that will set the stage for global negotiations next year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the threat of global climate change. The summit is titled “Catalyzing Action,” a decidedly hopeful characterization. I wish I were so hopeful. It is true that, in theory, we can avoid the worst consequences of climate change with an intensive global effort over the next several decades. But given real-world economic and, in particular, political realities, that seems unlikely. (altro…)
U.N. climate summit is high-profile, but some of world’s most important leaders will skip it
This week, the United Nations will host a huge and well-publicized one-day summit on climate change. The public is likely to be watching it closely: It comes just days after thousands of people in New York and around the world took to the streets, demanding more political action to help fight global warming. The climate summit’s organizer, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, took part in the New York march, and for Tuesday’s event, he is promising to bring together a some of the most powerful people in the world with a common purpose. “I have invited leaders from government, business, finance and civil society to present their vision, make bold announcements and forge new partnerships that will support the transformative change the world needs,” he wrote in a blog post on the summit for the Huffington Post. (altro…)
6 Ways Climate Change is Making Us Sick
Climate change and global health are intimately connected new research argues
Just a day after the People’s Climate March, one of the largest international environmental marches, a new analysis of 56 studies on climate change-related health problems shows that increasingly, global temperatures and severe weather events will continue to have a major impact on global health. In the U.S. alone, several cities are expected to experience many more frequent hot days by the year 2050, and New York City and Milwaukee for example, may have three times their current average of hot days that reach over 90 degrees. According to researchers from the University of Wisconsin, this is just one consequence of human-driven climate change. Currently, 97% of scientists studying climate agree that climate change is caused by humans. The new study, which is published inJAMA, lays out what these wide ranging effects on public health are. (altro…)