Climate change
Leaked IPCC report links climate change to global food scarcity
It’s a human-centric approach, but the prospect of a food scare should be one way to get people—believers and deniers alike—to seriously evaluate the effects of climate change. Last week, a source leaked a draft report, drawn up by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and due to be released next March. It’s the second of three reports, following the first that came out in September this year. Among other things, the text clearly outlines the threats climate change poses to the global food supply, citing a decrease of up to 2% each decade in yields of staple crops like maize, wheat, and rice. (altro…)
CNN Report: Climate change may pose threat to economic growth
Hong Kong (CNN) — Nearly a third of the world’s economic output will come from countries facing “high” to “extreme” risks from the impacts of climate change within 12 years, according to a new report. The Climate Change Vulnerability Index, an annual report produced by UK-based risk analysis firm Maplecroft, found that climate change “may pose a serious obstacle to sustainable economic growth in the world’s most commercially important cities.” (altro…)
EU environment ministers call for ‘ambitious’ 2030 climate goals
Thirteen European environment ministers and dozens of business leaders urged the European Union on Monday to adopt “ambitious”energy and climate goals for 2030 to create a low-carbon economy inEurope to spur investment. In a 40-page document released at a green growth conference in Brussels, they also said the 28-nation bloc should reform the structure of the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) and offer a strict emissions cut pledge at a climate summit next autumn. (altro…)
China hit by another airpocalypse as air pollution cancer link confirmed
Cityscapes shrouded in thick smog have become a common scene inChina. Last winter, Beijing’s ‘airpocalypse‘ garnered headlines worldwide and generated much anger and debate within China. But this week, air pollution levels in the northeastern city of Harbin surpassed the previous record levels in Beijing. The city was essentially shut down after PM2.5, fine particulate pollutionthat is considered hazardous, reached levels of 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre – 40 times the safety level recommended by the World Health Organisation. Schools, motorways and an airport were closed on Tuesday as visibility in some areas of the city dropped to less than 10 metres. (altro…)
Natural Disasters Keep People Poor
Natural disasters that have smacked Southeast Asia recently have killed scores of people and left severe damage in their wake. Recovery has begun, but the dent these events leave on the region’s economies could derail international efforts to eradicate poverty, according to a recent report that looks at how climate change and exposure to severe weather impact different countries.
“As temperatures warm, many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens will face increased risks associated with more intense or protracted droughts, extreme rainfall and heat waves,” notes the joint report by London-based think-tank the Overseas Development Institute, Met Office and Risk Management Solutions, a software company that helps reinsurers and other financial institutions to quantify and manage catastrophic risks. (altro…)
IPCC draft report warns Australia will be a hot spot as world gets warmer
THE number of people expected to die in Sydney from extreme heat will triple by the end of the century, a leaked draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns. Another 800,000 people will fall ill year from contaminated food and water – while more than 270,000 homes will be at risk of collapsing into the ocean from rising sea levels. The unreleased draft of the IPCC’s second report also warns that $226 billion worth of coastal assets including homes, rail and road infrastructure are at risk with just a 1.1m rise in sea levels. (altro…)
Climate Science Politics At Full Speed
Are governments working to protect the political consensus around climate change at the expense of truth?
By Theo Vermaelen, INSEAD Professor of Finance
The difference between science and religion is that science is supposed to make testable predictions. Simply showing that carbon emissions are correlated with global temperatures using historical data proves nothing. The stock market is also correlated with global temperatures (it went up a lot in the 20th century and then flattened out this century) but that does not mean that bringing down the stock market will reduce global warming (although I bet some people would love this idea). Also having a strong theory that the two variables should be correlated is not sufficient if the goal is to show that one variable iscompletely explained by the other. For example, every finance professor accepts that, ceteris paribus, when interest rates rise, stock prices should fall. But that does not mean that the stock market is only driven by interest rates. (altro…)
L’IPCC conferma: stiamo cambiando il clima del pianeta
Secondo il nuovo rapporto dell’Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, frutto del lavoro di quasi 2500 esperti, il riscaldamento del clima della Terra è inequivocabile e i cambiamenti non hanno precedenti su una scala temporale che va dalle decine di anni ai millenni. Il rapporto, presentato oggi a Stoccolma, conferma inoltre le responsabilità delle attività umane. La nostra specie sta modificando il clima della Terra in modo evidente. Questa frase lapidaria ha annunciato la presentazione a Stoccolma del V Assessment Report (AR5) dell’Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) che ha aggiornato le basi scientifiche del cambiamento climatico. (altro…)
Warming Up for Another Climate-Change Report
At a closed-door meeting in Stockholm this week, each paragraph of a document written by scientists is being projected onto large screens. Delegations from scores of nations participate in the editing: Words will be substituted, emphasis will be added, entire sentences may well be inserted or deleted. (altro…)
Anticipazioni sul prossimo rapporto dell’IPCC
di Carlo Carraro
Mancano solo poche ore alla pubblicazione ufficiale della prima delle tre sezioni del Quinto Rapporto di Valutazione dell’ IPCC, l’attesissimo volume che raccoglie lo stato dell’arte a livello scientifico delle conoscenze globali sul clima. In quanto membro del Bureau dell’IPCC e Vice Presidente del Working Group III ho avuto accesso in anticipo al rapporto. I contenuti delle bozze del rapporto sono trapelati in più di un’occasione nel corso dell’anno (si vedano i precedenti post sull’argomento: “IPCC: la bozza trapelata che invade il web” e “Polemiche sul (futuro) Quinto Rapporto dell’IPCC”), e i media di tutto il mondo non hanno mai perso l’occasione di fare notizia con stralci di informazioni rubate qua e là. (altro…)