Climate change
Post-Bonn Reflections on Climate Finance
The finance stream of the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, last week showed a clearer narrative emerge about the key elements that should be included in the outcomes of the December climate summit in Paris. Disagreements remain on the detail of finance provisions in the new global climate agreement, so countries will need to be creative in finding convergence. (altro…)
Coal burning costs UK between £2.5bn and £7bn from premature deaths
Deaths related to emissions from coal cost the UK economy between £2.47bn and £7.15bn in 2013, according to a comprehensive overview of coal production in Europe.
The figure, which includes mortality costs from coal-related respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, such as heart disease and lung cancer is linked to the 395 kilotons of pollutants emitted by UK coal plants. Europe as a whole had equivalent mortality costs of between €21bn and €60.6bn, according to the authors.
The report, from the NGO umbrella group Climate Action Network Europe (Cane), also found that the UK was the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide from coal burning after Germany and Poland.
“The British government has not caught up with reality,” Kathrin Gutmann, Cane’s coal policy coordinator told the Guardian. “It urgently needs a proactive strategy to manage a coal phase out. Energy utilities are already starting to spend billions of euros to shed some of their coal plants but governments like the UK are just hiding behind this power sector transformation.”
Last month, Germany began a process of mothballing its largest coal plants. The new survey says that it is still Europe’s biggest coal subsidiser though, coughing up €30bn between 1999 and 2011.
In the UK, coal was responsible for some 87 million tonnes of CO2 emissions last year – 16% of all the country’s greenhouse gas output – a figure eight times higher than in France.
Cane calculated the health costs by mapping Europe’s 280 coal power plants and then multiplying their polluting emissions by the European Environment Agency’s estimate of the cost of mortality associated with those emissions. The range of figures reflects different estimates of the cost to the economy of individual deaths.
Read on The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/10/uk-ranks-in-top-3-of-europes-coal-league-of-shame
The Guardian, September 10th
“Risparmiando energia salveremo il Pianeta”. Intervista a Robert Engle
La Repubblica intervista Robert Engle, economista formatosi al Mit e oggi docente alla New York University, premio Nobel per l’economia nel 2003. Engle si dedica da tempo, con particolare attenzione, alle conseguenze del riscaldamento globale e lancia un allarme: “Su questo tema c’è un’attenzione molto minore rispetto a dieci anni fa. Forse questa è la dimostrazione che finché si impegnavano personaggi ad alta visibilità mediatica come Albert Gore, gli effetti erano positivi. In mancanza di celebrities, l’attenzione viene meno. E’ tempo di riprendere a impegnarsi. Tanto per cominciare, vanno studiate attentamente le interrelazioni fra la risorsa acqua e la risorsa energia”.
Leggi tutta l’intervista a Robert Engle in Pdf.
Climate Change Will Cause Increased Flooding In Coastal Cities
A new paper by prominent climate scientist James Hansen and colleagues says even a moderate increase in global temperatures could lead to much greater sea level rise than the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report predicts. Since the IPCC report (last published in 2013) is based on the work of thousands of climate researchers, many people are skeptical of the new paper. Again, this isn’t because they doubt climate change is real or that sea-level rise is a big problem. Instead, the critics’ concerns are about the details of the model Hansen and his coauthors use. (altro…)
A ‘Third Way’ to Fight Climate Change
Two options for dealing with climate change — reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a global agreement, and geoengineering proposals such as injecting sulfur into the stratosphere — tend to dominate current thinking. But there is a “third way” that is almost entirely neglected in political negotiations and public debate. It involves capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it or using it to create things we need. Because of the scale of the climate problem, I believe that in coming decades third-way technologies will become a major focus of activity. (altro…)
Cop21: il punto sugli INDCs
In negoziati internazionali sul clima di dicembre a Parigi (UNFCCC COP21) sono sempre più vicini. Le dichiarazioni di ottimismo sull’esito di un accordo globale (necessario a mantenere l’innalzamento della temperatura del pianeta al di sotto di 2 gradi centigradi) si alternano sempre più spesso al disincantato realismo di chi si limita ad osservare con preoccupazione gli impegni che i singoli paesi hanno assunto nei confronti della comunità internazionale. (altro…)
U.S., China and Brazil Commit to New Climate Change Goals
The countries are positioning themselves as leaders ahead of December’s UN climate change conference. The United States, China and Brazil all made new commitments to combat climate change Tuesday, in advance of a landmark United Nations conference on the issue in December. The U.S. and Brazil pledged to increase production of electricity from renewable sources to represent 20% of electricity production by 2030. That’s three times as much renewable energy as the U.S. currently produces and twice as much as is produced in Brazil, according to the White House. (altro…)
Pope Francis Aligns Himself With Mainstream Science on Climate
The new papal encyclical on the environment is a ringing call to action, a critique of consumerism and a prophetic warning about the dangers of ignoring what Pope Francis calls “the ecological crisis.” But amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right? The short answer from climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts. (altro…)
G7, accordo sul clima: temperature globali entro il limite dei 2 gradi
C’è l’accordo sul clima fra i sette leader del G7 di Elmau: un’azione “urgente e concreta è necessaria per affrontare il cambiamento climatico”, hanno affermato i sette leader di governo nel comunicato finale. I capi di Stato si sarebbero accordati sul mantenere l’aumento della temperatura globale entro il limite di 2 gradi rispetto ai livelli preindustriali, su cui erano divisi fino a poco tempo fa. L’obiettivo prevede anche una riduzione dal 40% al 70% delle emissioni rispetto a quelle del 2010 entro il 2050, “nell’ambito di una risposta mondiale”. (altro…)
Climate change could shrink Mount Everest’s glaciers by 70 percent
The iconic Mount Everest could see a major loss of its glaciers over the course of this century, according to a new scientific study that its chief author calls the “the first detailed modelling study of all glaciers in the Dudh Koshi basin in the Everest region of Nepal.”The paper, published Wednesday in the journal The Cryosphere, was authored by glacier researcher Joseph Shea of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal, and several colleagues from France and the Netherlands. (altro…)