Page 8 - Global Warming

Boost in solar energy, EV sales gives hope for climate goals: Research

The window to limit human-caused warming to a globally agreed goal is narrowing but still open because of the huge growth of solar energy and electric vehicles sales worldwide, a report said on Tuesday. For the last two years, the rate of the build up of solar energy and electric vehicle sales were in line with achieving emissions reductions targets that will help cap warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said. But renewable power needs to triple by 2030, the sale of EVs needs to rise much more sharply 70 per cent of all vehicle sales as opposed to the current 13 per cent and methane emissions from the energy sector needs to fall by 75 per cent if global warming is to be curbed to the the Paris Agreement goal. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is up to 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term. Investments in climate action also need to rise, from USD 1.8 trillion i

Biden using executive power to create New Deal-style American Climate Corps

After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training programme. In an announcement on Wednesday, the White House said the programme will employ about 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires. The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost. Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorising what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps. The programme is modelled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal. This

India's renewable energy boom not fast enough for 1.5-degree C goal: Report

India's renewable sector is booming but just not fast enough to become 1.5-degree Celsius compatible, and the country is heading in the opposite direction entirely when it comes to phasing out coal power, a new report by Climate Action Tracker claimed on Tuesday. The Union environment ministry, however, said the report completely ignores the concept of "fair share and cumulative historical responsibility of developed nations". It said the Indian government has been implementing a number of schemes and programmes, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation and the report totally ignores this aspect. The report by the independent research group that tracks government climate action and measures it against Paris Agreement goals comes on the eve of the United Nations' Climate Ambition Summit. It analyses whether the plans of 16 countries to decarbonise their power sector align with the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. These 16 countries include Australia, Braz

Earth's warmest Aug saw 65 countries set record high temperatures: Report

Thirteen per cent of the Earth's surface, spanning 65 countries, experienced record high temperatures in August, while the rest of the world braved significantly higher temperatures compared to the 1951-1980 average, according to a new analysis conducted by an independent US-based non-profit organisation. Berkeley Earth, which focuses on environmental data science and analysis, said last month was the warmest August since records began to be kept in 1850, with "particularly warm conditions" prevailing in parts of India, Japan, North Atlantic, Eastern Equatorial Pacific, Northern South America, Central America, parts of Africa and the Middle East. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US government agency, said on Thursday that 2023 witnessed Earth's hottest August in its 174-year climate record. The sizzling month also marked the northern hemisphere's warmest meteorological summer and the southern hemisphere's warmest meteorological winter on record, the NOAA

World off track to curb global warming, but offers ways to fix: UN report

With the world far off track on its 2015 pledge to curb global warming, a new United Nations report central to upcoming climate negotiations details how quickly and deeply energy and financial systems must change to get back on a safer path. The window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all is rapidly closing, Friday's report warned. The globe has to cut its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, and 60% by 2035, the report said. To get there, the report said, the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels is required, using a phrase international climate negotiators have shied away from before. It also said phasing out the internal combustion engine would be a huge help. And the way money flows such as investments, subsidies, loans, grants and payments for people and places hurt by warming's extreme weather also has to change, the report recommended. It said countries need to stop USD 450 billion in annual subsidies for coal,

High-income nations of G20 fall drastically short on climate action: Oxfam

Even if the high-income G20 countries, including the US, the UK, Australia and Germany, were to reduce their domestic emissions to zero by 2030, they would still fall significantly short of their fair-share benchmarks for emissions reduction, according to a new paper published by Oxfam International. The paper by the global non-governmental organisation evaluates the fairness and ambition of national greenhouse gas reduction targets, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), of the G20 countries, using three distinct approaches. These approaches were employed to gauge the strength of the conclusions drawn. If all approaches arrived at similar results, it would suggest that the conclusions were robust. The findings reveal that the G20, collectively as well as the most high-income countries of the bloc individually, are failing to meet the necessary levels of ambition required to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The gap between the collective NDCs o

World losing race to meet climate change commitments: COP28 president

The summit, which opened on Monday, is focused on mobilising financing for Africa's response to climate change

Heatwaves getting more deadly, frequent; old, ill, poor more vulnerable

Previous projections of heat-related mortality were mostly based on calculations that used one climate model over a specific period of time

Climate change fingerprints all over monsoon this year, say experts

Barring the cumulative rainfall over the country, this year's monsoon has been anything but normal and experts point to climate change as the underlying cause. From a cyclone with the longest lifespan in the Arabian Sea to devastating floods in parts of northwest India and the adjoining Himalayan states, as well as a prolonged break in the monsoon, the unmistakable imprints of climate change are evident this year, asserted Mahesh Palawat, vice president (Climate Change and Meteorology) at private forecasting agency Skymet Weather. In early June, cyclone Biparjoy delayed the onset of the monsoon over Kerala and the advance over southern India and the adjoining western and central parts of the country. Meteorologists say the cyclone experienced rapid intensification initially and maintained its strength due to an unusually warm Arabian Sea. They emphasise that cyclonic storms in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea are intensifying rapidly and retaining their potency for longer perio

Global carbon credits market expected to touch $250 bn by 2030, says expert

The global market for carbon credits is expected to witness an upward trend and touch the level of USD 250 billion by 2030, an industry executive said. The market for carbon credits took a hit due to multiple reasons, including Russia-Ukraine war, interest rate hikes, and reduced demand leading to falling prices up to 80 per cent, Manish Dabkara, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of EKI Energy Services, said in an interview. "The market for voluntary carbon offsets which valued at around USD 2 billion in 2021 witnessed a downturn, and now valuing at USD 500 million. However, various ratings and research firms are bullish on the improvement in the carbon market," Dabkara said. Citing a Barclays report, the industry executive said, factors like stringent climate policies by various countries, their commitments under Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions, and corporate sustainability goals are likely to contribute to the growth of the carbon credits market which is expected to

Thousands under evacuation, homes burn as wildfires race through Washington

Fast-moving wildfires raced through Washington state on Friday, burning some homes and prompting evacuation orders for thousands of people in small rural communities. One of the largest blazes, the so-called Gray Fire near Spokane in eastern Washington, began around noon and a few hours later had surged through 4.7 square miles (12 square kilometers) of grass, timber and wheat, pushed by 35-mph (56-kph) winds, according to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Level 3, or Go Now, evacuations were issued for Medical Lake, a community of about 4,800 people and some homes and other buildings had burned, authorities said, although it wasn't clear how many. National Guard troops were called in to help evacuate patients and staff from Eastern State Hospital, a 367-bed psychiatric facility in Medical Lake. Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said deputies were running from house to house urging people to leave their homes, NBC News reported. We've had to rescue people by b

Melting glaciers could create new ecosystems before end of century: Study

Melting glaciers could create new ecosystems covering an area between the size of Nepal and Finland by the year 2100, researchers said. Glacial area outside the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets could be halved because of human-caused climate change under a high-emissions scenario, they said in a study published in the journal Nature. This glacial melting could cause a rapid ecological shift as novel ecosystems develop to fill emerging new habitat, they wrote. However, analyses of this change at a global scale are lacking, they said. Jean-Baptiste Bosson, from the Conservatory of Natural Areas of Haute-Savoie, France, and colleagues used a global glacier evolution model to examine the predicted twenty-first century trajectory of 650,000 square kilometres (sqkm) of glaciers found outside the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Deglaciation, or glacial retreat, will continue to occur at a similar rate regardless of the climate scenario until 2040, the modelling predicted using glac

How satellites are helping agriculture sector adapt to global warming

To acclimate, the old ways are increasingly being replaced by the new. In this case, granular data aimed at tracking the progress and health of vines in a fast-warming environment

Amazon nations seek common voice on matter of climate change, urge action

Eight Amazon nations urged industrialised countries on Tuesday to do more to help preserve the world's largest rainforest as their leaders met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change. They said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can't fall to just a few countries when climate change has been caused by many. The members of the newly revived Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation, or ACTO, hope a united front will give them a major voice in global environment talks. It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity, said Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. The leaders aim to fuel much-needed economic development in their countries while preventing the Amazon's ongoing demise from reaching a point of no return, according to a joint declaration issued Tuesday, the first day of the two-day summit. Some scientists say that when 20 per cent to 25 per cent of th

Melting of Ladakh glacier could form three glacial lakes, says study

Accelerated melting of the Himalayan Parkachik Glacier in Ladakh could give rise to three glacial lakes with an average depth ranging between 34 and 84 metres, scientists have found. These lakes could be a potential source of glacial lake outburst floods in the Himalayas, the scientists from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, said. Parkachik Glacier is one of the largest glacier in the Suru River valley, which is a part of the Southern Zanskar Ranges, western Himalaya. The Zanskar Range, part of the Himalayas, lies in the union territory of Ladakh. The glacier's yearly melting rate was 6 times faster between 1999 and 2021 (22 years) than that calculated from 1971 to 1999 (28 years), the scientists found using satellite data to determine its glacial retreat from 1971-2021. The findings are published in the journal Annals of Glaciology. The study attributed the accelerated glacial retreat to ongoing climate warming, which also causes surface morphological or geologic

July set to be hottest month as temperatures breach 2019 high: Scientists

July this year is set to be the hottest month on record with average temperatures exceeding that of July 2019 by a significant margin, according to a new analysis by scientists. The EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) noted that these temperatures have been related to heatwaves in large parts of North America, Asia and Europe, which along with wildfires in countries including Canada and Greece, have had major impacts on people's health, the environment and economies. Data shows that the previous hottest month on record was July 2019. According to the new analysis, the global mean surface air temperature averaged for the first 23 days of July 2023 was 16.95 degrees Celsius. This is well above the 16.63 degrees recorded for the full month of July 2019, which is currently the warmest July and warmest month on record. At this stage, the report said, it is virtually certain that the full monthly average temperature for July 2

Global warming: An overheating planet requires extreme solutions

Rising causes of death would include not just heat itself but exposure to ground-level ozone, malaria, dengue, and West Nile virus

Nearly 200 mn under heat, flood advisories as US braces for severe storms

Nearly 200 million people in the United States, or 60% of the U.S. population, are under a heat advisory or flood warning or watch as high temperatures spread and new areas are told to expect severe storms. The National Weather Service said a dangerous heat wave began to scorch the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Thursday and will continue into the weekend. Severe thunderstorms and flash floods are possible for parts of the Northeast and South, New England and South Florida. Meanwhile, the string of record-breaking temperatures will persist for the Southwest and Midwest. It's (hitting) all the big cities, said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. That's why the population (affected) is so high. Scientists have long warned that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, will lead to more and prolonged bouts of extreme weather. The prediction for continued excessive heat comes a day after the World Meteorological ...

Have global temperatures reached these levels ever in last 100,000 yrs?

Without rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is currently on course to reach temperatures of roughly 3 C (5.4 F) above preindustrial levels

Scientists say record heat numbers paint the story of a warming world

The summer of 2023 is behaving like a broken record about broken records. Nearly every major climate-tracking organisation proclaimed June the hottest June ever. Then July 4 became the globe's hottest day, albeit unofficially, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer. It was quickly overtaken by July 5 and July 6. Next came the hottest week, a tad more official, stamped into the books by the World Meteorological Organization and the Japanese Meteorological Agency. With a summer of extreme weather records dominating the news, meteorologists and scientists say records like these give a glimpse of the big picture: a warming planet caused by climate change. It's a picture that comes in the vibrant reds and purples representing heat on daily weather maps online, in newspapers and on television. Beyond the maps and the numbers are real harms that kill. More than 100 people have died in heat waves in the United States and India so far this summer. Records are crucial for