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- Poor countries face $168 billion interest bill due to climate change
Global
Published on 2 April 2014
In that time, climate change has ceased to be a distant threat and made an impact much closer to home, the report's authors say. "It's about people now," said Virginia Burkett, the chief scientist for global change at the US geological survey and one of the report's authors. "It's more relevant to the man on the street. It's more relevant to communities because the impacts…
Published on 2 April 2014 Global
While rising carbon dioxide levels have led to 'global greening' in past decades and improved agricultural technology has increased crop yields, research has indicated that both of these trends are already beginning to reverse. While plants like carbon dioxide, they don't like heat waves, droughts, and floods. Likewise, economist Richard Tol has argued that farmers can adapt to climate change, but adaptation has its costs…
Published on 2 April 2014 Global
The report analyzes ten "gap areas" that measure a country's capability or incapability to fend for itself in a warming environment. These areas include: social protection, food crisis aid, food stocks, gender, crop irrigation, crop insurance, weather monitoring, public agricultural investment, adaptation finance, and agricultural research. "Climate change is the biggest threat to our chances of winning the fight against hunger," Winnie Byanyima, executive director…
Published on 2 April 2014 Global
A rise in sea levels is leading to increasing damage from storm surges and coastal flooding, as demonstrated by Typhoon Haiyan, the agency's Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. The typhoon in November killed at least 6,100 people and caused $13 billion in damage to the Philippines and Vietnam. Australia, meanwhile, had its hottest year on record. "Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with…
Published on 2 April 2014 Global
In its yearly climate report, the World Meteorological Organization said that 2013 was the warmest year in Australia ever recorded, furthering an alarming trend of global warming. "Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, as reported by the AP and other media. One example is Typhoon…
Published on 2 April 2014 Global
"We saw heavier precipitation, more intense heat, and more damage from storm surges and coastal flooding as a result of sea level rise -- as Typhoon Haiyan so tragically demonstrated in the Philippines," he added. The WMO also pointed to data from Australia showing that the country's record heat last year would have been "virtually impossible" without human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Other weather…
Published on 2 April 2014
The secretary general appealed to the international community to “pledge to develop the policies needed to ensure that sustainable water and energy are secured for the many and not just the few”. The theme of this year’s World Water Day is “Water and Energy”. In 2014, the UN is focussing attention on the water-energy nexus, particularly addressing inequities, especially for the ‘bottom billion’ who live…
Published on 2 April 2014
Professor Andy Challinor, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, said: “Our research shows that crop yields will be negatively affected by climate change much earlier than expected.” “Furthermore, the impact of climate change on crops will vary both from year-to-year and from place-to-place — with the variability becoming greater as the weather becomes…
Published on 17 March 2014
Malaria, which killed an estimated 620,000 people in 2012, is among a host of diseases that researchers warn will spread more easily thanks to global warming. For Ethiopia alone, "a one-degree-Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature will lift the area where malaria can occur by 150 meters (487 feet)," Menno Bouma of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told AFP. "In this…
Published on 17 March 2014
"Climate change is happening. We see it in temperature, we see it in the melting ice, and we see it in sea-level rise," Inez Fung, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and a co-lead author of the report, told NBC News. The changes are due to rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide with a chemical signature from the burning of fossil…
Published on 17 March 2014
They chose 36 amphibians and reptiles endemic to the United States. Reptiles and amphibians almost everywhere seem to be vulnerable for a mix of reasons: among them habitat destruction, environmental pollution and the introduction of new predators and new diseases. The more exquisite the ecological niche occupied by the species, the smaller its overall population and the more precarious its chances of survival. The researchers…
Published on 24 February 2014
The immediate answer is that the UK is “stuck” in a weather pattern – a common feature of our climate. But what is uncommon is the exceptional intensity of the rain and waves. There is a perfect so-called “storm factory” in the Atlantic caused by warm, moist air from the tropics coming up unusually close to the very cold polar air. The jet stream is…
Published on 24 February 2014
Rummer added that many species in that region only experience a very narrow range of temperatures over their entire lives, and so are likely adapted to perform best at those temperatures. This means climate change places equatorial marine species most at risk, as oceans are projected to warm by two to three degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, researchers said in a…
Published on 24 February 2014
The good news, from the climate’s standpoint, is that while global demand for energy is continuing to grow, the growth is slowing. The bad news is that one energy giant predicts global carbon dioxide emissions will probably rise by almost a third in the next 20 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2020 and then decline…
Published on 18 February 2014
A new report by the Interim Forest Finance Project has called on the international community to inject US$12 billion to stimulate demand for the flagging global REDD+ initiative under the United Nations. The report, launched by Global Canopy Programme (GCP), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and UNEP Finance Initiative on Friday, calls on governments, donor agencies and financial institutions…
Published on 18 February 2014
That number may sound small, but this visualization shows just how dramatically temperatures around the globe have changed: “Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said in a press release. “While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term…
Published on 18 February 2014
“This study changes the way we think about climate change vulnerability of plants and animals,” says study co-author Mary O’Connor, an assistant professor in the University of British Columbia’s Dept. of Zoology. “Until recently, we believed that tropical species were more at risk of extinction because generally they cannot tolerate increasing temperatures. We also thought that many plants and animals in colder climates like in…
Published on 18 February 2014
So what exactly is geoengineering then, a concept given some unexpected attention and increasing legitimacy by its mention in the most recent IPCC report? It refers to methods that “aim to deliberately alter the climate system to counter climate change.” The rather controversial area of engineering Earth’s climate seems to now be firmly planted on the scientific agenda. Some climate models suggest that geoengineering may…
Published on 29 January 2014
She said climate change was the most significant social issue the world was going to face and every student should have access to a sound, evidence-based material on the underlying science. ”Many teachers are already teaching climate change to younger students. But the rationale about getting it more explicitly in the curriculum is so that every teacher teaches it,” she said. Research and interviews carried…
Published on 29 January 2014
Extreme weather from China’s coldest winter in at least half a century in 2010 to a July hailstorm in Reutlingen, Germany, already started to affect food prices. In the past three years, orange juice, corn, wheat, soybean meal and sugar were five of the top eight most volatile commodities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Natural gas was first. “Significant damage and destruction is already…
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