Harvested News

“Even without El Niño fire is here in Indonesia every year,” said Herry Purnomo, a Scientist focusing on smallholder and community forestry at the Bogor, Indonesia Center for International Forestry Research. “We are afraid [this coming year] fires will be much much bigger.” El Niño is a recurring, cyclical climate pattern, when waters off of the western coast of South American warm to higher-then-expected levels…

While the mapping effort doesn’t give a complete view and or address how the stressors are actually impacting various ecosystems, scientists not involved with the work said it is an important step in understanding the plight of the oceans and could inform policy decisions, showing where mitigation efforts are having a real impact.Hotspots and ‘Hopespots’ “No part of the global ocean is without human…

A team of US scientists say the cumulative effect of the longer flight times that they think may have resulted from climate variation would have added millions of dollars to airlines’ costs, and perhaps a billion gallons of extra fuel. Kristopher Karnauskas, an associate scientist in geology and geophysics at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the US, and colleagues report in Nature Climate…

In parallel, the scientific community’s focus will be on using and creating practical solutions to complex climate challenges. This week, scientists are gathering in France for a conference hosted by UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to debate evidence-based solutions.Agricultural scientists are getting organized to increase their involvement in such climate meetings, which the energy and transport sectors often dominate.Food systems’ high…

At the close of this year, we can be confident we will have that new agreement which needs to put the world on track to a low carbon economy by charting a defining and definitive course towards limiting a global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius this century. The agreement also needs to spell out how developing countries will be supported in their climate ambitions…

Special Representative for COP 21/CMP11 Laurence Tubiana who is also the French Ambassador for Climate Change Negotiations said at this time, the negotiation of several countries was not moving fast while the others have given good proposals. "The message we are sending to every government is, give instruction to your negotiator to engage in the negotiation now. We have the next session beginning in…

"The biggest risk of all that we face is that we’re addressing the wrong problem," University of Oslo sociologist Karen O’Brien told a week-long conference of climate researchers in Paris. Using more renewable energy and setting up crop insurance schemes and early warning systems is important, she said. But climate change “is more than a technical challenge”. Finding genuine solutions will have to involve…