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Tag: global warming

  • Trump withdraws U.S. from 66 international organizations and treaties, including major climate groups

    President Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    In a presidential memorandum, Trump said it is “contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to” the organizations, which also include groups geared toward education, economic development, cybersecurity and human rights issues, among others. He directed all executive departments and agencies to take steps to “effectuate the withdrawal” of the U.S. from the organizations as soon as possible.

    While the president has already announced a withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — an international treaty to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change — the latest move will further isolate the nation at a critical moment, experts said.

    The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is a global treaty created in 1992 and signed by nearly 200 countries with the aim of addressing climate change through coordinated international action, including limiting planet-warming greenhouse gases. Trump already raised eyebrows last year by refusing to attend or send any high-level delegates to the annual U.N. Conferences of the Parties meeting in Brazil, where Gov. Gavin Newsom instead took on a starring role.

    Withdrawing from the U.N. Framework Convention is a “shortsighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision,” Gina McCarthy, a former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.

    “As the only country in the world not a part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump administration is throwing away decades of U.S. climate change leadership and global collaboration,” said McCarthy, who also served as the first White House national climate advisor and is now chair of the America is All In climate coalition.

    David Widawsky, director of the World Resources Institute, called the move a “strategic blunder that gives away American advantage for nothing in return.”

    “The 30-year-old agreement is the foundation of international climate cooperation. Walking away doesn’t just put America on the sidelines — it takes the U.S. out of the arena entirely,” Widawsky said.

    Trump on Wednesday also withdrew the U.S. from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading global scientific body studying global warming. Its major assessments published every six or seven years help inform climate policy around the world.

    Pulling the U.S. out of the IPCC won’t prevent individual U.S. scientists from contributing, but the nation as a whole will no longer be able to help guide the scientific assessments, said Delta Merner, associate accountability campaign director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has attended previous IPCC meetings.

    “Walking away doesn’t make the science disappear, it only leaves people across the United States, policymakers and businesses flying in the dark at the very moment when credible climate information is most urgently needed,” Merner said. “This is a clear attempt to weaken scientific guardrails that protect the public from disinformation, delay and reckless decision-making. Such a move will make it easier for fossil fuel interests to distort the facts while front-line communities pay the price.”

    Trump, who received substantial donations from oil and gas companies during his 2024 presidential campaign, has heavily promoted the development of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. He has also taken several steps to limit scientific research and climate action in the U.S., including moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and weather research institutions, in Boulder, Colo.

    Last year, the Trump administration also fired hundreds of scientists working to prepare the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment and removed the website that housed previous assessments.

    Other climate, environment and energy groups Trump withdrew from on Wednesday include the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Solar Alliance, the the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, among many others.

    But the United States is the first nation to walk away from the U.N. Framework Convention, according to Manish Bapna, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

    “President Trump pulls the United States out of the UNFCCC at the nation’s peril,” Bapna said. “It is not only self-defeating to let other countries write the global rules of the road for the inevitable transition to clean energy, but also to skip out on trillions of dollars in investment, jobs, lower energy costs and new markets for American clean technologies.”

    Hayley Smith

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  • Climate setbacks and steps forward from 2025

    There’s no mincing words: The list of climate records broken and the number of “unprecedented” extreme weather events this year goes on and on. Just in the past few months, at least 1,750 people died in monsoon flooding in Asia that a consortium of climate scientists attributed to human-caused global heating. Related video above: Solar and wind power increased faster than electricity demand in first half of 2025, report saysIn the U.S., investments in renewable, non-polluting energy were rolled back, and policy moves like the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and the Environmental Protection Agency’s reconsidering a key part of the federal government’s legal authority to regulate emissions.However, other nations have continued to make policy progress on prioritizing renewable energy and protecting the environment, and so have some scientists and groups on this side of the Atlantic.Here are a few of the highs and lows of humanity’s effect on our planet this year.The bad news firstGoal of keeping warming to 2.7 degrees no longer realisticHumans have failed to keep global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, long considered the goal following the original Paris climate agreement, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres. “Overshooting is now inevitable,” he said.Scientists widely consider the 2.7 degree goal the point at which climate change will begin hitting its most severe, irreversible damage.“We don’t want to see the Amazon as a savannah. But that is a real risk if we don’t change course and if we don’t make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible,” Guterres said ahead of the 2025 UN climate summit COP30, urging humanity to change course immediately. COP30 fails to make substantive progressUnfortunately, the outcomes from that UN summit did not live up to the secretary general’s hopes. This summit is an annual meeting where member countries measure their progress on addressing climate change and agree to legally binding goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.However, this final decision coming out of this year’s summit only included new voluntary initiatives to accelerate national climate action. According to commentary from the World Resources Institute, more than 80 countries advocated for a “global roadmap” to guide the transition away from fossil fuels, but negotiators didn’t include it in the final decision after they faced opposition from countries whose economies are built largely on oil and gas extraction and exports.World passes first climate ‘tipping point’This year, the world passed its first climate “tipping point,” meaning a threshold of irreversible change. Warming oceans have caused mass death in coral reefs, which are some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. These reefs support a quarter of marine life and a billion people. Other tipping points, such as the devastation of the Amazon rainforest and melting ice sheets, are also approaching, scientists warn. Record-setting days of heat in major citiesThe world’s major cities now experience a quarter more very hot days every year on average than they did three decades ago, according to a September analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development.“This isn’t a problem we can simply air-condition our way out of,” said Anna Walnycki, a principal researcher, in a press release. “Fixing it requires comprehensive changes to how neighbourhoods and individual buildings are designed, as well as bringing nature back into our cities in the form of trees and other plants.“Climate change is the new reality. Governments can’t keep their heads buried in the sand anymore.”Where positive action made a differenceGlobal renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time This year, expanding solar and wind power infrastructure led to record shifts away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. Wind and solar farms produced more electricity than coal plants for the first time, a massive shift for power generation worldwide.According to a report from climate think tank Ember, in the first six months of the year, renewable energy overtook the global demand for electricity. The world generated almost a third more solar power in the first half of the year than it did in the same period last year, meeting a whopping 83% of the global increase in demand for electricity.Solar installations were up 64% around the globe after the first half of the year, driven largely by China, whose solar installations more than doubled compared to last year. Solar installations rose in the U.S. by only 4%, however.Pennsylvania children see drop in asthma after a coal plant closedAfter a coking plant closed near Pittsburgh, the population living in the area saw an immediate 20.5% drop in weekly respiratory trips to the emergency room, according to a study published almost 10 years later. Even more encouraging was that over the immediate term, pediatric emergency department visits decreased by 41.2%, a trend that increased as the months went on. The region also saw lower hospitalizations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide.Congestion toll drops emissions in NYC by 22%In January, New York City became the first in the country to put in place a toll on drivers in certain parts of the city during rush hours. The measure was intended to reduce traffic and improve health. During the first six months of the policy, NYC emissions dropped 22%. The city is using the revenue to fund mass transit, including the subway system.

    There’s no mincing words: The list of climate records broken and the number of “unprecedented” extreme weather events this year goes on and on. Just in the past few months, at least 1,750 people died in monsoon flooding in Asia that a consortium of climate scientists attributed to human-caused global heating.

    Related video above: Solar and wind power increased faster than electricity demand in first half of 2025, report says

    In the U.S., investments in renewable, non-polluting energy were rolled back, and policy moves like the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and the Environmental Protection Agency’s reconsidering a key part of the federal government’s legal authority to regulate emissions.

    However, other nations have continued to make policy progress on prioritizing renewable energy and protecting the environment, and so have some scientists and groups on this side of the Atlantic.

    Here are a few of the highs and lows of humanity’s effect on our planet this year.

    The bad news first

    Goal of keeping warming to 2.7 degrees no longer realistic

    Humans have failed to keep global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, long considered the goal following the original Paris climate agreement, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres. “Overshooting is now inevitable,” he said.

    Scientists widely consider the 2.7 degree goal the point at which climate change will begin hitting its most severe, irreversible damage.

    “We don’t want to see the Amazon as a savannah. But that is a real risk if we don’t change course and if we don’t make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible,” Guterres said ahead of the 2025 UN climate summit COP30, urging humanity to change course immediately.

    COP30 fails to make substantive progress

    Unfortunately, the outcomes from that UN summit did not live up to the secretary general’s hopes. This summit is an annual meeting where member countries measure their progress on addressing climate change and agree to legally binding goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    However, this final decision coming out of this year’s summit only included new voluntary initiatives to accelerate national climate action. According to commentary from the World Resources Institute, more than 80 countries advocated for a “global roadmap” to guide the transition away from fossil fuels, but negotiators didn’t include it in the final decision after they faced opposition from countries whose economies are built largely on oil and gas extraction and exports.

    World passes first climate ‘tipping point’

    This year, the world passed its first climate “tipping point,” meaning a threshold of irreversible change. Warming oceans have caused mass death in coral reefs, which are some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. These reefs support a quarter of marine life and a billion people.

    Other tipping points, such as the devastation of the Amazon rainforest and melting ice sheets, are also approaching, scientists warn.

    Record-setting days of heat in major cities

    The world’s major cities now experience a quarter more very hot days every year on average than they did three decades ago, according to a September analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development.

    “This isn’t a problem we can simply air-condition our way out of,” said Anna Walnycki, a principal researcher, in a press release. “Fixing it requires comprehensive changes to how neighbourhoods and individual buildings are designed, as well as bringing nature back into our cities in the form of trees and other plants.

    “Climate change is the new reality. Governments can’t keep their heads buried in the sand anymore.”

    Where positive action made a difference

    Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time

    This year, expanding solar and wind power infrastructure led to record shifts away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. Wind and solar farms produced more electricity than coal plants for the first time, a massive shift for power generation worldwide.

    According to a report from climate think tank Ember, in the first six months of the year, renewable energy overtook the global demand for electricity. The world generated almost a third more solar power in the first half of the year than it did in the same period last year, meeting a whopping 83% of the global increase in demand for electricity.

    Solar installations were up 64% around the globe after the first half of the year, driven largely by China, whose solar installations more than doubled compared to last year. Solar installations rose in the U.S. by only 4%, however.

    Pennsylvania children see drop in asthma after a coal plant closed

    After a coking plant closed near Pittsburgh, the population living in the area saw an immediate 20.5% drop in weekly respiratory trips to the emergency room, according to a study published almost 10 years later. Even more encouraging was that over the immediate term, pediatric emergency department visits decreased by 41.2%, a trend that increased as the months went on. The region also saw lower hospitalizations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide.

    Congestion toll drops emissions in NYC by 22%

    In January, New York City became the first in the country to put in place a toll on drivers in certain parts of the city during rush hours. The measure was intended to reduce traffic and improve health. During the first six months of the policy, NYC emissions dropped 22%. The city is using the revenue to fund mass transit, including the subway system.

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  • A Startup’s Bid to Dim the Sun

    The gloomy arguments in favor of solar geoengineering are compelling; so are the even gloomier counter-arguments.

    Elizabeth Kolbert

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  • Congrats, Humanity: We’re on Track for Record CO2 Emissions—Again

    With the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) underway this week, researchers have shared a first look at this year’s carbon emissions data. The findings show that global emissions from fossil fuels are on track to hit a record high in 2025.

    The Global Carbon Budget report, produced by an international team of more than 130 scientists and published on Wednesday, predicts roughly 42 billion tons (38 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels this year. That’s a 1.1% increase from 2024.

    Based on this and other factors, limiting global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels—the threshold set by the Paris Agreement in 2015—will be virtually impossible, the authors conclude. To stabilize the current warming trend, we don’t just need to cut our emissions, we need to bring them down to zero.

    In times like these, it’s easy to despair. But the report’s lead author, Pierre Friedlingstein—a University of Exeter professor specializing in global carbon cycle modeling and director of the Global Carbon Budget Office—says the findings should galvanize the world to act now to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

    “There is no alternative,” Friedlingstein told Gizmodo. “We have to remain hopeful because we have to tackle the climate change issue.”

    Finding the good amid the bad

    Believe it or not, the report isn’t all bad news. While the data suggests that fossil fuel emissions have risen, total global carbon emissions—a combination of emissions from fossil fuels and land use—are projected to be slightly lower than last year.

    “There are certainly signs in [the report] that emissions are really starting to slow down their increase or change direction,” said Piers Forster, a professor of physical climate change and founding director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds, who was not involved in the study.

    Speaking with Gizmodo from COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, Forster pointed to China’s leadership in electrification and renewable energy as a sign that we may be reaching a turning point not just in terms of emissions, but also in the availability of climate solutions.

    Though China remains the world’s biggest CO2 emitter, the report finds that its emissions growth has slowed thanks to moderate growth in energy consumption combined with extraordinary growth in renewables. Indeed, China has emerged as a key leader at COP 30 this year, especially in the absence of the world’s second-biggest CO2 emitter: the U.S.

    The report also highlights a projected decline in emissions from land-use change—most notably deforestation. This was what tipped the scales on total global carbon emissions this year, slightly offsetting the rise in fossil fuel emissions.

    “The deforestation rate is declining in South America, but also in other parts of the world,” Friedlingstein said. “And reforestation is also slowly increasing.” That said, emissions from deforestation and land-use change are still far from zero, he clarified.

    Keeping the faith

    The report’s findings come with several caveats. First and foremost, looking at the global carbon budget report for a single year is not a good indication of long-term progress—or lack thereof—toward climate goals, Friedlingstein notes. Still, these reports are crucial for keeping the international community on track and informing year-to-year decisions on emission reduction strategies and targets.

    It’s also worth noting that the report only looks at CO2 emissions—it does not account for other greenhouse gases such as methane. And for all the progress China has made toward decarbonizing its economy and the reductions we’re seeing in deforestation, the world is still nowhere close to achieving net-zero emissions.

    “We’ve still got heaps to go,” Forster said. “I mean, we’ve got greenhouse gas emissions at an all-time high. We’ve got a tiny remaining carbon budget to [avoid] 1.5℃. So we have this huge sense of urgency, we have to get our emissions back down.”

    One of the most alarming findings from the report is that 8% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1960 is due to climate change itself. Rising global temperatures have reduced the efficiency of land and ocean carbon sinks, essentially weakening Earth’s ability to counteract humanity’s growing emissions. A companion paper published in Nature discusses this finding in greater detail.

    In spite of these circumstances, both Friedlingstein and Forster emphasize that hope is key to progress, and progress is our only hope. “There is no plan B,” Friedlingstein said. “Adapting and not doing anything in terms of mitigation is not an option.”

    Though Forster said he is not optimistic based on what the current research shows, he finds hope at the UN climate negotiations. “Cooperation between countries is so important,” he said. “I think there are still actors in every country who do see the threat of climate change and want to make a difference.”

    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Elon Musk Wants to Block Out the Sun

    Earth’s average temperature is nearing critical thresholds as the international community lags behind its emissions goals. As a result, bold technological strategies to cool the planet have gained attention in recent years, and now, Elon Musk is weighing in.

    Early Monday morning, Musk took to X to share his two cents on how to address the climate crisis. He claimed that using satellites for solar radiation management (SRM)—a theoretical geoengineering technique that would allow humans to control the amount of sunlight reaching Earth—would be an effective solution.

    “A large solar-powered AI satellite constellation would be able to prevent global warming by making tiny adjustments in how much solar energy reached Earth,” Musk wrote.

    When asked how this would ensure precise, equitable adjustments to solar energy across the planet—while also accounting for seasonal variations and potential geopolitical conflicts over control—Musk replied: “Yes. It would only take tiny adjustments to prevent global warming or global cooling for that matter. Earth has been a snowball [many] times in the past.”

    So, it would appear he doesn’t quite have all the answers. That said, it’s certainly notable that the wealthiest man on Earth and the CEO of the world’s largest satellite company, is advocating for space-based SRM. Experts warn, however, that this strategy is both highly unrealistic and dangerous.

    Is SpaceX eyeing a new orbital venture?

    Musk isn’t the only entrepreneur interested in blocking out the Sun. A growing number of companies are exploring different approaches to SRM, from using atmospheric aerosols to mimic the sunlight-blocking effects of volcanic eruptions to launching thousands of mirrors into orbit.

    While some of these companies have raised significant capital and have set ambitious near-term targets for development and testing, none are anywhere close to deploying their technology at scale. If Musk’s SpaceX wades into this burgeoning industry, these startups will suddenly find a very big fish in their very small pond.

    But to be clear, Musk has not shared any plans for SpaceX to develop SRM-capable satellites. And even with the company’s billion-dollar valuation and the enormous Starlink constellation it has already deployed, doing so would be far easier said than done.

    Could Musk actually do it?

    The first hurdle SpaceX would face is a pivot away from producing Starlink communications satellites to developing the artificially intelligent, solar-powered, SRM-capable satellites Musk described. And no, the nearly 9,000 operational Starlinks currently in orbit could not be adapted for this purpose. Alternatively, SpaceX could launch an entirely new satellite division devoted to this geoengineering project while simultaneously managing Starlink.

    While Musk did not share specifics on how these satellites would work, they would likely be equipped with mirrors or sunshades that come together in formation to create a gigantic, manipulatable barrier between Earth and the Sun. When we say gigantic—we really mean it.

    Scientists don’t know exactly how many SRM satellites it would take to make a meaningful difference in Earth’s average temperature, but estimates range so high that many experts consider this solution infeasible. The cost of deployment alone would likely prove insurmountable even for Musk, with estimates in the multi-trillion-dollar range.

    Even if Musk could make this happen, that doesn’t mean he should. Experts have long warned of the potential consequences of space-based SRM, which could trigger major, unintended changes in Earth’s climate, the day-night cycle, biodiversity, geopolitical tensions, and more.

    Avoiding these consequences—and actually mitigating global warming—would require unprecedented technological control and international governance over the largest and most impactful satellite constellation ever deployed.

    Needless to say, it’s not happening anytime soon. Still, Musk’s growing interest in this technology will undoubtedly attract attention to this nascent industry, potentially fueling innovation and debate over how geoengineering can and should go.

    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • UN chief defends science and weather forecasting as Trump threatens both

    GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations chief delivered a strong defense of science and meteorology on Wednesday, praising the U.N. weather agency for helping save lives by keeping watch for climate disasters around the world.

    Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to the World Meteorological Organization as science faces an assault in the United States: President Donald Trump’s administration has led an anti-science push, and Trump has called climate change “ a con job.”

    A longtime advocate for the fight against global warming, Guterres spoke at a special WMO meeting aimed to promote early-warning systems that help countries rich and poor brace for floods, storms, forest fires and heat waves.

    “Without your long-term monitoring, we wouldn’t benefit from the warnings and guidance that protect communities and save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year,” he said, alluding to “the dangerous and existential threat of climate change.”

    Last week, the weather agency reported that heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization and causing more extreme weather.

    Associated Press

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  • New Report Finds One of Earth’s Most Precious Ecosystems Has Already Crossed a Scary Climate Tipping Point

    At a conference in 2019, marine biologist and coral reef conservationist Melanie McField was caught off guard by a question from another attendee: How does it feel to have dedicated your life to studying an ecosystem that will be the first one wiped off the planet?

    “I’m rarely dumbfounded,” McField, who now serves as director of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative, told Gizmodo. Though she was well aware of the dire state the world’s coral reefs were in, the idea that these ecosystems could be the first to succumb to climate change came as an alarming new realization. “I just didn’t know what to say,” she said.

    Today, McField is one of 160 authors of a landmark report confirming that the questioner that day may have been right. The 2025 Global Tipping Points Report, released by the University of Exeter and international partners on Sunday, finds that the world’s warm-water coral reefs have become the first Earth system to cross its thermal tipping point.

    The report comes as global ministers gather in Brazil to meet in preparation for the 30th annual UN Climate Change Conference in November. During these meetings, leaders attempt to reach some consensus on the key climate issues facing the planet. The report’s authors hope their findings will help drive decision makers to take meaningful action to curb global warming.

    “We need to have stubborn people at the table in these negotiations who say, ‘We want to keep coral reefs on the planet,’” McField said.

    The rising threat of ocean warming

    Higher ocean temperatures are forcing many of the world’s corals to expel the symbiotic algae, or zooxanthellae, that live in their tissues—a process known as coral bleaching. These algae not only give corals their signature bright colors, but also provide them with oxygen and essential nutrients through photosynthesis.

    Earth is in the midst of its fourth global coral bleaching event, according to NOAA. Since January 2023, bleaching-level heat stress has impacted 84.4% of the world’s coral reefs, with scientists documenting mass coral bleaching in at least 83 countries and territories. This is the second such event in the last 10 years and the largest on record.

    The good news is this: Bleached corals are not necessarily dead corals. If ocean temperatures return to a cooler state for a sustained period of time, algae can recolonize a bleached reef. The bad news, however, is that climate change is increasing the severity of bleaching events while decreasing the amount of recovery time between them. As a result, the odds of corals bouncing back are rapidly dwindling.

    “This is why ocean warming is such a scary thing,” Mark Hixon, a leading coral reef expert and professor of marine biology at the University of Hawaii who was not involved in the report, told Gizmodo. “Especially now with the ocean starting to warm very, very rapidly, we’ll be seeing more frequent and more severe bleaching events.”

    At what point does the global average temperature of Earth’s oceans become so warm that the majority of coral reefs won’t be able to survive bleaching events? This is where the idea of a thermal tipping point comes in. Researchers estimate the thermal tipping point for warm-water coral reefs to be 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) of global surface warming above pre-industrial levels. The planet is already past that point.

    Entering uncharted waters

    Crossing this threshold doesn’t mean that all the world’s reefs are going to die tomorrow. “That’s not what we’re saying,” McField said. “We’re saying we’re in the zone where death—the tipping of the whole ecosystem—is underway.”

    Each coral reef is unique, with different species, local water temperatures, non-thermal stressors, ecosystem intactness, and resilience levels. These and other factors shape a reef’s survivability. But in a warming world, all reefs—regardless of their individual conditions and characteristics—are at greater risk.

    “Let’s say we’ve got 100 humans, and they all go to the doctor,” McField said. “All of them have cholesterol levels of 300—which is incredibly dangerous. They’re still going to die at different rates.”

    The report finds that Earth’s global surface temperature may rise 2.7°F (1.5°C) above pre-industrial levels within the next 10 years. This is the upper range of the thermal tipping point for warm-water coral reefs.

    At that point, “We’re in new territory,” McField said. Even under the most optimistic scenario, in which global warming stabilizes at 2.7°F without any overshoot, warm-water coral reefs are “virtually certain” to tip, the report states.

    Where we go from here

    Scientists around the world are working to protect and restore coral reefs. Some strategies center on improving coral resilience through genetic modification—selectively breeding them for resiliency traits.

    “This can work to some degree, to keep from losing species entirely,” McField said.

    “But when you think about how that could ever be applied on an ecosystem scale, with so little money going into on-the-ground work in reef countries… how is that going to be an economic option?”

    Other strategies aim to minimize other potential stressors, like pollution or destructive fishing practices. Hixon, for example, is working to improve water quality and protect herbivorous fish species in Hawaii, which could reduce the overall strain on coral reefs and help them rebound from bleaching events.

    Still, this work can’t mitigate all the effects of rapidly rising temperatures. The report states that the Earth needs stringent emission mitigation and enhanced carbon removal to bring the global average surface temperatures back down to 1.8°F (1°C) above pre-industrial levels. “These temperatures are essential for retaining functional warm-water coral reefs at meaningful scale,” the report says.

    “It’s incumbent upon the scientific community to engage with stakeholders of all kinds on the threats to the reefs, how they’re accelerating, and how there are certain tangible steps we can take to try to save our reefs from loss,” Hixon said.

    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Coral reefs become first environmental system on Earth to pass climate

    Coral reefs around the globe have for years suffered publicly in warming oceans, periodically making headlines when iconic underwater landscapes lose their colors and wither during repeated mass bleaching events caused by climate change. Now, reefs are the first environmental system on Earth to pass a climate “tipping point,” according to a new report by climate scientists who call the situation an “unprecedented crisis.”

    Researchers at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute in England have released their second Global Tipping Points report, which examines some of the fundamental processes that support life on this planet in terms of their proximity to benchmarks that may signal permanent damage.

    “Tipping points represent critical thresholds in Earth’s climate system where small changes can lead to significant, often irreversible consequences,” the authors said in their report. Steve Smith, a research fellow at the Global Systems Institute and one of the report’s co-authors, told CBS News that tipping points are “all about that point at which change becomes self-propelling, kind of a self-accelerating change.”

    Bleached coral is seen at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico on Sept. 17, 2023.

    LM Otero / AP


    The report, published Sunday, comes three years after the institute released its first iteration in 2022 and about a month before the United Nations hosts COP30, an annual climate change conference, in Belém, Brazil, a city in the Amazon rainforest that is itself an example of a major global ecosystem on the brink of a climate emergency. Tim Lenton, the director of the Global Systems Institute and lead author of the report, said in a statement that he hopes his team’s findings make it onto the agenda.

    “We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature,” his statement said. “This demands immediate, unprecedented action from leaders at COP30 and policymakers worldwide.”

    The 2015 Paris Agreement set upper limits for global warming at 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius — between 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — above average levels in preindustrial times. But leaders have repeatedly warned in the years since that countries are falling short of the emissions targets necessary to meet those temperature goals, with the U.N. declaring greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere reached all-time highs in 2023. By 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported temperatures had risen to about 1.4 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average.

    “A new reality” 

    Higher ocean temperatures have already degraded coral reefs, which are crucial for marine life and provide habitats for roughly one-fourth of all underwater species. The new report points out that reefs also support the livelihoods of about a billion people, so their deterioration is as much an economic threat as an environmental one.

    Scientists have determined that the “tipping point” for coral reefs begins when global warming reaches about 1.2 degrees Celsius, with somewhere between 70 and 90% of coral dying when that number climbs to 1.5 degrees. 

    “We’re very confident that, unfortunately, we’re in the middle of the coral reef dieback,” Smith said, which, he explained, essentially means “the collapse of coral reefs worldwide.”

    Reef death is often catalyzed by bleaching, when heat stress causes coral to purge the colorful algae that sustains it and, in turn, become pale and weak. If the stress persists and bleaching is severe or prolonged, the coral can completely break down.

    Climate El Nino Dies

    In this image provide by NOAA, a fish swims near coral showing signs of bleaching off the coast of Islamorada, Florida, on July 23, 2023.

    Andrew Ibarra / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via AP


    The International Coral Reef Initiative announced in April that an estimated 84% of the world’s coral reefs were under heat stress. As the new report notes, this is “the most extensive and intense” mass bleaching event ever recorded.

    Small pockets of coral are expected to survive, Smith said, and preserving them while minimizing the progression of warming temperatures should be everyone’s top priority.

    “We’re in a new reality whereby we can now say that we’ve passed the first major climate tipping point, which is the coral reefs,” he said. “And obviously we’ll have to, as we say, try to reduce the damage. The quicker that we can decarbonize and take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, the better.”

    Ice sheets, ocean currents and the Amazon rainforest

    Other environmental systems are on the verge of passing their tipping points, too, according to the report. In addition to coral reefs, it cited the potentially catastrophic effects of a warming world on the Amazon rainforest, ocean currents that influence weather patterns, and glaciers like the Greenland ice sheet, which is currently melting and shedding the equivalent of three Niagara Falls’ worth of freshwater into the North Atlantic every hour.

    “It’s a race against time, really,” said Smith. “We have to transform the whole energetic basis of society within a generation, away from fossil fuels and toward this cleaner, safer future to avoid these further tipping points beyond coral reefs and the devastating consequences that they would bring.”

    The report acknowledged meaningful headway has been made in the shift toward renewable energy, highlighting “positive tipping points” that have been crossed as the use of electric vehicles, solar power and wind power becomes more widespread. The rise of solar power, in particular, is one positive transition that Smith singled out as especially “remarkable” — although he emphasized that more still needs to be done, urgently, to bring the Earth back on track.

    “Getting that into the heads of our senior decision-makers is going to be important,” said Smith, “because what is traditionally thought of as high impact, low likelihood events, they’re actually becoming high impact, high likelihood, if we don’t do something now.”

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  • Study Directly Links Emissions from Fossil Fuel Producers to Devastating Heatwaves

    A new study directly links hundreds of major heatwaves since 2000 to the emissions from fossil fuel and cement producers. Among its fundings, the researchers conclude that as many as a quarter of all heatwaves since the start of this century would have been “virtually impossible” without emissions from any of the world’s 14 largest fossil fuel and cement producers.

    The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, shows that greenhouse gas emissions from 180 of the world’s biggest cement, oil, and gas producers have significantly contributed to climate change over the last two decades.

    They linked the emissions to 213 heatwaves, finding the pollution made the extreme heat more likely and intense. Of those 213 events, 53 were made 10,000 times more likely as a result of the emissions, according to the researchers.

    The fight for climate accountability

    The findings could bolster legal efforts to hold the world’s biggest polluters responsible for the consequences of their emissions, experts said. In July, the International Court of Justice ruled that states that fail to prevent climate harm may have to pay compensation, and in May, a German high court ruled that major emitters can be held liable for climate impacts. And some U.S. states have passed similar laws.

    Still, despite dozens of lawsuits filed since 2004, no court has penalized emitters for causing climate change, researchers wrote in an accompanying viewpoint.

    “I cannot as a scientist assign legal responsibilities for these events,” lead author Yann Quilcaille, a climate researcher at the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland, told Nature. “What I can say is that each one of these carbon majors is contributing to heatwaves, making them more intense and also making them more likely.”

    Trying to attribute human-caused climate change

    This study is an example of attribution science, which specifically aims to quantify how human-caused global warming shapes specific extreme weather events, including heatwaves. Evidence suggests that climate change will increase both the frequency and intensity of future heatwaves, but attribution science aims to tell scientists whether climate change worsened a particular heatwave that has already occurred.

    Backed by decades of research and endorsed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), attribution science a powerful methodology, but it comes with clear limitations. Attribution science can’t tell us whether climate change “caused” an extreme weather event, but it can indicate how much more likely or severe it was in a world with climate change compared to a world without.

    180 ‘carbon majors’ produce half of all global emissions

    Quilcaille and his colleagues assessed the historical greenhouse gas emissions from 180 “carbon majors,” a group that includes fossil fuel companies, state-owned entities, and fossil fuel and cement emissions produced by nation states.

    In all, these sources were responsible for nearly 57% of historical global emissions between 1850 and 2023, the analysis revealed.

    The researchers then used climate models to compare global temperature trends in a world with greenhouse gas emissions to temperatures in a world without those emissions. Then, they estimated the impact of human-driven global warming on 213 heatwaves recorded between 2000 and 2023, finding direct links to top emitters and these extreme weather events.

    “For a while, it was argued that any individual contributor to climate change was making too small or too diffuse a contribution to ever be linked to any particular impact. And this emerging science, both this paper and others, is showing that that’s not true,” Chris Callahan, a climate scientist at Indiana University who was not involved in the study, told The Associated Press.

    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • These Climate Hacks to Save the Poles Could Totally Backfire

    Last year, the United Nations predicted that Earth’s average temperature could rise more than 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) by 2100 if we don’t reduce global emissions. That level of warming would cause catastrophic, irreversible damage to ecosystems, underscoring the urgent need to slow the pace of climate change.

    Still, the amount of greenhouse gases humans pump into the atmosphere continues to rise. Without sufficient progress on the emissions front, some scientists have suggested another route: artificially counteracting global warming through geoengineering. Many of these controversial solutions aim to mitigate climate breakdown in the polar regions, but a review published Tuesday in Frontiers in Science concludes that even the most widely recognized proposals are likely to cause more harm than good.

    “I find that there’s been confusion between urgency and haste,” co-author Ben Orlove, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, told Gizmodo. “Though we recognize the urgency of action, that should never serve as an excuse for incompletely reviewed proposals moving forward.”

    Polar regions under pressure

    Earth’s polar regions are warming faster than the average global temperature. Experts predict this will lead to severe and irreversible consequences both regionally and globally, such as local ecosystem collapse and sea level rise. Proponents of geoengineering often cite this as a driving force behind efforts to implement such strategies in the Arctic and Antarctic, but none of them are backed by robust, real-world testing at scale.

    For this review, an international team of researchers evaluated five geoengineering concepts designed to slow the pace of ice melt in the polar regions. The ideas include spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere, using giant underwater curtains to shield ice shelves from warm water, artificially thickening or boosting the reflectivity of sea ice, pumping water out from underneath glaciers, and adding nutrients to polar oceans to stimulate blooms of carbon-sequestering phytoplankton.

    More problems than solutions

    The researchers evaluated each proposed solution’s scope of implementation, effectiveness, feasibility, negative consequences, cost, and governance with respect to their deployment at scale. According to their assessment, all five ideas would lead to environmental damages such as the disruption of habitats, migration routes, the ocean’s natural chemical cycle, global climate patterns, and more.

    Additionally, the authors estimate that each proposal would cost at least $10 billion to implement and maintain. This is likely an underestimate, they say, pointing to hidden costs that would undoubtedly arise as environmental and logistical consequences come into play. What’s more, polar regions lack sufficient governance to regulate these projects, necessitating extensive political negotiation and new frameworks before large-scale deployment.

    Even if these tactics offered some benefit, none could scale fast enough to meaningfully address the climate crisis within the limited time available to do so, the researchers concluded.

    “It is clear to us that the assessed approaches are not feasible, and that further research into these techniques would not be an effective use of limited time and resources,” the authors write, emphasizing the importance of focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conducting fundamental research in the polar regions.

    Not every fix is worth the risk

    Orlove hopes these findings encourage the scientific community and decision-makers to exercise scrutiny before investing time and money in polar geoengineering projects. “One of the things that troubles me is the claim that climate change is so severe that we need to try all possible methods, and blocking any possible solution is an error,” he said.

    “There is a long history in medical research of not undertaking certain experiments on living humans and not attempting extreme cures that just seem unethical,” Orlove said. “But when it comes to experimenting on the planet—and its immediate effect on people—that kind of awareness doesn’t come forward.”

    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Pakistan’s Punjab faces biggest floods in its history, affecting 2 million people

    LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province is dealing with the biggest flood in its history, a senior official said Sunday, as water levels of rivers rise to all-time highs.

    Global warming has worsened monsoon rains this year in Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Downpours and cloudbursts have triggered flash floods and landslides across the mountainous north and northwest in recent months.

    Residents in eastern Punjab have also experienced abnormal amounts of rain, as well as cross-border flooding after India released water from swollen rivers and overflowing dams into Pakistan’s low-lying regions.

    The senior minister for the province, Maryam Aurangzeb, told a press conference on Sunday: “This is the biggest flood in the history of the Punjab. The flood has affected two million people. It’s the first time that the three rivers — Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi — have carried such high levels of water.”

    Local authorities are using educational institutions, police, and security facilities as rescue camps, and evacuating people, including by boat, she said.

    “The Foreign Ministry is collecting data regarding India’s deliberate release of water into Pakistan,” added Aurangzeb. There was no immediate comment from India.

    India alerted its neighbor to the possibility of cross-border flooding last week, the first public diplomatic contact between the two countries since a crisis brought them close to war in May.

    Punjab, home to some 150 million people, is a vital part of the country’s agricultural sector and is Pakistan’s main wheat producer. Ferocious flooding in 2022 wiped out huge swaths of crops in the east and south of the country, leading Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to warn that his country faced food shortages.

    Figures from Pakistan’s national weather center show that Punjab received 26.5% more monsoon rain between July 1 and August 27 compared to the same period last year.

    The country’s disaster management authority said 849 people have been killed and 1,130 injured nationwide in rain-related incidents since June 26.

    Pakistan’s monsoon season usually runs to the end of September.

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  • As heat wave blanketing the Southwest eases, fires worsen to the north

    A wildfire burns near the Golden State Freeway. (File photo courtesy OnScene.Media)

    Wildfires in California wine country and Central Oregon grew overnight, prompting hundreds of evacuations as firefighters worked Sunday to try to contain the blazes amid dry, hot weather.

    The Pickett Fire in Napa County had grown to more than 10 square miles and was 11% contained as of early Sunday, according to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, or Calfire.

    About 190 people were ordered to leave their homes, while another 360 were under evacuation warnings as the fire threatened about 500 structures near Aetna Springs and Pope Valley, said Jason Clay, spokesman for Calfire Sonoma Lake-Napa Unit.

    More than 1,230 firefighters backed by 10 helicopters were battling the fire, which began Thursday after a week of extremely hot weather. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

    Residents of the Western United States have been sweltering in a heat wave that hospitalized some people, with temperatures forecast to hit dangerous levels throughout the weekend in Washington, Oregon, Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

    Clay said the weather has moderated since the fire broke out, with Sunday’s high expected to be 94 degrees. But as the day goes on, humidity levels were expected to drop and the winds to pick up in the afternoon.

    “That’s been a driving factor in the afternoons since we’ve seen the fire activity pick up for the last three days,” Clay said, adding that “support from all up and down California has been critical to our efforts.”

    The fire began in the same area as the much larger Glass Fire in 2020, which crossed into Sonoma County and eventually burned about 105 square miles and more than 1,500 structures.

    That fire was driven by wind, while the current fire is fueled by dry vegetation on steep slopes — some of it dead and downed trees left over from the Glass Fire and some of it grass and brush that grew back and then dried out again, said Clay.

    In Oregon, the Flat Fire in Deschutes and Jefferson counties had grown to almost 34 square miles – with no containment – and threatened nearly 4,000 homes, according to the state Fire Marshal’s Office. About 10,000 people were under some sort of evacuation notice.

    The fire began Thursday night and grew quickly amid hot, gusty conditions. Fire officials were keeping an eye on isolated thunderstorms in Southern Oregon that could drift north on Sunday, spokesman Chris Schimmer said in a video posted to Facebook.

    Although it’s difficult to directly tie a single fire or weather event directly to climate change, scientists say human-caused warming from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas is causing more intense heat waves and droughts, which in turn set the stage for more destructive wildfires.


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  • World’s first commercial carbon storage facility begins operations, injecting CO2 deep under North Sea seabed

    Oslo —The world’s first commercial service offering carbon storage off Norway’s coast has carried out its inaugural CO2 injection into the North Sea seabed, the Northern Lights consortium operating the site said Monday.

    The project by Northern Lights, which is led by oil giants Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies, involves transporting and burying CO2 captured at smokestacks across Europe. The aim is to prevent the emissions from being released into the atmosphere, and thereby help halt climate change.

    “We now injected and stored the very first CO2 safely in the reservoir,” Northern Lights’ managing director Tim Heijn said in a statement. “Our ships, facilities and wells are now in operation.”

    In concrete terms, after the CO2 is captured, it is liquified and transported by ship to the Oygarden terminal near Bergen on Norway’s western coast.

    The liquefied CO2 (LCO2) carrier Northern Pioneer of Northern Lights is pictured at Akershuskaia, Oslo, June 17, 2025 in connection with the international high-level conference on carbon management.

    STIAN LYSBERG SOLUM/NTB/AFP/Getty


    It is then transferred into large tanks before being injected through a 68-mile pipeline into the seabed, at a depth of around 1.6 miles, for permanent storage.

    Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has been listed as a climate tool by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), especially for reducing the CO2 footprint of industries such as cement and steel that are difficult to decarbonize.

    The first CO2 injection into the Northern Lights geological reservoir was from Germany’s Heidelberg Materials cement plant in Brevik in southeastern Norway.

    But CCS technology is complex, controversial and costly.

    Without financial assistance, it is currently more profitable for industries to purchase “pollution permits” on the European carbon market than to pay for capturing, transporting and storing their CO2.

    norway-carbon-capture-storage-2225345169.jpg

    The Northern Lights carbon storage site in Øygarden, Norway, is seen on May 28, 2025.

    The Washington Post/Getty


    Northern Lights has so far signed just three commercial contracts in Europe. One is with a Yara ammonia plant in the Netherlands, another with two of Orsted’s biofuel plants in Denmark, and the third with a Stockholm Exergi thermal power plant in Sweden.

    Largely financed by the Norwegian state, Northern Lights has an annual CO2 storage capacity of 1.7 million tons, which is expected to increase to 5.5 million tons by the end of the decade.

    While efforts such as Northern Lights are focused on capturing carbon directly from the most highly-polluting sources — industrial smoke stacks — there have also been efforts launched to capture the gas from the ambient air, an even more controversial methodology.

    Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University professor of environmental engineering, told CBS News earlier this year that he was dubious of the motivations for and the efficacy of both kinds of carbon capture, and he said bluntly that “direct air capture is not a real solution. We do not have time to waste with this useless technology.”

    Jacobson thinks direct air capture, in particular, is a boondoggle, and more effort should be focused on switching to clean energy sources.

    Currently, the U.S. gets about 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels.

    “You have to think about who’s proposing this technology,” Jacobson said. “Who stands to benefit from carbon capture and direct air capture? It’s the fossil-fuel companies.”

    “They’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re extracting as much CO2 as we’re emitting. Therefore, we should be allowed to keep polluting, keep mining,” Jacobson told CBS News, adding that his stance has not made him popular among many in the energy sector.

    “Oh, yeah, diesel people hate me, gasoline people hate me, ethanol people hate me, nuclear people hate me, coal people hate me. They do, because I’m telling the truth,” he said. “We don’t need any of these technologies.”

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  • Pet Diets Are Quietly Contributing to Climate Change – but There’s a Simple Fix


    London, United Kingdom, May 21, 2025 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Feeding your dog or cat might be doing more damage to the planet than you think.

    A new study has revealed that conventional meat-based pet food carries a largely unrecognized environmental cost – contributing significantly to land use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and climate breakdown. The review, just published, found that pet food production is closely tied to the livestock industry, which is responsible for at least one-fifth of annual global GHG emissions.

    With the world’s pet population now approaching one billion animals, the impacts are no longer minor. In the United States alone, dog and cat diets account for 25-30% of the environmental toll of livestock farming. One analysis even found that a single medium-sized dog’s diet in Japan had a greater environmental footprint than the average Japanese person’s diet.

    But experts say there’s a powerful – and practical – solution. Stated Billy Nicholles, the lead author, “Switching pets to nutritionally sound vegan diets significantly mitigates our dogs and cats’ environmental ‘paw prints.’ It’s a huge opportunity to reduce the environmental burden of our food system.”

    The study examined 21 existing analyses of pet food sustainability and concluded that diet was the single largest factor driving environmental impacts. Protein choice was key: pet foods rich in animal ingredients were consistently linked to much larger environmental impacts.

    By contrast, vegan pet diets – where formulated to be nutritionally sound – offered major reductions across all impact categories. If all pet dogs worldwide were fed a vegan diet, the resulting food energy savings could feed 450 million people, according to the study. Greenhouse gas savings would exceed the UK’s annual emissions.

    “This offers huge potential,” said Professor Andrew Knight, co-author and veterinary expert. “Modern vegan pet foods are not only safe, but often healthier. And they’re vastly more sustainable.”

    The report also pointed to emerging innovations like cultivated meat and precision-fermented proteins, which are beginning to enter the pet food market. These alternatives promise the taste and nutrition of meat without the massive environmental burden.

    With consumer demand growing, the authors urge governments, brands, and the public to rethink what goes into pet food bowls. “Sustainable pet food isn’t just a niche trend,” said Nicholles. “It’s a climate solution hiding in plain sight.”

    Contact Information

    Billy Nicholles
    Pet food researcher
    billy@bryantresearch.co.uk
    +44 7921461778

    Andrew Knight
    Veterinary Professor of Animal Welfare
    andrew.knight@murdoch.edu.au

    Source: Sustainable Pet Food Foundation

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  • Addressing Climate Change by Changing Our Food Systems


    WASHINGTON, January 14, 2025 (Newswire.com)
    –
    The year 2024 was the hottest year on record. For the first time the average global temperature rose to 1.6C above preindustrial levels, exceeding the 1.5C vital to preventing accelerating climate change. The effects of climate change are now visible on every continent.

    Up to a third of global greenhouse gas production to date can be attributed to animal agriculture and food systems. Yet, most climate change solutions neglect the importance of food systems in climate change mitigation. In the article, ‘Solving Climate Change Requires Changing Our Food Systems,’ published in leading scientific journal Oxford Open Climate Change, prominent scientists from around the world propose that the pressing nature of irreversible climate change requires rethinking our food systems.

    Lead researcher Dr Feigin and her co-authors assert that “we must undertake a global shift to a fundamentally plant-based diet and a gradual global reduction and eventual phaseout of intensive factory farming, the most prolific and damaging form of agriculture.”

    Our growing demand for meat and animal products is unsustainable. The FAO estimates that demand for meat will double by 2050, which would require that approximately 80% of existing forests and shrubland would have to be converted into land devoted to raising animals. Such a trajectory would have devastating consequences for us and the planet.

    “As the world population increases, food insecurity and starvation will intensify if we continue to rely on a model of food production (i.e. animal factory farming) which is extraordinarily inefficient and resource intensive”, the study authors contend. The authors present strategies to achieve a re-thinking of current food systems including the removal of government subsidies and higher taxation of animal products to account for externalized costs of animal agriculture.

    The health benefits and savings to healthcare costs of adopting a fundamentally plant-based diet are profound. Consumption of animal products contributes to the development of many chronic diseases. Moreover, “antibiotic-resistant infections in humans are associated with proximity to animal farms and are a global health threat, killing approximately 700,000 people worldwide annually,” the authors declare. The proliferation of industrialized animal farming has brought us closer than ever before to the outbreaks of lethal human zoonoses such as avian influenza (bird flu) and H1N1 (swine flu) resulting from factory farming operations.

    The authors suggest that plant-based diets pet foods should also be included in the global shift away from animal agriculture. Pet dogs and cats consume at least 9% of all livestock annually and nutritionally sound plant-based pet diets would free up large amounts of land which could be used for climate mitigation.

    Critical changes to our food system and consumption habits will require a shift in global mindset – lead author Dr Feigin states, “the future of humanity and all life on our planet depends on sustainability, and the data indicate that we will not succeed on the issue of climate change unless we change the way that we produce and consume food.”

    Source: All Life Institute

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  • Greenpeace files supreme court case accusing Finland of climate inaction

    Greenpeace files supreme court case accusing Finland of climate inaction

    A group of environmental and rights organisations said Thursday that they were suing the Finnish government for violating the country’s climate legislation by not taking adequate action to hit climate targets.

    The six organisations noted in a statement that Finland in 2022 had adopted “one of the strongest net zero climate targets among industrialised nations, committing to become climate neutral by 2035 and reach net negative emissions thereafter.”

    In their lawsuit filed to Finland’s Supreme Administrative Court, the groups argue that the “lack of adequate climate action” by Finland’s right-wing government is violating the country’s Climate Act.

    “Our government is failing to enact solutions, cancelling agreed actions and refusing to revise Finland’s outdated climate plan for land use and forestry”, Greenpeace Senior Policy Advisor Kaisa Kosonen said.

    “This constitutes a violation of the Climate Act, so it’s our duty as NGOs to take legal action”, she said.

    According to the organisations, Finland is not on track to meet its emission reduction targets, primarily as a result of excessive logging and a lack of efforts to curb emissions from the agricultural and transport sectors.

    The groups said the case builds on an earlier ruling by a Finnish court and a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which found that Switzerland violated the human rights of a group of elderly women by not doing enough to combat global warming.

    “Governments’ inaction on climate change endangers the realisation of many human rights, such as the rights to life and health and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”, Elina Mikola, climate and environment advisor at Amnesty Finland, said.

    The lawsuit was filed August 2 by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, Greenpeace Norden, Amnesty International Finland, Grandparents for Climate, the Finnish Nature League and the Finnish Sami Youth.

    Finland’s first climate trial ended last year with the Supreme Administrative Court eventually dismissing a complaint against the Finnish state over insufficient climate action.

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    AFP

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  • Denmark to target flatulent livestock with tax in bid to fight climate change

    Denmark to target flatulent livestock with tax in bid to fight climate change

    Copenhagen, Denmark — Denmark will tax livestock farmers for the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep and pigs from 2030, the first country in the world to do so as it targets a major source of methane emissions, one of the most potent gases contributing to global warming.

    The aim is to reduce Danish greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels by 2030, said Taxation Minister Jeppe Bruus.

    As of 2030, Danish livestock farmers will be taxed 300 kroner ($43) per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030. The tax will increase to 750 kroner ($108) by 2035. However, because of an income tax deduction of 60%, the actual cost per ton will start at 120 kroner ($17.3) and increase to 300 kroner by 2035.

    Although carbon dioxide typically gets more attention for its role in climate change, methane traps about 87 times more heat on a 20-year timescale, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Levels of methane, which is emitted from sources including landfills, oil and natural gas systems and livestock, have increased particularly quickly since 2020. Livestock account for about 32% of human-caused methane emissions, says the U.N. Environment Program.

    “We will take a big step closer in becoming climate neutral in 2045,” Bruus said, adding Denmark “will be the first country in the world to introduce a real CO2 tax on agriculture” and hopes other countries follow suit.

    New Zealand had passed a similar law due to take effect in 2025. However, the legislation was removed from the statute book on Wednesday after hefty criticism from farmers and a change of government at the 2023 election from a center-left ruling bloc to a center-right one. New Zealand said it would exclude agriculture from its emissions trading scheme in favor of exploring other ways to reduce methane.

    In Denmark, the deal was reached late Monday between the center-right government and representatives of farmers, the industry and unions, among others, and presented Tuesday.

    Denmark’s move comes after months of protests by farmers across Europe against climate change mitigation measures and regulations they say are driving them to bankruptcy.

    The Danish Society for Nature Conservation, the largest nature conservation and environmental organization in Denmark, described the tax agreement as “a historic compromise.”

    “We have succeeded in landing a compromise on a CO2 tax, which lays the groundwork for a restructured food industry — also on the other side of 2030,” its head, Maria Reumert Gjerding, said after the talks in which they took part.

    A typical Danish cow produces 6 metric tons (6.6 tons) of CO2 equivalent per year. Denmark, which is a large dairy and pork exporter, also will tax pigs, although cows produce far higher emissions than pigs.

    The tax has to be approved in the 179-seat Folketing, or parliament, but the bill is expected to pass after the broad-based consensus.

    According to Statistic Denmark, there were as of June 30, 2022, 1,484,377 cows in the Scandinavian country, a slight drop compared to the previous year.

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  • Summer of 2023 was hottest in 2,000 years, study finds

    Summer of 2023 was hottest in 2,000 years, study finds

    An extreme summer marked by deadly heat waves, explosive wildfires and record-warm ocean temperatures will go down as among the hottest in the last 2,000 years, new research has found.

    The summer of 2023 saw the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere soar 3.72 degrees above the average from 1850 to 1900, when modern instrumental recordkeeping began, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature. The study focused on surface air temperatures across the extra-tropical region, which sits at 30-90 degrees north latitude and includes most of Europe and North America.

    June, July and August last year were also 3.96 degrees warmer than the average from the years 1 through 1890, which the researchers calculated by combining observed records with tree ring records from nine global regions.

    Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.

    Jan Esper, the study’s lead author and a professor of climate geography at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, said that he was not expecting summer last year to be quite so anomalous, but that he was ultimately not surprised by the findings. The high temperatures built on an overall warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions and were further amplified by the onset of El Niño in the tropical Pacific.

    “It’s no surprise — this really, really outstanding 2023 — but it was also, step-wise, a continuation of a trend that will continue,” Esper told reporters Monday. “Personally I’m not surprised, but I am worried.”

    He said it was important to place 2023’s temperature extreme in a long-term context. The difference between the region’s previous warmest summer, in the year 246, and the summer of 2023 is 2.14 degrees, the study found.

    The heat is even more extreme when compared with the region’s coldest summers — the majority of which were influenced by volcanic eruptions that spewed heat-blocking sulfur into the stratosphere. According to the study, 2023’s summer was 7.07 degrees warmer than the coldest reconstructed summer from this period, in the year 536.

    “Although 2023 is consistent with a greenhouse gases-induced warming trend that is amplified by an unfolding El Niño event, this extreme emphasizes the urgency to implement international agreements for carbon emission reduction,” the study says.

    The sweltering summer temperatures contributed to scores of heat illnesses and deaths, including at least 645 heat-associated deaths in Maricopa County, Ariz., where Phoenix saw temperatures of 110 degrees or hotter for a record 31 consecutive days.

    Wildfires exacerbated by high temperatures raged across Canada and sent hazardous smoke down the East Coast of the United States and across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, ocean temperatures off the coast of Florida soared above 101 degrees, the temperature of a hot tub.

    Multiple climate agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, declared 2023 the hottest year on record globally.

    Notably, Copernicus found that the summer months of June, July and August last year measured 1.18 degrees warmer than average — still hot, but not nearly as warm as the study’s findings for the Northern Hemisphere’s extra-tropical region.

    That region was especially hot in part because it is home to so much land, which warms faster than oceans, said Karen McKinnon, an assistant professor of statistics and the environment at UCLA who did not work on the study. (June, July and August are also winter months in the Southern Hemisphere.)

    McKinnon said the study’s findings are not unexpected, as there was already good evidence that the summer of 2023 was record-breaking when compared with measurable data going back to the mid-1800s. But by going back 2,000 years, the researchers also helped illuminate “the full range of natural variability that could have occurred in the past,” she said.

    She noted that tree rings can serve as a helpful proxy for climate conditions in the past, as trees tend to grow more in a given year if they receive the right amount of warmth, water and sunshine.

    But although last year’s heat was undeniable, the study also underscores that the summer temperature in this region was notably higher than the global target of 2.7 degrees — or 1.5 degrees Celsius — of warming over the preindustrial period, which was established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2015.

    It also notes that some recent research has found the data used to calculate that baseline may be off by several tenths of a degree, meaning it could need to be recalibrated, with the target landing closer to an even more challenging 1.6 or 1.7 degrees.

    “I don’t think we should use the proxy instead of the instrumental data, but there’s a good indication that there’s a warm bias,” Esper said. “Further research is needed.”

    McKinnon said there is always going to be some degree of uncertainty when comparing present-day temperatures to past temperatures, but that the 1.5-degree limit is as symbolic as it is literal. Many effects of climate change, including worsening heat waves, have already begun.

    “There are definitely tipping points in the climate system, but we don’t understand the climate system well enough to say 1.5 C is the temperature for certain tipping points,” she said. “This is just a policy goal that gives you a temperature change that maybe would be consistent with averting some damages.”

    In fact, the study’s publication comes days after a survey of 380 leading scientists from the IPCC revealed deep concerns about the world’s ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. That report, published last week in the Guardian, found that only 6% of surveyed scientists think the 1.5-degree limit will be met. Nearly 80% said they foresee at least 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming.

    The report caused a stir among the scientific community, with some saying it focused too heavily on pessimism and despair. But Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA who participated in the survey, said its findings are worthy of consideration.

    “There are many kinds of scientists, myself included, who are very worried and concerned and increasingly alarmed by what is going on and what the data is showing,” Swain said during a briefing Friday. “But if anything, I think that really results in a stronger sense of resolve and urgency to do even more, and to do better.”

    Indeed, while scientists continue to weigh in on whether — or how quickly — humanity can alter the planet’s worsening warming trajectory, Esper said he hopes the latest study will serve as motivation for changing outdated modes of energy consumption that contribute to planet-warming greenhouse gases.

    “I am concerned about global warming — I think it’s one of the biggest threats out there,” he said.

    He added that he is particularly worried for his children and for younger generations who will bear the brunt of worsening heat and other adverse climate outcomes. There is a strong likelihood that the summer of 2024 will be even hotter, the study says.

    “The longer we wait, the more extensive it will be, and the more difficult it will be to mitigate or even stop that process and reverse it,” Esper said. “It’s just so obvious: We should do as much as possible, as soon as possible.”

    Hayley Smith

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  • Inside the fight to save reef sharks from extinction

    Inside the fight to save reef sharks from extinction

    Inside the fight to save reef sharks from extinction – CBS News


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    Despite how terrifying sharks might seem, the creatures are critical to the survival of the world’s oceans. Oceans generate 50% of the oxygen on the planet and absorb 90% of excess heat created by global warming. CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy spoke with conservationists in the Bahamas.

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  • Climate change may drive millions of species to extinction

    Climate change may drive millions of species to extinction

    Climate change may drive millions of species to extinction – CBS News


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    At least a million species may disappear from Earth in coming decades due to a warming climate, but scientists are using a range of tools to protect plants and animals. CBS News environmental correspondent David Schechter reports.

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