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Category: Climate Change

Biden calls climate change ‘the ultimate threat to humanity’ but won’t be attending latest UN summit

Biden calls climate change ‘the ultimate threat to humanity’ but won’t be attending latest UN summit

The New York Times reports: President Biden will not attend a major United Nations climate summit that begins Thursday in Dubai, skipping an event expected to be attended by King Charles III, Pope Francis and leaders from nearly 200 countries, a White House official said Sunday. The official, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the president’s schedule, did not give a reason Mr. Biden will not make an appearance at the two-week summit, known as COP28. But senior White…

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Undercover filming highlights Saudi plan to artificially raise oil demand

Undercover filming highlights Saudi plan to artificially raise oil demand

  Channel 4 News: An undercover sting operation has highlighted a Saudi Arabian government plan to artificially raise global oil demand, Channel 4 News can reveal in an investigation released just days before climate crisis talks begin in the UAE. Officials from Saudi Arabia’s Oil Sustainability Programme (OSP) have admitted the country’s state-backed plan to target Africa and Asia with petrol, oil and diesel products, under a public programme from its Ministry of Energy. The operation was conducted by the…

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COP28: UAE planned to use climate talks to make oil deals

COP28: UAE planned to use climate talks to make oil deals

BBC News reports: The United Arab Emirates planned to use its role as the host of UN climate talks as an opportunity to strike oil and gas deals, the BBC has learned. Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations. The UN body responsible for the COP28 summit told the BBC hosts were expected to act without bias or self-interest. The UAE team did not deny using COP28 meetings for business talks, and said “private…

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‘World’s first net zero transatlantic flight’ might not be so green after all

‘World’s first net zero transatlantic flight’ might not be so green after all

Open Democracy reports: Virgin Atlantic and the UK government have been accused of misleading the public over what they claim will be “the world’s first net zero transatlantic flight” ahead of next week’s COP28 summit. The Department for Transport said the flight, scheduled for Tuesday, was “ushering in a new era of guilt-free flying” because it will run entirely on so-called “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). But openDemocracy revealed concerns earlier this year that SAF production in the UK may be…

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The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

By Muhammad Rizwan Azhar, Edith Cowan University and Waqas Uzair, Edith Cowan University We hop in the car to get groceries or drop kids at school. But while the car is convenient, these short trips add up in terms of emissions, pollution and petrol cost. Close to half (44%) of all Australian commuter trips are by car – and under 10km. Of Perth’s 4.2 million daily car trips, 2.8 million are for distances of less than 2km. This is common in…

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World facing ‘hellish’ 3C of climate heating, UN warns before Cop28

World facing ‘hellish’ 3C of climate heating, UN warns before Cop28

The Guardian reports: The world is on track for a “hellish” 3C of global heating, the UN has warned before the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week in the United Arab Emirates. The report found that today’s carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C of heating would be reached this century. Temperature records have already been obliterated in 2023 and intensifying heatwaves, floods and droughts have taken lives and hit livelihoods across the globe, in response to a…

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The richest 1% — the ‘polluter elite’ — are plundering the planet to point of destruction

The richest 1% — the ‘polluter elite’ — are plundering the planet to point of destruction

The Guardian reports: The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency, a report says. The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to…

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I’m a climate scientist. I’m not screaming into the void anymore

I’m a climate scientist. I’m not screaming into the void anymore

Kate Marvel writes: Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated. Did we really need another warning of the dire consequences of climate change in this country? The answer, legally, was yes: Congress mandates that the National Climate Assessment be updated every four years or so. But after four previous assessments and six United Nations reports since 1990, I was skeptical that…

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The world is ‘woefully off track’ on dozens of climate goals, scientists find

The world is ‘woefully off track’ on dozens of climate goals, scientists find

The Washington Post reports: Among the many dramatic ways society must transform to limit the worst effects of climate change, the world is only moving fast enough on one of them — the uptake of electric vehicles, according to a new report from seven climate organizations looking at 42 indicators of climate progress. On the other 41 points of transformation, change is either too slow, too hard to measure, or going in the wrong direction. For example, the global rate…

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Earth facing dire sea level rise — up to 20m — even if climate goals met

Earth facing dire sea level rise — up to 20m — even if climate goals met

Global News reports: Capping global temperature rise at two degrees Celsius over baseline is no longer seen as enough to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels that would decimate the earth’s coastlines and displace hundreds of millions of people, climate scientists warn. A report released Thursday by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, compiled by more than 60 scientists and policy experts, is sounding the alarm on new modelling data that indicates the 2015 Paris Agreement is woefully out-of-date. The…

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The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory

The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory

William J Ripple et al write in BioScience: Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory. For several decades, scientists have consistently warned of a future marked by extreme climatic conditions because of escalating global temperatures caused by ongoing human activities that release harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, time is up. We are seeing the manifestation of those predictions as an alarming and unprecedented succession of climate records are broken, causing profoundly…

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Climate change is putting the health of billions at risk

Climate change is putting the health of billions at risk

Grist reports: Eight years ago, the medical journal the Lancet began compiling the latest research on how climate change affects human health. It was the first coordinated effort to highlight scientific findings on the health consequences of climate change, published in the hopes of making the topic more central to global climate negotiations. The Lancet’s annual reports on this topic, which summarize research conducted by dozens of scientists from leading institutions around the world, have become increasingly dire in tone….

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The climate cannot survive another Trump term

The climate cannot survive another Trump term

Michael Mann writes: Back in the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election, I stated that a second Trump term would be “game over for the climate.” That hasn’t changed in the years since. In fact, it’s become even more true. We are three years further down the carbon emissions highway, and the devastating consequences of the 1C (1.8F) warming we have already caused are now apparent in the form of unprecedented dangerous, damaging and deadly extreme weather events. As…

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Kew report: Five key extinction risks facing the world’s plants and fungi

Kew report: Five key extinction risks facing the world’s plants and fungi

Carbon Brief reports: Scientists’ understanding of how climate change and habitat loss could drive plant and fungi extinctions is being hamstrung by knowledge gaps in how many species currently exist, a new report warns. More than 90% of fungi have yet to be found and formally described by scientists, according to a new report from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report, which is based on both peer-reviewed and preliminary studies, also says…

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Otis teaches a terrifying lesson in rapid hurricane intensification

Otis teaches a terrifying lesson in rapid hurricane intensification

John Morales writes: This is a scary new paradigm in the tropics. And we all need to worry. Hurricane Otis struck very near Acapulco, Mexico, on Tuesday night as a monster 165 mile-per-hour category 5 cyclone. On Monday night, about 24-hours before landfall, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was predicting it would do so as 70 mile-per-hour tropical storm. With the energy content (and destructive potential) of the wind increasing with the cube of the windspeed, that means that Otis…

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Biden administration approves biggest offshore wind farm yet

Biden administration approves biggest offshore wind farm yet

The New York Times reports: The Interior Department on Tuesday approved a plan to install up to 176 giant wind turbines off the coast of Virginia, clearing the way for what would be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm yet. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, to be built by Dominion Energy, is the fifth commercial-scale offshore wind project approved by the Biden administration. If completed, the 2.6-gigawatt wind farm would produce enough electricity to power more than 900,000 homes,…

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