Climate Change News & Discussions

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Chris Stark: Rishi Sunak has set us back, head of climate change watchdog says

4 hours ago

Rishi Sunak has "set us back" on climate change and left the UK at risk of falling behind other countries, the head of a government watchdog has said.

Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), told the BBC the prime minister had "clearly not" prioritised the issue as much as his predecessors.

He accused Mr Sunak of sending the world a message that the UK is now "less ambitious" than it once was.

A government spokesperson said: "Our record on net zero speaks for itself."

Mr Stark said the country had made enormous progress towards reaching the climate target of net zero by 2050 under Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68863796

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Climate change supercharged a heat dome, intensifying 2021 fire season, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-climate-s ... eason.html
by Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times

As a massive heat dome lingered over the Pacific Northwest three years ago, swaths of North America simmered—and then burned. Wildfires charred more than 18.5 million acres across the continent, with the most land burned in Canada and California.

A new study has revealed the extent to which human-caused climate change intensified the extraordinary event, with researchers theorizing the heat dome was 34% larger and lasted nearly 60% longer than it would have in the absence of global warming. The heat dome, in turn, was associated with up to a third of the area burned in North America that year, according to the study, published in Communications Earth & Environment.

[Time_Traveller]

Scientists Warn in Report that Climate Change Has Pushed Earth to “Code Red”
October 26, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Writing in the journal BioScience, an international coalition led by Oregon State University researchers says in a report published today that the Earth’s vital signs have reached “code red” and that “humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.”

In the special report, “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022,” the authors note that 16 of 35 planetary vital signs they use to track climate change are at record extremes. The report’s authors share new data illustrating increasing frequency of extreme heat events, rising global tree cover loss because of fires, and a greater prevalence of the mosquito-borne dengue virus. Further, they note that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 418 parts per million, the highest on record.

William Ripple, a distinguished professor in the OSU College of Forestry, and postdoctoral researcher Christopher Wolf are the lead authors of the report, and 10 other U.S. and global scientists are co-authors.

“Look at all of these heat waves, fires, floods and massive storms,” Ripple said. “The specter of climate change is at the door and pounding hard.”
The report follows by five years the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice” published by Ripple and colleagues in BioScience and co-signed by more than 15,000 scientists in 184 countries.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968835

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Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert

Thu 25 Apr 2024 05.00 BST

Mosquito-borne diseases are spreading across the globe, and particularly in Europe, due to climate breakdown, an expert has said.

The insects spread illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever, the prevalences of which have hugely increased over the past 80 years as global heating has given them the warmer, more humid conditions they thrive in.

Prof Rachel Lowe who leads the global health resilience group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, has warned that mosquito-borne disease outbreaks are set to spread across currently unaffected parts of northern Europe, Asia, North America and Australia over the next few decades.

She is due to give a presentation at the global congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona to warn that the world must be prepared for a sharp uptick in these diseases.

“Global warming due to climate change means that the disease vectors that carry and spread malaria and dengue [fever] can find a home in more regions, with outbreaks occurring in areas where people are likely to be immunologically naive and public health systems unprepared,” Lowe said.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... stract.com

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[Time_Traveller]

Is Russia ready for climate change? Mass floods expose lack of adaptation, campaigners say

27/04/2024 - 08:00

Mass floods in Russia have thrown a spotlight on the country’s approach to managing the increasing risks it faces from climate change.

On 9 April, days after a dam burst caused disastrous flooding in southern Russia, Yulia Navalnya blasted the government’s handling of the crisis on X.

“The authorities in our country never seem to be prepared for anything,” the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote in a damning thread. “In winter, they are unprepared for frost and snowstorms, in summer - for fires, and in spring - for floods.”

Spring flooding is typical across the Ural region, as the Ural River - Europe’s third longest - fills with snowmelt from the Ural mountains. But the river hit record levels this April when unusually high snowfall melted rapidly after a jump in temperature, from 0 to 20C within days.

On route from the mountains to the river’s mouth in the Caspian Sea, the southern region of Orenburg has borne the brunt of flooding, along with northern Kazakhstan. The Ural burst through embankment dams in the city of Orsk on 5 April and flooded parts of Orenburg city.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/ ... igners-say

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Report: Taxing Fossil Fuel Extraction Could Raise Nearly $1 Trillion for Climate Aid
by Matthew Taylor
April 30, 2024

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) A new tax on fossil fuel companies based in the world’s richest countries could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations cope with the escalating climate crisis, according to a report.

The Climate Damages Tax report, published on Monday, calculates that an additional tax on fossil fuel majors based in the wealthiest Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could raise $720 billion by the end of the decade.

The authors say a new extraction levy could boost the loss and damage fund to help vulnerable countries cope with the worst effects of climate breakdown that was agreed at the Cop28 summit in Dubai—a hard-won victory by developing countries that they hope will signal a commitment by developed, polluting nations to provide financial support for some of the destruction already under way.

David Hillman, the director of the Stamp Out Poverty campaign and co-author of the report, said it “demonstrates that the richest, most economically powerful countries, with the greatest historical responsibility for climate change, need look no further than their fossil fuel industries to collect tens of billions a year in extra income by taxing them far more rigorously. This is surely the fairest way to boost revenues for the loss and damage fund to ensure that it is sufficiently financed as to be fit for purpose.”

The authors say the levy could be easily administered within existing tax systems. They calculate that if the tax were introduced in OECD countries in 2024 at an initial rate of $5 a ton of CO2 equivalent, increasing by $5 a ton each year, it would raise a total of $900 billion by 2030.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... -funding/

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EPA underestimates methane emissions from landfills and urban areas, researchers find

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-epa-under ... fills.html