Climate Change News & Discussions

[wjfox]

Top climate tech exec: The AC gap between Europe and America is becoming an economic liability

August 11, 2025

Picture this: it’s a scorching summer day in the U.S. You wake up in a cool, comfortable room after a solid night’s sleep. You head to work, where the temperature is optimised for concentration. Unless you step outside for a lunchtime walk, you’re completely protected from the heat.

Now picture the same scenario in an average European city. You wake up after a night of tossing and turning. You’re sticky, uncomfortable, and already dreading the commute. Jammed on a crowded train, you suffer through a heavy delay as your city’s transport infrastructure struggles in the face of extreme temperatures. If you’re working from home, the only relief comes from a fan slowly circulating warm air around the room.

The fundamental difference between these two realities? Air conditioning.

In the U.S., 90% of households have AC. In Europe? Just 20% on average. In some countries, such as the UK, that number falls to less than 5%.

At first glance, this might seem like a minor difference — fodder for TikTok skits or Reddit debates, where Americans and Europeans poke fun at each other’s respective abilities to handle summer weather. But when the temperature rises, the impact on productivity is anything but trivial.

https://fortune.com/2025/08/11/europe-a ... ty-ac-gap/

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

WHO warns of risks of extreme heat in the workplace

1 hour ago

Workers worldwide need better protection from extreme heat as climate change causes more frequent heatwaves – that's the conclusion of a new report from the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.

The report says millions of workers are exposed to heat stress, which affects their health, and their performance. It calls for governments, employers, and workers to co-operate to develop adaptation strategies.

Although the WHO has warned many times of the health risks of extreme heat, this is its first report since 1969 specifically on heat stress at work.

The WHO's director of environment, climate and health Rüdiger Krech says its findings should be a wake-up call.

"It is not just discomfort. It is a real health risk," he told the BBC. "If you're working in heat and your body temperature increases by, over a longer period, over 38C, then you are at risk of severe heat-related stress and stroke, kidney failure, dehydration."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ylwxl5n01o



Reuters

[weatheriscool]

Sea-level projections from the 1990s were spot on, study says
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-sea-1990s.html
by Tulane University

Icebergs in Disko Bay (West Greenland) discharged by the Jakobshavn Isbrae, one of the fastest moving outlet glaciers in the world. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has contributed nearly 2 cm (three quarters of an inch) to global sea-level rise over the past three decades. (Photo by Torbjörn Törnqvist). Credit: Torbjörn Törnqvist/Tulane University

Global sea-level change has now been measured by satellites for more than 30 years, and a comparison with climate projections from the mid-1990s shows that they were remarkably accurate, according to two Tulane University researchers whose findings were published in Earth's Future.

"The ultimate test of climate projections is to compare them with what has played out since they were made, but this requires patience—it takes decades of observations," said lead author Torbjörn Törnqvist, Vokes Geology Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

[caltrek]

Abrupt Antarctic Changes Could Have ‘Catastrophic Consequences for Generations to Come’
August 20, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Antarctica is at risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes to the continent’s ice, ocean and ecosystems that could have profound implications for Australia and beyond, unless urgent action is taken to curb global carbon emissions.

That’s according to new research published today in the journal Nature, from researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in collaboration with scientists from each of Australia’s major Antarctic research centres.

The research team argues the large and abrupt changes now unfolding in Antarctica are “interlinked”, putting even more pressure on the global climate, sea level and ecosystems.

According to the researchers, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is at severe risk of collapse as global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. The collapse of the WAIS would raise sea levels by more than three metres, threatening the world’s coastal cities and communities.

According to the study’s lead author Dr Nerilie Abram, who is the Chief Scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), such a collapse would result in “catastrophic consequences for generations to come”.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094829

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

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[caltrek]

Unprecedented Suppression of Panama’s Pacific Upwelling in 2025
By Aaron O’Dea , Andrew J. Sellers, Carmen Pérez-Medina , and Gerald H. Haug
September 2, 2025

Abstract:

(PNAS) The Gulf of Panama’s (GOP) seasonal upwelling system has consistently delivered cool, nutrient-rich waters via northerly trade winds every January–April for at least 40 y(ears). Here, we document the failure of this normally highly predictable phenomenon in 2025. Data suggest that the cause was a reduction in Panama wind-jet frequency, duration, and strength, possibly related to the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) position during the 2024–2025 La Niña, though the mechanisms remain unclear. Nevertheless, the consequences are likely significant, including decreases in fisheries productivity and exacerbated thermal stress on corals that typically benefit from upwelling’s cooling. This event underscores how climate disruption can threaten wind-driven tropical upwelling systems, which remain poorly monitored and studied despite their importance to ecology and coastal economies.

Read more here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2512056122

[caltrek]

Colossal Antarctic Iceberg Is Finally Breaking Apart After 40 Years
September 3, 2025

Introduction:

(Science Alert) Nearly 40 years after breaking off Antarctica, a colossal iceberg ranked among the oldest and largest ever recorded is finally crumbling apart in warmer waters, and could disappear within weeks.

Earlier this year, the "megaberg" known as A23a weighed a little under a trillion tonnes and was more than twice the size of Greater London, a behemoth unrivalled at the time.

The gigantic slab of frozen freshwater was so large it even briefly threatened penguin feeding grounds on a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean, but ended up moving on.

It is now less than half its original size, but still a hefty 1,770 square kilometres (683 square miles) and 60 kilometres (37 miles) at its widest point, according to AFP analysis of satellite images by the EU earth observation monitor Copernicus.

In recent weeks, enormous chunks – some 400 square kilometres in their own right – have broken off while smaller chips, many still large enough to threaten ships, litter the sea around it.

Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/colossal- ... 40- years

[wjfox]

Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website

September 4th 2025

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai stood smiling in a leafy-green California garden in September 2020 and declared that the IT behemoth was entering the “most ambitious decade yet” in its climate action.

“Today, I’m proud to announce that we intend to be the first major company to operate carbon free — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” he said, in a video announcement at the time.

Pichai added that he knew the “road ahead would not be easy,” but Google “aimed to prove that a carbon-free future is both possible and achievable fast enough to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change.”

Five years on, just how hard Google’s “energy journey” would become is clear. In June, Google’s Sustainability website proudly boasted a headline pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. By July, that had all changed.

An investigation by Canada’s National Observer has found that Google’s net-zero pledge has quietly been scrubbed, demoted from having its own section on the site to an entry in the appendices of the company's sustainability report.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/0 ... qD9MsdQeok

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Yikes...

https://berkeleyearth.org/august-2025-t ... re-update/

[firestar464]

Carbon credits have little to no effect on making companies greener, study reveals

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-carbon-cr ... eener.html

[caltrek]

‘Reckless’ Countries to Extract More Than Double the Fossil Fuels Consistent With 1.5°C
By Julia Conley
September 22, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Climate advocates on Monday said a new report from three climate think tanks reveals how “just how reckless” some of the world’s biggest polluters are when it comes to oil, gas, and coal extraction—which they are planning to ramp up in the coming years despite pledging to take steps to avoid catastrophic fossil-fueled planetary heating a decade ago.

Ten years after the Paris agreement on keeping global warming well below 2°C and just two years after the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), where countries agreed for the first time to transition “away from fossil fuels,” the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) joined Climate Analytics and the International Institute for Sustainable Development in releasing its latest Production Gap Report—and revealed that powerful governments are in fact moving in the opposite direction.

“Governments plan to produce 120% the volume of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and 77% more than would be consistent with 2°C,” the report found.

In their last analysis in 2023, the groups found a 110% and 69% gap over the 1.5°C and 2°C limits, respectively.

The groups analyzed the 20 largest producers of fossil fuels around the world—including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, and Canada—that are responsible for 80% of fossil fuel extraction.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/prod ... p-report

[caltrek]

Utilities Are Doing Even Worse on Climate than They Were Five Years Ago
By Jeff St. John
September 22, 2025

Introduction:

(Canary Media) Since 2021, the Sierra Club has been grading U.S. utilities on their commitment to a clean-energy transition. While most utilities have not earned high marks on the group’s annual scorecards, as a whole they had been showing some progress.

That’s over now. The latest edition of the Sierra Club’s “The Dirty Truth” report finds that the country’s biggest electric utilities are collectively doing worse on climate goals than when the organization started tracking their progress five years ago. This year they earned an aggregate grade of “F” for the first time.

With only a handful of rare exceptions, U.S. utilities have shed the gains they made during the Biden administration. Almost none are on track to switch from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy at the speed and scale needed to combat the worst harms of climate change.

“It’s very disappointing to find we’re at a lower score than in the first year,” said Cara Fogler, managing senior analyst at the Sierra Club, who coauthored the report. But it’s not entirely unexpected.

Utilities had already begun slipping on their carbon commitments last year, in the face of soaring demand for electricity, according to the 2024 “Dirty Truth” report, largely in response to the boom in data centers being used to power tech giants’ AI goals. But the anti-renewables, pro–fossil fuels agenda of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress has pushed that reversal into overdrive.

Read more here: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/u ... orecard


caltrek’s comment: Thank you Trump voters. /sarcasm

[wjfox]

China for First Time Promises to Reduce Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Sept. 24, 2025

For the first time, China has announced a detailed target for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from its immense economy, saying on Wednesday that it would cut carbon dioxide and other pollution by at least 7 to 10 percent by 2035.

The plan was detailed by President Xi Jinping, speaking by video link at a United Nations climate summit.

In the past, China had pledged only that its greenhouse gas emissions would continue rising until they peaked around 2030. Now, however, studies suggest that China’s emissions have already reached a plateau, five years earlier than expected.

In his Wednesday statement, Mr. Xi also said China would increase the proportion of non-fossil fuels in its energy system to more than 30 percent over the next decade, referring to solar, wind and hydropower. That would translate into a drop in greenhouse gas emissions if these sources replace coal-burning plants, which China remains heavily reliant on.

His brief appearance on the screen was a testament to China’s epic scale in ramping up its use of renewable energy. He said China plans to expand wind and solar capacity sixfold from 2020 levels, adding up to a massive 3,600 gigawatts in all. He also said China would make electric cars “mainstream” in new sales.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/clim ... =url-share

[firestar464]

How climate policy can be made socially just and enforceable worldwide

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-climate-p ... dwide.html