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clairemann

COVID-19's Impact on Global CO2 Emissions Didn't Last Long | Time - 0 views

time.com/...9-co2-emissions-climate-change

science research knowledge pandemic climate

shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • It’s awfully hard to find any upside in a global pandemic that’s sickened nearly 115 million people and killed more than 2.5 million. But throughout 2020, there was some good news buried in the bad concerning that other great infirmity: the sickly state of the earthly climate.
  • According to a report released March 2 by the International Energy Agency, 2020 on the whole saw a total drop-off in global CO2 emissions of 6%
  • In December of 2020, not only had CO2 output rebounded, it actually rose to a level 2% higher than in the same month in 2019. “The rebound in global carbon emissions toward the end of last year is a stark warning that not enough is being done to accelerate clean energy transitions worldwide,”
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  • Overall, emissions from the sector fell by 45% in 2020, the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the road. Car, bus and motorcycle transportation accounted for 50% of the year’s total drop in CO2 emissions. Demand for oil fell by 8.6% in 2020. Demand for coal was down by 4%.
  • In the U.S., the scattershot, state-by-state lockdown rules meant less dramatic fluctuations in output, with year-over-year emissions drops never reaching 20%, and a 10% reduction overall for 2020. And there, too, emissions approached 2019 levels by December.
  • “In March 2020, the IEA urged governments to put clean energy at the heart of their economic stimulus plans to ensure a sustainable recovery,” said Birol. “But our numbers show we are returning to carbon-intensive business-as-usual.”
clairemann

Bottom Trawling for Fish Boosts Carbon Emissions, Study Says | Time - 0 views

time.com/...rawling-carbon-emissions-study

science research knowledge environment

shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • It’s been well established by now that the agricultural systems producing our food contribute at least one fifth of global anthropogenic carbon emissions—and up to a third if waste and transportation are factored in.
  • According to calculations conducted by the report’s 26 authors, bottom trawling is responsible for one gigaton of carbon emissions a year—a higher annual total than (pre-pandemic) aviation emissions.
  • measures how much each so-called “pixel” contributes to global marine biodiversity, fish stocks and climate protection, based on a complex analysis of location, water temperature, salinity and species distribution, among other factors. It also tracks how much CO2 each pixel is capable of absorbing as a carbon sink.
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  • Worse still, the practice also impacts the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric carbon: if the water is already saturated from sources down below, it will be unable to absorb human-caused emissions from above, hamstringing one of our best assets in the fight against climate change.
  • Technological innovations such as green power generation and battery storage are vital for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. But we still need to reduce atmospheric carbon, and so far technology has not been able to do that affordably and at scale.
ilanaprincilus06

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Fall During Pandemic : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-drop-in-u-s-climate-emissions

climate change greenhouse gas pandemic

shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • As commuters stayed home in 2020 and airplanes remained on the ground, the nationwide slowdown led to a sizable drop in heat-trapping emissions. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by 10 percent, the largest annual drop since World War II
  • Still, the climate diet isn't likely to stick.
  • By the end of the year, Americans were already back to driving and flying more.
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  • the U.S. will need to make more lasting changes, like switching the nation's electric grid to solar, wind and other low-carbon energy sources.
  • "The emission reductions of 2020 have come with an enormous toll of significant economic damage and human suffering,"
  • "Without meaningful structural changes in the carbon intensity of the US economy, emissions will likely rise again as well."
  • The dip in 2020 also isn't likely to dramatically slow the rate of climate change.
  • Essentially, it's like a bathtub being filled with water. The U.S. turned down the faucet, but it was still filling the tub.
  • Transportation, the largest source of U.S. emissions, fell by almost 15 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year.
  • Once the dominant source of electricity in the country, coal-fired power plants have been shuttering in recent years, driven out of business by the low cost of natural gas and renewable energy.
  • The emissions drop in 2020 is also a sobering reminder of how far the U.S. has to go to achieve international climate targets.
  • The Biden Administration has vowed to make climate a priority, including rejoining the international agreement.
tongoscar

Singapore's climate change plan needs more ambition | ASEAN Today - 0 views

www.aseantoday.com/...hange-plan-needs-more-ambition

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Each person in Singapore produces more greenhouse gas emissions than their counterpart in Indonesia, China or the United Kingdom. The city-state may be responsible for just 0.11% of total global emissions, but Singapore ranks 27th out of 142 countries in terms of per capita emissions.
  • In 2015, Singapore pledged to reduce its emission intensity, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for every dollar of gross domestic product (GDP), by 36% from 2005 levels come 2030. The city-state also committed to stabilising and capping its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.  
  • Countries are expected to update their climate pledges by the end of this year but do not necessarily have to submit completely new ones.
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  • Singapore’s climate pledge in 2015 was deemed a “stretch target” that would not be easily met, as efforts towards sustainable development in the country were still in their nascent stages.
  • Singapore has installed large-scale floating solar panels in its reservoirs and coastal shorelines. Efforts are also being made towards making 80% of the buildings in the country green by 2030. Come 2040, only 10% of rush-hour commutes in Singapore will be made via private transportation.
  • Protecting Singapore against climate change will be costly. Up to S$100 billion will be poured into measures to cope with rising sea levels caused by climate change. Prevention is better than cure. Singapore, and countries around the world, must identify their vulnerabilities and undertake the actions required to defend their long-term national interests. But these measures should not become a substitute for ambitious efforts to reduce emissions and prevent temperatures from rising wherever possible.
dicindioha

Chinese Scientist Blasts Trump's Climate-Change Talk - China Real Time Report - WSJ - 1 views

blogs.wsj.com/...0127cpollute

shared by dicindioha on 09 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A global-warming skeptic, Mr. Trump has vowed to cancel the accord, which the Obama administration helped broker, in his first 100 days as president.
  • “I think he is cute, saying whatever comes to his mind. I think the U.S. is a cute country too, because a person like him became the president,” said Prof. Ding.
  • The president said in a 2012 tweet that the Chinese created “the concept of global warming.”
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  • His argument: that a per capita count of emissions would be more equitable and treat all people the same.
  • One cannot both enjoy the benefits of industrialization and completely avoid the damages of it, he said.
  • “Steel made in China is sold to the U.S. The emission is done in China but the consumption happens in the U.S. It’s unfair to attribute that emission to China,” he said.
  • Unlike in the U.S., climate-change skeptics in China are an extremely rare breed—something that Mr. Ding posited was the result of better science education.
  • urged other nations to stick to the Paris agreement, calling it a “responsibility we must assume for future generations.”
  • dicindioha on 09 Feb 17
     
    I previously bookmarked an article about Australia's role in the Paris accords, and then I did not realize the world is in jeopardy of losing the U.S.'s involvement in it. We are one of the leading producers of gas emissions in the world, so that is scary to think about. It is interesting to see that people in such power as the leader of a forefront country do not trust the science that supports global warming, and it is kind of scary. I think it was also interesting that Prof. Ding said steel made in China is sold to the US, where people use it, so it's unfair to attribute the emission to China. That is an interesting argument considering they are making it in order to sell it, but yes we are using it, so it seems both are at fault here, possibly not just to the US. This climate change argument is all over and after our discussions about trusting science it is amazing to see the different sides up for debate that should be difficult to debate unless people debating are expert scientists in global warming/climate change.
anonymous

VW Says Emissions Cheating Was Not a One-Time Error - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...vw-emissions-scandal.html

science technology knowledge lies

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Volkswagen said on Thursday that its emissions cheating scandal began in 2005 with a decision to heavily promote diesel engines in the United States and a realization that those engines could not meet clean air standards.
  • Some employees, the company found, chose to cheat on emissions tests rather than curtail Volkswagen’s American campaign.
  • “There was a tolerance for breaking the rules,” Hans-Dieter Pötsch, the chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board, said
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  • That is the hardest thing to accept,”
  • “It proves not to have been a one-time error, but rather a chain of errors that were allowed to happen,” Mr. Pötsch said.
  • “a mind-set in some areas of the company that tolerated breaches of the rules.”
  • “We have to understand how this came about,” Mr. Pötsch said. “That is the only way we can prevent it from happening again.”
kaylynfreeman

Covid Took a Bite From U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2020 - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

science research knowledge technology

shared by kaylynfreeman on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — America’s greenhouse gas emissions from energy and industry plummeted more than 10 percent in 2020, reaching their lowest levels in at least three decades as the coronavirus pandemic slammed the brakes on the nation’s economy, according to an estimate published Tuesday by the Rhodium Group.
  • Before the pandemic hit, America’s emissions had been slowly but steadily declining since 2005, in large part because utilities that generate electricity have been shifting away from coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in favor of cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power. Over the past decade, utilities have retired hundreds of coal-burning power plants despite President Trump’s efforts to revive the industry.
  • “Nothing short of a total transformation of our energy infrastructure will be required,” said Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director. “That calls for decisive action this year, next year and indeed every year to 2050.”
dicindioha

Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...p-paris-climate-agreement.html

shared by dicindioha on 04 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, weakening efforts to combat global warming and embracing isolationist voices in his White House who argued that the agreement was a pernicious threat to the economy and American sovereignty.
  • drawing support from members of his Republican Party but widespread condemnation from political leaders, business executives and environmentalists around the globe.
  • . The Paris agreement was intended to bind the world community into battling rising temperatures in concert, and the departure of the Earth’s second-largest polluter is a major blow.
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  • A statement from the White House press secretary said the president “reassured the leaders that America remains committed to the trans-Atlantic alliance and to robust efforts to protect the environment.”
  • The president’s speech was his boldest and most sweeping assertion of an “America first” foreign policy doctrine since he assumed office four months ago.
  • “At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?” Mr. Trump said. “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be.”
  • shortsightedness about the planet and a reckless willingness to shatter longstanding diplomatic relationships.
  • In his remarks, Mr. Trump listed sectors of the United States economy that would lose revenue and jobs if the country remained part of the accord, citing a study — vigorously disputed by environmental groups — asserting that the agreement would cost 2.7 million jobs by 2025.
  • “Even in the absence of American leadership; even as this administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” Mr. Obama said.
  • In recent days, Mr. Trump withstood withering criticism from European counterparts who accused him of shirking America’s role as a global leader and America’s responsibility as history’s largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gasses.
  • said the decision would ultimately harm the economy by ceding the jobs of the future in clean energy and technology to overseas competitors.
  • “It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time.”
  • dicindioha on 04 Jun 17
     
    maybe he believes this will help in the short term, but our generation will end up dealing with a lot of the effects. the US is already a leader in pollution emissions; this can only make that worse. that means it is up to individuals to take responsibility for emissions now that the country is not presented that way.
clairemann

U.N. Report: World Has Ten Months To Take Action on Climate | Time - 0 views

time.com/...issions-targets-climate-change

science research knowledge climate world

shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The world has precisely ten months to get our act together if there is to be any hope of staving off a climate catastrophe by the end of the century.
  • If member nations are to achieve the Paris Agreement target of limiting global temperature rise above preindustrial levels by 2°C—ideally 1.5°C—by 2100, they must redouble efforts and submit stronger, more ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions, according to the report.
  • The report shows that while the majority of the 75 nations that have submitted NDCs increased their individual commitments, their combined impact puts them on a path to achieve only a 1% reduction in global emissions by 2030, compared to the 45% reduction needed to hit the 1.5°C temperature goal.
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  • “Major economies need to ramp up their ambition – starting with the U.S., where expectations are high for an emissions and finance pledge to make up for lost time. Others like Japan, Canada, Korea, New Zealand and China, have committed to net zero goals by mid-century, but we are still missing their promised new near-term plans to get there,” she said in a statement released ahead of the report.
sanderk

1.5 degrees Celsius: the sad truth about our boldest climate change target - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...-5-degrees-celsius-target-ipcc

climate climate change earth science research education

shared by sanderk on 12 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • the countries participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to a common target: to hold the rise in global average temperature “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” The lower end of that range, 1.5˚C, has become a cause célèbre among climate activists.
  • If we had peaked and begun steadily reducing emissions 20 years ago, the necessary pace of reductions would have been around 3 percent a year, which is ... well, “realistic” is too strong — it still would have required rapid, coordinated action of a kind never seen before in human history — but it was at least possible to envision.
  • it is not the job of those of us in the business of observation and analysis to make the public feel or do things. That’s what activists do.
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  • Now, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero.
  • Emissions have never fallen at 15 percent annually anywhere, much less everywhere. And what earthly reason do we have to believe that emissions will start plunging this year? Look around! The democratic world is in the grips of a populist authoritarian backlash that shows no sign of resolving itself any time soon
  • In short, there is no “safe” level of global warming
  • All of those impacts become much worse at 2˚C. (The World Resources Institute has a handy chart; see also this graphic from Carbon Brief.) Severe heat events will become 2.6 times worse, plant and vertebrate species loss 2 times worse, insect species loss 3 times worse, and decline in marine fisheries 2 times worse. Rather than 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs dying, 99 percent will die. Many vulnerable and low-lying areas will become uninhabitable and refugee flows will radically increase. And so on. At 2˚C, climate change will be devastating for large swathes of the globe.
  • We’ve waited too long. Practically speaking, we are heading past 1.5˚C as we speak and probably past 2˚C as well.
  • To really grapple with climate change, we have to understand it, and more than that, take it on board emotionally
  • Given the scale of the challenge and the compressed time to act, there is effectively no practical danger of anyone, at any level, doing too much or acting too quickly.
  • Right now, much of Australia is on fire — half a billion animals have likely died since September — and it is barely breaking the news cycle in the US
  • I can’t help but think that the first step in defending and expanding that empathy is reckoning squarely with how much damage we’ve already done and are likely to do, working through the guilt and grief, and resolving to minimize the suffering to come.
dicindioha

Why coal-fired power handouts would be an attack on climate and common sense | Environm... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ck-on-climate-and-common-sense

shared by dicindioha on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • The coal industry knows that to stop runaway climate change all coal-powered generators need to close Australia joined 174 countries and the European Union in 2015, signing the Paris agreement. In doing so, Australia agreed to do its part in keeping the global temperature rise “well below” 2C.
  • According to data from the Office of the Chief Economist, the demand for coal-generated electricity has dropped by more than 15% in the past eight years.
  • Coal is now the most expensive form of new power. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the cost of energy from a new coal power plant would be $134-$203/MWh. That’s more expensive than wind, solar or highly efficient combined-cycle gas (costing $61-$118/MWh, $78-$140/MWh and $74-$90/MWh, respectively).
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  • The only people who still think we need the old-fashioned sort of “baseload power” that coal provides – power that is always running regardless of whether you need it – are those in the coal industry.
    • dicindioha
      dicindioha on 08 Feb 17
       
      This claim seems a bit extreme, saying that the only people still interested in coal are in the coal industry. It might be true, but I also feel as if some people do not think of where their power source comes from.
  • In the short term, that can be gas. But, in the longer term, to stop runaway climate change, that service will need to be supplied by renewable sources such as battery storage, hydro, solar thermal with storage or geothermal.
  • “As the world’s largest coal exporter, we have a vested interest in showing that we can provide both lower emissions and reliable baseload power with state-of-the-art, clean, coal-fired technology.”
  • dicindioha on 08 Feb 17
     
    This article is really interesting because I think it goes to show that there is still some side of the global warming/climate change argument that is making progress. As we learned today, it is important to walk that middle line between over-skepticism and gullibility. Here people recognize that coal emissions are bad, and countries are taking a stand to try and lower that. It does make me wonder though what the future with coal holds, and if one day, we really will resort to renewable energy. It seems increasingly important. One more interesting thing I found was the use of the graphs to support the information, for graphs used to seem to me something people trust, but now I realize we have survival instincts associated even with data, and I wonder if some people would remark this as "fake news."
Javier E

The Unrealized Horrors of Population Explosion - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-of-population-explosion.html

population explosion ZPG overconsumption climate change

shared by Javier E on 05 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • No one was more influential — or more terrifying, some would say — than Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” sold in the millions with a jeremiad that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us. Dr. Ehrlich’s opening statement was the verbal equivalent of a punch to the gut: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them would be Americans, that crowded India was essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will not exist in the year 2000.” Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”
  • After the passage of 47 years, Dr. Ehrlich offers little in the way of a mea culpa. Quite the contrary. Timetables for disaster like those he once offered have no significance, he told Retro Report, because to someone in his field they mean something “very, very different” from what they do to the average person. The end is still nigh, he asserted, and he stood unflinchingly by his 1960s insistence that population control was required, preferably through voluntary methods. But if need be, he said, he would endorse “various forms of coercion” like eliminating “tax benefits for having additional children.”
  • Stewart Brand, founding editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. On this topic, Mr. Brand may be deemed a Keynesian, in the sense of an observation often attributed to John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind, sir. What do you do?” Mr. Brand’s formulation for Retro Report was to ask, “How many years do you have to not have the world end” to reach a conclusion that “maybe it didn’t end because that reason was wrong?”
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  • One thing that happened on the road to doom was that the world figured out how to feed itself despite its rising numbers. No small measure of thanks belonged to Norman E. Borlaug, an American plant scientist whose breeding of high-yielding, disease-resistant crops led to the agricultural savior known as the Green Revolution.
  • Some preternaturally optimistic analysts concluded that humans would always find their way out of tough spots. Among them was Julian L. Simon, an economist who established himself as the anti-Ehrlich, arguing that “humanity’s condition will improve in just about every material way.”
  • In fact, birthrates are now below long-term replacement levels, or nearly so, across much of Earth, not just in the industrialized West and Japan but also in India, China, much of Southeast Asia, Latin America — just about everywhere except Africa, although even there the continentwide rates are declining. “Girls that are never born cannot have babies,”
  • Because of improved health standards, birthing many children is not the survival imperative for families that it once was. In cramped cities, large families are not the blessing they were in the agricultural past. And women in many societies are ever more independent, socially and economically; they no longer accept that their fate is to be endlessly pregnant. If anything, the worry in many countries is that their populations are aging and that national vitality is ebbing.
  • Still, enough people are already around to ensure that the world’s population will keep rising. But for how long? That is a devilishly difficult question. One frequently cited demographic model by the United Nations envisions a peak of about nine billion around 2050. Other forecasts are for continued growth into the next century. Still others say the population will begin to drop before the middle of this century.
  • In Mr. Pearce’s view, the villain is not overpopulation but, rather, overconsumption. “We can survive massive demographic change,” he said in 2011. But he is less sanguine about the overuse of available resources and its effects on climate change
  • “Rising consumption today far outstrips the rising head count as a threat to the planet,” Mr. Pearce wrote in Prospect, a British magazine, in 2010. “And most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population,
  • “Let’s look at carbon dioxide emissions, the biggest current concern because of climate change,” he continued. “The world’s richest half billion people — that’s about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent of the population are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions.”
carolinewren

2014 Was Hottest Year on Record, Surpassing 2010 - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...on-record-surpassing-2010.html

science global warming

shared by carolinewren on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Last year was the hottest in earth’s recorded history, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring scientific warnings about the risks of runaway emissions and undermining claims by climate-change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped.
  • 2014 now surpasses 2010 as the warmest year in a global temperature record that stretches back to 1880. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997, a reflection of the relentless planetary warming that scientists say is a consequence of human emissions and poses profound long-term risks to civilization and to the natural world.
  • Longstanding claims by climate-change skeptics that global warming has stopped, seized on by politicians in Washington to justify inaction on emissions, depend on a particular starting year: 1998, when an unusually powerful El Niño produced the hottest year of the 20th century.
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  • indicates that global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”
  • John R. Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is known for his skepticism about the seriousness of global warming, pointed out in an interview that 2014 had surpassed the other record-warm years by only a few hundredths of a degree, well within the error margin of global temperature measurements.
  • It’s because the planet is warming. The basic issue is the long-term trend, and it is not going away.”
caelengrubb

Making green energy the default choice can help tackle climate change, study finds -- S... - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...210311123507.htm

shared by caelengrubb on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Researchers studying the Swiss energy market have found that making green energy the default option for consumers leads to an enduring shift to renewables and thus has the potential to cut CO2 emissions by millions of tonnes.
  • Both business and private customers largely accepted the default option, even though it was slightly more expensive, and the switch to green sources proved a lasting one.
  • Both companies restructured their products to offer a choice between conventional power, renewable power and "renewable plus," one company in 2009 and the other in 2016.
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  • Consumers were assigned the renewable package unless they opted out, a behavioural mechanism known to have success in a range of settings.
  • Further analysis of customer data in the household sector showed that women were around 6 per cent more likely than men to accept the green default, while women business owners were 8 per cent more likely to stick with the renewable package.
  • It is sometimes argued that the introduction of green energy defaults leads to an increase in energy use -- because the energy is 'clean' consumers are more relaxed about using it.
  • Large green default effects can considerably reduce CO2 emissions in countries with high fossil fuel share in their energy mix. Taking Germany as a case study and assuming a default effect of 80% in the household sector, the study calculated a CO2 reduction of about 45 million tonnes and a positive welfare effect of €1,240 million.
  • While the impact of default effects can be massive, the exact CO2 reduction figures and welfare gains depend on the CO2 emission factor and social cost of carbon.
tongoscar

Climate change: 1 in 3 plant and animal species extinct in 50 years, study warns - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Take a moment to cherish your plants and appreciate the animals you see around you.In 50 years, a third of them may no longer exist.
  • approximately one in three plant, insect and animal species could face extinction by 2070. However, things could be even worse if emissions continue to rise as rapidly as they have in recent decades.
  • In a worst-case scenario, that number could rise to over 55%.
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  • Of the 538 species studied, 44% of them have already experienced an extinction in a particular local area.
  • While many species were able to tolerate a moderate increase in maximum temperatures, 50% of the species had local extinctions if maximum temperatures increased by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius. That number rose to 95% if temperatures increased by more than 2.9 degrees Celsius.
  • With January going in the record books as the warmest January in 141 years and statistical analysis done by NOAA scientists predicting 2020 to be one of the five warmest years on record, the researchers believe there will be more local extinctions across the globe.
  • The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 by ministers from 195 countries from around the globe.It committed these countries to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and below 1.5 degrees, if possible.
  • "Based on our sample of 538 species, we projected a loss of 30% of the species under a more extreme warming scenario, but only about 16% if we stick to the Paris Agreement," Wiens told CNN. "So, think in 1 in 6 species, not 1 in 3."
  • The Paris Agreement is an international pact aimed at curbing global emissions of heat-trapping gases.Unfortunately, studies have shown that so far, many countries are failing to meet the emissions cuts they set to limit climate change.
  • "Some researchers have estimated that two-thirds of all species of plants and animals could be lost due to tropical deforestation alone," Wiens said. "If you combine that with climate change (which can impact species in protected forests and other reserves), then it really is terrible. Even from our data alone, there are extreme warming scenarios where 55% of the species would be lost from intact habitats. And note that deforestation also increases global warming. It is a double whammy against biodiversity."
tongoscar

Five climate issues Canada will have to tackle in 2020 - 0 views

www.opencanada.org/...s-canada-will-have-tackle-2020

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • But even before those fires, international climate action had been growing. This past fall, hundreds of thousands of people across Canada took to the streets to demand climate action; millions did so worldwide.
  • Conversations around climate change in Canada tend to dwell on carbon taxes, and on battles over pipelines getting built or not. There are, however, other important actions and policy areas that get far less attention, and that have a far greater impact on Canada’s emissions footprint, which, though small on a global level, are some of the highest in the world on a per capita basis.
  • Decide the fate of the Frontier oil sands mine.
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  • Drastically reduce emissions from cars and trucks.
  • Price emissions, regulate them, or do both.
  • Unfortunately, far too much of the conversation about climate change is centered around individual actions that people can take, things like flying less or eating less meat. But such lifestyle changes, as good intentioned as they are, don’t cut deep enough.
tongoscar

California leads fight to curb climate change | Environmental Defense Fund - 0 views

www.edf.org/...eads-fight-curb-climate-change

shared by tongoscar on 19 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Ten years after the passage of AB 32, California extended and strengthened the limit on greenhouse gas emissions with the passage of SB 32 in 2016. The state raised its goal for greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
  • California is now demonstrating impressive outcomes from the implementation of its climate policies. After the first decade of AB32 implementation, California's economy is growing while carbon pollution is declining.
  • Expanding the scope of its climate policies, the centerpiece of which is a cap-and-trade program that was extended until 2030.
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  • Playing a climate leadership role. In September 2018, the state organized the Global Climate Action Summit, a gathering of world leaders representing governments, the private sector and indigenous people in what became a momentous occasion for subnational climate action, as major companies and jurisdictions lined up to declare or reiterate their climate commitments.
  • Fast-tracking emissions reductions to benefit public health through policies that work in concert with cap and trade.
  • Establishing complementary policies, incentives, and market rules that help the state transition to a low-carbon, clean energy economy through promoting renewables and modernizing and automating energy options in the state.
  • Partnering with other regions and stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, to share California's lessons and experiences from the state's early adoption of comprehensive climate and energy policies. Oregon, for example, is poised to model its carbon pricing program on California’s experience, and is interested in eventually linking to California’s carbon market.
  • California could take further action by codifying an ambitious midcentury greenhouse gas reduction target to ensure continued momentum on climate action.
  • By taking bold action California is a leader on climate change. Hallmarks of its success are strong government leadership, accelerated investment in clean energy, and rapid growth of businesses that contribute to the advancement of the low-carbon economy.
tongoscar

Democratic candidates' views on climate change - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...ironment-climate-change-policy

shared by tongoscar on 19 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • It is a rare area in this primary where candidates are marching mostly to the same beat. They almost universally support a Green New Deal. They all vow to immediately reenlist the U.S. in the Paris accord to fight global warming.
  • Each of them would scrap all of the Trump rollbacks and set a firm deadline for moving the nation to net zero emissions, the point at which any greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are balanced by carbon sinks in the environment or technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a bold $1.7-trillion plan for climate action that belies his brand of “incremental” progressivism. It doesn’t go as far as some of his rivals, but the Biden vision is hardly incremental.
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  • He is calling for much further-reaching action and arguing that his deep experience in diplomacy makes him uniquely qualified to reposition the U.S. as the world leader in confronting global warming.
  • “On Day One, Biden will sign a series of new executive orders with unprecedented reach that go well beyond the Obama-Biden administration platform and put us on the right track,” the candidate’s plan vows.
  • Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., takes a more measured approach to reaching net zero emissions than some of his more progressive rivals.
  • Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is running as a moderate alternative to the progressive firebrands in the race. As such, her climate plans are more modest than those of some of her rivals.
Javier E

Map Shows Where Sea Level Rise Will Drown American Cities | WIRED - 0 views

www.wired.com/...ise-will-drown-american-cities

climate change global warming sea level coastline cities research

shared by Javier E on 13 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A new map from Climate Central shows how the water will flow into hundreds of US cities under the best and worst global warming scenarios
  • “One of the most astonishing things to me was finding that burning one gallon of gasoline translates to adding 400 gallons of water volume to the ocean in the long run,”
  • For example, when the global atmospheric CO2 level reaches 930 gigatons, Boston will be due for about 9 feet of sea level rise. That’s enough water to cover 25 percent of the city during high tide. In the extreme cuts scenario, atmospheric CO2 never reaches that level. Under business as usual fossil emissions however, a quarter of Boston is locked into a future under water by 2045.
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  • The study, in other words, isn’t about how much see level rise happens this century, but whether this century’s emissions bank enough carbon for total ice melt down—or some less drastic version. “Our analysis really looks at a 2000 year envelope,” says Strauss.
  • Under the ice, Greenland and Antarctica are uncharted territories. In order to calculate the rate at which those massive ice sheets slough off, Levermann says he would need to know more about the texture of the underlying rock.
lucieperloff

Why Riders Abandoning Buses and Trains is a Problem for Climate Change - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-ridership-climate-change.html

science coronavirus covid transportation

shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • On the London Underground, Piccadilly Circus station is nearly vacant on a weekday morning, while the Delhi Metro is ferrying fewer than half of the riders it used to. In Rio, unpaid bus drivers have gone on strike. New York City subway traffic is just a third of what it was before the pandemic.
  • Public transit offers a relatively simple way for cities to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention a way to improve air quality, noise and congestion.
  • “It’s urgent to act.”
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  • transportation experts are scrambling to figure out how to better adapt public transit to the needs of riders as cities begin to emerge from the pandemic.
  • In India, a company that sells secondhand cars online saw sales swell in 2020 and its own value as a company jump to $1 billion, according to news reports. Elsewhere, bike sales have grown, suggesting that people are pedaling a bit more.
  • Both London and Paris sought to use lockdowns to expand bike lanes.
  • ridership was just over half of normal in the first two months of this year.
  • Most importantly, if transit systems continue to lose passenger fare revenues, they will not be able to make the investments necessary to be efficient, safe and attractive to commuters.
  • The city transit agency, which had once projected a budget surplus for 2020, has instead been relying on government bailouts since the pandemic hit.
  • “only travel when absolutely necessary.”
  • There’s even more distress in cities where people rely in large part on private bus companies.
  • Strikes by bus drivers have made bus travel even slower and more chaotic.
  • efficient bus system is critical for Rio to not only reduce its carbon emissions but also to clean its air. “It’s not just an environmental issue, but a public health issue,” Ms. Celidonio said.
  • “Those cities that were investing, they will get out stronger,”
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