Category: Environment

The drive from Ranchi to Hazaribagh in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand is only 65 miles, but it takes nearly three hours. We swerve to avoid schoolchildren chatting with friends and meandering down the highway, honk at cows to get out of the way, and accelerate past pickups reconfigured as makeshift transport vehicles overflowing with workers. Men in sandals push bicycles overloaded with bags of coal down the highway, while on the back roads close to Hazaribagh, women carry buckets of the stuff on their heads.

Coal is what brought me to Jharkhand, one of India’s poorest and most polluted states. The pedestrian colliers, illegal miners trying to make ends meet, are just the start. All along the route to our destination, the Topa Open Coal Mine, a caravan of large, colorful trucks filled to the brim with coal barrel toward us in the opposite lane. When we finally reach the mine, I see the source of it all: an explosion has blasted through a wall of rock, opening access to new tranches of coal to feed the country’s fast-growing power and industrial needs. says JK John, the senior mining supervisor on site employed by a subsidiary of the state-owned Coal India Ltd.: “Here, coal is in demand.”

Two flights and more than 900 miles away, the northwestern state of Rajasthan is a world apart. Along a smoothly paved highway from the Jaisalmer airport, wind turbines dot the landscape as far as the eye can see. Farther from the town’s center, we approach a field of solar panels, comprising a 300-MW power plant opened in 2021 by the Indian company ReNew Power, providing electricity for the growing population of the state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai. Even as the region expands its renewable-energy industry, the atmosphere remains clean and pleasant enough to support a thriving tourist trade.

Jharkhand and Rajasthan, so different in appearance, are being shaped by the same fundamental force: India is growing so rapidly that its energy demand is effectively insatiable. But the two states present starkly different answers to that demand. Historically, fossil fuels from places like Jharkhand powered industrialization. But today, with climate concerns rising, many experts are calling for India to ditch coal as soon as possible and embrace the green-energy model so prevalent in Rajasthan.

Much rides on which approach dominates India’s energy future. In the three decades since reducing emissions became a discussion point on the global stage, analysts have portrayed the U.S., China, and Europe as the most critical targets for cutting pollution. But as the curve finally begins to bend in those places, it’s become clear that India will soon be the most important country in the climate change effort. In December, I spent 10 days in India, visiting coal communities, touring renewable-energy sites, and talking with leaders in the country’s political and financial hubs to understand India’s approach to the energy transition.

The picture that emerged is of a government following an approach uncharted for a country of its scale: pursue green technologies in the midst of industrialization while leaving the fate of coal to the market. “India, as a responsible global citizen, is willing to make the bet that it can satisfy the aspiration for higher living standards, while pursuing a quite different energy strategy from any large country before,” says Suman Bery, who leads NITI Aayog, the Indian government’s economic policy-making agency. India, Bery says, will pursue clean energy while seeking a “balance between energy access and affordability, energy security, and environmental considerations.”

Where that balance is struck could tip the climate scales worldwide. India contributes 7% of the emissions that cause global warming today, a percentage that will expand alongside its economy. This growth will help determine whether—and by how far—the world blows past the goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C. Equally important, India’s approach is being watched elsewhere. If it can use low-carbon development to bring prosperity to its 1.4 billion people, others will follow. Failure could lead to a retrenchment into fossil fuels across the Global South.

What the Global North does matters too. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates India needs $1.4 trillion in additional investment in coming decades to align its energy system with global climate targets; that will very likely require reforms at international lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to facilitate the flow of money. The best outcome, observers say, is one where India gets the help it needs to make the best choice for everyone. “India has to do it for itself,” says Rachel Kyte, the dean of the Fletcher School of international affairs at Tufts University. “And India needs to do it for the world.”

In a bitter irony, coal-rich Jharkhand cannot provide reliable electricity even to hospitals, schools, and other essential service providers. India’s second poorest state may be an extreme example, but such problems pervade every corner of the country and are the crux of its energy and climate challenge. It is, fundamentally, a developing nation, and its leaders do not want to write off any fuel source while energy demand continues its meteoric rise. As the country’s population swells to as high as a projected 1.8 billion over the next 40 years, and its economy grows at an even faster rate, the country will need to add a power system equivalent in size to that of the entire European Union, according to the IEA.

Historically, development at that scale happened one way: fossil fuels built a country’s industrial base, and then leaders pivoted to a lower-carbon, service-oriented model. China, one of history’s most successful examples of rapid modernization, built its industrial capacity by relentlessly adding coal-fired power plants and now boasts the second largest economy in the world, run primarily on coal. With that base established, the country has recently begun its full-fledged expansion of renewable energy.

India, with its abundant coal resources, could simply do the same. While research shows that a rapid expansion of renewable energy could provide the country with reliable electricity given adequate investment, no other country has tried it at India’s scale. Attempting a renewable revolution comes with some inevitable risks, like technical challenges and vulnerability to foreign supply chains. Meanwhile, coal is tried and tested. Above all, leaders in India insist that they have the right to power up using coal. In the lingo of the climate world, every country has its own population-based “fair share” of emissions it can produce before the world hits unsafe levels of global warming. In this formulation, the U.S. and European countries have already far exceeded their limits; India, on the other hand, has contributed only 4% of global emissions since 1850, despite being home to 18% of the world’s population, according to a 2019 U.N. report.

Whatever the reasoning, no one I spoke with in India, from academics to renewable-energy executives, would endorse a swift transition away from coal. “India’s not married to coal,” says Rahul Tongia, a senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. “It’s just that’s what India’s got.” Instead, government officials are working to promote renewable energy without actively working to shut down coal.

At the center of this approach sits Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi, whose support for solar power extends back to his time as the top official in the state of Gujarat in the 2010s, has set bold renewable-energy targets, saying at COP26 in 2021 that the country would install 500 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity by 2030. That’s equivalent to 15 times California’s current renewable capability.

To get there, the Modi government has merged its renewable-energy and clean-technology objectives with its policy of liberalizing the economy and boosting the private sector. Bery, of NITI Aayog, describes the government’s approach as market-based: creating a context for clean technologies to “edge out coal in the market” rather than relying on government mandates. India, he tells me in his New Delhi office, should be “backing all these other technologies, so that it’s a pure commercial choice, rather than a regulatory choice to phase out coal.”

Industry insiders say this approach is working. The government-backed Solar Energy Corp. of India, for example, all but eliminated the risk that states would renege on their agreements—a significant worry for the banks that finance such projects—by serving as an intermediary between private-sector developers and states. If states don’t pay, the agency can essentially force them to do so—an innovation that has played a “fundamental” role in allowing the industry to grow, says Sumant Sinha, who has led ReNew Power since 2011. Using policy to drive private-sector investment is the norm in places like the U.S., but it’s new for India. For decades, electricity production and distribution in India was controlled by state-owned enterprises, from state-owned coal mines to state-owned power plants to the state-owned grid. With the new approach, the private sector deploys clean-energy technologies, and the government facilitates.

This is a fundamental, ideological change in Indian governance. The preamble to India’s constitution declares it a “socialist” state. But the investment in renewable energy that has led capacity to double since Modi took office has come almost entirely from private companies—and it isn’t slowing down. “The most natural thing for India to meet this burgeoning electricity requirement is to meet it through renewable energy, because it’s the cheapest, most commercially sound thing to do,” says Sinha. The IEA projects that solar power will make up around 30% of India’s electricity generation by 2040, matching coal’s share. This private-sector vitality was on full display in Rajasthan, where I saw massive wind and solar farms that belong to the country’s biggest private players, including the mega-corporations Tata and Adani.

But the focus on markets also reflects hard politics. Driving around Jharkhand, a state of 33 million people, it’s impossible to miss how entrenched the coal industry has become. Livelihoods depend on it, from educated supervisors running the show to indigent locals scrounging for scraps of coal. On the outskirts of the Topa mine, I saw an entire village abandoned to make way for miners to open a new coal seam.

Displacing such a colossus, policymakers say, cannot be done with a regulation here and there. “The minute you say ‘no coal’ there will be political implications. There will be riots,” says Amitabh Kant, who is leading India’s G-20 conference this year. “But if coal becomes commercially nonviable, that will be acceptable because the market will do it.”

A smooth transition matters not only for India but also for the rest of the world—it is a test case for how to implement an energy shift in developing countries while supporting their economic growth.

India’s leaders are keenly aware of the global stakes. Wherever I traveled there, I saw signs celebrating India hosting this year’s G-20, the annual forum for the world’s largest economies, at which the host is keen to make climate a central topic. India will tout its efforts to spur behavioral change among consumers, and its nascent use of hydrogen as an energy-storage medium. The meetings, Kant says, could lead countries to come to agreement on how to reform institutions like the IMF and World Bank so they can help developing countries decarbonize. The energy transition globally will cost untold trillions of dollars, and most countries now agree that these international financial institutions need to create instruments to make investing in places like India less risky for private financiers.

To actually deliver on such an agenda, though, India must first convince the rest of the world that its model for low-carbon development can work. Modi and others have already begun a campaign to show the rest of the world how serious it is—and to point out Western hypocrisy. At COP27, the annual U.N. climate conference held in November in Egypt, India lobbied for countries to agree to phase out “all fossil fuels” rather than just coal, an implicit challenge to the U.S. and other Western countries that are rich in oil. “Why should only coal be phased out?” Kant asks me rhetorically. And Modi’s LiFE campaign, which focuses on the role behavioral change can play in cutting emissions, stems from a recognition that India’s per capita emissions are just 40% of the global average.

India’s energy future remains India’s “choice.” But for all of the country’s insistence on sovereignty, by marrying its energy policy to its economic liberalization it has chosen a path of interdependence. In leaving the speed of its green transition to the whims of the market, India has accepted a dependence on price signals, investment choices, and economic trends far beyond the control of New Delhi or Mumbai. “The political signals, the policy evolution, or even the international commitments are also contingent on how quickly the market participants are able to respond,” says Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, an Indian environmental NGO.

Which means our future on the planet, once again, depends on a collective choice. Political leaders across the Global North and South can reform the institutions that govern the global economy, ensuring that the market decisively favors clean energy over fossil fuels. Or, we can all bid farewell to global climate targets and gird ourselves for the far more costly dangers that come next. (With reporting by Solcyre Burga and Leslie Dickstein/New York: https://time.com/6246057/india-coal-solar-power-climate-fight)

It’s been a big swing and a miss when it comes to a typical Canadian winter so far this season. In fact, without any major pattern changes, Canadian cities are on pace for the warmest winter on record.

As we creep towards the seasons’ halfway mark, you may be wondering where has winter gone? Don’t worry, it exists and it’s coming.

Per reports, an astonishing -62.4°C was recorded in Tongulakh, Siberia on January 14th. In addition to becoming Earth’s coldest temperature recorded in 2023, the all-time station record was broken in Tongulakh.

This was the coldest temperature Russia has experienced in over a decade. For perspective, this temperature is a mere 0.3°C from the average temperature on Mars and would freeze exposed skin in seconds.

In contrast, major cities across eastern Canada are pacing towards the warmest winter on record. Halifax would need a significant cold snap in the second half of this season to drop this winter’s average temperature by 1.5°C towards the warm winter record holder of 2015-2016.

Additionally, if Canada’s mild conditions continue, Toronto could see its first winter with an average temperature above freezing.

How could this be?

It all comes down to the global pattern. The core of the polar vortex has taken an extended vacation in Russia, ushering in this extreme cold and giving mild air across Canada a consistently winning hand.

The recent zonal Pacific jet stream has kept these conditions in place for a prolonged period, but long-range models hint that change is coming.

Closing out the month of January, the jet stream trends into an amplified pattern. This is a signal for a more active pattern and gives extreme arctic cold more opportunities to travel south over Canada.

Thought your winter was cold? Temperatures in the world’s coldest city have plunged to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit).

The city of Yakutsk in east Siberia, widely identified as one of the coldest places in the world, has seen an abnormally long cold snap. January is its coldest month and, although they’re accustomed to freezing temperatures, residents in the remote region are taking extra precautions to keep warm.

“You can’t fight it,” one resident dressed in two scarves and multiple layers of gloves, hats and hoods told Reuters. “You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer.”

Layering, according to another resident selling frozen fish at a local market, was the key. “Just dress warmly. In layers, like a cabbage,” she said.

In 2018, it got so cold that some residents said their eyelashes froze.

Home to fewer than 1 million residents, Yakutsk winters can be extreme — even by Russian standards.

But the city drew international attention in July when haze from nearby wildfires tore through forests, blanketing the region in thick smoke.

Scientists expressed grave concerns about the increasing frequency of the fires brought about by climate change in the Siberian arctic.

An Arctic blast surged across a wide swath of the United States on Wednesday, gripping much of the nation with bitter cold and life-threatening wind chills ahead of a powerful winter storm expected to complicate holiday travel for millions of Americans.

About 200 million people in the Lower 48 states were under extreme weather alerts as a freezing air mass descended from the Northern Plains, sending temperatures into a nosedive, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service (NWS).

The latest bulletin from the National Weather Service (NWS) names the cause as a “strong arctic high pressure system,” which swept down from Canada, leaving a wake of life-threatening weather systems across 17 states.

The extreme weather coincided with the start of a holiday travel season shaping up as one of the busiest in decades. Nearly 113 million people could travel more than 50 miles (30 km) from their homes beginning Friday, according to the American Automobile Association, assuming winter conditions don’t scupper their plans. Holiday travelers should proceed with extreme caution, forecasters say.

The impending storm, fed by moisture from the Great Lakes, could dump up to a foot (0.3 m) of snow on the Upper Midwest between Wednesday and Friday, with blizzard conditions stretching from the Northern Plains states to the Great Lakes region.

By Thursday night, a so-called “bomb cyclone” will likely form as the strong Arctic front sweeps across the Great Lakes, driving temperatures to record-breaking lows on the Gulf Coast and the eastern United States by Friday, Oravec said.

Wind-chill and hard-freeze warnings extended through much of Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, with a hard-freeze watch posted for the Florida panhandle.

By Friday, temperatures could hit the season’s lowest in what is only the first week of winter. Even northern Florida cities like Jacksonville and Tallahassee could see a chill as low as 20 F on Christmas Eve.

“Low visibility will create even more dangerous travel conditions on top of snow covered roadways,” the NWS says. “Additionally, the strong winds could lead to potential power outages from the Midwest to the Northeast. It is imperative that travelers check the latest forecast before venturing out.”

More than 1,900 flights have been canceled so far across the US. “Life-threatening” wind chill: The Midwest will see more than a foot of snow and possible blizzard conditions, as the weather service warns of “life-threatening” wind chills for millions.

The cold will stick around for Christmas weekend, making this the coldest Christmas in roughly 40 years for portions of the Plains and Midwest.

Frostbite is a major risk for those trying to brave the cold, the NWS says. Subzero temperatures in some parts of the U.S. this week could lead to frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes. Those venturing outside should dress in layers, cover their skin and change into dry clothing as soon as possible. But, experts say, the best prevention by far is simply to stay indoors.

After four years of fractious talks, nearly 200 countries, including India, approved a historic Paris-style deal on Monday to protect and reverse dangerous loss to global biodiversity following an intense final session of negotiations at the UN COP15 summit in Canada. The summit started on December 7.

Amid loud applause from assembled delegates, the president of the COP15 biodiversity summit, Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu, declared the Kunming-Montreal Agreement adopted. The Chinese-brokered deal is aimed at saving the lands, oceans and species from pollution, degradation and climate change, reported news agency PTI. Read more here.

Sharp drop in wildlife

Monitored wildlife populations – mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish – have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970, according to the Living Planet Report 2022 of the World Wildlife Fund.

Key features of the deal

The deal commits to progressively increase the level of financial resources from all sources by 2030, mobilising at least $200 billion per year. This represents roughly a doubling from a 2020 baseline.

A major achievement is also the commitment to $20 billion in international finance flows by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.

The 23 targets in the accord also include cutting environmentally “destructive” farming subsidies, reducing the risk from pesticides, and tackling invasive species.

Farming subsidy is tricky issue

Last week, India said a numerical global target for pesticide reduction in the agriculture sector is unnecessary and must be left for countries to decide. It also said the agriculture sector in India, like other developing countries, is the source of “life, livelihoods, and culture for hundreds of millions,” and support to it cannot be targeted for elimination.

The Swedish Climate Activist’s Upcoming Book Offers Advice On How To Travel Better.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg first came to the world’s attention as a teenager when she spoke up at a United Nations summit in 2019, imploring all to take the climate crisis more seriously. Now, she’s created The Climate Book in collaboration with the founder of the FridaysForFuture global youth movement.

The book—which is available for pre-order now—is a comprehensive compendium of essays, scientific facts, anthropologic observations, and think pieces from some of the most respected minds and writers, including Kate Raworth, Naomi Klein, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, and George Monbiot. One thing is clear: we don’t have time to waste, and we need to strive for more climate positivity whenever, however, and wherever, we roam.

As the United Nations climate conference COP27 happens in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, sustainability editor Juliet Kinsman shares thoughts and advice from Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate-action communicators as featured in The Climate Book.

Educate yourself

“Educating yourself about the climate crisis is one of the most powerful things we can do,” Greta told the audience of the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre at the global launch of The Climate Book. A good start is to watch the talk Greta gave, then read this five-part tome, which breaks down the facts with emotive stories, graphs, and powerful photographs. As Margaret Atwood puts it in the book: “We have a lot of knowledge: we know what the problems are, and we know—more or less—what must be done to solve them.”

Understand the science

“The sustainability crisis is a crisis of information not getting through,” says Greta. In using her high profile and platform to promote this 400-page-plus book, she’s upping awareness in everything from melting ice shelves to economics, as well as fast fashion and the loss of species. Global warming is, of course, caused by too many human-generated emissions fueling the Greenhouse Effect, where gases are trapped in the atmosphere causing the planet to heat up to dangerous levels that sparks extreme weather, such as wildfire-inducing heatwaves, devastating droughts but also flash floods.

Meanwhile, our oceans are under siege: the melting of the ice caps results in rising sea levels, and increased temperatures cause acidification which messes with all manner of marine life. Our planet’s functions are all interconnected. Concerns such as the loss of fertile soils, air pollution, and water shortages are part of a bigger picture that has implications for all eight billion of us.

Travel better

Consider greener modes of travel, opt for electric options, and take public transport: trains, trams, buses, and ferries. Greta urges authorities to offer low-carbon logistics free of charge and subsidize trains instead of planes, while we explore car-pooling and car-sharing options. And, of course, Greta highlights that the tourism industry makes up around eight percent of global emissions and flags that the world’s wealthiest are guilty of 50 percent of all aviation’s emissions. This is why we need to make those contrails count when we travel, and support communities in developing nations, by leaving as much in local pockets as possible.

Do away with disposability

Our addiction to plastic is killing us. Microplastics are contaminating every aspect of our environment. Plus, plastics are made using petrochemicals—we need to reuse all that we can. It’s clear a shift back to longer-lasting products that stay in circulation is key. Generations ago, this was how so many cultures rolled, yet today we don’t give a second thought to so much single-use. Help swerve the plundering of natural resources and energy used to produce all those throwaway goods, and keep extending the life span of all you use.

Support rewilding efforts

Help the restoration of forests, wetlands, savannahs, reefs, and other depleted ecosystems by choosing nature-positive activities and, in turn, help the regeneration of life on Earth, which will also draw down much of the carbon we have released into the atmosphere. “We must start working with nature instead of against it,” says George Monbiot in the book. “Rewilding enables us to begin to heal some of the great damage we have inflicted on the living world.”

Boost biodiversity

All ecosystems are interconnected, and every cog is required to keep this machine called planet Earth functioning. Us paying for trips and activities that provide revenue for wildlife conservation is critical since countless plants and animal species face extinction—and with the loss of each species, we are one step closer to destroying the web of life that sustains us all. Climate change is accelerating the loss of species, and the loss of species is accelerating climate change. Both problems must be solved at the same time to protect our way of life. Greta’s short film #ForNature released to mark Biodiversity Day 2021 was a potent reminder.

Be more conscious, considerate consumers

We need to move away from our voracious consumption of goods and things, be less individualistic and make more responsible choices to reduce negative ecological impact, emphasizes Kate Raworth, author of Donut Economics. Among the economist’s tips for lower-carbon living in The Climate Book are keeping electronic products for much longer, buying less brand-new fashion, minimizing short-haul flights—in summary, possessing and using less, and sharing more.

Shift towards a plant-based diet

We may not be able to fix everything in a click of our fingers by going vegan, Greta shrugged in her talk at the Southbank. But as Michael Clark notes in The Climate Book, a drop in meat and dairy production will drastically reduce emissions from farming and spare land from deforestation. The more of us eating and drinking fewer animal-origin goods the better.

Challenge greenwashing

With antennae that are finely tuned to pick up on hollow promises and hot air aimed at earning the declarant a halo they don’t deserve, Greta makes a call to call out greenwash and false sustainability claims. Her particular bugbear is the greenwashing of sustainable consumerism, challenging the brands that try and tell us we can buy and pamper our way out of this mess; we need to take a more holistic view of the causes and symptoms of the climate emergency.

Be an activist

“In order to change things, we need everyone—we need billions of activists,” says Greta. Advocate for climate change by marching, boycotting, striking, and talking loudly about social injustices and inequities and asking more questions.

This article was originally published on Condé Nast Traveller U.K. https://www.cntraveler.com/story/greta-thunberg-on-how-we-can-all-be-climate-positive-travelers?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=cnt&utm_mailing=CNT_Daily_PM_111822&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5c48c50624c17c44347a6b03&cndid=38446023&hasha=d729f2ad4b16f35fa3052c4ec431fef0&hashb=099d04aa312da10f83c968ceee48c14571c644c0&hashc=93722cfd2d142a6cadb830d809db0108e5c0075135128e32699f1ab3c45b9b6f&esrc=AUTO_PRINT&utm_term=CNT_Daily

For the first time, the nations of the world decided to help pay for the damage an overheating world is inflicting on poor countries, but they finished marathon climate last week without further addressing the root cause of those disasters — the burning of fossil fuels.

On November 20^th, 2002, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), which took place in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh, concluded with a historic decision to establish and operationalize a loss and damage fund.

The COP27 global climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, wrapped with an agreement to compensate developing countries for the damages they have suffered from climate change. While developing countries have long pushed for a “loss and damage” fund for suffering they say they have endured from climate change, wealthy countries, including the U.S., had resisted the idea.

But that changed this year, and those developing nations got a fund establishing such climate reparations. Still, questions linger over how that fund will actually secure monetary backing. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres heralded the agreement as an “important step towards justice.”

“I welcome the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period,” Guterres said in a statement. “Clearly this will not be enough, but it is a much-needed political signal to rebuild broken trust.”

“The red line we must not cross is the line that takes our planet over the 1.5 degree temperature limit,” he stressed, urging the world not to relent “in the fight for climate justice and climate ambition. We can and must win this battle for our lives,” he concluded.

The historic event was host to more than 100 Heads of State and Governments, over 35,000 participants and numerous pavilions showcasing climate action around the world and across different sectors. The deal, gaveled around dawn in this Egyptian Red Sea resort city, established a fund for what negotiators call loss and damage.

It was a big win for poorer nations which have long called for money — sometimes viewed as reparations — because they are often the victims of climate-worsened floods, droughts, heat waves, famines and storms despite having contributed little to the pollution that heats up the globe.

It has also long been called an issue of equity for nations hit by weather extremes and small island states that face an existential threat from rising seas.

“Three long decades and we have finally delivered climate justice,” said Seve Paeniu, the finance minister of Tuvalu. “We have finally responded to the call of hundreds of millions of people across the world to help them address loss and damage.”

Pakistan’s environment minister, Sherry Rehman, said the establishment of the fund “is not about dispensing charity. It is clearly a down payment on the longer investment in our joint futures,” she said, speaking for a coalition of the world’s poorest nations.

Antigua and Barbuda’s Molwyn Joseph, who chairs the organization of small island states, described the agreement as a “win for our entire world. We have shown those who have felt neglected that we hear you, we see you, and we are giving you the respect and care you deserve,” he said.

The deal followed a game of chicken, with nations that supported the fund also signaling they would walk away if there was any backsliding on language on the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Early Sunday morning, delegates approved the compensation fund but had not dealt with the contentious issues of an overall temperature goal, emissions cutting and the desire to target all fossil fuels for phase down. Through the wee hours of the night, the European Union and other nations fought back what they considered backsliding in the Egyptian presidency’s overarching cover agreement and threatened to scuttle the rest of the process.

The package was revised again, removing most of the elements Europeans had objected to but adding none of the heightened ambition they were hoping for.

“What we have in front of us is not enough of a step forward for people and planet,” a disappointed Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Union, told his fellow negotiators. “It does not bring enough added efforts from major emitters to increase and accelerate their emissions cuts.

“We have all fallen short in actions to avoid and minimize loss and damage,” Timmermans said. “We should have done much more.” Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock likewise voiced frustration. “It is more than frustrating to see overdue steps on mitigation and the phase-out of fossil energies being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers,” she said.

The agreement includes a veiled reference to the benefits of natural gas as low emission energy, despite many nations calling for a phase down of natural gas, which does contribute to climate change.

While the new agreement doesn’t ratchet up calls for reducing emissions, it does retain language to keep alive the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The Egyptian presidency kept offering proposals that harkened back to 2015 Paris language which also mentioned a looser goal of 2 degrees. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

Nor did the final deal expand on last year’s call to phase down global use of “unabated coal” even though India and other countries pushed to include oil and natural gas in language from Glasgow. That too was the subject of last minute debate, especially upsetting Europeans.

Last year’s climate talks president chided the summit leadership for knocking down his efforts to do more to cut emissions with a forceful listing of what was not done.

“We joined with many parties to propose a number of measures that would have contributed to this emissions peaking before 2025, as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text,” the United Kingdom’s Alok Sharma said emphasizing the last part. “Clear follow through on the phase down of coal. Not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text weakened in the final minutes.”

And in his remarks to negotiators, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell, who hails from Grenada, called on the world “to move away from fossil fuels, including coal oil and gas.”

However, that fight was overshadowed by the historic compensation fund. “Quite a few positives to celebrate amidst the gloom and doom” of not cutting emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, said climate scientist Maarten van Aalst of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, which responds to climate disasters.

It’s a reflection of what can be done when the poorest nations remain unified, said Alex Scott, a climate diplomacy expert at the think tank E3G. “I think this is huge to have governments coming together to actually work out at least the first step of … how to deal with the issue of loss and damage,” Scott said. But like all climate financials, it is one thing to create a fund, it’s another to get money flowing in and out, she said. The developed world still has not kept its 2009 pledge to spend $100 billion a year in other climate aid — designed to help poor nations develop green energy and adapt to future warming.

Next year’s talks will also see further negotiations to work out details of the new loss and damage fund, as well as review the world’s efforts to meet the goals of the Paris accord, which scientists say are slipping out of reach.

According to the agreement, the fund would initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources such as international financial institutions. While major emerging economies such as China wouldn’t automatically have to contribute, that option remains on the table. This is a key demand by the European Union and the United States, who argue that China and other large polluters currently classified as developing countries have the financial clout and responsibility to pay their way.

The fund would be largely aimed at the most vulnerable nations, though there would be room for middle-income countries that are severely battered by climate disasters to get aid.

Martin Kaiser, the head of Greenpeace Germany, described the agreement on a loss and damage as a “small plaster on a huge, gaping wound.”

“It’s a scandal that the Egyptian COP presidency gave petrostates such as Saudi Arabia space to torpedo effective climate protection,” he said.  Many climate campaigners are concerned that pushing for strong action to end fossil fuel use will be even harder at next year’s meeting, which will be hosted in Dubai, located in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. (Wanjohi Kabukuru, David Keyton, Theodora Tongas and Kelvin Chan contributed to this report.)

In essence, the World Climate Summit 2022 catalysed the bold commitments we need to tackle the urgent global issue of climate change. Throughout the last 13 years, World Climate Summit has become a key platform for connecting markets with policies and is the leading business and investment forum alongside the annual international climate negotiations.

​Building on the success of the last decade, the Summit leveraged its expertise and experience in bringing together public and private sector leaders from across the world. It facilitated the collaboration necessary for the innovation, investments and policies needed to achieve ambitious climate targets. With the Decade to Deliver on Climate Action more crucial now than ever.

Countries must re-prioritise climate change or the world faces catastrophe, the UN chief has told BBC News. Secretary General António Guterres was speaking in New York ahead of a major climate conference in Egypt.

“There has been a tendency to put climate change on the back burner,” he said. “If we are not able to reverse the present trend, we will be doomed.”

The conference, known as COP27, will bring together countries to discuss tackling climate change.

Mr Guterres said that current global problems such as inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the high prices of energy and food were distracting governments.

“Bring back climate change to the centre of the international debate,” he urged.

The UN chief insisted that leaders should not abandon key goals, including keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C, in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

He said he would like to see both King Charles III and new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attending COP27, saying King Charles has been a “constant voice” calling attention to the problem of climate change.

He also called on the US and China to work together at the conference, saying the world relies on their leadership. In August, China said it was ending co-operation with the US on climate change after a leading US politician visited Taiwan.

“This is the defining issue of our time, nobody has the right to sacrifice international action on climate change for any reason,” he warned.

“We need to tell the truth. The truth is that the impact of climate change on a number of countries in the world, especially hotspots, is already devastating,” he added.

Governments must deliver the $100billion of finance promised to developing countries facing the harshest impacts of climate change, Mr Guterres insists.

Climate change threatening global health – report

What is the Egypt climate conference and why is it important? 

Pakistan was devastated by floods this year that scientists say were made more likely by climate change

A windfall tax on fossil fuel energy profits could help to find the remaining money, he suggested.

And he called on countries not to invest in more fossil fuels and said they should instead support renewable energy. “The most stupid thing is to bet on what has led us to this disaster,” he said.

Asked if he should himself attend climate protests, Mr Guterres said he organised demonstrations when he was younger, but his job now was not to go “from barricade to barricade”. Instead, he said, it was to put pressure on governments for change.

The UN leader said that the presence of young activist Greta Thunberg at COP27 would be” very much welcome”, even though she has said she would not attend. He also praised the leadership of young people around the world in calling attention to climate change.

The interview coincided with a report warning that in 2021 there were more greenhouse gases warming our atmosphere than ever.

Atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – reached record highs in 2021, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found.

It also said concentrations of the powerful gas methane jumped by the highest amount in 40 years, mystifying experts.

The COP27 conference will see global leaders meet in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt from 6-18 November to discuss what progress has been made on meeting climate goals.

Last year at COP26, in Glasgow, governments pledged to cut back or stop using fossil fuels, end deforestation, and provide money to developing countries facing the worst of climate change.

The negotiations this year will focus on what progress has been made and implementing those promises.

(AP) — A horticulture teacher from Minnesota set a new U.S. record Monday for the heaviest pumpkin after raising a giant gourd weighing 2,560 pounds. 

Travis Gienger, of Anoka, Minnesota set the new record and won an annual pumpkin-weighing contest in Northern California. 

“Minnesota has a great midyear, but our spring in our parts is really, really tough. So to do it in Minnesota, it just shouldn’t happen,” Gienger said. “It’s like winning the Tour de France on a big wheel. You know, you can only hope, but it worked.”

Gienger drove the gargantuan gourd for 35 hours to see his hard work pay off at the 49th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

“You think driving in a snowstorm is bad? Try driving one of these things,” he said. 

Gienger, who also won the same contest in Northern California in 2020, broke a record set last week in New York where a grower raised a massive pumpkin weighing 2,554 pounds.

A grower in Italy holds the world record for the heaviest pumpkin. He grew a 2,702-pound squash in 2021, according to Guinness World Records.

Hyderabad bagged the coveted ‘World Green City Award 2022’ instituted by the International Association of Horticulture Producers (AIPH) at a ceremony held in Jeju, South Korea on Friday. Hyderabad also won the ‘Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth’ category award, which acknowledged the greening of the Outer Ring Road. In the category ‘Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth’, the greening of the Outer Ring Road was submitted as Hyderabad’s entry. 

The category focuses on creating systems and solutions that allow all residents to overcome economic distress and thrive and the ORR greenery called as ‘Green Garland to the State’ was adjudged the best in this category.MAUD Minister KT Rama Rao has been emphasising on improving greenery along the ORR. 

Chief Minister Sri K. Chandrashekar Rao expressed happiness over Hyderabad city winning the prestigious “International Association of Horticulture Producers” (AIPH) awards.

Hon’ble CM congratulated Municipal Administration & Urban Development Minister Sri KT Rama Rao, Special Chief Secretary Sri Arvind Kumar and GHMC staff on Hyderabad being adjudged the winner of “Green City Award 2022” and “Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth” Award.

These international awards have further strengthened the reputation of Telangana and the country. They are a proof that the Telangana Govt.’s urban development programs like Haritha Haram are bearing ‘green’ fruits for India, CM said.

“It is a matter of pride for Telangana that Hyderabad is the only city from India to be selected for these international awards,” CM KCR said. Called upon the people, public representatives and officials of the State to continue the efforts for greener Telangana to realise a Green India.

CM said that, the efforts of the State Government through Haritha Haram and the environment-friendly policies have positioned not just Telangana but India as a country on the global green stage. And this is something the whole world should be proud of.

Indian Musical Based On Ancient Text Takes Center Stage Off-Broadway In November

Entertainment

PRESS PREVIEW has announced The Off-Broadway premiere of Rimli Roy’s RAMAAVAN, the story of Prince Ram and King Ravan, based on the ancient Indian literary text, “The Ramayana.” The musical is performed in English by an international cast including Caucasians, African Americans, LatinX, and South Asians. 

It is a story of duty, honor, love, courage, and revenge told through verse, traditional (classical and folk), and experimental Indian dance and music, along with world genres of musical theatre, opera, contemporary, jazz, ballet, and modern dance. The concept, script, costumes, and music are all original and were workshopped and performed in 2019 in Jersey City and Hoboken. RAMAAVAN is an evolving theatrical experience that appeals to a global audience today.

Though the tale is ancient, the modern-day interpretation of the story challenges the ‘Status Quo.’ Some of the dominant themes include:

Peace, mutual respect, and understanding,

Women’s rights and Shakti (power)

Racism and color consciousness

Cultural representation

Brotherhood and harmony

WHEN: Wednesday, October 19, 2022, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
 
WHERE: Consulate General of India in New York,
3 E 64th St., between Madison and 5th Avenue

Performances will take place from Wednesday, Nov. 2nd to Sunday, Nov. 6th at The American Theatre of Actors – Cullum Theatre at 314 W 54th St. in Times Square. For showtimes and ticket information, please click HERE. To watch select excerpts from the show, please click HERE. For high-resolution photographs from the New Jersey shows, please click HERE. 

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties 27 or COP27 barely a month away, Secretary General António Guterres has stepped up his warnings about the follies of ignoring “a life-or-death struggle” that the world is in the grip of.

“A third of Pakistan flooded. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years. The Philippines hammered. The whole of Cuba in black-out. And here, in the United States, Hurricane Ian has delivered a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune from the climate crisis,” Guterres told journalists painting an increasingly dire picture of the climate catastrophe.

His observations come in the run-up to the COP27, which begins on November 6 and ends November 18 at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.

Guterres has been particularly critical of the G20 industrialized nations in stalling any major action. He said that the collective commitments of G20 leading industrialized nations governments are coming “far too little, and far too late”.

“The actions of the wealthiest developed and emerging economies simply don’t add up,” Guterres said, pointing out that current pledges and policies are “shutting the door” on limiting global temperature to 2°C, let alone meet the 1.5°C goal.

His comments acquire particular significance since they come just before the pre COP27 planning meetings being organized in Kinshasa, in the Congo. Guterres said, “we are in a life-or-death struggle for our own safety today and our survival tomorrow,” even while counseling that there is no time for pointing fingers or “twiddling thumbs” but instead requires “a quantum level compromise between developed and emerging economies”.

Perhaps part of that compromise is the $100 billion in pledges that Guterres expects from the developed world to fulfil in order to support climate action in developing countries.

He called the COP27 is “the number one litmus test” of how seriously governments take the growing climate toll on the most vulnerable countries.

“This week’s pre-COP can determine how this crucial issue will be handled in Sharm el-Shaikh,” he said as he called for clarity from developed countries on the delivery of their $100 billion pledge.

In Kinshasa, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned environment ministers and others that the window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis is closing.

“Mohammed recalled that at last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow, developed nations had promised to double adaptation support to $40 billion dollars a year by 2025,” according to an official UN statement.

“The UN deputy chief called for a clear roadmap on how the funding will be delivered, starting this year. She added that $40 billion is “only a fraction of the $300 billion that will be needed annually by developing countries for adaptation by 2030,” the statement said.

In the run up to the COP27, the most disturbing realization is that the goal keeping Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above its preindustrial level is all but dead. As pointed out by Guterres repeatedly, the wealthiest economies are “shutting the door” on limiting the temperature to 2°C, let alone meet the 1.5°C goal.

That makes the work of the COP27 so much harder even as the world daily experiences extreme consequences of climate change caused by a warming planet.

As pointed out by Guterres, global emissions have continued to rise since 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations–led panel of scientists and scholars, said the goal of 1.5°C had become impossible. While it is often said the goal is “technically” possible to achieve but it invariably runs into global development compulsions and challenges, particularly in the developing world.

Since the 2018 IPCC report all the dire scenarios of extreme droughts, famines, hurricanes and other related catastrophes have become a reality around the world. Guterres has used his powerful platform to unrelentingly talk about the climate crisis as the defining challenge for humanity.

The best that is hoped for by many experts is that even as the world will overshoot the goal through the century there are expectations that by 2050 the world will control the temperature by removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Newswise — Hot days followed by sweltering nights without any temperature relief in between might become a new norm towards the end of the 21st century. Researchers from the University of Zurich have analyzed the frequency, intensity and length of such extreme events for five Swiss cities. Lugano and Geneva would be most affected.

Climate change is making extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and droughts more frequent and intense. The hot summers in recent years already had severe impacts on human health, particularly in cities, due to heat accumulation during the day and lack of cooling at night. Such compound concurrent hot day and night extremes are of greater concern for health than individual hot days or hot nights, and they will become longer lasting and more pervasive in Swiss cities in the future, as a UZH study shows.

Heat waves might become up to eight times more frequent

Researchers from the Department of Geography have investigated how adaptation options and various future scenarios affect the frequency and intensity of compound concurrent hot day and night extremes in the five Swiss cities Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lugano and Zurich. Their projections suggest that the frequency of compound extreme heatwaves, exceeding previous day and night temperature highs, could increase by up to 7.8-fold and that their duration might increase by up to 5.3-fold in all cities in Switzerland by the end of century. “Our findings underline the need for Swiss cities to adapt to extreme heatwaves by reducing daytime heating, improving cooling at night and strengthening the resilience of the population toward more severe heatwaves,” says first author Saeid Ashraf Vaghefi.

Three metrics applied on three time periods

In their study, the researchers defined three metrics to analyze heat waves: a) the annual number of concurrent hot days and nights, where the threshold for both day and night is exceeded, b) the annual frequency of such events, where the threshold is exceeded for at least two days in a row, and c) the duration of the events. These metrics were combined with three emission scenarios (low, moderate, high) and adapted to three time periods of 30 years each: the past (1980–2020), the near future (2020–2050) and the distant future (2070–2100).

Lugano and Geneva are more strongly affected

The results demonstrate a significant rise in the number of hot day and night events in all cities, but more notably in the cities at low latitude. The highest increase occurs in Lugano with 65.8 days in the past period, 110 days in the near future and 371 days in the distant future, followed by Geneva with 48 days in the past, 108 and 362 in the near and distant future respectively. Still significant, but less pronounced, are the increases in Basel (48/74/217 days), Bern (15/44/213 days) and Zurich (14/50/217).

“In our study, the projections consistently show that the compound hot day and night extremes will become more likely and more intense in all cities and under all emission scenarios, but notably significant under high emissions scenarios and after the 2050s,” says Vaghefi. “A hot day followed by a hot night without relief may become a new norm towards the end of the century. Therefore, we suggest that policymakers and stakeholders perform a systematic adaptation analysis prior to the implementation of any adaptation options.”

In an ongoing project, UZH researchers are investigating how different adaptation measures such as increasing vegetation density, improving usage of existing water bodies, reducing anthropogenic heat by using green and renewable energy, and changing the hours of outdoor activities can help to manage the thresholds of different drivers of extreme events.

South Asia’s Most Cutting-Edge Artists To Be Featured In New York

Even as artists of color begin to gain a foothold in the upper echelons of the art world, naming widely celebrated Asian diasporic artists with cemented legacies in the art historical canon remains challenging. Oftentimes, it feels as though we’re constantly excavating long overlooked or ignored artistic practices.

Some of the rising artists of the Asian diaspora are currently based in the United States. Many of these artists have been experiencing substantial career momentum in recent months, exhibiting in art institutions or international biennials one after the other. Some have honed their craft and bypassed educational barriers, exhibiting in solo shows at leading galleries without an MFA, and sometimes even without a BFA.

Techné Disruptors, an upcoming exhibition from the Global South that will focus on works by South Asia’s most cutting-edge artists will be held in New York for 3 long weeks starting September 12. Along with it, the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), New York is also set to commence on the same day.

Curated by curator Myna Mukherjee, the exhibition will showcase some of South Asia’s leading artists. The works that will be displayed are hand-picked from NFT (Non-fungible token) collections and are curated by international curator and cultural producer Myna Mukherjee at the India Habitat Centre, Delhi, with the support of the American Center & Italian Embassy Cultural Center.

The exhibition begins with the opening panel for the Jaipur Literature Festival in New York City titled ‘State of the Contemporary: NFTs and the Global South’. There will also be panel discussions and participation from mainstream institutions, including MIT Media Labs, MoMa Web3 and Polygon Studios. Mukherjee, an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, is a trained Odissi dancer, cultural producer and curator, speaking about the exhibition.

An environmental watchdog has retracted an influential report that blamed five Asian countries for the majority of plastic pollution in the ocean.

The report, Stemming the Tide, from the US-based environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, also included incineration and waste-to-energy as “solutions” to the plastics crisis. Published in 2015, it was decried as “waste colonialism” by hundreds of environmental, health and social justice groups across Asia.

The watchdog has now publicly apologised for unfairly “creating a narrative” about who is responsible for producing plastic waste and removed the report from its website. Its apology was welcomed on Wednesday as “long overdue” by Gaia, an alliance of 800 waste-reduction groups in 90 countries, and by Break Free From Plastic, a global movement of more than 2,000 organisations.

The report had caused years of harm, the groups said, by ignoring the role of countries in the global north for overproduction of plastic and for exporting plastic waste to developing countries in the guise of trade.

“This unprecedented report retraction is an opportunity to interrupt decades of waste colonialism,” said Froilan Grate, Gaia’s Asia-Pacific coordinator.

“Ocean Conservancy is in a position to raise awareness among other organisations and policymakers about the false narrative propagated by the report.”

When contacted by Guardian about the apology, Ocean Conservancy referred it to the statement on its website, which it published in July.

The report not only “wrongly blamed” five countries – the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand – for the bulk of plastic pollution, but “misled, for years, governments and the public into thinking that burning plastic waste was a solution to the problem”, Grate said.

Gaia also said that Ocean Conservancy had underestimated the true cost of incineration in terms of climate and public health.

Moreover, Ocean Conservancy has admitted its error in failing to look at the contributions of Asia-Pacific communities seeking solutions to plastic waste, whom Grate said had been “disproportionately impacted” by the report. It is now engaged in a process of “restorative justice” by engaging with groups in Asia, he said.

Stemming the Tide was written by the consultancy McKinsey, with a steering group including the World Wildlife Fund, the Coca-Cola Company, Dow Chemical and the American Chemistry Council.

Christie Keith, Gaia’s international coordinator, said the five Asian countries named in the report were not to blame for plastic waste. “That fault lies with the corporations that make and push out ever-increasing quantities of plastic,” she said. “And those fighting for zero-waste community solutions deserve to be honoured and celebrated, not attacked.”

Satyarupa Shekhar, Asia-Pacific coordinator for Break Free From Plastic, said Ocean Conservancy’s report “diluted existing restrictions on incineration and opened the doors to false solutions and controversial techno-fixes to deal with the plastic pollution crisis”.

In the Philippines, a national ban on incineration is threatened by new proposals to allow waste-to-energy plants, while in Indonesia, the government continues to push for waste incineration despite a supreme court ruling revoking presidential regulations to speed up the development of waste-based power plants or incinerators.

Stemming the Tide has frequently been cited by lawmakers and US federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sonia Mendoza, chair of Mother Earth Foundation in the Philippines, said: “Each country should be responsible for the waste it generates and not export it under the guise of ‘trade’.”

Understanding of ocean plastic waste, including its origins, has evolved in recent years.

In the statement on its website, Ocean Conservancy said it “failed to confront the root causes of plastic waste or incorporate the effects on the communities and NGOs working on the ground in the places most impacted by plastic pollution”. Including incineration and waste-to-energy as acceptable solutions to the plastic crisis was wrong, it said.

“We did not consider how these technologies support continued demand for plastic production and hamper the move to a circular economy and a zero-carbon future.”

“Further, by focusing so narrowly on one region of the world (east and south-east Asia), we created a narrative about who is responsible for the ocean plastic pollution crisis – one that failed to acknowledge the outsized role that developed countries, especially the United States, have played and continue to play in generating and exporting plastic waste to this very region. This too was wrong.”

Stemming the Tide was based on a paper published in Science on February 2015, which estimated for the first time how much plastic entered the ocean from mismanaged waste on land, and ranked all 192 coastal countries accordingly.

Since then, data has been published showing that the US ranks third among countries contributing to coastal plastic pollution and challenges the widely held belief that the US is adequately managing its pollution, underlining its waste footprint to developing nations.

Other research, which Ocean Conservancy is now promoting, recommends interventions to reduce, reuse and better manage plastic across all economies.

There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed. Guardian analysis recently revealed how human-caused climate breakdown is accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts triggered by the climate crisis. At the Guardian, we will not stop giving this life-altering issue the urgency and attention it demands. We have a huge global team of climate writers around the world and have recently appointed an extreme weather correspondent.

Our editorial independence means we are free to write and publish journalism which prioritises the crisis. We can highlight the climate policy successes and failings of those who lead us in these challenging times. We have no shareholders and no billionaire owner, just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, free from commercial or political influence.

And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of the global events shaping our world, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action. Millions can benefit from open access to quality, truthful news, regardless of their ability to pay for it.

An environmental watchdog has retracted an influential report that blamed five Asian countries for the majority of plastic pollution in the ocean.

The report, Stemming the Tide, from the US-based environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, also included incineration and waste-to-energy as “solutions” to the plastics crisis. Published in 2015, it was decried as “waste colonialism” by hundreds of environmental, health and social justice groups across Asia.

The watchdog has now publicly apologised for unfairly “creating a narrative” about who is responsible for producing plastic waste and removed the report from its website. Its apology was welcomed on Wednesday as “long overdue” by Gaia, an alliance of 800 waste-reduction groups in 90 countries, and by Break Free From Plastic, a global movement of more than 2,000 organisations.

The report had caused years of harm, the groups said, by ignoring the role of countries in the global north for overproduction of plastic and for exporting plastic waste to developing countries in the guise of trade.

“This unprecedented report retraction is an opportunity to interrupt decades of waste colonialism,” said Froilan Grate, Gaia’s Asia-Pacific coordinator.

“Ocean Conservancy is in a position to raise awareness among other organisations and policymakers about the false narrative propagated by the report.”

When contacted by Guardian about the apology, Ocean Conservancy referred it to the statement on its website, which it published in July.

The report not only “wrongly blamed” five countries – the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand – for the bulk of plastic pollution, but “misled, for years, governments and the public into thinking that burning plastic waste was a solution to the problem”, Grate said.

Gaia also said that Ocean Conservancy had underestimated the true cost of incineration in terms of climate and public health.

Moreover, Ocean Conservancy has admitted its error in failing to look at the contributions of Asia-Pacific communities seeking solutions to plastic waste, whom Grate said had been “disproportionately impacted” by the report. It is now engaged in a process of “restorative justice” by engaging with groups in Asia, he said.

Stemming the Tide was written by the consultancy McKinsey, with a steering group including the World Wildlife Fund, the Coca-Cola Company, Dow Chemical and the American Chemistry Council.

Christie Keith, Gaia’s international coordinator, said the five Asian countries named in the report were not to blame for plastic waste. “That fault lies with the corporations that make and push out ever-increasing quantities of plastic,” she said. “And those fighting for zero-waste community solutions deserve to be honoured and celebrated, not attacked.”

Satyarupa Shekhar, Asia-Pacific coordinator for Break Free From Plastic, said Ocean Conservancy’s report “diluted existing restrictions on incineration and opened the doors to false solutions and controversial techno-fixes to deal with the plastic pollution crisis”.

In the Philippines, a national ban on incineration is threatened by new proposals to allow waste-to-energy plants, while in Indonesia, the government continues to push for waste incineration despite a supreme court ruling revoking presidential regulations to speed up the development of waste-based power plants or incinerators.

Stemming the Tide has frequently been cited by lawmakers and US federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sonia Mendoza, chair of Mother Earth Foundation in the Philippines, said: “Each country should be responsible for the waste it generates and not export it under the guise of ‘trade’.”

Understanding of ocean plastic waste, including its origins, has evolved in recent years.

In the statement on its website, Ocean Conservancy said it “failed to confront the root causes of plastic waste or incorporate the effects on the communities and NGOs working on the ground in the places most impacted by plastic pollution”. Including incineration and waste-to-energy as acceptable solutions to the plastic crisis was wrong, it said.

“We did not consider how these technologies support continued demand for plastic production and hamper the move to a circular economy and a zero-carbon future.”

“Further, by focusing so narrowly on one region of the world (east and south-east Asia), we created a narrative about who is responsible for the ocean plastic pollution crisis – one that failed to acknowledge the outsized role that developed countries, especially the United States, have played and continue to play in generating and exporting plastic waste to this very region. This too was wrong.”

Stemming the Tide was based on a paper published in Science on February 2015, which estimated for the first time how much plastic entered the ocean from mismanaged waste on land, and ranked all 192 coastal countries accordingly.

Since then, data has been published showing that the US ranks third among countries contributing to coastal plastic pollution and challenges the widely held belief that the US is adequately managing its pollution, underlining its waste footprint to developing nations.

Other research, which Ocean Conservancy is now promoting, recommends interventions to reduce, reuse and better manage plastic across all economies.

There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed. Guardian analysis recently revealed how human-caused climate breakdown is accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts triggered by the climate crisis. At the Guardian, we will not stop giving this life-altering issue the urgency and attention it demands. We have a huge global team of climate writers around the world and have recently appointed an extreme weather correspondent.

Our editorial independence means we are free to write and publish journalism which prioritises the crisis. We can highlight the climate policy successes and failings of those who lead us in these challenging times. We have no shareholders and no billionaire owner, just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, free from commercial or political influence.

And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of the global events shaping our world, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action. Millions can benefit from open access to quality, truthful news, regardless of their ability to pay for it.

Record levels of obesity and physical inactivity among children mean they are set to bear the brunt of poorer health effects from rising global temperatures, warns a new comprehensive review of studies.

While physical fitness is key to tolerating higher temperatures, children are more obese and less fit than ever before, argues Dr Shawnda Morrison, an environmental exercise physiologist, from Slovenia’s University of Ljubljana.

This could put them at greater risk of suffering heat-related health problems, such as dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

She noted that current climate change policies fail to adequately address child health needs and that encouraging children to make exercise part of their everyday lives must be prioritised if they are to cope with living in a hotter world.

In the peer-reviewed journal Temperature, her team assessed a comprehensive review of over 150 medical and scientific studies into how children maintain physical activity, exercise, cope with heat, and how this might change as global temperatures rise.

The research, she highlights includes a study of 457 primary school 5-12 year old boys in Thailand, which found that overweight youngsters were more than twice as likely to have difficulty regulating their body temperature as those of normal weight when exercising outdoors.

In another study, data from emergency departments at children’s hospitals in the US, found attendance was higher during hotter days. Younger children were particularly likely to need emergency care.

The research also found children’s aerobic fitness is 30 per cent lower than that of their parents at the same age.

There are rapid declines in children’s physical activity globally, especially over the last 30 years.

Most children are not meeting the World Health Organization’s guideline of performing an average of at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day.

Physical inactivity was accelerated, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when schools and other societal infrastructures were closed.

Higher temperatures and changes in weather patterns are projected to also lead to outbreaks of new diseases entering the human population. If there are more movement restrictions put in place to contain the novel diseases, this will have potentially devastating consequences to children’s physical fitness, mental and physical health.

“Yet, as the world warms, children are the least fit they have ever been. It is imperative that children are encouraged to do daily physical activity to build up, and maintain, their fitness, so that they enjoy moving their bodies and it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ or ‘a chore’ to them,” Morrison said. (IANS)

Newswise — A professor emeritus at Tohoku University has unearthed evidence pointing to a strong relationship between the magnitude of mass extinctions and global temperature changes in geologic times.

The research was published in the journal Biogeosciences on July, 22, 2022.

Abrupt climate change, accompanied by environmental destruction from large volcanic eruptions and meteorites, has caused major mass extinctions throughout the Phanerozoic Eon – covering 539 million years to the present.

To date, there have been few quantitative evaluations of the relationship between land temperature anomalies and terrestrial animal extinctions. Moreover, marine animals and terrestrial animals have experienced divergent extinction rates, and this phenomenon remains under-explored.

Professor Emeritus Kunio Kaiho demonstrated that marine invertebrates and terrestrial tetrapods’ extinction rates corresponded to deviations in global and habitat surface temperatures, regardless of whether it was cooling or warming. Loss of species during the ‘big five’ major extinctions correlated with a > 7°C global cooling and a > 7-9°C global warming for marine animals, and a > 7°C global cooling and a > ~7°C global warming for terrestrial tetrapods.

“These findings indicate that the bigger the shifts in climate, the larger the mass extinction,” Kaiho said. “They also tell us that any prospective extinction related to human activity will not be of the same proportions when the extinction magnitude changes in conjunction with global surface temperature anomaly.”

Kaiho cites an earlier study, which claimed a 5.2°C temperature increase in average global temperature would result in a mass extinction event comparable to previous ones. Yet, based on this study’s analysis, the temperature will need to change by 9°C, and this will not appear until 2500 in a worst-case scenario.

“Although predicting the extent of future extinctions is difficult because causes will differ from preceding ones, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that any forthcoming extinction will not reach past magnitudes if global surface temperature anomalies and other environmental anomalies correspondingly change,” Kaiho said.

Kaiho also found a lower tolerance for terrestrial tetrapods than marine animals for global warming events. However, marine animals had a smaller tolerance to the same habitat temperature changes than terrestrial animals. This is because the temperature anomaly on land is 2.2 times higher than sea surface temperature. These phenomena fit ongoing extinction patterns.

Looking ahead, Kaiho seeks to predict future animal extinction magnitudes occurring between 2000-2500.

(RNS) — Pope Francis made an impassioned appeal for the environment on Thursday (July 21), urging countries to divest from fossil fuels as temperatures rise all over the globe and put vulnerable communities at risk.

“If we learn how to listen, we can hear in the voice of creation a kind of dissonance. On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this, our common home,” the pope said in a video message presented at a Vatican news conference.

“It is necessary for all of us to act decisively,” he said, “for we are reaching a breaking point.” 

Francis urged nations to cooperate on four principles that combine the need to “combat the loss of biodiversity” while giving “priority to people in vulnerable situations.”

Francis praised the “demanding” goals set out by the Paris Agreement to limit Earth’s temperature increase to1.5 degrees Celsius and said that the COP27 summit of world leaders in Egypt in November as well as the COP15 meeting on biodiversity in Canada in December represent opportunities for nations to come together in combating climate change and the extinction of species.

On July 8, the Vatican joined the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

Francis urged Catholics to listen to the cry of the Earth, “prey to our consumerist excesses,” and all creatures “at the mercy of our tyrannical anthropocentricism.” The pope remembered the many poor and Indigenous peoples in the world who most directly feel the impact of drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves.

“Finally, there is the plea of our children,” Francis said. “Feeling menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions, today’s young people are crying out, anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems.”

He underlined the fact that richer countries have an “ecological debt” to the world, as they have polluted the air and water more than their poorer neighbors in the last two centuries. They must therefore shoulder the costs not only within their borders, but for those nations “which are already experiencing most of the burden of the climate crisis.”

At the same time, he added, poorer countries still have a responsibility since “delay on the part of others can never justify our own failure to act.”

Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, July 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Since 2015, the Catholic Church has participated in an ecumenical event called the Season of Creation, which starts this year on Sept. 1 with the World Day for the Care of Creation and ends on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment. The ecumenical effort, whose slogan is “Listen to the environment,” urges people to pray and reflect on the environment with an emphasis on the concerns of Indigenous peoples and the communities suffering the most due to climate change.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, presented the pope’s message for this year’s Season of Creation at Thursday’s news conference, saying: “Enough is enough. All new exploration and production of coal, oil and gas must immediately end, and existing production of fossil fuels must be urgently phased out.”

Czerny said the Vatican backed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, meant to work alongside the already existing Paris Agreement with an eye to holding countries and companies accountable for their dependence on fossil fuels. It is supported by Nobel Peace Prize winners, academics and a growing number of political and religious leaders.

It also focuses on ensuring that the energy transition doesn’t harm the livelihoods of workers and Indigenous peoples.

Czerny echoed Francis’ appeal that the signers to international accords aimed at reducing reliance on fossil fuels fully commit to their goals. He also praised Catholic institutions that have already done so. He joined the pope in calling for a U.N. agreement to protect the Earth and its oceans so that “ravaged ecosystems” can be restored while “upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples.”

As heat waves rage across Europe and water grows scarce in more and more places, Christina Leaño, associate director of the Laudato Si’ Movement, which aims to realize the vision laid out in Francis’ 2016 “green encyclical,” said that her group will bring their message to the upcoming U.N. summits.

In a statement on Thursday, Leaño called for “a necessary community reconversion to adopt a new multilateral agreement that will stop the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species.”

The Laudato Si’ Movement will also call for “more ambitious national contributions to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero as soon as possible,” she said.

A new study has provided the first measurement of its liability in the climate crisis. The US has inflicted more than $1.9tn in damage to other countries from the effects of its greenhouse gas emissions, The huge volume of planet-heating gases pumped out by the US, the largest historical emitter, has caused such harm to other, mostly poor, countries through heatwaves, crop failures and other consequences that America is responsible for $1.91tn in lost global income since 1990.

While the losses to the world is enormous, the impact on the US itself is even greater. Floods, drought, wildfires and hurricanes made worse by climate change could cost the U.S. federal budget about $2 trillion each year — a 7.1% loss in annual revenue — by the end of the century, the White House said in an assessment recently. 

John Detrixhe wrote in Quartz: “Poor countries, rocked by storms and flooding from climate change, have spent years trying to hold the big carbon-emitters accountable. While most rich nations have fiercely resisted this liability, attendees at COP26 will give it another try in Glasgow.” 

According to Richard Tol, an economics professor at the University of Sussex. The US and Europe have pumped the most carbon into the atmosphere since the industrial era began, although China is quickly narrowing the gap. “Loss and damage” is the moral and legal principle that if you cause damage to a party then you are responsible for compensating them for it, Tol said.

In many cases, poorer countries that have produced hardly anything in the way of greenhouse emissions will be the hardest hit by these environmental dangers. Rich countries, and the US in particular, bear the heaviest responsibility because they’ve pushed out the overwhelming majority of carbon dioxide that’s accumulating in the atmosphere, according to most academics’ reckoning. India is among the countries seeking compensation for the losses caused by disasters tied to climate change.

Climate change can be a natural process where temperature, rainfall, wind and other elements vary over decades or more. In millions of years, our world has been warmer and colder than it is now. But today we are experiencing unprecedented rapid warming from human activities, primarily due to burning fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gas emissions.

Over a dozen years ago, at a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, rich nations made a significant pledge. They promised to channel US$100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.

That promise was broken. A recent report for the UN1 concluded that “the only realistic scenarios” showed the $100-billion target was out of reach. “We are not there yet,” conceded UN secretary-general António Guterres.

Compared with the investment required to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, the $100-billion pledge is minuscule. Trillions of dollars will be needed each year to meet the 2015 Paris agreement goal of restricting global warming to “well below” 2 °C, if not 1.5 °C, above pre-industrial temperatures. And developing nations (as they are termed in the Copenhagen pledge) will need hundreds of billions of dollars annually to adapt to the warming that is already inevitable. “But the $100 billion is iconic in terms of the good faith of the countries that promised it,” Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka says.

The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and is on track to experience global temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100. An analysis by the US government warned that intensifying wildfires could increase federal fire suppression costs by between $1.55 billion and $9.60 billion each year, representing an increase between 78% and 480% by the end of the century. Meanwhile, more frequent hurricanes in the US alone could drive up annual spending on coastal-disaster response to between $22 billion and $94 billion by 2100.

With climate change, bio-diversity loss and pollution exacting a devastating toll on the world’s ocean — critical to food security, economic growth and the environment — the 2022 UN Ocean Conference opened in Lisbon on Monday with a call for a new chapter of ocean action driven by science, technology and innovation.

“Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an ‘Ocean Emergency’,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates at the opening of the conference. “We must turn the tide. A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.”

The theme of the conference, “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: Stocktaking, partnerships and solutions”, in line with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, stresses the critical need for scientific knowledge and marine technology to build ocean resilience.

Human activities are placing the health of the ocean in peril.

According to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate in 2021 report, sea level rise, ocean heat, ocean acidification and greenhouse gas concentrations set new records in 2021.

Additionally, marine pollution is increasing at an alarming rate, and if current trends continue, more than half of the world’s marine species may be all but extinct by 2100.

The Secretary-General also stated there is good news with a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction; a new treaty that is being negotiated to address the global plastics crisis that is choking our oceans; and a week ago multilateral action on display with a World Trade Organization agreement on ending harmful fishery subsidies. But he also noted much more needs to be done.

“Oceans are central in geopolitical balance of power,” said President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in opening remarks. “Healthcare, economic resources, energy, mobility, migrations, scientific and technological development, climate change, all of this is present either in the context or in the outcome of a pandemic, of war and of crisis.”

“We must recover too much time (that) we have lost and give hope a chance, once again, before it is too late.”

In line with Sustainable Development Goal 14, human health, strong economic growth and a stable climate depend on a healthy ocean. The ocean is a vital buffer against climate change, absorbing about 25 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their food security, while approximately 120 million people work directly in fisheries and aquaculture-related activities.

The majority of these workers live in developing countries, specifically Small-Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.

“The United Nations proclamation of a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) supports efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework that will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for the sustainable development of the ocean,” said President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, in his introductory statement.

More than 20 heads of state and government together with thousands of young people, business leaders, scientists and civil society representatives, will present fresh, bold and innovative solutions to ignite transformational change to effectively address the challenges the ocean is facing.

In addition to the plenary sessions, there will be eight Interactive Dialogues, which will deep dive into salient areas such as addressing marine pollution, minimizing and addressing ocean acidification, deoxygenation and ocean warming and promoting and strengthening sustainable ocean-based economies, in particular for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries. (IANS)

India scored the lowest among 180 countries in the 2022 Environment Performance Index (EPI), an analysis by researchers of Yale and Columbia University which provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. The EPI ranks 180 countries on 40 performance indicators including climate change, environmental public health, biodiversity, among others.

Meanwhile, India has questioned its bottom ranking among 180 nations on the Environmental Performance Index. The newly released Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2022, measured by Yale and Columbia universities, ranks India at the bottom position among 180 countries. The Environment Ministry has issued a rebuttal saying the indicators used in the assessment are based on “unfounded assumptions”.

India ranked at the bottom with a total score of 18.9, while Denmark was the top scorer as the world’s most sustainable country. “…For the overall performance and ranking EPI, each country’s performance is viewed across numerous (18) categories like ecosystem vitality, biodiversity and habitat, ecosystem services and grassland loss. Unfortunately, India is consistently ranking either at the bottom or close to the bottom in almost all the categories, both regionally and globally,” as per a statement by EPI.

“This is fundamentally a question of the development model and pathways we want to pursue and the lifestyles that we as citizens want to adopt. Destroying the environment and nature in the name of ‘development’ should no longer be the path, whatever might be the justification. Such an approach is just not tenable any more,” said Ravi Chellam, CEO, Metastring Foundation & Coordinator, Biodiversity Collaborative.

The United States placed at the 20th spot of the 22 wealthy democracies in the global west and 43rd overall. The relatively low ranking reflects the rollback of environmental protections during the Trump administration. “The withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and weakened methane emission rules meant that US lost time to mitigate climate change while many of its peers in the developed world enacted policies to significantly reduce their greenhouse emissions.”

The conclusions from the EPI analysis suggest that efficient policy results are directly associated with GDP per capita. The economic prosperity makes it possible for the nations to invest in policies and programs that help lead desirable outcomes.

For the pursuit of economic prosperity manifested in industrialisation and urbanisation, trends that pose climate change strains ecosystem vitality, especially in the developing world where air and water emissions remain significant.

Data suggests, according to EPI, that developing countries do not have to sacrifice sustainability for economic security. The steps taken for climate action initiated by policymakers and stakeholders in leading countries demonstrate that focused attention can mobilise communities to protect natural resources and human well being.

Newswise — Global warming has a particularly pronounced impact on the Alpine region. Like the Arctic, this European mountain range is becoming greener. Writing in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Lausanne and the University of Basel have now used satellite data to show that vegetation above the tree line has increased in nearly 80% of the Alps. Snow cover is also decreasing, albeit so far only slightly.

Melting glaciers have become a symbol of climate change in the Alps. Now, the reduction in snow cover is already visible from space but this is by no means the biggest change. This is the conclusion of a research team led by Professor Sabine Rumpf from the University of Basel and Professor Grégoire Mariéthoz and Professor Antoine Guisan from the University of Lausanne.

Working with colleagues in the Netherlands and Finland, the researchers investigated the change in snow cover and vegetation using high-resolution satellite data from 1984 to 2021. Over this period, plant biomass above the tree line increased in more than 77% of the observed area. This phenomenon of “greening” due to climate change is already well documented in the Arctic and starts also to be detected in mountains.

Greater plant biomass in three-quarters of the Alps. “The scale of the change has turned out to be absolutely massive in the Alps,” says Sabine Rumpf, lead author of the study and, since February, assistant professor at the University of Basel. The Alps are becoming greener because plants are colonizing new areas and the vegetation is generally becoming denser and taller.

Previous studies have primarily focused on the influence of global warming on Alpine biodiversity and changes in the distribution of plant species. Until now, however, no one had conducted such a comprehensive analysis of the changes in vegetation productivity in the Alps. The authors show that the increase of plant biomass is primarily due to changes in precipitation and longer vegetation periods as a result of rising temperatures.

“Alpine plants are adapted to harsh conditions, but they’re not very competitive,” says Rumpf. As environmental conditions change, she says, these specialized species lose their advantage and are outcompeted: “The unique biodiversity of the Alps is therefore under considerable pressure.”

Already a slight reduction in snow cover. In contrast to vegetation, the extent of snow cover above the tree line has only changed slightly since 1984. For their analysis, the researchers excluded regions below 1.700 meters, glaciers and forests. In the remaining regions, they found that snow cover had decreased significantly in almost 10% of the area. This may not sound like a lot, but the researchers are keen to highlight that it is nevertheless a worrying trend.

“Previous analyses of satellite data hadn’t identified any such trend,” explains Antoine Guisan, one of the two senior authors of the study. “This may be because the resolution of the satellite images was insufficient or because the periods considered were too short.”

“For years, local ground-based measurements have shown a decrease in snow depth at low elevations,” adds Grégoire Mariéthoz. “This decrease has already caused some areas to become largely snow-free.” Based on the satellite data, it’s possible to distinguish whether a specific area is covered with snow or not, but doesn’t allow to draw conclusions about snow depth.

As global warming continues, the Alps will turn more and more from white to green, creating a vicious circle: “Greener mountains reflect less sunlight and therefore lead to further warming – and, in turn, to further shrinkage of reflective snow cover,” says Rumpf. Warming also causes further melting of glaciers and the thawing of permafrost, which may lead to more landslides, rockfalls and mudflows. Furthermore, Rumpf emphasizes the important role of snow and ice from the Alps in the supply of drinking water and, not least, for recreation and tourism.

Rejecting the bottom rank in environmental performance index by the Yale Centre for Environmental Law & Policy, India on Wednesday said that many indicators used for assessing the EPI are based on “unfounded assumptions” with some of them “extrapolated and based on surmises and unscientific methods”.

Rejecting the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2022 released recently by the American University that had put India at the bottom most 180th rank, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) announced that it does not accept Yale’s analysis and gave a longish explanation for the same.

As per Yale Centre for Environmental Law & Policy website, EPI 2022 provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability for 180 countries using 40 performance indicators across 11 issues.

“A new indicator in the Climate Policy objective is Projected GHG Emissions levels in 2050. This is computed based on average rate of change in emission of the last 10 years instead of modeling that takes into account a longer time period, extent of renewable energy capacity and use, additional carbon sinks, energy efficiency etc. of respective countries,” the Ministry statement said, adding: “Both forests and wetlands of the country are crucial carbon sinks, which have not been factored in while computing the projected GHG emissions trajectory up to 2050 given by EPI 2022.”

India has already achieved the target of 40 per cent of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel based sources.

India also said that the historical data on the lowest emission trajectory has been ignored in the computation and said: “The weight of indicators in which the country was performing well has been reduced and reasons for change in assignment of weights has not been explained in the report.”

“The principle of equity is given very low weightage in the form of indicators such as GHG emission per capita and GHG Emission intensity trend. The CBDR-RC principle is also barely reflected in the composition of the index,” the Ministry said.

The indicators on water quality, water use efficiency, waste generation per capita which are closely linked to Sustainable Consumption and Production are not included in the Index, the statement said, adding: “The Index emphasises the extent of Protected Areas rather than the quality of protection that they afford. Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Protected areas and eco-sensitive regions is not factored into the computation of Biodiversity Indices.”

Indicators such as agro biodiversity, soil health, food loss and waste are not included even though they are important for developing countries with large agrarian populations, the statement said, and gave detailed analysis of the flaws in various categories such as Climate Change Issue Category; Environmental Health indicators; Ecosystem Vitality Policy Objective; Biodiversity & Habitat; Ecosystem Services; Agriculture and Fisheries.

UN Climate Change News, 6 June 2022 – This year’s Bonn annual UN Climate Change Conference kicked off today, designed to lay the groundwork for success at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Governments are meeting for the first time since the conclusion of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow last November, at which the operational details of the Paris Agreement were finalized, thereby ringing in the era of implementation of the agreement.

In Bonn, governments will focus on work in the key areas of mitigation, adaptation, support to developing countries – particularly finance – and loss and damage. Speaking to delegates at the opening of the Bonn sessions, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said:

“We urgently require political-level interventions and decisions in each of these areas in order to achieve a balanced package. Doing so will send a clear message to the world that we are headed in the right direction. Because the world is going to have one question in Sharm El-Sheikh: what progress have you made since Glasgow?”

The UN’s top climate change official warned that climate change is progressing exponentially. With the world currently on track to more than double the 1.5 Celsius goal of the Paris Agreement by the end of the century, ambition must urgently be raised to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and immediate action and progress in Bonn are needed.

“We must move these negotiations along more quickly. The world expects it. They know that while nations made a commitment to meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees C goal, that commitment entailed accelerated action and increased climate ambition.  It is not acceptable to say that we are in challenging times — they know that climate change is not an agenda we can afford to push back on our global schedule,” she said.

COP27 in Egypt will primarily focus on implementation, and nations are expected to show how they will, through legislation, policies and programs, and throughout all jurisdictions and sectors, begin putting the Paris Agreement into practice in their home countries.

In an emotional address, Patricia Espinosa announced the end of her term in office after six years at the helm of the UN Climate Change secretariat. She implored delegates to continue to support the work of the secretariat and inclusive multilateralism, which encompasses the work of all key stakeholders to address climate change. Looking back at key milestones of the UN Climate Change process, she said: “Look at what we’ve accomplished in the last six years. Look at what we’ve accomplished in the last 30. While we are still very much behind the climate curve, the world is in a better position because of the UNFCCC, because of the Kyoto Protocol, because of the Paris Agreement. Because of collaboration. Because of multilateralism. Because of you. But we can do better, we must.”

With 197 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep a global average temperature rise this century well below 2 Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.

Encouraged by the ITC’s large-scale afforestation initiative, Classmate, the company’s leading stationery brand, has taken up a local tree plantation initiative in Chennai along with students on the occasion of the World Environment Day.

Over the past two decades, ITC Limited has been supporting a sustainable and inclusive forestry value chain for its Paperboards and Specialty Paper Business, contributing to carbon sequestration by creating a large green cover, whilst supporting large-scale livelihoods for tribals and marginal farmers.

The business has adopted an indigenous fibre-sourcing strategy by supporting the growing of renewable plantations, thus contributing to import substitution. ITC’s large-scale afforestation programme has greened over 9,50,000 acres of land and provided over 170-million-person days of sustainable livelihood to farmers to date in India.

The efforts made by ITC to promote responsible sourcing and sustainable plantations have led to the Forest Stewardship Council certification as well as membership of WWF-Global Forest and Trade Network.

ITC Classmate’s small but significant afforestation drive involving school students aims to complement the efforts of volunteers combating climate change at a local level. It has partnered with the Environmentalist Foundation of India, who have been invited by the Chengalpet district administration to create a forest patch at Vengadamangalam which is a fast-growing residential suburban pocket of Chennai and is witnessing contamination of land, water, and air with a profound shift in land use, growth, and ecology at large.

It is developing this project as an urban forest as part of a collaboration between the government, industry, students, and civic society. The objective of this afforestation project is also to motivate school students fully understand the importance of environment positive actions and develop eco-consciousness.

To ensure that, ITC Classmate has planned a dedicated orientation program in 24 schools in the city from June 10 to July 31. The program aims to enhance their understanding of nuances of resource utilization, biodiversity preservation, and sustainability.

After attending the orientation program, students are expected to volunteer at the afforestation site in Vengadamangalam and get involved in post-plant maintenance like plant watering, manuring, nourishment, etc.

Speaking about the initiative, Vikas Gupta, Chief Executive, Education and Stationary Products Business Division, ITC Ltd., said: “Climate change is today impacting us in myriad ways. Going forward, the young generation will have to play a significant role in environment conservation. At ITC, responsible capitalism is an abiding strategy that focuses on extreme competitiveness but in a manner that replenishes the environment and supports sustainable livelihood. As part of this ethos, we, at ITC Classmate, have taken it upon ourselves to enhance understanding of the youth about the afforestation and take actions that would support their hope and trust in active actions for the future. We are endeavouring to embed awareness, know-how & capability amongst students on how they can foster sustainability in their daily way of life.”

The Vengadamangalam panchayat dedicated the land parcel for the development of an urban forest with an aim to mitigate issues related to pollution and recreate lost habitats by encouraging biodiversity. ITC Classmate, through its NGO partner Environmentalist Foundation of India (E.F.I), cleaned this land parcel of any non-degradable trash and invasive plants, completed trench work, and created nourishment beds. It planted 1350 saplings of native plants in addition to planting berry-bearing, nectar-bearing, and fruit-bearing varieties on the entire plot besides fencing it with a dedicated water source for the growth of the saplings. (IANS)

Most of the world’s oceans are steadily losing their year-to-year ‘memory’ under global warming, researchers have warned.

Ocean memory decline is found as a collective response across the climate models to human-induced warming. As greenhouse-gas concentrations continue to rise, such memory decline will become increasingly evident.

The study published in the journal Science Advances compared the fast weather fluctuations of the atmosphere to find that the slowly varying ocean exhibits strong persistence, or “memory,” meaning the ocean temperature tomorrow is likely to look a lot like it does today, with only slight changes.

“We discovered this phenomenon by examining the similarity in ocean surface temperature from one year to the next as a simple metric for ocean memory,” said Hui Shi, lead author and researcher at the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, California. “It’s almost as if the ocean is developing amnesia.”

Ocean memory is found to be related to the thickness of the uppermost layer of the ocean, known as the mixed layer. Deeper mixed layers have greater heat content, which confers more thermal inertia that translates into memory.

However, the mixed layer over most oceans will become shallower in response to continued anthropogenic warming, resulting in a decline in ocean memory.

Along with ocean memory decline, the thinning mixed layer is also found to increase the random fluctuations of the sea surface temperature.

As a result, although the ocean will not become much more variable from one year to the next in the future, the fraction of helpful signals for prediction largely reduces.

“Reduced ocean memory together with increased random fluctuations suggest intrinsic changes in the system and new challenges in prediction under warming,” said Fei-Fei Jin, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Hawaii.

Ocean memory loss doesn’t just impact the prediction of physical variables, but could also influence the way we manage sensitive marine ecosystems.

Besides ocean prediction, forecasting land-based impacts on temperature, precipitation as well as extreme events might also be affected by ocean memory decline due to their dependence on the persistence of sea surface temperature as a predictability source, the team said. (IANS)

NEW DELHI (AP) — Four months after India announced its “net-zero” target at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, the country has yet to submit its targets for cutting greenhouse emissions, underscoring the difficulty of overhauling energy policy amid a growing population.

When asked about the delay during an unrelated event in the capital New Delhi on Tuesday, Indian environment minister Bhupender Yadav downplayed it, saying that several ministries were still discussing the matter to chart out a roadmap.

India’s Ministry of Environment, which drafts the targets and submits them to the UN Climate Agency, and the country’s top federal official in the Ministry of Power, did not respond to requests for comment this week.

“We don’t have time anymore” to wait for all countries to start reducing emissions, said New Climate Institute scientist Niklas Höhne, who tracks emission pledges for Climate Action Tracker.

Höhne added that it would be useful if India specified targets achievable with its own resources and formulated a clear plan for what could achieved with financial help from other nations.

During November’s conference in Glasgow, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his nation would stop adding greenhouses gases to the atmosphere by 2070 — two decades after the U.S., and 10 years after China. He said that India would increase its current capacity for non-fossil fuel electricity to 500 gigawatts and use energy from clean sources to meet half of its needs. Modi also said that India would cut carbon emissions by a billion tons compared with the previous target and reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45%.

Since these 2030 targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions haven’t yet been submitted to the U.N. climate agency, they can’t yet be counted towards the global effort.

India is not the only country to be slow to turn in targets. The 2015 Paris agreement on climate, which India signed, required countries to submit their climate targets, called Nationally Determined Contributions, by the end of 2020. Many nations missed that deadline. The more urgent deadline was to get submission in before the November negotiations in Glasgow and most nations did. Of the five top emitting nations, only India has not submitted its plans.

The delays underscore the challenges that India faces in achieving these goals. A parliamentary committee calculated that India would require over $20 billion in investment to meet its clean energy targets while only half of that was available — prompting the opposition to ask the government whether it formulated a clear roadmap before committing internationally.

India’s role is key for the world’s climate targets. It has the third-highest emissions in the world, after China and the United States, and its energy needs are expected to grow faster than any other country in the coming decades. At the same time, historically it has contributed least to the world’s cumulative emissions among the group of 20 industrial nations known as the G20.

The typical American, for instance, uses 16 times more electricity than the average Indian, according to data from the World Bank.

Many in the South Asian country of 1.4 billion residents still live in poverty and its leaders have consistently argued that it needs the “carbon space” to grow. Even in the most optimistic scenario, some of India’s future energy needs will have to be met through coal — the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

This was partly why the country had demanded a last-minute change to crucial language during the U.N. climate conference to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power. India said that developing countries were “entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels” for their growth and blamed “unsustainable lifestyles and wasteful consumption patterns” of rich countries for the current climate catastrophe.

In any case, India faces the same reality that other nations do: Unless emissions are drastically reduced, large parts of the world will become uninhabitable due to climate shocks like deadly fires, floods, and unlivable heat, a new U.N. report said Monday. The country lost $87 billion in 2020 because of natural disasters like cyclones, floods and droughts, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

At Glasgow, Modi had stressed that India’s goals couldn’t be achieved without adequate climate finance, a stand that India has long reiterated, and called for rich countries to provide $1 trillion in help.

The lack of finance is a vital stumbling block, said Harjeet Singh, an advisor with the Climate Action Network International. He said that if he were to put himself in the shoes of a finance minister of a developing country like India, “How do I do it if I don’t see a stream of funding? Rich countries are failing in their commitment.”

Singh said that there was some hope in the plan announced by the U.S., Britain, France and Germany to provide $8.5 billion in loans and grants over five years to help South Africa phase out coal, a source of 90% of its electricity. But he added that it remained to be seen if that money would make it to those most impacted.

India’s opposition parliamentarians criticized the government for not consulting with chief ministers or state leaders before announcing India’s net-zero targets in December in the parliament. Parliamentarian Kanimozhi Karunanidhi said that India had only a fraction of the solar energy needed to meet what had been promised at Glasgow.

“I want to know how can we achieve so much? What we’ve done is nothing compared to what we’ve promised to the world,” said Karunanidhi, from Thoothukkudi in southern India.

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Stating that only 20 countries on the planet account for 80 per cent of all emissions, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry said, unfortunately not all countries are adopting scientific plans to restrict temperature rise.

“Unfortunately some of those countries are not yet adopting plans to do what the science tells us we do, which is needed to reach the 1.5 degrees Celsius and cut our emissions by 45 per cent in the course of this next eight year period,” he said at the 21st edition of the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) being held virtually on Wednesday.

Asserting that the climate crisis is the single greatest security challenge that the world faces, Kerry called for “monumental transformation” in the way “we deal with the concept of sustainability”.

“Given the population growth rate on the planet, the level of current resource utilisation is rapacious and not at all geared to the prospect of sustainability,” he said at the ministerial session on ‘Ambition and Action in the Critical Decade for addressing Climate Change and Realising Sustainable Development’.

Commending the ambitious goals of 500 GW renewables by 2030 set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Glasgow (where the annual climate change summit was held in November 2021), Kerry said: “The criticality of achieving that goal was very simple. It is the only way that India itself becomes compliant with the 1.5 degrees goal, which we all ratified in Glasgow recently.”

The session that was moderated by former Ambassador and Distinguished Fellow, TERI, Manjeev Singh Puri, was also addressed by Ministers of Environment from Canada, Norway, Germany, Finland, France, and Spain.

Before moving on to the next speaker, Puri, said he would leave for him (Kerry) two thoughts in terms of global action. “The most important thing is what you want to do in the USA. You may not understand the huge role model impact that would have. The best practices that you would do, for example, electrification of public transport, or the use of green energy or the fact that the coal would be wound down, each and every one matter and then for all of us (remaining countries) they become the comfort zones to turn to,” he said.

“At Glasgow, who announced India’s huge commitment on renewable energy, also spoke about LIFE, which is Lifestyle for Environment. We count on you again, as leaders, the Europeans, the Americans, the Canadians, and of course, all of use, in terms of Lifestyle, if we can move away from profligate consumption, I am sure, there is lots of action in the area of production in any case.” (IANS)

The highest glacier on Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, “may already be a relic from an older, colder, time,” says the scientist who collected the highest ice core on the planet from it for a new study. The South Col Glacier is now losing several decades of ice accumulation every single year, the international team of scientists is reporting.

From April to May 2019, the multidisciplinary team from eight countries conducted a comprehensive scientific expedition to Mt. Everest in the Khumbu Region of Nepal as part of National Geographic and Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Expeditions partnership.

Team members, including 17 Nepali researchers, explored five areas of science that probe environmental changes and their impacts: biology, glaciology, meteorology, geology, and mapping.

They found that Earth’s warmer climate is causing melting and what the scientists call “sublimation.” This happens when the snow top gets removed and the exposed ice, which is darker, absorbs more sunshine than when the top layer of snow was intact. This, in turn, accelerates the glacier’s melt rate, they explain in a new paper in the latest issue of the “Nature Portfolio Journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.”

“The sublimation is like the drip from a leaking dam and the rapid ice loss is what happens when the dam breaks,” explained Mariusz Potocki, a glaciochemist and doctoral candidate in the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, who collected the highest ice core.

The research team investigated the timing and cause of the rapid ice mass loss on the South Col Glacier. At 7,900 meters (26,000 feet) above sea level and just a kilometer below the peak of Mount Everest, this is the highest glacier and one of the sunniest spots on Earth.

“Once South Col Glacier ice was regularly exposed,” Potocki said, “approximately 55 meters of glacier thinning is estimated to have occurred in a quarter-century – thinning over 80 times faster than the nearly 2,000 years it took to form the ice at the surface.”

“It also suggests that the South Col Glacier may be on the way out,” he said. “It may already be a relic from an older, colder, time.”

Potocki and his fellow scientists have three main concerns:

• The faster the ice accumulation disappears, the more quickly the glacier’s capacity to provide water for the more than the one billion people who depend on it for drinking and irrigation, will also disappear.
• New impacts can increase the risk of avalanches in the region.
• Future expeditions to Mount Everest could encounter more exposed bedrock as snow and ice cover continues to thin in the coming decades, potentially making the mountain more challenging to climb. On the other hand, the warming air will mean more oxygen for climbers.

The impacts of climate change on the South Col Glacier have been most intense since the late 1990s, the research team learned.

The study’s lead author Paul Mayewski, serves as scientific and expedition lead, and director of the Climate Change Institute University of Maine.

“It answers one of the big questions posed by our 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition – whether the highest glaciers on the planet are impacted by human-source climate change. The answer is a resounding yes, and very significantly since the late 1990s,” Mayewski declared.

The warming will have a compounding effect on the experience of climbing Mount Everest, the researchers predict. They say the surface on some sections of the route will gradually shift from snowpack to ice to exposed bedrock, and avalanches will become more dynamic due to the instability of the ice.

Glacier melt is even likely to destabilize the Khumbu base camp, home to many Mount Everest climbers and logistics teams throughout the climbing season.

More than a third of the American population is currently experiencing rapid, above-average rates of temperature increase, with 499 counties already breaching 1.5C (2.7F) of heating, a Guardian review of climate data shows.

The US as a whole has heated up over the past century due to the release of planet-warming gases from burning fossil fuels, and swaths of the US west, north-east and upper midwest – representing more than 124.6 million people – have recorded soaring increases since federal government temperature records began in 1895.

Though the climate crisis is convulsing the US, it is doing so unevenly. Hotspots of extreme warming have emerged in many of America’s largest cities, and places as diverse as California’s balmy coast to the previously frigid northern reaches of Minnesota, while other places, particularly in the south, have barely seen their temperatures budge.

“The warming isn’t distributed evenly,” said Brian Brettschneider, an Alaska-based climate scientist who collated the county temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). “Many places have seen dramatic changes, but there are always some places below the average who will think, ‘It didn’t seem that warm to me.’ The impacts differ depending where you are.”

Ventura county in California has heated up more than any other county in the contiguous US, according to the Noaa data, experiencing a 2.6C (4.75F) increase in total warming in the period from 1895 to 2021. Meanwhile, counties that include many of America’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston, have all seen their average temperatures rise far beyond the national average, which stands at about a 1C (1.8F) increase on pre-industrial times.

Mark Jackson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service based in Oxnard in Ventura county said the county’s temperature increase was “a remarkable number, it’s a scary number when you consider the pace we are looking at”. Jackson said the county had seen a large increase in heatwaves, including a spell above 37C (100F) last summer that “really stressed” the local community.

Ventura county, which hugs the Californian coast north-west of Los Angeles, is known for a pleasant Mediterranean climate cooled slightly by the proximity of the ocean. But Jackson said that recent heatwaves have seen warm air flow down from mountains in the nearby Los Padres national forest to the coast, while the ocean itself is being roiled by escalating temperatures. “It’s been really remarkable to see it get that hot right up to the coast,” he said.

California is in the grip of its most severe drought in 1,200 years and scientists say this is fueling the heat seen in many places in the state – Los Angeles has warmed by 2.3C (4.2F) since 1895, while Santa Barbara has jumped by 2.4C (4.38F) – by reducing moisture in soils, which then bake more quickly.

Higher temperatures are also worsening the risk of wildfires in the state. “We lost everything,” said Tyler Suchman, founder of online marketing firm Tribal Core who in 2017 fled with his wife to escape a huge wildfire that razed their home in Ojai, in Ventura county. “It was harrowing. The winds were blowing like crazy and the hills lining the highway were all on fire, I had never seen anything like it.”

Just 11 months later, a separate wildfire destroyed the couple’s next home, in Malibu, as their neighbor scooped up water from his hot tub in a desperate attempt to tackle the flames. “No one wants us to move next to them now,” Suchman said. “You can see how the area has changed over the 18 years since we moved to Ojai. It’s a beautiful place but regrettably we can’t live there now, the risk is too great.”

Hotspots of above-average warming are found across the US. Grand county in Utah, a place of sprawling deserts, cliffs and plateaus, is the second fastest warming county in the lower 48 states, while every county in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut has warmed by more than 1.5C (2.7F) since 1895.

It’s the more northern latitudes that have experienced the most extreme recent heat, however, with counties in Alaska making up all of the top six fastest warming places since 1970 (comparable temperature data for Alaska does not go back further than the 1920s). Alaska’s North slope, situated within the rapidly warming Arctic, has heated up by an enormous 3.7C (6.6F) in just the past 50 years.

“There really is a climate shift under way in Alaska, everyone can see things are different than they used to be and everyone is concerned about what the future here will look like,” said Brettschneider, who added that even his teenage children had noticed the retreat of sea ice, an elongating fire season and a dearth of cold days.

The warmth is also melting frozen soils, known as permafrost, causing buildings to subside and roads to buckle. “If you drive on the roads near Fairbanks you better have a strong stomach because it feels like you’re riding a rollercoaster,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.

Other locations traditionally used to severe cold have also seen sharp temperature increases. Roseau and Kittson counties, in northern Minnesota, are both in the top five fastest warming counties in the lower 48 states, with their warming driven by winters that have heated up by around 3.8C (7F) in the state since modern record keeping began.

Winters are warming more quickly than summers because more heat usually escapes the land during the colder months, but it is now being trapped by greenhouse gases. “Some might say ‘well I like warmer winters’ but people are noticing negative impacts, such as changes to the growing season and the loss of cultural practices such as cross-country skiing races,” said Heidi Roop, a climate scientist at the University of Minnesota. “Even small temperature changes have big consequences.”

Globally, governments set a goal in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to avoid a temperature rise of 1.5C (2.7F) above the pre-industrial era. Beyond this point, scientists say, the world will face increasingly punishing heatwaves, storms, flooding and societal unrest.

While certain areas of the US have already passed 1.5C, the important metric is still the global average, Hayhoe said. “In some places a 2C increase is fine but 2.5C is when the wheels fall off the bus, some locations are OK with 5ft of sea level rise because of their elevation while others can’t cope with 5 in because they are low-lying,” she said. “Local vulnerability is very customized. What’s relevant for communities is whether the world meets its targets or not, it’s a collective target for the world.”

That global threshold is in severe peril, with some forecasts warning that 1.5C (2.7F) could be breached within a decade without drastic cuts to carbon emissions. Communities will need to brace themselves for the consequences of this, according to Roop.

“The warming we are seeing is pushing at the bounds of lived human experience, of what we thought was possible,” she said. “We are paying the costs for that and we need to prepare for the changes already set in motion, as well as to prevent further warming.”

The map of US counties on this article was amended on 6 February 2022 to correct the temperature conversions.

India’s Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Minister Bhupender Yadav on Monday had a telephonic call with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry where the two of them discussed wide range of issues including India’s ambitious climate action targets announced during the COP26.

Taking to Twitter after he spoke with Kerry late in the evening, Yadav tweeted: “Productive phone call with US Climate Envoy Mr John Kerry. We agreed to take forward India-US Climate Actions & Finance Mobilisation Dialogue. a India is on track to achieve Paris Accord & COP26 commitments in accordance with PM Shri Narendra Modi ji’s LIFE mantra. (sic)”

Both the leaders discussed taking forward the India US Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue (CAFMD) through the four identified pillars, Climate Ambition, Finance Mobilisation, Adaptation and Resilience, and Forestry, a statement from the Environment, Forests and Climate Change Ministry said.

Yadav highlighted the importance and need to focus on L.I.F.E i.e., Lifestyle For Environment, the one-word campaign championed by Prime Minister Modi at Glasgow during the high-level segment at the annual climate change summit COP26.

The leaders also discussed the upcoming meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), the statement said.

The US on November 10 had joined the International Solar Alliance (ISA) as the 101st member country. Kerry had signed the framework agreement of the ISA to catalyse global energy transition through a solar-led approach.

Prior to it, on September 13, Yadav and Kerry had jointly launched the CAFMD, which is one of the two tracks of the India-US Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 partnership launched at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021 by Prime Minister Modi and US President Joe Biden.

December 11, 2021 was the International Day of Mountains and this year’s theme is “Sustainable Mountain Tourism”. For me, mountains are both a source of recreation and an important resource.

Mountains are home to 15% of the world’s population and they attract nearly 15-20% of global tourism. Mountains host almost 50% of the biodiversity hotspots worldwide and provide freshwater to humanity for survival every day.

However, mountains have not escaped the climate crisis. Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than anywhere in the world and plastic microfibers have been found even in the highest peaks.

And this is why, I give back to the Himalayas by keeping them litter free and reintroducing a circular economy at the third pole of the world. A circular economy is possible only if we factor in the carrying capacity of our mountains, an aspect we often overlook. The never ending demands of tourists and dying belongingness of indigenous communities is adding fuel to the fire. I believe that local growth comes from locally sourced produce and local skills. Small is beautiful and sustainable – just think of homestays over luxury hotels for example!

To further this vision across the Himalayas, our team at Healing Himalayas strives to preserve our mountains and make our planet a better, safer place. We have collected more than 800 thousand kilos of non-biodegradable solid waste and engaged more than 7000 volunteers on ground. We have built one waste collection center in Kinnaur so far to handle source segregation and eventually recycling. In the year 2022 we are aiming to build another three centers in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti.

Along with the ground action we encourage travellers and communities to be ethically mature, adopt sustainable lifestyle changes, and respect every species that inhabits our planet with us. It is through this that I believe we can bring about true change and see our mountains as providers and not as a resource.

The United Nations Development Programme aims to almost triple its plastic waste management to 100 cities in India by 2024, A UNDP executive said, to combat the damaging effects of plastic pollution.

Across India’s many towns and cities, which are often ranked among the world’s most polluted, the absence of an organized management of plastic waste leads to widespread littering and pollution.

The UNDP program, which began in 2018, has so far collected 83,000 metric tonne of plastic waste. India generates about 3.4 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, according to official estimates.

 “In India although about 60% of plastic is recycled, we are still seeing the damage that plastic pollution is causing,” Nadia Rasheed, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP India, said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference broadcast on Friday.

The UNDP is working with federal think tank, NITI Aayog and have jointly developed a ‘handbook’ model for local municipalities as well as the private sector.

“In a country like India with nearly fifth of the world’s population, a key challenge is how do we make these models scalable,” Rasheed said in an interview recorded on Nov. 22.

The government needs stricter enforcement on controls around dumping of plastic waste and has a “long way to go” to raise awareness among households, Rasheed said, adding there was a need for investment into research for alternatives.

The program suffered a setback after the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread increase in waste, including medical plastic waste, and hit livelihoods of collectors, who often work in hazardous conditions.

“There was a real need to expand waste collection efforts and that was coming at the same time as lot of (COVID-19 related) restrictions were disrupting the normal waste collection,” Rasheed said.

Plastic pollution is set to triple by 2040, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has predicted, adding 23-37 million metric tons of waste into the world’s oceans each year.

India, also the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States, has set 2070 as a target to reach net-zero carbon emissions, much later than those set by others and twenty years after the U.N.’s global recommendation.

A powerful storm that swept through California this week has set rainfall records and helped douse wildfires. But it remained to be seen how much of a dent it made in the state’s drought., causing mudslides that closed roads in the San Bernardino Mountains northeast of Los Angeles.

In the northern part of the state, drenching rains caused widespread flooding and rock slides over the weekend. Strong winds knocked down trees and even toppled two big rigs on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge near San Francisco. Pacific Gas & Electric reported that 380,000 homes and businesses lost power, though most had it back Monday.

Despite the problems, the rain and mountain snow were welcome in Northern California, which is so dry that nearly all of it is classified as either experiencing extreme or exceptional drought. The wet weather also greatly reduces the chances of additional wildfires in a region that has borne the brunt of another devastating year of blazes in the state.

The National Weather Service called preliminary rainfall totals “staggering,” including 11 inches (28 centimeters) at the base of Marin County’s Mount Tamalpais and 4 inches (10 centimeters) in downtown San Francisco, the fourth-wettest day ever for the city.

“It’s been a memorable past 24 hours for the Bay Area as the long talked-about atmospheric river rolled through the region,” the local weather office said Monday. “We literally have gone from fire/drought conditions to flooding in one storm cycle.”

A rainfall record was shattered in Sacramento. Northeast of San Francisco, 5.44 inches (13.82 centimeters) fell on downtown Sacramento, shattering the one-day record for rainfall that had stood since 1880.

Interstate 80, the major highway through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Reno, Nevada, was shut down by heavy snow early Monday. In California’s Colusa and Yolo counties, state highways 16 and 20 were shut for several miles because of mudslides, the state Department of Transportation said.

The same storm system also slammed Oregon and Washington state, causing power outages that affected tens of thousands of people. Two people were killed when a tree fell on a vehicle in the greater Seattle area.

Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, said the rain was a huge relief after the Caldor Fire torched an unknown number of the giant trees in the park, along with thousands of pines and cedars. “This amount of rainfall is what we call a season-ending event,” Brigham said. “It should end fire season, and it should end our need — to a large degree — to fight this fire.”

The impact of the nor’easter was centered across the entire New England region.  A storm offshore of the Mid-Atlantic explosively intensified Monday night, and enveloped the Northeast with strong winds and flooding rains as it comes up the coast. Flash flood watches are up from northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania into most of southern New England. Up to five inches of rain are possible, falling on soils that are largely saturated following an exceptionally wet summer. Parts of New Jersey have already seen more than 4 inches, with rainfall rates topping an inch per hour.

“We know how quickly these storms can escalate, so everyone, especially those living in basement apartments, should plan accordingly,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) tweeted Monday.

Wind advisories also stretch from the nation’s capital to the coastline of Maine, with a high-wind warning up for the shorelines of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where gusts could top 70 mph. The nor’easter is the first of two sprawling storm systems that will bring inclement weather to the East Coast this week. Its rate of intensification is expected to qualify it as a “bomb cyclone,” or a storm that strengthens with unusual haste. High water rescues, numerous road closures and rising rivers have been reported in the region, the weather service said, including rescues reported in New Jersey’s northern Monmouth County.

A state of emergency was declared in New Jersey and New York on Monday due to the anticipated storm hazards. New York City issued a travel advisory through Wednesday morning, advising commuters to allow extra travel time and use mass transit.

Newswise — In the popular imagination, New York City is a mass of soaring steel-frame skyscrapers. But many of the city’s 1 million buildings are not that modern. Behind their brick-and-mortar facades, its numerous 19th- and early 20th-century warehouses, commercial buildings and row homes are framed with massive wooden joists and beams. These structures probably harbor at least 14 million cubic meters of timber, the volume equivalent of about 74,000 subway cars. Their main sources: old-growth forests that long predated New York, and were erased to create it.

Historic preservation has never been New York’s strong point; about 1,000 old buildings are demolished or gut-renovated every year, the remains mostly going to landfills. Now, a team from the Tree Ring Laboratory at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is harnessing the destruction to systematically mine torn-out timbers for data. Annual growth rings from trees that were young in the 1500s may offer records of past climate no longer available from living trees. Studies of timber species, ages and provenances can shed light on the history of U.S. logging, commerce and transport.

“New York City is a huge repository of old timbers, probably the biggest in the country. It’s an amazing resource for science,” said dendrochronologist (tree-ring scientist) Mukund Palat Rao, one of the leaders of the effort (his position at Lamont is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). “These forests don’t exist anymore—they’re inside the buildings. They’re being demolished at a rapid pace, and getting thrown away. We’re trying to collect whatever we can.”

After its settlement by the Dutch in the 1620s, New York grew steadily but slowly. Then, about 1840, great waves of immigrants began arriving. A resulting major growth spurt lasted some 80 years before tapering off. During this time, much of the now existing city was built. Before steel came in during the early 20th century, the framing material of choice was wood. Starting in the 1700s, loggers to the north cut vast swaths of white pine, spruce, hemlock and balsam fir, often floating it down the Hudson River. By the latter 1800s, three-quarters of the Northeast’s virgin forests were stripped. Many builders then looked to the vast old-growth longleaf pine ecosystems of the U.S. Southeast. When the eastern seaboard was exhausted, loggers moved on to Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Today, only about 3 percent of the South’s old longleaf forests remain.

In a study just published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, the researchers shed unprecedented light on this period. The study looks at joists taken from Manhattan’s gigantic 1891 Terminal Warehouse, an iconic structure that still occupies an entire block in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Early on, it stored everything from carpets, furs and liquor to Broadway stage sets and stone sarcophagi. In the 1980s, it was converted into the country’s largest mini-storage facility. A run of railroad tracks bisecting its cavernous interior became for more than a decade the site of the infamously decadent Tunnel nightclub. The warehouse has also served as a spooky set for movies including the “Ghostbusters” series.

In 2019, new owners wanted to open up space for new shops, offices and restaurants. This involved pulling out enormous wooden joists holding up some interior sections of the building. Hoping to reuse the joists, they called Edward Cook, head of the Tree Ring Lab, to see what could be learned about them.

Cook is a hero of archaeodendrochronology, the study of wood from old buildings. Early in his career, his examinations of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and other historic structures showed that their ages could be pinned down by studying tree rings in their framing. He has since dated about 150 old houses and other buildings across the Northeast. In 2014, he and colleagues analyzed the remains of a wooden sloop accidentally turned up during excavations at the destroyed World Trade Center site. They determined it had been built from old-growth white oak cut somewhere near Philadelphia around 1773, and served for 20 or 30 years before being dumped on the mucky shoreline of New York harbor.

The tree-ring lab crew went down to the Terminal Warehouse’s massive basement. Here, they found piles of removed joists, 22 feet long, a foot wide and 3 inches deep. Looking at the ends in cross section, they could see that many displayed 150 or more annual growth rings—a dendrochronologist’s delight. (Caroline Leland, the study’s lead author with Rao, also noted several humongous bird-cage-like things—tools of the trade once used by go-go dancers at the Tunnel, she guessed.) Amid combustion fumes and deafening racket, a building worker chain sawed off the ends of a couple of dozen of the best-looking joists, and the scientists took them back to the lab.

Based on resin content and certain patterns and colors in the timbers’ rings, the team determined that the joists were perfect specimens of old-growth longleaf pine, prized by 19th-century builders for their density, strength and resistance to rot.

Trees’ growth rings vary each year according to weather; in the simplest translation, wider rings mean wetter years with good growing conditions. After that, it gets more complicated; by measuring and comparing rings in excruciating detail, dendrochronologists can create a year-by-year fingerprint that most or all of the trees from the same place have in common. The joists came from different parts of different trees, so no two represented the exact same time span. But many overlapped in time. This allowed the scientists to assemble a master chronology, from the date the oldest trees started growing to the date they were cut.

Based on the characteristics of some of the joists’ outer rings, the scientists determined that most of the trees had been felled in 1891or a bit earlier. And, all the trees were ancient; most started out as saplings anywhere from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s. The oldest had sprouted around 1512.

They then compared their data to previous studies of rings in rare living longleaf stands, ranging from Louisiana to North Carolina. Because yearly conditions vary from site to site, each site exhibits localized ring patterns. By comparing these, they were then able to deduce where the timbers had come from: The rings from the joists lined up nicely with those of living trees from eastern Alabama’s Choccolocco Mountain and Spreewell Bluff, just across the border in western Georgia. Both areas had been heavily logged in the late 1800s, when steam power and rail networks were expanding mightily, allowing lumber to be shipped to ravenous faraway markets like New York.

Delving into regional historical archives, the team hypothesized that the trees were sawed at the Sample Lumber Company, near Hollins, Alabama. Then, in one of a couple of possible scenarios, they would have been shipped by a series of connecting railroads to the port of Savannah, Ga. There, the 250-pound joists would have been loaded into openings in the hulls of schooners bound for the banks of the Hudson, where the Terminal Warehouse was rising.

“To think of all those old trees, just clear cut—that was really sad,” said Leland. On the other hand: “There is a lot of history locked up in those timbers. It’s really difficult to find living old growth in the eastern United States now. If we can get enough samples, it may allow us to develop a better understanding of the long-term climate in the regions these trees come from.”

The scientists now wanted more old timbers. Luckily, they had a connection with Alan Solomon, a New York entrepreneur and polymath. Solomon comes from a family of scrap-metal dealers, so he knows salvage. He is also an intensely driven historical researcher and preservationist. Among other pursuits, he fought for seven years in the late 1990s and early 2000s to stop the demolition of 211 Pearl Street, a circa 1831 commercial building in lower Manhattan commissioned by soapmaker William Colgate. (Yes, that Colgate, progenitor of the Colgate-Palmolive mega-corporation.) Solomon had heard that New York writer Herman Melville might have written his famous 1853 short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” at 211 Pearl. This may or may not have been true. In the end, the building was destroyed and replaced by a skyscraper. A salvager carted away some of the timbers and sold them for reuse in other buildings, including a hotel in New Hampshire.

By 2019, Solomon was running his own Brooklyn-based timber-salvage company, Sawkill Lumber. (Named after a creek that once ran from the present-day site of the American Museum of Natural History to the East River. It powered an early 1600s Dutch sawmill that probably helped devour the old-growth forest of Manhattan itself.) Solomon also authored a book about reclaimed wood, for which he consulted Ed Cook. After that, Solomon ended up helping with historical research for the Terminal Warehouse project. With his finger on the pulse of New York demolitions, he was more than happy to have the dendrochronologists tag along with him to active sites and saw out samples as walls were being taken down and workers piled up debris.

Among other places, they showed up with their own chainsaws and hardhats to the remodeling of an 1898 firehouse on Manhattan’s Lafayette Street; a couple of doomed horse stables in Brooklyn; the 19th-century St. Mary’s Church in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, which was coming down for a modern development; and various warehouses, homes and mixed-use building scattered around the city. So far, they have material from 18 buildings, and plan to collect more.

The one other site they have analyzed so far is 211 Pearl; Solomon had hung on to some of the remains. They identified the framing as white pine. They then compared the timbers to studies of rare living white pines from Pennsylvania, upstate New York and Quebec, and found the best match in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Here, they learned, the pines had once grown as much as four feet in diameter and 160 feet tall. Logging had started in the 1750s and peaked in the 1870s, with much of the wood being sawed in the upstate town of Glens Falls, and sent down to New York.

The living-tree studies to which the researchers compared the Pearl Street timbers extended back to 1690—quite a respectable stretch. But some of the Pearl Street timbers were even older: 1532. If more such specimens can be found, said Rao, this should allow the scientists to extend the climate record for this region considerably. Interestingly, the trees appear to have been cut in 1789, four decades before 211 Pearl went up. Were they stockpiled? Or, perhaps recycled from an even earlier building?

The dendrochronologists have now joined with Solomon to try founding a nonprofit aimed at promoting the preservation of old timbers in New York. They are also talking with a small group of engineers and architects who want to lobby the city for an ordinance that would identify old timbers uncovered in demolitions, and require companies to contact salvagers.

“I’d like to see information from a big network of buildings,” said Leland. “We could develop a sort of history of the urban forest.”

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is Columbia University’s home for Earth science research. Its scientists develop fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world, from the planet’s deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. www.ldeo.columbia.edu  |  @LamontEarthThe

The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. www.earth.columbia.edu.