This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including new damage estimates for the LA fires, confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet picks, and Hong Kong’s record-breaking year.

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1. LA Fires Could Be Costliest Blaze in US History With Over $200bn in Losses

While two of the largest fires that have been sweeping through more than 40,000 acres in the greater Los Angeles area for a week are still largely uncontained, preliminary estimates of damage and economic losses signal the ongoing LA fires could be the costliest wildfire disaster in US history.

An abundance of dry vegetation owing to a prolonged drought in the region, combined with hurricane-level Santa Ana winds, have created the “perfect storm” for the fires to spread rapidly.

The winds, a typical occurrence in southern California this time of year, are forecast to return on Tuesday following a few days of quieter condition, increasing fears of “explosive fire growth.”

While government agencies have yet to provide damage estimates, private commercial weather forecasting agency AccuWeather on Monday increased its preliminary estimate of total damage and economic loss of $250 billion to $275 billion “due to what has occurred and what is to come.”

Read the full article.

2. BlackRock Quits Major Net Zero Alliance Ahead of Trump Inauguration As Number of Wall Street Lenders Shying Away From Sustainability Efforts Grows

BlackRock, the world’s largest investment management corporation, announced last week it will leave a key international group of asset managers committed to reaching net zero emissions amid a recent Wall Street firms exodus.

The group, which manages assets worth some $11.5 trillion, said the decision to leave was prompted by pressure from public officials and legal inquiries.

BlackRock’s exit comes on the heels of a trend where major Wall Street banks are stepping back from climate initiatives ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration later this month.

The six biggest banks in the world’s largest economy – Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan – recently quit the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, the sector’s biggest climate coalition. While not directly citing it as an influencing factor, the banks have for some two years been the focus of a Republican-led campaign against environment, social and governance investing.

Read the full article.

3. Trump’s Pick for Energy Chief Chris Wright Vows to Back All Forms of Energy During Confirmation Hearing

Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the energy department, reiterated his support for the fossil fuel industry during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, while also acknowledging that climate change is a “real and global issue.”

Wright, who is the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy and has no political experience, told US senators that his first priority is expanding domestic energy production, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and nuclear power.

During the nearly 3-hour hearing, which was interrupted several times by protesters shouting slogans condemning the fossil fuel industry, Wright also voiced support for solar energy and carbon capture technologies and said he would focus on expanding transmission lines to stabilize the US grid, Bloomberg reported.

Questioned by California Senator Alex Padilla about a previous comment he made on social media, where he dismissed the link between climate change and wildfires as “hype,” Wright said he stands by his past comment, adding that he believes climate change is a “real and global phenomenon.”

A staunch defender of fossil fuel use and vocal critic of climate alarmism, Wright, 60, is expected to fulfil Trump’s campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill” and undo many of his predecessor’s biggest clean energy achievements, steering the department back to America’s roots in oil and gas production.

Read the full article.

4. Trump’s EPA Pick Says Agency Authorized, Not Required, to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Lee Zeldin, president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, on Thursday hesitated to answer questions about the agency’s role in reducing US reliance on fossil fuels, despite acknowledging that climate change is real and a threat.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, which lasted little over three hours, the former Republican congressman faced questions on climate change, regulations and energy production.

Democratic Senator Ed Markey questioned Zeldin, 44, about the role of the EPA. Citing a comment Zeldin made in 2016, Markey asked if he still believed it was the agency’s job to reduce US reliance on fossil fuels.

“In an ideal world, we would be able to pursue the cleanest, greenest energy possible,” Zeldin said, without directly answering the question, prompting Markey to say his change of tone was driven by “politics, and not the science.”

The senator then questioned Zeldin on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling – Massachusetts v EPA – which Markey said “mandated” the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants. “Do you accept that as a mandate?” the senator asked.

“I just want to be accurate and in citing Massachusetts v EPA, the decision does not require the EPA, it authorizes it,” Zeldin replied.

Read the full article.

5. Hong Kong Breaks 35 Temperature Records in 2024, Hottest Year in City’s History

In line with the global trend, Hong Kong just recorded its hottest year since at least 1884, when the city first began tracking temperature trends.

In 2024, Hong Kong saw a total of 35 record-breaking high temperature events. These included the highest absolute maximum temperature on record for March at 31.5C, the warmest April on record with temperatures significantly above normal, the warmest first half-year on record, and the highest number of hot nights for August.

A weaker northeast monsoon also made October warmer than any other October on record, and the warmest autumn from September to November, according to Monday’s report.

There were also 52 Very Hot Days, 50 Hot Nights and two Extremely Hot Days in Hong Kong in 2024, “respectively ranking one of the third highest, one of the fourth highest and one of the eighth highest on record,” the Observatory said.

Read the full article.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for January 13-17, 2025 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including 2024 officially confirmed as the hottest year on record, Los Angeles’ historic wildfires, and Thailand’s ban on plastic imports.

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1. 2024, Hottest Year on Record, Surpasses 1.5C Mark Amid Rise in Greenhouse Gases

Earth’s temperature hit new milestones in 2024: reaching record-breaking levels and rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

That last year was going to be the warmest on record became clear a few months ago, when global temperatures did not fall as predicted after El Niño subsided last June. The weather pattern, which is associated with the warming of sea surface temperatures in the central-east equatorial Pacific, pushed global temperatures “off the charts” in 2023, making it the hottest year on record.

But while conditions in the equatorial Pacific returned to normal mid last year, global temperatures did not.

“All of us who made projections at the start of the year underestimated just how warm 2024 would be,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth.

On Friday, the EU’s Earth observation programme Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also confirmed another earlier prediction: that 2024 marked the first calendar year that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5C above its pre-industrial level. While this does not signal a permanent breach of the critical limit, which scientists say is measured over decades, it sends a clear warning to humanity that we are approaching the point of no return much faster than expected.

Read the full article.

2. At Least 5 Dead, 70,000 Evacuated Amid Historic Blazes in Drought-Stricken LA

Fast-spreading, out-of-control wildfires have prompted widespread evacuations in the Los Angeles region, shocking the nation as footage captures homes ablaze and vast swaths of vegetation consumed by the relentless fires.

A combination of several factors have allowed the fires to grow and spread rapidly.

Powerful Santa Ana winds, with speeds reaching up to 80mph and even 100mph in certain areas, have fanned the flames at an unprecedented pace, leading to “one of the most significant fire outbreaks in history,” according to meteorologist Ariel Cohen.

These dry, warm winds originate from the western desert interior of the United States and push towards southern California, creating ideal conditions for wildfires by reducing humidity and drying out vegetation. These winds have fuelled some of Los Angeles worst wildfires in the past.

Adding to that was an abundance of dry, fire-prone vegetation in the area.

Southern California has experienced “exceptionally dry” conditions following two winters of heavy rainfall in 2022 and 2023.

Read the full article.

3. Thailand’s Ban on Plastic Imports Comes into Force as Campaigners Warn of Challenges in Enforcement

A ban on plastic waste imports has come into force in Thailand, two years after it was announced in a bid to control pollution and protect people’s health.

Thailand and other developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, have acted as the dumping ground for foreign nations’ trash for decades. Until 2017, China was the world’s largest importer of plastic waste, bringing in an average of 8 million tonnes of plastic a year from more than 90 nations around the world. To tackle the pressing plastic pollution crisis, the Chinese government in 2018 introduced an import ban on solid waste, including several types of plastics and other recyclable waste.

Since then, big exporters like the US, which was shipping about 4,000 containers of garbage to China every day before the ban came into effect, rerouted most of their trash to Southeast Asia nations such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. 

Read the full article.

4. Biden Locks in Offshore Drilling Ban Weeks Before Trump Takes Office, Ramps Up Fossil Fuel Production

US President Joe Biden has issued a decree that permanently bans new offshore oil and gas development across 625 million acres of US coastal waters. The move comes just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a climate denier, takes office with the promise to expand fossil fuel production in the country.

The ban, which has no expiration date, concerns all future oil and natural gas leasing in an area that extends to the entire US East coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.

Speaking on a radio show after the ban was announced, Trump said he would “unban it immediately,” though it might no be easy.

In contrast to many executive actions that can be easily reversed, Biden’s offshore drilling ban is rooted in a long-standing 72-year-old law, which grants the White House extensive authority to permanently shield US waters from oil and gas leasing without explicitly providing presidents with the ability to retract these protections once they are established.

Read the full article.

5. Australia’s Southeast Braces for Extreme Fire Risk Amid Intense Heatwave

A heatwave in Australia’s southeast intensified over the weekend, increasing the risk of bushfires and prompting fire bans across the region.

The heatwave sent the mercury above 40C in parts of the state of Victoria on Sunday, prompting local authorities to issue total fire bans across three districts facing “extreme” fire danger.

The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) last year predicted a “normal” fire season for most of 2024 amid “wetter-than-normal conditions” and “an increased chance of above average rainfall through winter and spring.” However, it also added that fire activity could increase in early 2025 amid an increase in temperatures across the country.

2024 was Australia’s second-hottest year on record overall, behind only 2019, with the average temperature 1.46C above the 1961-1990 average. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology also noted that Australia’s ten hottest years all occurred in the past two decades and that only two years of the past 40 have been cooler than average, the Guardian reported.

Read the full article.

6. Costliest Climate Disasters of 2024 Racked Up More than $229bn in Damages, Killed 2,000: Report

The ten costliest climate disasters of 2024 caused more than $229 billion in damages, according to an analysis by non-profit Christian Aid.

From deadly floods in China, Europe and East Africa to tropical storms in the Atlantic and Pacific, scorching heatwaves in India and droughts in South America, no region was spared by extreme weather events this year, the hottest year on record.

The ranking was compiled based on an analysis of insurance payouts alone, focusing on storms and cyclones due to their significant impact on infrastructure compared to any other type of extreme weather event. Because it does not take into account costs deriving losses in crop production and delays in trading, among others, the true financial toll of these events is believe to be much higher.

Read the full article.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for January 6-10, 2025 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the outcome of negotiations for a global plastic treaty in South Korea and the delay of a controversial anti-deforestation law in the EU.

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1. Negotiators Fail to Agree on Global Plastic Treaty As Talks Postponed to Next Year

The week-long meeting in Busan, South Korea, was the last of five scheduled Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings intended to yield a legally binding instrument to tackle the rampant plastic crisis. But standing disagreements on the basic scope of the treaty meant a decision could not be reached.

“It is clear there is persisting divergence in critical areas and more time is needed for these areas to be addressed,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said on Sunday as she adjourned negotiations to a later unspecified date.

“INC-5.2” will look at resolving many outstanding issues outlined in the final draft text released on Sunday. These include capping plastic production, managing plastic products and hazardous chemicals, and financing to support the implementation of the treaty in developing countries.

Read more.

2. EU Negotiators Delay Deforestation Ban, Discard Proposed Changes

EU negotiators on Tuesday voted to delay the bloc’s controversial deforestation ban by one year but rejected changes to the regulation.

The move follows a proposal by the European Commission in October to delay the legislation until December 30, 2025, in response to mounting pressure from some EU and non-EU countries, global business partners and industry. Many of them were complaining about a lack of preparedness to comply with the new strict requirements.

Negotiators, however, rejected a Commission’s proposal to water down the regulation by implementing a new “no risk” category of countries, mostly EU members, with vastly reduced checks.

Read more.

3. North and South America Endured ‘Exceptional’ Wildfire Season in 2024

2024 was a “devastating” year for large parts of North and South America, which saw above-average wildfire activity exacerbated by severe drought conditions.

The Pantanal wetlands, the Amazon, Canada and the western US experienced “particularly intense wildfires” this year, the EU Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) said on Thursday. The agency, which monitors global wildfire emissions, said exceptional drought conditions affecting the Americas have increased the likelihood of the occurrence of large wildfires.

The Amazon wildfire season started early this year, with Brazil and Venezuela breaking the record for the highest carbon emissions for February.

The Pantanal, home to the world’s largest tropical wetland area, had a catastrophic wildfire season, with wildfire activity up 980% from last year. Wildfires ravaged nearly 1.5 million hectares of the region’s 20 million hectares.

Read more.

4. Environmental Groups Urge EPA to Monitor Microplastics in Water

More than 170 top environmental groups have signed a petition urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to begin monitoring microplastics in drinking water, reflecting a growing recognition of the pervasive presence of microplastics in the environment and the escalating concerns regarding their potential risks to human health.

The petition, submitted last month by Food & Water Watch, requests the EPA to begin monitoring microplastics as an emerging pollutant under the Safe Drinking Water Act starting from 2026 to protect public health. It was co-signed by 175 groups including Beyond Plastics, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for International Environmental Law, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

Microplastics, tiny plastic particles resulting from the degradation of larger plastics, have been found pretty much everywhere – inside marine creatures and in mammal feces, in food and bottled water, and even in human blood. Because this is still a relatively new research field, scientists cannot yet fully estimate the long-lasting impact of these particles on animals and humans.

Read more.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for December 2-6, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

More than 170 environmental groups signed the petition demanding that microplastics be monitored under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

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More than 170 top environmental groups have signed a petition urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to begin monitoring microplastics in drinking water, reflecting a growing recognition of the pervasive presence of microplastics in the environment and the escalating concerns regarding their potential risks to human health.

The petition, submitted last month by Food & Water Watch, requests the EPA to begin monitoring microplastics as an emerging pollutant under the Safe Drinking Water Act starting from 2026 to protect public health. It was co-signed by 175 groups including Beyond Plastics, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for International Environmental Law, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

Microplastics, tiny plastic particles resulting from the degradation of larger plastics, have been found pretty much everywhere – inside marine creatures and in mammal feces, in food and bottled water, and even in human blood. Because this is still a relatively new research field, scientists cannot yet fully estimate the long-lasting impact of these particles on animals and humans.

“The science is clear and alarming: Microplastics are everywhere in our world and in all of our bodies, posing a very serious threat to human health,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.

“We can’t wait another five years or more for the EPA to get serious about investigating the ways in which toxic microplastics pollute our water and invade our bodies.”

A study published earlier this year found that there are about a quarter of a million plastic particles in the average one-liter water bottle, up to 100 times more than previously estimated. Scientists looked at five different water bottles from three popular brands and found, on average, 240,000 particles from seven different types of plastic, mostly in the form of nanoplastics.

You might also like: Negotiators Fail to Agree on Global Plastic Treaty As Talks Postponed to Next Year

The post Environmental Groups Urge EPA to Monitor Microplastics in Water appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including a disappointing COP29’s final deal and a new study on conflict- and climate-related internal displacement in Africa.

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1. COP29 $300 Billion Climate Finance Pledge an ‘Insult’, Say Developing Nations, Campaigners

The deal was reached in the early hours of Sunday, far past the scheduled end of COP29 on Friday. More than 50,000 people attended the two-week summit in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, including 80 world leaders and at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists.

The money will come from a variety of sources, including public and private finance as well as bilateral and multilateral deals. The text also “encourages” developing countries like China to contribute, albeit on a voluntary basis. 

It will replace the existing goal to mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020 for developing countries, which was proposed at COP15 in 2009 but not met until 2022.

But Global South negotiators said Sunday’s deal was a “joke” and “insultingly low.” They had been pushing for “trillions, not billions” throughout the summit and mainly grant-based money that would not have to be paid back as many developing countries are already heavily burdened by debt from previous development assistance.

Read more.

You might also like: COP29 Week 1 recap and COP29 Week 2 recap.

2. Air Pollution From Wildfires Kills 1.5 Million Annually, Over 90% in Developing Countries: Study

Air pollution caused by wildfires is attributable to more than 1.5 million deaths a year globally, albeit with significant geographical and socioeconomic disparities, a new major study has found.

PM2.5, one of the most common and harmful components of air pollution, was linked to some 77.6% of the estimated 1.53 million annual deaths from fire-related pollution, while ozone accounted for 22.4%.

Low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected, accounting for over 90% of all attributable deaths with major hotspots in southeast Asia, south Asia, east Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The latter alone accounted for nearly 40% of all deaths.

Read more.

3. Floods and Droughts Driving Increasing Displacement in Africa: Report

According to data compiled by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), floods accounted for more than three-quarters of all disaster-related displacements – which last year reached 6.3 million. In 2009, the number of people internally displaced by a disaster was 1.1 million.

Conflict remains the number one driver behind Africa’s 35 million internally displaced people, affecting nine out of 10 people.

Conflict displacements remain highly concentrated, with 80% happening in just five countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan. The latter is suffering the world’s largest and most protracted internal displacement crisis, with some 9.1 million people living in displacement at the end of 2023.

Displacement rates have also risen sharply in Mozambique and border areas between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, where new conflicts have broken out.

Read more.

4. Environmental Crimes in the Amazon Region Often Have Financial Ties to the US, Report Finds

A new report by the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition looking at 230 environmental crimes in countries in the Amazon region provides new insights into how environmental crimes such as illegal mining, logging, and wildlife trafficking are being committed and how their associated profits are being laundered. 

The report, published last month, found that the US was the most commonly involved foreign destination for both illegally-sourced natural resources – including gold – as well as for illicit proceeds from their sale.

This builds on earlier research by FACT that found that the US has been a safe haven for illicit financial flows from environmental crimes due to lax anti money laundering requirements. In July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted that international environmental crimes “often entail misusing and abusing the U.S. financial system.”

Read more.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for November 25-29, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro and a new study on the influence of ocean warming on Atlantic hurricanes.

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1. G20 Backs New Climate Finance Goal at COP29 But Falls Short of Explicitly Mentioning Fossil Fuels

The leaders of the world’s largest economies met at Rio de Janeiro’s Modern Art Museum earlier this week. The two-day meeting tackled an agenda ranging from ongoing conflicts to climate change, poverty reduction and tax policy.

They agreed to step up multilateralism and increase climate finance “from billions to trillions” during a meeting in Brazil but fell short of explicitly addressing planet-warming fossil fuels.

Issued Tuesday, the final G20 declaration said countries “welcome and fully subscribe to the ambitious and balanced outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28), in particular the UAE Consensus,” without explicitly addressing the pledge made at the UN climate summit last year to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

They pledged a “strong commitment to multilateralism,” particularly with regards to the progress made on the Paris Agreement, which US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to leave again.

G20 nations account are largely responsible for global warming, accounting for some 85% of the world economy and more than three-quarters of climate-warming emissions.

Read more.

2. Five Chemical and Oil Firms Behind Alliance to End Plastic Have Produced 1,000 Times More Plastic Than They Cleaned Up, Analysis Finds

Members of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which include the world’s largest oil and gas companies, have produced more than 1,000 times the plastic than the scheme has cleaned up since its inception, a Greenpeace analysis has revealed.

As shown on the alliance’s website, the program has saved some 118,580 tonnes of unmanaged plastic waste since 2019. What it does not reveal is that just five companies part of the alliance’s executive committee produced 132 million tonnes of plastic over the same period. They include chemical company Dow and Chevron Phillips and oil companies ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies.

“It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of greenwashing in this world,” the environmental campaigner Bill McKibben told Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism publication. “The oil and gas industry – which is pretty much the same thing as the plastics industry – has been at this for decades.”

Read more.

3. Ocean Warming Intensified Wind Speed for All Atlantic Hurricanes in 2024, Analysis Reveals

Published Wednesday, the study concluded that higher-than-usual ocean temperatures boosted the intensity of all eleven storms recorded between June and November, increasing their highest sustained wind speeds by 9 to 28 mph (14.5 to 45 km/h). This resulted in seven hurricanes reaching a higher category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale and two tropical storms – Debby and Oscar – strengthening into hurricanes.

Ocean warming made major hurricanes like Helene (Category 4) and Milton (Category 5), which killed at least 260 people, were made 16 mph and 24 mph stronger, respectively.

Read more.

4. Environmentalists Weigh In on Trump Cabinet Picks

Climate experts, environmental organizations and advocacy groups are reacting to Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, which include climate deniers, fossil fuel advocates and people with no political experience.

The president-elect on Friday announced he is nominating Republican governor Doug Burgum as the interior secretary and “energy czar.” The new position was created to carry out the administration’s sweeping plans to scale back energy and climate rules implemented under President Joe Biden and boost oil and gas production on millions of acres of federal lands nationwide, including national parks and wildlife refuges.

Trump on Saturday announced oil and gas industry executive and campaign donor Chris Wright as his pick to lead the US Department of Energy. In a statement, Wright said he was “honored and grateful” to be picked to lead the energy department.

Wright, a staunch defender of fossil fuel use and vocal critic of climate alarmism, is expected to fulfil Trump’s campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill” and undo many of his predecessor’s biggest clean energy achievements, steering the department back to America’s roots in oil and gas production.

On Monday, Trump said he will appoint Republican former congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA works to protect the environment in the country, particularly as it relates to human health.

During his time in Congress between 2015 and 2023, Zeldin supported just 14% of key pieces of environmental legislation, according to a scorecard by environmental group the League of Conservation Voters.

Read more.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for November 18-22, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including new research on forever chemicals in the US and developments from the first days of COP29 negotiations.

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1. COP29 Chief Caught in Fossil Fuel Deal Controversy

The COP29 chief executive appeared to use his role at the UN climate summit to facilitate fossil fuel deals, as shown in leaked meeting recordings.

The undercover investigation by campaign group Global Witness exposed Elnur Soltanov, also Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, agreeing to sponsorships in exchange for aiding oil and gas deals, a move that clashes with the global push towards climate adaptation and mitigation efforts.

The Azerbaijani Parliament has issued a statement condemning what it called a “hybrid attack,” and said it “will appeal to the relevant state institutions for a more in-depth investigation of the issue.”

In a statement, Amnesty International described the footage as “alarming,” though it said it did not come as a surprise.

Read more.

2. UK’s New Emissions Reduction Target Praised as ‘Shining Example of Climate Leadership’

The British government unveiled a fresh target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, reinforcing Britain’s leading role in combating global warming.

Speaking on the second day of the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035 relative to 1990 levels.

The new target is line with recommendations from the Climate Change Committee, an independent advisory body to the government that last month said the target should exceed the current 78% reduction goal set by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government three years ago.

“With this government, the UK will lead the way and lead Britain and the world into a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous future for all,” said Starmer.

Read more.

3. Global Carbon Budget: Only 6 Years Left Before Global Warming Exceeds 1.5C, New Report Warns

Humanity has only six years left for a chance to keep global warming below the 1.5C threshold, new research has revealed.

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024, according to a new study by the Global Carbon Project science team. Published Wednesday, the latest edition of the yearly assessment projects fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to reach 37.4 billion tonnes this year, an 0.8% increase from 2023. Emissions from coal, oil and gas in 2024 are projected to rise by 0.2%, 0.9% and 2.4%, respectively, compared to last year.

The group of scientists said there was “no sign” of fossil CO2 peaking despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow down climate change and a record growth in renewables.

Read more.

4. PFAS Potentially Contaminate Water For Up to 95 Million Americans: Study

Between 71 million to 95 million Americans potentially get their drinking water from untreated groundwater sources with detectable concentrations of PFAS, new research has found.

The US Geological Survey’s assessment of groundwater contamination revealed levels soaring up to 37,000 times beyond the drinking water standards recently revised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) refer to a group of more than 12,000 heat-resistant, oil-resistant, and water-resistant chemicals first introduced in the 1930s and found in hundreds of products including stain- and water-resistant fabrics and carpeting, makeup, cleaning products, paints, and fire-fighting foams. They are also commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down and can stay in human bodies for years, affecting almost every organ system.

They have been associated with adverse human health effects ranging from cancers to high cholesterol, thyroid disease, digestive issues, liver damage, asthma, allergies, and reduced vaccine response in children. 

Read more.

5. COP29 Must Act ‘Ambitiously’ on Adaptation Finance as Developing Countries Faced With ‘Enormous’ Funding Gap, UN Report Warns

Finance flows to enhance adaptation efforts are not remotely close to what is needed, particularly in climate-vulnerable developing countries, to keep up with the rapidly intensifying impacts of climate change, the UN environmental arm said on Thursday.

An increase of US$6 billion in funding from the developed world between 2021 and 2022, the largest year-on-year increase since the Paris Agreement, represents an “encouraging sign,” the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said last week. Yet the world is far off track on what is really needed, estimated at around $359 billion a year.

While it is true that the $28 billion in funding achieved in 2022 put the world closer to achieving the target set in the Glasgow Climate Pact of at least doubling adaptation finance to developing countries from 2019 levels by 2025, even achieving it would only close the current adaptation finance gap by about 5%, UNEP’s latest Adaptation Gap Report warned.

The growing financial needs to support climate adaptation are the result of the rapidly deteriorating global climate.

Read more.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for November 11-15, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including climate experts’ reactions to Donald Trump’s election victory and a disappointing end to the UN biodiversity summit.

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1. ‘Deeply Troubling’: Climate Experts Weigh in on Trump Election Victory

The world is reacting to Donald Trump’s presidential election victory on Wednesday, with analysts and commentators weighing in on what a second Trump presidency will mean for the fight against climate change in and outside the US.

In a statement, the Green Party of Northern Ireland described the election’s outcome as “deeply troubling,” hinting at the “chaos and damage” of the last Trump presidency to climate action globally. Meanwhile, the Center for International Environmental Law said Trump’s victory will have “profound impacts” on environmental protection, climate action and human rights.

Dan Lashof, US Director at World Resources Institute, said in a statement on Wednesday that “[t]here is no denying that another Trump presidency will stall national efforts to tackle the climate crisis and protect the environment.”

A Carbon Brief analysis published in March found that a second Trump election win could add 4 billion tonnes to US emissions by 2030, the equivalent of the annual emissions of the EU and Japan combined.

“One can only hope that Donald Trump will put conspiracy theories to the side and take the decisive action to address the climate crisis that the American people deserve,” Lashof added.

The country would also miss on its emissions reduction pledge by a “wide margin,” according to Carbon Brief, with emissions set to fall just 28% from 2005 levels by the decade’s end. Under the Paris Agreement, the US is committed to achieve a 50-52% reduction by then.

“We are poised to enter a much darker and much scarier time, whose consequences we will have be living with the consequences of that for the rest of our lives, even just from a climate perspective,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leader of the progressive group of Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives known as “the Squad.”

“I wish I could say that we can undo all the damage that we are poised to endure but there are some things we will not recover from. We will not recover from blowing past 1.5 degrees centigrade, or 2 degrees centigrade of warming. And we will live with the consequences of that for the rest of our lives,” Ocasio-Cortez, who on Tuesday won reelection representing the Bronx in New York, said.

Read more.

2. ‘Not Ambitious Enough’: COP16 Delegates Disappointed at Lack of Finance Deal Despite Breakthroughs on Genetic Data and Indigenous Representation

The UN biodiversity summit, COP16, was meant to advance progress on nature conservation. Instead, it has left many disappointed and several key issues unresolved.

In Cali, these same governments were supposed to “convert words into actions” and deliver on their nature conservation pledges. These included a goal of restoring and protecting at least 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas by 2030, better known as the 30X30 target.

But key issues of COP16 such as funding and monitoring of progress were left unanswered as the final plenary session came to an end in the early hours of Saturday, instead of Friday evening as originally scheduled. By then, more than half of countries representatives had already left the summit.

Delegates agreed to set up a global fund to collect economic resources from the use of digitalized genetic sequences and to ensure their fair and equitable distribution based on criteria such as conservation needs and biodiversity richness in the countries. They also agreed to establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous Peoples in future decision-making processes on nature conservation. The deal, described by many as a “watershed moment,” builds on a growing movement to recognize the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting land and helping combat climate change.

But a promise countries made in 2022 to raise $200 billion a year by 2030, including $20 billion to be given by rich countries to developing nations, to fund nature protection, did not materialize. COP16 also failed to achieve one of its main goals: establish how progress on this decade’s 30×30 target would be monitored. A draft agreement may have been ready but countries ran out of time to discuss the most pressing and divisive topics, the Guardian reported.

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3. 2024 ‘Virtually Certain’ to Be Hottest in History, Marking ‘New Milestone’ in Temperature Records

New data published by the EU earth observation agency Copernicus on Thursday shows that October was yet another abnormally warm month worldwide, the second-hottest on record and the 15th in a 16-month period for which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

For 2024 not to beat the record-breaking temperature of 2023, the average temperature anomaly for the rest of the year “would have to drop to almost zero to not be the warmest year,” Copernicus concluded.

“After 10 months of 2024 it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels according to the ERA5 dataset,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Burgess called on countries gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan, next week for the UN climate summit COP29 to “raise ambition” in light of the “new milestone in global temperature records.”

A UN report published ahead of the major summit indicated that current pledges put the world on track for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1C over the course of this century. It further warned that cuts of 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 are needed to get on track for 1.5C of warming.

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4. Second US Withdrawal From Paris Agreement Would Undermine Global Efforts to Halt Climate Change, UN Chief Says

The UN Secretary-General has warned of the potential repercussions of a Trump presidency on international climate targets and policies amid the possibility of a second US exit from the Paris accord.

Just months after taking office in 2017, former US president Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, a move that only took effect three years later owing to UN regulations.The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the growing threat of climate change. It set out a framework for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

In June, a Trump campaign spokesperson told Politico that Trump would yank the US out of the Paris deal for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November.“

The Paris agreement can survive, but people sometimes can lose important organs or lose the legs and survive. But we don’t want a crippled Paris agreement. We want a real Paris agreement,” António Guterres, the UN chief, said. “It’s very important that the United States remain in the Paris Agreement, and more than remain in the Paris agreement, that the United States adopts the kind of policies that are necessary to make the 1.5 degrees still a realistic objective.”

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5. Drought Conditions Affecting All US States Except Alaska and Kentucky, Greatest Number on Record

Little over 45% of the country and some 54% of the land in the lower 48 states are in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), which updates its data every Thursday. This represents an 81% rise since the week prior (16-22 October) and a 71.8% rise compared to September.

The number of people affected grew by 153.5% from September, reaching 150.3 million people countrywide.

“The U.S. saw a huge expansion of drought for the fourth week in a row. Conditions worsened in every state from the Plains to the East. Drought is present in every U.S. state except Alaska and Kentucky,” the latest bulletin read. It added that this was “the greatest number of states in drought in U.S. Drought Monitor history.”

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The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for November 2-8, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the outcome of the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and the latest study on the health risks associated with gas stoves.

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1. Climate Change-Induced Atlantic Ocean Warming Fuelled Deadly Valencia Floods, Scientists Say

Torrential rains hit Spain’s eastern region of Valencia on Tuesday, unleashing catastrophic flooding that killed at least 198 people, with dozens still missing on Thursday. 500 millimeters (20 inches) of rain – a year’s worth for some locations – fell in just eight hours, trapping people in their homes and cars.

According to Climate Central, a non-profit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science, the storm responsible for the unprecedented floods was fuelled by warmer-than-usual sea waters.

“The low-pressure system driving these historic floods tapped into an atmospheric river” – a long, narrow corridor of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere, the non-profit said on Thursday. It added that the atmospheric river was transporting excessive moisture it drew from the abnormally warm waters of the Tropical Atlantic, which exacerbated the intensity of the rainfall and contributing to the catastrophic deluge.

The elevated sea surface temperatures were made at least 50 to 300 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to Climate Central.

Read more here.

2. Sinking Nations Should Keep Their Maritime Boundaries, Commonwealth Leaders Agree in First Ocean Declaration

Commonwealth nations on Saturday adopted their first Ocean Declaration as calls for from some of Britain’s former colonies for reparatory justice for the trans-Atlantic slave trade mounted.

The Apia Ocean Declaration was announced on the last day of the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which took place in the Pacific island nation of Samoa. It calls on all 56 Commonwealth nations, 49 of which have a coastline, to protect the ocean in the face of severe climate, pollution and overexploitation.

In the declaration, Commonwealth leaders agreed that a nation’s maritime boundaries should remain fixed regardless of physical changes that may arise from sea level rise. In other words, the rights and economic benefits of vast fishing grounds continue to apply to these nations even if much of their population is forced to migrate as dry land is submerged.

The agreement mandates the protection of 30% of oceans and marine ecosystems restoration by 2030. It also calls for “urgently” finalizing the Global Plastics Treaty, ratifying the UN High-Seas Treaty, developing coastal climate adaptation plans and strengthening support for sustainable blue economies.

Read more here.

2. Snowless Mount Fuji Emerges as a Stark Symbol of Climate Change After Japan’s Hottest Summer

Since the establishment of Japan’s weather agency 130 years ago, Mount Fuji’s first snowfall has consistently been recorded in October. But on Wednesday, the iconic volcano’s slopes were notably snowless.

Yutaka Katsuta, a forecaster at Kofu Local Meteorological Office, told the AFP news agency that because of exceptionally warm weather this year, snowfall had yet to be observed on Japan’s highest mountain.

This summer, the hottest on record globally, was also Japan’s warmest since record-keeping began in 1898, matching the high set in 2023. Temperatures between June and August were 1.76C (3.1F) higher than the average and have remained unusually high in September, deterring cold air, said Katsuta.

Read more here.

3. Gas Stoves Linked to 40,000 Premature Deaths in EU and UK Annually: Study

Funded by the non-profit European Climate Foundation and published Monday, the study found that nearly 40,000 early deaths each year in the European Union and the UK can be linked to exposure to nitrogen dioxide from burning gas for cooking indoors. The same pollutant is estimated to be linked to 41,000 annual cases of paediatric asthma across the EU’s 27 member states and the UK.

Experts have repeatedly warned about the dangers of nitrogen dioxide exposure, which can intensify responses to allergens in allergic asthmatics and lead to respiratory conditions, decreased lung function growth in children, cardiopulmonary effects and even premature deaths. In the US, a study found that 12% of current childhood asthma cases can be attributed to gas stove use.

While some national and local governments, in Europe and elsewhere, have started exploring alternatives, natural gas is still widely used for cooking and heating around the world.

Read more here.

4. ‘Another Year, Another Record’: Planet-Warming Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Surged to Historic Levels in 2023, WMO Says

When the UN agency released its first assessment 20 years ago, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations stood at 377.1 parts per million (ppm). They have grown by 11.4% since, hitting a new record of 420.0 ppm last year.

Concentrations of methane (CH4) in 2023 were 1,934 parts per billion (ppb). Methane – a gas mainly associated with fossil fuel use, agriculture and waste – is the second major greenhouse gas after CO2, responsible for 25% of global warming. Meanwhile, concentrations of nitrous oxide (N2O) climbed to 336.9 ppb. Nitrous oxide is the third-most significant human-caused greenhouse gas.

Aside from the relentless burning of fossil fuels, emissions from wildfires likely contributed to the jump in emissions, which grew from 417.9 parts in 2022, according to the report. A study published in August in Earth System Science Data (ESSD) concluded that the total amount of carbon emissions generated from all fire events combined last year was 16% above average, totalling 8.6 billion tonnes of CO2.

Read more here.

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The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for October 28-November 1, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including an update on the ongoing, fourth mass coral bleaching event and damage from Typhoon Trami in the Philippines.

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1. Over 80% of Nations Miss Deadline to Submit Plans to Preserve Biodiversity Ahead of COP16

Over 80% of the nearly 200 nations that two years ago committed to preserve and restore global biodiversity have missed a deadline to submit national pledges on how they plan to achieve it.

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) were slated to submit their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) before the commencement of the United Nations 16th biodiversity conference, known as COP16, starting today in Cali, Colombia. These plans are expected to detail how countries intend to achieve targets and commitments outlined in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a landmark agreement adopted by 196 countries at COP15 in 2022 under the CBD.

However, as of Sunday, only 32 out of the 193 CBD Parties – including the European Union – had submitted their revised and updated plans.

Only five of the 17 megadiverse countries, which together are home to about 70% of the world’s biodiversity, produced NBSAPs: Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico. Canada, Italy, France and Japan were the only G7 countries to submit plans. The UK and Germany did not submit a plan, while the US is not a signatory.

Colombia, this year’s summit host, also failed to meet the submission deadline but said it would present its plan during the meeting. 

Read more here.

2. ‘We’re Playing With Fire’: World on Track for 3.1C Warming, UN Report Warns

Nations must collectively commit to slashing emissions by almost half in the next decade for a chance to stay within the Paris Agreement’s global warming threshold, a new United Nations report has warned.

Published Thursday, the Emissions Gap Report looks at how much nations must promise to cut off greenhouse gases, and deliver, in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – national plans for emissions reduction that each signatory to the Paris Agreement is required to set up and update every five years. The next submissions are due in early 2025.

Current pledges put the world on track for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1C over the course of this century, according to the report. The UN warned that cuts of 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 are needed to get on track for 1.5C of warming. For a 2C pathway, emissions must fall 28% by 2030 and 37% by 2035 from 2019 levels.

The report argues that the 1.5C goal is still technically feasible, owing to increased deployment of solar and wind energy. 

Read more here.

3. ‘A People’s COP’: UN Chief Urges COP16 Delegates to ‘Convert Words into Action’ to Save Dwindling Biodiversity

As global biodiversity keeps vanishing at an alarming rate, it is time for governments to “convert words into actions” and deliver on their nature conservation pledges, the UN chief said during the opening ceremony of the UN biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia.

Some 15,000 attendees, including a dozen heads of state, 103 ministers and over 1,000 international journalists flocked to the city to attend the summit, also known as COP16. It is the first summit since countries adopted the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) two years ago.

The GBF includes four overall goals for mid-century and a series of 23 more urgent and elaborate targets to meet by 2030 set the path to “halt and reverse nature loss” and safeguard global biodiversity in the coming decades.

Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) were slated to submit their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) before the commencement of the summit. But as of Sunday, only 32 out of the 193 CBD Parties – including the European Union – had submitted their revised and updated plans.

Read more here.

4. At Least 14 Dead As Typhoon Trami Makes Landfall in the Philippines

At least 14 people are dead and thousands have fled their homes as Typhoon Trami made landfall in the northeastern part of the Philippines’ main Luzon island on Thursday morning.

Over 500 mm of rainfall, the equivalent of more than a month’s average, has been recorded in some northern provinces, flooding streets and entire villages and prompting the evacuation of some 32,000 people. Of the 14 casualties accounted for so far, 12 were in central Naga city, home to nearly 210,000 people, Reuters reported.

Typhoons – also known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific and cyclones in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific – are a rather common weather phenomenon, though there has been a significant increase in their intensity in recent decades, which scientific observations link to anthropogenic climate change. 

Read more here.

5. Global Coral Bleaching Event Now Largest on Record, NOAA Says

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in April declared that the world was undergoing its fourth global bleaching event, the second in the past ten years. At the time, at least 53 countries had been experiencing mass bleaching. The number has since gone up to 72.

This is the largest mass bleaching event on record, the US agency told Reuters last week. Satellite images revealed that a staggering 77% of the world’s coral reefs have been affected by bleaching across all the regions where warm-water corals live: the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

“This event is still increasing in spatial extent and we’ve broken the previous record by more than 11% in about half the amount of time,” said NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Derek Manzello. “This could potentially have serious ramifications for the ultimate response of these reefs to these bleaching events.”

Read more here.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for October 21-25, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.