This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the tragic death toll of this year’s Hajj and the aftermath of a coral bleaching event in Australia.
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1. Extreme Heat Kills More than 1,300 Hajj Pilgrims
During this year’s Hajj period – which began on June 14 and concluded last Wednesday – daily high temperatures in Mecca ranged between 46-49C (117-120F), according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology.
Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdurrahman Al-Jalaje said in a media interview that he was “pleased” with Hajj’s health plan success. “Despite the large number of pilgrims and the challenges posed by high temperatures, we experienced no outbreaks or public health threats,” he said, as reported in a Saudi Press Agency’s statement.
According to the statement, the total number of victims reached 1,301. 83% of them did not have an official authorization to perform Hajj and suffered from heat related illness after walking long distances under direct sunlight. Most of the victims were of Egyptian origin.
Read more here.
2. Drone Imagery Shows 97% of Corals Dead in Northern Great Barrier Reef
Scientists from Macquarie University, James Cook University, and GeoNadir first mapped the area around Lizard Island in March 2024 and repeated the survey this month. The imagery they collected revealed that at least 97% of the reef had died amid record-breaking sea surface temperatures.
“This is not pretty but I will not apologise for the data. Suck up the discomfort. When is enough enough?” Dr. Karen Joyce, one of the scientists behind the discovery, wrote on X.
In April, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) and the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) – a partnership of 101 international nations and countries to perverse reefs around the world – confirmed that the world is undergoing its fourth global coral bleaching event, the second in the past ten years.
The event is directly related to rising sea surface temperatures, which in June broke yet another record for the month for the fourteenth month in a row. Seas warmed last year in response to the return of El Niño, a weather pattern associated with the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Read more here.
3. Fossil Fuels Accounted for 82% of Global Energy Mix in 2023 Amid Record Consumption: Report
Our “energy hungry” world chewed through 1.5% more planet-warming fossil fuels last year than in 2022, with coal, oil, and natural gas comprising 82% of the global energy mix, according to the Energy Institute’s latest report on world energy.
Oil and coal accounted for a third and a quarter of the world’s energy consumption, which last year reached a historic high, up 2% from 2022. The record consumption was driven by a spike in energy demand, more than half of which came from the Global South, where energy demand is growing at twice the global rate.
Leading coal consumption globally are China, which burns more coal than the rest of the world combined, and India, which is now burning more coal than Europe and North America combined.
On the other hand, China is also leading the global renewable race . The nation accounted for 55% of all renewable energy additions in 2023, more than the rest of the world combined. This presents a real opportunity to triple global capacity by 2030, a target set at last November’s UN climate summit COP28 in Dubai. And yet, clean energy sources still only accounted for 15% of the world’s energy mix last year – a record high but far from what is needed to curb global warming. Solar and wind made up 8% of the total.
Read more here.
4. Number of Climate Litigation Cases on the Rise as Governments and Companies Face Intensifying Scrutiny Over Inaction and Greenwashing
More than 2,660 climate litigation cases have been filed around he world so far, with around 70% of them initiated after the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Last year alone, a total of 233 new climate cases were filed across 55 countries, according to a yearly assessment published Thursday by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
One of the most rapidly growing forms of litigation is over “climate-washing,” the practice of using misleading or false claims to cover a company’s true climate impact and mislead consumers into believing its products and services are sustainable. More than 140 such cases have been filed to date, with 47 alone in 2023.
The report also identified an increasing effort by civil society actors to use courts as an instrument to spur climate action, with more than 70% of all litigation cases filed last year initiated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals.
Read more here.
5. From Fossil Fuel Phase Down to Protection of Nature, 80% of People Globally Demand More Action in Largest Climate Survey
Carried out by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the University of Oxford, the second edition of the People’s Climate Vote published last week found that an overwhelming majority of people globally are now worried about how climate change will affect their livelihoods and mental health.
The survey engaged over 73,000 people from different age groups, cultural and geographical backgrounds across 77 countries, representing 87% of the world’s population.
An average of 43% of people spanning 89% of countries surveyed said their government has had the biggest impact addressing the climate crisis compared to big businesses (14%), the United Nations (13%), and environmental activists and campaigners (12%). Four in every five people surveyed (80%) want their countries to do more on climate change. This is particularly true for people living in climate vulnerable regions, with 89% of people living in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) saying they want their country to strenghten its commitments to address the climate crisis.
Read more here.
