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UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focuses on renewables, dismisses nuclear power

Dr Jim Green, Nuclear Monitor #867, 15 Oct 2018

https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/867/nuclear-monitor-867-15-october-2018

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a landmark report warning that global warming must be kept to 1.5˚C, requiring “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.1

The world must invest US$2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change, according to the IPCC. To put the US$2.4 trillion figure in context, about US$1.8 trillion was invested in energy systems globally in 2017, of which about 42% was invested in electricity generation and about 18.5% in renewables.2

Unsurprisingly, the World Nuclear Association (WNA) used the IPCC report to promote nuclear power.

WNA Director General Agneta Rising said the IPCC report “makes clear … the necessity of nuclear energy as an important part of an effective global response” to climate change and that it “highlights the proven qualities of nuclear energy as a highly effective method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as providing secure, reliable and scalable electricity supplies.”3 In a separate statement, the WNA falsely claimed that nuclear power increases under all of the IPCC scenarios compatible with limiting warming to 1.5˚C.4

Almost all of the WNA’s claims are false or exaggerated. The IPCC report raises numerous concerns about nuclear power (discussed below). In general terms, nearly all of the scenarios presented in the IPCC report envisage a decline in nuclear power generation to 2030 followed by an upswing.5 No logical rationale ‒ or any rationale at all ‒ is provided to support the upswing from 2030 to 2050.

The points that jump out from the IPCC’s low-carbon 1.5°C scenarios are that nuclear accounts for only a small fraction of energy/electricity supply (even if nuclear output increases) whereas renewables do the heavy lifting. For example, in one 1.5°C scenario, nuclear power more than doubles by 2050 but only accounts for 4.2% of primary energy whereas renewables account for 60.8%.6 In another 1.5°C scenario, nuclear nearly doubles by 2050 but its contribution to total electricity supply falls to 8.9%, compared to 77.5% for renewables.7

The IPCC report notes that: “Nuclear power increases its share in most 1.5°C pathways by 2050, but in some pathways both the absolute capacity and share of power from nuclear generators declines. There are large differences in nuclear power between models and across pathways … Some 1.5°C pathways no longer see a role for nuclear fission by the end of the century, while others project over 200 EJ / yr of nuclear power in 2100.”8

Nuclear lobbyist Michael Shellenberger has a very different take on the IPCC report to the WNA … and most of his claims are false as well.9 Shellenberger takes the IPCC to task for stating that nuclear power risks nuclear weapons proliferation.10,11 That is “unsubstantiated fear-mongering”, he claims, although Shellenberger himself has written at length about the manifold and repeatedly-demonstrated connections between nuclear power and weapons.12 “No nation has used its civilian nuclear plants to create a weapon”, Shellenberger now claims ‒ which is garbage.13

Shellenberger seems troubled by the IPCC’s claims about a possible connection between nuclear power and childhood leukemia ‒ but he doesn’t explain why. The IPCC’s comments are modest: “Increased occurrence of childhood leukaemia in populations living within 5 km of nuclear power plants was identified by some studies, even though a direct causal relation to ionizing radiation could not be established and other studies could not confirm any correlation (low evidence/agreement in this issue).”10 In fact the evidence of a link is stronger than the IPCC suggests.14,15

Shellenberger complains about “biased and misleading cost comparisons” in the IPCC report though the report simply notes that nuclear power provides an example of “where real-world costs have been higher than anticipated … while solar PV is an example where real-world costs have been lower”.16

Shellenberger claims that solar and wind contributed 1.3% and 3.9% to global electricity supply in 2017 ‒ the true figures are 1.9% and 5.6%.17 He fails to note that all renewables combined supplied 26.5% of global electricity supply in 2017 (2.5 times more than nuclear) or that renewable supply has doubled over the past decade while nuclear power has been stagnant.

References: Continue reading →

October 16, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Climate change scientists have “a political agenda” – says Trump

BBC 15th Oct 2018 US President Donald Trump has accused climate change scientists of having a
“political agenda” as he cast doubt on whether humans were responsible for
the earth’s rising temperatures. But Mr Trump also said he no longer
believed climate change was a hoax. The comments, made during an interview
with CBS’s 60 Minutes, come less than a week after climate scientists
issued a final call to halt rising temperatures. The world’s leading
scientists agree that climate change is human-induced.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45859325

October 16, 2018 Posted by | climate change, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is disqualified from the race of the climatic fight – IPCC climate change report

Greenpeace France (accessed) 14th Oct 2018, Does the IPCC consider nuclear as a solution for climate? The IPCC points out that “the transition from the energy system that would be needed to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C is underway in many sectors and regions of
the world.

The technical, social, economic and political feasibility of solar energy, wind energy and electricity storage technologies has improved considerably in recent years, while nuclear energy and Carbon dioxide (CCS)
storage in the electricity sector did not show the same improvements.”

The current timeframe between the date of decision and the commissioning of nuclear power plants is between 10 and 19 years, and current deployment capacity is slowed by public concern about the risk of accidents and problems with nuclear waste. In addition, the IPCC notes, that “the costs of nuclear energy have increased over time in some developed nations, mainly because of the prevailing conditions, where increased investment risks in high-capital-intensive technologies have become important.”

The theoretical benefits that nuclear energy could bring in the fight against climate change are therefore far too weak, too slow, too expensive and too risky. While the IPCC report requires us to quickly reduce emissions, it is
not possible to choose the slowest and most expensive electric generation technology to deploy, as well as the dirtiest and riskiest. Nuclear power is disqualified from the race of the climatic fight.
https://www.greenpeace.fr/giec-considere-t-nucleaire-solution-climat/

October 15, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

The risk of catastrophic sea-level rise

What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’?  https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/climate-change-sea-level-rise-737012/  One of the leading climate scientists of our time is warning of the horrifying possibility of 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise, By JEFF GOODELL,13 Oct 18

Hurricane Michael, the third most intense storm on record to make landfall in the U.S., has caused widespread destruction, turning places like Mexico Beach, Florida, into a hellscape of broken homes and overturned cars. It will be a while before we learn the full extent of the damage — and the human suffering and death — caused by the storm’s 155 mph winds and the 14-foot storm surge that swamped the coastline.

Bad as the hurricane was, imagine the damage and destruction if that storm surge had been 15 feet or so higher. And if instead of receding, that wall of water never went away. That is what we could be facing in the not-so-distant future if we don’t dramatically cut fossil-fuel pollution.

If that sounds alarmist, watch this short video. In it, you’ll see a scientist named Richard Alley in a Skype discussion with students at Bard College, as well as with Eban Goodstein, director of the Graduate Programs in Sustainability at Bard. It would be just another nerdy Skype chat except Alley is talking frankly about something that few scientists have the courage to say in public: As bad as you think climate change might be in the coming decades, reality could be far worse. Within the lifetime of the students he’s talking with, Alley says, there’s some risk — small but not as small as you might hope — that the seas could rise as much as 15-to-20 feet.

Let’s pause to think about what 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise in the next 70 or so years looks like. I’ll put it bluntly: It means not just higher storm surges from hurricanes, but the permanent drowning of virtually every major coastal city in the world. Miami, New Orleans, large parts of Boston and New York City and Silicon Valley, not to mention Shanghai, Jakarta, Ho Chi Min City, Lagos, Mumbai — all gone. And I don’t mean “sunny day flooding,” where you get your feet wet on the way to the mall. I mean these cities, and many more, become scuba diving sites.

There are not enough economists in the world to calculate the trillions of dollars worth of real estate that would be lost in a scenario like this. Nor are there enough social scientists to count the hundreds of millions of people who would be displaced. You think the world is a chaotic place now? Just wait.

Richard Alley is not a fringe character in the world of climate change. In fact, he is widely viewed as one of the greatest climate scientists of our time. If there is anyone who understands the full complexity of the risks we face from climate change, it’s Alley. And far from being alarmist, Alley is known for his careful, rigorous science. He has spent most of his adult life deconstructing past Earth climates from the information in ice cores and rocks and ocean sediments. And what he has learned about the past, he has used to better understand the future.

“Sea-Level Rise: Inconvenient, or Unmanageable?” Richard B. Alley

For a scientist of Alley’s stature to say that he can’t rule out 15 or 20 feet of sea-level rise in the coming decades is mind-blowing. And it is one of the clearest statements I’ve ever heard of just how much trouble we are in on our rapidly warming planet (and I’ve heard a lot — I wrote a book about sea-level rise).

To judge how radical this is, compare Alley’s numbers to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released on Monday. That report basically argued that if we don’t get to zero carbon emissions by 2050, we have very little chance of avoiding 1.5 Celsius of warming, the threshold that would allow us to maintain a stable climate. The report projected that with 2 Celsius of warming, which is the target of the Paris Climate Agreement, the range of sea level rise we might see by the end of the century is between about one and three feet.

So why is Alley arguing that the risk of catastrophic sea-level rise is so much higher than the report that is often cited as “the gold standard” of climate science?

For one thing, IPCC reports are notoriously conservative. They are written in collaboration with a large group of scientists and are often watered down by endless debate and consensus-building. (There are 18 lead authors and 69 contributing authors on the chapter that considers sea-level rise.) For another, they rely on published science that is often out of date — or at least, far from the cutting edge. The new IPCC report has already been criticized for low-balling risks by climatologists like Penn State’s Michael Mann, who has pointed out that the report understates the amount of warming we’ve already experienced as a result of burning fossil fuels, which means that we are much closer to the 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius thresholds than the report implies.

Alley simply has a broader understanding of ice dynamics than many scientists, who tend to be highly specialized in their research. Alley’s analysis includes not only geology and paleoclimatology, but also a big dose of physics and engineering — which is especially helpful when it comes to understanding the possibility of rapid ice sheet collapse. (To help me visualize how quickly ice cliffs on Antarctic glaciers can disintegrate, Alley sent me a video of a 1978 landslide in Norway.) In the IPCC report, “tipping points” in the climate system, such as ice-cliff collapse, are either disregarded or buried deep in the 1,000-page document.

The Quick Clay Landslide at Rissa – 1978 (English commentary)

Alley is not the only one who has suggested that the risks of rapidly rising seas are higher than this IPCC reports acknowledges. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the top science agency in the U.S., says the seas are likely to rise by between one and eight feet by 2100. And a few years ago, James Hansen, the godfather of global warming science, argued that the world could see six feet of sea level rise in as little as 50 years and then keep rising at an exponential rate after that.

Hansen’s expertise, however, is in atmospheric chemistry and physics. Alley understands the secrets of ice.

For Alley, the engine of potential catastrophe is West Antarctica. The details are complex, but here’s a short version of what’s happening: warm water from the Southern Ocean is melting the underside of big glaciers like Thwaites and Pine Island, which, due to the unusual terrain there, have the potential to collapse quickly. (I wrote a much longer, more detailed account of the mechanics of ice sheet collapse here). If West Antarctica goes, that’s 10 feet of sea-level rise right there. Then if you add in ice loss from Greenland, a little from East Antarctica and other sources, you quickly get to 15 to 20 feet.

The big question is, how soon could it happen?

“We don’t really know,” Alley tells Rolling Stone via email. He points to the lack of constraints in physical data and models that would put a speed limit on the collapse. “The most-likely future as projected by the IPCC is well on the small-change/small-damage ‘good’ end of the possible futures, with potential for slightly better, slightly worse, and much worse, but without a balancing ‘much better,’” Alley writes.

In other words, when it comes to ice-sheet collapse, uncertainty is not our friend. The collapse might not happen fast. Then again, he can’t rule out the possibility that it will happen fast, very fast.

Alley points out that the best way to avoid this uncertainty is to keep climate warming below 1.5 Celsius or less. In existing climate models, West Antarctica remains fairly stable below that threshold. But given the world’s current burn rate of fossil fuels, and the massive industrial and political transformation required to keep temperatures below that threshold, Alley knows that’s unlikely.

“I personally am not planning to tell people that I know what [amount of warming determines if] ice shelves will or won’t break off, leaving cliffs that will or won’t crumble rapidly,” Alley writes to me. “So, for now, I have to leave large, rapid changes within my error bars, and I believe I have a duty to tell people this.”

And that’s one of the things that makes Alley such a great scientist. He not only understands the world-changing risks we face better than almost anyone. He also understands that it’s his job to warn us about them.

October 13, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate change threat is worse than UN report states: risk of runaway warming

Climate report understates threat https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threat/?utm_source=Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_medium=iContact%20email&utm_campaign=October12

By Mario Molina, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Durwood J. Zaelke, October 9, 2018 The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, released on Monday, is a major advance over previous efforts to alert world leaders and citizens to the growing climate risk. But the report, dire as it is, misses a key point: Self-reinforcing feedbacks and tipping points—the wildcards of the climate system—could cause the climate to destabilize even further. The report also fails to discuss the five percent risk that even existing levels of climate pollution, if continued unchecked, could lead to runaway warming—the so-called “fat tail” risk. These omissions may mislead world leaders into thinking they have more time to address the climate crisis, when in fact immediate actions are needed. To put it bluntly, there is a significant risk of self-reinforcing climate feedback loops pushing the planet into chaos beyond human control.

The report does describe how much more serious climatic impacts will be if the world lets warming reach 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Limiting the warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius can, for example, cut many impacts in half, including those of fresh water shortage and losses of many species and of ocean fish catch. The report is relatively optimistic that this can be done, but only with unprecedented commitment and cooperation from governments, industry, religious and secular leaders, and citizens around the world.

So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood. Continue reading →

October 13, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Are there any real solutions to escalated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?

Do We Really Have the Time and the Tools to Fix Climate Change?  BY Rachel Smolker, Truthout, October 11, 2018 

As part of the Paris agreement, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was asked “to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 [degrees Celsius] above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.” That report was released on October 8.

The report’s “Headline Statements” are divided into four main sections: 1.) “Understanding Global Warming of 1.5 [Degrees Celsius]”; 2.) “Projected Climate Change, Potential Impacts and Associated Risks”; 3.) “Emission Pathways and System Transitions Consistent with 1.5 [Degrees Celsius] Global Warming”; and 4.) “Strengthening the Global Response in the Context of Sustainable Development and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty.”

What the Report Says and Does Not Say

In the first chapter, the IPCC points out that human activities have already caused about 1 degree Celsius (1°C) of warming, and that we will reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 at the current pace. They state that what has already been emitted into the atmosphere will result in ongoing warming, sea-level rise and other effects for “centuries to millennia” (even in the absence of ongoing and future emissions), but that the emissions to date on their own will not raise temperatures to 1.5°C. So, the good news then is that reaching and sustaining net zero emissions, even at this late stage in the game, would “halt warming on a multi-decadal time scale.” The IPCC also concludes that impacts generally would be less at a 1.5°C stabilization than a 2°C stabilization.

These numbers are convenient for discussion, but realistically, the atmosphere is not like the thermostat in our living room, where we can simply dial and set in order to heat the house to some desired level. We are not in control for the most part. It is also worth keeping in mind that the IPCC has consistently underestimated the pace and magnitude of global warming. It is probably safe to say that this is still the case. Feedbacks and “tipping points” are not some distant thing to avoid, they are already happening, and their trajectory is impossible to predict. They include things like soil respiration, melting permafrost, warming and acidification of the oceans and loss of ice. The IPCC has shifted its assessments of the warming potential of methane to consistently use the 20-year timeframe comparison with CO2 [carbon dioxide], and revised upward the quantity of methane released by livestock, just as one example. There are most likely some major sources of emissions we are not even aware of. Further, there are some major sources of emissions we are aware of, but have been granted exclusion from consideration, such as the vast quantity of emissions from military activities. ……….

Can We Overshoot the Target and Clean Excess Carbon Out of the Atmosphere?  The IPCC uses “integrated assessment models” for their analyses. Those models plug in a suite of assumptions about changes in energy production and use, land use change and other factors, and then use those to provide trajectories (pathways) to a goal — in this report, either 1.5°C or 2°C of warming. Those trajectories are not always straight lines from here to there. Many — in fact, most of them — involve exceeding thresholds for greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in the near term, with the intention of somehow later removing the excess. This is called “overshoot.” It is an extremely risky proposition. Earlier drafts of the report did not even evaluate models that did not include overshoot to some degree. Fortunately, the final draft does evaluate pathways without or with limited overshoot.

Enabling overshoot is especially problematic because there is currently no technology available for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere…………

Ultimately, it is increasingly clear that the real solutions to climate change are not global-scale techno-fixes, but rather the locally adapted and locally controlled solutions that people have been pushing for decades, including preventing buildout of fossil fuel infrastructure, protection of lands, respect for rights of humans and nature. The ruthless pursuit of corporate wealth and power and economic growth at all costs stifles those local, grassroots solutions from reaching fruition. ……….https://truthout.org/articles/do-we-really-have-the-time-and-the-tools-to-fix-climate-change/

October 13, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

What the IPCC Report 2018 says about nuclear power

 Nuclear energy can increase the risks of proliferation (SDG 16), have negative environmental effects (e.g., for water use, SDG 6), and have mixed effects for human health when replacing fossil fuels (SDGs 7 and 3) (see Table 5.2)   (CH 5 p 23) )  http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_chapter5.pdf
Nuclear power increases its share in most 1.5°C pathways by 2050, but in some pathways both the absolute capacity and share of power from nuclear generators declines (Table 2.15). There are large differences in nuclear power between models and across pathways (Kim et al., 2014; Rogelj et al., 2018). One of the reasons for this variation is that the future deployment of nuclear can be constrained by societal preferences assumed in narratives underlying the pathways (O’Neill et al., 2017; van Vuuren et al., 2017b). Some 1.5°C pathways no longer see a role for nuclear fission by the end of the century, while others project over 200 EJ yr–1 of nuclear power in 2100 (Figure 2.15).   CH 2

  Chapter 5 – Table 5.3    In spite of the industry’s overall safety track record, a non-negligible risk for accidents in nuclear power plants and waste treatment facilities remains. The long-term storage of nuclear waste is a politically fraught subject, with no large-scale long-term storage operational worldwide. Negative impacts from upsteam uranium mining and milling are comparable to those of coal, hence replacing fossil fuel combustion by nuclear power would be neutral in that aspect. Increased occurrence of childhood leukaemia in populations living within 5 km of nuclear power plants was identified by some studies, even though a direct causal relation to ionizing radiation could not be established and other studies could not confirm any correlation (low evidence/agreement in this issue).   Table 5.3  http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_chapter5_table5_3.pd

October 11, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Reference | Leave a comment

Hurricane Michael threatens nuclear power plants – Georgia – Florida

Hurricane Michael On Path of Several Nuclear Reactors, Latest Maps, Charts, Live Data, Flooding

(Put up with the annoying advertising stuff at the beginning of this video)

Nearly 3,000 Georgia Power personnel ready to respond to Hurricane Michael

Company reminds customers to stay informed and safe during and after storm  Ciston PR Newswire ATLANTA, Oct. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — As Hurricane Michael impacts the Gulf Coast, Georgia Power is ready to respond to power outages as quickly and safely as possible with nearly 3,000 personnel from the company and assisting utilities. Crews are continuing to mobilize from unaffected areas across Georgia over the next 24 hours and are strategically positioning throughout the state ready to re-enter central and south Georgia, and other areas, as Hurricane Michael subsides.

Damage assessment teams will be the first to enter affected areas and will relay critical field information so restoration teams can be dispatched as safely and efficiently as possible. Additional resources are available as part of the Southern Company system, which includes multiple electric and gas companies serving more than 9 million customers…….https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nearly-3-000-georgia-power-personnel-ready-to-respond-to-hurricane-michael-300729092.html

October 11, 2018 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power plants in the path of Hurricane Michael

BREAKING-NUCLEAR PLANT-CAT5 HURRICANE MICHAEL-HISTORY BOOKS!

Hurricane Michael enters Georgia, 65,000 customers without power, Ciston PR Newswire
Extensive damage and extended power outages in South Georgia expected to continue over next 24 hours due to high winds and falling trees 

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Georgia Power ATLANTA, Oct. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Hurricane Michael arrived in Georgia this evening and is impacting service to Georgia Power customers. The company is prepared to respond with approximately 3,900 personnel from the company, other Southern Company operating companies and assisting utilities ready to restore power as quickly and safely as possible following the storm. All of Georgia Power’s resources are being held and dedicated to storm restoration efforts in the state following Hurricane Michael.

Georgia Power expects damage due to high winds, heavy rain and fallen trees. Once the storm passes, the company must wait until conditions are safe for damage assessment teams to enter the impacted zones and begin the restoration process, followed by repair crews, which could take several days, depending on the amount of damage and safe access to the area. As weather conditions improve, restoration efforts will accelerate, but it could take an extended period of time for all customers to be restored…….

As of 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, there are more than 65,000 customers without power in Georgia …https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hurricane-michael-enters-georgia-65-000-customers-without-power-300729151.html

October 11, 2018 Posted by | climate change, USA | 2 Comments

“Big concentrations of radioactivity”found in ice, as glaciers melt

Melting glaciers at Novaya Zemlya contain radiation from nuclear bomb tests. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2018/10/melting-glaciers-novaya-zemlya-contain-radiation-nuclear-bomb-tests

A science expedition to the area has discovered “big concentrations of radioactivity” in the ice – and concludes that the glaciers are melting into the sea at record speed.
By   Thomas Nilsen, 10 Oct 18, -The primary goals for the Russian researchers were to study whether hundreds of containers with dumped radioactive waste in the Kara Sea were leaking or not.

Sailing the Kara Sea and the bays along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya from August 17th to September 20th, the researchers on board “Akademik Keldysh” conclude there are good reasons to continue monitoring the dumped containers, but preliminary results gives no indications of leakages. However, especially one barge that was discovered at 400 meters depth, filled with radioactive waste containers, requires special attention for the future. Underwater footages show the barge is destroyed and some containers have fallen out and are spread on the seafloor, news agency TASSreports.

More worrying is the radiation discovered in the glaciers stretching out in the waters. From 1957 to 1962, a total of 86 nuclear bomb tests were carried out in the atmosphere at Novaya Zemlya. The tests include the largest nuclear devices ever exploded, like the so-called 58 megatons Tsar-bomb on October 30, 1961.

Most bombs were exploded above ground at the northern polygon near the Matotchin Shar dividing the northern and southern island of the archipelago. Wind direction, for the most, was towards the north when the tests took place.

It is the fallout from these tests that now are about to melt out to the sea.

The researchers on board “Akademik Keldysh” took samples for radioactivity from the Nally glacier in the Blagopoluchiya Bay, just on the northern boundaries of the test site for atmospheric bombs 60 years back in history.

Deputy Director of the Institute of Oceanology, Mikhail Flint, says to TASS that high levels of radioactivity were found.

“On the Novaya Zemlya, the wind direction is such that most of the pollution is accumulated on the northern island and the northern ice sheet. We have studied one of the glaciers that could carry such pollution – the Nally Glacier in the Blagopoluchiye Bay, and in this glacier we found parts that hold big concentrations of radioactivity,” Mikhail Flint tells.

“I would not give any exact estimation about the discovery, but in these parts of the moving glacier there were found doses that twice exceeded that baseline level on Novaya Zemlya.”

Explaining how the glaciers in the area are retreating, the researchers tell how “Akademik Keldysh” sailed to the point in Blagopoluchiye Bay where the Vershinsky glacier in 2014 ended in the sea. Today, that spot was more than 2 kilometers out from where the terminus of the glacier is now.

The majority of the northern island on Novaya Zemlya is covered by ice and glaciers have their terminus on both the eastern and western shores. That means both to the Barents- and Kara Seas.

While there are close to nothing of commercial fisheries in the Kara Sea, the Barents Sea has a high biological production and the fisheries, in particular the cod fisheries, are of great importance for both Norway and Russia.

October 11, 2018 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

$2.4 Trillion Fossil Fuel Shift – better than climate apocalypse

THE IPCC REPORT ALSO RECOMMENDED THAT BY 2050:

Coal’s share of electricity supply should be cut to 2 percent or less.

 Renewables should supply 70 percent to 85 percent of power generation.

Climate Crisis Spurs UN Call for $2.4 Trillion Fossil Fuel Shift https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-08/scientists-call-for-2-4-trillion-shift-from-coal-to-renewables?srnd=climate-changed, By Reed Landberg, Chisaki Watanabe, and Heesu Lee, October 8, 2018,    World on track to warm 3 degrees, overshooting 2015 Paris goal

·UN panel releases report on capping warming at 1.5 degrees

The world must invest $2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change, according to scientists convened by the United Nations. Continue reading →

October 9, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change | Leave a comment

Rising sea levels will mean flooding of vulnerable cities- e.g: London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston

Edie 5th Oct 2018, London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston and other global cities that are
already sinking will become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding
as a result of global warming, campaigners have warned ahead of a landmark
new report on climate science.

The threat to cities from sea level rises is increasing because city planners are failing to prepare, the charity
Christian Aid said in the report. Some big cities are already subsiding –
the ground beneath Shanghai, for instance, is being pressed down by the
sheer weight of the buildings above – and rising sea levels resulting
from global warming will make the effects worse.
https://www.edie.net/news/9/From-London-to-Shanghai–world-s-sinking-cities-face-devastating-floods/

October 9, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Jeremy Corbyn gives a vision of a smarter, cleaner, more secure and equitable future

Morning Star 6th Oct 2018, Alan Simpson: If there are seminal moments in politics, Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the 2018 Labour conference will go down as one of them.
This was when the planet took centre stage. From the Kerala floods to the Saddleworth moorland fires and from California to Scandinavia, 2018 has been a roller coaster of extreme weather events.
This is the shape of things to come, but it took Corbyn to make “one-planet economics” the centrepiece of tomorrow’s politics. This couldn’t have come at a better moment. The Conservatives are tearing themselves apart, with their crazies loving every moment. We need a better plan.
It was into this maelstrom that Corbyn pitched his leader’s speech — a bold vision, promising that
Labour’s “programme of investment and transformation, to achieve a 60
per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, will create over 400,000 skilled
jobs.” Pretty unequivocal stuff. But that is just the start. Shadow
chancellor John McDonnell was no less uncompromising. The next government
will have to deliver carbon reductions of 15 per cent per year. To do so,
Britain will need a much more circular economics — not one that makes do
with less but one that certainly wastes and pollutes less.
And as Corbyn stressed, it is in “green jobs” that tomorrow’s transformative
economics will be rooted. For most people, a more circular economy would
deliver real improvements in their quality of life — from the air we
breathe, the food we eat, the homes we live in to the jobs and skills the
country needs.
This will come not just in the accelerated shift into
renewable energy but in using less energy in the first place. Tackling the
scandal of “cold homes” will save lives as well as cutting carbon.
Clean transport systems offer the same opportunities. These are a world
away from the triple absurdity of the GMB trade union sharing a platform
with the Taxpayers Alliance at the Tory Party conference in support of
fracking.
Science tells us we are now at the edge. We can embrace the
Corbyn vision of a smarter, cleaner, more secure and equitable future or
just “shop till we drop” with the Tories. The choice is still ours …
but only just.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour%E2%80%99s-vision-smarter-cleaner-future 

October 9, 2018 Posted by | climate change, politics, UK | Leave a comment

IPCC Climate Report: world has 10 years to ward off global warming disaster

The report was signed off on by the IPCC delegates on Saturday afternoon in the South Korean city of Incheon after a marathon six days of talks – including an overnighter to end the event.

One delegate who asked not to be identified said the process looked to be “doomed” after delegates from Saudi Arabia objected to the draft report and began “bashing the desk”.

For the first time in a IPCC report, the authors included social and economic impacts. That marked “the end of magical thinking” that sustainable development goals and poverty reduction could be divorced from climate action

‘Next decade critical’: Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC , Sydney Morning Herald,  By Peter Hannam & Nicole Hasham 8 October 2018 —The amount of coal and other fossil fuels the world can burn without unleashing dangerous climate change that will undermine the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and all but wipe out the Great Barrier Reef is “very small”, according to a major climate report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on a 1.5-degree hotter planet, released on Monday, said limiting warming to that amount remains possible, but only with “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”……..

We’re currently heading towards about 3 degrees or 4 degrees of warming by 2100,” said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University and one of the review’s editors.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is not impossible but would actually require major transitions in many aspects of society, and to do those transitions, the next 10 years are critical.”

Many of those transitions will mean curbing if not halting entirely the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, land-clearing and other human activities.

Average temperature rises mask extreme events. Temperatures of hot days are forecast to increase three degrees in a 1.5 degree warmer world, and by four degrees if mean temperatures rise by 2 degrees. Continue reading →

October 8, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate change. It’s a critical time for the future of the planet

Why the next three months are crucial for the future of the planet

Two forthcoming major climate talks offer governments an opportunity to respond to this year’s extreme weather with decisive action  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/why-the-next-four-months-are-crucial-for-future-of-planet-climate-change   Fiona Harvey  Environment correspondent  5 Oct 2018 This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.

Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.

This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.

When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.

The warning signals of climate change that have hit people around the world in the last few months must be heeded by national governments at key meetings later this year, political leaders and policy experts are urging, as the disruption from record-breaking weather continues in many regions.

Extreme weather events have struck around the world – from the drought and record temperatures in northern Europe, to forest fires in the US, to heatwaves and drought in China, to an unusually strong monsoon that has devastated large areas of southern India.

As the northern hemisphere summer closes, polar observations have just established that the Arctic sea ice narrowly missed a record low this year. The sea ice extent was tied for the sixth lowest on record with 2008 and 2010. Sea currents and wind conditions can have large effects on sea ice extent from year to year, but the trend is starkly evident.

“Put simply, in the last 10 years the Arctic is melting faster than it ever has previously since records began,” said Julienne Stroeve, professor at University College London. “We have lost over half of the summer sea ice coverage since the late 1970’s and it is realistic to expect an ice-free Arctic sea in summer in the next few decades.”

Of particular concern is the decline in thick ice which forms over several years. “The older ice has been replaced by more and more first-year ice, which is easier to melt out each summer,” she explained.

Not all of the effects of this year’s extraordinary weather, which has also seen the UK’s joint hottest summer on record, can be traced directly to climate change. However, scientists are clear that the background of a warming planet has made extremes of temperature, and accompanying droughts and floods, more likely.

This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.

Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.

This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.

When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.

Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”

The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.

For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point. Scientists and economists have warned that if the world cannot shift course within the next few years, the consequences will be dire, as new infrastructure built now – in energy generation, transport and the built environment – will be made either to low-emissions standards or in the high-emissions habits of the past. As the IPCC’s next comprehensive assessment of climate science will not be available until 2021, this year’s report will be vital in shaping policy.

Ted Chaiban, director of programmes at Unicef, urged governments to seize the opportunities for action offered by this year’s series of political meetings offers for action. “Over the past few months, we have seen a stark vision of the world we are creating for future generations,” he said. “As more extreme weather events increase the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises, it is children who will pay the highest price,” he said.

“It is vital that governments and the international community take concrete steps. The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable, but the time for action is now.”

After the IPCC publication, the world will face a key test of faith in the 2015 Paris agreement, the only global pact stipulating action on temperature rises. This December in Poland, the UN’s climate change arm will hold a two-week meeting aimed at turning the political resolve reached in Paris three years ago into a set of rules for countries to follow on reducing emissions.

The political situation is more fraught than it was in the runup to Paris. The US is pulling out of the landmark climate agreement and is likely to play little part in the talks. Australia’s government is also in turmoil over climate actions. Now the challenger for Brazil’s presidency, Jair Bolsonaro, is threatening to withdraw its participation – a potential blow to the Paris consensus, as Brazil was a linchpin among rapidly developing nations.

All eyes will be on China, which has shown remarkable progress on renewable energy and emissions reduction, and India, where climate champions have found common cause with opponents of increasingly damaging air pollution. Patricia Espinsoa, the UN’s top climate official, warned that only “uneven progress” had been made so far on the 300-page rulebook for implementing the Paris targets, leaving the rest of the work for December.

While the dangerous weather of the first half of 2018 has raised concerns worldwide that we are seeing climate change in action, many leading experts told the Guardian they were optimistic that political and business leaders this year would help set the world on a different course to avoid the worse predictions of untrammelled warming.

Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, said the past few years had seen “extraordinary progress” in areas such as renewable energy and the take-up of low-carbon technology: “This is real, not in the future but happening now. We are showing that we can do this, we can bring down emissions, it doesn’t need to be a disaster.”

Adopting low-carbon aims now would set developing countries on a course to a brighter future, added Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former economic minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. “Now is the time to do this, before we lock in high-carbon infrastructure,” she said. “Now is the opportunity for real sustainable growth.”

Political leaders will find that global investors back them up in opting for low-carbon policies, predicted Frank Rijsberman of the Global Green Growth Institute. “I see this from investors, from businesses,” he said. “They are ready, and they see low-carbon as the future.”

Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico, called on political leaders to take note: “We can turn better [economic] growth and a better climate into reality. It is time we decisively legislate, innovate, govern and invest our way to a fairer, safer, more sustainable world.”

Evidence showing that tackling climate change can be an economic boost rather than a brake has been growing. The recently published New Climate Economy report says more than 65m new low-carbon jobs could be created in just over a decade, and that 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution could be avoided every year by government action on climate change. A further $2.8tn could be added to government revenues by 2030 by reforming perverse incentives to burn fossil fuels.

Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”

The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.

For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point.

October 5, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

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