US may cause ‘distraction’ at Bonn climate talks, EU Observer By PETER TEFFER
The world should manage its expectations for the 23rd annual United Nations summit on climate change that starts in Bonn, Germany, on Monday (6 November), said Claire Healy, a former adviser to the US department of energy.
She told EUobserver in an interview that she expected a lot of attention will be on the United States, since this will be the first global climate summit following the American president Donald Trump’s announcement that the US is pulling out of the Paris agreement…….
“If that hadn’t happened, the media perhaps wouldn’t be as interested in this,” said Healy, adding that she hoped the US will not be too much of a “distraction” from “the real work.”
The COP is the forum where UN members meet to discuss how they will limit climate change. This year’s edition, COP23, is more about preparing procedural decisions than reaching agreements like in Paris.
“It’s very process-heavy, even though there is a political spotlight on it,” said Healy, noting that COPs “are not all like COP21”. “We should manage your expectations,” she added.
While countries agreed in Paris that they should slow down the Earth’s temperature rise to prevent catastrophic climate change, they did not specify all the details yet.
An open question is how each country’s climate commitments will be verified, and what happens if a country fails to do what it promised.
Next year’s COP, which will be held in Katowice in Poland, will be about agreeing a “rulebook”. This year’s COP is about preparing for that rulebook.
“We’re not literally discussing the rules at this COP, but discussing the process by which we are going to decide the rules.”
EU wants ‘tangible progress’
The European Commission hopes that COP23 will deliver “tangible progress on the Paris work programme, which is to be agreed next year in COP24 in Poland,” according to spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen.
“For us this is clearly a COP that is important to prepare for the 2018 COP,” said Itkonen at a press briefing in Brussels on Friday (3 November).
She acknowledged that ‘tangible progress’ can mean different things to different countries and regions. Itkonen said that to the EU it would mean “clear language on how the parties are implementing their national contributions”.
Think tank director Healy said it will be difficult to “give you technical milestones” which would make the difference between success and failure.
“It’s all very procedural,” she said.
EU ministers for environment said in a statement last month that they expect COP23 to deliver “sufficient clarity on how the 2018 facilitative dialogue will be conducted” – the term ‘facilitative dialogue’ refers to the moment when the treaty’s signatories take stock of their progress.
To the ministers, substantial progress should take “the form of draft decisions or textual elements.” COP23 will last two weeks. Traditionally, politicians will show up in the second week. On behalf of the EU, climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete is expected to attend, in addition to national ministers from the EU member states.
The chair of the meetings this year is the island nation Fiji, but the actual talks are held in Bonn, the location of the headquarters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://euobserver.com/environment/139746
Climate change and the great disruption, Press Republican 5 Nov 17 RAY JOHNSON Climate Science “…… The pie chart from the Environmental Protection Agency website titled “Total U.S. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions by Economic Sector in 2015” indicates that “Electricity” generation accounts for 29 percent of the total while “Transportation” is not far behind at 27 percent.
Let’s concentrate on one portion of the U.S. GHG emissions: “Electricity.”
A reduction in GHG emissions here will greatly help in addressing climate change. Technology disruption can be observed in the graph “Swanson’s Law.” It’s based on an observation by Richard Swanson, “that the price of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume” (Wikipedia). The log-log graph shows the cost reduction for the price of crystalline silicon PV cells in $/watt. In 1977 the cost was $76.67/watt, and by 2014 the price had dropped to $0.36/watt.
Thus the cost is more than 200 times lower than in 1977 (based on 2014 data). This graph is also called “the learning rate.”
Module costs have dropped in half since 2008. The implication is that if one made a business decision in 2008 to proceed with a nuclear or fossil-fuel-burning generating plant based on the cost of PV modules at that time, that business plan may have to be scrapped today due to the rapidly falling PV costs. It would not be economical.
And, this is exactly what is happening around the world. Hundreds of coal-burning plants are being retired, mothballed and/or construction stopped, with China taking the major initiative.
The bar chart “Global Solar Energy Capacity (GW)” details this extraordinary PV growth. It highlights the gigawatts of PV capacity and its near exponential growth in the last 15 years. Separately, for the U.S. alone, this trend indicates that solar could contribute 20 percent of total electricity consumption by 2030.
This growth in solar will reduce coal mining, number of coal-burning plants, nuclear power facilities and even oil sand extraction and drilling in locations that are expensive (deep water, difficult locations — Arctic) and so on.
And we have not even discussed the impact of wind turbine technology yet. Next time.
Meanwhile, our planet continues to warm. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration bar chart shows that warming trend with the first nine months of 2017 among the top three warmest in the 137-year climate record.
Donald Trump accused of obstructing satellite research into climate change https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/05/donald-trump-accused-blocking-satellite-climate-change-research Republican-controlled Congress ordered destruction of vital sea-ice probe, Guardian, Robin McKie, 6 Nov 17, President Trump has been accused of deliberately obstructing research on global warming after it emerged that a critically important technique for investigating sea-ice cover at the poles faces being blocked.
The row has erupted after a key polar satellite broke down a few days ago, leaving the US with only three ageing ones, each operating long past their shelf lives, to measure the Arctic’s dwindling ice cap. Scientists say there is no chance a new one can now be launched until 2023 or later. None of the current satellites will still be in operation then.
The crisis has been worsened because the US Congress this year insisted that a backup sea-ice probe had to be dismantled because it did not want to provide funds to keep it in storage. Congress is currently under the control of Republicans, who are antagonistic to climate science and the study of global warming.
“This is like throwing away the medical records of a sick patient,” said David Gallaher of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “Our world is ailing and we have apparently decided to undermine, quite deliberately, the effectiveness of the records on which its recovery might be based. It is criminal.”
The threat to the US sea-ice monitoring programme – which supplies data to scientists around the world – will trigger further accusations at this week’s international climate talks in Bonn that the Trump administration is trying to block studies of global warming for ideological reasons.
Earth’s sea ice has shrunk dramatically – particularly in the Arctic – in recent years as rising emissions of greenhouse gases have warmed the planet. Satellites have been vital in assessing this loss, thanks mainly to America’s Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme (DMSP), which has overseen the construction of eight F-series satellites that use microwaves sensors to monitor sea-ice coverage. These probes, which have lifespans of three to five years, have shown that millions of square kilometres of sea ice have disappeared from the Arctic over the past 20 years, allowing less solar energy to be reflected back into space – and so further increasing global temperatures – while also disrupting Inuit life and wildlife in the region.
At present three ageing satellites – DMSP F16, F17 and F18 – remain in operation, though they are all beginning to drift out of their orbits over the poles. The latest satellite in the series, F19, began to suffer sensor malfunctions last year and finally broke down a few weeks ago. It should have been replaced with the F20 probe, which had already been built and was being kept in storage by the US Air Force. However it had to be destroyed, on the orders of the US Congress, on the grounds that its storage was too costly.
Many scientists say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons. They also warn that many other projects for monitoring climate change, including several satellite missions, face similar threats from the Trump administration and Congress.
Such losses have serious consequences, say researchers. “Sea-ice data provided by satellites is essential for initiating climate models and validating them,” said Andrew Fleming of the British Antarctic Survey. “We will be very much the poorer without that information.”
Forbes 30th Oct 2017, The UN Environmental Program (UNEP) has rejected the World Nuclear Association’s (WNA) offer to provide financial support to the 8th Annual Sustainable Innovation Forum (SIF).
Described by its chairman as the “largest business-focused side event during the annual Conference Of
Parties” the event is scheduled to take place alongside COP23 in Bonn, Germany. Originally accepted as a gold sponsor and ready to pay the £40,000 ($68,338) fee, the World Nuclear Association was recently notified that its sponsorship had been rescinded upon intervention by the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
Over the past half-century, growth in the global economy and carbon pollution have been tied together. When the global economy has been strong, we’ve consumed more energy, which has translated into burning more fossil fuels and releasing more carbon pollution. But over the past four years, economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions have been decoupled. The global economy has continued to grow, while data from the EU Joint Research Centre shows carbon pollution has held fairly steady
China is becoming a global climateleader
China’s shift away from coal to clean energy has been largely responsible for this decoupling. Due to its large population (1.4 billion) – more than four times that of the USA (323 million) and nearly triple the EU (510 million) – and rapid growth in its economy and coal power supply, China has become the world’s largest net carbon polluter (though still less than half America’s per-person carbon emissions, and on par with those of Europeans). But as with the global total, China’s carbon pollution has flattened out since 2013.
That’s especially remarkable because it puts China about 15 years ahead of schedule. In an agreement with President Obama ahead of the Paris international climate negotiations, Chinese President Xi Jingping pledged that China’s carbon emissions would peak by 2030. Republican Party leaders grossly distorted this agreement at the time, with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell claiming:
As I read the agreement it requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emissions regulations are creating havoc in my state and around the country
As the chart above [on original] shows, Chinese carbon emissions tripled between 1999 and 2013. To slow that rate of growth to zero as the Chinese economy continues to grow would require a dramatic shift in the country’s energy supply. But that’s exactly what’s happened, with the Chinese government cancelling over 100 planned new coal power plants earlier this year. Chinese coal consumption has in fact fallen since 2013. And China and the EU have pledged to strengthen their efforts to cut carbon pollution.
America isn’t a lost cause
In 2016, American carbon pollution fell to below 1993 levels. The emissions decline began around 2008, which is also when natural gas, solar, and wind energy began rapidly replacing coal in the power grid.
And yet, while these steps can slow the decline in American carbon pollution, the transition from coal to clean energy will nevertheless persist. Coal simply can no longer compete with cheaper, cleaner sources of energy, and the next American president can quickly reverse many of the Trump administration’s anti-climate orders.
By Itai Vardi • Tuesday, October 31, 2017Kathleen Hartnett White, President Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), has recently made money from both leases on oil drilling and speaking fees at conferences sponsored by the fossil fuel industry. These new details come from Hartnett White’s financial disclosure, obtained by DeSmog.
If her nomination is confirmed, Hartnett White will be charged with interagency coordination of science, energy, and environmental policy and with overseeing crucial environmental review processes for new energy and infrastructure projects. The CEQ, a division of the Executive Office of the President, was established in 1969 as part of the landmark National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Hartnett White also enjoyed income from an interest in four oil leases — two in Texas and two in Kansas. These rigs were operated by Central Crude, Linn Operating, CHS Operating, and CVR Refining. Hartnett White indicated in her disclosure that she recently gifted these interests to her nephew.
Additionally, she reported royalties from her co-authored book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy, a text that copiously celebrates fossil fuels as the “lifeblood of the modern world.”
Other sources of reported income include a dog breeding business, co-owned with her husband, Beau Brite White.
Derek Seidman, a research analyst at the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonpartisan watchdog research group focused on corporate and government accountability, says that Hartnett-White’s recent earnings from fossil fuel interests is cause for concern.
“It’s unsettling to learn about the close ties that White has to the very interests and entities that she’s been tasked to oversee at the CEQ,” says Seidman, who has reviewed the financial disclosure. “Her cozy relationship with the oil and gas drilling industry is particularly troubling. These types of conflicts undermine public trust in regulatory institutions and open the door to all kinds of potential problems and abuses.”
Kathleen Hartnett-White did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Texas Public Policy Foundation said that she is not available for interviews.
Climate change ‘will create world’s biggest refugee crisis’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/02/climate-change-will-create-worlds-biggest-refugee-crisis Experts warn refugees could number tens of millions in the next decade, and call for a new legal framework to protect the most vulnerable, Guardian, Matthew Taylor, 2 Nov 17, Tens of millions of people will be forced from their homes by climate change in the next decade, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen, according to a new report.
Senior US military and security experts have told the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) study that the number of climate refugees will dwarf those that have fled the Syrian conflict, bringing huge challenges to Europe.
“If Europe thinks they have a problem with migration today … wait 20 years,” said retired US military corps brigadier general Stephen Cheney. “See what happens when climate change drives people out of Africa – the Sahel [sub-Saharan area] especially – and we’re talking now not just one or two million, but 10 or 20 [million]. They are not going to south Africa, they are going across the Mediterranean.”
The study published on Thursday calls on governments to agree a new legal framework to protect climate refugees and, ahead of next week’s climate summit in Germany, urges leaders to do more to implement the targets set out in the Paris climate agreement.
Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, told the EJF: “What we are talking about here is an existential threat to our civilisation in the longer term. In the short term, it carries all sorts of risks as well and it requires a human response on a scale that has never been achieved before.”
The report argues that climate change played a part in the build up to the Syrian war, with successive droughts causing 1.5 million people to migrate to the country’s cities between 2006 and 2011. Many of these people then had no reliable access to food, water or jobs.
“Climate change is the the unpredictable ingredient that, when added to existing social, economic and political tensions, has the potential to ignite violence and conflict with disastrous consequences,” said EJF executive director, Steve Trent.
“In our rapidly changing world climate change – and its potential to trigger both violent conflict and mass migration – needs to be considered as an urgent priority for policymakers and business leaders alike.”
Although the report highlights to growing impact of climate change on people in the Middle East and Africa, it says changing weather patterns – like the hurricanes that devastated parts of the US this year – prove richer nations are not immune from climate change.
But Trent said that although climate change undoubtedly posed an “existential threat to our world” it was not to late to take decisive action.
“By taking strong ambitious steps now to phase out greenhouse gas emissions and building an international legal mechanism to protect climate refugees we will protect the poorest and most vulnerable in our global society, build resilience, reap massive economic benefits and build a safe and secure future for our planet. Climate change will not wait. Neither can we. For climate refugees, tomorrow is too late.”
The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are “the warmest in the history of modern civilization.” The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming.
The findings contradict statements by PresidentTrump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate.
“I believe that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an interview earlier this year. “There’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact.”
That is not consistent with the conclusions of the 600-plus-page Climate Science Special Report, which is part of an even larger scientific review known as the fourth National Climate Assessment. The NCA4, as it’s known, is the nation’s most authoritative assessment of climate science. The report’s authors include experts from leading scientific agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Department of Energy, as well as academic scientists.The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, “will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally.” Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit relative to pre-industrial times. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming.
“This is good, solid climate science,” says Richard Alley, a geoscientist at Penn State University, who says he made minor contributions to the report’s conclusions on sea level rise. “This has been reviewed so many times in so many ways, and it’s taking what we know from … a couple of centuries of climate science and applying it to the U.S.”
The assessments are required by an act of Congress; the last one was published in 2014. Alley says this year’s goes further in attributing changes in weather to the warming climate, especially weather extremes. “More heat waves and fewer cold snaps, this is very clear,” he says. The report also notes that warmer temperatures have contributed to the rise in forest fires in the West and that the incidence of those fires is expected to keep rising.
Some of the clearest effects involve sea level rise. “Coastal flooding, you raise the mean level of the ocean, everything else equal you get more coastal flooding,” Alley says. The report notes that sea level has risen 7 to 8 inches since 1900, and 3 inches of that occurred since 1993. The report says that rate is faster than during any century over the past 2,800 years.
The report also points out that heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the U.S., especially in the Northeast, and that is expected to keep increasing.
Other connections are harder to nail down, Alley says, such as whether a particular hurricane can be attributed to climate change.
“The Climate Science Special Report is like going to a doctor and being given a report on your vital signs,” says environmental scientist Rachel Licker of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She notes that the authors assessed more than 1,500 scientific studies and reports in making their conclusions.
Alley adds that the new report “does a better job of seeing the human fingerprint in what’s happening.” He says that while he hasn’t read all of it yet, he sees no evidence that it has been soft-pedaled or understates the certainty of the science.
Alley notes that “there’s a little rumbling” among climate scientists who are concerned that the Trump administration will ignore this effort. “I think the authors really are interested in seeing [the report] used wisely by policymakers to help the economy as well as the environment.”
The report has been submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Trump has yet to choose anyone to run that office; it remains one of the last unfilled senior positions in the White House staff.
To Close Climate Goals Gap: Drop Coal, Ramp Up Renewables — Fast, UN Says
A new UNEP report shows that the gap between the climate promises countries made at Paris and the emissions cuts needed is larger than previously thought. Inside Climate news Georgina Gustin, 2 Nov 17
Countries will have to phase out coal and invest in renewable energy even faster than previously expected to keep global warming below perilous levels and fend off the most dangerous impacts of climate change, according to a United Nations report released just before the next round of international climate talks.
The United Nations Environment Program on Tuesday released its annual report on the “emissions gap“—the distance between countries’ pledged commitments for meeting the targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the pathways that scientists estimate could actually achieve those targets….
“The overarching conclusions of the report are that there is an urgent need for accelerated short-term action and enhanced longer-term national ambition, if the goals of the Paris Agreement are to remain achievable,” the report says. “And that practical and cost-effective options are available to make this possible.”
In other words, the world’s countries need to get moving—and fast. But there’s hope.
Staying Under 1.5C Tough, but Not Impossible
With each edition, the report’s message has become increasingly urgent as growing research suggests that reigning in global warming will require much more action than countries first outlined in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in advance of the Paris process……
The report also notes that “subnational” efforts, including those taken by corporations or states—such as the “We Are Still In” initiative and the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative—have major potential above countries’ INDCs.
Platts 1st Nov 2017, An International Atomic Energy Agency conference statement Wednesday said nuclear power is not attracting enough investment to limit climate change, and more clarity from policymakers may be needed to support its development.
The statement at the end of the three-day IAEA ministerial
meeting on nuclear energy in the United Arab Emirates represents the views
of the conference president, the UAE’s ambassador to the IAEA, only, and
was not voted on by the delegates to the event.
Global investment could hold the key to fighting climate change, with one trillion dollars already invested in solutions such as renewables and energy efficiency, says International Finance Corporation, Guardian, Fiona Harvey, 2 Nov 17, At least one trillion dollars are being invested globally in ways to reduce the threat of climate change, including renewable power, energy efficiency, and public transport around the world.
The sums involved are likely to make it possible in future for the world’s governments to meet their commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change, provided the investment continues and is directed to the right ends, according to a new report.
Philippe Le Houérou, chief executive of the IFC, said: “The private sector holds the key to fighting climate change. We can help unlock more private sector investment, but this also requires government reforms as well as innovative business models, which together will create new markets and attract the necessary investment. This can fulfil the promises of Paris.”
The IFC report, entitled Creating Markets for Climate Business, found that governments could work with businesses by fostering renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. For instance, IFC provided $653m (£492m) in debt financing to fund the construction of 13 solar plants near Aswan, in Egypt. Such financing can result in lower electricity costs for local people, as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions and cutting down on air pollution from coal-fired power plants.
People in developing countries can also benefit from renewable energy installations, such as solar panels and wind turbines, that provide local power, removing the need for them to be connected to a national electricity grid to receive power – a distant dream in some countries, where the national grid is under-developed or prone to breakdown. The availability of power generated locally has multiple benefits, including safety and education, as it enables emissions-free light and power late into the night, instead of people being forced to rely on expensive and polluting kerosene burners.
The authors of the report estimated that investments in energy storage and off-grid solar of $23bn a year could be possible by 2025, if national governments favour renewable energy over fossil fuels.
However, in many countries, developed and developing, fossil fuel companies have the incumbent advantage, and in some cases policies have been developed to suit them. The International Energy Agency estimated fossil fuel subsidies at $325bn a year in 2016.
Making buildings more energy efficient could also reduce carbon emissions dramatically, according to the IFC report, but only if countries adopt better building codes and higher standards. Public transport is another area ripe for investment, which could yield billions of dollars in greater efficiency, and improve the quality of lives of people around the globe, but which has been held back by poor government involvement.
Christian Aid, the development charity, called on the World Bank Group to stop lending to fossil fuel projects. Funding by the group’s members for fossil fuel projects has increased to $4.7bn in 2016, according to the charity.
Fran Witt, senior climate change adviser at Christian Aid, said: “Despite aiming to champion clean energy, the World Bank Group actually continues to finance large volumes of dirty energy projects, which are driving climate change around the world. It is staggering that even after the Paris agreement the group is still investing most of its energy portfolio in dirty energy.”
Emissions Gap Report, http://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report [good graphs] , Authors: UN Environment, November 17 The goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change, as agreed at the Conference of the Parties in 2015, is to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It also calls for efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017 presents an assessment of current national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions, which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement.
The report has been prepared by an international team of leading scientists, assessing all available information. The governments of countries mentioned specifically in the report have been invited to comment on the specific assessment findings; independent experts have also been invited to review the different chapters.
What’s new in this year’s report?
Update on global greenhouse gas emissions
This year, the Emissions Gap Report includes an assessment of the emissions associated with the Nationally Determined Contributions and current policies of each of the G20 members, including the European Union. This is in addition to presenting an update on global greenhouse gas emissions and national actions to meet the earlier Cancun pledges.
Exploring “negative emission technologies”
This year’s report explores removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as an additional way to mitigate climate change, over and above conventional abatement strategies.
An analysis of global carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry
The Report includes a new systematic assessment of how various economic sectors can reduce their climate-warming emissions, focusing on the potential eductions from the wide application of already-known and cost-effective technologies.
The role of short-lived climate pollutants
The report describes the opportunities offered by limiting emissions of the so-called short-lived climate pollutants. Reductions of these pollutants will limit the rate of short-term warming, and when sustained and combined with reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, they help to limit long-term warming, which is the ultimate aim of closing the emissions gap.
Phasing out coal
This year’s report includes a detailed assessment of global developments in the coal sector. This also examines the options and barriers for a gradual coal phase-out.
Christiana Figueres is chair of the Lancet Countdown advisory board. When the doctor tells you that your cholesterol is too high, you tend to listen and change your diet. When the world’s climate scientists tell us that temperatures are rising to dangerous levels, we should heed their advice. It’s time to give up climate change, it’s bad for our health.
I’m not talking about the health of our planet or the health of species such as the polar bear, so often associated with climate change – though they are suffering. I’m talking about human health. The health of you, your family, your neighbours – each and every one of us.
A report just published in the Lancet from the specially created Lancet Countdown initiative, reveals just how bad climate change is for public health. The diagnosis reveals that hundreds of millions of people are already suffering the health impacts of climate change. Its insidious creep is being felt in multiple ways: rising temperatures are hastening the spread of infectious diseases; crop yields are becoming uneven and unpredictable, worsening the hunger and malnourishment for some of the most vulnerable people on the planet; allergy seasons are getting longer; and at times it is simply too hot for farmers to work in the fields.
Typhoons and hurricanes, such as Harvey, feed off unnaturally warm waters to deliver more forceful threats to human health, including to life itself. The attribution of climate change as a contributing factor in such events is of course complex. The Lancet report’s analysis – that there has been a 46% increase in extreme weather disasters since 2000 – helps to cut through any confusion.
Then there is the heat, which might be the most widespread and dangerous of all. In 2015 alone, according to Lancet Countdown findings, heatwaves affected the lives of 175 million more elderly people worldwide, following a strong trend over the last two decades. The list goes on. The most vulnerable – including elderly people and children – are most exposed to the risks, but everyone is affected and no country is immune. We are only just beginning to witness the manifestation of very concerning trends. Unavoidable increases in global temperature are set to further exacerbate a host of health challenges.
Here’s the good news. While the Lancet’s report lays bare the many ways that climate change impacts on our health, it also shows that tackling climate change directly, unequivocally and immediately improves global health. It’s as simple as that. Tackling the looming global medical emergency is also an unprecedented opportunity to improve public health around the globe. Let’s get to it.
Consider this: local air pollution around the world – much of it coming straight out of exhaust pipes – kills about 6.5 million people annually. In response, many cities – including London and Oxford – countries and major automotive companies have declared an end to the internal combustion engine and are working towards emissions-free transport. They see the market is moving, because it must, and expect it to be profitable. More can follow: getting ahead of the electrification wave that is exciting investors and delivering extraordinary benefits to our air, our lungs and our hearts is in all of our interests.
I learned a long time ago that success is more likely when we take on challenges with determination and stubborn optimism. That’s how parties to the United Nations climate talks regrouped after disappointing outcomes in Copenhagen and even more dire predictions from climate scientists, coming together to adopt the Paris agreement. It’s why I know that we can take this critical diagnosis from climate scientists – of a climate change-fuelled public health emergency – and accelerate solutions that improve the health and wellbeing of billions.
We are already finding the remedies. The UK has pledged to phase out coal by 2025, a process that will save thousands of lives each year, save the NHS up to £3.1bn a year in health costs and accelerate the modernisation of our electricity sector.
Our scientists have been telling us for some time that we’ve got a bad case of climate change. Now our doctors are telling us it’s bad for our health. The Lancet Countdown report is an important climate health check-up and prescription for the action we need. The benefits of getting climate fit are too good to resist: safer, cleaner air and water, more energy independence, more jobs and vastly improved land use. We can all support our governments to do more on this. The G7 meeting of health ministers later this week is as good an opportunity as any to ensure they are heeding the sage advice of our medical experts.
• Christiana Figueres is chair of the Lancet Countdown advisory board and convener of Mission 2020
Global atmospheric CO2 levels hit record high, UN warns that drastic action is needed to meet climate targets set in the Paris agreement, Guardian, Jonathan Watts, 31 Oct 17, The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased at record speed last year to hit a level not seen for more than three million years, the UN has warned.
The new report has raised alarm among scientists and prompted calls for nations to consider more drastic emissions reductions at the upcoming climate negotiations in Bonn.
“Globally averaged concentrations of CO2 reached 403.3 parts per million (ppm) in 2016, up from 400.00 ppm in 2015 because of a combination of human activities and a strong El Niño event,” according to The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the UN weather agency’s annual flagship report.
This acceleration occurred despite a slowdown – and perhaps even a plateauing – of emissions because El Niño intensified droughts and weakened the ability of vegetation to absorb carbon dioxide. As the planet warms, El Niños are expected to become more frequent.
nuclear-news 