Former president Anote Tong compares Kiribati’s future to the sinking of the Titanic, ABC News By Sarah Hancock , 13 Oct 17 Anote Tong is the former president of the Republic of Kiribati and his island home, in the central Pacific Ocean, is already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Rising sea levels are causing land to be engulfed by tidal waters, driving people away from their homes and leaving them displaced.
Anote Tong is the former president of the Republic of Kiribati and his island home, in the central Pacific Ocean, is already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Rising sea levels are causing land to be engulfed by tidal waters, driving people away from their homes and leaving them displaced.
“What I have seen in my lifetime over the years has been villages, communities, who have had to leave … because it is no longer viable,” he said. “The sea is there and there is nothing. Everything has been taken away so they have had to relocate.”……..
“As a grandfather I have got to think beyond that, as a leader I have to think beyond what will happen today, and knowing what we know today, what will happen to the next generation,” he said.
Mr Tong compared Kiribati’s future to the sinking of the Titanic.
“We are the people who will be swimming,” he said.
Finding Nemo? We may be losing him, says climate study, Guardian, 12 Oct 17
Clownfish under threat from warming ocean waters, which are damaging the anemones that serve as its home The clownfish, the colourful swimmer propelled to fame by the 2003 film Finding Nemo, is under threat from warming ocean waters wreaking havoc with sea anemones, the structures that serve as its home, a study has found.
Closely related to corals, sea anemones are invertebrate marine creatures that live in symbiosis with algae, which provide them with food, oxygen and colour.
Clownfish, also known as anemonefish, in turn use the structures as shelter to lay their eggs and raise their young – keeping the anemones clean in return.
Scientists See Climate Change in California’s Wildfires
Strong winds and months of record-high temperatures have fueled the destructive fires, Scientific American, By Debra Kahn, Anne C. Mulkern, E&E News on October 12, 2017
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — As wildfires engulf nearly 170,000 acres of Northern California wine country, questions are swirling about the role of climate change in causing damage of historic proportions.
The fires, which started late Sunday night in the hills of Napa and Sonoma counties, quickly ballooned to 22 separate conflagrations in eight counties, killing at least 21 people by Tuesday evening. The Tubbs Fire, in Sonoma County, has been responsible for at least 11 deaths so far, making it the sixth-deadliest fire in state history. Nearly 300 people are still reported missing and 25,000 have been evacuated in Sonoma County alone, with more than 3,500 homes and businesses destroyed.
Strong winds were responsible for the fires’ quick incursion into urban areas, but months of record-high temperatures, preceded by heavy rainfall last winter, also fueled the destructive power of the fire that burned through the region, climate experts said.
Residents of inland Northern California are now experiencing the confluence of these trends. The fires are expected to persist for weeks, until the rainy season begins next month. Strong winds are predicted to return as soon as tomorrow, giving firefighters a narrow window to get the blazes under control…….
Temperatures soared in the San Francisco Bay Area in early September, hitting 106 degrees Fahrenheit in San Francisco, a new record, and 108 in San Rafael, north of the city. It was the warmest summer in more than 100 years of record keeping, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA: “It beat the previous record by a pretty wide margin.”
Those high temperatures dried out vegetation throughout the area, he said. While fires are a part of life in California, this one became more destructive because it had so much dry brush and grassland — fed by last winter’s rains — to burn.
Powerful winds pushed the flames farther, Swain said. Known locally as the Diablo wind, they’re similar to the Santa Ana wind in Southern California, and they reached an unusually high speed of 79 mph Sunday night. Coupled with relatively low humidity, the wind patterns quickly created havoc.
“This is very much a weather-driven fire, but there is definitely a climate component to the overall story, too,” Swain said.
The dead brush and trees were the result not just of this year’s hot temperatures, but also of the state’s historic drought, which officially ended with the rainfall last winter, said LeRoy Westerling, a management professor at the University of California, Merced’s School of Engineering.
Scientists typically hesitate to say any specific event happened because of climate change, Westerling said. Yet, he said, “we know that these events are affected by the weather and the climate and how dry it is. The climate system has been altered by people … all the weather we’re experiencing and what’s driving these wildfire events is climate change.”…… https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-see-climate-change-in-californias-wildfires/
Nuclear power is often referred to as a low-carbon source of energy, implying that it would be a good idea to replace our fossil fuel based energy system with one based on nuclear energy. This is part of a dog and pony show, where the problem of climate change is reduced to its current main contributor, human carbon dioxide emissions. The problem with this approach is that replacing fossil fuel based energy with other energy sources is not a solution, if these other energy sources cause climate change through different mechanisms.
This brings us to the nuclear industry’s dirty little secret, known as Krypton-85. Natural processes generate small amounts of Krypton-85. This leads to an equilibrium concentration in the atmosphere of 0.009 PBq. However, nuclear power plants generate Krypton-85 as well. When spent fuel is recycled, Krypton-85 is released into the atmosphere. As a result, Krypton-85 concentrations in the atmosphere have risen dramatically. The concentration in 1973 was estimated at 1961 PBq. In 2000, the concentration was estimated at 4800 PBq, by 2009, this had increased to 5500 PBq.1
Why should we be interested in the Krypton-85 concentration in our atmosphere? Krypton-85 has a number of interesting effects. As a beta-emitter, Krypton-85 is capable of ionizing our atmosphere. This leads to the formation of ozone.2 In the stratosphere, we’re quite happy to witness the formation of ozone, as it protects us against harmful radiation from the sun. On the other hand, in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere beneath the stratosphere, the formation of ozone is a big problem. Unfortunately, Krypton-85’s ozone formation in the stratosphere is minor compared to that by cosmic rays.
In the troposphere on the other hand, Krypton-85 is believed to have a significant role in ozone formation compared to cosmic rays. This is especially significant at night, because normally ozone is not generated during the night, as it requires the presence of sunlight. Krypton-85 generates tropospheric ozone, during the day as well as during the night. Normally, Ozone concentrations in the troposphere drop to near zero during the night.3 In the presence of Krypton-85 however, ozone can be created at night as well.
What are the effect of this? Not a lot is known yet, unfortunately, despite the estimated eight orders of magnitude increase of ozone in our atmosphere. What is know about ozone however, reveals a cause of concern. Besides the fact that tropospheric ozone functions as a greenhouse gas, ozone damages plants. It is believed that ozone causes relatively more damage when trees are exposed to it at night, when concentrations are normally very low due to the absence of sunlight.4 Other worrisome effects of Krypton-85 are expected as well. In a 1994 study it was suggested that “there are unforeseeable effects for weather and climate if the krypton-85 content of the earth atmosphere continues to rise”.5 In its global atmosphere watch measurement guide, the World Meteorological Organization warned:
If 85Kr continues to increase, changes in such atmospheric processes and properties as atmospheric electric conductivity, ion current, the Earth’s magnetic field, formation of cloud condensation nuclei and aerosols, and frequency of lightning may result and thus disturb the Earth’s heat balance and precipitation patterns. These 85Kr-induced consequences call for 85Kr monitoring.6
Fortunately, there is good news as well. Thanks to the ongoing global phase-out of nuclear energy, global atmospheric Krypton-85 concentrations are estimated to have peaked back in 2009. If on the hand, a nuclear renaissance occurs after all, we could expect global atmospheric concentrations to continue to increase. It remains to be seen what the subsequent effects of this would be.
The US Defense Department takes climate change seriously, PRI , Living on Earth, October 08, 2017, Adam WernickWhile President Donald Trump has dismissed climate change as a hoax, the Department of Defense is focused on understanding and preparing for continued climate disruption and the security threats it poses in a warming world.
The US experienced three large-scale disasters in succession — hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria — which has strained our resources, our politics and the infrastructure that helps bring aid to battered areas. Even in an era of highly polarized politics, however, the US remains a fairly stable government system. When these disasters hit other places that aren’t so stable, they can create regional and even international security problems.
“One of the components of climate change that makes it a threat or a risk to national security is [that] it can make already tenuous, or frankly bad, places much worse and, occasionally, catastrophically so,” says retired Rear Adm. David Titley. Titley led the US Navy’s task force on climate change and is now a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University.
“So much depends on local governance, on the inherent strength and resilience of the communities affected,” Titley says. “This is why you see people like Defense Secretary Mattis talk so strongly about the need for not only the military to be funded, but for adequate funding for US Agency for International Development, or USAID; for our State Department to be adequately funded and adequately manned, because the military can come in initially and try to help stabilize the situation, but the US military is not going to be the one that rebuilds these societies.”……
Titley notes that James Mattis was “pretty clear on this early on in his tenure as Secretary of Defense.” His answers to written questions from congressional leaders indicated he understands that the climate is changing and that “those changes, if unmanaged, compose a risk to US security operations and US Department of Defense.”……
[Defense Secretary] Mattis’s acceptance of climate change as a security risk allows others in the department, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to begin to plan for its effects, he says.
“For a lot of the readiness of the Department of Defense, it doesn’t even really matter why [the climate] is changing,” he adds. The department’s internal message, he says, is “‘we know it’s changing; we know it’s changing pretty quickly, and we’d better be ready for that, because if we just plan for the past we’re going to be surprised,’— and that’s not where the Department of Defense wants to be.”
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/52773From: Oregon State University , 5 Oct 17, Nearly half of the organic carbon stored in soil around the world is contained in Arctic permafrost, which has experienced rapid melting, and that organic material could be converted to greenhouse gases that would exacerbate global warming.
When permafrost thaws, microbial consumption of those carbon reserves produces carbon dioxide – much of which eventually winds up in the atmosphere, but scientists have been unsure of just how the system works.
A new study published this week in Nature Communications outlines the mechanisms and points to the importance of both sunlight and the right microbial community as keys to converting permafrost carbon to CO2. The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
“We’ve long known that microbes convert the carbon into CO2, but previous attempts to replicate the Arctic system in laboratory settings have failed,” noted Byron Crump, an Oregon State University biogeochemist and co-author on the study. “As it turns out, that is because the laboratory experiments did not include a very important element – sunlight.
Christiana Figueres: why I chose optimism over climate doom, The leading climate change diplomat called for “stubborn optimism” New Statesman, INDIA BOURKE. 6 Oct 17, “…….doom and gloom is not the method counselled by Christiana Figueres. The Costa Rican diplomat has won global acclaim for her leadership of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
As its executive secretary of the organisation, she was responsible for steering the world towards the epic success of the 2015 Paris Agreement – an accord which has so far seen 167 countries ratify their pledges to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking to a group of young environmentalists at a PeaceBoatevent last weekend, Figueres explained that she achieved this feat by refusing to give up on a message of hope:
“Name one battle that has been won with pessimism: None!” she told the assembled room. “You do not go at a battle or a challenge with pessimism, because by definition you will not win. So that is why I bring [a] tsunami of optimism to this whole darn thing – because we have to.”
“I call myself a stubborn optimist. And I invite you all to be stubborn optimists.” Then she added: “But you also have to be stubborn and don’t give up.”
If someone says they’re going to build a wall in your path, then “go around” it, “fly over” it, or “dig under” it, she counselled the audience. “Whatever barrier is put in front of you, if you know that you want to obtain something, do not give that barrier the power of paralysing you.”
It’s a message Figueres herself has come to live by. Six years ago, when she first took over the secretariat, the prospect of a reaching a global agreement on climate change seemed impossible…….
This optimistic resolve eventually helped pull off an international agreement on climate change, in the form of the 2015 Paris Agreement. According to the event’s chair, Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, it was an essential change of approach. “This whole thing was revived in Cancun, really, by you and Patricia Espinosa. And it was a very different dynamic – it was very consensual, very bridge building.”
So how can the world add to these achievements and prevent the climate from breaching the all-important 1.5 degrees celcius rise? And how can individuals replace feelings of despair with a sense of empowerment and hope? Here are eight thoughts from Figueres’s talk:…….
Factcheck: Climate models have not ‘exaggerated’ global warming , Skeptical Science, by Zeke HausfatherThis is a re-post from Carbon Brief 6 Oct 17 A new study published in the Nature Geosciences journal this week by largely UK-based climate scientists has led to claims in the media that climate models are “wrong” and have significantly overestimated the observed warming of the planet.
Here Carbon Brief shows why such claims are a misrepresentation of the paper’s main results. In reality, the results obtained from the type of model-observation comparisons performed in the paper depend greatly on the dataset and model outputs used by the authors.
Much of the media coverage surrounding the paper, Millar et al, has focused on the idea that climate models are overestimating observed temperatures by around 0.3C, or nearly 33% of the observed warming since the late 1800s. For example, the Daily Mailreported:
According to these models, temperatures across the world should now be at least 1.3 degrees above the mid-19th century average, which is taken as a base level in such calculations. But the British report demonstrates that the rise is only between 0.9 and 1 degree.
Lead author Dr Richard Millar and his co-authors have pushed back against such media coverage, releasing a statement which says:
A number of media reports have asserted that our [study] indicates that global temperatures are not rising as fast as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and hence that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is no longer urgent. Both assertions are false. Our results are entirely in line with the IPCC’s 2013 prediction that temperatures in the 2020s would be 0.9-1.3 degrees above pre-industrial [levels].
[Carbon Brief’s guest post by Dr Millar earlier this week includes the paper’s key figures. Additionally, one of his co-authors, Prof Piers Forster, provides further reaction at the end of this article.]
Contrary to media claims, the study found that warming is consistent with the range of IPCC models, albeit a bit lower than the average of all the models.
State Senator Says FPL Isn’t Preparing Miami’s Nuclear Plant for Sea-Level Rise, Miami New Times, JERRY IANNELLI | OCTOBER 5, 2017 The Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station is built directly on the waterfront in Homestead — a location that has exposed the plant to serious natural disasters. The power plant survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but the storm’s 175 mph winds knocked out communication lines, disabled the emergency fire-safety system, and “severely cracked” an exhaust stack that could have destroyed the plant’s back-up power system if the stack had toppled, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
So while Florida Power & Light (FPL) proposes expanding Turkey Point and building two more reactors there, Miami state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez is asking for safer measures to prepare for sea-level rise and major hurricanes — or for FPL to drop the expansion plans altogether. This past August 23, Rodriguez sent the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates nuclear power plants, a letter demanding that FPL add greater sea-level-rise protections to its development plan.
Rodriguez made the letter public this week because the NRC had scheduled a hearing today to move forward with Turkey Point’s expansion plans; Hurricane Irma delayed the meeting, but it’s still expected to happen by the end of December. Rodriguez is asking the NRC to continue to delay ruling on the plan’s approval until FPL addresses the concerns of environmentalists and activists.
“They’re only taking into account one foot of sea-level rise in the future,” Rodriguez tells New Times. “Some projections — we’re hopeful those projections are wrong — but some projections are orders of magnitude higher than that.”…….
n his August letter to the NRC, Rodriguez laid out three specific concerns, which clean-energy activists opposed to FPL’s expansion plans have voiced repeatedly: First, Rodriguez said Turkey Point’s Combined Operating License application (COL) accounts for only a foot of sea-level rise by 2100 even though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned last January that the seas could rise as much as 8.2 feet in that time period.
Second, Rodrigeuz said he was upset the plan covered only the new reactors — Units 6 and 7 — that FPL plans to build and does not propose any changes for the existing reactors. Those are the same reactors attached to cooling canals that leak low-level radioactive waste into Biscayne Bay and salt water into Miami’s drinking-water aquifer. Environmentalists have long complained that Turkey Point sits too close to protected parks and drinking-water sources.
Third, the lawmaker added he thought FPL’s applications did not properly account for what might happen to spent nuclear fuel rods that the plants produce. ….
“That also is obviously a huge concern all over the country,” Rodriguez says. “There really isn’t a plan for how these nuclear facilities store their waste.”
Anti-nuclear activists argue that if safely storing spent rods is this difficult, nuclear plants simply should not be built. Investigative comedian John Oliver earlier this yrar devoted a long segment on his HBO show Last Week Tonight to the nuclear-waste storage problem:
FPL recently won the right to store low-level radioactive waste from the expansion site underground in a rocky zone, but some environmental activists worry the waste might leak into Miami’s largest source of drinking water, the Biscayne Aquifer. Lawyers for the City of Miami asked the NRC to force FPL to rewrite its plan, but NRC regulators say FPL has done enough to mitigate those concerns.
Shunning Fossil Fuels, 40 Catholic Groups Seek Climate Action, Scientific American
The coalition is the largest number of Catholic institutions to team up for a shift to green energy By Alister Doyle, Reuters on October 3, 2017 OSLO (Reuters) – Forty Roman Catholic groups said on Tuesday they were shunning investments in fossil fuels and urged others to follow suit.
The coalition was the largest number of Catholic institutions, in countries including Australia, South Africa, Britain and the United States, to team up for a shift to greener energies, the Global Catholic Climate Movement said.
Among those taking part was Assisi’s Sacro Convento and other Catholic institutions in the Italian town, birthplace of Saint Francis, who inspired Pope Francis.
The “joint divestment from fossil fuels is based on both their shared value of environmental protection and the financial wisdom of preparing for a carbon-neutral economy,” the Global Catholic Climate Movement said.
It did not estimate the value of their fossil fuel holdings. Several, contacted by Reuters, said they had few or none to sell and wanted mainly to rule out future investments and urge others to divest.
The Assisi municipality allied itself with the 40. “Many people say that Assisi is the city on the mountain – all people can see the choices, political and environmental, that Assisi takes,” mayor Stefania Proietti told Reuters.
She said the town was investing in cleaner energy, such as solar panels on rooftops, and electric vehicles……..
The Catholic Church claims 1.2 billion members.
Ben Caldecott, founding director of the Oxford sustainable finance programme at the University of Oxford, said: “Groups with moral authority, religious groups being a good example, are likely to have a disproportionate impact in terms of increasing stigma” of investing in fossil fuels.
The International Energy Agency projects that fossil fuels will account for more than half of world energy demand in 2040, even with a big green shift. Fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell say they are limiting emissions.
Top investment groups push for action on climate risks, Ft.com 2 Oct 17 by Ed Crooks in New York and Attracta Mooney in London
BlackRock and others demand disclosure at US energy companies, analysis shows
Large investment groups including BlackRock and Vanguard have stepped up pressure on US energy companies to address the risks associated with climate change, despite the Trump administration’s lack of action to address the threat.
An analysis of shareholder votes at this year’s annual meetings showed investors have taken a more active role in pushing for information on climate risks, often voting for improved disclosure against company board recommendations. In votes at seven of the largest US energy companies this year, the 30 largest investors switched their votes to support disclosure on climate risk a total of 38 times, having opposed similar resolutions in 2016, according to ShareAction, a campaign group.
The data came from regulatory filings compiled by Proxy Insight, an information service. The increasingly assertive position taken by large investors had its most significant impacts at ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum, two of the largest US oil groups. There was majority support for proposals calling on the companies to publish regular reports on the possible impact on their businesses of policies to address the threat of climate change. In both cases, BlackRock and Vanguard, the world’s two largest fund managers, voted to support the proposals. …….
Edward Kamonjoh, executive director of the 50/50 Climate Project, said he expected investors to seek better explanations from fund managers when they decide not to support climate-related resolutions. “Large fund managers with poor voting records on climate risk can expect public challenges on the dichotomy between their engagement priorities and voting practices,” he said.https://www.ft.com/content/48ad5476-a6aa-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97
We stand committed to protecting migrant families, all of whom deserve our help. But we’re also committed to limiting the cause of needless future suffering.
The scientific consensus on climate change is clear.
For believers in Jesus Christ, the divine command to love one’s neighbour requires us to understand how our actions – or inaction – affect others. Christians must reduce the causes of climate change. The call to love our neighbours requires no less.
Unfortunately, the disaster in Syria was undergirded by another disaster, and one that will continue to grow unless we stop it. The tragic truth is that experts believe that the Syrian drought was made more likely by climate change.
Droughts have happened in the Near East and around the world for millennia. Climate change is different. Climate change is deeply and drastically altering long-established patterns of rainfall. Small-scale farmers’ and herders’ livelihoods depend on predicting the weather, and for them, the drastic and ongoing alteration of weather patterns means disaster.
Syria provides a real-world example of the consequences of a climate-forced drought, with analysis provided by, among others, former leaders of the United States military. The Syrian drought drove newly impoverished people out of the countryside, creating enormous pressure in urban areas. In Damascus, Aleppo, and other cities, a dramatically expanded presence of desperately poor people fed into to a wider sense of unrest.
Climate change did not cause the refugee crisis. But climate change very probably contributed to the social crisis that prompted it. Events such as the drought are more likely to occur with greater frequency and severity due to climate change.
Unfortunately, the migration of the past several years is only a precursor of what’s to come. Drought is one consequence of climate change and one that will have long-lasting repercussions. Another is sea level rise.
Over the coming decades, the highly exposed, highly populated coast of Bangladesh will probably see sea level rise that will flood the homes of tens of millions of people, driving human migration on a scale the Earth has never seen. Caring for these migrants will challenge all of us.
We stand committed to protecting migrant families, all of whom deserve our help. But we’re also committed to limiting the cause of needless future suffering.
The scientific consensus on climate change is clear. Burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, these added gases function like a blanket, trapping heat from the sun and holding it close to the Earth.
The consequences of a warmer Earth are profound – and they are already here. From the countryside of Syria to our backyards in London, climate change is disrupting how we live.
Because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, the United Kingdom has already seen increases in average rainfall. Heavier rains mean more flooded homes and businesses, more stresses on expensive infrastructure, and days of missed school or work. Coastal areas are also vulnerable to increased flooding from sea-level rise and storm surge.
For believers in Jesus Christ, the divine command to love one’s neighbour requires us to understand how our actions – or inaction – affect others. Christians must reduce the causes of climate change. The call to love our neighbours requires no less.
Worldwide, Christians are now observing the ecumenical Season of Creation, the period from September 1to October 4 when we pray and act together to protect the good gift of Creation. As was witnessed by the joint statement for World Day of Prayer for Creation, jointly issued by Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew, environmental protection is being met with a unified Christian response.
Here in the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church of Wales and England is supporting the livesimply Award. The Catholic communities that have received the award have made real progress in caring for Creation. In Stowmarket, Our Lady’s Parish created reusable shopping bags for parishioners. In Leamington, the Parish of St Peter Apostle encouraged parishioners to walk or cycle to church to shrink their carbon footprint. These parishes join 25 others who have achieved the rigorous standards of the award.
The Lutheran Church in Great Britain has taken steps to make its practices more sustainable and to incorporate care for creation into worship and education services. The church has diverted trash from landfills by instituting the use of reusable cups and service materials and installing recycling bins. It has highlighted climate change and environment issues in weekly intercessions and educated congregants about the need to reduce, re-use and recycle as part of Lenten Disciplines. The church has undertaken a significant education campaign, discussing the importance of caring for our environment with children during children’s addresses and children’s church, planning a ‘litter-picking’ event with the children in the near future.
Now it’s up to all Christians to continue and expand this collective response.
Catholic or Lutheran, ordained or lay, we’re all called by our Creator to love and protect the human family and our common home. We are standing together to answer God’s call.
John Arnold is Bishop of the Salford Diocese of the Catholic Church and chairperson of the Environmental Justice Committee of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
Dr Martin Lind is Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain.
Global carbon emissions stood still in 2016, offering climate hope, The new data is a welcome sign of progress in the battle against global warming but many challenges remain, including methane from cattle, Guardian, Damian Carrington, 28 Sept 17, Global emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide remained static in 2016, a welcome sign that the world is making at least some progress in the battle against global warming by halting the long-term rising trend.
Stalled global emissions still means huge amounts of CO2 are being added to the atmosphere every year – more than 35bn tonnes in 2016 – driving up global temperatures and increasing the risk of damaging, extreme weather. Furthermore, other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, mainly methane from cattle and leaks from oil and gas exploration, are still rising and went up by 1% in 2016.
“These results are a welcome indication that we are nearing the peak in global annual emissions of greenhouse gases,” said climate economist Prof Lord Nicholas Stern at the London School of Economics and president of the British Academy.
“To realise the goals of the Paris agreement and hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2C, we must reach peak emissions as soon as possible and then achieve a rapid decline soon afterwards,” Stern said. “These results from the Dutch government show that there is a real opportunity to get on track.”………
Stern said many of the big emitting nations had achieved significant reductions in 2016: “However, all countries have to accelerate their emissions reductions if the Paris goals are to be met.” He said this could also drive development in poorer nations: “We can now see clearly that the transition to a low-carbon economy is at the heart of the story of poverty reduction and of the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
The new Dutch report shows CO2 emissions from China, the world’s biggest emitter, fell 0.3% in 2016. US CO2 emissions fell 2.0% and Russia’s by 2.1%, with the EU flat, although UK emissions tumbled by 6.4%, as coal burning plunged.
Indo-US Nuclear Agreement Is An Arms Deal: Ex-US Senator Larry Pressler https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indo-us-nuclear-agreement-is-an-arms-deal-ex-us-senator-larry-pressler-1756557 Former US Senator Larry Pressler said the focus of Indo-US bilateral partnership should be on ‘agriculture, technology and health care’ All India | Press Trust of India September 29, 2017 NEW DELHI: The civil nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the US is more of an “arms deal”, but the focus of the bilateral partnership should be on “agriculture, technology and health care”, former US Senator Larry Pressler said today. Mr Pressler, who has served as chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee, also had a word of caution for Pakistan.
He said if Pakistan did not act on terrorism, the Trump administration could declare it “a terror state”. “I would love to see peaceful use of nuclear energy, but I am worried that so far it (nuclear agreement) has mostly been an arms deal. It seems to me that much of the new agreement is a large arms sale to Indians,” Mr Pressler said.
The former US Senator was speaking during the launch of his book.
India and the US signed the nuclear cooperation agreement in October 2008, ending India’s isolation by the West in the nuclear and space arena. The deal has given a significant boost to India’s nuclear energy production.
Mr Pressler said former US President Barack Obama’s visit to New Delhi was “largely an arms sale trip”. On whether the US could declare Pakistan a “terror state”, he said, “Unless Pakistan does not change certain things, it may happen. Moreover, the Trump administration is making sounds that they are getting near this. And I hope they do.”
Mr Pressler is known for advocating amendments in the 1990s which banned most of the economic and military assistance to Pakistan, unless the US President certified on an annual basis that Islamabad did not possess nuclear explosive devices.
nuclear-news 