Climate Change

Alok Sharma will urge countries to deliver on the pledges made at Cop26 so they are not “just words on a page” in his first major speech since the summit. Addressing stakeholders, business leaders and reporters at Chatham House in central London at around midday on Monday, the Cop26 President is due to encourage countries to work together on their commitments. Through the Glasgow Climate Pact signed in November, 197 countries agreed to strengthen their emissions-cutting targets for 2030 by the end of next year in an attempt to limit global warming climbing above 1.5C.

Independent 24th Jan 2022 read more »

Times 24th Jan 2022 read more »

Many countries in Africa and those experiencing armed conflict are struggling to access money set aside to prepare them for climate change, according to new research. The study finds that nearly half of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, from Haiti to Afghanistan, missed out on the first round of grants for adaptation projects from the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF). African nations were particularly badly affected, with no money going to projects in 13 of the 30 “least developed” states across the continent.

Carbon Brief 20th Jan 2022 read more »

The monster iceberg A68 was dumping more than 1.5 billion tonnes of fresh water into the ocean every single day at the height of its melting. To put that in context, it’s about 150 times the amount of water used daily by all UK citizens. A68 was, for a short period, the world’s biggest iceberg. It covered an area of nearly 6,000 sq km (2,300 sq miles) when it broke free from Antarctica in 2017. But by early 2021, it had vanished. One trillion tonnes of ice, gone.

BBC 20th Jan 2022 read more »

The UK needs to stop subsidising the oil and gas industry to enable a “green and just transition” away from fossil fuels, an environmental campaigner who took the government to court has said. Mikaela Loach told The Independent she believes the mainstream campaign against these financial incentives has just begun, despite the High Court ruling against her case on the issue on Tuesday. The medical student was one of three environmentalists who launched a legal challenge against the business secretary and a state-owned authority over a drive to encourage oil and gas production in the North Sea, arguing it was not economic and incompatible with a duty to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Independent 19th Jan 2022 read more »

As required by the Climate Change Act 2008, the UK government has undertaken the third five-year assessment of the risks of climate change on the UK. This is based on the Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk, the statutory advice provided by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), commissioned by the UK government and devolved administrations. The risk assessment considers sixty-one UK-wide climate risks and opportunities cutting across multiple sectors of the economy and prioritises the following eight risk areas for action in the next two years:

DEFRA 17th Jan 2022 read more »

Climate change has led to more than half a million fewer deaths over the past 20 years, analysis from the Office for National Statistics suggests. There has been a reduction in deaths caused by cold winters since 2001 in England and Wales as the climate warms, while there was relatively little increase in deaths due to hotter weather, the figures show. Temperature-related deaths, with the UK experiencing fewer cold days and more warm days, have fallen by 555,103 or an average of 27,755 deaths a year between 2001 and 2020.

Independent 17th Jan 2022 read more »

Telegraph 17th Jan 2022 read more »

COP26: The planet could still warm by 4C by 2100 despite climate summit pledges, experts warn. Although world leaders have forged headline agreements that would limit global warming, they are yet to be backed up by detailed plans to achieve them.

iNews 17th Jan 2022 read more »

The world’s 20 top performing hedge fund managers earned a record $65.4bn ($48bn) profit for their clients in 2021 after bets placed on rising stock markets paid off. The biggest winner was TCI, the fund run by British billionaire Sir Chris Hohn, which made a gain of $9.5bn last year, according to the annual rankings by LCH Investments. Hohn is the single biggest individual donor to Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has staged high-profile climate protests around the world. “Humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact,” he said when he was revealed as XR’s main funder.

Guardian 17th Jan 2022 read more »

The climate data for 2021 is now mostly in, and it has proved to be another noteworthy year across the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere and surface temperature of the planet. In this article, Carbon Brief unpacks the different datasets, remarkable records and extreme events of last year.

Carbon Brief 17th Jan 2022 read more »

Here’s how to repay developing nations for colonialism – and fight the climate crisis, The IMF allots voting rights and emergency funds according to an outdated and unfair quota system established in 1944, before most colonies were free. Let’s change it.

Guardian 14th Jan 2022 read more »

Cities and towns across southern South America have been setting record high temperatures as the region swelters during a historic heatwave. “Practically all of Argentina and also neighboring countries such as Uruguay, southern Brazil and Paraguay are experiencing the hottest days in history,” said Cindy Fernández, meteorologist at the official National Meteorological Service. Many towns have posted their highest temperatures since records began, with some zones heating up to 45C (113F), according to the weather service.

Guardian 14th Jan 2022 read more »

Three activists who targeted London’s public transport network to raise the alarm about the escalating climate crisis have been acquitted by a jury. The three Extinction Rebellion campaigners disrupted rush hour services for more than an hour in east London in 2019, with two of them climbing on top of the train and a third gluing himself to one of the carriages. On Friday at the Inner London crown court a jury found them not guilty of obstructing the railway at Shadwell station.

Guardian 14th Jan 2022 read more »

Independent 14th Jan 2022 read more »

Telegraph 14th Jan 2022 read more »

Times 14th Jan 2022 read more »