Pakistan floods highlight flaws in concept of climate adaptation
14/9/2022: The scale of devastation in Pakistan challenges the notion of “adaptation” as a core strategic response to climate change. Additional provision for “loss and damage” can help but the real urgency is to limit the degree of climate change.
Source: Inter Press Service
Warming above 1.5C could trigger multiple tipping points
8/9/2022: New research raises concerns about temperature-related tipping points that can trigger large-scale and potentially irreversible changes in the Earth system. It finds that five tipping elements are already within reach.
Source: Carbon Brief
European leaders shun climate adaptation summit
6/9/2022: The Africa Adaptation Summit was recently held in Rotterdam in preparation for the COP27 climate negotiations. Presidents of Senegal, DRC and Ghana criticised the poor representation of richer countries responsible for unmet promises of climate finance for adaptation.
Source: Climate Home News
Fossil fuel subsidies almost doubled in 2021
29/8/2022: Major economies are struggling with longstanding pledges to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Support for fossil fuels in 51 countries worldwide almost doubled to $697 billion in 2021.
Source: OECD
‘Epic’ Pakistan floods show need for climate action
29/8/2022: Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. It faces rates of warming considerably above the global average. Campaigners are calling on countries most historically responsible for climate change to support vulnerable countries’ adaptation efforts.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Heat renders parts of Africa ‘not suitable’ for life
31/8/2022: According to a senior European humanitarian official, parts of Somalia, northern Kenya and Ethiopia are becoming uninhabitable due to rising temperatures. Almost 3 million people in the Sahel region are surviving in pre-famine conditions.
Source: Devex
Omens are good for a CoP15 plan to protect nature
30/8/2022: Despite many challenges, December’s crucial biodiversity talks in Montreal may set a new path for humans to live with nature. If agreed, the Global Biodiversity Framework would reboot conservation by greatly expanding protected areas, phasing out billions of dollars of subsidies that harm nature, and reducing pollution.
Source: The Guardian
UN fails to reach agreement to protect marine life
27/8/2022: Negotiations to establish a UN Ocean Treaty to protect biodiversity in two-thirds of the world’s oceanic areas have closed without agreement. Environmental campaigners expressed disappointment and blamed wealthy countries, including the US, for being too slow to compromise.
Source: The Guardian
Countries must step up efforts to protect freshwater sources
25/8/2022: As events marking World Water Week continue in Stockholm, countries are urged to do more to adapt to the cascading impacts of the climate crisis on freshwater ecosystems, with increasingly frequent and intense dry periods interspersed with floods and extreme precipitation.
Source: UN Environment Programme
Rainforest politics of the DRC oil auction
23/8/2022: The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has two main goals in selling oil blocks that overlap with the world’s second largest rainforest. Neither involves developing oil.
Source: African Arguments