Climate Change News
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What does the New Australian Labor Government Mean for Climate Change? (Carbon Brief)
The Labor party has swept to power in Australia, ending nearly a decade of rule by the Coalition government that has been marked by opposition and delay when addressing climate change.
The new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has promised to turn Australia into a “renewable energy superpower” and end the “climate wars” that have hampered progress for years.
Under the centre-right Coalition – an essentially permanent alliance between the Liberal and National parties – Australia earned a reputation as a climate “laggard” on the global stage, taking little meaningful action even as droughts, fires and floods devastated the nation.
By contrast, the centre-left Labor party has positioned itself as outward-looking and ambitious on climate. However, its proposed policies only target some areas of the economy and leave Australia’s large fossil-fuel sector largely untouched.
In his victory speech, Albanese told his supporters he would “end the climate wars” in Australia. He referred to a decade in which climate politics have been highly fraught, contributing to the….
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At Davos, climate activists say major issues ignored
At a small plaza in Davos, a picturesque Swiss town in the middle of the Alps, about 50 climate activists gathered on Thursday to bring attention to issues they said were largely ignored during this week's World Economic Forum meeting.
They said more attention needed to be on human suffering, particularly in developing countries experiencing severe weather events like heat waves and floods. They said there was no talk at all of reparations, often referred to as “loss and damage,” for poor countries that have contributed little to global warming but are experiencing some of the worst effects. And finally, they said the calls for a transition to renewables were hollow, as they were not joined by talk of plans to phase out fossil fuels.
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Fossil fuels have to go!” some chanted at the gathering, about a 10-minute walk from the main convention center, where meetings between politicians, business leaders, scientists, academics, journalists and others took place Monday through Thursday.
The elite forum, the first in person since 2020, was held at a time that the world's top climate scientists have warned that greenhouse gases need to be sharply curbed this decade to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Emissions like carbon dioxide warm the planet, which leads to
Devastating Heat Wave in South Asia ‘Sign of Things to Come’ in Face of Climate Change (PBS)
The devastating heat wave that has baked India and Pakistan in recent months was made more likely by climate change and is a glimpse of the region’s future, international scientists said in a study released Monday.
The World Weather Attribution group analyzed historical weather data that suggested early, long heat waves that impact a massive geographical area are rare, once-a-century events. But the current level of global warming, caused by human-caused climate change, has made those heat waves 30 times more likely.
If global heating increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) more than pre-industrial levels, then heat waves like this could occur twice in a century and up to once every five years, said Arpita Mondal, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, who was part of the study.
“This is a sign of things to come,” Mondal said.
The results are conservative: An analysis published last week by the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office said the heat wave was probably made 100 times more likely by… (Click here to continue article)
Climate Change Ravages Iraq as Palm Trees Make Way for Desert (Al Jazeera)
Southern Iraq was once known as the “black land” – the vast swaths of palm trees blocking out everything else, and providing food, shelter, and shade.
But the palm trees, as well as fruit trees and vegetable farms, have now mostly disappeared in and around the southern port city of Basra. Instead, real estate projects have taken over, as well as deserts.
The effect of climate change on agricultural land in Iraq, including rising water salinity and higher temperatures, has forced many farmers to turn to building and selling houses – but while that can lead to profits and cash in the short term, it is also deepening Basrawis’ vulnerability to climate disasters.
Farmers said they have no choice.
“I am one of many farmers who had to stop farming because of climate change, and a lack of government support,” said Fouad Kadhim, next to a dead palm tree in Seeba, a town outside of Basra. “Palm trees used to… (Click here to continue article)
What Can Data Science Do About Climate Change? (Forbes)
Climate change has moved center stage, and corporate commitments to sustainable growth and net-zero emissions are rising. However, it might take around 1,000 years to reverse the effects of climate change — for the sea level and ocean surface temperature to return to pre-industrial levels. Until then, the need of the hour is to mitigate, protect and survive.
The Blindfold Of Uncertainties
The existing infrastructure was designed to be in use for years without future climate in mind. Weather conditions now are causing severe damage to the existing bridges, roads and buildings. Even newer infrastructure is vulnerable to unprecedented climate change effects. Flawed zoning regulations based on outdated data and assumptions have enabled new developments in high-risk flood plains.
For example, levees offer protection from flooding but were detrimental in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Landscape changes that occurred due to the replacement of natural wetlands by levees, soil displacement and changing hydrology patterns were not considered by city ordinances. More recently, the city of Houston implemented revisions to…. (Click here to continue article)
Climate Change will Harm Sleep: Study (Yahoo)
By the end of this century, warmer temperatures will cost humans an average of 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person per year, according to a new study in the journal One Earth. That works out to a little less than 10 minutes per night.
Researchers used weather data and information from devices tracking sleep to measure the effect of excess heat on sleep. More than 47,600 people in 68 countries wore sleep-tracking wristbands between September 2015 and October 2017.
The researchers then compared the sleep records with local weather and climate data to see how heat affected each participant's sleep.
"We found that nights that were randomly warmer than average eroded human sleep duration within individuals globally," said study co-author Kelton Minor, a doctoral student in planetary social and behavioral data science at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, according to HealthDay News. "We estimated that….” (Click here to continue article)
Regeneration of Abandoned Farmland Can Mitigate Climate Change, Study Finds (EcoWatch)
Increasingly, farmers around the world are moving into urban centers in an act called “rural outmigration,” leaving hundreds of millions of acres of land to be reclaimed by the Earth. The farmers abandon their croplands for various reasons having to do with finances, conflicts or climate change, but, whatever the catalyst, the abandonment of former farmland means an opportunity for ecological restoration and carbon sequestration that could lead to a positive impact on the climate crisis — if the land is allowed to regenerate.
In a new study, researchers found that croplands are unlikely to be allowed to rejuvenate on a large enough scale to be impactful unless lawmakers intervene, since much of the land will end up being recultivated, The Hill reported.
“As people move from rural areas into cities, there is a chance for wildlife and the climate to gain ground — literally — as abandoned farms and pastures revert back to forests and grasslands,” said David Wilcove, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs at the High Meadows Environmental Institute, one of the co-authors of the study, as a press release from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs reported. “Our work shows that…(Click here to continue article.)