From 30 November to 12 December 2023, all eyes will be on the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The host country of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) on climate change also has the eleventh highest carbon footprint in the world, well ahead of Ghana (27th), for example. The reasons for this include an economy...
Last month was the hottest October on record globally, Europe’s climate monitor said Wednesday, as months of exceptional heat likely to make 2023 the warmest year in history. With temperatures soaring beyond previous averages by exceptional margins, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more urgent as they...
The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”. The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. The plans would lead to 460% more coal production,...
Interview with Jacopo Bencini, expert in climate diplomacy and member of the Italian Climate Network, on the expectations and desirable outcomes of the next Climate Conference in Dubai Alessandro Mariani There is little time left, less than a month, before the start of COP28, the twenty-eighth Climate Conference to be held in Dubai, United Arab...
The writer served as the first national climate adviser to the White House and is a former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.It is of course completely right that climate, economic and technical experts are included in every COP discussion, such as the one in the United Arab Emirates later this month. But only...
Trying to put a wider spotlight on the global impacts of melting permafrost in the Arctic, Canada’s Dustin Whalen and Norway’s Tina Schoolmeester launched a new 174-page print and online Arctic Permafrost Map as an exhibit at the 10th Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland. “It’s the first atlas of its kind,” said Whalen, a scientist at...
“Things can only get better” felt like the anthem for the 1990s. Released in 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the song was the perfect soundtrack for a decade in which apartheid ended, democracy came to eastern Europe, peace came to Northern Ireland and the Oslo accords promised an end to...
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and Austria’s OMV AG are putting the final touches on a deal to create a petrochemical firm worth more than €30 billion ($32 billion), according to people with knowledge of the matter. Officials may reach a breakthrough as soon as mid-November, when the two sides will meet to discuss details...
Food systems are responsible for at least 15 percent of all global fossil fuel consumption, according to a major report launched ahead of the COP28 climate summit. The analysis shows that the production, transport, and storage of food are driving greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of the EU and Russia combined. Ultra processed foods like snacks,...
One of the world’s largest rivers and a major tributary of the Amazon, the yawning Rio Negro is a pillar of the rainforest ecosystem that is crucial to the stability of the global climate. But vast sections of the waterway are currently dry.For weeks, an unprecedented drought has pummelled the region, reducing water levels in...