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CLIMATE CRISIS

World’s richest 10% produce half of global carbon emissions

9th December 2015

The richest 10% of people produce half of Earth’s climate-harming fossil-fuel emissions, while the poorest half contribute a mere 10%, British charity Oxfam said in a report released Wednesday. “Rich, high emitters should be held accountable for their emissions, no matter where they live,” Oxfam climate policy head, Tim Gore, said in a recent statement….

By Swedish political cartoonist Riber Hansson

CLIMATE CRISIS

Cartoonists’ take on the climate haggling in Paris

8th December 2015

Editorial cartoonists from around the world have been quick to capture the fault lines in the negotiations ‒ world leaders arriving in Paris in their gas-guzzling jets and SUVs, rich countries lecturing poor countries on climate action, the inability for political leaders to strike a climate consensus up till now. Here are the best picks….

Commuters carry their motorbikes through a waterlogged street in Chennai

AP

CLIMATE CRISIS

Update: Chennai floods and climate change

7th December 2015

“Studies show that with rising global temperatures, the intensity of rain spells is increasing, both in the southwest and northeast monsoons,” says M Rajeevan, director, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. While no single weather event can said to be directly affected by global warming, the probability of heavy rain increases in the climate change scenario….

Nature.com

CLIMATE CRISIS

Comic: The 25-year quest for a climate treaty

6th December 2015

The fragile framework A Nature comic examines the 25-year quest for a climate treaty. Can nations unite to save Earth’s climate? Richard Monastersky & Nick Sousanis, Nature Click on image to view comic MORE IN COMICS: Syria’s Climate-Fueled Conflict, In One Stunning Comic Strip Peak Oil: A Graphic Story

An image from flooded Kotturpuram

PTI

CLIMATE CRISIS

Climate Change Brought the Rains, Our ‘Development’ Brought the Chaos

5th December 2015

Chennai experienced exceptionally heavy rainfall in 1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005 and now in 2015. Even a decadal frequency is higher than the occurrence of extreme rain events in the first half of the 20th century. It’s likely that at least some of these six extreme rain events had the fingerprint of climate change….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #75 (Climate special)

3rd December 2015

We are already seeing chatter about whether this is our last chance to “save the world” or keep us below 2°C of global warming. But that’s the wrong way to think about Paris. They’re not designed to do that. The actual goal is more modest: to add structure and momentum to efforts that are already underway….

EI_EcoPictures/Twitter

CLIMATE CRISIS

India may need $1 trillion by 2030 to adapt to climate change

2nd December 2015

As climate risks grow worse, the dynamic adaptation gap for India could grow to $360 billion in finance and much more in technology. Nayantara Narayanan, Scroll.in As the 21st Conference of Parties on Climate Change gets underway in Paris, a major sticking point in the deliberations will be climate finance. India is leading the charge…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The corporates bankrolling the Paris climate talks

1st December 2015

Inviting major polluters to pay for the talks compared to ‘hiring a fox to guard a hen house’ Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams From financial giant BNP Paribas to fossil fuels company Engie, the same corporations that deny science and drive carbon pollution are now sponsoring, co-opting, and interfering with the upcoming United Nations climate talks…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Video: The high-stakes dinner party in Paris

30th November 2015

Grist.org Today, diplomats will gather in Paris for a helluva high-stakes dinner party. How? Well, their orders are likely to affect the collective future of the planet. Check out our video above for all the savory details. Has anyone ever tried to convince you to order something off a menu that you couldn’t afford?…

Consumerism/Lifestyle

The false promise of economic growth

29th November 2015

We can have it all; that is the promise of our age. We can own every gadget we are capable of imagining, without compromising Earth’s capacity to sustain us. The promise that makes all this possible is that as economies develop, they become more efficient in their use of resources. In other words, they decouple….

CLIMATE CRISIS

India’s INDCs and the road to Paris – 5

(Note: In this series of posts, we take a closer look at India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), ahead of the Paris climate talks. This concluding post primarily examines trends in India’s energy consumption, which is what will primarily determine whether we can meet our climate targets or not. Also read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of…

CLIMATE CRISIS

India’s Energy Crisis

28th November 2015

Can India modernize its manufacturing economy and supply electricity to its growing population without relying heavily on coal—and quite possibly destroying the global climate? Richard Martin, Technology Review An old man wakes on the floor of a hut in a village in southern India. He is wrapped in a thin cotton blanket. Beside him, music wails…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Video: Weather reports from the future

27th November 2015

How will climate change impact our weather in the year 2050? Watch “weather reports from the future” World Meteorological Organization If humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the average temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere could rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by the end of the 21st century. But what does a global average…

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #74 (Climate special)

26th November 2015

Climate change makes past five-year period the warmest on record: WMO The Guardian Climate change made 2011-2015 the warmest five-year period on record, according to the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) state of the global climate report. This year is set to be the single hottest ever registered, with planetary temperatures passing the symbolic milestone of 1C…

CLIMATE CRISIS

A few reflections on the galloping environmental degradation

25th November 2015

AUTHOR Prof. Mark Lindley, University of Hyderabad School of Economics DESCRIPTION/EXCERPT The galloping environmental degradation is complicated. Let me distinguish seven aspects of it, as a step toward developing a comprehensive understanding of it. (Some of these seven are closely linked to each other in a cause-and-effect or overlapping way.): 1. Renewable natural resources being…

In 2002, Nobel Prize winner Leon M. Lederman moved the hands of the 'Doomsday Clock' to 11:53 p.m. They're now at 11:57.

Tim Boyle/Getty Images

CLIMATE CRISIS

Three minutes to midnight: Scientists reset doomsday clock

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Special: Institutions are pulling out investments worth billions from fossil fuels

24th November 2015

What is fossil fuel divestment? Divestment is the opposite of investment – it is the removal of your investment capital from stocks, bonds or funds. The global movement for fossil fuel divestment (sometimes also called disinvestment) is asking institutions to move their money out of oil, coal and gas companies for both moral and financial…

Reuters

CLIMATE CRISIS

Series: Weathering the change – Part 1

23rd November 2015

(Note: The weather is changing, adding to the woes of the Indian farmer, who is already in a state of crisis. Even as the pundits split hairs over climate change, for the farmer, it seems the writing is on the wall. In Weathering the change, we present a short series presenting the farmer’s perspective on the impact of these changes.)…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Pablo Solon: Behind the negotiating text for the Paris Climate talks

22nd November 2015

Bolivia’s former climate negotiator Pablo Solon writes: In the current text there are good and bad proposals, and the final result will be something in between the most ambitious and the weakest proposals. Are they going to put us on a path that limits the increase of the temperature to 1.5 ºC or 2 ºC?…

CLIMATE CRISIS

World Bank warns climate change could drive millions into extreme poverty

Efforts to curb climate change must be twinned with programmes to cut poverty, warns a study of the threat posed by global warming to food security View/download World Bank report pdf): Shock Waves : Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty The Guardian UK The world must pair efforts to stabilise climate change with…