climate change tagged posts

How do we go from protecting eight per cent of marine areas to 30 per cent in less than 10 years? This question is at the heart of a global forum in Canada aiming to save marine ecosystems under threat from overfishing, pollution and climate change.

On the heels of the historic biodiversity agreement signed at COP15 in Montreal late last year, about 3,000 officials, scientists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Indigenous groups are meeting in Vancouver for the fifth International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC5), which opened on Friday (Feb 4) and runs until February 9.

Scientists have said the meeting is crucial for setting up a framework to reach the agreed target at COP15 of protecting 30 per cent of the planet’s lands and oceans by 2030.

It is an immense st...

Scientists discover the first evidence that marine conservation helps to reduce climate change. Marine protected areas act as a safeguard for oceans, seas, and estuaries. These regions help in the preservation of the plants and animals that are native to these waters, but the advantages of protected areas go well beyond their boundaries. A group of experts describes how marine protected areas support ecological and social adaptation to climate change and help in the sequestration of carbon in a study that was recently published in the journal One Earth. 

“Marine protected areas are increasingly being promoted as an ocean-based climate solution...

As Egypt hosts world leaders at COP27 to discuss action over climate change, an oil terminal is dumping toxic wastewater on the country’s Red Sea coast, an investigation by BBC News Arabic has found. A rare form of coral, that offers hope for preserving ocean life as the planet warms, could be a casualty. Leaked documents obtained by the BBC and non-profit journalism group SourceMaterial reveal that “produced water” from Egypt’s Ras Shukeir oil terminal is being dumped into the Red Sea every day.

The barely treated wastewater – which is brought to the surface during oil and gas drilling – contains high levels of toxins, oil and grease.

The documents, which were issued by the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (Gupco) in 2019 to try to hire a company to treat the water, say the pollution...

We’re on the “highway to hell”, the UN warned at COP27 – and not in a good way like AC/DC, but in a very bad way, with continuing weather chaos, famine and mass extinction facing us all.

“Red alert for humanity”, “life or death struggle”, “knocking on famine’s door”. These have all been UN assessments of the situation. But, has it changed anything?

Despite the UN’s increasingly inventive language designed to say how it is, another global climate summit looks to just past us by again.

This year’s COP27 summit – sponsored by Coca-Cola (the world’s number one producer of plastic waste) is really achieving nothing!

One UN official said yesterday – “the COP process is at a crossroads, it must urgently realise its purpose or risk poisoning the well for climate action...

Emissions of CO2 are rising so quickly there is now a 50% chance the world will cross a crucial climate change threshold soon, a new report suggests. Emissions for 2022 are expected to remain at record levels, lifted by people flying again after Covid. The report said that if emissions stay so high, the world faces a 50% risk of breaching a key 1.5C temperature rise threshold in nine years.

This would have sweeping consequences for poorer and developing countries.

Average temperatures are now 1.1C above pre-industrial levels, and that increase has already caused major climate disasters this year.

If global average temperatures were to rise to more than 1.5C, the UN says it would expose millions more people to potentially devastating climate impacts.

The researchers have sa...

COP27 is the next meeting of the group of 198 countries that have signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It will be held in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh on 6-18 November. The UN is urging the world’s industrialized nations to ‘lead by example’ by taking ‘bold and immediate actions’. Five key issues to watch are nature, food, water, industry decarbonization and climate adaptation.

“A third of Pakistan flooded. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years. The Philippines hammered. The whole of Cuba in blackout. And … in the United States, Hurricane Ian has delivered a brutal reminder that no country and no economy is immune from the climate crisis.”

These are the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres...

Climate activists are “baffled” over Egypt’s decision to have Coca-Cola – a major plastic producer – sponsor this year’s global climate talks. Campaigners told the BBC the deal undermines the talks, as the majority of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Coca-Cola said it “shares the goal of eliminating waste and appreciates efforts to raise awareness”.

This year’s COP27 UN climate talks are hosted by the Egyptian government in November in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Egypt announced it had signed the sponsorship deal last week.

At the signing, Coca-Cola Global Vice-President, Public Policy and Sustainability Michael Goltzman said: “Through the COP27 partnership, the Coca-Cola system aims to support collective action against climate change.”

But opposition to the decision has grown over ...

Two months ago the Sea Save Foundation delegation participated in the United Nation’s Ocean Conference – Sustainable Development Goal #14. Delegate after delegate took the podium and passionately expressed their nations’ support for the protection and the conservation of oceans.
Scientists are concerned that the failure to protect open oceans will spell disaster not only for marine species, island communities and fisheries but for the entire planet.

Climate Change, the effects of which we are seeing daily in news headlines, is largely buffered by oceans. Ocean decline will cause a domino-like effect on the climate of our planet.

The United Nations has tried to pass the High Oceans treaty four times before, and this fifth-time failure to reach consensus was unexpected by most and is ...

The way Google calculates the climate impact of your flights has changed, the BBC has discovered. Flights now appear to have much less impact on the environment than before. That’s because the world’s biggest search engine has taken a key driver of global warming out of its online carbon flight calculator.

“Google has airbrushed a huge chunk of the aviation industry’s climate impacts from its pages” says Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace.

With Google hosting nine out of every 10 online searches, this could have wide repercussions for people’s travel decisions. 

The company said it made the change following consultations with its “industry partners”.

It affects the carbon calculator embedded in the company’s “Google Flights” search tool.

If you have ever tried ...

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), so-called “sleeping giant”, which holds the majority of glacier ice on Earth, is closer to being “awakened” than scientists have previously believed. In research published this week, a team of scientists analyzed how EAIS behaved during warm periods in Earth’s past to predict how it will fare as the world continues heating. Recent satellite images already show signs of thinning ice and melting. 

“A key lesson from the past is that the EAIS is highly sensitive to even relatively modest warming scenarios. It isn’t as stable and protected as we once thought,” said co-author Professor Nerilie Abram, from Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences.

If the global average temperature remains well below 2C, then EAIS is p...