Category: Climate

Photo Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday. A final version of his encyclical is due Thursday. Credit Giampiero Sposito/Reuters ROME — Pope Francis offers a broad vision of an endangered planet, partly blaming human activity and fossil fuels for climate change while calling for people of all religions to take swift action, according to a leaked draft of his much-awaited environmental encyclical that was posted online Monday by an Italian magazine. The unauthorized release of the 192-page draft , published by L’Espresso, angered officials at the Vatican, who warned that the document did not represent the final version of Francis’ encyclical, which remains embargoed from publication until Thursday. In the leaked document, Francis often writes eloquently, citing scientific evidence about the human role in global warming. He repeats some of his familiar themes in calling on people to move away from a consumerist model that he says […]

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A roundup of the news, views and ideas from the main stream press and the blogosphere. Click on the headline link to see the full article. Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate John Vidal, The Guardian The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming? Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday. In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution […]

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LONDON For an industry used to cautious, long-term evolution, the speed at which leaders of Europe’s biggest oil and gas companies moved to take a joint stand in the climate debate speaks volumes. Discrete talks in the eyrie of Davos in January led to a spontaneous, light bulb moment on a stage in Oslo in February. The result: a joint statement two months later. The executives agreed they had to go public, and with alacrity. Faced with growing pressure from shareholders, vocal divestment campaigns by the media and advocacy groups, there looms the critical moment of the United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The industry campaign will speed up before then. "In the past we thought it was better to keep a low profile on the issue. I understand that tactic, but in the end it’s not a good tactic," Shell CEO Ben van Beurden told his […]

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WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is planning several actions this summer to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from wide swaths of the U.S. economy, including trucks, airplanes, oil and natural-gas operations and power plants, kicking into high gear an ambitious climate agenda that is a top legacy item for the president. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce as soon as this week draft rules to cut carbon emissions from big trucks, and separate plans to regulate carbon emissions from airlines, according to people familiar with the proposals. In the coming weeks, the EPA is expected to propose rules cutting emissions of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—from oil and natural-gas operations. And in August, the agency will complete a suite of three regulations cutting carbon from the nation’s power plants, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate-change agenda. The regulations represent the biggest climate push by the Obama administration since 2009, when […]

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‘Binding is a very important term’, said Merkel. (Photo: Bundesregierung/Gottschalk) Leaders of the world’s top economies Monday (8 June) gave a boost to global talks on tackling climate change by saying the global economy should be decarbonised by the end of this century. The high-level backing by G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – increases the likelihood of almost 200 countries agreeing to a long-term goal when they meeting for climate talks in Paris in December. The conclusions after the meeting in Bavaria, southern Germany, said the Paris agreement should have “binding rules at its core to track progress towards achieving targets”. They also call for a “legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” that would apply to all countries. “Binding is a very important term”, said German chancellor Angela Merkel after the two-day meeting ended. The G7 also endorsed […]

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The Group of Seven large industrialized democracies said the world should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 70%, an agreement that helps lay the groundwork for United Nations climate talks in Paris later this year. The leaders of the seven countries, including the U.S. and meeting host Germany, said in a joint statement at the end of the G-7 summit here that deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions were needed this century. They said countries around the world should hold to the upper end of a U.N. recommendation calling for 40% to 70% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with 2010. “For the first time ever, G-7 leaders have rallied behind a long-term goal to decarbonize the global economy,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of the global climate program at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. The joint statement on climate was one of […]

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The G7 leaders attended a working dinner at the end of Sunday’s discussions Climate change and terrorism are expected to dominate talks as the second day of the G7 summit of economic powers gets under way in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the group to reach an agreement on limiting global temperature rises. She also wants G7 members to contribute to a fund for poor countries suffering the worst effects of climate change. There will also be talks on the threat from radical extremism with the leaders of Nigeria, Tunisia and Iraq. The summit is being held at the picturesque Schloss Elmau hotel in Kruen in the Bavarian Alps. It is being attended by US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, French President Francois Hollande, Canadanian PM Stephen Harper and Italian PM Matteo Renzi. G7 venue Schloss Elmau includes 47 suites, three […]

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Every inhabited continent, to varying degrees, faces extremely high water stress. That means that in certain areas more than 80 percent of the local water supply is withdrawn by businesses, farmers, residents and other consumers every year. Not all of that water is consumed—it may flow back into a river after it’s used and be available again downstream—but the demand still creates competition where it is needed. These wetlands have totally dried up due to the California drought. Photo credit: Shutterstock These “stressed” areas are also the ones most vulnerable to episodic droughts . With chronic over-use of water resources, it only takes a string of a few bad rainfall years or poor management decisions to plunge a region into crisis and chaos. And indeed, that is what we appear to be seeing across the world over the past few years. Here’s a look at seven extreme droughts that […]

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