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US environmental campaigners add another former veteran climate negotiator to its roster
VCM Report: Nearby N-GEO futures crash below $6
Opening days of the Cop27 climate summit – in pictures
Images from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt where world leaders are gathering to discuss the climate crisis
Continue reading...COP27: UK to launch “gold standard” framework for corporate climate disclosure plan
UPDATE – COP27: New demand pledges for forest carbon credits amongst incremental progress to halt deforestation
First Islamic financing facility set up for voluntary carbon market
World faces ‘terminal’ loss of Arctic sea ice during summers, report warns
The dramatic vanishing of polar ice sheets will cause catastrophic sea level rise that will threaten cities, according to a major new study
The climate crisis has pushed the planet’s stores of ice to a widespread collapse that was “unthinkable just a decade ago”, with Arctic sea ice certain to vanish in summers and ruinous sea level rise from melting glaciers now already in motion, a major new report has warned.
Even if planet-heating emissions are radically cut, the world’s vast ice sheets at the poles will continue to melt away for hundreds of years, causing up to three metres of sea level rise that will imperil coastal cities, the report states. The “terminal” loss of sea ice from the Arctic during summers could arrive within a decade and now cannot be avoided, it adds.
Continue reading...Toad licking: just say no, National Parks Service tells Americans seeking a high
Secretions of Sonoran desert toad have long had hallucinogenic reputation but authorities want you to keep your tongue away
The US National Park Service is warning people to stop licking one of the largest toads in America, due to a toxin it secretes from its glands that can create a hallucinogenic experience.
The Sonoran desert toad, which emits a quick, “weak low-pitched toot”, can make someone sick if they touch it or lick it, NPS said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
Continue reading...'We have the collective capacity to transform,' says Mia Mottley at Cop27 – video
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, told world leaders gathered at the climate conference in Egypt: 'We know what it is to remove slavery from our civilisation, to find a vaccine within two years for a pandemic, to put a man on the moon', but that when it came to the climate crisis, we needed to understand why we were not moving any further. Speaking at Cop27, she said 'the simple political' needed 'to make a definable difference ... seems still not to be capable of being produced'
Continue reading...Program Officer/Senior Program Officer, Media Relations, Verra – Remote
A pub with no gas: Lithgow residents rely on each other after flooding ruptures gas pipeline
‘It seemed like the community was just left to do your best with what you have’, says one local
Residents of Lithgow are using kettles to prepare water for bathing and restaurants with bottled gas are cooking warm meals for locals, as the regional New South Wales town waits up to a month for a broken gas pipeline to be repaired.
Locals in towns including Lithgow, Bathurst, Wallerawang and Oberon woke up on Thursday to find their homes had been cut off from natural gas – the result of a leak in the pipeline between Young and Lithgow. More than 20,000 people are affected.
Continue reading...Global leaders have a climate 'credibility problem', says Al Gore at Cop27 – video
Al Gore made an impassioned call on Monday for leaders to 'choose life over death' by ending the use of fossil fuels that are stoking the climate crisis. The former US vice-president, a long-time environmental campaigner who was among the first to raise the alarm about climate change, told leaders at this year's United Nations climate summit in Egypt that they should turn away from destructive behaviour, insisting that 'we have other choices' in the form of renewable energy
Continue reading...How can we cut soaring demand for meat? Try a hybrid burger | Joseph Poore
Blending lentils or vegetables into meat products could have huge benefits for the environment, animal welfare and human health
Our current level of meat consumption is unsustainable. Animal farming is a major driver of global heating and tropical deforestation. The meat industry keeps most animals in intensive, inhumane conditions. And red meat is linked to multiple health problems including heart disease and colorectal cancer.
The food industry has committed to change – chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King have signed up to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, to zero deforestation by 2030, and to multiple health targets too. But how can these giant companies, and indeed the whole food sector, possibly follow through when we consume 340bn kilos of meat a year globally, and demand is still rising? Do we just hope that consumers will go vegan or vegetarian of their own accord?
Joseph Poore researches agriculture and the environment at the University of Oxford. Hannah Ritchie also contributed to this piece
Continue reading...Euro Markets: Midday Update
Met Office predicts severe flooding across England in February
Government embarks on campaign to raise awareness over weather threat as England remains in drought
Severe flooding caused by La Niña is predicted for February despite England remaining in drought, the Met Office has said.
Two-thirds of people at risk of flooding were unaware of the situation, the government said on Monday, as it embarked on an awareness campaign. This average cost to a flooded household is £30,000, figures show.
Continue reading...'We are in the fight of our lives,' says UN chief at Cop27 climate summit – video
António Guterres told delegates gathered at the start of the conference in Egypt that humanity was 'on a highway to climate hell with our foot – still – on the accelerator'. The UN secretary general's speech set an urgent tone as government representatives assembled for two weeks of talks on how to avert the worst of climate breakdown
Continue reading...Sunak extends UK support for saving forests – but will not give more funding
New president of Brazil expected to join initiative at Cop27 covering a third of world’s forests
Rishi Sunak has pledged the UK’s continued support for conserving threatened forests around the world, through a funding programme covering a third of the world’s forests, at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt.
Brazil is expected to join the initiative, under the incoming president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and new funding from the public and private sector will take the spending for forest conservation above $20bn over the next five years. The moves form part of efforts to tackle emissions from land use, the second biggest driver of global heating, of which tropical deforestation is a significant component.
Continue reading...World is on ‘highway to climate hell’, UN chief warns at Cop27 summit
António Guterres tells leaders ‘global climate fight will be won or lost in this crucial decade – on our watch’
Humanity is on a “highway to climate hell”, the UN secretary general has warned, saying the fight for a liveable planet will be won or lost in this decade.
António Guterres told world leaders at the opening of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Monday: “We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing … And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson urges Cop27 summit to 'double down on net zero' – video
The former UK prime minister attended a New York Times event at the UN climate conference in Egypt on Monday, saying 'now is not the moment to go weak on net zero' after suggesting that the discussion over the war in Ukraine had distracted from the climate crisis and was having 'all sorts of bad effects'.
Johnson said global leaders should not back away from promises made at the previous climate summit in Glasgow. He said he was attending the summit in a 'purely supportive role' before Rishi Sunak's appearance on Monday afternoon. Sunak had originally said he was unable to attend the event because of commitments to tackle the cost of living crisis
Continue reading...Cop27 wifi in Egypt blocks human rights and key news websites
Attendees say they are unable to visit Human Rights Watch and other sites needed during climate talks
Attendees at the Cop27 climate meeting have found that the conference internet connection blocks access to the global rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) as well as other key news websites needed for information during the talks.
HRW is due to lead a panel discussion at Cop27 along with Amnesty International, whose website is accessible on the conference wifi. The list of blocked sites also includes the blogging platform Medium, Egypt’s lone independent news outlet, Mada Masr, and the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera.
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