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In their clamour for shale gas, ministers forgot the climate agreement | Letters
No amount of spin or legal obfuscation can reconcile the UK government’s clamour for shale gas with its obligations as enshrined in the Paris climate change agreement. Consequently, when the UK’s communities secretary, Sajid Javid, gave the go-ahead for fracking in Lancashire (Report, 7 October), he was making a clear statement that the government has no interest in abiding by either the spirit or the maths of the Paris agreement.
Shale gas is a high carbon energy source. When used for generating electricity its emissions of carbon dioxide are about 30-90 times higher than the full lifecycle emissions of either renewables or nuclear. Given the rapid phase-out of the UK’s existing coal power stations, shale gas will not be produced at sufficient scale and in the necessary timeframe for it to be a substitute for coal.
Continue reading...European Schiaparelli probe on target for Mars landing
China poised for space station mission
World Food Day: coping with the climate's impact on food security – in pictures
Every day, one in nine people around the world do not have enough food to support a healthy, active lifestyle. The problem has been compounded by climate change, which often has a devastating impact on food security. Severe drought across three continents has led to shortages of food, water and energy in recent months. Tearfund is helping communities to grow crops, find alternative sources of food or fuel, and increase resilience to climate change
Photographs: Tearfund
Hunted to the brink, but Africa’s reviled vultures are vital in fight against disease
Vultures are rarely viewed as the poster boys and girls of the natural world. They have repulsive eating habits and are strikingly ugly. Nevertheless, they play a critical role in maintaining the ecological health of many parts of the world.
Vultures consume animal carcasses more effectively than any other scavengers and because their digestive juices contain acids that neutralise pathogens such as cholera and rabies they prevent diseases spreading. They act as dead-end hosts for numerous unpleasant ailments. But many ecologists are now warning that vultures across the planet are under serious threat thanks to habitat loss, deliberate and accidental poisoning, and use of the birds’ body parts as traditional medicine cures.
Continue reading...Shark conservationists fear backlash after viral cage-smashing video
Experts emphasize that the incident, in which a great white broke through a cage holding a diver, was a ‘one in a million occurrence’
Shark enthusiasts are concerned about the impact of a viral video that showed a great white shark breaking into a cage occupied by a diver in Mexico.
The diver survived, but the harrowing video shed light on a decades-old tourism industry that allows people to be within an arm’s length of great white sharks, separated only by the sea and some metal bars.
Continue reading...Kigali deal on HFCs is big step in fighting climate change
They went to Kigali to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and take 0.5C out of future global warming, and the 170 countries that successfully negotiated an amendment to the Montreal protocol treaty agreed to get rid of 90% of them. Not bad for four days and three long nights of hard work.
The Kigali deal on HFCs is in fact fiendishly complicated and has taken years to negotiate in various technical and political forums. The final agreement, announced on Saturday morning caps and reduces the use of HFCs in a gradual process beginning in 2019.
Continue reading...Greenhouse gases deal will make little difference to west
HFCs deal is vital for reducing emissions but poorer countries rely on old coolant technologies and will now have to upgrade
They went to Kigali to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and take 0.5C out of future global warming, and the 170 countries who successfully negotiated an amendment to the Montreal Protocol agreed to get rid of 90% of them. Job done. Not bad for four days and three long nights’ work.
In fact the Kigali deal on HFCs, announced on Saturday morning, is fiendishly complicated and has taken years to negotiate in different technical and political forums. It was only struck by an ambitious agreement to give countries different timescales to phase them out, alongside major chemical and big food companies accepting change, the personal determination of the US secretary of state, John Kerry, to get a deal before the election and developing countries agreeing to invest heavily in new technologies.
Continue reading...Poland's Enigma mathematicians honoured
Global climate deal to limit use of greenhouse gases reached – video
Delegates celebrate a global deal to limit the use of hydrofluorocarbon gases, in a major effort to combat climate change. The agreement was reached at a climate conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Saturday morning. US secretary of state John Kerry hails it a ‘monumental step forward’
Continue reading...John Goodenough, whose work led to the lithium-ion battery
The 20 photographs of the week
The continuing refugee crisis in Europe, #FeesMustFall protests in South Africa, the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week
Continue reading...Floods destroy meagre crops in Ethiopia's lush highlands – in pictures
The worst drought for decades in Ethiopia’s northern highlands has ended, but unusually heavy downpours threaten to ruin crops and exacerbate food insecurity as flash flooding turns roads to rivers and swamps fields
Photographs by James Whitlow Delano/USAid
Continue reading...Brazil's dam disaster one year on – in pictures
One year on from collapse of the Samarco dam, which killed 19 people and polluted one of the country’s most important rivers, and communities are still suffering
Continue reading...Climate change: 'Monumental' deal to cut HFCs, fastest growing greenhouse gases
Climate change: global deal reached to limit use of hydrofluorocarbons
Global deal on HFCs – greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide – seen as ‘largest temperature reduction ever achieved by single agreement’
A worldwide deal has been reached to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide in a major effort to fight climate change.
The talks on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, have been called the first test of global will since the historic Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions was reached last year. HFCs are described as the world’s fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.
Continue reading...British households fail to recycle a 'staggering' 16m plastic bottles a day
Almost half of all plastic bottles used in the home end up in landfill sites, research shows, with huge impacts on marine life
British households are failing to recycle as many as 16m plastic bottles every day – a “staggering” number and nearly half the total of more than 35m which are used and discarded daily – according to new research.
Continue reading...Humpback whale calf freed after getting trapped at Australian beach – video
A juvenile whale calf has been cut free after becoming entangled in a shark net at Coolangatta Beach in Queensland, Australia. Conditions were calm, and so was the calf’s mother, which helped to speed up the rescue.
Continue reading...Energy storage vital to keep UK lights on, say MPs
Committee urges investment in batteries and smart demand technologies to ensure energy supply as old coal and nuclear power stations close
Large-scale batteries to store energy and devices that switch themselves off are likely to be key technologies for keeping the UK’s lights on while shutting down old coal and nuclear plants, an influential committee of MPs has said.
The threat of blackouts has receded for this winter after scares earlier in the year, National Grid said on Friday, citing a reprieve for Yorkshire’s Eggborough coal-fired power station, as well as greater flexibility from companies with big energy requirements.
Continue reading...No shortage of birds as the chilly months approach
Rogerstown, County Dublin Brent geese are here, and black-tailed godwit have begun arriving from their breeding grounds in Iceland
On a bright morning we are sitting with volunteer warden Aileen in a bird hide a little north of Dublin. We have come to watch the first of the avian migrants for whom the south bank of the Rogerstown estuary is a favoured wintering spot. It clearly isn’t the best time to be here, as feathered visitors are so far in short supply. Perhaps the house martins swooping across the water to vanish southwards are a sign that the chilly months ahead are not yet to be taken seriously.
Yet there’s no shortage of birds. Opposite us, five cormorants sit passively side by side on a series of water-logged posts. Bar-tailed godwits line the margins of the saltmarsh, occasionally preening but mostly motionless. Redshank, curlew and dunlin vigorously probe the shallow margins, and widgeon and teal up-tail as they feed in the slightly deeper water.
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