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Paris climate deal: nearly 200 nations sign in end of fossil fuel era
Two decades of talks have come to this: an ambitious agreement to hold states to emissions targets – but already low-lying countries are worried
Governments have signalled an end to the fossil fuel era, committing for the first time to a universal agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.
After 20 years of fraught meetings, including the past two weeks spent in an exhibition hall on the outskirts of Paris, negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed on to a legal agreement on Saturday evening that set ambitious goals to limit temperature rises and to hold governments to account for reaching those targets.
Continue reading...Paris climate deal: key points at a glance
The goal of 1.5C is a big leap below the 2C agreed six years ago in Copenhagen. Here’s what the agreement means for global emissions and the future of the planet
Governments have agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels: something that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago.
Continue reading...James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks 'a fraud'
The former Nasa scientist criticizes the talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, as ‘no action, just promises’
Mere mention of the Paris climate talks is enough to make James Hansen grumpy. The former Nasa scientist, considered the father of global awareness of climate change, is a soft-spoken, almost diffident Iowan. But when he talks about the gathering of nearly 200 nations, his demeanour changes.
Related: John Kerry rejects leading climate scientist's claim Paris talks were 'fraud'
Continue reading...Rehabilitated Siberian tiger plays with cubs in wild – video
A Siberian tiger called Zolushka is filmed in the Bastak nature reserve in east Russia playing with two young cubs. Zolushka was found orphaned in 2012 and after a year of rehabilitation was retuned to the wild. Now it seems Zolushka has given birth to cubs in the wild. The Siberian tiger is one of the most endangered species in the world with as few as 500 left in the wild
Continue reading...Commonwealth Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery - Agency application 2015
Victorian Scallop (Ocean) Fishery - Application 2015
Australia on the spot over Adani mine and funding of Attenborough reef series
Scientist who features in BBC series says Australia’s positions on reef and coal are incompatible, but environment minister Greg Hunt fails to address contradiction at Paris screening
A leading scientist who features in David Attenborough’s new series about the Great Barrier Reef has told the Australian government it cannot expand coal exports and continue to claim to be protecting the reef.
The government is planning a big tourism campaign to run at the same time as the new series screens around the world.
Continue reading...Cameron government rejected flood risk warnings from climate advisers
Committee on Climate Change had warned in October that the government must take action to protect homes from risk of flooding
The UK government was warned by its official climate change advisers in October that it needed to take action on the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding but rejected the advice.
The decision not to develop a strategy to address increase flooding risk came just a few weeks before Storm Desmond brought about severe flooding in Cumbria, Lancashire and other parts of the north west causing an estimated £500m of damage.
Continue reading...Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of North Face, dies after Chile kayak accident
Millionaire behind adventure brand and Esprit, who ploughed fortune into saving South American ecosystems, suffers hypothermia from falling into lake
Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of the North Face outdoor company who poured millions into conservation, has died after falling into near-freezing waters during a kayak accident in southern Chile.
Tompkins, 72, was taken with acute hypothermia to a hospital in Coyhaique after high winds flipped his adventure kayak during a trip across Lake General Carrera in Patagonia on Tuesday, reports said. He died about six hours after arriving at hospital in the regional capital.
Continue reading...Australian Heritage Strategy launched
Greenland's dark snow - in pictures
From rapid ice melts to calving glaciers and a snow terrain poked by dark patches, Daniel Beltrá’s stunning images show how rising temperatures and global pollution are literally leaving their dark imprints on Greenland’s pristine landscape. ‘Climate change is having its biggest and most visible impact in Greenland. It is like the canary in a coal mine; what is happening there will affect us all,’ he says
Photographs by Daniel Beltrá/ Courtesy of Catherine Edelman Gallery
Continue reading...How are planets born?
The key players at the Paris climate summit
The draft negotiating text for a global deal is in. These are some of the people who will now decide the outcome of the talks
As ministers from countries around the world fly in for the crunch second week of the UN climate talks in Paris there are still significant areas of disagreement, but also optimism at the talks that a deal can be done. The negotiating text has been pared back to just over 20 pages – a much better position than at the equivalent point at the Copenhagen talks in 2009. Here are some of the key individuals who will decide the outcome of the talks.
Continue reading...Threatened ecological community listing
Green is good for the planet, but it’s no go for reindeer
Norway’s geography is ideal for hydro power. But clean energy schemes have cut reindeer grazing habitats by up to 40%
It’s cold. Minus 10, 12 perhaps, and getting dark; the butter-fingers of a rising moon evident on the eastern horizon. Ill-equipped (the forecasts were for minus five), my ears start to hurt, and I pull in my hood. By the time you read this it will be colder still. And there are still no reindeer to be seen.
Olav hands me his binoculars and tells me to focus on a hillside about three miles away across the snowy vastness of Norway’s Forollhogna National Park, a tract of ancient, ice-scoured mountains and mire, three hours’ drive inland from Trondheim.
Continue reading...Michael Bloomberg to head global taskforce on climate change
Former New York City mayor charged with helping companies gauge exposure to global warming costs
Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, is to head a new global taskforce aimed at highlighting the financial exposure of companies to the risk of climate change.
Investors, insurers, banks and consumers will be provided with more information under plans for a voluntary industry-led code announced by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the G20 body that monitors and makes recommendations about the financial system, at the COP21 Paris climate change conference on Friday.
Continue reading...Climate change is threatening the seabirds of St Kilda
Puffins and kittiwakes on Unesco world heritage site are at risk from warming seas, National Trust for Scotland findings show
The survival of seabirds including puffins and kittiwakes on St Kilda – the island archipelago home to one of the world’s most important seabird populations – is being threatened by climate change, striking new evidence shows.
Naturalists have discovered that the kittiwake, a small migratory gull with ink-black wing tips, is on the brink of disappearing from St Kilda. The remote cluster of Scottish islands in the eastern Atlantic is the UK’s only place with two Unesco world heritage site listings – for its culture and natural history – and one of only 24 sites with a dual listing worldwide.
Continue reading...Reef Trust Investment Strategy Phase III
The contrails conspiracy is not only garbage, it's letting aviation off the hook too | George Monbiot
The real issue – global warming caused by aircraft emissions – calls on us to act. But focusing on ‘chemtrails’ absolves people of the responsibility to do so
You spend years trying to get people to take an interest in aircraft emissions. Then at last the issue gets picked up – but in the most perverse way possible.
The pollutants spread by planes are a major issue. They make a significant contribution to global warming, yet they are excluded from international negotiations, such as the conference taking place in Paris. As a result, aviation’s expansion is unchecked by concerns about climate change.
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