For the last week Britain has been encircled by a gigantic loop in the jet stream, the result of which has been some remarkably wet weather for the east of the country. While welcome for places that had been suffering a long drought, it is a stark warning of weather patterns to come.
Pope Francis has declared a global “climate emergency”, warning of the dangers of global heating and that a failure to act urgently to reduce greenhouse gases would be “a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations”.
A member of the Trump administration’s National Security Council has sought help from advisers of a conservative thinktank to challenge the reality of a human-induced climate crisis, a trove of his emails show.
The budget for the government’s conservation watchdog has been slashed in half over five years, leaving it “massively depleted”, according to Juniper, the influential former Friends of the Earth campaigner whom the environment secretary, Michael Gove, appointed earlier this year.
Environmentalists have described as reckless the decision by the Australian government to grant the Indian mining company Adani the final approvals it needs to start work on a huge coalmine in Queensland.
A city in western Alaska has lost a huge stretch of riverbank to erosion that may turn it into an island, amid renewed warnings from scientists over the havoc triggered by the accelerating melting of the state’s ice and permafrost.
“If Japan still aims to [receive] a quarter of its power source from coal by 2030 and does not revise its low renewable energy target, Japan will not be seen as taking a serious stance on tackling climate change,” Okubo said.
Like all Paris Agreement signatories, the EU has committed to review its climate plan by the end of 2020. The 2030 target is the central pillar of the EU’s commitment. UN chief Antonio Guterres has called on leaders to update their pledges a year ahead of time and bring them to a summit he has organised for 23 September.
Under pressure, the International Energy Agency has started work on a scenario in line with the stretch target of the Paris Agreement for its influential outlook.
“The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a close,” Niklas Hagelberg wrote. “Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars and powering your home with fossil fuels is no longer acceptable or widely accepted.”
