5 May 2016, The Guardian, We’ve been mayors of New York, Paris and Rio. We know climate action starts with cities. The Paris climate agreement, already signed by more than 175 countries, was successful in large part because national governments recognized cities’ progress in reducing carbon emissions. On Thursday, as world leaders gather in Washington DC to discuss how to reach the goals set in Paris, they should focus on helping cities do even more, and act faster, to reduce those emissions. Cities account for most of the world’s carbon emissions, and their share will continue to increase as cities increase in size. Today more than half of the world lives in cities, and by 2050, two-thirds will. Every day, the world’s cities grow by about 60 square kilometers – an area equal to New York City’s borough of Manhattan. How that growth takes shape in the next few years will determine whether we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and it will also have major economic and public health implications. Cities planned around affordable mass transit expand economic opportunity while cleaning the air we breathe. Smart buildings and land use save energy and protect people from extreme weather events, helping cities avoid enormous potential costs. Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2016
4 May 2016, BBC News, The chasm cutting an Antarctic base adrift. Thirty-six years after he first went there as a young meteorologist, BBC Weather’s Peter Gibbs returned to the current, sixth incarnation of the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station. There, on “a day with no horizon”, he explored the chasm threatening to cast it adrift. The Brunt Ice Shelf feels like another planet even on the sunniest of days, but when the cloud closes in it turns downright eerie as sky, snow and ice blend into one diffuse white light. Approaching the chasm, the only hint of this 100m-wide gash is a neon glint of blue from the depths of a crevasse in its far wall. Read More here
4 May 2016, The Guardian, The time has come to turn up the heat on those who are wrecking planet Earth – n interesting question is, what are you waiting for? Global warming is the biggest problem we’ve ever faced as a civilisation — certainly you want to act to slow it down, but perhaps you’ve been waiting for just the right moment. The moment when, oh, marine biologists across the Pacific begin weeping in their scuba masks as they dive on reefs bleached of life in a matter of days. The moment when drought in India gets deep enough that there are armed guards on dams to prevent the theft of water. The moment when we record the hottest month ever measured on the planet, and then smash that record the next month,and then smash that record the next month? The moment when scientists reassessing the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet have what one calls an ‘OMG moment’ and start talking about massive sea level rise in the next 30 years? Join the Guardian Sustainable Business Aus network for news and features on the social and environmental impact of business, as well as other exclusive benefits. That would be this moment – the moment when 135 children have drowned in Thailand trying to cool off from the worst heatwave on record there. The moment when, in a matter of months, we’ve recorded the highest windspeeds ever measured in the western and southern hemispheres. For years people have patiently and gently tried to nudge us on to a new path for dealing with our climate and energy troubles – we’ve had international conferences and countless symposia and lots and lots and lots of websites. And it’s sort of worked—the world met in Paris last December and announced it would like to hold temperature increases to 1.5C or less. Celebration ensued. But what also ensued was February, when the planet’s temperature first broke through that 1.5C barrier. And as people looked past the rhetoric, they saw that the promises made in Paris would add up to a world 3.5C warmer—an impossible world. The world we’re starting to see take shape around us. So there’s a need to push harder. Read More here
4 May 2016, The Guardian, Fort McMurray: Canada wildfires force evacuation of oil sands city. The entire population of a northern Alberta city has been ordered to evacuate as a wildfire whipped by high winds engulfed homes and sent ash raining down on residents. All of Fort McMurray, with the exception of Parson’s Creek, was under a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday, said Robin Smith, press secretary for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo in the Canadian province. More than 80,000 residents were being directed to evacuation centres outside Fort McMurray, but journeys were made difficult as the main road out of the city – Highway 63 – was licked by flames. One evacuation centre, on an island in the Athabasca river, had filled up, Smith said. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed, emergency officials said, but there were no reports of injuries….. Unseasonably hot temperatures combined with dry conditions have transformed the boreal forest in much of Alberta into a tinder box. The wildfire threat is ranging from very high to extreme. Read More here