. | . |
1.5 C warming limit 'impossible' without major action: UN By Robin MILLARD Geneva (AFP) Sept 16, 2021 A new climate change report out Thursday shows that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be impossible without immediate, large-scale emissions cuts, the UN chief said. The United in Science 2021 report, published by a range of UN agencies and scientific partners just weeks before the COP26 climate summit, said climate change and its impacts were accelerating. And a temporary reduction in carbon emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had done nothing to slow the relentless warming, it found. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report's findings were "an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are" in meeting the Paris goals. "This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent," he wrote in the report's foreword. "Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet." COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, will be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12. - Pandemic effects - Fossil greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2019, shrinking by 5.6 percent in 2020 due to the Covid-19 restrictions and economic slowdown. But outside aviation and sea transport, global emissions, averaged across the first seven months of 2021, are now at about the same levels as in 2019. And the report said concentrations of the major greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021. Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely shrank the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but the effect was "too small to be distinguished from natural variability", it said. The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 -- with this year's data based on averages up to June -- is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, the report said. The global mean near-surface temperature was meanwhile expected to be at least 1 C over pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, with a 40-percent chance it could climb to 1.5 C higher in one of those years, it said. Guterres said the world had reached a "tipping point", and the report showed "we really are out of time". - Net-zero goal - The all-time Canadian heat record was broken in June when a high of 49.6 C was recorded in Lytton, British Columbia. Though the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave was a rare or extremely rare event, it would be "virtually impossible without human-caused climate change", the report said. As for the severe flooding in Germany in July, the report said with high confidence that human-induced climate change "increased the likelihood and intensity of such an event to occur". The report said the increasing number of countries committing to net-zero emission goals was encouraging, with about 63 percent of global emissions now covered by such targets. But, it said, far greater action was needed by 2030 to keep those targets feasible and credible. Calling for all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, Guterres said: "I expect all these issues to be addressed, and resolved, at COP26." "Our future is at stake."
UN climate summit to be Scotland's biggest policing operation Edinburgh (AFP) Sept 9, 2021 The upcoming UN climate summit in Glasgow will be Scotland's biggest ever policing operation, the officer in charge said on Thursday. Bernard Higgins said the 12-day COP26 event later this year, and expected environmental mass protests alongside, made it a "very complex and challenging operation". Up to 120 world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and Pope Francis, are due to attend, as well as senior British royals, and thousands of delegates. Police Scotland has said some 10,000 off ... read more
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |