Tag: coral reefs

Report: Nations Won’t Reach Paris Climate Goal Without Protecting Wildlife and Nature

This article points out that we must protect wildlife and our environment if we hope to stop climate change.

A sweeping new report released today emphasizes just how intertwined the challenges of climate change and loss of biodiversity truly are.

The Paris Climate Agreement and several other United Nations (UN) pacts “all depend on the health and vitality of our natural environment in all its diversity and complexity,” said Dr. Anne Larigauderie, executive secretary of the UN-backed organization behind the report. “Acting to protect and promote biodiversity is at least as important to achieving these commitments and to human well-being as is the fight against global climate change.”

The report comes from the efforts of more than 550 scientists in over 100 nations, corralled by an organization often dubbed “the IPCC for biodiversity.”

Much like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assesses the state of research on global warming and its impacts, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reviews the best-available science on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to human well-being.

Coral reefs, under assault from warming, acidifying waters and pollution, are the poster child for this. They have suffered extensive damage already in South and Southeast Asia, and this report determined that “up to 90 percent of corals will suffer severe degradation by 2050, even under conservative climate change scenarios.”

When It Comes to Climate Change, the Ocean Never Forgets

This article is a warning that we may be causing problems that cannot be fixed.

According to recent research, the deep ocean will hold on to its heat for centuries, if not millennia. The world’s oceans already face a gauntlet of changes—warming, dwindling oxygen concentrations, and increasing acidification—that affect marine wildlife. Food webs are unraveling and some species, most notably corals and shellfish, are struggling to adapt to new environmental conditions.

Dangerous Global Warming Milestone (1 degree Celsius) may occur by 2022

This article discusses the real possibility that we could pass a key milestone in global warming – global average surface temperatures may temporarily breach a key guardrail set out by the Paris Climate Agreement, according to a new report from the U.K. Met Office.

The report warns that global average temperatures are “likely” to exceed 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial temperatures within the next five years. The past three years, which have been among the warmest on record for the planet, have exceeded that mark, the Met Office said.

A study on coral reefs disappearing and another article from the NY Times on coral bleaching are referenced.

How Global Warming Fueled Five Extreme Weather Events

This article discusses the linkage between 2017 extreme weather events and global warming. Here is a quote:

“In a new collection of papers published Wednesday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers around the world analyzed 27 extreme weather events from 2016 and found that human-caused climate change was a “significant driver” for 21 of them. The effort is part of the growing field of climate change attribution, which explores connections between warming and weather events that have already happened.”