Articles include: California drought; underreporting GHGs; weather station in the Andes; 26,000 snakes; tools: graphics and climate change; deforesting Brazil; EPA and California air standards; pandemic and snow melt in SE Asia.
Tag: Asia
The Daily Climate, April 1,2021
Articles include: Climate change and financial markets; Report: O&G warning – diversify; Tackling climate change will create jobs; Biden and electric vehicles; Rainforests will become savannas – study and study. EU climate plan and Asia; greening the financial system; low maximum Arctic ice; world bank financing fossil fuels; Canada’s TransMountain pipeline study paper from a team at Simon Fraser University‘s School of Resource and Environmental Management; Increase funding for poor nations; Saudi Arabia, renewable energy, planting trees; frequent flyers; Aussie brewer and solar power; coal shutdowns – German approach; Report (no link provided): Barrier Reef doomed; EPA fires trump appointees.
Climate change: 5 places where global warming is a security risk
Thomson Reuters Foundation: Climate change: 5 places where global warming is a security risk. As the U.N. Security Council meets to discuss growing threats from a heating planet, here are some places where storms, wildfires and drought are fueling security risks.
From Louisiana’s battle with two hurricanes and an icy polar vortex in the past year to Kenya’s struggle with locusts, drought and floods, climate risks are piling up – and colliding with other threats like COVID-19, making them harder to manage.
“By the time you start to recover from one direct hit, another one is coming,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the International Military Council on Climate and Security.
As leaders of countries on the U.N. Security Council meet Tuesday to talk about climate pressures and global peace, it is increasingly clear that rising temperatures will fuel instability, from conflict to displacement, she said.
The impacts of a heating planet, such as scarcer water in shared rivers and more failed harvests, can hike existing tensions between countries, said Sikorsky, who is also deputy director of the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Security.
Study: ‘Invisible killer’: fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018
The Guardian: ‘Invisible killer’: fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds. Pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year, more detailed analysis reveals.
Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found.
Countries with the most prodigious consumption of fossil fuels to power factories, homes and vehicles are suffering the highest death tolls, with the study finding more than one in 10 deaths in both the US and Europe were caused by the resulting pollution, along with nearly a third of deaths in eastern Asia, which includes China. Death rates in South America and Africa were significantly lower.
Indian Farmers beat water scarcity with innovation
DW: Indian farmers beat water scarcity with innovation. After losing crops to severe drought for years, farmers in Maharashtra are seeing high yields through imaginative cultivation methods. They told DW that taking control is better than protesting government policy.
Krishna Narode, 26, from Gangapur village in India’s western Maharashtra state, is visibly excited as he surveys his four-acre farm where he cultivates an array of crops and fruits, including papaya, sugar cane, wheat and ginger.
In a few months, it will be time for harvesting and Narode knows that his efforts will pay dividends as he has relied on natural farming practices.
“I hope to earn at least 600,000 Indian rupees (€6,765, $8,190) this year from my harvest. In 2016, I earned such a small sum that I wanted to give up. But thanks to new farming methods we have learnt, it is helping our community,” Narode told DW.
Study: As the world’s deltas sink, rising seas are far from the only culprit.
Yale Environment 360: As World’s Deltas Sink, Rising Seas Are Far from Only Culprit. Although climate change is often blamed for coastal inundation in places like the Bay of Bengal, other factors such as dam building and urbanization play an important role. Scientists say that more sustainable development policies can help blunt the
No change has been more important than sediment supply. Often described as the world’s largest sediment dispersal system, the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta saw sediment load halved from 1960 to 2008, from 1 billion to 500 million tons annually, according to a 2018 study. The decline is projected to continue, falling to 79 million to 92 million tons a year by 2100, the study said. This steep reduction in sediment further opens the way for rising seas. A study last year, analyzing satellite imaging data, found that the Sundarbans lost 137 square kilometers — 53 square miles — of mangrove forest from 1984 to 2018, much of it on the southernmost edge. There was some accretion, as well — 62 square kilometers (24 miles), although some of this was transient or seasonal. impacts of rising seas.
Report: Is Pakistan prepared to deal with climate migration?
DW discusses Is Pakistan prepared to deal with climate migration? Environmentalists have expressed concern over a massive climate-induced migration in various parts of Pakistan and the government’s apathy toward tackling a serious problem.
A report by ActionAid International and Climate Action Network South Asia recently revealed that in the past few decades, more than 18 million people in South Asia have been forced to migrate due to climate change. By 2050, up to 63 million people could be displaced as a result of it, the report said.
Many of these environmental migrants are from Pakistan, which has been hit hard by climate change.
In the past decades, the South Asian country has witnessed a drastic change in rain patterns and an increase in droughts and floods. At the same time, experts say ground water is rapidly depleting across the country.
Study: Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020
BBC discusses Climate change: Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020.
The world continued to pay a very high price for extreme weather in 2020, according to a report from the charity Christian Aid.
Against a backdrop of climate change, its study lists 10 events that saw thousands of lives lost and major insurance costs.
Six of the events took place in Asia, with floods in China and India causing damages of more than $40bn.
In the US, record hurricanes and wildfires caused some $60bn in losses.
Climate change could create 63 million migrants in South Asia by 2050
Reuters discusses Climate change could create 63 million migrants in South Asia by 2050.
The growing impacts of climate change have already pushed more than 18 million people to migrate within South Asian countries, but that could more than triple if global warming continues on its current path, researchers warned on Friday.
Nearly 63 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 in the region as rising seas and rivers swallow villages, and drought-hit land no longer supports crops, said ActionAid International and Climate Action Network South Asia in a report. [No link provided.]
Climate change and the people’s health: the need to exit the consumptagenic system
Lancet discusses how climate change affects people’s health. The world has warmed to dangerous levels and the attendant disruption to the Earth system is profound. The climate change-induced bushfires in Australia have resulted in almost 30 deaths, tens of thousands displaced from their homes, up to 1·25 billion animals dead, and pristine landscapes destroyed. Globally, there are more frequent and severe extreme weather events. While Australia burned, the worst monsoon rains in decades caused landslides and floods in Indonesia, killing at least 70 people. In 2019, typhoons and heatwaves killed and injured thousands of people across Africa, Japan, India, China, Europe, and the USA.
There are lots of references within the article to health issues caused by climate change, including Australian wildfires.