Tag: climate change

Himalayan glaciers melting 65 percent faster than previous decade: study

KATHMANDU, June 20, 2023 (AFP) – Himalayan glaciers providing critical water to nearly two billion people are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, scientists warned Tuesday. The glaciers disappeared 65 percent faster from 2011 to 2020 compared with the previous decade, according to a report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). “As it gets warmer, ice will melt, that was expected, but […]

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UK warned to fix ‘lost decade’ of climate readiness

by Jitendra JOSHI Agence France Presse London, United Kingdom (AFP) After a “lost decade” of minimal planning, Britain must do a lot more towards mitigating the worst effects of climate change, a panel of government advisors said Wednesday. Record-breaking heat and wildfires last year, and recurrent flooding, are a portent of worse to come even if the UK meets its goal of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050, the experts said in a 340-page report. […]

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Vienna museum tilts paintings to illustrate climate change threat

Vienna, Austria (AFP) Gustav Klimt’s well-known Attersee lake painting tilted by two degrees, Egon Schiele’s painting of a tree in late autumn rotated by five degrees. As part of the initiative “A Few Degrees More”, Vienna’s Leopold Museum has tilted 15 paintings by the number of degrees unchecked climate change could affect the landscapes depicted. The initiative, launched on Wednesday, comes after climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting a Klimt piece […]

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UN ‘survival guide’ report an urgent warning on climate

Paris, France (AFP) by Marlowe HOOD / Kelly MACNAMARA The world will cross the key 1.5-degree Celsius global warming limit in about a decade, the UN said Monday, warning that devastating impacts of climate change are hitting faster than expected. In the final instalment of a major series of reports, delivered in a crucial decade in human history, the UN’s climate advisory panel urged dramatic reductions in planet-heating emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s […]

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Narwhals’ climate-vulnerable winter feeding crucial for survival: study

by Linnea Pedersen Agence France Presse Paris, France (AFP) — Narwhals are likely more dependent on fat reserves and abundant prey in climate-threatened winter habitats than previously thought, researchers said Wednesday, warning of severe risks posed by global warming. Scientists studying the long-horned marine mammals in the fjords off the eastern coast of Greenland during the summer found narwhals were largely unsuccessful in capturing prey. “(This) suggests that they could actually rely on the wintering […]

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‘Threat multiplier’: How climate change affects health

by Daniel Lawler Agence France Presse Paris, France (AFP) — Deadlier than Covid, or even rivalling cancer? Researchers have been increasingly attempting to calculate the effect climate change will have on health if the world does not act quickly to reduce carbon emissions. The World Health Organization, which says climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, has called for the issue to be “front and centre” in negotiations at the COP27 summit […]

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India at 75: Melting glaciers, heatwaves and climate crisis

by Bhuvan BAGGA Agence France Presse India (AFP) — From prime ministers and millionaires to labourers and ascetics, Hindu faithful dream of trekking at least once in their lives to Gaumukh, where the waters of India’s holiest river, the Ganges, emerge from a Himalayan glacier. But the ice at the end of the arduous journey is receding rapidly and portends an increasingly dry future for a country of 1.4 billion people facing existential challenges from […]

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Receding ice leaves Canada’s polar bears at rising risk

by Marion THIBAUT Agence France Presse Churchill, Canada (AFP)– Sprawled on rocky ground far from sea ice, a lone Canadian polar bear sits under a dazzling sun, his white fur utterly useless as camouflage. It’s mid-summer on the shores of Hudson Bay and life for the enormous male has been moving in slow motion, far from the prey that keeps him alive: seals. This is a critical time for the region’s polar bears. Every year […]

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Whale strandings: Five questions answered

Hobart, Australia (AFP) — The death of about 200 pilot whales at a Tasmanian beach has renewed questions about what causes such mass strandings and whether they can be prevented. With the help of Karen Stockin, a whale stranding expert at New Zealand’s Massey University, here are the answers to five key questions: What causes mass strandings? Scientists are still trying to work that out. They do know that there are multiple types of stranding […]

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As oceans rise, are some nations doomed to vanish?

by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France Presse United Nations, United States (AFP) — If rising seas engulf the Maldives and Tuvalu, will those countries be wiped off the map? And what happens to their citizens? The prospect is no longer science fiction as global warming gathers pace, posing an unprecedented challenge to the international community, and threatening entire peoples with the loss of their land and identity. “This is the biggest tragedy that a people, a […]

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Climate change at ‘point of no return’: primatologist Goodall

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) – Earth’s climate is changing so quickly that humanity is running out of chances to fix it, primatologist Jane Goodall has warned in an interview. Goodall, a grandee of environmentalism whose activism has spanned decades, said time was rapidly shortening to halt the worst effects of human-caused global warming. “We are literally approaching a point of no return,” Goodall told AFP in Los Angeles. “Look around the world at what’s […]

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Swiss glaciers melting away at record rate

by Christophe VOGT / Elodie LE MAOU Agence France Presse Geneva, Switzerland (AFP) — Switzerland’s glaciers lost six percent of their total volume this year due to a dry winter and repeated summer heatwaves, shattering previous ice melt records, a report revealed Wednesday. The study by the Cryospheric Commission (CC) of the Swiss Academy of Sciences laid bare the drastic scale of glacial retreat — which is only set to get worse. “2022 was a […]

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