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Heatwaves that obliterate temperature records as in western Canada last month and Siberia last year are caused by the rapid pace, rather than the amount, of global warming, researchers said Monday. The findings, reported in Nature Climate Change, suggest that humanity is likely to see a lot more deadly scorchers in the coming decades. “Because we are in a period of very rapid warming, we need to prepare for more heat events that shatter previous […]
by Jean-Philippe LACOUR with Deborah COLE in Berlin Agence France Presse Troops and firefighters scrambled through the night Saturday to find victims of the devastation left by the worst floods to hit western Europe in decades, which have already left more than 150 people dead and dozens more missing. Western Germany has suffered the most brutal impact of the deluge that also pummelled Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, leaving streets and homes submerged in […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United Nations on Thursday recognized a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) made last year. The record heat was reached at Argentina’s Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said. “Verification of this maximum temperature record is important because it helps us to build up a […]
by Natsuko FUKUE Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Kimiko Hirata has spent nearly half her life fighting to wean Japan off its dependence on coal, and now isn’t the time to slow down, the award-winning activist warns. “I’m hopeful, but we have no time to waste,” said Hirata, the international director of Japan’s Kiko Network NGO. “Our future will be gone if we don’t act now,” she told AFP. It’s a message that Hirata, […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse Climate change may have played a “key role” in the transmission of the novel coronavirus to humans by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats into closer contact, research showed on Friday. The virus, which has killed more than two million people and caused unprecedented global disruption, is thought to have originated in bats in Southeast Asia. Researchers from the University of Cambridge used temperature and rainfall data over […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse Almost half a million people have died in natural disasters linked to extreme weather events in the last 20 years, according to a new assessment of the direct threat posed to humanity by climate change. The mortality burden of climate-related catastrophes such as storms, flooding and heatwaves is overwhelmingly borne by developing countries. At the start of the Climate Adaptation Summit, held virtually this year due to the pandemic, […]
by Leon LORD Agence France-Presse CORAL COAST, Fiji (AFP) — Fiji dive operator Ashwin Pal was living his dream until the global pandemic hit, guiding tourists around an underwater wonderland of dazzling Pacific coral reefs. Now the 35-year-old hunts the neon-hued fish he once proudly showed off to international visitors, forced to kill the creatures he loves to feed his wife and four children. And the coronavirus-induced shutdown of Fiji’s tourism industry is not the […]
by Nina LARSON Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Climate change has become the biggest threat to UN-listed natural world heritage sites like glaciers and wetlands, and has pushed Australia’s Great Barrier Reef into “critical” condition, conservationists said Wednesday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed in a new report that shifts due to the changing climate now imperil a full third of the 252 UNESCO-listed natural sites around the globe. Overall, 94 […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Long-dormant viruses brought back to life; the resurgence of deadly and disfiguring smallpox; a dengue or zika “season” in Europe. These could be disaster movie storylines, but they are also serious and increasingly plausible scenarios of epidemics unleashed by global warming, scientists say. The COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the globe and claimed over 760,000 lives so far almost certainly came from a wild bat, […]
by Joshua Howat Berger Agence France-Presse RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon last month rose 28 percent from July 2019, satellite data showed Saturday, fueling fears the world’s biggest rainforest will again be devastated by fires this year. Brazil’s national space agency, INPE, identified 6,803 fires in the Amazon region in July 2020, up from 5,318 the year before. The figure is all the more troubling […]
OSLO, Norway (AFP) — Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported. According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as for the rest of the planet. For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, just under the 21.3 degrees recorded in 1979, meteorologist Kristen Gislefoss told AFP. Later in the afternoon […]
by Maria ANTONOVA Agence France-Presse MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — An unprecedented fuel spill that has polluted huge stretches of Arctic rivers was caused by melting permafrost, Russian officials said Friday, ordering a review of infrastructure in vulnerable zones. The spill — which has coloured remote tundra waterways with bright red patches visible from space — has highlighted the danger of climate change for Russia as areas locked by permafrost for centuries thaw amid warmer temperatures. […]
