Tag: climate

UN confirms 2022 among eight hottest years on record

Geneva, Switzerland (AFP) by Nina LARSON The past eight years were the hottest since records began, the United Nations confirmed Thursday, despite the cooling influence of a drawn-out La Nina weather pattern. Last year, as the world faced a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change, the average global temperature was about 1.15 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organization said. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]

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Cost-of-living crisis biggest global risk: Davos study

London, United Kingdom (AFP) The cost-of-living crisis will be the biggest global risk over the next two years, a survey by the World Economic Forum warned Wednesday ahead of its Davos meeting next week. Global inflation remains at sky-high levels after energy and food costs rocketed last year following the invasion of agricultural powerhouse Ukraine by major oil and gas producer Russia. Supply constraints caused by the Covid pandemic have also contributed to decades-high consumer […]

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Half of world’s glaciers expected to vanish by 2100: study

by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Half of the Earth’s glaciers, notably smaller ones, are destined to disappear by the end of the century because of climate change, but limiting global warming could save others, according to a new study. The findings, published in the journal Science on Thursday, provide the most comprehensive look so far at the future of the world’s 215,000 glaciers. The authors emphasized the importance of restricting […]

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Coral bleaching causing ‘unnecessary’ fish fights

Paris, France (AFP) by Daniel Lawler Fish that have lost food due to mass coral bleaching are getting into more unnecessary fights, causing them to expend precious energy and potentially threatening their survival, new research said Wednesday. With the future of the world’s coral reefs threatened by climate change, a team of researchers studied how a mass bleaching event affected 38 species of butterflyfish. The colourfully patterned reef fish are the first to feel the […]

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2022 UK’s hottest year on record: provisional Met Office figures

This year is set to be the UK’s warmest on record, according to provisional figures released by the Met Office on Wednesday. It had the “highest annual average temperature across the UK, exceeding the previous record set in 2014 when the average was 9.88 degrees Celsius (49.78 degrees Fahrenheit)”, the Met said in a statement. The figure for 2022 would be announced later. Since 1884, each of the ten years recording the highest annual temperature […]

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Weather extremes becoming ‘new normal’, warns UK’s National Trust

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain’s National Trust on Wednesday said nature and wildlife at the charity’s sites had been harmed by extreme weather in the past year and warned it could become the “new normal”. The heritage conservation charity’s climate change adviser Keith Jones said it was a “stark illustration of the sort of difficulties many of our species will face if we don’t do more to mitigate rising temperatures”. “We’re going to experience […]

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DR Congo leader blames climate change for devastating floods

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo joined the United States on Tuesday in blaming climate change for major floods that have claimed around 100 lives in the capital Kinshasa. “The DRC is under pressure but unfortunately it’s not sufficiently heard or supported,” President Felix Tshisekedi told Secretary of State Antony Blinken as they met at a US-Africa summit in Washington. The flooding is an example of “what we […]

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Prince William awards Earthshot prizes as US visit wraps up

Boston, United States (AFP) by Peter HUTCHISON Prince William honored climate change innovators during a star-studded ceremony in Boston Friday at the culmination of a US trip overshadowed by a race row and estranged brother Harry’s Netflix series. Britain’s heir to the throne rewarded five entrepreneurs with £1 million each ($1.2 million) as part of his Earthshot Prize initiative to support efforts to save the planet from warming temperatures. Annie Lennox and sisters Chloe x Halle […]

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US company turns air pollution into fuel, bottles and dresses

by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France-Presse SKOKIE, United States (AFP) — At LanzaTech’s lab in the Chicago suburbs, a beige liquid bubbles away in dozens of glass vats. The concoction includes billions of hungry bacteria, specialized to feed on polluted air — the first step in a recycling system that converts greenhouse gases into usable products. Thanks to licensing agreements, LanzaTech’s novel microorganisms are already being put to commercial use by three Chinese factories, converting waste […]

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Climate ‘tragedy’: Vanuatu to relocate ‘dozens’ of villages

PORT VILA, Vanuatu (AFP) – Vanuatu is drawing up plans to relocate “dozens” of villages within the next two years, as they come under threat from rising seas, the Pacific nation’s climate chief told AFP Thursday. Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu said dealing with the impact of global warming was a major challenge facing Vanuatu’s 300,000 inhabitants who live on a chain of islands strung out between Australia and Fiji. Regenvanu said the response would inevitably […]

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Twin crises: experts say nature and climate can’t be siloed

PARIS, France (AFP) – Experts and activists were hoping UN climate talks would end last week with a prominent mention of biodiversity in the final text. They walked away disappointed. Some say delegates at the COP27 summit missed a key opportunity to acknowledge the connection between the twin climate and nature crises, which many believe have been treated separately for too long. Failing to address both could mean not only further decimating Earth’s life support systems, but […]

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Brazil’s Lula headed to UN climate talks with vow to save Amazon

by Louis GENOT Agence France-Presse RIO DE JANEIRO Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (AFP) — Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected this week at the UN climate summit in Egypt to pledge to reverse the environmental policies of his right-wing predecessor and protect the Amazon rainforest. Lula’s trip Monday to the COP27 talks in Sharm el-Sheikh will be his first international visit since beating Brazil’s far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30 […]

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