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by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Climate change and sea-level rise are currently on track to wipe out half the world’s sandy beaches by 2100, researchers warned Monday. Even if humanity sharply reduces the fossil fuel pollution that drives global warming, more than a third of the planet’s sandy shorelines could disappear by then, crippling coastal tourism in countries large and small, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. “Apart from tourism, sandy […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Monday for a major national debate involving everyone from industry to indigenous groups to move the country to carbon neutrality by 2050 and still grow the economy. Trudeau was re-elected last October, with a minority government, after a campaign focused on climate issues. He vowed that Canada would reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century. Sixty-six other countries have already signed onto the pledge “Around […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australian summers are lengthening by a month or more while winters are getting shorter due to climate change, according to an analysis by a leading think tank released Monday. The Australia Institute said large swathes of the country were experiencing an additional 31 days of summer temperatures each year compared to the 1950s. While Sydney was just under the average with an extra 28 hot days a year, Melbourne added 38 warmer […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia set up a national inquiry Thursday into its month-long bushfire crisis that affected three in four Australians and prompted widespread criticism of the government for its sluggish response to the blazes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the vast scale of the fires — which killed more than 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes — required a new response from the bushfire-prone nation. The Royal Commission inquiry will be […]
JUBA, South Sudan (AFP) — Swarms of locusts which are wreaking havoc across East Africa have now arrived in South Sudan, the government said Tuesday, threatening more misery in one of the world’s most vulnerable nations. Billions of desert locusts, some in swarms the size of Moscow, have already chomped their way through Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda. Their breeding has been spurred by one of the wettest rainy seasons in […]
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Climate change has contributed to a sharp drop in bumblebee populations across North America and Europe in recent decades, scientists said Friday. Compared to the period 1900-1974, bumblebee numbers across dozens of distinct species dropped, on average, 46 percent during the first 15 years of the 21st century in Canada and the United States. In Europe, the corresponding decline of the pollinators was 17 percent, they reported in […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse Paris, France (AFP) — Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into “global systemic collapse,” more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday. Climate change, extreme weather events from hurricanes to heatwaves, the decline of life-sustaining ecosystems, food security and dwindling stores of fresh water — each poses a monumental challenge to humanity in the 21st century. Out of 30 global-scale risks, these five topped the list both in terms of likelihood […]
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Permafrost in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia is abruptly crumbling in ways that could release large stores of greenhouse gases more quickly than anticipated, researchers have warned. Scientists have long fretted that climate change — which has heated the Arctic and subarctic regions at double the global rate — will release planet-warming CO2 and methane that has remained safely locked inside Earth’s frozen landscapes for millennia. It was assumed […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia was bracing for a heatwave to sweep across the country’s fire-ravaged southeast in the coming days, with the forecast stoking fears the soaring temperatures could inflame bushfires. Temperatures reached above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday in South Australia state, where dangerous fire weather warnings were issued in several bushfire-prone areas. The heatwave is then expected to hit Melbourne and Canberra on Friday before parts of Sydney reach […]
by Caroline Nelly Perrot Agence France-Presse SILIANA, Tunisia (AFP) – Around 40 young Tunisian volunteers gather on a bare hill in the central region of Siliana. Their weekend mission — revive a burned forest by planting Aleppo pine shoots. Hamdi, from the eastern city of Sfax, gets straight to work after travelling 250 kilometres (150 miles) to the marginalised region. A camping and hiking enthusiast, he found out about the initiative on Facebook. “It’s […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse Paris, France (AFP) – Hydrocarbon gases bubbling from the bottom of the Red Sea are polluting the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to the emissions of some large fossil fuel exporting countries, researchers said Tuesday. The gases seeping from the waters — which are ringed by the resorts and ports of several countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — then mix with emissions from industrial shipping and […]
SABARÁ, Brazil (AFP) – Valeria PACHECO Elaine Almeida looked at her aunt’s ruined house in Sabará, a town in a southeastern region of Brazil where at least 45 people have died in floods that followed record rainfall. “The water rose more than two meters, she lost everything,” Almeida said. She and her aunt tried pushing the door of the house open, but the mud inside was so deep they had to give up. In Sabará, a […]
