Tag: climate

California to lead state level movement to ignore Trump climate exit

CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — State governors and city mayors were quick to claim the mantle of United States leadership in fighting climate change after President Donald Trump said on Thursday (June 1) the country will pull out of the Paris climate agreement. The officials said they collectively could show the international community that the US remained committed to cutting the emissions that scientists blame for global warming. Governors and analysts cited moves including California’s […]

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Trudeau calls Trump to say climate decision a ‘disappointment’

OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Donald Trump on Thursday to express “his disappointment” with the United States president’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord. According to a readout of their conversation, Trudeau also conveyed his intention to continue working with international partners to address climate change. “While the US decision is disheartening, we remain inspired by the growing momentum around the world to combat climate […]

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Trump announces US withdrawal from Paris climate deal

by Andrew Beatty Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump announced America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord Thursday, a policy shift with potentially wide-ranging repercussions for the environment and Washington’s ties with the world. In a staunchly nationalist statement from the White House Rose Garden, Trump announced the US would stop implementing the “bad” 2015 deal and look to renegotiate it — or begin work on a new one. “I […]

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Cities may be 8 degrees Celsius hotter by 2100: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — Under a dual onslaught of global warming and localized urban heating, some of the world’s cities may be as much as eight degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer by 2100, researchers warned Monday. Such a temperature spike can have dire consequences for the health of city-dwellers, robbing companies and industries of able workers, and putting pressure on already strained natural resources such as water. The projection is based on the worst-case-scenario […]

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Rising seas set to double coastal flooding by 2050: study

by Marlowe Hood Agence France Pesse PARIS, France (AFP) — Rising sea levels driven by global warming are on track to dramatically boost the frequency of coastal flooding worldwide by mid-century, especially in tropical regions, researchers said Thursday. A 10-to-20 centimeter (four-to-eight inch) jump in the global ocean watermark by 2050 — a conservative forecast — would double flood risk in high-latitude regions, they reported in the journal Scientific Reports. Major cities along the North […]

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Tillerson hosts Arctic forum in shadow of Russia spat

by Dave Clark Agence France-Presse FAIRBANKS, United States (AFP) – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Alaska to play host to the eight nations of the Arctic Council on Thursday, trailed by burning questions about Russia and climate change. The policy forum for the countries of the great white north got underway in the former gold prospecting town of Fairbanks, far away from the political frenzy gripping Washington DC. But two of the questions […]

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Alaska’s tundra releasing more CO2 than it takes in: study

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Alaskan tundra appears to be emitting more carbon dioxide than it captures, a dynamic that could accelerate climate warming as vast stores of CO2 trapped in Arctic soils are unlocked by rising temperatures. A question scientists have had is whether a warming climate would lead to a greater intake of CO2 through photosynthesis during the summer growing season. But a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National […]

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Climate envoys meet in Bonn, but all eyes on Washington

by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse BONN, Germany (AFP) — Uncertainty over America’s future in the climate-rescue Paris Agreement loomed large over United Nations talks in Bonn Monday, aimed at working out the nuts and bolts of implementing the hard-fought international deal. US President Donald Trump has yet to announce whether he intends keeping a campaign promise to withdraw Washington from the pact in whose birth his predecessor, Barack Obama, was instrumental. Media reports have […]

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Ice loss in southwest Antarctica may be slower than thought: study

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Global warming has caused ice to melt faster than normal in the Antarctic, but a study Tuesday suggested the rate of loss in some areas may be slower than previously thought. Researchers in Britain mapped the change in the speed of ice loss using data from five different satellites, said the report in Geophysical Research Letters, a US scientific journal. After studying changes at more than 30 glaciers since 1992 […]

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Permafrost more vulnerable than thought: scientists

by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Frozen, sub-Arctic wastelands loaded with planet-heating greenhouse gases are more susceptible to global warming than previously understood, scientists warned on Monday. Even stabilising the world’s climate at two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — the daunting goal laid down in the 196-nation Paris Agreement — would melt more than 40 percent of permafrost, or an area nearly twice the size of India, they reported in […]

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One in four children will live with water shortages by 2040: UNICEF

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Approximately one in four children worldwide will live in regions with extremely scarce water resources by 2040, UNICEF said in a report Wednesday. In research released on World Water Day, the United Nations children’s agency warned that in just over two decades nearly 600 million children will be living in areas with severely limited safe water sources, as population growth and surging demand for water clash with the effects […]

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Climate-ravaged corals recover poorly: study

by Marlowe HOO Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Coral reefs that survive rapid bleaching fueled by global warming remain deeply damaged, with little prospect of full recovery, researchers said Wednesday. Sixteen years after the 1998 El Nino ravaged coral in the Indian Ocean’s Seychelles archipelago, no reefs had recovered their original growth rates and barely a third were expanding at all, they reported in a study, the first to track coral health over […]

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