The Real Obstacle to Climate Action

WASHINGTON, DC – Climate change is probably the biggest threat facing humanity today. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world must cut its carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 in order to prevent global warming of 1.5°C, or likely more, above pre-industrial levels in this century. The challenge calls for drastic immediate action, because the infrastructure investments the world makes today will determine the carbon intensity of its growth path for decades.

Yet despite widespread recognition of the size and urgency of the climate challenge, emissions continue to increase, land is “under growing human pressure,” and the Amazon has never been more threatened.Much of the early climate debate revolved around whether the world should take drastic immediate action to mitigate global warming, or adopt a more gradual approach. The gradualists argued with some success that drastic immediate measures would impose heavy short-term economic costs.But three recent developments have altered the course of the debate. First, the various feedback loops triggered by global warming now threaten to cause greater and more imminent damage than previously thought. 

Read the story from Project Syndicate - “The Real Obstacle to Climate Action.”

Minor earthquakes emerge as major threat to UK fracking

Protests, legal challenges and planning rejections have failed to stop the return of fracking in Britain, but the government’s regulations on earthquakes are fast emerging as the biggest threat to the nascent shale gas industry.

 Cuadrilla’s fracking well at Little Plumpton
 ( with Blackpool Tower behind) in Lancashire.

The energy company Cuadrilla has been forced to stop work at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire twice in four days – on Friday last week and on Monday – due to minor earthquakes occurring while it was fracking. The tremors breached a seismic threshold imposed after fracking caused minor earthquakes at a nearby Cuadrilla site in 2011.

Read the story from The Guardian by Adam Vaughan - “Minor earthquakes emerge as major threat to UK fracking.”

No more beer, coffee of chocolate: how climate change could ruin your weekend

Driven to destruction … a car after heavy floods in
Grabels, near Montpellier, France in October 2014. 

Climate change is the biggest threat to all of civilisation our species has faced since the 80s. Scientists say rising seas will envelope major cities around the world while heatwaves will bring wildfires and torrential rains bring floods. And the global economy is stuffed.

But as if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that climate change might even mess up that most holy of traditions – your weekend.

The world’s most pre-eminent climate scientists have submitted thousands of reports warning of the danger of continuing to spew carbon into the atmosphere. And yet the governments of the world have continued to ignore them.

Thankfully, 42 breweries have weighed in to illuminate us about the true scale of the threat – we might actually run out of beer. 

From California to the Czech Republic, hop production is being hit by rising temperatures and a lack of water. Beer could also start to taste worse, according to the Czechs, but their beer is rubbish anyway.

Read The Guardian story - “No more beer, coffee of chocolate: how climate change could ruin your weekend.”

US businesses push against Trump's attempts to dismiss climate change

Company executives, sustainable business
 experts and environmental activists urged
 corporate America to step up efforts to fight what
 many see as the biggest threat facing the world.

From his claim that global warming was a gigantic hoax masterminded by China to his promise to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris agreement, Donald Trump’s surprise election win was widely decried by those who feared that recent progress in tackling climate change was about to come undone.

But a growing number of environmentally friendly American businesses – including major airlines and banks, as well as energy, tech and pharmaceutical companies – are pushing back against the president-elect’s attempts to dismiss climate change concerns and are planning to take the lead in the drive to make the US a worldwide leader at slowing or reversing the damage.

At the first Companies vs Climate Change conference in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, a succession of company executives, sustainable business experts and environmental activists spoke of the need for corporate America to step up efforts to help guide policy and fight what many see as the biggest threat facing the world today.

Read Richard Luscombe’s story on The Guardian - “US businesses push against Trump's attempts to dismiss climate change.”