War in Ukraine is scrambling the world's ability to fight climate change

Alicia Wallace

The war in Ukraine has thrown the global economy into chaos -- and the worst is yet to come, experts say. 

The conflict has disrupted logistics, business operations and trade pipelines across the world: sea, land and air freight are taking roundabout routes to avoid no-fly zones and hazards of war; multinational companies are abandoning operations because of sanctions and pressure to sever ties; and countries are scrambling to meet near-term energy needs — in some cases doubling down on coal — in their efforts to reduce dependency on Russian exports.

"Everything is coming to roost," said Alla Valente, senior analyst on Forrester Research's security and risk team.

"It's not just logistics time, it's not just the cost of oil or how much oil is being used, it's not just waiting to get our shipment of semiconductor chips, it's not just the transportation labor shortage," she said. "It's not any one of those things, it's all of those things."

Dysfunction in supply chains and energy will lead to even higher costs for consumers, businesses, governments -- and, ultimately, the environment, experts say.

"War is an energy-intensive business," said Nikos Tsafos, an energy and geopolitics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It takes energy to move things around, to move troops and equipment."

Gascade Gastransport's natural gas compressor station, seen here on March 29, 2022, in Mallnow, Germany, near the Polish border, mainly receives Russian natural gas. From its source to its point of use, the natural gas travels several thousand kilometers in the "Jagal" pipeline.

Already, global oil prices have risen to their highest levels in nearly a decade, driving up costs for everything from food to fertilizer.

"Steeper price increases for food and fuel may spur a greater risk of unrest in some regions," the International Monetary Fund warned last month. "Longer term, the war may fundamentally alter the global economic and geopolitical order should energy trade shift, supply chains reconfigure, payment networks fragment, and countries rethink reserve currency holdings."

A retreat from Russian oil and gas

Those shifts are already happening as countries around the world seek to reduce their reliance on Russian oil, gas and other commodities.

The US has banned all Russian oil, natural gas and coal imports, and the United Kingdom has laid out a plan to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year and eventually put an end to natural gas imports as well.

The European Union, meanwhile, has said it would impose a fifth round of sanctions on Russia, including an import ban on Russian coal, though it has stopped short of banning Russian oil.

Europe imports about 40% of its natural gas from Russia, and has laid out a plan to reduce Russian natural gas imports by 66% this year.

"We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement last month. "We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us."

Russia's actions "will have enormous economic repercussions for the world," US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in annual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. In addition to creating global food insecurity and debt burdens, "we are witnessing the vulnerability that comes from relying on one fuel source or one trade partner, which is why it is imperative to diversify energy sources and suppliers," she said.

Energy security vs. climate strategy 

In the immediate term, EU countries are forced to explore a variety of means for keeping energy flowing and their citizens warm during the winter, Tsafos said.

And that very well could include the use of more coal. Countries that previously viewed natural gas as a stepping stone in energy transition plans are now considering burning coal for longer than planned, said Frans Timmermans, who is spearheading the EU's Green Deal efforts. However, Timmermans cautioned that such a move should only be used as a stopgap and that a rapid acceleration toward renewable energy should follow.

To help fill the gaps, the US has also shifted some of its liquified natural gas exports to Europe, said Tsafos. And the Biden Administration has reportedly weighed exemptions to a recent ban on financing fossil fuel projects overseas, Reuters reported.

"I think the overarching objective of Europeans is to do things that don't undermine their climate strategy, so they would like to not use more coal unless they have to," Tsafos said, noting the European Union's goals of being climate-neutral by 2050 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions 55% by 2030. "But so far, what their strategy boils down to is to try to buy whatever gas they can find, and I think the risk of that, is this could put a lot of stress on the gas market."

Near-term energy security efforts aside, the current crisis will likely spur Europe and others to accelerate their climate plans, wean themselves off fossil fuels and invest more in renewable energy technologies, said Ryan Kellogg, a University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy professor who specializes in energy economics, environmental policy and industrial organization.

"All of that takes time. It's not really going to help with the acute high prices and the pain that consumers are feeling now," he said. "Where it does help is when the next crisis hits."

CNN Business' Mark Thompson contributed to this report.

Brazil's Amazon rainforest has already reached a new deforestation record this year

Camilo Rocha and Stefano Pozzebon, CNN and Reuters

The portion of Amazon rainforest impacted by deforestation in the first three months of 2022 was the highest ever recorded, according to a new report by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

Smoke rises from a fire in the Amazon rainforest in Ruropolis, Brazil on November 29, 2019.

According to the INPE report, published Friday, 941.34 square kilometers (363 square miles) of forest were cleared between January and March this year. That's the largest amount recorded since the institute began monitoring deforestation rates in 2016. The area cleared is nearly the size of Dallas, Texas.

Researchers observed a 64% increase from the same time period last year, when 573.29 square kilometers (221 square miles) were cleared.

Destruction of the world's largest rainforest has surged since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019 and weakened environmental protections, arguing that they hinder economic development that could reduce poverty in the Amazon region.

The president's office and the Environment Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A UN climate panel report on Monday warned that governments are not doing enough to rein in greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert the worst effects of global warming. While fossil fuel use is mostly to blame, deforestation accounts for about 10% of global emissions, according to the report.

"Brazil is an example of what the UN climate report is saying when referring to governments not taking the necessary actions," said Cristiane Mazzetti, a forest campaigner in Brazil for environmental advocacy group Greenpeace.

"We have a government that goes deliberately against the necessary steps to limit climate change."

Some scientists predict deforestation will continue to rise ahead of Brazil's October presidential election, as it has ahead of the last three elections.

Environmental enforcement typically weakens in election years and criminals may rush to deforest ahead of a new government taking office, according to Carlos Souza Jr, a researcher at Imazon, a Brazilian research institution.

On Thursday, Facebook's parent company Meta announced that it had removed 14 Facebook accounts, nine Facebook pages, and 39 Instagram accounts for posting fake information related to deforestation.

"This network originated in Brazil and targeted domestic audiences in that country," Meta said in its first quarterly "Adversarial Threat Report."

Meta's report says it found "links to individuals associated with the Brazilian Military" behind the accounts.

The accounts were engaged in "coordinated inauthentic behavior," which included posting content that argued not all deforestation was harmful, and which criticized "legitimate environmental NGOs who spoke out against deforestation in the Amazon," the Meta report says.

CNN has reached out to Brazil's Defense Ministry for comment.

World Health Day: Take climate action, take care of each other

UN NEWS

© WHO/Yoshi Shimizu I A health worker conducts mosquito sampling and surveillance in a community in Vientiane, Lao PDR.

In its call-to-action, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a shocking report on Monday, noting that 99 per cent of people breathe unhealthy air – mainly resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis: The same unsustainable choices that are killing our planet are killing people,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Health and social crises 

The UN health agency warned that the steadily heating world is seeing mosquito-borne diseases spreading farther and faster, than ever before.

And extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, land degradation and water scarcity, are displacing people and affecting health, while pollution and plastics found at the bottom of the world’s deepest oceans and highest mountains, are increasingly making their way into food chains and blood streams.

Moreover, systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages, are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating up to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

These health and social crises are compromising people’s ability to take control over their health and lives, according to WHO.

The COVID factor

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted fault lines of inequity across the world, underlining the urgency of creating sustainable and healthy societies which do not breach ecological limits.

We need to ensure that all people have access to lifesaving and life-enhancing tools, systems, policies and environments, said the agency.

WHO’s Manifesto for a healthy and green recovery from the pandemic prescribes protecting and preserving nature as the primary source of human health.

It advocates for investing in essential services - from water and sanitation to clean energy in healthcare facilities - ensuring a quick and healthy energy transition; promoting healthy and sustainable food systems; building healthy and liveable cities; and stopping taxpayers’ money from funding pollution.

And the Geneva Charter for well-being, highlights what global commitments are needed to achieve equitable health and social outcomes now and for future generations, without destroying the health of our planet. 

Sustainable living

At a time of heightened conflict and fragility, WHO is marking its founding day by launching the Our Planet, Our Health campaign, which re-imagines and re-prioritizes resources to create healthier societies.

“We need transformative solutions to wean the world off its addiction to fossil fuels, to reimagine economies and societies focused on well-being, and to safeguard the health of the planet on which human health depends,” Tedros underscored.

Through its World Health Day campaign, WHO is calling on governments, organizations, corporations, and citizens to share actions they are taking to protect the planet and human health. 

WHO says 99 percent of world’s population breathes poor-quality air

The Associated Press

Particulate matter has many sources, such as transportation, power plants, agriculture, the burning of waste and industry — as well as from natural sources like desert dust.

A child plays with a ball through amid dense smog in Kolkata, India, on Dec. 15, 2021.Indranil Aditya / Nur Photo via AP file

The U.N. health agency says nearly everybody in the world breathes air that doesn’t meet its standards for air quality, calling for more action to reduce fossil-fuel use, which generates pollutants that cause respiratory and blood-flow problems and lead to millions of preventable deaths each year.

The World Health Organization, about six months after tightening its guidelines on air quality, on Monday issued an update to its database on air quality that draws on information from a growing number of cities, towns, and villages across the globe — now totaling over 6,000 municipalities.

WHO said 99 percent of the global population breathes air that exceeds its air-quality limits and is often rife with particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the veins and arteries, and cause disease. Air quality is poorest in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia regions, followed by Africa, it said.

“After surviving a pandemic, it is unacceptable to still have 7 million preventable deaths and countless preventable lost years of good health due to air pollution,” said Dr. Maria Neira, head of WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health. “Yet too many investments are still being sunk into a polluted environment rather than in clean, healthy air.”

The database, which has traditionally considered two types of particulate matter known as PM2.5 and PM10, for the first time has included ground measurements of nitrogen dioxide. The last version of the database was issued in 2018.

Nitrogen dioxide originates mainly from human-generated burning of fuel, such as through automobile traffic, and is most common in urban areas. Exposure can bring respiratory disease like asthma and symptoms like coughing, wheezing and difficulty in breathing, and more hospital and emergency-room admissions, WHO said. The highest concentrations were found in the eastern Mediterranean region.

Particulate matter has many sources, such as transportation, power plants, agriculture, the burning of waste and industry — as well as from natural sources like desert dust. The developing world is particularly hard hit: India had high levels of PM10, while China showed high levels of PM2.5, the database showed.

“Particulate matter, especially PM2.5, is capable of penetrating deep into the lungs and entering the bloodstream, causing cardiovascular, cerebrovascular (stroke) and respiratory impacts,” WHO said. “There is emerging evidence that particulate matter impacts other organs and causes other diseases as well.”

The findings highlight the sheer scale of the changes needed to combat air pollution, said Anumita Roychowdhury, an air pollution expert at Center for Science and Environment, a research and advocacy organization in New Delhi.

India and the world need to brace for major changes to try to curb air pollution: electric vehicles; a shift away from fossil fuels; a massive scaling-up of green energy; and households separating their types of waste, she said.

The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a New Delhi-based think tank, found in a study that more than 60 percent of India’s PM2.5 loads are from households and industries.

Tanushree Ganguly, who heads the council’s program on air quality, called for action toward reducing emissions from industries, automobiles, biomass burning and domestic energy.

“We need to prioritize clean energy access for households that need it the most, and take active measures to clean up our industrial sector,” she said.

U.N. report outlines possible solutions for climate change and its societal impact

Evan Bush

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres chided global leaders in a searing critique, saying the new report highlighted “a litany of broken climate promises.”

From wildfires to sea level rise and heat waves, climate change is having a dramatic impact on the environment and people’s health and well-being. 

So what can the world do about it? 

That’s the focus of the third and final report — released Monday — from a recent cycle of climate discussions among scientists with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More than 230 authors contributed to the report, which summarizes researchers’ best thinking on how to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. 

Previous reports detailed the physical changes the world is experiencing because of climate change and how they are already affecting society. 

In a news conference about the report’s findings, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres chided global leaders in a searing critique, saying the new report highlighted “a litany of broken climate promises” and a catalog of “shame” showing the world is on the wrong track. 

“Government and business leaders are saying one thing and doing another. Simply put, they are lying,” he said. 

Still, the latest report strikes a somewhat hopeful tone about energy transition and suggests achievable solutions are in hand.  

Renewable energy costs are plummeting and investment in electric vehicles has provided a vision of the path forward, the scientists suggest.  

“We are at a crossroads. This is the time for action. We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming and secure a liveable future” IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee said during the news conference announcing the report. 

But the stakes have never been greater.

“Unless there are immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees [Celsius] will be beyond reach,” said Jim Skea, a professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London and one of the report’s co-chairs. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” 

Here are five key takeaways from the report’s summary.  

The electrification of transportation is a good sign

Transportation represented about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 and in the past, it wasn’t clear how to rapidly decarbonize vehicles. 

But, the world has come a long way since 2014 when scientists last assessed  progress on reducing emissions with the IPCC. 

Electric vehicle advertisements dominated Super Bowl advertising in the United States and a global race to mine metals for clean energy is underway. 

“The technology that’s available has really transformed the idea that the transport sector … can’t get its emissions down to zero,” said Jae Edmonds, the chief scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute, and an author of the IPCC report. “You can see a pathway that could take you there.”

Renewable energy, more broadly, has become cheaper, the report says. Since 2010, the cost of batteries and solar energy have fallen about 85 percent. The cost of wind power has dropped by 55 percent.  

“In some cases, costs have fallen below fossil fuels,” Skea said. 

Emissions are still rising — but more slowly. They need to peak before 2025 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). 

The world is on pace for global average temperatures to rise roughly 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, compared with preindustrial times. 

World leaders during climate negotiations last year pledged to reduce emissions and target 1.5 degrees Celsius. Those ambitions now hang by a thread. 

To reach the world’s 1.5-degree goal, emissions need to peak by 2025 and then be reduced by about 43 percent by 2030, Skea said. 

Previous IPCC reports found stark differences in a world warmed, on average, by 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with 2 degrees. Exceeding 1.5 degrees could have irreversible impacts on ecosystems. Limiting warming would save about 4 inches of average sea level rise by 2100 and halve the number of species losing more than 50 percent of their habitat.

“The longer the delay occurs, the more ambitious the reductions need to be to meet the 1.5,” Edmonds said. “Eventually emissions have to go to zero.” 

Outsized emissions among those at the top

Globally, the world’s top 10 percent of households with the highest emissions per person are responsible for between 34-45 percent of all household greenhouse gas emissions. 

The bottom 50 percent of the global population contribute just 13-15 percent of all household emissions. 

Those findings are in line with a report on carbon inequality by the Stockholm Environment Institute, which found that the richest 1 percent of the world’s population are responsible for as much greenhouse gas output as twice the pollution of the poorest 3.1 billion people. 

Dealing with methane 

Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas that lasts about 10-15 years in the atmosphere. To researchers, reducing methane represents low-hanging fruit that could have a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions. 

Capturing more methane from landfills, changing diets to consume less livestock and shoring up infrastructure that carries natural gas could help reduce its impact.  

“It’s a high leverage gas to go after, the technologies are there for that. You can tighten up natural gas transmission and distribution systems. That’s something that’s pretty cost effective,” Edmonds said. “If you have pipelines blow out, that’s money going up into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, there’s a lot of incentive to tighten those systems up.” 

Building new fossil fuel infrastructure won’t work  

Continuing to install new fossil fuel infrastructure without abatement will lock in greenhouse gas emissions, a summary of the report says.  

The typical use of the fossil fuel infrastructure that’s already constructed or planned would result in going beyond the 1.5 degree Celsius target. 

“Investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness,” Guterres said. Given the pace of the energy transition, investment in new fossil fuel equipment could lead to these assets becoming “stranded,” he added, meaning that they would lose their value before it can be financially realized. 

Carbon capture and storage technology could reduce the risk of stranding these assets, but a shift away from fossil fuels is necessary, the report says.

Hundreds of mammal species still to be identified, predict researchers

Patrick Greenfield

Mouse lemurs in their nest in Madagascar. New techniques led to the discovery of a separate species last year. Photograph: Minden Pictures/Alamy

Hundreds of unidentified mammals are hiding in plain sight waiting to be discovered, according to a new study which predicts where to find so-called “cryptic” species across the tree of life.

African elephants, lemurs and two newly discovered see-through frogs in Ecuador that live just 13 miles apart are among a growing number of plants and animals that have been unmasked by genetic analysis in recent years, revealing they are not a single species but, in fact, many and separate groups, despite appearing similar to the human eye.

Thanks to the discoveries driven by the rise of DNA barcoding, a technique that can identify and differentiate between flora and fauna by their genetic divergence, scientists say our planet may be more biologically diverse than previously thought, meaning there could be many more species than the current best estimate of 8.7 million.

Now researchers have gone a step further and proposed a new method to predict where to look for new animal species on the web of life amid fears that many are becoming extinct before they are known to science.

By analysing millions of mammal gene sequences and other information on their environment and habitat, researchers say hundreds of bats, rodents, shrews and moles are waiting to be found, likely incorrectly classified as another species due to their size and physical appearance.

The semi-transparent glassfrog. Photograph: GFC Collection/Alamy

While that finding would not surprise many biologists, researchers say the new predictive model could be used to help find undiscovered species in other animal groups, such as insects, a class in which millions of species are yet to be identified.

“Based on our analysis, a conservative estimate would be that there are hundreds of species of mammals worldwide that have yet to be identified,” said Bryan Carstens, professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State University, who co-authored the study, published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What we did that was new was predict where these new species are most likely to be found,” Carstens said, adding that the model estimated that about 80% of mammal species had been discovered.

“The shocking thing is that mammals are very well described compared to beetles or ants or other types of animals. That knowledge is important to people who are doing conservation work. We can’t protect a species if we don’t know that it exists. As soon as we name something as a species, that matters in a lot of legal and other ways,” said Carstens.

The research, led by Ohio State graduate student Danielle Parsons, also predicted that cryptic mammal species are most likely to be those with wider geographic ranges with high precipitation and temperature variability. Examples include the little brown bat, found across North America, which was shown to be five separate species in 2018.

A Namibian giraffe, Giraffa giraffa angolensis. Photograph: Design Pics Inc/Alamy

The new DNA-based methods have caused a revolution in modern taxonomy, which, used in combination with traditional techniques first developed by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, is helping scientists reorganise the library of life on Earth.

Researchers say taxonomists are unlikely to have to search far for species to unveil, with many specimens likely already in natural history collections at museums. Recent examples include the Popa langur in Myanmar, previously confused with another species, and a new Indian aloe plant.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features

… we have a small favour to ask. Millions are turning to the Guardian for open, independent, quality news every day, and readers in 180 countries around the world now support us financially.

We believe everyone deserves access to information that’s grounded in science and truth, and analysis rooted in authority and integrity. That’s why we made a different choice: to keep our reporting open for all readers, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. This means more people can be better informed, united, and inspired to take meaningful action.

Biodiversity: Pressure grows for deal to save nature

Helen Briggs

A global agreement to reverse the loss of nature and halt extinctions is inching closer, as talks in Geneva enter their final day.

GETTY IMAGES I The vision is to live in harmony with nature by 2050

International negotiators are working on the text of a UN framework to safeguard nature ahead of a high-level summit in China later this year.

Observers have slammed the "snail's pace" of negotiations and are pressing for a strengthening of ambitions.

Divisions remain, including over financing the plans.

"The science is very clear, we do not have any more time to waste; we need to take action now," Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of international advocacy at WWF-UK, told BBC News. 

"Not only on biodiversity loss, but also on climate change which is a very inter-linked issue. So that is what's at stake here; it's actually the future of the planet and its people."

The final version of the draft UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be negotiated in Kunming, China, at the Cop15 summit, which is expected to take place at the end of August.

GETTY IMAGES I The plans call for a fifth of degraded marine ecosystems to be restored

The outcome will decide for the coming decades how the world will address the challenges of reducing the extinction risk threatening more than one million species, protecting 30% of land and sea, eliminating billions of dollars of environmentally-damaging government subsidies and restoring degraded ecosystems.

Talks aimed at progressing the nascent agreement have been taking place in Geneva over the past two weeks.

After the first week, observers hit out at what they saw as a "glacial" rate of progress, but momentum has gathered during the final days, although "thorny issues" remain, including the financing of the plans.

The draft text contains the aim to increase finance to at least US $200bn a year by 2030, with funding from developed to developing countries to increase by at least US $10bn a year.

"Resource mobilisation at this meeting has become a thorny issue," Ghanaian academic Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, who has played a key role in international efforts to protect biodiversity, told the news agency, AFP.

On subsidies, the aim is to "redirect, reallocate, reform or eliminate incentives harmful for biodiversity" on the scale of at least US $500bn per year.

RUSS MITTERMEIER I The vast majority of lemur species, unique primates found only in Madagascar, are on the brink of extinction

The new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBD) is seen as the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris climate agreement. Biodiversity refers to all the different living things on Earth and how they fit together in a delicate web of life that we rely on for food, clean air and water.

One of the key ambitions is to turn 30% of Earth's lands and seas into protected areas by 2030. A recent UN climate report underlined the importance of conserving at least 30% of the planet to achieve biodiversity and climate goals.

Another goal is to ensure that, by 2050, a "shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled".

"We have this one goal, which is to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and really to build that shared future to live in harmony with nature in the long term," the convention's executive secretary, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, told reporters at the start of the talks.

Scientists have issued repeated warnings about threats to nature driven by human actions, including chopping down forests and turning natural land over to farming.

A landmark 2019 assessment warned that nature was declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with up to one million species facing extinction.

The Cop15 conference in Kunming is expected to take place almost two years later than originally planned due to repeated delays caused by the Covid pandemic.

This has left the world without targets over the course of this decade for halting extinctions and reversing the worldwide loss of nature.

The Great Barrier Reef is suffering a sixth mass-bleaching event. Here's why scientists are concerned

Hilary Whiteman

Coral at Stanley Reef, about 83 miles (133 kilometers) off Townsville in Queensland, shows signs of bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures.

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering its sixth mass bleaching due to heat stress caused by climate change, the reef's managers confirmed Friday.

The update comes mid-way through a 10-day monitoring mission by UNESCO scientists as they consider whether to add one of the world's seven natural wonders to their "in danger" list.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) said Friday that aerial surveys of around 750 reefs show widespread bleaching across the reef, with the most severe bleaching observed in northern and central areas.

Coral at Stanley Reef, about 83 miles (133 kilometers) off Townsville in Queensland, shows signs of bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures.

"More than half of the living coral cover that we can see from the air is severely bleached completely white and can have signs of fluorescence in the colors of pink, yellow and blue," said AIMS coral biologist Neal Cantin.

"The corals are producing these fluorescent pigments in an attempt to protect their tissue from heat and from the intense sun during these marine heatwaves."

Coral bleaching events tend to happen when water temperatures are much warmer than normal. But this bleaching event comes despite La Niña, which is characterized by cooler-than-normal temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

It's the fourth mass bleaching in six years and the first since 2020, when about one quarter of the reef surveyed showed signs of severe bleaching. That event came just three years after back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. Previous bleaching occurred in 1998 and 2002.

David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the GBRMPA, said the coral was stressed but not dead.

"If the water temperature decreases, bleached corals can recover from this stress. It is important to remember that we had a mass bleaching event in 2020, but there was very low coral mortality," Wachenfeld said.

Natural wonder under threat 

Australia's Great Barrier Reef stretches 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) down the Queensland coast. Before the pandemic forced borders to close, it attracted around three million tourists each year.

This year aerial surveys with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft showed the worst of the bleaching is near Townsville. Tourist areas near Cairns and Port Douglas have been less affected due to lower levels of heat stress.

Bleaching occurs when stressed coral ejects algae from within its tissue, depriving it of a food source. If conditions don't improve, coral can starve and die, turning white as its carbonate skeleton is exposed.

Underwater images taken in 2022 show the Great Barrier Reef is suffering heat stress.

"Even the most robust corals require nearly a decade to recover," said Jodie Rummer, associate professor of Marine Biology at James Cook University in Townsville.

"So we're really losing that window of recovery. We're getting back-to-back bleaching events, back-to-back heat waves. And, and the corals just aren't adapting to these new conditions," she said.

The Australian government has been under pressure from UNESCO to prove that it's doing enough to save the reef.

Earlier this year, the Australian government pledged one billion Australian dollars ($700 million) spread over 10 years to support new climate adaptation technology, investment in water quality programs, and protection for key reef species.

While the extra funding was welcomed, the government has been called out by global climate experts, among others, for not doing enough to transition Australia away from fossil fuels.

The Climate Action Tracker gives the country a "highly insufficient rating" for its action on climate change. "The government appears intent on replacing fossil fuels with fossil fuels," it says, citing the government's "gas-led recovery" program, announced in 2020 to lead the country out an economic downturn related to the spread of Covid-19.

On Monday, United Nations Chief Antonio Guterres name-checked Australia among a "handful of holdouts" in the group of G20 countries who had not announced "meaningful emissions reductions."

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has just completed aerial surveys of all 3,000 reefs on the reef system.

He said countries and private businesses who invest in coal are costing the world its climate targets. And he said money spent on fossil fuels and subsidies was "a stupid investment leading to billions in stranded assets."

"It's time to end fossil fuel subsidies and stop the expansion of oil and gas exploration," he said.

Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council, said the real issue the government should be addressing is climate change.

"To give our reef a fighting chance, we must deal with the number one problem: climate change. No amount of funding will stop these bleaching events unless we drive down our emissions this decade," she said in a statement.

Taliban’s backtracking on girls’ education, ‘deeply damaging’

© UNICEF/Sayed Bidel I Girls at school in Herat, Afghanistan.

“The de facto authorities’ failure to adhere to commitments to reopen schools for girls above the sixth grade – in spite of repeated commitments towards girls’ education, including during my visit to Kabul two weeks ago – is deeply damaging for Afghanistan”, High Commissioner  Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.

The denial of education violates the human rights of women and girls – UN human rights chief

‘Grave concern’

"Millions of secondary-school girls around Afghanistan woke up hopeful today that they will be able to go back to school and resume their learning. It did not take long for their hopes to be shattered."
statement by @unicefchief https://t.co/c5Fl1Q1b4q

— UNICEF Afghanistan (@UNICEFAfg) March 23, 2022

Although high schools were set to open their doors to girls nationwide, Taliban authorities reportedly reversed the move early on Wednesday, pending a ruling made on the uniforms they must wear.

“The denial of education violates the human rights of women and girls – beyond their equal right to education, it leaves them more exposed to violence, poverty and exploitation,” Ms. Bachelet explained.

Move jeopardizes Afghanistan's future: Guterres

The UN Secretary-General said in a statement later in the day, that he deeply regretted the Taliban's suspension of the return to school for high school girls.

"The start of the new school year has been anticipated by all students, girls and boys, and parents and families", said António Guterres. He added that the Taliban move "despite repeated commitments, is a profound disappointment and deeply damaging for Afghanistan.

The denial of education not only violates the equal rights of women and girls to education, it also jeopardizes the country’s future in view of the tremendous contributions by Afghan women and girls.    

  "I urge the Taliban de facto authorities to open schools for all students without any further delay." 

Recounting conversations

Ms. Bachelet recalled her recent visit to Kabul, where women stressed to her that they wanted to speak to the Taliban themselves.

The women told her that they have “information, solutions and the capability to help chart a way out of this economic, humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan.”

“They insisted upon the equal right to quality education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels and were hopefully awaiting the reopening of schools today”.

‘Structural discrimination’

As Afghan citizens suffer the impacts of multiple intersecting crises, the senior UN official described the decision as being of “grave concern.”

“Disempowering half of Afghanistan’s population is counterproductive and unjust,” Ms. Bachelet said, adding that “structural discrimination such as this is also deeply damaging for the country’s prospects of future recovery and development.”

She called on the Taliban to “respect all girls’ rights to education and to open schools for all students without discrimination or further delay”.

Shattered hopes

The Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, also issued a statement describing the decision as “a major setback for girls and their futures”.

“Millions of secondary-school girls around Afghanistan woke up hopeful today that they will be able to go back to school and resume their learning,” she said.

“It did not take long for their hopes to be shattered.”

According to Ms. Russell the decision meant that an entire generation of adolescent girls is being “denied their right to an education and…robbed of the opportunity to gain the skills they need to build their futures.”

She urged the de facto authorities to honour their commitment to girls’ education without any further delay and appealed to community leaders in every corner of the country to support the education of adolescent girls.

“All children deserve to be in school. This is the surest way to put the country on a surer path toward the peace and prosperity that the people of Afghanistan deserve,” said the UNICEF chief.

Decision deplored

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) responded to the news, by tweeting that it “deplores today’s reported announcement by the Taliban that they are further extending their indefinite ban on female students above the 6th grade being permitted to return school.”

Amazon rainforest reaching tipping point, researchers say

Helen Briggs

The Amazon rainforest is moving towards a "tipping point" where trees may die off en masse, say researchers.

A study suggests the world's largest rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from damage caused by droughts, fires and deforestation.

GETTY IMAGES I Image caption, The Amazon contains between 90 and 140 billion metric tons of carbon

Large swathes could become sparsely forested savannah, which is much less efficient than tropical forest at sucking carbon dioxide from the air.

The giant forest traps carbon that would otherwise add to global warming. 

But previous studies have shown that parts of the Amazon are now emitting more carbon dioxide than can be absorbed.

"The trees are losing health and could be approaching a tipping point - basically, a mass loss of trees," said Dr Chris Boulton of the University of Exeter.

The findings, based on three decades of satellite data, show alarming trends in the "health" of the Amazon rainforest.

There are signs of a loss of resilience in more than 75% of the forest, with trees taking longer to recover from the effects of droughts largely driven by climate change as well as human impacts such as deforestation and fires.

A vicious cycle of damage could trigger "dieback", the scientists said. 

And while it's not clear when that critical point might be reached, the implications for climate change, biodiversity and the local community would be "devastating".

The more trees cut down, the less the forest can soak up emissions

GETTY IMAGES I Image caption, The more trees cut down, the less the forest can soak up emissions

Once the process begins they predict it could be a matter of decades before a "significant chunk" of the Amazon is transformed into savannah - a vastly different ecosystem made up of a mixture of grassland and trees.

"The Amazon stores lots of carbon and all of that would be released into the atmosphere, which would then further contribute to increasing temperatures and have future effects on global mean temperatures," Dr Boulton said, adding that stopping deforestation would go some way to addressing the problem.

Around a fifth of the rainforest has already been lost, compared to pre-industrial levels, they said.

The research was carried out by the University of Exeter, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Technical University of Munich. 

"Deforestation and climate change are likely to be the main drivers of this decline," said Prof Niklas Boers of PIK and the Technical University of Munich.

Commenting, Dr Bonnie Waring of the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and Environment, Imperial College London, said: "These latest findings are consistent with the accumulating evidence that the twin pressures of climate change and human exploitation of tropical forests are endangering the world's largest rainforest, which is home to one out of every 10 species known to science."

The findings, based on satellite data from 1991 to 2016, are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

History replays like a half-forgotten song, but once we remember, it’s far too late Neal Ascherson

Neal Ascherson
Opinion

The west fell asleep on Cold War sentry duty and thought Putin couldn’t be serious, but he was. The question remains, is Nato?

Russian President Vladimir Putin I Photograph: Andrey Gorshkov/SPUTNIK/AFP/Getty Images

War comes very early to the theatre,” said the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg. “Then he stands around waiting in the wings.” This time too. For a few years, there has been something, somebody, moving in the shadow of the stage curtain. Only a few people felt they recognised it.

But language noticed. Even 10 years ago, big-power war in Europe was “unthinkable these days. Do try and keep up!” Then, somehow, it became “well, in theory, but just utterly unlikely”. So, thinkable again. Hard to say when that mental border was crossed; perhaps after the Yugoslav wars, perhaps in 2014 when Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and sponsored proxy war in the Donbas region. And now they ask: “What sort of European war is this going to be? And how nuclear? And where will the next one start?”

History doesn’t repeat itself. It just tries to remember an old song it heard once. It may be that Putin’s 24 February 2022 will turn out to be like Hitler’s 22 June 1941 – the day he invaded Russia, doomed himself and Germany to destruction and made inevitable a divided Europe whose Cold War and barbed wire would last for half a century. But Putin isn’t Hitler. He will die a disappointed old nuisance in exile somewhere, rather than by Heldentodsuicide in his bunker. Both men qualify as psychopathic dictators, swaddled from reality in fantasies of geopolitical revenge. But Putin’s grip on the Russian imagination is weaker than Hitler’s on the Germans. And his use of police terror against his own people, though horrifying, is distinctly less effective.

All the same, that wise historian Margaret MacMillan sees one desperately important parallel. Both men have meant what they said. And in both cases they were not taken seriously until it was too late. Hitler raved on in public about getting rid of the Jews and conquering Lebensraum in eastern Europe. But the “other Hitler”, in private, could sometimes talk quite charmingly and constructively about possible agreements. Obviously, foreign visitors concluded, the public stuff was just for show while the “serious” Hitler was revealing his real mind. Diametrically wrong! The crazy speeches gave his true intentions; the sober reflections over coffee were all lies. With Putin, the west wrote off his increasingly wild talk about breaking Nato’s encirclement and restoring Russia’s dominion over post-Soviet space. He couldn’t be serious. Under the bluster, wasn’t there still that shrewd, cautious Putin with whom one could do business? But Ukraine proves the opposite. The imperial dream is what he means. The meetings with western leaders across that long table, hinting at terms for a bargain, were all fake.

At the moment of writing, Putin’s plan seems to have two stages. First, military victory, achieved mainly by isolating resistance in a few cities and then shelling them to blackened husks, as the Russians did to Grozny in Chechnya. Armed resistance might continue, especially in the hills and forests of western Ukraine. But Putin may recall how Stalin fought Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas for years after the Second World War, without letting those murderous repressions distract the Soviet Union as a whole. Next, regime change. That’s unlikely to mean some temporary junta to supervise complete abolition of Ukrainian independence and annexation by Russia. More probably, it means the installation of a puppet government in Kyiv, to run a cut-down, smaller Ukrainian protectorate pledged to support Russian foreign and defence policies.

Suddenly, the world is very dangerous again. And the real danger is not primarily mad dictators. It is uncertainty

Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s legal government are already targets. Russian special forces may try to kidnap the president, stuffing syringes into him and flying him to some Russian “psychiatric clinic”. Just possibly, he might not survive “an attempted escape”. In August 1968, Alexander Dubček and his colleagues in Prague were kidnapped and flown to Moscow. But that case was easier. Dubček was held guilty of anti-socialist policy – “socialism with a human face” – rather than of defending the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia. Zelenskiy stands simply for the full freedom and independence of his country. For a Russian mind like Putin’s, that is much harder to forgive. But finding cadres to form that puppet government will unfortunately not be hard.

Since independence in 1991, Ukrainian politics have been poisoned by fewer than a dozen billionaire oligarchs and their paid henchmen in the Rada (parliament). Some have even led governments. Most of them, not quite all, are at once corrupt and treacherous. They hold investments and property in both Ukraine and Russia and when in trouble they take cover in Moscow. Given enough bodyguard protection, and assisted by pro-Russian figures imported from th Donbas, such men would willingly slink into government in Kyiv.

And here history is indeed trying to remember an old song: Moscow’s obsessive wish to paralyse and subjugate the space between Russia and western Europe. A wish that didn’t begin with Putin, or with Stalin’s ring of satellites, but 300 years ago with Peter the Great and later, above all, with the Empress Catherine. Back then, the space was filled by the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including most of western Ukraine. For many years, threats, intrigues and Russian infantry kept the country submissive. But then Poland rebelled, reclaiming its independence. In 1792, Catherine sent the Russian armies in, supported by a clutch of wealthy pro-Russian magnates in the Confederation of Targowica. They tried to govern. But a huge uprising followed and in 1795 Catherine, with Austria and Prussia, wiped Poland off the map for over a century.

Now Ukraine may face its own Targowica. But just as the great partition crime concentrated a new, militant confidence in Polish identity, it looks as if the invasion of 2022 is completing Ukraine’s transition from early self-doubt to a solid faith in Ukraine as an authentic national community.

Europe itself, woken by explosions, stumbles out into a different landscape. When we fell asleep, no longer required for Cold War sentry duty, the red lines were faded and in places scuffed away. The tripwires of military pacts hung slack and rusty. Now, suddenly, the world is very dangerous again. And the real danger is not primarily mad dictators attacking their neighbours. It is uncertainty. It is not being sure what will happen, what will be triggered, if somebody marches over the half-scuffed-away line or pushes through the sagging wire.

It’s said that the First World War began because there were too many treaties tangled across Europe. The truth, perhaps, is that there were not enough treaties, none unambiguously laying down who would go to war with whom over what. We have to repaint that red line, replace and tauten the tripwire.

If Nato governments have private reservations about Article 5 – mutual assistance by all if one is attacked – we are doomed. Die for Estonia? Yes, we must be prepared to die for Estonia and the world must be sure that we are. We know now that Putin “means it”. Do we mean it?

In the future, post-Putin, we will need to court Russia into partnership. Perhaps into Mikhail Gorbachev’s dream of a “common European home”,in which all are members of a single defence pact. But that means recognising that not all Russia’s historical grievances are propaganda. At the 1990 Berlin meeting, the Soviet side left believing that it had a statement that Nato would not extend up to its borders – in return for Soviet acceptance that the whole of a united Germany could join the pact. But later the west said that there was never any statement and brought Poland and the other post-communist states into Nato.

After the civil war, George Washington was persuaded to give Will Leslie a full military funeral.Photograph: Stock Montage/Getty Images

Jacques Faure, once French ambassador in Kyiv, says carefully: “That is not to say that … there were no such statements. But we don’t know, because there are no records or written documents.”

Putin’s claim that Nato plans to encircle and strangle Russia is absurd. But many Russians, not just the Kremlin crew, believe that their country was swindled in its hour of weakness. It’s an abscess that needs treatment.

After the civil war, George Washington was persuaded to give Will Leslie a full military funeral.Photograph: Stock Montage/Getty Images

Russians and Ukrainians will also have to find their way back together. These are two densely interlaced peoples, who have no business killing each other. A few years ago, I was taken to a graveyard in rural New Jersey, where Will Leslie, a young Scot in the British army, was buried after the battle of Princeton in 1777. Benjamin Rush, the American revolutionary who found his body, had been Will’s best friend; he had lodged for years with the Leslie family in Edinburgh while the two boys attended the university there together. Rush fell in love with Will’s sister, but she was too young for marriage and he had to return to America. When the war of independence came, the two found themselves on opposite sides. After Princeton, Benjamin went looking for Will and discovered him in a cart, where he had died of wounds. He persuaded General Washington to give him a full military funeral, and sat down to write a heartbroken letter to the Leslies in Edinburgh.

Scots and Americans were no further apart in 1777 than Ukrainians and Russians are today. Somewhere among the ruins, a silent Serhii is looking down on a dead Vadim, who once shared home and college and friends with him in St Petersburg. This conflict has the special horror of civil war between brothers. But by the time we say “Never again!”, it is always too late.

 Neal Ascherson is a journalist and writer 

UNEP combats pollution, restores ozone and protects seas, UN chief tells 50th anniversary session

UN NEWS

For 50 years, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has offered the world a way forward “based on a vision for a better, healthier Earth built on the pillars of international cooperation,” Secretary-General António Guterres told a landmark special session on Thursday, commemorating the agency’s golden anniversary.

#UNEP50 is an opportunity to reinvigorate international cooperation and spur collective action to address the triple planetary crisis.

Dive into UNEP’s history and explore how it has helped shape five decades of environmental milestones: https://t.co/ZdmnYCnAJh pic.twitter.com/JmL2W0ipSd

— UN Environment Programme (@UNEP) March 3, 2022

“The planet was already showing signs of buckling under the weight of humanity” back in 1972 when the agency was founded, he explained to the event in Nairobi via video message.

“In the following decades, UNEP and its partners would work with Member States to combat air pollution, restore the ozone layer, protect the world's seas, promote a green and inclusive economy and raise the alarm about biodiversity loss and climate change”.

Delivering for all

Mr. Guterres lauded UNEP as illustrating that multilateralism works and can deliver solutions for people and the planet.

UNEP's science, policy work, coordination and advocacy has helped to right environmental wrongs around the world and raise awareness of the critical role that the environment plays in sustainable development.

“That work has never been more important,” attested the UN chief.

Stop ‘suicidal war against nature’

Pointing to climate disruption, biodiversity and habitat loss, and pollution and waste that threatens societies and life on Earth, he observed that “humanity continues to wage a suicidal war against nature.”

To address this, the top UN Official set out four targets, beginning with the need to protect the most vulnerable, ‘who now number in the billions.”

“We need scaled up international cooperation to provide the financial and technical assistance that vulnerable countries and communities need for greater resilience,” he said, urging donors and multilateral development banks to “more than double the share for climate adaptation to at least 50 per cent of climate finance by 2024”.

Quitting coal

Secondly, the UN chief underscored that the world must cut global emissions by 45 per cent this decade to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

“This means no new coal.  And no coal finance,” he spelled out.

During the UN climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow last year, Mr. Guterres was heartened by South Africa’s announcement of a renewable energy partnership.

He urged all countries that have pledged to get out of coal and that need technological and financial support to undertake equivalent coalitions.  

“Coal needs to be phased out in OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries by 2030 and by 2040 everywhere else,” he argued, adding that “every sector in every country needs to decarbonize this decade, especially the energy and transportation sectors”.

Paving a path forward

Halting the “extinction crisis,” with an “ambitious and actionable post-2020 biodiversity framework to put us on a path of living in harmony with nature,” was the Secretary-General’s third point.

And his fourth was to “drastically” reduce chemical, plastic and solid waste pollution.

“That means tackling the drivers of environmental degradation, especially poverty and unsustainable consumption and production,” the top UN official said.

While encouraged by the UN Environment Assembly’s moves to establish an intergovernmental committee that would negotiate a legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution, he upheld that financial and accounting systems must also be transformed to reflect the true cost of economic activities, including their impact on nature and the environment.

Follow the science

“In all we do, we need to follow science and engage in multilateral action to make peace with nature,” said the UN chief, hailing UNEP for supporting science and facilitating multilateral action and partnership.

FAO/João Roberto Ripper I Farmers, who gatherer flowers in the Southern Espinhaço Mountain Range in Brazil, enhance biodiversity and preserve traditional knowledge.

He thanked Kenya for hosting UNEP's headquarters over the last 50 years – making Nairobi the global hub for the environment.

Warning that “we are nearing a point of no return’, the Secretary-General urged everyone to “grasp the opportunities of working together under an active, open and networked multilateralism,” flagging that “all countries have a crucial role to play in protecting people and the planet.”

Click here for a photo story highlighting some of UNEP's work.

Nations sign up to end global scourge of plastic pollution

UN
Climate and Environment

Heads of State, environment ministers and other representatives from 175 nations, endorsed a historic resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday to end plastic pollution, and forge an international legally binding agreement, by the end of 2024.

The landmark resolution addresses the full lifecycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal.

On track ‘for a cure’

“Against the backdrop of geopolitical turmoil, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) shows multilateral cooperation at its best,” said President of the Assembly, and Norway’s Minister for Climate and the Environment, Espen Barth Eide. “Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic. With today’s resolution we are officially on track for a cure.”

Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic. With today’s resolution we are officially on track for a cure. Espen Barth Eide

The resolution, based on three initial draft resolutions from various nations, establishes an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) which will begin its work this year, aiming to complete a draft legally binding agreement by the end of 2024.

That in turn, is expected to present a legally binding instrument, which would reflect diverse alternatives to address the full lifecycle of plastics, the design of reusable and recyclable products and materials, and the need for enhanced international collaboration to facilitate access to technology, to allow the revolutionary plan to be realized.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that it would convene a forum by the end of this year in conjunction with the first session of the INC, to share knowledge and best practices in different parts of the world.

UNEP/Cyril Villemain I UNEA President Espen Barth Eide (right), UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen (center) and Keriako Tobiko, Cabinet Secretary of Environment of Kenya, applaud the passing of the resolution.

‘Triumph by planet earth’

It will be based on open discussion, informed by science, and report back on progress throughout the next two years. Finally, upon completion of the INC’s work, UNEP will convene a diplomatic conference to adopt its outcome and open it for signatures.

It is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it. Inger Andersen

“Today marks a triumph by planet earth over single-use plastics. This is the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord. It is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it.” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.

“Let it be clear that the INC’s mandate does not grant any stakeholder a two-year pause”, she added. “In parallel to negotiations over an international binding agreement, UNEP will work with any willing government and business across the value chain to shift away from single-use plastics, as well as to mobilise private finance and remove barriers to investments in research and in a new circular economy”.

Scale of the problem

© UNEP I Dandora landfill in Nairobi, Kenya, where much of the waste in the landfill is plastic.

Plastic pollution soared from two million tonnes in 1950, to 348 million tonnes in 2017, becoming a global industry valued at $522.6 billion, said UNEP. It is expected to double in capacity, by 2040.

The impacts of plastic production and pollution on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution are a catastrophe in the making, the UN agency said, with exposure to plastics harming human health, and potentially affecting fertility, hormonal, metabolic and neurological activity, while open burning of plastics contributes to air pollution.

By 2050, greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic production, use and disposal, would account for 15 per cent of allowed emissions, under the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C (34.7°F) in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

More than 800 marine and coastal species are affected by this pollution through ingestion, entanglement, and other dangers, while around 11 million tonnes of plastic waste flow each year into the ocean. This could triple by 2040.

The historic resolution, entitled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument”, was adopted with the conclusion of the three-day UNEA-5.2 meeting, attended by more than 3,400 in-person and 1,500 online participants from 175 UN Member States, including 79 ministers and 17 high-level officials.

The Assembly will be followed by “UNEP@50,” a two-day Special Session of the Assembly, marking UNEP’s 50th anniversary where Member States are expected to address how to build a resilient and inclusive post-pandemic world.

Protecting nature at the core of SDGs: Deputy UN chief

In her remarks to the UN Environment Assembly, the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, noted the theme was based around "Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.

"One thing we know for certain is that protecting nature is at the core of achieving the 2030 Agenda and the goals of the Paris Agreement", she said.

"If we are to ensure food and water security for all people around the world, we need to prevent ecosystem collapse."

COP26 underscored the need to keep the 1.5C degree goal within reach, she said, adding that everyone now knows that climate impacts are "the greatest dividers: they hit vulnerable communities everywhere; and they disproportionately impact the ability of developing countries to prosper and thrive."

She said that protecting ecosystems will help us keep closing the key greenhouse gas emissions gap by 2030 – "a gap that is unfortunately widening, not shrinking."

Ms. Mohammed noted that progress on a legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution provides "a chance to truly make a difference, one that shows again the value of multilateralism", stressing that Africa has led the way. 

34 out of 54 countries have already put in place legislation on single used plastics bags, she said, "and I encourage more countries to follow suit.

"Today, no area of the planet is left untouched by plastic pollution, from deep sea sediment, to Mount Everest. The planet deserves a truly multilateral solution to this scourge that affects us all. An agreement that speaks from source to sea."

 

'Delay means death': We're running out of ways to adapt to the climate crisis, new report shows. Here are the key takeaways

Rachel Ramirez

Climate change is on course to transform life on Earth as we know it, and unless global warming is dramatically slowed, billions of people and other species will reach points where they can no longer adapt to the new normal, according to a major report published Monday.

The UN-backed report, based on years of research from hundreds of scientists, found that the impacts from human-caused climate change were larger than previously thought. The report's authors say these impacts are happening much faster and are more disruptive and widespread than scientists expected 20 years ago.

The authors point to enormous inequities in the climate crisis, finding that those who contribute the least to the problem are the worst affected, and warn of irreversible impacts if the world exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report "an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership," and he warned that "delay means death."

"The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal," Guterres said in a statement. "The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home."

He also said that "current events" showed the world was too reliant of fossil fuels, calling them "a dead end," in an apparent reference to the Ukraine conflict and energy crisis.

Here are the report's key takeaways:

Warming beyond 1.5 degrees could have irreversible consequences

Bleaching of the coral reefs around French Polynesia in 2019.

Scientists have warned for decades warming needs to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Monday's report, from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), showed if that limit is breached, some changes will be irreversible for hundreds — if not thousands — of years. And some changes may be permanent, even if the planet cools back down.

The world is already 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than before industrialization, according to the IPCC's estimate, which is considered conservative. We are now rapidly barreling toward 1.5 degrees.

Greenhouse gas emissions will push warming to 1.5ºC

The world is on track to warm at least 1.5º Celsius above pre-industrial levels in five scenarios considered in the IPCC report. Only the lowest emission scenario, in which carbon dioxide emissions decline to net zero around 2050, would eventually bring the planet below this key mark.

With every extreme event, ecosystems are being pushed more toward so-called tipping points beyond which irreversible changes can happen, according to the report.

At warming of 2 degrees, for example, as many as 18% of all land species will be at high risk of extinction, according to the report. At 4 degrees, 50% of species are threatened.

"There are many challenges already with 1.5 degrees for several systems that we know about," said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair on the report and a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research.

"Clearly for coral reefs, we must say that in many locations, they are already beyond tipping points. They are on the downslide."

A man works in the Swiss Alps at the Rhone Glacier in October 2021, which is partially covered with insulating foam to prevent it from melting due to global warming.

Highly vulnerable ecosystems in the Arctic, mountains and on the coasts are at the greatest risk to these changes, the authors say. Ice sheet and glacier melt will cause accelerated sea level rise, irreversible for centuries.

Forests, peatlands and permafrost — places where greenhouse gas is naturally stored — risk being pushed into a situation where they are emitting those gases into the atmosphere, causing even more warming.

We're running out of ways to adapt

"Adaptation" is finding ways to live with the change — like putting up walls to ward off sea level rise or implementing new building codes to ensure homes can withstand more extreme weather.

Scientists note some of our adaptations have blunted the impact of the climate crisis so far, but they are not adequate in the long-term. Our options to adapt will become even more limited at 1.5 degrees.

A flood defense wall being constructed on the east side of Manhattan in New York City on December 11, 2021.

And although the natural world has adapted to changing climates over millions of years, the pace of human-caused global warming is pushing many of the planet's most critical systems — like rainforests, coral reefs and the Arctic — to the brink. More extreme weather doesn't just affect humans, it is causing mass die-offs in plants and animals.

Population growth and development, which has not been carried out with long-term adaptation in mind, are also luring people into harm's way. As many as 3.6 billion people live in places already highly vulnerable to climate hazards, some of which will increase beyond the ability to adapt once the planet hits the 1.5-degree mark.

A lot of the world's resources, particularly international finance, goes toward reducing greenhouse emissions, which is known as mitigation. At the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, developing nations complained that the rich world was failing to help adequately fund adaptation in their countries.

Residents fill water containers during a shortage in Nairobi, Kenya, in January.

"We have seen that the vast majority of climate finance goes towards mitigation rather than adaptation," said Adelle Thomas, an author on the report and a climate scientist at the University of the Bahamas. "So although adaptation is taking place, there is not enough funding, and it is not a high priority, which are then leading to these limits."

Up to 3 billion people will experience 'chronic water scarcity'

Around half of the world's population experiences severe water scarcity each year in part due to climate-related factors, the report showed. Water will become even more scarce at higher global temperatures.

At 2 degrees of warming — which scientists predict the planet will reach by midcentury — as many as three billion people around the world will experience "chronic water scarcity," according to the report. It increases to four billion people at 4 degrees.

Water shortages will put enormous pressure on food production and increase the world's already dire food-security challenges.

A water crisis is already brewing in the Western United States. Multiyear drought has drained reservoirs and triggered unprecedented water cuts for the region. Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir, plunged to record lows in recent months, threatening water supply for tens of millions of people.

Dead almond trees lie in an open field after they were removed by a farmer because of a lack of water to irrigate them, in Huron, California, in July 2021. The authors say drought has put a hard limit on adaptation for almond growing.

Most of the Middle East is experiencing high levels of water stress, expected to worsen the more the Earth warms, raising questions over how long those parts of the region will remain inhabitable. Vast swaths of Africa have also struggled in recent years with prolonged drought.

The report focuses on the interconnectedness between the Earth's ecosystems and humans, including how the climate crisis is altering water resources.

"What we really wanted to show is that ecosystems and all sectors of human society and human well-being fundamentally depends on water," Tabea Lissner, a scientist at Climate Analytics and an author on the report, told CNN. "And it's not just the water resource itself that plays an important role in water security, but also what form and in what quality we can access it, and really showing how many different ways climate change really affects humans and ecosystems through various channels."

Flooding in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on September 7, 2021.

The people who are least responsible are the most affected

The countries that emit the least planet-warming gases, mainly those in the Global South and island territories, tend to be the ones disproportionately harmed by climate hazards, the report showed.

"We live in an unequal world," Eric Chu, an author of the report and scientist at University of California, Davis, told CNN. "The losses are inequitably distributed among communities, especially those communities that have historically been disadvantaged from decision-making, and now we're seeing some of that inequality manifest as well in the choices we make to adapt."

Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at CNRS Ecology Station and an author of the report, said as climate change worsens, more Indigenous people will lose the land, water and biodiversity they depend on.

An overhead view of Ejit in the Marshall Islands, which are being increasingly overwhelmed by sea level rise.

"There's increasing evidence that many Indigenous communities that do rely a lot more on the natural systems for their food and their livelihoods are not only the most exposed, because those natural systems are being very heavily impacted, but they're the most vulnerable because often they're there in areas with high poverty or poor access to health care," Parmesan said.

As the climate crisis advances, more people will be forced to relocate, adding stress and vulnerability to other regions.

"When the Earth doesn't become farmable, the dependence in the livelihood that communities have on farming and on production of food, not only will the incomes be lost, but that food security will be lost," said Vivek Shandas, a professor of climate adaptation and urban policy at Portland State University, who was not involved with the report. "That ability to survive every day is lost. As humans, throughout history, we moved from places that are less habitable to places that are more attainable and habitable."

We can still avoid the worst

Employees from Akfen Renewable Energy Group's Canakkale Wind Power Plant in Turkey do a routine maintenance check of equipment on the top of a wind turbine in December 2021.

While many regions in the developing world are unable to adapt because of a lack of finance and capacity, the IPCC singles out North America as a region where misinformation and politicization are a barrier.

That's led to a misunderstanding of how great the risk is, and has polarized the response to the crisis, ultimately "delaying urgent adaptation planning and implementation," the report's authors say.

In Europe, they note a lack of political leadership and a low sense of urgency are among the hurdles to overcome.

But these are barriers that can be overcome, and the authors say there is still a window of opportunity to implement meaningful action — though it's closing, fast.

"There are opportunities to adapt between now and 1.5 [degrees]," in addition to making deep cuts to heat-trapping fossil fuel emissions, Chu said. "But as we go beyond 1.5, the opportunity space becomes much more constrained and reduces the effectiveness."

Lissner said the report is "an urgent call for action" for world leaders to move toward climate-resilient development: reducing emissions as low as possible while also investing in adaptation to cope with the changes we already see.

Decision makers also need to be intentional in helping the most disadvantaged communities and countries, so no one gets left behind in the process.

"It's important for this to also be done in an inclusive or equitable manner," Lissner said, "looking into how the most vulnerable regions can really be supported in adaptation."

CNN's Angela Dewan contributed to this report

IPCC: Climate change report to sound warning on impacts

A new report on the impacts of climate change will likely be the most worrying assessment yet of how rising temperatures affect every living thing.

This will be the second of three major reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its first since November's COP26 summit.

Scientists and officials will publish their conclusions on 28 February.

The study will focus heavily on regional impacts as well as on cities and coastal communities.

The IPCC carries out these large-scale reviews of the latest research on warming every six or seven years on behalf of governments. This set of three is their sixth assessment report.

Researchers are formed into three working groups that look at the basic science, the scale of the impacts and the options for tackling the problem.

For many major cities and developing countries, the report will highlight that tackling climate change is not about cutting emissions and hitting net zero sometime in the future, but about dealing with far more short-term threats.

"It is always the immediate, that takes precedence. So if you've got to deal with a big influx of migrants, or a massive flood event, that's where the focus is going to be," said Mark Watts, the executive director of the C40 group, a network of around 100 major cities that are collaborating to tackle climate change.

"In the global south, there really aren't any city climate programme funds at the moment. Of those that exist, almost none of them are about adaptation. They're all trying to get poor countries that have relatively low emissions, to reduce their emissions further, not about adapting to the impacts that they're already feeling."

In Kenya, prolonged drought has pushed pastoralists off their land

Under the umbrella of the IPCC, scientists working on the report, who all volunteer for this work, review and write up thousands of papers to summarise the latest findings.

They then meet with government officials to go through their findings line by line and, upon reaching consensus, a short summary of their findings is published.

The study will also outline key "tipping points" that are likely to be passed as the world warms - some of which are irreversible like the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet.

The report will also look at some of the technological solutions to climate change, but is likely to be quite dismissive of efforts to manage solar radiation or even to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Overall it will have a much broader focus than just the science of what we can do about climate change.

Adaptation in action

People clearing a sewer in Lagos

Home to more than 24 million, Lagos in Nigeria is Africa's most populated city - but one that's hugely vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise. Making the situation worse is the problem of rubbish and waste that collects in canals and rivers. Dealing with this issue could be key to helping the city cope with the changes brought about by a changing climate.

"One of the one of the things that needs to change in Lagos to reduce that flooding impact is actually to get a grip of the waste management system," said Mark Watts from C40. "Supportive investing in the city for them to get really strong municipal waste collection, proper household collection, and getting it properly treated is going to solve two things at once."

"The report will talk about social justice more, and it will talk about sustainable development more. It does talk about indigenous and traditional knowledge, not just published Western science," said Dr Stephen Cornelius from WWF.

"This is about the impacts on people and nature, the risks they face and the limits to adaptation as well."

Tussle over words

But as scientists and officials meet virtually to thrash out the final details, a tussle has emerged over the use of a key phrase in the text.

The melting of Arctic sea ice in the summer may be an important tipping point for climate change

For years, developing countries have been trying to get the richer world to respond within UN climate negotiation to the issue of "loss and damage".

They define the phrase to mean the impacts of climate change that countries cannot adapt to, including severe weather such as major storms but also slow-onset events like sea level rise or desertification. Richer countries have long opposed the concept, fearing they could be held legally and financially responsible for centuries for the disruption caused by historic emissions of carbon dioxide. As a result this issue has become a hugely divisive political issue within global climate talks.

In this new report, the IPCC scientists are seeking to use a slightly amended version of the term, talking about "losses and damages," which they say has a different, less political meaning.

But officials from several richer governments attending the approval session have objected, fearing that if the idea appears in a key report, it will give backing to those countries who want "loss and damage" to be the top priority for international negotiations.

A man runs from a fire in Colombia

Ultimately this report will stress urgency - that if rapid action is taken on cutting greenhouse gases and spending on helping people adapt to climate change is ramped up, then the worst risks can be avoided.

But this hope has to be measured against the reality of politics, according to co-chair Prof Hans-Otto Pörtner.

"One key message has come out of previous reports - political will, in terms of climate action, is the bottleneck for a sustainable future."

Women building a sustainable future: fighting back the desert, amid Niger’s refugee and climate crises

UN NEWS
WOMEN

© UNHCR/Colin Delfosse I Malian refugees tend vegetables in Ouallam, Tillaberi region, Niger.

Internal displacement, regional instability, and climate change have created a refugee crisis in Niger, but an initiative in the town of Ouallam is showing how different communities can work together to survive, and improve the local environment.

© UNHCR/Colin Delfosse I A Malian refugee in Ouallam, Niger.

In the dusty plains outside Ouallam, a town some 100 kilometres north of Niger’s capital Niamey, verdant rows of vegetables sprout from the soil in neat plots. Adding further contrast to the parched surroundings, women in bright shawls walk among the rows, checking irrigation pipes and adding a splash of water to any thirsty-looking specimens.

‘We are very happy to work together’

The 450 or so women who work this land are drawn from three distinct communities: some are locals, others were displaced by conflict and insecurity elsewhere in Niger, and the rest are refugees from neighbouring Mali.

“We did this all together with the different communities: the refugees, the displaced, and the local community of Ouallam. We are very happy to work together,” says 35-year-old Rabi Saley, who settled in the area after fleeing armed attacks in her hometown Menaka, 100 kilometres further north across the border in Mali.

The produce she grows – including potatoes, onions, cabbages, bell peppers and watermelons – helps to feed her seven children and provide an income by selling the surplus at a local market. Since its creation, the market garden project has also helped smooth the arrival of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people to the town.

“When we learned that they were going to settle here, we were afraid and unhappy,” recalls Katima Adamou, a 48-year-old woman from Ouallam who has her own plot nearby. “We thought that they were going to make our life impossible, but instead it’s been the opposite.”

Adapting to the changing climate

Political unrest and frequent attacks by armed groups in Mali and Nigeria have pushed 250,000 refugees, most from Mali and Nigeria, to seek safety in Niger, whilst violence within the country’s own borders has forced a further 264,000 internally displaced people from their homes.

© UNHCR/Colin Delfosse I A Malian refugee tends vegetables at the market garden in Ouallam, Niger.

Meanwhile, climate change is pushing up temperatures in the Sahel at 1.5 times the global average, and the 4.4 million people forcibly displaced across the region are among the most exposed to the devastating impacts of drought, flooding and dwindling resources.

In Ouallam’s market garden – an initiative launched in April 2020 by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency – the women have learned to nourish their plants using drip irrigation to minimize evaporation and preserve scarce water resources.

An added benefit of the project is its role in helping Nigeriens adapt to the changing climate. By cultivating a large swathe of formerly degraded land near the town and planting trees, they are helping to stave off the desertification that threatens large parts of the country.

Building blocks of sustainable development

In another part of Ouallam, a further boost to community integration and environmental protection comes from a less likely source. The town brickyard employs 200 men and women – refugees, internally displaced and locals – in the manufacture of stabilized soil bricks.

Made by combining soil with small amounts of sand, cement and water before compacting and drying in the sun, the interlocking bricks reduce the need for cement mortar during construction. Crucially, they also eliminate the need to burn large amounts of scarce wood or other fuel used in the firing of traditional clay bricks.

“After, these bricks are used to build houses for the people supported by UNHCR – the refugees, the internally displaced, as well as a part of the vulnerable host community,” explained Elvis Benge, a UNHCR shelter officer in Niger.

“Ultimately, the refugees and the populations who host them are the engines of change and can support themselves and ensure the resilience of their communities,” Benge added.

Back in the market garden, having worked with her new neighbours to meet the challenge of daily survival as well as era-defining crises beyond their control, Ms. Saley stands surrounded by the fruits of her labour and reflects on a job well done.

“We have become one community – I even got married here!” she says. “The woman blossoms, just like the plants!”

This story is part of multimedia UN News series featuring women leading initiatives for a more sustainable, equitable future, published ahead of this year’s International Women’s Day on 08 March.

Air pollution may affect sperm quality, says study

Sofia Quaglia

To establish the quality of the semen, the researchers zeroed in on factors such as sperm count, concentration, and sperm motility. Photograph: Roman Kybus/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Research into samples of 30,000 men in China suggests ability of sperm to swim in right direction could be affected

Air pollution may affect semen quality, specifically sperm motility — the ability of sperm to swim in the right direction — according to a new study analysing the sperm of over 30,000 men in China.

The research, published today in the journal JAMA Networks, also suggests that the smaller the size of the polluting particles in the air, the greater the link with poor semen quality.

“Our findings suggest that smaller particulate matter size fractions may be more potent than larger fractions in inducing poor sperm motility,” wrote the authors of the paper. The researchers believe that these findings highlight yet another reason for the need to reduce exposure to air pollution among men in their reproductive age.

Researchers have long been trying to establish whether there’s a link between air pollution and sperm quality, but it’s been unclear whether the former has adverse health effects on male fertility because the results from studies are often inconsistent among themselves and complicated to put into perspective. There does appear to be reason to believe that pollution may negatively affect fertility in general for the whole of the population, as suggested in this international literature review published in December 2021.

Researchers at the School of Medicine of Tongji University in Shanghailooked at data records from a total of 33,876 men from 340 Chinese cities, aged 34 on average, with a varied degree of exposure to air pollution among them, and whose wives got pregnant through assisted reproduction technology with their sperm between January 2013 and December 2019.

They then looked for patterns between semen quality in relation to whether the participants had been exposed to amounts of particulate matter smaller in diameter than 2.5 micrometres, between 2.5 and 10 micrometres, and 10 micrometres, in various key moments of the 90 days before their visit to the hospital for semen ejaculation. To establish the quality of the semen, the researchers concentrated on factors such as sperm count, concentration, and sperm motility.

Although the researchers couldn’t find a significant link between air pollution and sperm quality in terms of sperm count or concentration — they did find that the more a participant was exposed to smaller particulate matter, the lower both the progressive and the total sperm motility was. Progressive sperm motility is the sperm’s ability to swim forward, while total sperm motility simply refers to the sperm’s ability to swim in general.

Specifically, when exposed to particulate matter smaller in diameter than 2.5 micrometres. there was an estimated decrease in sperm motility of 3.6%, while when exposed to particulate matter of 10 micrometres in diameter, there was 2.44% less sperm motility. Meaning that it’s possible that different size fractions of particulate matter might have differing effects on semen quality, maybe because the smaller the particulate matter, the more likely it is to travel deeper into the human lungs.

The data indicates that the effects of pollution are more prominent when exposure takes place during the initial part of the 90 days of sperm creation — the one called spermatogenesis — rather than the other two phases. This, in turn, may mean that particulate matter affects sperm on a genetic level, according to the researchers, but these are just speculations, and there’s more research to be done in this area.

“The possibility of a link between air pollution and semen quality has been suggested in a number of studies over the years, although not all of them have agreed with this conclusion,” said Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield, who was not involved in the research. “This paper adds to the evidence base suggesting the link is real, and is impressive because it uses semen quality data from over 30,000 men.”

“But the level of decline in sperm motility seems to be quite low,” said Pacey, stressing that correlation is not causation. He noted that the paper failed to provide any information about the morphology, shape and size of the sperm, which made it impossible to determine whether pollution might be responsible for deformation of sperm and that’s why their motility is decreased, or whether there were other reasons.

According to Pacey, it is important to take these findings with a pinch of salt. Although the data suggests that pollution may have a negative effect on sperm mobility, there still isn’t enough information to infer whether this can have a significant clinical effect at large, and result in the overall decrease of the ability of men in high pollution areas to become fathers. More research out in the field might help answer that question with more certainty in the future.

New environmental report offers solutions for ‘triple planetary crisis’

Deadly wildfires, noise pollution and other looming environmental threats could cause widespread ecological damage, and need to be urgently addressed, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new report published on Thursday.

“The Frontiers Report identifies and offers solutions to three environmental issues that merit attention and action from governments and the public at large,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

Noise, Blazes and Mismatches: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern, the sixth report, draws attention to emerging environmental concerns with the potential to wreak regional or global havoc, if not addressed early.

Disrupting natural life cycles

© WMO/Na Kihwan I A view of Seoul in South Korea.

The latest report, released days before the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) resumes, spotlights growing public health threats that are disrupting natural life cycles and having profound ecological consequences worldwide.

“Urban noise pollution, wildfires and phenological shifts – the three topics of this Frontiers Report – are issues that highlight the urgent need to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” said Ms. Andersen.

Noise pollution: A raucous killer

Unwanted, prolonged and high-level sounds from road traffic, railways, or leisure activities, impair human health and well-being, according to the report.

Chronic annoyance and sleep disturbance caused by traffic can result in severe heart diseases and metabolic disorders with the very young, and mostly affect the elderly and marginalized communities near busy roads.

Noise pollution also threatens animals by altering the communication and behaviour of various species, including birds, insects, and amphibians.

The report encourages urban planners to prioritize noise reduction by investing in urban infrastructure that creates positive soundscapes such as tree belts, green walls, and more green spaces in cities – also offering diverse health benefits.

London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, Berlin’s new cycle lanes on wide roads, and Egypt’s national plan to combat noise, are positive examples that can be harnessed as the world builds back better from COVID.

Plant and animal rhythms

Phenology is the timing of recurring life cycle stages, driven by environmental forces, and how species interacting within an ecosystem, respond to changing conditions.

Plants and animals in terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems use temperature, day length or rainfall as cues for when to bear fruit, migrate or transform in other ways.

However, climate change disrupts these natural rhythms as plants and animals are being pushed out of synch with their natural rhythms, leading to mismatches, such as when plants shift life cycle stages faster than herbivores, the report says.

Meanwhile, local climatic cues that trigger migration for birds may no longer accurately predict conditions at their destination and resting sites along the route.

And in crops, phenological shifts in seasonal variations challenge food production.

The report flags the crucial importance of conservation goals, such as maintaining suitable habitats and ecological connectivity, strengthening the integrity of biological diversity and coordinating international efforts along migratory routes.

Above all, it underscores the importance of reducing CO2 emissions to limit the rate of warming.

Stem wildfires 

The report outlined that between 2002 and 2016, an average of 423 million hectares of the Earth’s land surface – about the size of the European Union – burned, projecting that dangerous wildfires will likely become more frequent, intense and longer lasting, including in areas previously unaffected by fires.

Climate change can prompt extreme wildfires, generating lightning that can ignite other fires, far beyond the fire front and creating a so-called hazardous feedback loop.

Unsplash/Mikhail Serdyukov I Climate change increases the risk of hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

Long-term effects on human health extend beyond those fighting wildfires, or the evacuated, or those who have lost homes, and exacerbate impacts among those with pre-existing illness, women, children, the elderly and the poor.

At the same time, black carbon and other pollutants generated from wildfires can contaminate water sources, speed up glacier melt, trigger landslides and turn rainforests into carbon sinks.

To address this, the report calls for greater investment in reducing wildfire risks; developing prevention and response management approaches; and refinancing remote sensing capabilities, such as satellites and radar.

 

Pharmaceuticals in rivers threaten world health - study

Jonah Fisher

Pollution of the world's rivers from medicines and pharmaceutical products poses a "threat to environmental and global health", a report says.

DR JOHN WILKINSON I The Blue River in Tunis has one of the highest pharmaceutical concentrations, the study shows.

Paracetamol, nicotine, caffeine and epilepsy and diabetes drugs were widely detected in a University of York study. 

The research is among the most extensive undertaken on a global scale.

Rivers in Pakistan, Bolivia and Ethiopia were among the most polluted. Rivers in Iceland, Norway and the Amazon rainforest fared the best.

The impact of many of the most common pharmaceutical compounds in rivers is still largely unknown.

But it is already well established that dissolved human contraceptives can impact the development and reproduction of fish, and scientists fear the increased presence of antibiotics in rivers could limit their effectiveness as medicines.

DR JOHN WILKINSON I This section of the Nam Khan river in Laos generally has low concentrations of pharmaceuticals

The study sampled water from more than 1,000 test sites in more than 100 countries. 

Overall, more than a quarter of the 258 rivers sampled had what are known as "active pharmaceutical ingredients" present at a level deemed unsafe for aquatic organisms. 

"Typically, what happens is, we take these chemicals, they have some desired effects on us and then they leave our bodies," Dr John Wilkinson, who led the research, told BBC News.

"What we know now is that even the most modern efficient wastewater treatment plants aren't completely capable of degrading these compounds before they end up in rivers or lakes."

The two most frequently detected pharmaceuticals were carbamazepine, which is used to treat epilepsy and nerve pain, and metformin, used to treat diabetes.

High concentrations were also found of so-called "lifestyle consumables" like caffeine [coffee] and nicotine [cigarettes] as well as the painkiller paracetamol. 

In Africa, artemisinin - used in anti-malarial medicine - was also found in high concentrations.

"We can say [the impact of the presence of such pharmaceuticals in rivers] is likely to be negative but you have to do individual tests with each one and there are relatively few studies," Dr Veronica Edmonds-Brown, an aquatic ecologist from the UK's University of Hertfordshire told BBC News. 

"This is only going to get worse as we are increasingly using pharmacological solutions to any illness whether physical or mental."

The report says the increased presence of antibiotics in rivers could also lead to the development of resistant bacteria, damaging the effectiveness of medicines and ultimately posing "a global threat to environmental and global health". 

The most polluted sites were largely in low- to middle-income countries, and in areas where there was sewage dumping, poor wastewater management and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

"We have seen contaminated rivers in Nigeria and in South Africa with very high concentrations of pharmaceuticals and this is basically down to the lack of infrastructure in wastewater treatment," said Dr Mohamed Abdallah, associate professor of emerging contaminants at the UK's Birmingham University. 

DR JOHN WILKINSON I The Nairobi River in Kenya - among the world's waterways most contaminated by pharmaceuticals

"This is most concerning because you have the most vulnerable populations with the least access to healthcare exposed to this."

On the question of what can be done, the lead author of the report, Dr Wilkinson, has a somewhat depressing outlook. 

"It's going to take many people who are a lot smarter than me to tackle the problem," he said. "One of the few things that could have an effect right now is the proper use of medicines."

That would mean making it harder to get hold of medicines like antibiotics, and tighter restrictions on doses.

Adapting to climate change ‘happening worldwide’, essential

The impacts of climate change are already “very visible” and “happening worldwide”, the head of the UN weather agency told the start of the 55th Session of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which convened on Monday.

The meeting opened to approve the report of the second IPCC Working Group focusing on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change which will be added to the Sixth Assessment Report later this month. 

The report of the first IPCC Working Group, which focussed on the physical science of climate change, influenced the work of the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, COP26, last year. 

“The impacts of #climatechange are visible and happening world-wide.” – @WMO SG Petteri Taalas at today’s opening ceremony for the 55th Session of the #IPCC. pic.twitter.com/Zvao7iM5FO

— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) February 14, 2022

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas reminded delegates that during COP26, “there was not a single head of State who questioned the scientific facts”, saying the message had got through and “has been heard”. 

Disaster impacts 

The WMO chief noted that some areas of the world such as tropical latitudes and developing countries, especially in Africa, Southern Asia, and the Pacific islands, are particularly vulnerable to climate change.  

Last year WMO published a report on disaster statistics, which demonstrated that for the past 50 years, 4.5 billion people have experienced a major weather-related disaster over the past 20 years.  

And while there has been a drop in casualties thanks to improved early warning services, dramatic increases in economic losses have occurred.  

Only a week ago, in Madagascar, deadly Cyclone Batisirai was a Category 4 storm “and had severe impacts on the economy and human well-being”, said Mr. Taalas.  

“We have to be careful how we communicate these facts. We have to separate impacts from natural variability to impacts from climate change”.  

Moving target 

According to earlier thinking, 2°C was an ambitious enough climate change target.  

However, the UNFCC’s previous special report revealed that the impact of 1.5°C would be “a game changer”.  

“After that, 1.5°C became the desired outcome of climate mitigation work for the coming years”, said the WMO chief. 

However, despite that COP26 was the second most successful conference after Paris, he observed that the 1.5°C target is “barely alive”.  

“The work needs to continue”, he spelled out. 

Adaptation imperative 

Citing a growing trend of rising sea levels, glaciers melting and continuing disasters, the top WMO official underscored the importance of adaptation.  

“Climate change impacts are related to economy, food security, infrastructure, the biosphere and health”, he said. “We have to adapt to climate change. That means droughts, flooding, tropical storms, heatwaves, water shortages, coastal inundation”.  

Later this year, COP27 will take place in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, followed next year by COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.  

“We hope to hear more pledges at those conferences. We are working for such a goal. The next COP will have a more Africa flavour. It is the most vulnerable continent”, he said. 

Stepping up, stepping in 

Explaining that “major gaps” in African countries and Caribbean islands are obstacle for climate adaptation, Mr. Taalas said that WMO is focussing attention on Multi-hazard Early Warning services to forecast the impacts of disasters. 

He drew attention to a new financing mechanism to enhance observation systems, a new water and climate coalition that pays attention to water shortages and an enhanced partnership with the UN Disaster Risk Reduction office (UNDRR) to form “a centre of excellence on climate change and disasters”.  

“We are working together with financing institutions like World Bank, European Union, UNDP, Green Climate Fund, to allocate more finance to early warning services”, stated the WMO chief.  

© UNICEF/Inti Ocon/AFP-Services I Destruction and flooding caused by Hurricane Iota left thousands of people homeless across Nicaragua..

 Laying out 'past and future changes'

The Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme  (UNEP), Inger Anderson, also cited COP26 in pointing out that “the work of the IPCC underpins climate action”.

She noted that the first Working Group’s report “kept up the pressure on world leaders” and its relevance was clear in many of the delegates’ statements as well as in the final decision taken at Glasgow.

“Now it is the turn of Working Group II to lay out the latest evidence on how past and future changes to Earth’s climate system impact life on our planet”, Ms. Anderson said.

“This report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability will integrate more strongly across the natural, social and economic sciences…highlight[ing] the role of social justice and indigenous knowledge”, she added.

Delivering across time zones 

Chairing the meeting, Hoesung Lee informed the participants that this was the final phase of a "strict and meticulous review process" of the report. 

Over the next two weeks, Governments and scientists collectively will deliver a "sound, tested and robust summary...critically important for policymakers around the world,” he said. 

“I have no doubt that we will see constructive and collaborative work in the next two weeks as we work across all time zones to deliver this report.”.