Climate
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Kerry to visit Greece, Indonesia, Vietnam
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry will travel to Athens, Greece, August 28-29 to meet with government counterparts on efforts to reduce global emissions, decarbonize ocean-based shipping, and continue the momentum of the Our Ocean Conferences.
From August 30-September 1, Secretary Kerry will travel to Bali, Indonesia to attend the G20 Climate and Environment Ministerial Meeting, where he will meet with government counterparts to further enhance cooperation on the climate crisis and highlight the positive climate impact of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Read: Act now on climate front, listen to countries like Bangladesh: Bachelet
Kerry will then travel to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 2-4, and Hanoi, Vietnam, September 4-6 to meet with government officials, civil society representatives, and business leaders to build consensus on key actions to address the climate crisis and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.
This trip will also be an opportunity to engage in discussions on climate cooperation ahead of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP27) to be hosted in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt November 6-18, 2022, according to the US Department of State.
Act now on climate front, listen to countries like Bangladesh: Bachelet
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has said the international community “must heed” the voice of specially affected countries like Bangladesh and act to deploy every possible resource to make the human right to a healthy environment a reality for all.
“Now is the time for action. We have spoken a lot, and we must walk the talk,” she said hours before wrapping up her four-day visit to Bangladesh on Wednesday, urging the international community to listen to countries like Bangladesh and act with "unity, purpose and solidarity".
Bachelet said they know what they need to do, the challenge is moving their political leaders at international level to the point where they realise that the costs of inaction are far higher than those of doing the right thing.
She hoped that in the next steps and at the international level, including at the end of the year in the discussion of the post-2020 biodiversity framework, that the international community will take steps to walk the talk and not to just discuss in closed rooms about this. “So as I said, we know what we need to do. We need political will to move forward on this.”
Also read: Election period in Bangladesh to be important time to maximise civic, political space: Bachelet
While speaking at a programme titled “New Frontiers of Human Rights: Climate Justice in Perspective” organized by Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) at the BIISS auditorium the UN rights chief said, “So, we need to draw a new way of living, working and reaching our individual, collective potential in peace with each other and with our planet.”
She said Bangladesh is very much at the frontline of this issue, both in terms of the effects of climate change on the country, but also due to its vital role as an actor for change.
The World Bank estimates that Bangladesh may have almost 20 million internal climate migrants by 2050 – corresponding to roughly 12 % of the entire population of Bangladesh or the entire population of her own home country, Chile.
Specifically, with a projected 50 cm rise in sea level, as mentioned before, Bangladesh may lose approximately 11% of its land by then, and that would mean up to 18 million people may have to migrate because of sea-level rise alone.
“Climate change impacts access to food more broadly. Rising temperatures and heat stress are already affecting rice production in parts of Bangladesh,” Bachelet said.
She said Bangladesh has made important progress in meeting the SDGs on poverty and education. “I commend Bangladesh on its ambitious vision for economic development and with a view to graduating from “Least Developed Country” status in 2026.”
Bachelet said at the same time, stronger efforts are needed to meet SDG 5 on gender equality and SDG 10 on reducing inequality.
This includes working towards eliminating child marriage, tackling gender-based violence, ensuring the right of every child to education, and enacting both short- and long-term special measures to reduce income inequality, among other steps, she said.
Also read: Civil society needs 'space, enabling conditions': Bachelet
In addition, Bachelet said, Bangladesh’s sustainable development efforts should occur in line with SDG 16 by promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.
This includes strengthening the national human rights commission, the elections commission, the judiciary, expanding civic space for public debate (both on and offline) and ensuring civil society participation in the design and implementation of economic and social development plans, she mentioned.
China and US spar over climate on Twitter
The world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases are sparring on Twitter over climate policy, with China questioning whether the U.S. can deliver on the landmark climate legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden this week.
“You can bet America will meet our commitments,” U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tweeted in response on Wednesday, using a national flag emoticon for “America." He called on China to resume suspended climate talks, writing: “We're ready."
The punchy exchange, part of a longer back and forth on Twitter, is emblematic of a broader worry: U.S.-China cooperation is widely considered vital to the success of global efforts to curb rising temperatures. With the breakdown in relations over Taiwan and other issues, some question whether the two sides can cooperate.
After Congress passed the climate bill last Friday, Burns took to Twitter over the weekend to say the U.S. was acting on climate change with its largest investment ever — and that China should follow.
On Tuesday night, China's Foreign Ministry responded with its own tweet: “Good to hear. But what matters is: Can the U.S. deliver?”
The verbal skirmish grew out of China's suspension of talks with the U.S. on climate and several other issues earlier this month as part of its protest over a visit to Taiwan by a senior American lawmaker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Climate has been one of the few areas of cooperation between the feuding countries. U.S. officials criticized China's move, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying it “doesn’t punish the United States — it punishes the world.”
Read:China sets sanctions on Taiwan figures to punish US, island
Asked to respond, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called on the U.S. last week to "deliver on its historical responsibilities and due obligations on climate change and stop looking around for excuses for its inaction.”
The ministry later tweeted some of his answer, and Burns responded four days later with his tweet on the U.S. climate bill. Using the acronym for the People's Republic of China, he ended with: “The PRC should follow+reconsider its suspension of climate cooperation with the U.S.”
China elaborated on its “Can the U.S. deliver?" message with a second tweet that suggested U.S. actions, including lifting sanctions imposed last year on solar industry exports from China's Xinjiang region because of allegations of forced labor.
The Twitter battle highlights a perception divide between the longstanding superpower that wants to lead and the rising power that no longer wants to feel bound to follow anyone else's direction.
The decision by former President Donald Trump to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord — reversed by Biden after he took office last year — dealt a blow to American credibility on the issue.
A Chinese expert praised parts of the U.S. legislation but said it is overdue and not enough.
“Although there are some breakthrough achievements in the bill, I am afraid it can’t re-establish U.S. leadership on climate change,” said Teng Fei, a professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Energy Environment and Economy.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has been pressing China to set more ambitious climate goals. China has responded that its goals are realistic, given its development needs as a middle-income country, while the U.S. sets ambitious goals that it fails to achieve.
China's ruling Communist Party generally sets conservative targets at a national level, because it doesn't want its performance to fall short. Those targets are sometimes exceeded, though, in the eager pursuit of those goals by local officials.
“China should be able to do better than its national targets indicate,” said Cory Combs, a senior analyst with the Trivium China consultancy. “But of course, those local plans are all subject to failure and delays, so it’s impossible to tell quite what they’ll add up to.”
Most major nations lag in acting on climate-fighting goals
For most of the major carbon-polluting nations, promising to fight climate change is a lot easier than actually doing it. In the United States, President Joe Biden has learned that the hard way.
Among the 10 biggest carbon emitters, only the European Union has enacted polices close to or consistent with international goals of limiting warming to just a few more tenths of a degrees, according to scientists and experts who track climate action in countries.
But Europe, which is broiling through a record-smashing heat wave and hosting climate talks this week, also faces a short-term winter energy crunch, which could cause the continent to backtrack a tad and push other nations into longer, dirtier energy deals, experts said.
“Even if Europe meets all of its climate goals and the rest of us don’t, we all lose,” said Kate Larsen, head of international energy and climate for the research firm Rhodium Group. Emissions of heat-trapping gases don’t stop at national borders, nor does the extreme weather that’s being felt throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
“It’s a grim outlook. There’s no getting away from it, I’m afraid,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. His group joined with the New Climate Institute to create the Climate Action Tracker, which analyzes nations’ climate targets and policies compared to the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Read: Fires scorch France, Spain; temperature-related deaths soar
The tracker describes as “insufficient” the policies and actions of the world’s top two carbon polluters, China and the U.S., as well as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. It calls Russia and South Korea’s polices “highly insufficient,” and Iran comes in as “critically insufficient.” Hare says No. 3 emitter India “remains an enigma.”
“We are losing ground against ambitious goals” such as keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, said veteran international climate negotiator Nigel Purvis of Climate Advisers. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
Seven years ago, when almost all the nations of the world were preparing for what would become the Paris climate agreement, “it was all about ambition and setting ambitious targets,” Larsen said. “Now we are transitioning into a new phase that’s really about implementation ... I don’t think the international community knows how to do implementation.”
Other nations and the United Nations can pressure countries to set goals, but enacting laws and rules is a tougher sell. While Europe has been successful with “a long history of implementing and ratcheting up existing policies,” Larsen said, that’s not the case in the United States. The U.S. is on path to cut emissions by 24% to 35% below 2005 levels by 2030, far shy of the nation’s pledge to reduce emissions by 50% to 52% in that time, according to a new analysis by Rhodium Group.
Biden is running low on options, said Larsen, a report co-author. Congress — specifically key Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — is balking on the president’s climate-fighting legislation, and the Supreme Court curbed power plant regulations.
Congressional action “was a big window of opportunity that would have allowed us to be on track to our goal,” Larsen said. A second window is available in “the suite of federal regulations that the Biden administration plans to release.”
Climate concerns grow as US helps Europe replace Russian gas
Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s point man for global energy problems, says he knows that transitioning away from the climate-wrecking pollution of fossil fuels is the only way to go. He advocates urgently for renewable energy, for energy-smart thermostats and heat pumps.
But when it comes to tackling the pressing energy challenges presented by Russia’s war on Ukraine, Hochstein also can sound like nothing as much as the West’s oilfield roustabout, taking a giant pipe wrench to the world’s near-crisis-level energy shortfalls.
Appearing before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee this month on U.S. help in Europe’s Russian-fueled energy problems, Hochstein spoke enthusiastically of prospects for a new floating natural gas terminal in Albania, new gas connections elsewhere in the Balkans, bumping up the flow of gas from Central Asia and getting gas out of Spain to the rest of Europe.
“We have to face the reality that today Europe’s system is dependent on gas,” Hochstein told the AP after the hearing. It was a relatively rare public account from an envoy whose work normally is behind the scenes. “And I need to make sure that people in the winter have heating, and they have electricity."
Read: EXPLAINER: What’s next after Russia reduced gas to Europe?
Increasingly, however, some climate advocates are expressing concern at what they see as an emphasis from the Biden administration on new, U.S.-heavy natural gas and infrastructure projects as part of an all-out effort by Europe and the U.S. to wrest Europe away from its reliance on Russian oil and gas.
Climate groups charge that new spending on building pipelines, terminals, port facilities and storage threatens to lock in increased reliance on fossil fuel for decades to come, while doing little to solve Europe’s most immediate energy crisis.
Criticism increased Tuesday, after Biden and other leaders in the Group of Seven softened their 2021 climate pledges to move away from public financing of new fossil fuel infrastructure, citing Russia’s war.
“Public support for gas infrastructure is not the climate presidency Joe Biden promised,” Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager of Friends of the Earth, said in a statement in response.
But as U.S. companies have nearly tripled America's exports of liquified natural gas to Europe in the months since Russia invaded Ukraine, Hochstein cites his immediate challenge: getting Europeans through the end of the year without freezing in their homes.
The European Union received roughly 40% of its natural gas from Russia before the war. Western-led sanctions and Russian cutoffs, as well as Europe's major switch to non-Russian suppliers, are depriving Europe of Russian natural gas.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike welcomed Hochstein's efforts to decouple Europe from Russian pipelines, and asked for more. Climate change and clean energy are “important challenges,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, chair of the Europe and Regional Security Cooperation panel where Hochstein appeared, told the AP. “But I think our No. 1 priority here needs to be to defeat Putin and help Ukraine.”
The Biden administration has struggled to ease two problems simultaneously: a global energy crunch and a rapidly heating Earth.
The shortfalls in oil and gas supplies are creating problems for European and Asian allies that if left unaddressed could threaten the united economic front against Russian President Vladimir Putin. At home, the energy shortfall is contributing to high gasoline prices, inflation and discontent that threatens Democrats in November's midterm elections and Biden's reelection down the road.
But at the same time, scientists, climate advocates and the Biden administration itself say global governments are counting down the time in the last few years left to stave off the more devastating scenarios of climate change.
The rate at which the world now burns through oil, natural gas and coal gives humans a 50-50 chance of blasting through the hoped-for maximum average temperatures targeted in the Paris climate accord within five years, the World Meteorological Organization said last month.
Some climate advocates fear the current energy shortfalls have Biden and other world leaders reverting to an oil and gas drill-and-build outlook they'd sworn off in the name of climate change, despite Biden's climate efforts elsewhere.
Many were dismayed by the joint declaration this week from Biden and other leaders in the G-7 club of wealthy democracies that it was once again OK for governments to invest in gas infrastructure as a “temporary response.”
A dangerous move, and an unnecessary one, climate advocates said of the G-7's climate step back.
“New funding for fossil fuel exploration and production infrastructure is delusional,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted after the G-7 statement. “Fossil fuels are not the answer. Renewable energy is.”
Read: Russia confirms halt of gas supply to Finland
Climate advocates are wary of what they see as Hochstein's support of some infrastructure projects in Europe for liquified natural gas.
Friends of the Earth points to his oil and gas industry ties. Those include his serving as a senior vice president for Houston-based LNG exporter Tellurian and as an advisory board member for Ukraine's state-owned Naftogaz, before resigning in 2020 to protest corruption he outlined in a newspaper column. In Hochstein's government position, Biden has entrusted him with top policy missions, including working with oil giant Saudi Arabia at a time of frosty relations.
Hochstein described the U.S.-backed LNG buildout in Europe as essential to blocking Russia from wielding power over Europe's energy and economy.
“Unfortunately, we don't have the clean infrastructure to replace natural gas in the short- or medium-term,” Hochstein told the AP. “So that is a tough and difficult balance to have. But that is what we're committed to.
“And I agree with all those who say this only strengthens the absolute need to accelerate the energy transition” from oil and gas, he added.
Energy experts with environmental groups say there are cleaner ways to break from Russian gas.
Moving faster to curb gas flaring and venting by the energy industry, and plug natural gas leaks — both things the Biden administration already has pledged to work on — could get fast results without damaging the climate further, said Mark Brownstein, a senior vice president for energy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Brownstein pointed to an International Energy Agency finding that the fossil fuel industry leaked or otherwise wasted more natural gas last year than all the gas used across Europe's power sector.
Natural gas is mostly methane. Methane from agriculture and fossil fuels alone drives about a quarter of all climate damage.
David Kieve, president of the Environmental Defense Fund's advocacy arm, said the days have “come and gone” from when natural gas could be considered a “bridge fuel.” He was director of public engagement at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality in Biden's first year.
"I think there’s an understanding that we need to go even much much faster.”
Climate-driven flooding poses well water contamination risks
After a record-setting Midwestern rainstorm that damaged thousands of homes and businesses, Stefanie Johnson’s farmhouse in Blandinsville, Illinois, didn’t have safe drinking water for nearly two months.
Flood water poured into her well, turning the water a muddy brown and forcing Johnson, her husband and their two young children to use store-bought supplies. Even after sediment cleared, testing found bacteria — including E. coli, which can cause diarrhea. The family boiled water for drinking and cooking. The YMCA was a refuge for showers.
“I was pretty strict with the kids,” said Johnson, who works with a private well protection program at the local health department. “I’d pour bottled water on their toothbrushes.”
Though estimates vary, roughly 53 million U.S. residents — about 17% of the population — rely on private wells, according to a study conducted in part by Environmental Protection Agency researchers. Most live in rural areas. But others are in subdivisions near fast-growing metro regions or otherwise beyond the reach of public water pipes.
While many private wells provide safe water, the absence of regulation and treatment afforded by larger municipal systems may expose some users to health risks, from bacteria and viruses to chemicals and lead, studies have found.
Risks are elevated after flooding or heavy rainfall, when animal and human feces, dirt, nutrients such as nitrogen and other contaminants can seep into wells. And experts say the threat is growing as the warming climate fuels more intense rainstorms and stronger and wetter hurricanes.
Also Read: 37 dead in heavy rains in Brazil
“Areas that hadn’t been impacted are now. New areas are getting flooded,” said Kelsey Pieper, a Northeastern University professor of environmental engineering. “We know the environment is shifting and we’re playing catch-up, trying to increase awareness.”
Pieper is among scientists conducting well testing and education programs in storm-prone areas. After Hurricane Harvey caused widespread flooding along the Texas coast in 2017, sampling of more than 8,800 wells in 44 counties found average E. coli levels nearly three times higher than normal, she said.
Sampling of 108 wells in Mississippi following Hurricane Ida in 2021 produced a similar bump in E. coli readings. Other studies turned up higher levels in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
The following year, above-average snowfall and a March storm unleashed flooding in Nebraska. Levees and dams were breached. Fremont, a city of more than 25,000, turned into an island when the nearby Platte and Elkhorn rivers overflowed.
The municipal system continued to supply drinking water but some nearby private wells were damaged or contaminated. Julie Hindmarsh’s farm was flooded for three days, and it took months to make the well water drinkable again. At times, the cleanup crew wore protective suits.
“They didn’t know what was in that floodwater,” she said.
Read: Diarrhoea breaks out in flood-hit Sylhet
CONTAMINATION RISK
Groundwater is often a cleaner source than surface supplies because soil can provide a protective buffer, said Heather Murphy, an epidemiologist at the University of Guelph in Canada. But she said that can give well owners a false sense of security, leading them to forgo testing, maintenance and treatment.
“There’s a big misconception that it’s underground, therefore it’s safe,” said Murphy, who estimates 1.3 million cases of acute gastrointestinal illness in the U.S. are caused annually by drinking untreated water from private wells.
Old, poorly maintained wells are especially vulnerable to floodwaters entering through openings at the top. “It just runs right in and it’s full of bacteria,” said Steven Wilson, a well expert at the University of Illinois.
It doesn’t always take a flood or hurricane to pollute wells. Industrial contamination can reach them by seeping into groundwater.
Around 1,000 residential wells in Michigan’s Kent County were tainted for decades with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in landfill sludge from footwear company Wolverine World Wide. The pollution, discovered in 2017, spurred lawsuits and a $69.5 million settlement with the state that extended city water lines to affected houses.
“We thought we were getting this pristine, straight-from-nature water and it would be much better for us,” said Sandy Wynn-Stelt, who has lived across from one of the dump sites since the early 1990s.
She said tests detected high levels of PFAS chemicals in her water and blood, leaving her fearful to drink or even brush her teeth with well water. In a suit later settled, she blamed the contamination for her husband’s 2016 death from liver cancer. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer four years later.
LITTLE REGULATION FOR WELL OWNERS
While many well owners don’t have the option of hooking up to a public water system, others are happy with well water. They might favor the taste or want to avoid monthly bills and government regulation.
“What I hear from people is freedom,” said Jesse Campbell, private well coordinator for the Midwest Assistance Program Inc., which addresses rural water needs.
Private well owners are responsible for them. While public water systems must meet federal safety standards, those rules don’t apply to wells that have fewer than 15 connections or serve fewer than 25 people.
State and local standards usually involve only construction and design, although some states set tougher rules.
New Jersey requires water quality testing before sales of property with private wells. Rhode Island requires testing when new wells are built and when property with a well is sold.
But many states rely on public outreach and voluntary action to protect private well users.
“There’s an overall lack of education,” Campbell said. He meets with well owners from Montana to Missouri, providing free inspections and advice.
A lot of harm can be prevented if owners make sure the well’s top keeps out debris and that the pump is turned off before a storm to keep out floodwaters. Experts recommend testing after a flood and decontaminating wells with chlorine if a problem is found.
“People aren’t regularly testing,” said Riley Mulhern, an environmental engineer at the research group RTI International.
Indiana’s health department offers testing for bacteria, lead, copper, fluoride and other contaminants. Some land-grant universities and private labs provide similar services.
While many owners know how to maintain their wells, others ignore problems even if the water isn’t sanitary. Water that tastes fine can still be contaminated.
“I wish I had a nickel for everyone who’s walked into a workshop and said, ‘I’ve been drinking this water forever and it’s fine,’” said Jason Barrett, who directs a Mississippi State University program that educates well owners.
It provides free testing. But where such assistance isn’t available, costs can run to a few hundred dollars, according to experts. Some owners avoid testing because they are concerned it will reveal an expensive problem.
Johnson, the Illinois resident whose well was fouled by the 2013 downpour that killed four people and caused $465 million in flood damage, paid about $3,500 for repairs and upgrades.
“Luckily, none of us became ill,” she said.
Even ordinary rainstorms can carry diseases into groundwater, said Mark Borchardt, a microbiologist formerly with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“A lot of times people say, ‘Well, no one got sick,’” Borchardt said. “It’s hard to see when people get sick unless it is a huge outbreak.”
Bea and Neil Jobe live in Primm Springs, Tennessee, an hour’s drive from Nashville. Several times a year, when there is heavy rain and a nearby creek floods, their well water turns “dingy,” Bea Jobe said.
The discoloration disappears after a few days but Jobe takes precautions such as keeping bottled water available.
“I guess I’m used to it,” she said.
Dhaka: Inadequate efforts for climate migrants may lead to global security risk
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has said the international community is not doing enough for millions of ‘climate migrants’ who often get subjected to various forms of security risks and exploitations.
“Climate-induced displacement could lead to a global security risk in today’s interconnected world,” Momen warned while speaking at a roundtable on “Environment of Peace: Securing a just and peaceful transition in a new era of risk.”
He emphasized on the significance of creating global awareness on the climate-security nexus and an enforcement mechanism to address the challenges.
The event was organized by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on the sidelines of the Stokholm+50 international meeting on Friday.
Momen stressed that the international community should share the burden of climate migrants’ rehabilitation, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday.
The Foreign Minister also held a bilateral meeting with the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Matilda Ernkrans and discussed how to enhance cooperation on climate change, education and other areas.
He urged the Swedish Minister to put pressure on Myanmar for bringing back the forcibly displaced Rohingyas with safety and dignity.
READ: Dhaka calls for more IOM role in helping climate migrants
Momen also underlined that the business-as-usual approach with Myanmar will not make any progress.
Sky high: Carbon dioxide levels in air spike past milestone
The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shot past a key milestone -- more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times -- and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal scientists announced Friday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its long-time monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, averaged 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the month of May, which is when the crucial greenhouse gas hits its yearly high. Before the industrial revolution in the late 19th century carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million, scientists said, so humans have significantly changed the atmosphere. Some activists and scientists want a level of 350 parts per million. Industrial carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Levels of the gas continue to rise, when they need to be falling, scientists say. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 ppm more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.
“The world is trying to reduce emissions, and you just don’t see it. In other words, if you’re measuring the atmosphere, you’re not seeing anything happening right now in terms of change,” said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans, who tracks global greenhouse gas emissions for the agency.
Outside scientists said the numbers show a severe climate change problem.
Also read: WHO for making mental health support part of climate action plans
“Watching these incremental but persistent increases in CO2 year-to-year is much like watching a train barrel down the track towards you in slow motion. It’s terrifying,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison climate scientist Andrea Dutton. “If we stay on the track with a plan to jump out of the way at the last minute, we may die of heat stroke out on the tracks before it even gets to us.”
University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.”
The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year. Both changes were small compared to how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere each year, especially considering that carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere hundreds to a thousand years, Tans said.
The world puts about 10 billion metric tons of carbon in the air each year, much of it gets drawn down by oceans and plants. That’s why May is the peak for global carbon dioxide emissions. Plants in the northern hemisphere start sucking up more carbon dioxide in the summer as they grow.
NOAA said carbon dioxide levels are now about the same as 4.1 to 4.5 million years ago in the Pliocene era, when temperatures were 7 degrees (3.9 degrees Celsius) hotter and sea levels were 16 to 82 feet (5 to 25 meters) higher than now. South Florida, for example, was completely under water. These are conditions that human civilization has never known.
The reason it was much warmer and seas were higher millions of years ago at the same carbon dioxide level as now is that in the past the natural increase in carbon dioxide levels was far more gradual. With carbon sticking in the air hundreds of years, temperatures heated up over longer periods of time and stayed there. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melted over time, raising sea levels tremendously and making Earth darker and reflecting less heat off the planet, Tans and other scientists said.
Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated levels a bit differently based on time and averaging, and put the May average at 420.8 ppm, slightly lower than NOAA’s figure.
PM: Let’s not forget climate crisis amid geo-political tension
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said that the world must not divert its attention from the looming climate crisis due to the ongoing geo-political tension.
“Despite the ongoing geo-political tension, we cannot allow the world to take away its attention from the looming climate crisis,” she said urging the developed countries to deliver on their commitments on financing and technology under the Paris Agreement.
The premier said this while delivering her speech virtually from her official residence Ganobhaban at a ceremony to mark the handing over of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) presidency from Bangladesh to Ghana.
Bangladesh, which took over as the president of the CVF for the second time in 2020, has managed to steer the Forum’s work through the Covid-19 pandemic, she said.
“I believe our Presidency’s most important legacy will be to shift the narrative from climate vulnerability to resilience and prosperity, she added.
The PM said that under her leadership the CVF could achieve most of its objectives and more.
Welcoming Ghana as the new president, Hasina said she is confident that CVF leadership will be in steady hands under Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo’s watch.
She said as a member of the Troika, Bangladesh will continue to extend all necessary cooperation to Ghana.
She mentioned that the CVF is now a significant presence in the international climate setting. It has emerged as the legitimate voice for countries most affected by climate change. The rise in CVF membership is a proof of that.
“From the outset, our Presidency remained focused on COP26 outcomes. Despite the pandemic, we held the world’s attention to the climate crisis,” she said.
She also said that the CVF also launched the Midnight Survival Deadline for countries to raise their climate ambitions.
“We urged them to submit their NDCs by 31 December 2020. Some 70 nations responded to our call.”
READ: PM: Keep environment in mind in development projects
She said that during Bangladesh’s presidency it created the CVF-V20 Joint Multi-Donor Fund to support members in their climate action.
She mentioned that Bangladesh and Marshall Islands provided the seed funding.
She the V20 Climate Vulnerables Finance Summit hosted by Bangladesh in 2021 pressed for a Delivery Plan for the 100 billion US dollar climate finance in the next five years.
“We got it realized in Glasgow,” she said.
The prime minister said that Dhaka-Glasgow Declaration is a summary of CVF’s core demands and commitments.
“We renewed our call for high-emitting countries to keep the 1.5°C (Celsius) pledge alive and raise their climate ambitions annually,” she said. “We secured commitment for increased adaptation financing and international dialogue on loss and damage.”
She mentioned that five Thematic Ambassadors were appointed during Bangladesh’s term.
“We have high hopes from the mandate-holder for climate change and human rights. We shall maintain our advocacy on displacement and migration caused by climate change,” said the premier.
Hasina said that the CVF-V20 Parliamentary Group has a critical role to play in building public opinion for climate action.
She said Bangladesh is developing its “Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan” that can provide a template for other vulnerable countries in their own context.
She also expressed her gratefulness to CVF and GCA Secretariats for their tireless work during Bangladesh’s presidency.
President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo, Chair of the Global Centre on Adaptation Ban Ki-moon, Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) Thematic Ambassador Saima Wazed and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration of Ghana Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr Abdul Momen and Environment and Forest and Climate Change Minister Md. Shahab Uddin also spoke.
Special Envoy of the Climate Vulnerable Forum Presidency of Bangladesh Abul Kalam Azad presented the presidency report.
A documentary also screened at the programme.
Author Amitav Ghosh lauds Bangladesh's climate innovations
Celebrated author and climate change activist Amitav Ghosh has appreciated Bangladesh's action to fight climate change challenges though he worries for his native West Bengal.
“In fact, Bangladesh has become a global leader in disseminating information in creating climate change resilience programmes. There are so many innovations,” Ghosh told The Times of India during a brief trip to his home in south Kolkata on Sunday.
Bangladesh has successfully addressed climate change issues by disseminating information, sending out regular alerts and bulletins, he said.
“In collaboration with a Dutch team, they created oyster beds around their islands to absorb the impact of sea-level rise. Bangladesh managed to ban single-use plastic successfully many years ago. Even the USA could not come close to banning single-use plastic,” the author said.
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Ghosh visits the Sundarbans regularly and has researched the area for his highly acclaimed novel "The Hungry Tide".
He won India's top literary award Jnanpith and has been nominated for Booker and Arthur Clarke awards for his novels "Sea Of Poppies" and "Glass Palace".
Ghosh, who has been travelling to the Sunderbans for the last 20 years, found a lot of facilities have reached the remotest parts.
“A lot of embankments were rebuilt and a lot of reinforcements happened.” But, he believes, embankment is not a solution to the problem of accelerated pace of climate change there. “Embankments cannot hold out against sea-level rise, nor can they hold out against storm surge,” he said.
The people of Sunderbans have ways to cope with the climate crisis, he pointed out. “Many families have kept a small plot in the interior, some sort of safe haven. Many others have migrated to the west coast. Many people of Sunderbans now work in Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. It is an enormous demographic shift,” he said.
Climate change is a global problem and the global system of governance has to address it. Ghosh felt the geopolitics of climate change is the biggest obstacle to a definite, collective global response to climate change issues.
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“In Paris, agreement-rich countries pledged $100 billion for the climate resilience fund, not even a 10th of this was delivered, and rich countries boosted their defence expenditure by $1.2 trillion. So, behind the scenes, they are preparing for war. It became clearer with the Ukraine situation,” Ghosh said.
But Ghosh said he was seriously worried for his native Kolkata where his mother and sister continue to live.
"Kolkata is threatened for multiple reasons. A large part of the city is below sea level and embankments have protected the city for a very long time," he said, adding he was seriously worried over UN reports predicting 'catastrophic flooding' in southern Kolkata close to the Sundarbans.
He said West Bengal has built a lot of embankments and reinforced old ones in its part of the Sundarbans.
But Ghosh says embankments are not the solution because they cannot hold out against sea-level rise or against storm surges.