climate change

business as usual.

Mr Sunak's record on environmental issues has come under scrutiny in recent months after he said he would take a "proportionate approach" to climate change that balances net zero ambitions with the need to keep consumers' bills down.

That has drawn fury from climate protesters who have stepped up their campaigns, disrupting high-profile sporting events, classical music concerts and political speeches.

In response, Mr Sunak's ministers have introduced new laws to clamp down on "eco-mob" protester tactics including slow walking in busy roads and "locking-on" to buildings or infrastructure.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said protesters should "stop the stupid stunts".

Kiribati is facing a real challenge.

With no part of its land rising more than 2 meters above the ocean, the country is among the most vulnerable to the encroaching tides.

Small islands have already succumbed to inundation, while others suffer erosion, jeopardising crop cultivation and freshwater reserves.

The I-Kiribati people, who may not use the words "climate change", have now experienced its harsh reality and continue to face the constant threat of rising sea levels.

It is "virtually certain" that July is going to be the world's warmest month since records began, according to scientists.

Some researchers believe it might even be the warmest month in the past 120,000 years.

The UK on the other hand, has experienced milder temperatures and a fair amount of rain.

BBC Weather's Ben Rich has this analysis.

Outdoor workers with jobs involving physical labour can be more vulnerable, especially when paired with limited protections.

But efforts to bolster regulations have faced pushback from powerful business interests in sectors, such as agriculture, who have rejected calls for enhanced rules and enforcement.

And some US states have moved in the opposite direction: Republican lawmakers in the state of Texas, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 42 workers died from extreme heat between 2011 and 2021, recently banned municipalities from requiring employers to provide workers with shade and water.

“Farmworkers will still be told they can’t take a break or that they should drink out of an irrigation hose,” De Loera said. “Even in a state like California with good laws on the books, workers are afraid of speaking up.”

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

According to ERA5 data from the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record.

In the face of “tragic” consequences, he repeated his call for swift and far-reaching action, taking aim once again at the fossil fuel sector.

“The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable,” said Guterres, Portugal’s former prime minister.

One of those on the road this morning, Jonathan Kennedy, 44, an Engineer and Parent of two young children, from Brighton, said:

“I’m marching today with Just Stop Oil to demand that the government stops all new oil and gas licensing. We are on track for devastating climate chaos, food scarcity, water scarcity, hundreds of millions of climate refugees- leading to conflict and war. It’s already happening. As a parent, I can’t sit by and watch as the government actively makes the situation worse by issuing more oil, gas and coal licences. This is the complete opposite of what we need to do.”

“When my children ask me what I was doing when there was still a chance to prevent the worst effects of climate breakdown. I will say I tried everything I could. Rishi Sunak and Grant Schnapps, what will you say to your children when they ask you the same question? You have the power to stop all new oil and gas licences. For the sake of your children and their generation, make the right choice. Be on the right side of history, be able to look at your children and say, ‘I did what I could’.”

Yesterday, James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s said “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis. Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing severe impacts such as stronger storms, heatwaves and droughts, which will lead to millions unable to eat and forced to flee their homes.

Three months of rain fell in just 24 hours in some areas.

The flooding is the latest extreme weather event to hit northeast Canada - recent wildfires have burnt a record area, sending clouds of smoke south into the US.

There has also been extreme flooding in the US this month. The body of a two-year-old girl found along a river in Pennsylvania is believed to be one of two missing children swept away by flash floods last weekend. Her nine-month-old brother is still missing.

Scientists cannot say for certain that such extreme rainfall is caused by climate change, but the floods are consistent with the changes they expect in a warming world. This is because the warmer the earth becomes the more moisture the atmosphere can hold. This results in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area.

July 22, 2023 AFP

"We are the last generation capable of preventing the point of no return," three young activists from the Last Generation group shouted at the festival's premiere of "Jedermann" (Each Man) late Friday, before being escorted away by security, according to a video posted by the group on social media.

Founded in 1920, the Salzburg Festival is one the world's top classical music festivals.

"The citizens of the Last Generation Austria demand that we face this question as a whole society," the group said in a statement. "Especially now, when global heating is getting more out of control and is making itself felt all over the world with ever more extreme temperatures and ever more destructive weather, they can no longer look away."

The protest came as swathes of southern Europe and the United States were baking in record heatwaves.

"Merseyside Police respects the right to protest and expression of views but anti-social, criminal behaviour or disorder will not be tolerated and will be dealt with robustly."

Khan works in Bangladesh’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. She is one of around 70,000 workers in an industry to which companies around the world outsource entire business functions — from marketing and payroll to human resources. The BPO industry in Bangladesh has been expanding, with jobs in the sector growing steadily in recent years, according to the Bangladesh Association of Contact Center and Outsourcing. According to local media reports, there were at least 350 BPO firms in the country as of March 2023, with an annual revenue of $700 million in 2022. They support real estate companies, health-care facilities, and law firms in the U.K. and U.S. But the foot soldiers of this industry — BPO workers — are now staring at a disconcerting future as global temperatures continue to rise. Several told Rest of World they’re already weary and exhausted.

Five hours from Dhaka, in Chattogram, known for its balmy summers with frequent spells of rain, 27-year-old BPO worker Naima Shirmen said the heat has felt like “living hell” this year. “I’ve never seen heat as bad as this in my whole life. I get headaches everyday. I feel sick. I’m not able to sleep at night properly,” she told Rest of World. “And as you know, if you can’t sleep properly, you can’t do work.” Shirmen provides remote marketing support for foreign clients of BPOs in Dhaka.

“The [heat] is so bad this year that when we switch on the fans, it makes no difference,” she said. “It’s like there’s no air in the room. It’s like the fan isn’t working at all.”

According to Shouro Dasgupta, environmental economist at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, heat stress and high heat exposure is already affecting labor supply and productivity across countries like Bangladesh, India, and others in South and Southeast Asia — regions where labor is projected to suffer due to future climate change. Sustainable cooling is the need of the hour, particularly for indoor tech workers, Dasgupta told Rest of World. He believes that governments should step in and work with air-conditioner manufacturers, building operators, and other stakeholders to ensure workers are comfortable.

Fears of declines in food production, together with other climate-related calamities such as rising sea levels, have also raised the alarm as millions in South Asia are being internally displaced.

A report published by activist group ActionAid in 2020 estimated the region could see up to 63 million people become migrants by 2050 as a result of extreme weather events.

Huq said displacement from human-induced climate change was further adding to economic migration from rural to urban areas – a continuing phenomenon worldwide – with South Asia being a major “hotspot”, with the greatest displacement taking place in low-lying coastal areas.

“Climate change … is exacerbating the ‘push factor’ – the motivation to migrate away from place of residence – for people who are living in places where they can no longer continue to have livelihoods that they used to have, whether it’s farming or fishing,” he said.

By 2030, average annual losses from climate-change-related disasters are forecast to reach 15.4 billion Canadian dollars ($11.69bn), according to the federal government.

The Canadian Climate Institute also estimates that climate effects will slow Canada’s economic growth by 23.7 billion Canadian dollars ($18bn) annually by 2025, equal to 50 percent of projected gross domestic product growth.

“These extraordinary extremes could be an early warning of tipping points towards different weather or sea ice or fire regimes,” said University of Exeter climate researcher Tim Lenton. “We call it ‘flickering’ when a complex system starts to briefly sample a new regime before tipping into it. Let’s hope I’m wrong on that.”

In the meantime, the tropical Pacific Ocean is shifting into the warm El Niño phase of a two- to seven-year Pacific Ocean cycle that can boost the average global temperature by 0.2° Celsius, enough to stoke the planet’s fever to a dangerous new high.

“The onset of El Niño will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “Early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods.”

“I expect a step change to higher global mean temperatures starting this year,” said atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and honorary faculty at the University of Auckland. “And next year will be the warmest on record, either 1.4 or 1.5C above pre-industrial.”

Even though the dataset used for the unofficial record goes back only to 1979, Dr Kapnick said that given other data, the world is likely seeing the hottest day in "several hundred years that we've experienced."

Scientists generally use much longer measurements — months, years, decades — to track the Earth's warming. But the daily highs are an indication that climate change is reaching uncharted territory.

video report from local source.

China battling extreme weather as rains take toll

July 5, 2023

China is making ongoing efforts to battle extreme weather, as rain-triggered floods wreak havoc in southern and central parts of the country.

The latest round of torrential rains since Monday had killed 15 people and left four others missing in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, as of 7 a.m. Wednesday, local authorities said.

Transcription (English): YANG SHIYAN, Xinhua correspondent "Now I am at Wanzhou District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. Continuous heavy rainfall hit regions including southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, causing heavy casualties and property losses. Now authorities at all levels have given top priority to ensuring people's safety and property, and strived to minimize various losses in the work regarding flood prevention and disaster relief.The city's emergency response headquarters office has raised the relief response to Level III, allocating more than 29,000 items of disaster relief supplies, including tents, blankets and folding beds, to Wanzhou District, the hardest-hit area, where record-high rainfall was seen.China earmarked 320 million yuan (about 44.46 million U.S. dollars) on Wednesday from its central natural-disaster relief funds to support flood and geological disaster relief work in regions including Chongqing and Sichuan."Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Chongqing, China.

“People are becoming more aware of the severity of heatwaves, but not the link between heatwaves and climate change,” says Zhao Li, a senior researcher for Greenpeace east Asia’s Beijing office.

That is partly because, although there is some limited education about climate change, permitted discourse stops short of talking about major policy shifts, such as reducing China’s coal emissions more rapidly. The government has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060, but concerns about energy security and the need for economic growth mean that local authorities are showing no sign of backing down on building new coal power.

Also, says Zhao, “even if people link heatwaves and climate change, they don’t think it’s something that the individual should pay attention to.” Most people see it as being the government’s responsibility – and therefore out of the hands of the public, she says.

Last Saturday, June 24, 20 environmental activists gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a demonstration against the increasingly harsh punishments facing climate protestors.

The group, made up of members from Extinction Rebellion and Rise & Resist, painted their palms red and black and formed a circle around Edgar Degas’s bronze sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–81)—effectively recreating a protest staged by activists Joanna Smith and Tim Martin at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C. earlier this year.

Smith and Martin, who belong to the Declare Emergency climate group, were arrested for splattering paint on the protective plexiglass surrounding a wax version of the same Degas sculpture at the NGA on April 27. The duo’s demonstration was among the first staged in an American institution after waves of similar protests rocked European museums last year.

The action caused $2,400 worth of damage, but the artwork was not harmed.

The prolonged spell of rain is predicted to bring widespread totals in the range of 50 to 100mm from the Kimberley through to the southern parts of the Northern Territory and on to tropical Queensland.

If it eventuates, it will be the most widespread winter falls in at least 16 years and well above the average rainfall for the entire season which for most of tropical Australia sits at less than 25mm.

“It's a lot easier to pack a heavy battery into a vehicle if you don't have to lift it off the ground,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University.

That means sustainable aviation fuel has become the industry's best hope to achieve its promise of net zero emissions by 2050. Aviation produces 2% to 3% of worldwide carbon emissions, but its share is expected to grow as travel increases and other industries become greener.

Sustainable fuel, however, accounts for just 0.1% of all jet fuel. Made from sources like used cooking oil and plant waste, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel but costs much more.

Suppliers are “going to be able to kind of set the price," Molly Wilkinson, an American Airlines vice president, said at the air show. "And we fear that at that point, that price eventually is going to trickle down to the passenger in some form of a ticket price.”

podcast KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM Bay Area

Jacobson argued that Montana’s reliance on climate-damaging extraction is motivated by perceived “sunk costs” — continuing to support fossil fuels because they’ve already invested so much in the system — as well as by bad policy. “If policies were based on economics, there would be no more fossil fuel growth in Montana or in any country,” he said. His delivery, confident and conversational, made the steps required to resolve the climate crisis seem eminently doable. “The main barrier to energy transition is that we need collective willpower,” he said. “That requires individuals, state governments and national governments to work toward this goal.”

In response, the state has argued that nothing the judge can do will help the plaintiffs; that even were the courts to side with the plaintiffs, it would not help solve climate change, as Montana contributes only a small amount of CO2 emissions compared to global emissions, and that there are no local remedies available to resolve the plaintiffs’ hurt. Furthermore, they said the plaintiffs were attempting to circumvent the Montana Legislature, where their concerns ought to be heard and where environmentalists, for over a decade, have been attempting to do so with little success.

yikes!!

The analysis showed that that most of the research selected by the media was biased to the natural sciences. It overly focused on large-scale climate projections that will occur in the future, and a narrow range of threats such as polar bears, drought and melting glaciers. The paper shows that this type of narrative does not activate the mechanisms known from research on psychology that might engage pro-environmental behaviors in readers.

The study speaks of a possible distancing reaction on the part of the public, resulting from this globalizing approach. "The individuals exposed to these facts, not feeling directly concerned by them, will tend towards a peripheral, superficial and distracted treatment of the information. Only a central, deep and attentive consideration will allow the public to transform what they know into mechanisms of action and commitment," explains Fabrizio Butera, professor at the Institute of Psychology of the UNIL, and co-author of the study.

Several locations across regional NSW experienced their coldest June morning on record:

Bathurst: -7.5 degrees, records going back 33 years
Hillston: -4 degrees, records going back 64 years
Peak Hill: -2.8 degrees, records going back 56 years
Paterson: -0.3 degrees, records going back 54 years