Polar bears and narwhals are using up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss in the Arctic, according to scientists. Once perfectly evolved for polar life, apex predators are struggling as their habitats shrink and unique adaptations become less suited to an increasingly ice-free Arctic, researchers say.

Guardian 24th Feb 2021 read more »

A practical guide to tackling the climate crisis – podcast. The first UN climate change conference was held in 1995 in Berlin. More than two decades later, our planet remains on track for three degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The answer to avoiding this catastrophe is both simple and staggeringly complicated: drastically reducing and reversing the amount of carbon dioxide entering our atmosphere. How do we do this? Science correspondent Natalie Grover speaks to Prof Mike Berners-Lee, author of There is No Planet B, who has crunched the numbers on everything from carbon offsetting and green investments to e-bikes.

Guardian 25th Feb 2021 read more »

Boris Johnson and Sir David Attenborough have both warned world leaders that climate breakdown represents the single gravest threat to global security, as the UK Prime Minister today chaired the first ever UN Security Council meeting focused on the climate change. Marking the first time a UK PM has chaired the UN Security Council in around three decades, the virtual session saw Johnson urge nations to take urgent action to address the climate crisis or risk worsening conflict, displacement and insecurity.

Business Green 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

The climate crisis presents the “biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”, Sir David Attenborough told a UN meeting held today. Speaking at the first UN Security Council meeting on climate and security, Sir David said that the world had “left the stable and secure climatic period that gave birth to our civilisation”.

Independent 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

Climate change will bring “huddled masses” of climate refugees to the borders of richer nations unless the world takes action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday. Mr Johnson said climate change posed a grave threat to international peace and security. Urgent action was required to guarantee global security in the years to come, he stressed. The Prime Minister was chairing a meeting of the UN Security Council convened to focus on climate change and security. It is the first time a British leader has chaired the Security Council since 1992.

iNews 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

The climate emergency is already hitting “worst case scenario” levels that if left unchecked will lead to the collapse of ecosystems, with dire consequences for humanity, according to the chief executive of the Environment Agency. Warning that this is not “science fiction”, Sir James Bevan said on Tuesday that in recent years several of the “reasonable worst case scenarios” had happened in the UK, with more extreme weather and flooding. And he urged politicians to take action to reduce emissions and adapt to the “inevitable” impacts of the climate emergency.

Guardian 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

Climate change is profoundly altering our oceans and marine ecosystems. Some of these changes are happening quickly and are potentially irreversible. Many are taking place silently and unnoticed. In recent years, tipping points – thresholds where a small change could push a system into a completely new state – have increasingly become a focus for the climate research community. However, these are typically thought of in terms of unlikely changes with huge global ramifications – often referred to as “low probability, high impact” events. Examples include the slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. In a new paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, my co-authors and I instead focus on the potential for what we call “high probability, high impact” tipping points caused by the cumulative impact of warming, acidification and deoxygenation.

Carbon Brief 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

The Prime Minister will warn the UN Security Council today [Tuesday] that unless we take urgent action to tackle climate change, the world risks worsening conflict, displacement and insecurity. He is chairing a virtual session of the Council to call on members to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to the impact of climate change and take steps to cut global emissions to net zero by 2050. It is the first time a British Prime Minister has chaired the UNSC in nearly 30 years and the first leader-level discussion on climate at the Security Council. Sir David Attenborough will also speak to the 15 members of the UNSC by video, before UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Sudanese climate activist Nisreen Elsaim brief the Security Council live. The impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world, with the effects of rising temperatures and extreme weather forcing population movements and creating competition over increasingly scarce natural resources. Of the 20 countries ranked most vulnerable to rising global temperatures, 12 are already in conflict.

10 Downing Street 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

WESTMINSTER ignored repeated Scottish Government requests to be consulted over plans to hold the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, internal correspondence has revealed.

The National 21st Feb 2021 read more »

Emails between the two governments show that Holyrood officials were forced to rely on news articles and press releases to gather key information about where the UK stood in its bid to host the UN’s flagship climate conference. Scottish Government officials asked for more information about the status of the UK’s bid four times without response between 12 and 19 of June 2019, the correspondence – released under freedom of information legislation – shows. One described themselves as sounding “like a broken record” as a result.

The Ferret 19th Feb 2021 read more »

Conservationists have drawn up plans to create a “Great North Bog” stretching from the Midlands to the Scottish border. The peatland restoration project, which will cost more than £200 million over 20 years, is a key part of Britain’s climate ambitions. Covering five national parks — the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors, Lake District and Northumberland — the plan involves protecting and repairing 2,700 square miles of upland peat. With Britain hosting the COP26 UN climate summit in November, ministers are keen to back projects with tangible environmental benefits. Described by officials as “England’s national rainforests”, peatlands absorb and hold millions of tonnes of carbon.

Times 21st Feb 2021 read more »

A charity that has turned tons of waste food into millions of meals for hungry families during the pandemic is to target delegates at the COP26 climate summit, warning that food waste landfill has a “warming potential 28 times that of CO2”. Calling for greater government funding to rescue wasted food, FareShare claims methane produced by landfill is “a much more potent greenhouse gas”, and that discarded supplies could feed people in need and help the planet. An estimated one-third of all food produced in the world is wasted, equivalent to about 1.3 billion tons of fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, seafood, and grain that do not leave the farm, get lost or spoiled during distribution — or are discarded by hotels, stores, restaurants, schools or homes. Some is sent away for generating energy from waste or animal feed.

Times 21st Feb 2021 read more »

How fires have spread to previously untouched parts of the world. Fires have always been a part of our natural world. But they’re moving to new ecosystems previously untouched by fire – and this is concerning scientists.

Guardian 19th Feb 2021 read more »

Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said. Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year. Making peace with nature was the defining task of the coming decades, he said, and the key to a prosperous and sustainable future for all people. The report combines recent major UN assessments with the latest research and the solutions available, representing an authoritative scientific blueprint of how to repair the planet.

Guardian 18th Feb 2021 read more »

The organisers of citizens’ climate juries in London and North East have revealed their key calls to actions for Mayors, councils and the central government, including job creation in low-carbon sectors and a longer-term alternative to the Green Homes Grant. The London project, coordinated by Citizens UK, released its conclusions through a new Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report this week after ten months of discussions. Taking the members’ calls to action into account, the think-tank has translated them into quantitative targets for the UK Government and for London’s next Mayor. Entitled ‘London: A Just Transition City’, the report names air pollution, fuel poverty, home energy efficiency and green jobs and apprenticeships as priority areas of action. On fuel poverty and energy efficiency, the IPPR report is recommending that at least 100,000 homes classed as fuel poor are retrofitted over the next Mayoral term. After the central Government pulled the majority of the £2bn funding initially allocated for the Green Homes Grant, the IPPR recommends that landlords and local authorities should instead complete the work, with incentives from either City Hall or the Government. On green jobs, the report recommends the creation of 60,000 green jobs and apprenticeships in sectors relating to nature and the low-carbon transition over the next mayoral term. Workers in these jobs should be paid at the living wage as a minimum and the roles should be accessible to those in underprivileged communities, the IPPR is urging.

Edie 18th Feb 2021 read more »

The health opportunity of more ambitious climate policies is the focus of our study, recently published in the Lancet Planetary Health. We take nine globally and regionally influential countries and model the potential health gains they could achieve if they had climate policies that were consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Our findings suggest that the co-benefits for reducing air pollution, improving diets and encouraging a more active lifestyle would save millions of lives across the world every year.

Carbon Brief 17th Feb 2021 read more »