Climate apocalypse will be here by 2030, Scots warned. Scotland faces an environmental “apocalypse” by 2030 with deserted villages, dying forests and no birdsong, the head of the country’s nature agency says. Francesca Osowska, head of Scottish Natural Heritage, will paint a grim picture of the future and make a plea for action at a lecture in Edinburgh tonight. Her speech points to rising concern for the environment at a critical moment as the climate is degraded by emissions, pollution and invasive foreign species. The impact of climate change is already being felt in Scotland. Firefighters say that it contributed to a spate of moorland fires this spring, when flames spread quickly through peat and heather left dry by lack of rain. Eighty per cent of Scotland has been put on alert for water scarcity by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Times 30th May 2019 read more »
Hundreds of millions of people could be left without access to water as climate breakdown causes Asia’s vast glaciers to shrink, researchers have found. When the rains fail, glaciers in the high-mountain regions around the Himalayas are a life-saver, releasing 36 cubic kilometres of water – the equivalent of 14 million Olympic swimming pools – to drought-prone areas every summer. Glacial loss in the region has been going on for a few decades. However, the rate has increased – between 2000 and 2016, glaciers were shrinking 1.6 times faster than the period between 1951 to 2007. “A lot of the climate projections suggest the melt will continue to accelerate,” lead researcher Dr Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told The Independent. Using climate projections, Dr Pritchard believes the glacier melt will start to slow in around 2050.
Independent 29th May 2019 read more »
António Guterres: Further inaction on climate change is simply not an option. “Save Tuvalu; save the world.” This is the rallying cry I heard on my recent visit to Tuvalu, a stop on my Pacific tour to the frontlines of the global climate emergency. I was there to show solidarity with those suffering the worst impacts of climate change and to draw attention to the innovative climate action underway in the region. Sea level rise in some Pacific countries is four times greater than the global average, posing an existential threat to several island states. Oceans are in serious trouble, from coral bleaching to biodiversity loss to plastic pollution. Extreme weather events are on the rise, jeopardising lives and livelihoods. Nowhere have I seen the heartbreaking impacts of climate change more starkly than in Tuvalu, a remote coral atoll nation where the highest point is less than five metres above sea level. I visited the home of a family who live in a state of perpetual anxiety about inundation by the relentlessly rising seas just steps away. I was deeply moved by the warmth of the Tuvaluan people and their intense devotion to their land, way of life and cultural heritage. These communities have contributed almost nothing to climate change – yet, because of big emitters, they are now fighting to preserve their country’s very existence.
FT 29th May 2019 read more »