Climate News Network, 30 December, 2015 – The global humanitarian system, designed to save those at risk of dying because of human or natural disasters, faces unprecedented demands in 2016 from levels of strain it has never before had to face, a leading development agency says. With more than 10 million people in a single African country expected to need …
Alex Kirby – Warming lakes speed up methane emissions
US scientists report that lakes worldwide are warming by an average of more than 1°C every 30 years, faster than the warming rate of either the ocean or the atmosphere. The warming is expected to increase algal blooms and to mean global emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century, will increase …
Alex Kirby – Tibetan threat to vital water
Hours before the UN climate talks end, a warning from China’s top scientific body –  the twin influences of human activities and climate change are turning much of the Tibetan plateau into a desert. The damage is not only transforming grasslands and wetlands into sand and rock where nothing can grow. The plateau is also the source of Asia’s major …
Alex Kirby – Climate change threatens US influence
Climate News Network, 2 December, 2015 – Two American security experts say the Asia-Pacific region needs massive international aid to tackle its greatest problem − climate change. And they fear that without a huge outlay on development, diplomacy and defence, the US claim to global leadership may be challenged. In a report they edited for the Centre for Climate and …
Alex Kirby – Global temperatures have risen by 1°C in the past 150 years, and one scientist says doubling that level could unleash catastrophic sea level rise this century.
The world is now halfway towards the internationally-agreed safety limit of a maximum 2°C rise in global average temperatures, researchers say. That limit seeks to prevent the global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels exceeding 2°C above the pre-industrial global temperature. The UN’s Paris climate summit later this year aims to ensure that it is not breached. It …