Hundreds of Millions to Be Displaced by Climate Change, French Minister Warns

A refugee camp on the Turkey-Syria border. (Photo: Reuters) Calamitous global conflict as a result of climate change will produce hundreds of millions of refugees by 2100, said France’s environmental minister Ségolène Royal to representatives from 170 countries at the UNenvironment assembly in Nairobi on Thursday. “If nothing is done to combat the negative impact of climate change, we will have hundreds of …

ROBERT HUNZIKER – Global Warming and the Planetary Boundary

Climate change is on a fast track, a surprisingly fast, very fast track. As such, it’s entirely possible that humanity may be facing the shock of a lifetime, caught off-guard, blindsided by a crumbling ecosystem, spawning tens of thousands of ISIS-like fighters formed into competing gangs struggling for survival. Furthermore, what if the biosphere is already under stress by “planetary …

USA uses TPP-like trade-court to kill massive Indian solar project

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was on track to deliver deploy 20,000 MW of grid connected solar power by 2022 (“more than the current solar capacity of the world’s top five solar-producing countries combined”) but because India specified that the solar panels for it were to be domestically sourced, the USA sued it in WTO trade court and killed …

Ugo Barti – The climate emergency: time to switch to panic mode?

The latest temperature data have broken all records (image from “think progress“). At best, this is an especially large oscillation and the climate system will be soon back on track; following the predictions of the models – maybe to be retouched to take into account faster climbing temperatures. A worst, it is an indication that the system is going out …

Clean energy could save hundreds of billions in health costs every year

In Paris late last year, the countries of the world pledged to reduce emissions to keep global warming “well below a 2 degree Celsius” rise in global average temperatures compared with preindustrial levels. As an advanced economy, the U.S. is expected to lead in making the required emissions reductions, which would be roughly 80 percent by midcentury compared with 2005. …

A combined carbon and sugar tax could have environmental and health benefits

A combination of a carbon tax on food and a tax on sugary drinks in the UK could lead to health benefits, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and raise up to GB£3.6 billion revenue, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. Lead researcher, Adam Briggs from the University of Oxford, said: “Agriculture is responsible for up to …

Nature Bats Last – 02.02.16

This week Guy and Mike are joined by independent journalist Cory Morningstar as they discuss and analyze the words of prominent writer Naomi Klein, author of the 2014 book about anthropogenic climate change, This Changes Everything. Thanks to our listeners for providing examples, and also for calling in during the show. Guy adds a brief climate-change update.

Vijay Prashad – The Davos Club: Meet the People Who Gave Us a World in Which 62 People Own as Much as 3.6 Billion

Global elites meet in the remote Swiss town of Davos each year for the World Economic Forum. The conclave began in 1971, but it became an essential destination in the 1990s. When globalization became the buzzword, Davos became its headquarters. Big business, politics and the media meet, exchange business cards and go away better connected to each other. Deals are …

Pete Dolack – Business as Usual at Paris Summit Won’t Stop Global Warming

The bottom line of the Paris Climate Summit is this: The world’s governments say they agreed to hold the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but in actuality committed to nearly double that. A potential runaway global warming still looms in the future. The surprise of the summit, officially known as the 21st Session of the Conference of the …

Steffen Bohm – Trading Carbon: How Paris Set Us Up for Failure

The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm, though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2C global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction. …