The Global Warming thread.

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Earth caps off its hottest 12-month period on record, report finds
About 99% of the global population was exposed to above-average warmth.



Effects of climate change worsening in every part of the US, report says

Too many CURRENT impacts to excerpt Are we old enough?

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97 years old, still sharp:

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Brazil has recorded its hottest temperature ever, breaking 2005 record

"Out of control" wildfires are ravaging Brazil's wildlife-rich Pantanal wetlands

Crap

World's richest 1% emitting enough carbon to cause heat-related deaths for 1.3 million people, report finds

The "polluter elite" are disproportionately driving climate change, according to a new report — with the wealthiest 1% of people in the world putting out as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds.

The report, by The Guardian, the international charity Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that climate change and "extreme inequality" have become "interlaced, fused together and driving one another."

Researchers found that of all the carbon emissions in the world in 2019, 16% was produced by the top 1% wealthiest people worldwide — a group that includes billionaires, millionaires and those who earn more than $140,000 a year. The analysis found their contribution "is the same as the emissions of the poorest 66% of humanity" — roughly 5 billion people.

The report also found that the richest 10% percent of people worldwide made up roughly half of emissions that year.

"It would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year," Chiara Liguori, Oxfam's senior climate justice policy adviser said. "This is fundamentally unfair." ...

... The Guardian and Oxfam report called for a number of steps to help humanity "break free from the climate and inequality trap," including a transition to renewable energy sources. It also suggested a 60% tax on the income of the worlds wealthiest 1%, which the report calculated would lead to a 700-million-ton reduction in global emissions.

... Greenhouse gas emissions — which trap heat in the atmosphere and drive warming — have increased 1.2% since last year, reaching record highs.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters Monday that "if nothing changes, in 2030 emissions will be 22 gigatons higher than the 1.5 degree limit would allow" — referencing the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times. It's expected that the world may surpass that level within the next five years.

"All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable and a massive missed opportunity. Renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible," Guterres said. "...The report shows that the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon — a canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives and broken records."

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The UN Climate Summit Scandal That Was Bound To Happen
A new revelation has rattled climate scientists and environmental activists, but it did not happen in a vacuum.

A scandal involving the host country of this year’s United Nations climate summit cast a dark cloud over the annual negotiations days before they kicked off in Dubai.

On Monday, the Centre for Climate Reporting and the BBC reported on leaked documents obtained from a whistleblower that purportedly show Sultan Al Jaber — the controversial president of the 28th Conference of Parties, or COP28, and the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — planned to leverage his role as head of the summit to broker oil and gas deals with other countries and boost fossil fuel exports from the United Arab Emirates.

In other words, a powerful oil executive — someone who’d already come under fire for seemingly glaring conflicts of interest in presiding over the summit — apparently saw the climate conference as an opportunity to increase domestic production of planet-warming fossil fuels at a time when scientists are desperately warning that the world is running out of time to stave off catastrophic climate impacts.

While the revelation has rattled the global climate community, it did not happen in a vacuum. Instead, the reported backdoor dealings are the fitting icing on the cake of international climate negotiations that many climate and environmental activists argue have been hijacked by the very industry most responsible for the crisis....

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Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn
Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms

... The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of one oceanic current in the North Atlantic.

Unlike other changes to the climate such as hotter heatwaves and heavier rainfall, these systems do not slowly shift in line with greenhouse gas emissions but can instead flip from one state to an entirely different one. When a climatic system tips – sometimes with a sudden shock – it may permanently alter the way the planet works.

Scientists warn that there are large uncertainties around when such systems will shift but the report found that three more may soon join the list. These include mangroves and seagrass meadows, which are expected to die off in some regions if the temperatures rise between 1.5C and 2C, and boreal forests, which may tip as early as 1.4C of heating or as late as 5C....

Scientists have warned that some of the shifts can create feedback loops that heat the planet further or alter weather patterns in a way that triggers other tipping points.

The researchers said the systems were so tightly linked they could not rule out “tipping cascades”. If the Greenland ice sheet disintegrates, for instance, it could lead to an abrupt shift in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important current that delivers most of the heat to the gulf stream. That, in turn, can intensify the El Niño southern oscillation, one of the most powerful weather patterns on the planet....

It would be gooder to be older.

On the hopeful side, humanity now recognizes the problem and is taking drastic and effective action to resolve it. Right? Right???

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels to hit record high
Projected rate of warming has not improved in past two years, analysis shows

... The world is on track to have burned more coal, oil and gas in 2023 than it did in 2022, according to a report by the Global Carbon Project, pumping 1.1% more planet-heating carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a time when emissions must plummet to stop extreme weather from growing more violent....

Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and lead author of the study, said: “The impacts of climate change are evident all around us but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow.

“It now looks inevitable that we will overshoot the 1.5C target of the Paris agreement, and leaders meeting at Cop28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2C target alive.”

... Governments were happy to promote clean energy but had done little to penalise fossil fuels, said Glen Peters, a research director at the climate research institute Cicero, who co-wrote the report.

“It is simply not enough to support clean energy. Policies are also needed to drive fossil fuels out of the energy system,” he added....

Corinne Le Quéré, a research professor at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “All countries need to decarbonise their economies faster than they are at present to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”