Countries gearing up for the next round of top-level climate talks have been warned the agreement hashed out in the dying minutes of the Copenhagen conference could lead to 3C warming or more.
via Climate report gives warning to leaders, say NZ scientists – Environment – NZ Herald News.
an Fry, the chief climate change negotiator for Tuvalu, fought on behalf of low-lying island nations during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, last month.
The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.
The prospect of a four-degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures in 50 years is alarming – but not alarmist, climate scientists now believe.
The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.
Carbon dioxide emissions and their associated warming could linger for millennia, according to some climate scientists. Mason Inman looks at why the fallout from burning fossil fuels could last far longer than expected.
Climate change will bring about major shifts in worldwide fire patterns, and those changes are coming fast, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with scientists at Texas Tech University.
Polar bears are in danger of being wiped out unless urgent measures are taken to combat climate change and rapid warming in the Arctic, environmental group WWF warned Thursday.
The global sea level looks set to rise far higher than forecast because of changes in the polar ice-sheets, a team of researchers has suggested.
The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.
VICTORIA is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says.
Australia is at risk of more tragedies such as the Victorian bushfires if the Federal Government does not reassess its approach to global warming, says the peak firefighters union.
United Firefighters Union of Australia national secretary Peter Marshall has written an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Victorian Premier John Brumby, on behalf of Australia’s 13,000 firefighters.
In the wake of Australia’s worst ever bushfire disaster with over one hundred dead and around seven hundred properties destroyed in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, experts have warned climate change means Australians should expect more of the same in future years.
Emperor penguins, whose long treks across Antarctic ice to mate have been immortalised by Hollywood, are heading towards extinction, scientists say.
Based on predictions of sea ice extent from climate change models, the penguins are likely to see their numbers plummet by 95% by 2100.
Plants may give us fewer of the nutrients we need to survive if global warming is not controlled, a visiting expert says.
Half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century as rising temperatures take their toll on farmers’ crops, scientists have warned.
NEXT YEAR’S crucial climate change summit in Copenhagen will be a failure unless it produces a deal on substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a top United Nations official.
At a high-level academic conference on global warming at Exeter University this summer, climate scientist Kevin Anderson stood before his expert audience and contemplated a strange feeling. He wanted to be wrong. Many of those in the room who knew what he was about to say felt the same. His conclusions had already caused a stir in scientific and political circles. Even committed green campaigners said the implications left them terrified.
People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.
Green party Leader Elizabeth May says the threat of climate change makes the global economic meltdown look like a “Sunday school picnic.”
Climate Watch