You’ve been hearing there's a global climate summit happening in Madrid this week. If you’re wondering what these international negotiations are and whether they have been making any progress, you’ve come to the right place.
Every year, the countries of the world get together and try to figure out what to do about the accelerating climate emergency. In United Nations jargon, it’s called a “Conference of the Parties,” which is why you’ll hear it described as “COP.”
The fossil fuel industry, political lobbyists, media moguls and individuals have spent the past 30 years sowing doubt about the reality of climate change - where none exists. The latest estimate is that the world’s five largest publicly-owned oil and gas companies spend about US$200 million a year on lobbying to control, delay or block binding climate policy.
Yesterday I presented the first of two “Am I wrong?” queries regarding the climate crisis. If you accept my facts, I said, you will see the massive challenge we face in transforming human assumptions and ways of living on Earth.
To see our fate clearly, we must face these hard facts about energy, growth and governance. Part one of two.
No one wants to be the downer at the party, and some would say that I am an unreformed pessimist. But consider this — pessimism and optimism are mere states of mind that may or may not be anchored in reality. I would prefer to be labeled a realist, someone who sees things as they are, who has a healthy respect for good data and solid analysis (or at least credible theory).
Countries across the world need to make their 2030 emission targets much more ambitious if the world is to stand a chance of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a major research report says.
And Canada is one of the biggest laggards, far from reaching its own targets which are themselves far from enough to keep warming to that level.
Statement sets out ‘vital signs’ as indicators of magnitude of the climate emergency
The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists.
“We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” it states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.”
Research has found Arctic soil has warmed to the point where it releases more carbon in winter than northern plants can absorb during the summer.
The finding means the extensive belt of tundra around the globe — a vast reserve of carbon that dwarfs what's held in the atmosphere — is becoming a source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.
"There's a net loss," said Dalhousie University's Jocelyn Egan, one of 75 co-authors of a paper published in Nature Climate Change.
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