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☆ The Missing $1 Trillion
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( David Gelles | Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Discussions about how to reform lumbering multilateral bureaucracies can get tedious quickly. How to make more money available for developing nations that are being battered by extreme weather? And how to make sure poor countries don’t spend too much money servicing their debt? Experts estimate that at least $1 trillion a year is needed to help developing countries adapt to hotter temperatures and rising seas, build out clean energy projects and cope with climate disasters. “For many countries, they will only be able to implement strong new climate plans if we see a quantum leap in climate finance this year,” Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, said in a speech last week.

Persons: ” Simon Stiell Organizations: World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations Locations: United

☆ Drought Pushes Millions Into ‘Acute Hunger’ in Southern Africa
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Somini Sengupta | Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An estimated 20 million people in southern Africa are facing what the United Nations calls “acute hunger” as one of the worst droughts in more than four decades shrivels crops, decimates livestock and, after years of rising food prices brought on by pandemic and war, spikes the price of corn, the region’s staple crop. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all declared national emergencies. Its effects are all the more punishing because in the past few years the region had been hit by cyclones, unusually heavy rains and a widening outbreak of cholera. ‘Urgent help’ is neededThe rains this year began late and were lower than average. In February, when crops need it most, parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique and Botswana received a fifth of the typical rainfall.

Organizations: United Nations Locations: Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana

☆ ‘Narco-deforestation’ and the future of the Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There’s a struggle for law and order in many of the world’s tropical forests, and nature is losing. Last week, I wrote about the major progress Colombia made in 2023, slashing deforestation rates by 49 percent in a single year. But this week, we learned the trend reversed significantly in the first quarter of this year. Mostly because a single armed group controls much of Colombia’s rainforests. had largely banned deforestation and in recent months it seems to have allowed it again.

Persons: There’s, Susana Muhamad, ” Organizations: Colombia’s, Environment, Estado Mayor Central, United Locations: Colombia, United Nations

☆ Global Forest Loss Remains High, Despite Recent Progress
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Despite major progress in protecting vast tracts of rainforest, the world failed again last year to significantly slow the pace of global forest destruction, according to a report issued on Thursday. Record wildfires in Canada and expanding agriculture elsewhere offset big gains in forest protection in Brazil and Colombia, the report found. The annual survey by the World Resources Institute, a research organization, found that the world lost 9.1 million acres of primary tropical forest in 2023, equivalent to an area almost the size of Switzerland, about 9 percent less than the year before. But the improvement failed to put the world on course to halt all forest loss by 2030, a commitment made by 145 nations at a global climate talks in Glasgow in 2021 and reaffirmed by all countries last year.

Organizations: World Resources Institute Locations: Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Switzerland, Glasgow

☆ A First Step Toward a Global Price on Carbon
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | Max Bearak | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It didn’t make many headlines, but last week, at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization, something potentially world-changing happened. The United Nations agency, which regulates the shipping industry, essentially committed to creating the world’s first global carbon price. “I’m very confident that there is going to be an economic pricing mechanism by this time next year,” Arsenio Dominguez, the Secretary General of the maritime organization, said. “What form it is going to have and what the name is going to be, I don’t know.”The proposal would require shipping companies to pay a fee for every ton of carbon they emit by burning fuel. In other words, it’s a tax.

Persons: ” Arsenio Dominguez Organizations: International Maritime Organization, United Nations

☆ Why Palm Oil Is Still a Big Problem
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Palm oil — the ubiquitous ingredient for all things spreadable, from toothpaste to ice cream — is now the commodity consumed by Americans that contributes most to the loss of tropical forests. Researchers looked at import data and deforestation rates and found that palm oil bought by Americans may have caused 103,000 acres of deforestation, mostly in Indonesia. I want to focus on palm oil today because we’ve known about this problem for a long time. Palm oil is environmentally destructive, grown on vast plantations after rainforests have been flattened and burned. And after years of hard-won progress, the deforestation associated with palm oil production in Indonesia is ticking up again.

Organizations: Global Witness Locations: Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, That’s, New York City

☆ What About Nature Risk?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Reporting the corporate risks of climate change is increasingly becoming a required part of doing business. This month, the Securities and Exchange Commission made such disclosures mandatory for public companies in the United States, following the lead from the European Union and California. But climate is not the only aspect of the natural world that is being transformed by human activity. Though corporate leaders often don’t talk about these other parts of nature, they could deeply impact the corporate world in ways that we are only beginning to measure. Will policies to stop ocean pollution impact how companies produce plastic?

Organizations: Securities and Exchange Commission, European Union and Locations: United States, European Union and California

☆ Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Ana Ionova | Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

By this time of the year, rain should be drenching large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rains at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of the rainforest that do not usually burn. The fires have turned the end of the dry season in the northern part of the giant rainforest into a crisis. Firefighters have struggled to contain enormous blazes that have sent choking smoke into cities across South America. A record number of fires so far this year in the Amazon has also raised questions about what may be in store for the world’s biggest tropical rainforest when the dry season starts in June in the far larger southern part of the jungle.

Organizations: Firefighters Locations: South America

☆ Biden Makes the Case on Climate
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-07 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

President Biden and former President Trump are worlds apart on climate policy. But do voters know it? Polls show that most Americans don’t know that Biden signed into law the biggest climate law in U.S. history. Tonight, Biden will have the chance to highlight those contrasts when he addresses Congress in the annual State of the Union speech. I asked my colleague Lisa Friedman, who covers climate policy and politics, for a preview.

Persons: Biden, Trump, Lisa Friedman Organizations: State of Locations: Paris, State

☆ A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Up to half of the Amazon rainforest could transform into grasslands or weakened ecosystems in the coming decades, a new study found, as climate change, deforestation and severe droughts like the one the region is currently experiencing damage huge areas beyond their ability to recover. Those stresses in the most vulnerable parts of the rainforest could eventually drive the entire forest ecosystem, home to a tenth of the planet’s land species, into acute water stress and past a tipping point that would trigger a forest-wide collapse, researchers said. While earlier studies have assessed the individual effects of climate change and deforestation on the rainforest, this peer-reviewed study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first major research to focus on the cumulative effects of a range of threats. “This study adds it all up to show how this tipping point is closer than other studies estimated,” said Carlos Nobre, an author of the study. Dr. Nobre is a Brazilian Earth systems scientist who studies how deforestation and climate change might permanently change the forest.

Persons: ”, Carlos Nobre, Nobre Locations: Brazilian

☆ Coastal Cities Brace for Climate Change
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the past few weeks, flooding from storms has battered cities in the South and the East Coast, from Louisiana to New Jersey. Overlapping atmospheric rivers over the West Coast have brought heavy rains that are likely to come back in the next few days. “The problem comes when there’s too much at one time,” he said. Climate change makes that a lot more likely. Warmer air holds more moisture, which means storms in many parts of the world are getting wetter and more intense, as my colleague Ray Zhong explained during deluges last year.

Persons: Jill Cowan, Judson Jones, there’s, ”, Ray Zhong, deluges Locations: East Coast, Louisiana, New Jersey, West, Ventura County, San Diego

☆ Climate Change Drove Drought in the Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Climate change fueled the remarkable 2023 drought that drained major rivers, fueled huge wildfires and threatened the livelihoods of millions of people in the Amazon rainforest, scientists said on Wednesday. Deforestation of the Amazon, the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest, has decreased rainfall and weakened the ability of trees and soil to retain moisture, researchers found. That made drought more acute and caused the forest to be less resilient to environmental destruction and events like wildfires. The Amazon River — the world’s largest by volume — and several of its tributaries reached their lowest levels in 120 years of record-keeping last year. A severe drought would have still occurred if humans hadn’t so profoundly changed the climate.

Organizations: U.S . Locations: U.S

☆ Jane Goodall Says 2024 is the ‘Most Consequential Voting Year’
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( David Gelles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When I caught up with Jane Goodall in 2019, she was calling on consumers and businesses to make responsible choices and protect the natural world. And in a year when more than 40 countries — including the United States, India and South Africa — will be electing their leaders, Goodall is telling anyone who will listen that the health of Earth itself is on the ballot. “Half of the population of the planet is going to be voting,” she said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. “This year could be the most consequential voting year in terms of the fate of our planet.”As my colleague Manuela Andreoni wrote last week, the leaders elected this year will face consequential choices on energy policy, deforestation and emissions reductions. In the United States, Republicans are planning to undo environmental regulations if former president Donald J. Trump wins re-election.

Persons: Jane Goodall, Goodall, ”, Manuela Andreoni, Donald J, Claudia Sheinbaum Organizations: Economic, Trump Locations: United States, India, South Africa, Davos, Mexico, Mexico City

☆ Tackling Climate Change in the Birthplace of Oil
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the second year in a row, the United Nations climate summit known as COP will take place in a petrostate. COP29 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan, and overseen by Mukhtar Babayev, who worked for more than two decades at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company. There’s a precedent: Last year’s climate summit was controversially hosted by the United Arab Emirates and led by Sultan Al Jaber, who also runs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. It remains to be seen whether Babayev, a former low-ranking executive who is now Azerbaijan’s environment minister, will have the same impact. But there is also a poignant historical resonance to COP29: By some measures, Azerbaijan is where the modern oil industry began.

Persons: Mukhtar Babayev, There’s, Sultan Al Jaber, Al Jaber’s, COP28 Organizations: United Arab, Abu, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Locations: United Nations, Baku, Azerbaijan, Socar, Azerbaijan’s, United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi

☆ It’s Always Fire Season Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s the end of fire season in the Amazon, where I am, and I can smell the smoke from burning trees. So can millions of people in Indonesia, India and the United States. This is almost certainly the hottest year on record, and it seems to be fire season somewhere just about every day. So far this year, wildfires have sent 2,020 megatons of carbon into the atmosphere, according to data from Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. That’s more than what Russia, the world’s third-largest emitter in 2021, behind the U.S. and China, produced that year.

Organizations: Monitoring Locations: Indonesia, India, United States, Russia, China

It’s no secret that fossil fuels are still going strong, as we discussed last month. But a new United Nations-backed report paints an alarming picture of how dramatically coal, oil and gas production is expected to grow in the coming years. If current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas in 2030 than at any point in its history, our colleague Hiroko Tabuchi reports. In fact, almost all of the top 20 fossil fuel-producing countries plan to produce more oil, gas and coal in 2030 than they do today. “We cannot address climate catastrophe without tackling its root cause: fossil fuel dependence.”

Persons: Hiroko Tabuchi, António Guterres Organizations: United Nations Locations: United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia

☆ Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Falls to a Five-Year Low
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil fell to a five-year low, the country’s National Institute of Space Research announced on Thursday, a sign that Brazil, which has the biggest share of tropical forest in the world, was making progress on its pledge to halt all deforestation by the end of the decade. The decline in tree loss is estimated to have reduced the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5 percent. “Behind this was a political decision,” Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, said on Thursday at a news conference. “We are changing the image of the country when we change this reality.”The announcement was an encouraging sign that local policies could change the trajectory of global forest loss. The world lost 10.2 million acres of primary forest in 2022, a 10 percent increase from the year before, according to an annual survey by the World Resources Institute.

Persons: ” Marina Silva Organizations: National Institute of Space Research, World Resources Institute Locations: Brazil

☆ Climate Change Is Causing Severe Drought in a Volatile Mideast Zone, Study Finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Human-made climate change is driving a yearslong extreme drought in Iran, Iraq and Syria, an area that encompasses a region known as the Fertile Crescent and a cradle of civilization, scientists said on Wednesday. In the last three years, the drought, the second worst on record, has shriveled wheat crops and led to tensions between neighboring countries and communities over access to dwindling water supplies. It has also displaced tens of thousands of people, and helped push millions into hunger. The crisis is evidence of how global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels can act “as a threat multiplier,” said Rana El Hajj, a technical adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center in Lebanon, and one of the 10 authors of the study. It was put out by the World Weather Attribution initiative, an international scientific collaboration that specializes in rapid analysis of extreme weather events.

Persons: ”, Rana El Hajj Organizations: Climate Locations: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon

☆ Clean Energy’s Powerful Momentum
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the past few months, we’ve been telling you all about the U.S. energy transition that’s arriving faster than you think. But the move toward solar is global: the study’s authors expect solar to be the cheapest source of electricity in almost all countries by 2027. “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told Brad. Between 2010 and 2020, the study found, the cost of solar cells fell by 15 percent each year. “The pace of decline in price initially surprised many people,” my colleague Ivan Penn, who covers the energy sector, told me.

Persons: we’ve, Fatih Birol, Brad, Ivan Penn Organizations: International Energy Agency

A toxic algae bloom, likely linked to the drought and extreme heat, has also proliferated in the lake, creating a red stain in the water, although scientists are unsure if it could harm humans or animals. “We’re using nets to try to steer the dolphins out of this area,” Dr. Fleischmann said. Wildfires have consumed more than 18,000 square miles of the Amazon since the start of the year, an area twice the size of Vermont. Checking air quality data each morning has become an anxious habit in the city, as children and older people have ended up in hospitals struggling to breathe, according to doctors in Manaus. “It’s really hard to fill your lungs with air,” she said.

Persons: Dr, Fleischmann, Camila Justa, “ Locations: Vermont, Manaus

☆ The Fault Lines at Climate Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Still, oil producing nations and corporations haven’t yet shown any signs that they are ready to slow down. Britain’s government, a climate leader for years, just announced a change of course that will weaken key environmental pledges, including delays to a ban on the sale of gas and diesel cars. The prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Store, told Somini that this is the century when the world will phase out fossil fuel. But he also said he is against setting a deadline for the transition, and defended his country’s continued investment in oil and gas expansion. “By the end of this decade, you will have very good business arguments for not investing in oil and gas and rather investing in solar, wind, hydrogen, these new sources.”

Persons: ”, David, “, Jonas Gahr, Somini Organizations: International Energy Agency Locations: Norway

A lack of proof means that roughly a third of those groups remain unprotected, making expert trackers like Mr. Candor, who have learned how to find forest dwellers who don’t want to be found, critical to their survival. Mr. Candor’s family moved to the Amazon when he was 6. Three years later, Mr. Candor’s mother died. Soon, he stopped going to school and began learning how to survive in the wilderness.

Persons: I’m, ”, Rio Pardo, Candor, Candor’s Locations: Brazil

Ecuador voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to halt oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on earth. With almost all ballots counted, 59 percent of voters sided with the young activists who spent a decade fighting for the referendum, as we wrote last week. It is widely considered to be the first time a country’s citizens voted decisively to leave oil in the ground. In a separate referendum, Ecuadoreans also voted to block mining in a biosphere reserve. The oil will keep flowing in dozens of other sites in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Persons: Ecuadoreans, Monserrat Locations: Ecuador

There was virtually nothing but rainforest for miles, and then the government agents spotted it: a makeshift shelter, the fire still smoldering. “He was just here,” said one of the agents, Jair Candor, crouching beneath the shelter in June as his partner snapped photographs. Candor had spent 35 years searching for a man who did not want to be found — and this time, he just missed him. That man, Tamandua Piripkura, has lived his life on the run. He has lived isolated, deep in the Amazon rainforest, his entire life, believed to be about 50 years.

Persons: ”, Jair, Candor, Tamandua Piripkura

Should Ecuador continue drilling in one of the most biodiverse corners of the Amazon or should it keep the oil underground? On Sunday, its people will decide in a binding referendum that landed on the ballot after a decade-long fight by young activists. As the world faces twin ecological crises of climate change and ecosystem collapse, the vote will determine what one country’s citizens are willing to give up to protect the planet. But oil is Ecuador’s most important export and the government is campaigning for drilling to continue. According to official estimates, the country stands to lose $1.2 billion in revenue a year if the oil is left underground.

Locations: Ecuador

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