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☆ Startups trying to turn cities into carbon sinks to fight climate change have raised a record $2.2 billion this year, new report shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Green construction startups have raised a record $2.2 billion in 2022, per VC firm A/O PropTech. The construction and operation of buildings account for 37% of global CO2 emissions from energy use, according to the UN. The adoption of bio-based materials, such as wood, and a circular approach to construction can help cities become carbon sinks, the report stated. A carbon sink is when something can store more carbon emissions than it produces. Most building materials are currently "down-cycled" and used for things like filling potholes, she added.

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt CNN —Delegates from nearly 200 counties at the COP27 climate summit have agreed to set up a “loss and damage” fund meant to help vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters, in a landmark deal early Sunday morning in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. And in previous public remarks, US Climate Envoy John Kerry had said loss and damage was not the same thing as climate reparations. “This loss and damage fund will be a lifeline for poor families whose houses are destroyed, farmers whose fields are ruined, and islanders forced from their ancestral homes,” World Resources Institute CEO Ani Dasgupta said. Beyond 1.5 degrees, the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages will increase dramatically, scientists said in the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. On Saturday, EU officials threatened to walk out of the meeting if the final agreement failed to endorse the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Rising salinity in the Delta has multiple causes, experts and farmers say, including overextraction of groundwater and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. "With time, with the sea level higher, that line of salinity will go down into the Delta. EVAPORATIONSea water intrusion and salinity also threaten the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh. "You have to do much better job in a place like the Nile Delta because the water just evaporates quickly," she said. Rice cultivation helps wash the soil, but the government has imposed restrictions on the crop in parts of the Delta to conserve scarce water.

[1/5] Yael Gabay, The Plant Based Treaty global co-director with a team give away free vegan burgers during COP27 climate summit in Red Sea resort at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 14, 2022. "We have to move away from animal production." "It would result in more intensive livestock production that would require larger areas of land to produce the animal feed, putting pressure on forest land," Reisinger told Reuters. THE OTHER WHITE MEATCampaigners have even protested the food kiosks at the summit selling burgers and chicken - foods they say don't belong at a climate conference. "When you enter the conference, you have the scent of grilled animal meat in your nose.

For more than 70 days this summer, a marine heatwave cooked the waters of the western Mediterranean. "We've been witnessing marine heatwaves during the last 20 years," said Garrabou, who's also coordinator of the T-MEDNet marine monitoring network. A 2016 marine heatwave along Chile's southern coast caused huge algae blooms that wiped out fish farms and cost the aquaculture industry some $800 million, said scientist Kathryn Smith with the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. As the world warms, marine heatwaves are expected to become more frequent, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Though economists have yet to account fully for the impacts of marine heatwaves, recent experience has many concerned.

☆ Degrowth: A dangerous idea or the answer to the world's biggest problems?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-13 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

“An innocent 2 or 3% per year, it’s an enormous amount of growth — cumulative growth, compound growth — over time,” said Giorgos Kallis, a top degrowth scholar based at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Action Press/ShutterstockThe UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently cited degrowth in a major report. Investment bank Jefferies said investors should consider what happens if degrowth gathers steam, noting “climate-anxious” younger generations have different consumer values. She’s criticized “fairy tales about non-existent technological solutions” and “eternal economic growth.” And she’s touched on another point degrowthers raise: Is our current system, which has produced rampant inequality, even working for us? Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who’s prioritized investing in climate innovations, admits that overhauling global energy systems is a Herculean task.

☆ India seeks COP27 deal to 'phase down' all fossil fuels
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Simon Jessop | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 12 (Reuters) - India wants countries to agree to phase down all fossil fuels at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, rather than a narrower deal to phase down coal as was agreed last year, two sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters on Saturday. India wants to expand that pledge to include all fossil fuels, the two sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said. Asked to confirm that was its position, a spokesperson for the Indian COP27 delegation said: "We did not mention coal at all." The proposal would have to be agreed by consensus during the next week if it were to go into a final COP27 deal. "We mentioned the IPCC AR6 report that has come since Glasgow that recognizes the need for phase down for all fossil fuels.

☆ Explainer: COP27: How climate change impacts countries around the world
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 9 (Reuters) - While delegates at the COP27 climate conference discuss the shared problem of climate change, each country will face its own challenges and threats. In February, the U.N. climate science agency released a major report on adapting to a warmer world - and detailed how that effort would differ from place to place. While some countries see glaciers melt or coastlines rise, others will contend mostly with raging wildfires and extreme heat, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. A World Bank report warned in September that climate impacts, including water scarcity and declining crop yields, could force some 216 million to migrate within their own countries by 2050. And in the Arctic, melting sea ice, warming temperatures, and thawing permafrost will push many species to the brink of extinction.

☆ Explainer: What the latest IPCC science says about climate change
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Laurie Goering | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces reports roughly every five years that represent global scientific consensus on climate change, its causes and its impact. Last year's report tackled the main drivers of global warming and the core elements of climate science. Here are some of the key takeaways from those reports:THE SCIENCE REPORT* Last year's report on the physical basis for climate change pulled no punches, stating unequivocally that humans are to blame for rising temperatures. * It also warned that climate change was already dangerously close to spinning out of control. * Millions of people face poverty and food insecurity in coming years, as climate change hits crops and water supplies and threatens to disrupt trade and labor markets.

☆ Russia's invasion of Ukraine has accelerated a nuclear renaissance. Europe's nuclear startups have raised a record $403 million in 2022.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Nuclear power has long been shunned by policymakers due to disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Rising energy costs caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine have sparked a nuclear resurgence. For most, nuclear energy sparks memories of the large-scale disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl. To generate energy via nuclear fusion, two atoms have to be combined – the same process that fuels the sun. Both are needed to fight climate change, according to Aneeqa Khan, a nuclear fusion research fellow at the Dalton Nuclear Institute.

☆ German protesters arrested after throwing mashed potatoes at Monet painting that sold for $110 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Julianne Mcshane | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Police arrested a pair of German protesters who, in a bid to bring attention to the perils of climate change, threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting that once sold for more than $110 million. That painting was also behind protective glass and unharmed in the incident, according to the museum. And all you are afraid of is tomato soup or mashed potatoes on a painting," one of the protesters says, according to an English subtitled version of the video. "This painting is not going to be worth anything if we have to fight over food," the protester adds. Born in 1840, Monet was the leading French Impressionist landscape painter, according to the National Gallery.

☆ This startup could become the Google Analytics of carbon accounting. Here's the 13-slide pitch deck Climatiq used to raise $5.8 million.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Climate tech startup Climatiq has raised 6 million euros (around $5.8 million) in a seed round. VC firm Singular led the round into the carbon API startup with Cherry Ventures also participating. Companies can also import their own carbon emissions data to provide a more accurate estimate of their impact. Some consumer-focused tools already embed emissions data. Emissions data is already shown on travel sites like Google Flights.

☆ Climate reparations may be ethical, but they aren't the best fix, climatologist says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-05 | by ( Natalie Tham | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Fida Hussain | Afp | Getty ImagesCalls for climate reparations for poorer countries hit hard by climate change are growing louder after catastrophic floods in Pakistan. "[Climate reparations are] the ethical thing to do," said Friederike Otto, a climatologist at the University of Oxford, "but a more equitable world is much better able to solve the complex crises we deal with. However, though climate reparations appear to be a relatively straightforward solution, their implementation isn't, Otto said. At the same time, for climate reparations to be successful, there needs to be an official classification of weather and climate events and natural hazards, she added. Andrew King, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is another proponent of climate reparations.

Gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark September 27, 2022. But since both Nord Stream pipelines contained mostly methane, "the potential for a massive and highly damaging emission event is very worrisome", McCabe said. Scientists say sharp cuts in methane emissions over the next few years will be a vital lever in curbing climate change. Releasing that amount in entirety to the atmosphere would result in around 200,000 tonnes of methane emissions, said chemical engineer Paul Balcombe at London's Queen Mary University. ENVIRONMENTAL RISKWhile oil spills can immediately affect and ultimately kill wildlife, authorities say the gas pipeline gas leaks pose a limited threat to the surrounding plant and animal life.

REUTERS/Akhtar SoomroUNITED NATIONS, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Countries on the front lines of the climate crisis are fed up. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked world leaders why his people were paying the price of global warming. "We renew our call to the world to declare total war on this century's greatest challenge: the climate change monster. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the least responsible for climate change are suffering the most. And yet, we are the fourth most vulnerable country to climate change," he told the U.N. gathering.

☆ Raport alarmant al ONU: „Am distrus planeta; Greul abia începe”
▼ + stars: | 2021-06-28 | by ( ) www.jurnal.md time to read: +2 min

Sursa foto: vox.comRaport alarmant al ONU: „Am distrus planeta; Greul abia începe”O versiune preliminară a raportului privind schimbările climatice de la Grupul interguvernamental de experți în evoluția climei (IPCC) din cadrul Organizației Națiunilor Unite (ONU) lansează un avertisment sumbru. Omenirea se află pe punctul de distrugere planetară mulțumită numeroaselor pericole cauzate de schimbările climatice tot mai grave. Omenirea a distrus planeta, iar noi vom culege roadele foarte, foarte curând. „Viața pe Pământ își poate reveni. Raportul arată că există o posibilitate foarte reală ca timpul omenirii pe planeta Pământ să se apropie de sfârșit.

Persons: ., Omenirea Organizations: ONU, Organizației Națiunilor Unite Locations: Paris

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