Page 56 - Climate Change

Human-caused climate change resulting into increased flash droughts: Study

'Flash droughts', or droughts that start and develop rapidly, have become more frequent due to human-caused climate change and the trend is predicted to accelerate in a warmer future, according to a new research. An international team of researchers, including those from the University of Southampton, UK, said that flash droughts are fast becoming the 'new normal' for droughts, making forecasting and preparing for their impact more difficult. Their research is published in the journal Science. Flash droughts, caused by low precipitation and high evapotranspiration and leading to quick depletion of soil of water, can develop into severe droughts within a few weeks. While they start quickly, the droughts can last for months, damaging vegetation and ecosystems, and triggering heat waves and wildfires. The researchers wanted to understand if there had been a transition from conventional 'slow' droughts to flash droughts and also how the trend would develop under different carbon emiss

Climate change threatens survival of tigers in Sunderbans: Conservationists

Climate change is increasing the intensity of forest fires, reducing vegetation and degrading natural habitats, forcing the wildlife to move out and come into conflict with humans, conservationists said on Friday. In its latest all-India tiger estimation report, released recently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) highlighted the "silent and surmounting" threats of climate change-related impacts on habitats and the loss of the quality of forests over time. It added that climate change threatens the survival of tigers in the Sunderbans and is one of the major challenges facing the wildlife in the Western Ghats. While the big cat population in the Sunderbans is steady, it has come down substantially in the Western Ghats where 824 tigers were recorded in 2022 against 981 in 2018. Mohammad Sajid Sultan, the NTCA's assistant inspector general of forests, said the wildlife is being affected by climate change with new pests and diseases ...

Superheated storms increasingly affect people's health, say experts

"Seafood can be poisoned by silt and wastewater runoff into the sea; flooded housing can become contaminated and moldy; and the mental health impacts of storms are often hidden and underestimated"

Consensus on definition of global challenges essential for MDB: Sitharaman

The discussion focused on the impact of global development challenges like climate change, pandemics, fragility and conflict on development progress and reforms at the World Bank

India's need for fossil fuel encouraging heatwaves that will cripple it

India's emissions are already on the brink of overtaking those from the European Union. By 2030, they'll account for more pollution than Europe and Japan put together

Residual emissions to be tackled to meet net-zero goal in 2050: Study

Calling for strategies to tackle residual emissions, scientists said they would need to be balanced by carbon dioxide removal techniques to meet net-zero goals, meaning that greenhouse gases (GHG) entering the atmosphere are offset by those being removed. Residual emissions are those that remain after efforts to eliminate GHG emissions have been implemented. For example, agriculture and shipping industries are likely to continue releasing GHG in the atmosphere, even with concerted efforts towards eliminating emissions. "Our plans are not adequate to meet the goal of limiting the earth's temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050," said lead researcher Holly Jean Buck, assistant professor of environment and sustainability, University of Buffalo, New York, US. Buck and her international team argued for a better understanding of residual emissions in their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change. They said that according to long-term strategies of ..

North India major groundwater depletion hotspot with 95% of country's loss

North India accounts for 95 per cent of the country's groundwater depletion, according to a study which found that rainfall increase in the future will be insufficient to fully recover the already depleted resources. The researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IIT-GN) also found that groundwater depletion in India will continue until excessive pumping is limited, leading to water sustainability issues in the future. Nonrenewable (unsustainable) pumping has the dominant influence on groundwater storage, causing the water table to drop, they said. "Limiting tube well depth and including extraction costs is beneficial to prevent overexploitation of deep aquifers," said Vimal Mishra, Professor, Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar. "Limiting global mean temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius can benefit groundwater storage in North India," Mishra told PTI. The study, published recently in the journal One Earth, analysed data from the Central ...

Coal use climbs worldwide despite promises to slash it, says report

The burning of coal for electricity, cement, steel and other uses went up in 2022 despite global promises to phase down the fuel that's the biggest source of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere, a report Wednesday found. The coal fleet grew by 19.5 gigawatts last year, enough to light up around 15 million homes, with nearly all newly commissioned coal projects in China, according to a report by Global Energy Monitor, an organisation that tracks a variety of energy projects around the globe. That 1 per cent increase comes at a time when the world needs to retire its coal fleet four and a half times faster to meet climate goals, the report said. In 2021, countries around the world promised to phase down the use of coal to help achieve the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future, said Flora Champenois, the report's lead author and the project manager for GEM's

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What higher oil prices mean for the fight against climate change

In the past year, soaring energy prices and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have been accelerants and a curse for the transition away from dirty fuels

Untamed global warming risks soaring death toll in middle east: Report

If global warming can be limited to 2C above preindustrial levels, the researchers found that over 80% of those deaths could be avoided

An old solution to the emission problem

A more than seven-decade-old technology is coming in the limelight on the journey to net zero

Joe Biden's landmark climate Bill lures China's clean energy giants

The building boom underscores how the US has rebuilt its credentials as a cleantech manufacturing hub after last year's Inflation Reduction Act.

Pak FM calls for working together to address economic, climate challenges

"The world is still suffering from the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it should be our collective responsibility to put a minimum burden on the low-income people," Bilawal said

Most of Himalayan glaciers analysed are retreating at varying rates: Govt

Majority of Himalayan glaciers analysed are melting or retreating at varying rates in different regions, the government has said. It has noted that melting glaciers due to any impact of climate change will not only severely affect the flow in Himalayan river system but will also give rise to natural disasters. The government's response was given to a parliamentary standing committee looking at Glacier Management in the Country - Monitoring of Glaciers/Lakes including Glacial Lake Outbursts leading to Flash-floods in the Himalayan Region. The parliamentary standing committee report was tabled in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Explaining the problem of incessant melting and retreating of Himalayan glaciers and the estimated volume loss of glaciers between the year(s), the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation said the Geological Survey of India has conducted studies on their melting by assessment of mass balance studies on nine glaciers and also carried out

Centre expected to issue Rs 23,764-crore sovereign green bonds in FY24

Govt is already finalising projects and may issue a few such bonds in H1FY24

Environmental groups slam German government's energy, climate deal

Environmental groups have criticised a deal between Germany's three governing parties on energy and climate policies, saying Wednesday that it risks watering down essential measures to curb global warming. The agreement announced Tuesday followed three days of intense haggling and weeks of discord that threatened to paralyse Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government. It eases requirements for new home heating systems and allows for the construction and expansion of Germany's highways, while also providing more money for the country's rail network. But Germany's BUND environmental group accused Scholz of giving in to expensive false solutions and ignoring warnings contained in a recent UN climate report about the need for drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Accelerating the planning process for up to 144 Autobahn projects is a fatal signal at a time of climate crisis, the group's head, Olaf Brandt, said. Brandt also criticised planned subsidies for synthetic vehicle fuels,

Renewable energy needs to be ramped up to meet global climate goals

Deployment of new wind and solar power plants needs to be drastically ramped up by the end of the decade to meet the world's climate goals, the International Renewable Energy Agency said Tuesday. In an advance preview of its annual report on the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy, the agency said renewables accounted for 83 per cent of new power generation last year. Worldwide, the share of installed power generation coming from renewables reached 40 per cent in 2022, it said. But in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and put the world on track to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), existing targets for renewable power deployment would need to be more than doubled, the Abu Dhabi-based agency said. Governments agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit the global temperature rise to 2 C (3.6 F) ideally no more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial averages. The lower target would prevent significant harm from climate change

Heat action plans not suited to risks faced by local populations: Research

The CPR's report says most HAPs are not built for local contexts. They across the country generally focus on dry extreme heat and ignore the threats posed by humid heat and warm nights

Berlin's climate proposal fails to get enough votes in favour to win

A Sunday referendum in Berlin that would have forced the city to ramp up its climate goals failed because there weren't enough votes in favour of the proposal, the German news agency dpa reported. After about 98 per cent of the votes had been counted, the supporters of the proposal were just ahead of the opponents of such a change in the law, according to an announcement by the city-state's election administration. However, that result only met one requirement for a successful proposal. The second requirement, a quorum of at least 25 per cent of all eligible voters, was not met, dpa reported. Shortly before the end of the count, there were around 423,000 votes in favour and around 405,000 votes against. The quorum for a successful referendum would have been around 608,000 votes in favour of the proposal. The referendum had called for Berlin to become climate neutral by 2030. The target meant that in less than eight years, the city would no longer be allowed to contribute further to