Leading scientists on Thursday called on the upcoming Rio Summit to grapple with environmental ills that they said pointed to “a humanitarian emergency on a global scale.”
In a “State of the Planet” declaration issued after a four-day conference, the scientists said Earth was now facing unprecedented challenges, from water stress, pollution and species loss to spiralling demands for food.
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Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storms and rising seas, threatening all countries but small island states, poor nations and arid regions in particular, UN experts warned on Tuesday.
In its first-ever report on the question, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said man-made global-warming gases are already affecting some types of extreme weather.
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Lloyd’s of London insurance market on Wednesday posted its second-largest annual loss owing to record claims for catastrophes including Japan’s earthquake disaster and floods in Thailand.
The company suffered a pre-tax loss of £516 million ($822 million, 615 million euros) in 2011 on soaring claims, Lloyd’s said in a results statement. That compared with a profit before tax of £2.195 billion in 2010.
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The Kazakhstan government and environmentalists Tuesday sounded the alarm over the declining numbers of endangered Caspian seals after 35 animals were found dead over the weekend.
“During the inspection on March 25… 35 dead seals were found on the sea shore” near Bautino, a port town in the southwest, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.
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An exclusion zone has been put in place around a North Sea oil and gas well, where a plume of gas was seen rising above the water after a “serious” leak.
The potentially explosive natural gas is escaping from Total’s Elgin platform , and officials have admitted it could take up to six months to plug the leak.
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Climate change has accelerated in the past decade, the UN weather agency said Friday, releasing data showing that 2001 to 2010 was the warmest decade on record.
The 10-year period was also marked by extreme levels of rain or snowfall, leading to significant flooding on all continents, while droughts affected parts of East Africa and North America.
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The Greenland icesheet is more sensitive to global warming than thought, for just a relatively small — but very long term — temperature rise would melt it completely, according to a study published on Sunday.
Previous research has suggested it would need warming of at least 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in a range of 1.9-5.1 C (3.4-9.1 F), to totally melt the icesheet.
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Parts of the UK will see temperatures dive to -13C on Wednesday night as two weather fronts create a “battleground” over Britain, the Met Office has warned. Though there has been limited snowfall across the country since last week, freezing temperatures has kept snow from melting – causing havoc on the nation’s roads.
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Heavy snowfall across eastern Europe cut off hundreds of villages on Tuesday and rescue teams struggled to evacuate people in southern Bulgaria where rain and melting snow had caused a dam wall to break, flooding an entire village.
A river dike also broke under intense water pressure near Kapitan Andreevo at the border with Turkey, officials said.
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More than 30 more deaths have been reported as a result of the bitterly freezing weather that has swept across Europe.
A dam wall broke and flooded an entire village in southern Bulgaria when snow melted rapidly as a result of heavy rain.
Four residents drowned and four others died when their cars were swept away by the torrent of water.
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Europe’s bitterly cold weather killed another 33 people on Monday and melting snow caused a dam wall to break and flood an entire village in Bulgaria.
Gas supplies to the European Union from Russia improved at the weekend but have not fully recovered, the European Commission said, as Italy convened a crisis committee to handle what it called critical shortages of Russian gas.
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..The head of environmental pressure group Greenpeace warned Friday the world faced a “perfect storm” of crises and was heading for what he termed a crisis of “epic proportions.”
Speaking for the first time at the Munich Security Conference, Kumi Naidoo presented an apocalyptic version of the state of the world and accused leaders of “sleepwalking” into disaster.
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Around 1630 BC, a super-volcano blew apart the Aegean island of Santorini, an event so violent that some theorists say it nurtured the legend of Atlantis.
More than three and a half millennia later, the big blast is yielding forensic clues which help the search to predict future cataclysmic eruptions, scientists said on Wednesday.
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A cold snap that killed 30 people in Ukraine over the past five days spread Tuesday to swathes of eastern and central Europe with record lows in Bulgaria and heavy snow in Switzerland and parts of Italy.
Emergency services in Ukraine said most of the dead were homeless people who froze to death on the streets, four were found in their homes, and more than 600 people sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia.
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An earthquake has hit coastal Peru, shaking buildings in several cities, including in the capital Lima.Officials say about 60 people suffered minor injuries, mainly from being hit with falling objects.
The injuries included broken bones, concussion and cuts caused by falling objects, officials said.None of the injuries were considered life-threatening.
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A major United Nations report has called for a sustainable “evergreen revolution”, warning that time is running out to ensure there is enough food, water and fuel to meet the needs of the world’s rapidly growing population.
In a grim warning about the earth’s increasing demand for resources, a panel led by the presidents of Finland and South Africa found demand will grow exponentially as the global population rises from 7 billion people to an expected 9 billion by 2040.
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