Thousands of environment experts were set to gather in China on Monday in a bid to kick-start stalled UN talks on climate change, amid warnings that time was running out to broker a deal.
The six days of talks in the northern port city of Tianjin, due to begin at 10:00 am (0200 GMT), are part of long-running efforts through the United Nations to secure a post-2012 treaty on tackling global warming.
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A new, highly detailed map of part of Peru’s Amazon shows how much climate-warming carbon is stored there, and where cutting down vegetation has sent this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, scientists said on Monday.
The three-dimensional map could help clear the way for an international agreement to curb deforestation and forest degradation, which account for up to one-fifth of all greenhouse gases released by human activities, according to United Nations estimates.
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The number of people rendered homeless by the devastating floods in Pakistan has risen to more than 4 million, making the critical task of securing greater amounts of aid more urgent, the United Nations said.
The UN had earlier said 2 million people had lost their homes in the worst floods in Pakistan’s history, which began nearly three weeks ago.
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KARACHI (AFP) – Pakistan began evacuating half a million people from flood-risk areas in the south on Thursday as the overall number hit by the country’s worst floods in living memory rose to more than four million.
The United Nations rushed a top envoy to Pakistan to mobilise international support and address the urgent plight of millions affected by torrential monsoon rains across the volatile country that have killed around 1,500.
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The United Nations’ panel of climate scientists says it will probe claims its doomsday prediction for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers was wrong, as an expert said he had warned of the mistake.
The Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is already under attack over hacked email exchanges which sceptics say reflected attempts to skew the evidence for global warming.
The new controversy focuses on a reference in the IPCC’s landmark Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 that said the probability of glaciers in the Himalayas “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”. Read More / Watch Video »
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WASHINGTON — Droughts from Australia to the U.S. Southwest, acidic ocean water and melting glaciers are signs that the pace of climate change is surpassing the worst-case scenarios scientists predicted in 2007, a U.N. report said Thursday.
Mountain glaciers in Asia are melting at a rate that could eventually threaten water supplies, irrigation or hydropower for 20% to 25% of the world’s population, the U.N. Environment Program report said. Read More / Watch Video »
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The leaders of China and Japan pledged Tuesday to take stronger action to fight climate change, but US President Barack Obama warned prospects for a global warming deal faced tough political realities.
Leaders of some 100 nations huddled at the largest-ever climate summit, as the clock ticks to a high-stakes December conference in Copenhagen meant to draft a successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol.
“Failure to reach broad agreement in Copenhagen would be morally inexcusable, economically short-sighted and politically unwise,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier warned the participants. Read More / Watch Video »
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Climate change is killing valuable coral reef systems, a United Nations-backed report published on Wednesday warned.
The report — entitled “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” — unveiled in Berlin, concluded:
“We face the imminent loss of coral reefs due to climate change, with all the serious ecological, social and economic consequences this will entail.”
It said coral reef systems were worth up to 172 billion dollars per year in terms of economic activity. Read More / Watch Video »
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World environment leaders have issued a series of climate warnings from opposite ends of the globe, after hearing from those on the front line of global warming.
With less than 100 days until the UN’s crucial Copenhagen Conference, the UN Secretary General has visited scientists at a research station in the Norwegian Arctic Circle and UK Cabinet ministers have visited the flood-prone islands – or chars – of Bangladesh.
The Climate Secretary, Ed Miliband and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander went to the Chaluhara Char village on the River Jamuna in the Bay of Bengal. Read More / Watch Video »
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Delegates from 150 nations met in Geneva on Monday to try to plug gaps in climate information to help the world cope with global warming and threats like floods, wildfires and rising sea levels.
The August 31-September 4 World Climate Conference aims to improve everything from weather monitoring to distributing forecasts, especially to help poor nations adapt in areas such as health, agriculture, fisheries, transport, tourism and energy.
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Adapting to the effects of climate change such as floods and droughts is likely to cost two to three times more than the United Nations estimates, a report said on Thursday ahead of a major U.N. summit in December.
The U.N. climate change secretariat, UNFCCC, puts the global costs of adaptation, through measures such as building houses higher to avoid flooding and limiting the spread of diseases, at $40 billion (24.7 billion pounds) to $170 billion a year until 2030. Read More / Watch Video »
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HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) — The “humanitarian situation remains serious” in Zimbabwe amid cholera, starvation and a continuing economic crisis, a United Nations official said Wednesday at a World Humanitarian Day ceremony in Harare.
The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe resulted in nearly 100,000 cases, 4,288 of them fatal, the U.N. said.
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China’s efforts to build a low-carbon economy would accelerate if world powers agree to a “practical” global climate change pact later this year, former British prime minister Tony Blair said Thursday.
Blair was speaking ahead of key UN talks in Denmark in December aimed at securing a new global climate change pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
“What we need is getting a solution in Copenhagen that is practical, realistic and objective,” Blair told journalists in Beijing.
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An international cast of politicians, industry leaders and United Nations officials joined forces Monday to improve access to water and halt a tide of deaths in poor nations.
Some 2,000 experts met at a global water summit in Sweden to tackle problems related to the vital natural resource.
Millions of people worldwide die each year of water- and hygiene-related diseases, Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation said as she opened World Water Week 2009.
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U.N. talks on a new climate treaty due to be agreed in December risk failure unless negotiations accelerate, a senior U.N. official said on Friday after a sluggish week-long session among 180 nations.
Negotiators made scant progress at the Aug 10-14 talks toward breaking deadlock on a shareout of curbs on greenhouse gases among rich and poor, or raising funds to help developing nations adapt to climate changes.
“If we continue at this rate we’re not going to make it,” Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a news conference of the August 10-14 meeting in Bonn. Read More / Watch Video »
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China accused rich nations at U.N. climate talks on Thursday of increasing pressure on the poor to do more to combat global warming while shirking their own responsibility to lead.
“There has been a general feeling of unhappiness about the level of efforts that (developed nations) say they will take,” China’s climate ambassador Yu Qingtai told Reuters on the sidelines of August 10-14 climate talks in Bonn.
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