Climate change could cost US 'hundreds of billions' a year: study
Drastic action sought to cut carbon emissions: US government report
Tampa, Florida: Climate change is already hurting the global economy and will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars annually unless drastic action is taken to cut carbon emissions, a major US government report warned on Friday.
"Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century," said the Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II, a congressionally mandated report that spans more than 1,000 pages.
"The impacts of climate change beyond our borders are expected to increasingly affect our trade and economy, including import and export prices and US businesses with overseas operations and supply chains."
US President Donald Trump dismissed last year's report, and just this week appeared to confuse weather with climate change when he tweeted: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"
Impacts on North America
In Geneva, a top U.N. scientist shrugged off the online quip from US President Donald Trump that questioned global warming, saying the US government report will show the "fundamental impacts of climate change on the U.S. continent."
Officials at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) also said environmentally-minded efforts by the state of California, in parts of the financial sector, among grassroots activists and others will have more of an impact to help the fight against climate change than "political disturbance" and "discourse" will impede it.
The science, they said, will have the last word.
Some of that science came on Friday in a new US federal climate change assessment report, from agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Energy.
"It's very interesting what you will see (Friday)," said Pavel Kabat, WMO's chief scientist. "That is a major report coming supported by all agencies ... under the administration of President Trump ranging from NOAA to NASA, from NASA to DOE, showing the fundamental impacts of climate change on the U. continent."
Record high
Kabat was speaking at a news conference to present WMO's latest greenhouse gas bulletin, which said levels in the atmosphere climbed to a record last year.
In a statement, WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas warned "the window of opportunity" to act against climate change has nearly closed.
405.5ppm
globally-averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide in 2017 (from 400.1 in 2015), according to WMO
WMO says globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 405.5 parts per million in 2017, up slightly from the previous year and from 400.1 in 2015. Concentrations of other heat-trapping gases, like methane and nitrous oxide, also rose.
The findings come ahead of next month's meeting of world leaders in Katowice, Poland, for the annual global climate summit where they hope to find ways to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord that aims to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, which lies about 2,000 kilometers northeast of Australia, is one of those countries already suffering severe effects of climate change.
Its foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said his government is exploring the possibility of suing fossil fuel companies responsible for most man-made greenhouse gas emissions over the damage they have caused.
"By hiding what they knew and misrepresenting the dangers of unabated fossil fuel use, the fossil fuel industry and supportive governments protected their high-emissions profits and obstructed the changes needed to prevent or at least minimize the impacts of climate change," he told a 'virtual' summit of nations that are vulnerable to climate change.
WMO's Taalas said the last time Earth had such high levels of carbon dioxide concentration was 3-5 million years ago.
Without cuts in greenhouse gases, Taalas said, "climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible impacts on life on Earth."
Dubai leads push toward global green economy
World Economy Summit speakers say climate change driving transition from fossil fuels
Dubai: On opening day of the 2018 World Green Economy Summit on Wednesday, global luminaries in the fight against climate change lauded Dubai and the UAE as a model for embracing the transition from a fossil fuel economy to a future green economy powered by renewable energy.
For building the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant and cutting public energy consumption, to creating efficient public transportation and promoting carbon-free electric cars, Dubai was praised by keynote speakers who were instrumental in the Paris climate agreement which 195 countries agreed to in December 2015, to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees C this century and lower carbon emissions.
The two-day summit, under the theme ‘Driving innovation, leading change,’ was opened by Shaikh Maktoum Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai.
Now in its fifth year, the summit is organised by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) and the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO), in cooperation with the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy.
Keynote speaker and former President of France Francois Hollande told more than 3,000 delegates that the road toward limiting greenhouse gases is long and contended that not all countries are living up to their signatory pledge made in Paris to counter climate change.
“Almost all of the countries that took part, actually signed and made commitments. But have they followed through on them? My answer is ‘no’,” Hollande said, noting the United States’ withdrawal from the accord in particular.
“In the past two years, emissions of CO2 have increased, which have had a disastrous impact on climate,” Hollande said. He lauded countries such as the UAE, a signatory to the agreement which pledged to a national 27 per cent renewable energy mix by 2021.
“In Dubai, we have a demonstration of the will to create a green economy. There is a will to prepare for the change and transformation,” Hollande noted.
He also praised efforts such as those undertaken in Dubai to campaign public consumers to use less energy in their homes. “The best energy is the one that you do not consume,” Hollande said.
Evolution of energy use
Speaker Christina Figueres, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) overseeing the COP 21 Paris agreement, said the UAE is on the right side of history as the world moves from a 21st century dependent on fossil fuels to a 22nd century of renewable energy,
She extolled Dubai energy officials for recording the lowest renewable energy cost in the world, at three cents per kilowatt hour for solar power, and suggested that in the future, it should dip to one cent per kilowatt hour, vastly cheaper than coal.
“It’s an energy revolution the likes of which we have never seen in the evolution of human history,” Figueres told delegates. “Change always takes longer than we think but happens faster than we thought.”
Dr Thani Ahmad Al Zeyoudi, UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said embracing a green future is critical for future generations. “The green economy is becoming more important with passing days, led by the United Nations with its sustainable goals,” Al Zeyoudi said. “The green economy is the only way we will be able to do business in a stable manner.”
Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, Chairman of the World Green Economy Summit and CEO of Dewa, told delegates that Dubai has created a long list of innovative eco-projects to diversify from a traditional economy to a green one.
For example, the new Mohammad Bin Rashid Solar Park in Dubai will generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity annually when it is fully operational, making it the largest concentrated solar power facility of its kind in the world.
“We have transported these initiatives into different projects that depend on innovation, in order to fulfill the sustainable development targets of the UN,” Al Tayer said.
Climate change impact worse than feared: Report
New report warns of dire climate change consequences sooner than first thought
Incheon, South Korea: A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”
The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.
The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous IPCC reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organisation. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.” The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming.
What is the one big takeaway?
The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty.
Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change. The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark.
What does the world need to do?
Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion (Dh198.2 trillion). But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.
For instance, the report says that heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions — perhaps as high as $27,000 per tonne by 2100 — would be required. But such a move would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programmes.
Four steps to limit warning to 1.5C
45% Decline in global emissions of CO2 from 2010 levels by 2030
85% Of global electricity to be sourced from renewables by 2050
7 million sq km Of land will be needed for energy crops (a bit less than the size of Australia)
$54tr Damage to global economy can be avoided by these steps
How much will tackling climate change cost?
It won’t come cheap. The report says that to limit warming to 1.5C, it will involve “annual average investment needs in the energy system of around $2.4 trillion” between 2016 and 2035. But experts believe that this number needs to be put in context. “There are costs and benefits you have to weigh up,” Dr Stephen Cornelius, a former UK IPCC negotiator now with WWF, told the BBC. He said that cutting emissions hard in the short term will cost money, but is cheaper than paying for carbon dioxide removal later this century.
Who all compiled the report?
The report was written and edited by 91 scientists from 40 countries who analysed more than 6,000 scientific studies. The Paris agreement set out to prevent warming of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels — long considered a threshold for the most severe social and economic damage from climate change. But the heads of small island nations, fearful of rising sea levels, had also asked scientists to examine the effects of 2.7 degrees of warming.
Are all world leaders on the same page?
Not really. US President Donald Trump, who has mocked the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to increase the burning of coal and said he intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement. And on Sunday in Brazil, the world’s seventh-largest emitter of greenhouse gas, voters appeared on track to elect a new president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has said he also plans to withdraw from the accord.
The World Coal Association disputed the conclusion that stopping global warming calls for an end of coal use. In a statement, Katie Warrick, its interim chief executive, noted that forecasts from the International Energy Agency, a global analysis organisation, “continue to see a role for coal for the foreseeable future.”
What will happen if no one takes urgent action?
Absent aggressive action, many effects once expected only several decades in the future will arrive by 2040, and at the lower temperature, the report shows. “It’s telling us we need to reverse emissions trends and turn the world economy on a dime,” said Myles Allen, an Oxford University climate scientist and an author of the report.
Global sea-level will rise around 10 centimetres more if we let warming go to 2Celsius. That may not sound like much but keeping to 1.5C means that 10 million fewer people would be exposed to the risks of flooding. There are also significant impacts on ocean temperatures and acidity, and the ability to grow crops like rice, maize and wheat.
So what needs to be done now by countries around the world?
To prevent 2.7 degrees of warming, the report said, greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2050. It also found that, by 2050, use of coal as an electricity source would have to drop from nearly 40 per cent today to between 1 and 7 per cent.
Renewable energy such as wind and solar, which make up about 20 per cent of the electricity mix today, would have to increase to as much as 67 per cent. “This report makes it clear: There is no way to mitigate climate change without getting rid of coal,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University and an author of the report.
http://www.carrecoveryabudhabi.com
http://ababeelmoversuae.com/
www.rapidmovings.com
www.moverpackersuae.com
www.werepairsdubai.com
https://wallpainterservices.com
www.matechnical.com
www.painterindubai.ae
www.desertsafari.biz
www.alliedhomemovers.com
http://www.housemoversuae.com
http://www.moversinuae.ae
www.furniturebuysaleuae.com
http://www.alsabatailoring.com
http://www.moverspackersuae.com
https://quickservicesrepairing.com/
https://www.as-quicklcdrepairing.com/
http://www.homeappliancerepairsuae.com/
https://fastrepairingservices.com/
http://batteryonlineuae.com
usedfurniturebuyeruae.com
Comments
Post a Comment