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The UK plans to ban diesel and petrol vehicles from 2040. With the future looking electric we’d like to hear your driving experiences
From 2040, Britain plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans as part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan.
Amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health, the government said the move is needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.
Continue reading...Valuable fungus, prized as a reputed aphrodisiac, is disappearing due to warming temperatures, reports Climate Home
A Himalayan fungus used in Chinese medicine, which underpins the livelihoods of communities of harvesters in Nepal, is under the threat due to climate change.
Harvesting the Cordyceps sinensis fungus, called ‘yarsha gumba’ in Nepal, provides a livelihood for Himalayan dwellers. The fungus fetches up to Rs 2,800,000 (£20,000) per kg in raw form. During the peak season of yarsha collection, locals drop everything to pursue fungus hunting, including their usual profession. Even schools remain closed during yarsha collecting seasons.
Related: Fungus gold rush in Tibetan plateau rebuilding lives after earthquake
Continue reading...The fossil fuel industry used the same arguments, and even the same people, to block climate policies in the 1990s. We must not let this happen again.
Since President Trump announced on June 1 that the U.S. would cease implementation of the Paris Agreement, pundits have argued about whether the American pullout will truly affect greenhouse gas pollution one way or another, since, after all, the Paris Agreement was not legally binding to begin with.
We don’t know the future, but we do know the past, and here’s something we shouldn’t miss: we’ve seen this before. The same arguments used by President Trump - and even the same people he cited - were used by the oil and gas industry to block climate policies throughout the 1990s, including the United States’ implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The playbook from twenty years ago is back, and this time we must be ready for it.
Continue reading...The national climate policy is a greenwash – the country is certain to miss its 2020 emissions target and still handing out drilling licences
On the face of it, Ireland appears to be acting on climate change. Last year it appointed its first ever “climate action minister”, and in June it outlawed onshore fracking. What’s more, the telegenic new taoiseach Leo Varadkar dedicated much of the first day of his Cabinet retreat to discussing climate change.
Last week Varadkar introduced Ireland’s first national mitigation plan (NMP) in more than a decade, and said that addressing climate change would “require fundamental societal transformation and, more immediately, allocation of resources and sustained policy change.” If success could be measured simply by repetition – the word “sustainable” appears no fewer than 110 times in the NMP – Ireland would undoubtedly be among the world’s leading countries.
Continue reading...Survey finds Highlands population has halved since 1990s, believed to be because of climate change and human activity
Conservationists have called for action to protect the capercaillie, one of Scotland’s rarest and most treasured birds, after data showed its population had fallen 50% in just over two decades.
An extensive field survey of capercaillie breeding grounds in the Highlands estimated a population of only 1,114 birds between 2015 and last year, compared with an estimate of 2,200 between 1992 and 1994.
Related: 'It is strange to see the British struggling with the beaver': why is rewilding so controversial?
Continue reading...The acclaimed scientist and television star talks about his new book and the damaging effects of ignoring the planet’s changing climate
“Excuse me, but gigawatt is pronounced ‘gigg-uh-watts’,” Bill Nye said in 1985. “You say it with a hard ‘g’.”
He was a 32-year-old engineer living in Seattle who called into the live sketch comedy TV show Almost Live! to correct the show’s host, Ross Shafer, who mispronounced the word “gigawatt” while talking about science on-air.
Related: Bill Nye the Science Guy on Trump: 'We are in a dangerous place'
Related: March for Science puts Earth Day focus on global opposition to Trump
Related: Climate change denier Sarah Palin: 'Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am'
Continue reading...This report summarises the results of a weekly poll conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Your Source. Some questions are repeated regularly (such as political preference and leadership approval), while others are unique to each week and reflect current media and social issues
Continue reading...Modelling suggests Australia would face more frequent drought-inducing weather events beyond any climate stabilisation
Extreme El Niño events that can cause crippling drought in Australia are likely to be far more frequent even if the world pulls off mission improbable and limits global warming to 1.5C.
International scientists have released new modelling that projects drought-causing El Niño events, which pull rainfall away from Australia, will continue increasing in frequency well beyond any stabilisation of the climate.
Related: Temperature-boosting El Niño set for early return this year
Continue reading...Half of capital’s 3 million residents could have water switched off for eight hours a day after Italy’s driest spring for 60 years
More than a million residents of Rome are facing water rationing for up to eight hours a day as the prolonged heatwave that has ravaged southern Europe takes its toll on the Italian capital.
Some businesses are already reporting sporadic disruption to their supply, while last month mayor Virginia Raggi turned off thousands of the city’s public drinking fountains in an effort to save water as the drought set in.
Related: Grapes shrivel as Spanish farmers lament a relentless drought
Continue reading...How we define “pre-industrial” is important
In the Paris climate treaty, nearly every world country agreed to try and limit global warming to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, and preferably closer to 1.5°C. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change notes that the agreement didn’t define when “pre-industrial” begins.
Our instrumental measurements of the Earth’s average surface temperature begin in the late-1800s, but the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700s. There’s also a theory that human agriculture has been influencing the global climate for thousands of years, but the mass burning of fossil fuels kicked the human influence into high gear.
Either the Paris targets have to be revised, or alternatively, we decide that the existing targets really were meant to describe only the warming since the late 19th century.
1) Above about 2°C we start to get into the realm where there’s a significant risk of major climate impacts, like widespread coral bleaching, declining food production, significant sea level rise, and up to 30% of global species at risk of extinction.
2) From a practical political standpoint, meeting the 2°C carbon budget is about the best we can do. Even that will require aggressive global action, with countries ratcheting down their carbon pollution targets.
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