BBC (July 5)
“The world’s average temperature reached a new high on Monday 3 July, topping 17 degrees Celsius for the first time.” This marks “the highest in any instrumental record dating back to the end of the 19th century.” Scientists attribute the record high to “El Niño and mankind’s ongoing emissions of carbon dioxide.” With El Niño about to enter its hottest phase, “scientists believe that more records will be shattered as the summer goes on and El Niño gains strength.”
Tags: 17 degrees, CO2, El Niño, Emissions, High, Hottest phase, Record, Scientists, Shattered, Strength, Summer, Temperature
Nature (March 29)
Companies are scrambling to turn” CO2 “into useful products — but will that slow climate change?” On the surface, converting CO2 emissions holds more promise than sequestration, yet there are numerous issues and debate is far from settled. There is, however, “at least one point of broad agreement: that CO2 recycling technologies should eventually draw as much of their feedstock as possible from the atmosphere, rather than from waste industrial gases.”
Tags: Atmosphere, Climate change, CO2, Companies, Converting, Emissions, Feedstock, Promise, Recycling technologies, Scrambling, Sequestration, Useful, Waste industrial gases
USA Today (November 3)
“The coronavirus lockdowns had an ‘extreme’ effect on carbon emissions, causing a whopping 17% drop globally during peak confinement measures by early April 2020 – levels that hadn’t been seen since 2006.” We are now reverting to mean. “Global emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that’s most responsible for global warming, have returned to near pre-pandemic levels…. This year saw a 4.9 percent increase in emissions over 2020, similar to the rebound that followed the 2008 global financial crisis.”
Tags: CO2, Coronavirus, Emissions, GHG, Global warming, Lockdowns, Pre-pandemic levels, Rebound, Reverting
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
New York Times (February 3)
In a move “that is unheard-of for an advanced economy…. Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants—one of the dirtiest sources of electricity—at 17 different sites in the next five years, just at a time when the world needs to slash carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming.”
Tags: Advanced, CO2, Coal burning, Dirtiest, Economy, Electricity, Japan, Power plants, Unheard-of
Washington Post (December 1)
“Experts have known for years what the United States must do: place a strong and steadily rising price on carbon dioxide emissions, invest heavily in clean-energy research and development, and make climate a top priority in international diplomacy. President Trump is instead denying the problem.”
Tags: Clean energy, Climate, CO2, Denying, Diplomacy, Emissions, Experts, Invest, Price, Priority, Trump, U.S.
The Economist (August 3)
“Still a livelihood for 1.5bn people, forests maintain local and regional ecosystems and, for the other 6.2bn, provide a—fragile and creaking—buffer against climate change. Now droughts, wildfires and other human-induced changes are compounding the damage from chainsaws. In the tropics, which contain half of the world’s forest biomass, tree-cover loss has accelerated by two-thirds since 2015; if it were a country, the shrinkage would make the tropical rainforest the world’s third-biggest carbon-dioxide emitter, after China and America.”
Tags: Buffer, Chainsaws, China, Climate change, CO2, Damage, Droughts, Ecosystems, Forests, Livelihood, Tropical rainforest, U.S., Wildfires
Bloomberg (March 9)
“China is cracking down on pollution like never before, with new green policies so hard-hitting and extensive they can be felt across the world, transforming everything from electric vehicle demand to commodities markets.” China is now, by far, the largest global carbon emitter, but the “government is trying to change that without damaging the economy—and perhaps even use its green policies to become a leader in technological innovation.”
Tags: China, CO2, Commodities, Demand, Economy, EVs, Green policies, Hard-hitting, Leader, Pollution, Technological innovation
Gizmodo (December 11)
“Over the past year, Australia released an estimated 140 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse gases,” excluding unreliable estimates for land use-related emissions. This marks a new record for down under and places Australia as one of “the worst polluters per capita among countries in its class.”
The Economist (November 18)
“A market exists for rooftop solar panels and electric vehicles; one for removing an invisible gas from the air to avert disaster decades from now does not.” But it must and fast. The need for negative emissions technology “will be gargantuan. The median IPCC model assumes sucking up a total of 810bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2100, equivalent to roughly 20 years of global emissions at the current rate. To have any hope of doing so, preparations for large-scale extraction ought to begin in the 2020s.”
Tags: CO2, Disaster, Emissions, EVs, Extraction, IPCC, Market, NET, Solar panels
