COP30 in Brazil ended without a mention of the need to phase out fossil fuels, in spite of growing damage from climate warming impacts. These UN negotiations have to be reshaped, the influence of the fossil fuel industry reduced while the transition to a low-carbon world speeds on elsewhere.
Whether you look at science or news reports of weather extremes across the globe, there can be no doubt climate warming is already playing havoc with our livels. So why is the willingness to do something about it decreasing? How can we bridge the huge gap between the threat we face from climate change and the lack of action to respond?
The shocking images of a glacier breaking off and covering a village in the Swiss alps highlights the urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to minimize ice loss. As the first ever UN conference on glaciers opens in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a new scientific study shows glaciers are even more sensitive to global warming than we thought.
Accelerating ice melt from glaciers worldwide means an increased loss of freshwater resources, ever-faster sea level rise and life-threatening floods and landslides. In some regions, ice loss is already overtaking scientists’ worst-case climate scenarios. Only urgent emissions cuts can make a difference. The first time I ever saw and walked upon a glacier was in …
Continue reading First UN World Day for Glaciers – A call to climate action in desperate times
Trump leaves Paris (Agreement) and sets his sights on Greenland – China and Russia flex muscles in the Arctic, as climate warming transforms the icy north. Business boom or global climate catastrophe?
With record-breaking heat, unprecedented ice melt and widespread wildfires destroying the Arctic as we know it, eyes turn to the next UN climate conference in distant Azerbaijan. Can the world agree on urgent emissions cuts and climate justice in an authoritarian-ruled petrostate?
Six months after the last underwhelming UN climate conference COP28 in oil-rich Dubai, negotiators at the UN's climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany, have been trying to smooth the path to the next COP to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. Another mega-gathering in another fossil-fuel capital - is there any hope of action to protect the world's rapidly melting ice and snow and avert the catastrophic consequences for the rest of the globe?
Greenland melt, ocean heatwaves, AMOC slowing, polar bears starving - Arctic developments so far in 2024 might give you the Climate Blues. Is there light on the horizon?
I went to Dubai for the UN Climate Conference COP28 with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the controversy over the location and the President, head of a giant fossil fuel concern, made me somewhat sceptical. On the other, I was driven by the awareness that this was a kind of last chance, with the …
There has never been a more pressing need for the world to unite and take urgent, radical action to halt emissions, to avoid further changes to the frozen parts of the Earth with catastrophic consequences for people all round the globe.
The Ice Blog 