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?
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.
Climate change is impacting the frozen regions of our planet faster and more seriously than expected. The naming of two ice scientists as amongst the world's most influential people shows growing recognition of the key role played by the cryosphere and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect it.
It's now one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. There’s no sign of any end to the conflict. And we are not looking at a regional dispute. This war has become a major clash between systems, with repercussions for the whole planet. Putin’s invasion has plunged us into a time of multiple crises – war, an …
Continue reading Earth’s temperature rises as geopolitical climate cools
Tromso is living up to its image as Norway's Arctic capital, as I step off the plane into a flurry of snowflakes and a landscape of white. I first came up here to to the Arctic Frontiers gathering in 2007 to research and make contacts for a series of documentaries to mark the International Polar …
Continue reading Moving North – Arctic Frontiers in a changing world
Students in the Scottish coastal town of Oban are staging the country's first Model Arctic Council. The pro-independence government is keen to extend links with its northern neighbours. It's an interesting time to hold SCOTMAC, when the Arctic Council's work has been paused over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Arctic permafrost is thawing, threatening northern communities and speeding up the climate change that is thawing it in the first place. Only rapid and substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions can help avert catastrophe.
The situation for planet earth was looking bleak. There was more of those dangerous heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere than ever before (and the records could go back way beyond the bounds of human history, looking into the earth, the oceans and the ice.) The planet had become a hothouse. The ice at the poles …
We are fine and glad to live up a hill, but in shock, with the region around us devastated by the heaviest and longest lasting rain I have ever experienced and unprecedented floods. At least 160 people are dead here, more in neighbouring Belgium, and many more missing. This is in Germany, one of the …
Continue reading 1.5°C is way too high: thoughts from a flood-stricken German valley
I was working through my Twitter feed, fretting about the incredible temperatures in the high north and researching my next blog post. Could geoengineering be the way to cool the Arctic and the planet? Should it? And was the current hype about it not distracting too much attention from the need for immediate and drastic …
Continue reading Tipping points: can a leaked report tip the scales to climate action?
The Ice Blog 