7 January 2021 (Munich Re) – Global losses from natural disasters in 2020 came to US$ 210bn, of which some US$ 82bn was insured. Both overall losses and insured losses were significantly higher than in the previous year (2019: US$ 166bn and US$ 57bn respectively). The US share of losses was rather high: Natural disasters in the […]
By Grahame Madge 8 January 2021 (Met Office) – In 2021, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach levels 50% higher than before the industrial revolution, due to human-caused emissions, says a Met Office forecast. The Met Office predicts that annual average CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, will be 2.29 ± 0.55 parts per million (ppm) […]
By Damian Carrington 8 January 2021 (The Guardian) – The climate crisis continued unabated in 2020, with the joint highest global temperatures on record, alarming heat and record wildfires in the Arctic, and a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic. Despite a 7% fall in fossil fuel burning due to coronavirus lockdowns, heat-trapping carbon dioxide continued to build […]
By Christopher Flavelle 1 January 2021 (The New York Times) – The National Climate Assessment, America’s premier contribution to climate knowledge, stands out for many reasons: Hundreds of scientists across the federal government and academia join forces to compile the best insights available on climate change. The results, released just twice a decade or so, […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 1 January 2021 (The Seattle Times) – They are as Seattle as the Space Needle. But Lake Washington sockeye, once the largest run of sockeye in the Lower 48, are failing. The smallest run on record returned to the Cedar River in 2020, a bottoming out after years of declines. There […]
By Michael Benson 28 December 2020 (The New York Times) – I have a pastime, one that used to give me considerable pleasure, but lately it has morphed into a source of anxiety, even horror: earth-watching. Let me explain. The earth from space is an incomparably lovely sight. I mean the whole planet, pole to […]
By Vivian Wang 21 December 2020 (The New York Times) – In the city of Yiwu in eastern China, the authorities turned off streetlights for several days and ordered factories to open only part-time. In coastal Wenzhou, the government ordered some companies not to heat their offices unless temperatures are close to freezing. In southern […]
KUALA LUMPUR, 16 December 2020 (IFRC) – In a record-breaking year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has responded to more climate-related disasters across Asia Pacific than any other time this century so far. The IFRC has already responded to 25 climate-related disasters in the Asia Pacific, including floods, typhoons, […]
NEW YORK, 15 December 2020 (HDRO) – The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest crisis facing the world, but unless humans release their grip on nature, it won’t be the last, according to a new report [pdf] by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which includes a new experimental index on human progress that takes into account countries’ […]