technogenic disaster – Page 47

Number of U.S. dollar billionaires in China, 1999-2022. The year 2022 saw the biggest fall in the Hurun China Rich List in the 24 years of its existence. Data: Hurun Research Institute. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

November 20, 2022

China’s superrich decimated as economic downturn wipes out billions – “This year has seen the biggest fall in the Hurun China Rich List of the last 24 years”

By John Feng 8 November 2022 (Newsweek) – China’s wealthy lost hundreds of billions of dollars in 2022 as the global economic downturn also shook up the country’s typically high-growth industries, according to an annual rich list published on Tuesday. The number of Chinese entrepreneurs worth 5 billion Chinese yuan ($710 million) or more on September 15 […]

Nakeeyat Dramani Sam holds up a placard at an informal stocktaking session during the COP27 climate summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 18 November 2022. Photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghany / REUTERS

November 19, 2022

COP27 nears breakthrough on climate finance in scramble for final deal – “We’d rather have no decision than a bad decision”

By Kate Abnett, Shadia Nasralla, and Gloria Dickie 19 November 2022 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – Negotiators at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt neared a breakthrough deal on Saturday for a fund to help poor countries being ravaged by the impacts of global warming but remained locked over how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions driving […]

Rows of crosses sit at the mass grave site at the Holy Cross Memorial Garden for victims of super Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, central Philippines on Sunday, 23 October 2022. About 40 percent of the population of Tacloban was relocated to safer areas after super Typhoon Haiyan wiped out most of the villages, killing thousands when it hit central Philippines in 2013. Photo: Aaron Favila / AP Photo

November 19, 2022

Climate migration: Filipino families flee amid typhoons – “The warming of the ocean fuels more powerful tropical storms, and rising sea levels increase the impacts”

By Michael Casey, Joeal Calupitan, and Aaron Favila 17 November 2022 TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) – After Typhoon Haiyan’s towering waves flattened scores of Philippines villages, Jeremy Garing spent days helping with recovery from the historic storm that left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and inflicted billions of dollars in damage. “I keep helping […]

Landsat images from 21 February 2000 (left) and 27 July 2019 (right) illustrating glacier retreat on top of Mount Kilimanjaro (United Republic of Tanzania). Photo: U.S. Geological Survey

November 19, 2022

Kilimanjaro’s and Africa’s last glaciers to go by 2050, says UN – “What is quite unprecedented in the historical record is how quickly this is happening”

By Patrick Hughes 3 November 2022 (BBC News) – Glaciers across the globe – including the last ones in Africa – will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report [UNESCO finds that some iconic World Heritage glaciers will disappear by 2050 –Des]. Glaciers in a third of […]

$Mole fraction of atmospheric methane (CH4), 1984-2021. Graphic: WMO$

November 19, 2022

Greenhouse gas levels hit new highs in 2022 – Biggest increase in methane since measurements began – “The continuing rise in concentrations of the main heat-trapping gases, including the record acceleration in methane levels, shows that we are heading in the wrong direction”

GENEVA / NEW YORK, 26 October 2022 (WMO) – In yet another ominous climate change warning, atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reported the biggest […]

A dead elephant that was killed by Kenya Wildlife Service rangers after it killed a woman as it was looking for water and food amid the drought lies in Loolkuniyani, Samburu County in Kenya on Tuesday, 16 October 2022. Hundreds of animals have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday, 4 November 2022. Photo: Brian Inganga / AP Photo

November 19, 2022

Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers East Africa’s worst drought in decades

By Evelyne Musambi 4 November 2022 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday. The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common […]

Deforested area of Amazon rainforest in Brazil, 2006-2021, with large increases shown during the Bolsonaro regime. Data: Brazil National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Graphic: DW

November 19, 2022

Lula insists “Brazil is back” at UN climate summit

By Stuart Braun 16 November 2022 (DW) – One of the most-watched visitors to the UN climate summit in Egypt this week has been incoming Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — more commonly referred to as Lula. With his successful election campaign having included a promise to arrest record deforestation in the Amazon, Lula carried huge expectations into the yearly climate summit […]

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, Saudi Adel Al-Jubeir, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry, Crown Prince and the Prime Minister of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and other leaders pose for a family photo during the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 7 November 2022. Photo: Mohammed Salem / REUTERS

November 19, 2022

At COP27, climate change framed as battle for survival – “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”

By William James, Valerie Volcovici, and Simon Jessop 7 November 2022 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – World leaders and diplomats framed the fight against global warming as a battle for human survival during opening speeches at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Monday, with the head of the United Nations declaring a lack of […]

Global human population, 1700-2022. On 15 November 2022, the world’s population was estimated to reach 8 billion people, having grown by 1 billion since 2010. This is a remarkable milestone given that the human population numbered under 1 billion for millennia until around 1800, and that it took more than 100 years to grow from 1 to 2 billion. By comparison, the increase of the world’s population over the last century has been quite rapid. Despite a gradual slowing in the pace of growth, the global population is projected to surpass 9 billion around 2037 and 10 billion around 2058. Graphic: UN DESA

November 19, 2022

Global human population hits 8 billion – “We are already overstretching what we have: the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched.”

By Dan Ikpoyi and Chinedu Asadu 15 November 2022 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – The world’s population will likely hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa. Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than […]

Components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties, 1960-2021 and projected to 2022. Components are presented individually for (a) fossil CO2 and cement carbonation emissions (EFOS), (b) growth rate in atmospheric CO2 concentration (GATM), (c) emissions from land-use change (ELUC), (d) the land CO2 sink (SLAND), (e) the ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN), and (f) the budget imbalance that is not accounted for by the other terms. Positive values of SLAND and SOCEAN represent a flux from the atmosphere to land or the ocean. All data are in GtC yr−1 with the uncertainty bounds representing ±1 standard deviation in shaded colour. Data sources are as in Fig. 3. The red dots indicate our projections for the year 2022, and the red error bars the uncertainty in the projections. Graphic: Friedlingstein, et al., 2022 / Earth System Science Data

November 19, 2022

Global Carbon Budget 2022: Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels – No sign of decrease in global CO2 emissions – “This year we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions, when we need a rapid decline”

11 November 2022 (Global Carbon Project) – Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels – with no sign of the decrease that is urgently needed to limit warming to 1.5°C, according to the Global Carbon Project science team (Global Carbon Budget 2022). If current emissions levels persist, there is now a 50% chance […]

Desdemona Despair

Category: technogenic disaster

China’s superrich decimated as economic downturn wipes out billions – “This year has seen the biggest fall in the Hurun China Rich List of the last 24 years”

COP27 nears breakthrough on climate finance in scramble for final deal – “We’d rather have no decision than a bad decision”

Climate migration: Filipino families flee amid typhoons – “The warming of the ocean fuels more powerful tropical storms, and rising sea levels increase the impacts”

Kilimanjaro’s and Africa’s last glaciers to go by 2050, says UN – “What is quite unprecedented in the historical record is how quickly this is happening”

Greenhouse gas levels hit new highs in 2022 – Biggest increase in methane since measurements began – “The continuing rise in concentrations of the main heat-trapping gases, including the record acceleration in methane levels, shows that we are heading in the wrong direction”

Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers East Africa’s worst drought in decades

Lula insists “Brazil is back” at UN climate summit

At COP27, climate change framed as battle for survival – “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”

Global human population hits 8 billion – “We are already overstretching what we have: the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched.”

Global Carbon Budget 2022: Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels – No sign of decrease in global CO2 emissions – “This year we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions, when we need a rapid decline”