Use of fossil fuels may not decline in the foreseeable future – World energy consumption projected to increase by 48 percent over the next three decades

By Daniel Cusick12 May 2016 (ClimateWire) – Rapid economic growth in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and other emerging countries will drive global energy consumption to nearly double by 2040, according to new projections released yesterday by the Department of Energy. But the associated rise in carbon emissions will not keep pace with overall energy consumption, […]

A cautionary note about messages of hope: Focusing on progress in reducing carbon emissions weakens mitigation motivation

28 April 2016 (Global Environmental Change) – Highlights: Emotional distress is strongly correlated with mitigation motivation; hope is not. Optimistic messages about carbon emissions reduce climate change risk perceptions. Less risk leads to less distress, which in turn lowers mitigation motivation. Pessimistic climate change messages avoid complacency without eroding efficacy. ABSTRACT: For the first time […]

King County judge makes historic ruling against Washington State in climate change case – ‘These children can’t wait, the polar bears can’t wait, the people of Bangladesh can’t wait’

  [cf. Judge denies motions by fossil fuel industry and federal government in landmark climate change case – ‘The most important lawsuit on the planet right now’] By Sydney Brownstone29 April 2016 (The Stranger) – A King County Superior Court judge has reversed a ruling that gave the Washington State Department of Ecology the opportunity […]

New climate studies: Worse risks at 2°C rise, higher rise likely

By Megan Gannon21 April 2016 (Eos) – To mark Earth Day, leaders from more than 165 countries are expected to gather at the United Nations tomorrow for a ceremony to sign the Paris climate agreement, reached last December. Under the historic deal, each country has set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the ultimate […]

‘We are in a race against time,’ says Ban Ki-moon, as leaders sign landmark Paris climate accord

22 April 2016 (UN) – As world leaders gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York this morning to officially sign the Paris Agreement on climate change – the landmark accord that sets outs a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous global warming – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on […]

Too close to dangerous climate thresholds – First three months of 2016 were 1.5°C above the IPCC preindustrial baseline

By Robert Scribbler14 April 2016 (robertscribbler.com) – We should take a moment to appreciate how hot it’s actually been so far in 2016. To think about what it means to be in a world that’s already so damn hot. To think about how far behind the 8 ball we are on responses to human forced […]

Those ambitious global warming goals? The world may not know how to reach them

By Chris Mooney 11 April 2016 (Washington Post) – In 11 days, on Earth Day, world leaders will assemble at the United Nations in New York to sign the Paris climate agreement. That document pledges to hold the planet’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and even to aspire to a […]

Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate – ‘Methane emissions are substantially higher than we’ve understood’

 [cf. Report: Cheap natural gas leads to more plants and pollution] By Bill McKibben23 March 2016 (The Nation) – Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps […]

Study: World unlikely to hold global temperature below 2°C goal – ‘The numbers you start dealing with become so large that they are difficult to comprehend’

GALVESTON, 23 March 2016 (Texas A&M Today) – Last December, officials representing more than 190 countries met in Paris to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The historic outcome from that conference was the “Paris Agreement” in which each country agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming to […]

Australia emissions rising and vastly underestimated, says report – ‘It defies logic. This is a major discrepancy that can’t be brushed off with the same inadequate explanations used so far.’

By Michael Slezak18 March 2016 (The Guardian) – The latest federal government carbon emissions inventory shows Australia has increased its emissions and has come under fire for allegedly vastly underestimating the amount of land clearing that has occurred, and its associated emissions. The Quarterly Update of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which counts emissions […]

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