Workers pull up ornamental grass in Southern Nevada. Photo: CBS News

Due to climate change, Nevada says goodbye to grass – “I’d like to think we can all band together and solve problems without killing ourselves”

By John D’Amelio 7 August 2022 (CBS News) – In Las Vegas, Nevada, it’s come to this: climate change has helped make water ever more scarce, so under a new Nevada law, the grass has got to go. “When we look at outdoor water use in Southern Nevada, landscaping far and away is the largest water […]

Insured losses linked to extreme weather in Canada, 1983-2021. Data: Insurance Bureau of Canada. Graphic: Reuters

Canada village razed by wildfire wrestles with climate-proofing its future – “I’m not expecting I’ll be rebuilding ever”

By Nia Williams 5 August 2022 REVELSTOKE, British Columbia (Reuters) – A year after a wildfire destroyed the western Canadian village of Lytton, residents, municipal leaders, and the British Columbia government are grappling with the slow and costly reality of future-proofing a community against climate change. The remote village sits at the confluence of the […]

Mehrum coal-fired power plant in Germany, with wind turbines. On 1 August 2022, the coal power station in Mehrum was the first to be reactivated. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / DPA / Picture Alliance

Germany’s energy U-turn: Coal instead of gas – “What must not happen is that we slide into a global renaissance of fossil energy, and coal in particular”

By Sabine Kinkartz 4 August 2022 (DW) – Starting this week, German hard coal-fired power stations are restarting operations, which were being phased out because of the hugely detrimental climate impact on a world already ravaged by global warming. Germany’s goal had been to phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2038. But now, the government is swallowing the […]

Satellite view of Lake Mead on 6 July 2000 and 3 July 2022. Data: Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Photo: Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Lake Mead in 2000 and 2022 – “Declining water levels due to climate change and 20 years of ongoing drought have reshaped the park’s shorelines”

By Michael Carlowicz 20 July 2022 (NASA Earth Observatory) – Continuing a 22-year downward trend, water levels in Lake Mead stand at their lowest since April 1937, when the reservoir was still being filled for the first time. As of July 18, 2022, Lake Mead was filled to just 27 percent of capacity. The largest reservoir in the […]

Aerial view of a structure burning during a wildfire in Palo Pinto County, Texas on Monday, 18 July 2022. The 110-degree heat wave caused a record 24 wildfires in Texas this week. Two Texas wildfires consumed at least 21 homes amid the record heat wave. Photo: KDFW FOX 4 / AP

U.S. Central states, Texas break power use records again in heat wave – Texas Gov. Abbott’s inaction leads to huge electricity bills

20 July 2022 (Reuters) – Power use in Texas and other central states hit all-time highs Tuesday and could break that record again in Texas on Wednesday as homes and businesses crank up air conditioners to escape a brutal heat wave blanketing most of the country. Electric grid operators across the country said they have […]

Aerial view of the dried-up riverbed at the confluence of the Ticino and Po rivers at Ponte della Becca, near Linarolo, Italy. Never since weather records began 70 years ago has the water level of the Po been lower. Scientists have been warning of increasing drought in northern Italy for many years. Photo: Piero Cruciatti / AFP / Getty Images

EU countries forced to restrict drinking water access – Worst drought in 70 years paralyzes agriculture in Italy – “The demand doesn’t stop growing”

By Tim Schauenberg 7 July 2022 (DW) – Amplified by human-induced climate change and water over-consumption, southern Europeans are feeling the consequences of more extreme heat waves and longer droughts. Now governments from Portugal to Italy are calling on citizens to limit water use to the bare minimum. But in some places, this is not […]

Three-wheelers queue to buy petrol due to fuel shortage, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 5 July 2022. Dinuka Liyanawatte / REUTERS

World Bank calls for sovereign debt changes ahead of looming crises – “There are more Sri Lankas on the way”

By Marc Jones 28 June 2022 LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) – A senior official at the World Bank has ramped up its calls for changes in sovereign debt laws so governments have more control when crises strike and they have to restructure their debt. World Bank economists estimate that low- and middle-income economies owe a […]

Maps showing poverty impact hotspots as percentages of countries’ population that could fall into poverty as a result of soaring food and energy prices. Among those countries likely facing high poverty impacts across all poverty lines are Armenia and Uzbekistan in the Caspian Basin; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti in Latin America; and Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia. In these countries, around 3 percent of the population, on average, could fall into poverty. In Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Yemen, the impacts could be particularly hard at the lowest poverty lines, whereas in Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, the hits could be hardest at $5.50 a day.7 Clear geographical hotspots, depending on the poverty line, emerge in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in the Sahel region, the Balkans and the Caspian Basin. Graphic: UNDP

Cost-of-living crisis drives 71 million people into extreme poverty in three months – “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed”

By Marc Jones 7 July 2022 LONDON (Reuters) – The global cost-of-living crisis is pushing an additional 71 million people in the world’s poorest countries into extreme poverty, a new report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday has warned. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that […]

Prevalence of undernourishment (left axis) and number of undernourished people (right axis), 2005-2021. World hunger rose further in 2021, following a sharp upturn in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The persistence of the pandemic and its enduring consequences, which exacerbated existing inequalities, have contributed to further setbacks in 2021 toward achievement of the Zero Hunger target by 2030. Between 702 and 828 million people in the world faced hunger in 2021. Considering the middle of the projected range (768 million), hunger affected 46 million more people in 2021 compared to 2020, and a total of 150 million more people since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Graphic: FAO

UN report: World hunger rose again in 2021, with 2.3 billion people severely or moderately hungry – “This year’s report should dispel any lingering doubts that the world is moving backward in its efforts to end hunger”

By Edith M. Lederer 6 July 2022 UNITED NATIONS (AP) – World hunger rose in 2021, with around 2.3 billion people facing moderate or severe difficulty obtaining enough to eat — and that was before the Ukraine war, which has sparked increases in the cost of grain, fertilizer and energy, according to a U.N. report […]

Vehicles queue for diesel and petrol as they wait for a fuel tanker since the previous day amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 23 June 2022. Photo: Dinuka Liyanawatte / REUTERS

Sri Lanka almost out of fuel, with no fresh supplies in sight – Troops open fire to quell rioting at fuel station – “Our economy has faced a complete collapse,” prime minister says

25 June 2022 (The Guardian) – Sri Lanka has increased the price of fuel by up to 22 percent after the energy minister warned it had virtually run out of petrol and diesel after several expected shipments were delayed. Kanchana Wijesekera apologised to motorists as he said on Saturday that oil cargoes that were due […]

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