This newsfeed lists articles about the Triple Planetary Crisis identified by the UN1: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. These crises are directly caused by our energy systems, or due to our energy consumption.
The most worrying newsfeed articles are listed below.
Tags are shown at the bottom of each article, and in the footer.
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Is the planet losing one of its best ways to slow climate change?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory on Monday released data showing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 3.75 parts per million in 2024.…
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Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. The…
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Only 15 countries have met the latest Paris agreement deadline. Is any nation serious about tackling climate change?
The latest deadline for countries to submit plans for slashing the greenhouse gas emissions fueling climate change has passed. Only 15 countries met it—less than 8% of the 194 parties…
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Sahara flooding, Amazon tributaries drying, warming tipping over 1.5°C—2024 broke all the wrong records
Today, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published its annual State of the Climate report, which found heat records kept being broken in 2024. It’s likely 2024 was the first year…
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More than 150 ‘unprecedented’ climate disasters struck world in 2024, says UN
The WMO’s report on 2024, the hottest year on record, sets out a trail of destruction from extreme weather that took lives, demolished buildings and ravaged vital crops. More than…
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Climate change fueling mental health crisis in areas most affected by climate crisis
The study, published in The Journal of Climate Change and Health, reveals alarmingly high levels of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness among adolescents in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.…
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Considerations for determining warm-water coral reef tipping points
Warm-water coral reefs are facing unprecedented human-driven threats to their continued existence as biodiverse functional ecosystems upon which hundreds of millions of people rely. These impacts may drive coral ecosystems…
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Half a degree rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans
An international group of scientists, led by King’s College London, has revealed how continued global warming will lead to more parts of the planet becoming too hot for the human…
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Climate change limit of +2˚C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2˚C limit is “dead”. A new analysis by Hansen…
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In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why.
In North America and Europe, scientists have long warned bird numbers are falling. As cities and farms expand, forests around them become fragments, animal habitats shrink, pollution contaminates rivers, pesticides…
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Current climate policies risk catastrophic societal and economic impacts
The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken, warns a new…
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Hottest year on record sent planet past 1.5˚C of heating for first time in 2024
Climate breakdown drove the annual global temperature above the internationally agreed 1.5˚C target for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing “misery to millions of people”. The…
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UN talks fail
The 12-day meeting of parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), known as COP16, has ended in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh without an agreement on responding to…
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‘’Age of electricity’ to follow looming fossil fuel peak’’: Analysis or Science Fiction?
In launching its World Energy Outlook 2024 (WEO), the IEA stated that “the future of the global energy system is electric.” This follows its assertion that demand for coal, oil…
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‘Climate bomb’ warning over $200bn wave of new gas projects
A $200bn wave of new gas projects could lead to a “climate bomb” equivalent to releasing the annual emissions of all the world’s operating coal power plants, according to a…
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Fossil fuel supply: The elephant in the room at climate change conferences
“Natural resources … are a gift from God. Every natural resource, whether it’s oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, they are all natural resources. Countries should not be blamed…
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World will be ‘unable to cope’ with volume of plastic waste in 10 years, warns expert
The world will be “unable to cope” with the sheer volume of plastic waste a decade from now unless countries agree to curbs on production, the co-chair of a coalition…
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‘We Are Afraid’: Scientists Issue New Warning As World Enters ‘Uncharted Climate Territory’
A distinguished international team of scientists on Tuesday issued the starkest warning yet that human activity is pushing Earth into a climate crisis that could threaten the lives of up…
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New Energy Law passed by People’s Republic of China
Highlights of Energy Law of the People’s Republic of China, adopted at the 12th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress on November 8, 2024 –
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‘A total waste of time’: why Papua New Guinea pulled out of COP29
Papua New Guinea’s decision to pull out of an upcoming UN global climate summit due to frustration over “empty promises and inaction”. Prime minister James Marape announced in August the…
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COP29 CEO filmed agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at climate summit
The chief executive of COP29 has been filmed apparently agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at the climate summit. The campaign group Global Witness posed undercover as a fake oil…
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Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years
More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action…
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Trees and land absorbed almost no CO₂ last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?
It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to…
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Collapsing wildlife populations near ‘points of no return’, report warns
Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.…
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Unprecedented peril: Disaster lies ahead as we track towards 2.7°C of warming this century, researchers warn
We are seeing unprecedented rapidly intensifying tropical storms such as Hurricane Helene in the eastern United States and Super Typhoon Yagi in Vietnam. Unprecedented fires in Canada have destroyed towns.…
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Study warns of ‘irreversible’ climate impacts from overshooting 1.5˚C
Some kind of overshoot of 1.5˚C is increasingly being seen as inevitable by scientists and policymakers. This new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, cautions against “overconfidence” in such…
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Climate report warns of escalating crisis, urges immediate action as UN summit nears
An international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists concludes in its annual report published in BioScience that the Earth’s worsening vital signs indicate a “critical and unpredictable new phase…
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Scientists have captured Earth’s climate over the last 485 million years. Here’s the surprising place we stand now.
The timeline, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth’s past temperatures ever produced, the authors say. It shows the intimate link between carbon dioxide…
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Oil Kills: Inside the International Uprising Disrupting the Aviation Industry
A new international coalition is disrupting airports to make one demand: the adoption of a treaty to end fossil fuels by 2030. Under the banner Oil Kills, small groups of…
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The overshoot myth: you can’t keep burning fossil fuels and expect scientists of the future to get us back to 1.5°C
The time has come to accept that climate policy has failed, and that the 2015 landmark Paris agreement is dead. We let it die by pretending that we could both…
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Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just & sustainable future
A world where global mean surface temperature has increased 3°C will be characterized by widespread and intense heat stress, extreme weather events, ruptured and unproductive marine and terrestrial ecosystems, broken…
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Living in a ‘mass extinction’
On average, “the background extinction rate” will bump off about one species, per million species, per year. But what we’re seeing now is a bit more extreme. “If we look…
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Banks have given almost $7tn to fossil fuel firms since Paris deal
Researchers for the banking on climate chaos report, now in its 15th edition, analysed the world’s top 60 banks’ underwriting and lending to more than 4,200 fossil fuel firms and…
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Disease and hunger soar in Latin America after floods and drought, study finds
Hunger and disease are rising in Latin America after a year of record heat, floods and drought, a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown. The continent, which…
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World extends run of heat records for an 11th month in a row
April was the Earth’s 11th consecutive month of record-breaking heat, with warmer weather already sweeping across Asia and a hotter-than-usual summer expected in Europe. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change…
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A New 66 Million-Year History of Carbon Dioxide Offers Little Comfort for Today
A massive new review of ancient atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and corresponding temperatures lays out a daunting picture of where the Earth’s climate may be headed. The study covers geologic records…
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Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere
The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world’s atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary…
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World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5˚C target
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5˚C (4.5˚F) above preindustrial levels this century. Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the…
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‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair
The climate emergency is already here. Even just 1˚C of heating has supercharged the planet’s extreme weather, delivering searing heatwaves from the US to Europe to China that would have…
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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffers worst bleaching on record
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for some 2,300km (1,429 miles) off the country’s northeastern coast, is suffering its worst bleaching event on record. The extent of the bleaching was…
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Once melting glaciers shut down the Gulf Stream, we will see extreme climate change within decades
Ocean currents are driven by winds, tides and water density differences. In the Atlantic Ocean circulation, the relatively warm and salty surface water near the equator flows toward Greenland. During…
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What’s causing the Amazon’s ongoing record drought?
The devastating drought in the Amazon River Basin that reported in October has continued into Northern Hemisphere winter, which is the heart of the wet season in the southern part…
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Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point
AMOC, which encompasses part of the Gulf Stream and other powerful currents, is a marine conveyer belt that carries heat, carbon and nutrients from the tropics towards the Arctic Circle,…
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Marine sponges reveal global warming has already exceeded 1.5 degrees
Scientists analysed 300 years of ocean temperature records from marine sponges and discovered global warming has increased by 0.5˚C more than was previously estimated. In the study, published in Nature…
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Assessment of warm-water coral reef tipping point thresholds
Warm-water coral reefs are facing unprecedented Anthropogenic driven threats to their continued existence as biodiverse, functional ecosystems upon which hundreds of millions of people rely. We draw upon a literature…
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Ice sheet collapse closer than thought
How the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) responded to warmer climates in the geologic past has obvious relevance to our understanding of what its future could be as global temperatures…
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Flowers ‘giving up’ on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate
Flowers are “giving up on” pollinators and evolving to be less attractive to them as insect numbers decline. A study has found the flowers of field pansies growing near Paris…
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Endangered species list grows by 2,000. Climate change is part of the problem.
Leaders of the IUCN updated their Red List of Threatened Species, a tracker of biodiversity around the globe. It was mainly bad news. The list includes information on 157,000 species,…
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Quarter of world’s freshwater fish at risk of extinction
Nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction due to global heating, overfishing and pollution, according to an expert assessment. Nearly a fifth of all…
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Current carbon dioxide levels last seen 14 million years ago
New analysis finds the last time the air contained 420 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide was between 14-16 million years ago, when there was no ice in Greenland…
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Climate tipping points are nearer than you think. Our new report warns of catastrophic risk.
Most people expect that if a system, like someone’s body, an ecosystem, or part of the climate system, becomes stressed, it’ll respond fairly predictably—double the pressure, double the impact, and…
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Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels to hit record high
The world is on track to have burned more coal, oil and gas in 2023 than it did in 2022, according to a report by the Global Carbon Project, pumping…
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COP28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels
The president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5˚C, the Guardian…
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Emissions Gap Report 2023
Total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020 were 54.5GtCO2e, and grew to 57.4 in 2022. The emissions gap for 2030 is defined as the differencebetween the estimated total global…
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When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics
By Christoper Ketcham The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has assumed Nordhaus is to be trusted. The integrated assessment models used at the IPCC are based on Nordhausian visions of…
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Climate report: ‘Uncharted territory’ imperils life on Earth
Earth’s vital signs have worsened beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is imperiled. William Ripple, a distinguished professor in the Oregon State…
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Rapid ice melt in west Antarctica now inevitable
Accelerated ice melt in west Antarctica is inevitable for the rest of the century no matter how much carbon emissions are cut, research indicates. The implications for sea level rise…
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Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’
Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have warned. Their assessment found that six out of…
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After studying more than 1,500 coastal ecosystems, researchers say they will drown if we let the world warm above 2˚C
Much of the world’s natural coastline is protected by living habitats, most notably mangroves in warmer waters and tidal marshes closer to the poles. These ecosystems support fisheries and wildlife,…
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Critics of ‘degrowth’ economics say it’s unworkable—but from an ecologist’s perspective, it’s inevitable
You may not have noticed, but earlier this month we passed Earth overshoot day, when humanity’s demands for ecological resources and services exceeded what our planet can regenerate annually. Many…
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Signs of the human era, from nuclear fallout to microplastics
Soaring greenhouse gases, ubiquitous microplastics, pervasive “forever chemicals”, the global upheaval of animals, even old mobile phones and chicken bones—all have been put forward as evidence that the world entered…
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Football pitch of tropical forest lost every 5 seconds
Earth lost an area of carbon-absorbing rainforest larger than Switzerland or the Netherlands in 2022, most of it destroyed to make way for cattle and commodity crops. That is nearly…
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Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by 2030s, with global, damaging and dangerous consequences
The Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by the 2030s, even if we do a good job of reducing emissions between now and then. That’s the worrying conclusion of…
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Too late now to save Arctic summer ice, climate scientists find
It is now too late to save summer Arctic sea ice. The study also shows that if emissions decline slowly or continue to rise, the first ice-free summer could be…
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Antarctic alarm bells: Observations reveal deep ocean currents are slowing earlier than predicted
We found melting of Antarctic ice is disrupting the formation of Antarctic bottom water. The meltwater makes Antarctic surface waters fresher, less dense, and therefore less likely to sink. This…
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Saving humanity: Here’s a radical approach to building a sustainable and just society
The dangerous and destructive myths of conventional economics include the claims that: Since planetary boundaries have already been exceeded and low-income countries must develop, social justice demands that the rich…
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As Ocean Oxygen Levels Dip, Fish Face an Uncertain Future
Researchers complain that the oxygen problem doesn’t get the attention it deserves, with ocean acidification and warming grabbing the bulk of both news headlines and academic research. Just this April,…
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Researchers discover a cause of rapid ice melting in Greenland
“These ice-ocean interactions make the glaciers more sensitive to ocean warming,” said senior co-author Eric Rignot, UCI professor of Earth system science and NASA JPL research scientist. “These dynamics are…
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Humanity’s tipping point? How the Queen’s death stole a climate warning’s thunder
On September 8, 2022, at 6.30pm in Britain, Buckingham Palace announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The news broke just 30 minutes before the press embargo lifted on a…
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New Research Sparks Concerns That Ocean Circulation Will Collapse
The groundbreaking modeling study published by Australian and American researchers at the end of March for the first time includes a detailed assessment of the likely impact of melting ice,…
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Look up, listen, and be very concerned. Birds are vanishing – and their crisis is our crisis
The UK has lost 40m birds since 1970 and Europe as a whole has lost 600m birds since 1980. The British figures, especially for farmland species such as skylark and…
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“Buckle up. More extreme events are expected,” says head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The United States is Earth’s punching bag for nasty weather. Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the…
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Faster, higher, hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022: Part 3
Risks are cascading and underestimated, new climate extremes recorded, and the conclusion.
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Faster, higher, hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022: Part 2
2°C degrees is not a point of system stability, we are heading towards 3°C or more, and system-level change and tipping points are happening faster than forecast.
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Faster, higher, hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022: Part 1
Record emissions, the 1.5°C target, what about overshooting 1.5°C and cooling back to that level by 2100?, and the likelihood of achieving the 2°C target.
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Climate, ice sheets & sea level: the news is not good
Parts of Earth’s ice sheets that could lift global oceans by meters will likely crumble with another half degree Celsius of warming, and are fragile in ways not previously understood,…
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Worst impacts of sea level rise will hit earlier than expected, says modeling study
Using the new measurements of land elevation, Vernimmen and co-author Aljosja Hooijer found coastal areas lie much lower than older radar data had suggested. Analyses of the new lidar-based elevation…
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Exxon and Chevron share $100bn in profit after surge in oil prices
Exxon was expected to record more than $56bn in profits in 2022 and Chevron is set to top $37bn, record highs for both companies, according to Wall Street estimates compiled…
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Humanity devouring itself and the planet
“At the moment,” writes Warren Hern, “we are the most misnamed species on the planet: Homo sapiens sapiens—’wise, wise man.’ Not.” Hern, 84, physician and adjunct professor of anthropology at…
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Almost 70% of animal populations wiped out since 1970, report reveals
Earth’s wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the…
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Phantom Forests: Why Ambitious Tree Planting Projects Are Failing
Everybody likes trees. There is no anti-tree lobby. A global push to go beyond conservation of existing forests and start creating new ones goes back to 2011, when many of…
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World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been…
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Major sea-level rise is ‘now inevitable’
Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were…
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90% of marine species at risk of extinction by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed
An international team of researchers looked specifically at 25,000 species, including fish, bacteria, plants and protozoans living in the top 100 meters of the world’s oceans. They found that under…
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Corinne Le Quéré: ‘Could we just adapt to climate change? The answer is no’
In the 2000s, Le Quéré was a lead author of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won a Nobel Peace Prize. Today she bridges science and…
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Even temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species
Unless urgent action is taken, emissions are expected to cause the planet to continue heating rapidly over the next few decades, prompting the global average temperature to overshoot the Paris…
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The great climate backslide: How governments are regressing worldwide
From the U.S. to China, in Europe, India and Japan, fossil fuels are staging a comeback, clean energy stocks are taking a hammering, and the prospects for speeding the transition…
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UK government: 4°C warming by 2100: “can’t be ruled out”
As required by the UK Climate Change Act 2008, the government has today submitted the Third Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) to Parliament. Professor Richard Betts MBE, who led this…
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The Extinction Crisis
Earth now faces a global extinction crisis never witnessed by humankind. Scientists predict that more than 1 million species are on track for extinction in the coming decades. Every taxon…
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Covid recovery to drive all-time emissions high: IEA
Carbon emissions are set to hit an all-time high by 2023 as just two percent of pandemic recovery finance is being spent on clean energy. “Not only is clean energy investment…
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Prepare for DISORDERLY shift to low-carbon era
There is “no longer any realistic chance” for an orderly transition for global financial markets because political leaders will be forced to rely on “handbrake” policy interventions to cut emissions,…
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Climate change: how bad could the future be if we do nothing?
The nightmare scenario: Year 2100, global waming exceeds 4˚C:→ Massive frequent wildfires→ Dead coral reefs→ Frequent prolonged droughts→ Increased air pollution→ Ice-free Arctic summers→ Rapid sea level rise→ Abandoned small island…
