Curated News Archive | Page 33 Of 53

September 25, 2020

Analysis: Going carbon neutral by 2060 ‘will make China richer’

Hector Pollitt

Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Asia, Carbon Neutral, Climate Action, Economic Impacts

China’s surprise pledge to reach “carbon neutrality” before 2060, made by president Xi Jinping at this week’s UN General Assembly, means that more than one sixth of the world’s population – and around a third of its CO2 output – has, overnight, been committed to net-zero emissions within 40 years. Using Cambridge Econometrics’ E3ME macroeconomic model to analyse the implications of the pledge, reveals this move could cut global warming this century by 0.25C and raise the country’s GDP; however, it requires China’s CO2 emissions to fall rapidly.

September 25, 2020

2020 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum at Second Lowest on Record

Kate Ramsayer

NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Climate Change, Ice melt, Ice-mass Loss, Impacts, risk factor, Sea-level Rise

This year’s Arctic sea ice cover shrank to the second lowest extent since modern record-keeping began in the late 1970s. Warmer ocean temperatures eat away at the thicker multiyear ice, and also result in thinner ice to start the spring melt season. Melt early in the season results in more open water, which absorbs heat from the Sun and increases water temperatures.

September 23, 2020

Valuing nature conservation

Julien Claes, Michael Conway, Tony Hansen, Kimberly Henderson, Duko Hopman, Joshua Katz, Clarisse Magnin-Mallez, Dickon Pinner, Matt Rogers, Antoine Stevens, Robert Wilson

Climate Change, Ecological Impacts, Ecosystem Services, Resilience, risk factor, Sustainability reporting

Much of the global economy depends on natural capital—the world’s stock of natural assets. Acting as the planet’s balance sheet, natural capital provides critical services and resilience. It supports water cycles and soil formation while protecting our communities from major storms, floods, fires, and desertification. By absorbing CO2, it limits the pace of climate change. Biodiversity, a core component of natural capital, supports activities as wide-ranging as pharmaceutical innovation, ecotourism, and crop pollination. These are just a few of the numerous “co-benefits” that make nature so valuable. Yet the complexity of natural capital makes its benefits hard to quantify, leading many to overlook nature as an investment opportunity. In this report, we describe and apply a methodology that can help quantify some of the costs and benefits of conserving natural capital.

September 21, 2020

A joint methodology to help align credit portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement

Finance sector, Climate Change

Today, international banks BBVA, BNP Paribas, ING, Société Générale and Standard Chartered (also known as ‘the Katowice Banks’) published a report on the application of the PACTA methodology, designed to steer their credit portfolios towards the objective of the Paris Climate Agreement. This report aims at helping banking peers to quickly understand and apply this methodology and thus publish comparable results.

September 21, 2020

Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity

Scott Peterson—Getty Images

Climate Change, Economic Impacts, Equity, GHG emissions, Livelihood Impacts

The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth.

September 21, 2020

Eye of Sauron

Climate Change, Economic Impacts, Finance sector, Insurance, North America, risk, Stress Test, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TFCD), wildfires

Smoke from the West Coast traveled across the US this week and is now well on its way to Europe. From our HQ in NYC – the sky was hazy and the sun resembled the Eye of Sauron. Climate change risk has plagued US insurers over the last several years and the severity is growing. A task force led by several US financial regulators issued a 200-page report warning that climate change poses “serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system.” Many central banks in other countries are conducting climate “stress tests,” and, in Europe, many companies are now reporting their climate risks. Riskthinking.AI helps clients better understand their climate-related financial risk so they know where their portfolios are exposed and can hedge or take other appropriate actions.

September 19, 2020

Coastal Zone Management Bill Becomes Law, Mitigating Erosion and Rising Sea Level Threats

Hawaii DLNR via County of Maui.

Climate Change, Infrastructure, Mitigation, Policy, Sea-level Rise

The Hawai‘i State Senate announced that a bill protecting Hawai‘i’s coastal ecosystems was signed into law by Gov. David Ige. The enacted legislation includes a provision to ban further construction of sea walls and coastal hardening projects. Backers of the bill say “the convergence of dense development along shorelines, increasing landward migration of shoreline due to sea level rise and other human and natural impacts, and extensive beach loss fronting shoreline armoring necessitated the revision of existing policies and regulations.”

September 19, 2020

Emissions Could Add 15 Inches to 2100 Sea Level Rise, NASA-Led Study Finds

NASA

Climate Change, GHG emissions, Sea-level Rise

An international effort that brought together more than 60 ice, ocean and atmosphere scientists from three dozen international institutions has generated new estimates of how much of an impact Earth’s melting ice sheets could have on global sea levels by 2100. If greenhouse gas emissions continue apace, Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets could together contribute more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of global sea level rise – and that’s beyond the amount that has already been set in motion by Earth’s warming climate.

September 18, 2020

Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy?

Daisy Dunne

Climate Change, Carbon, Food, Impacts

Food production accounts for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and takes up half of the planet’s habitable surface. Adjusting one’s diet to eat less (or no) meat and dairy would deliver tremendous emissions savings and have positive health outcomes as well.

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