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Global Warming & Climate Change

FEATURED IEA/COP28 NEWS & VIEWS REPORT: ‘ Moment of Truth ‘ for the oil industry, says energy boss

An Iraqi oil technician turns a valve at a gas installation as flames resulting from the burning of excess hydrocarbons rise in the background at the Nahr Bin Omar natural gas field, north of the southern Iraqi port of Basra
A new report is warning against the expansion of oil fields

GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – The world’s oil and gas industry has been warned it faces a “moment of truth” at next week’s UN climate talks.

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.27: 2023: By Esme Stallard: Climate and science reporter, BBC News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

An Iraqi oil technician turns a valve at a gas installation as flames resulting from the burning of excess hydrocarbons rise in the background at the Nahr Bin Omar natural gas field, north of the southern Iraqi port of Basra
A new report is warning against the expansion of oil fields

Dr Fatih Birol, head of energy watchdog the International Energy Agency, was speaking as the IEA published a new report on the future of fossil fuels.

He said the sector must choose between contributing to the climate crisis or “becoming part of the solution”.

Last year fossil fuel companies were responsible for just 1% of global investment in renewable energy.

The publication of this report just a week before the start of the UN climate summit, also known as COP28, is no coincidence. The IEA will want to put pressure on governments attending the conference to get an agreement on reducing the use of fossil fuels.

“The uncomfortable truth that the industry needs to come to terms with is that successful clean energy transitions require much lower demand for oil and gas, which means scaling back oil and gas operations over time – not expanding them. There is no way around this,” Dr Birol said.

This year’s conference is also controversial because a major oil producer is host.

In the run up to COP28, the man who will chair the climate talks, Sultan Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, has been criticised for prioritising a technology known as carbon capture and storage.

Carbon capture stops most of the CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels in power stations from being released into the atmosphere, and either re-uses it or stores it underground. But it is expensive and in its infancy.

Some critics say fossil fuel producers hope to use the technology to allow them to continue relying on oil and gas

Dr Birol said that meeting the world’s climate goals “means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution”.

The report estimates that based on current oil and gas consumption the world would have to capture or remove some 32bn tonnes of carbon in order to stop temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, seen as a key threshold to limit the effects of climate change. 

And the amount of electricity needed to power these technologies would be greater than the entire world’s electricity demand today. Currently, only 45 million tonnes of carbon is captured worldwide each year. 

Dr Steve Smith, executive director of Oxford Net Zero and CO2RE at the University of Oxford, told the BBC the report was still calling for investment in the technology but that it must come alongside other measures.

“It goes hand in hand with emissions reductions, trying to do carbon dioxide removal at the same time as not cutting our emissions is like being in a speeding car and trying to push the brake and accelerator at the same time,” he said.

This year’s conference is controversial because a major oil producer is host

The oil and gas industry is one of the largest investors in carbon capture and storage but came under heavy criticism in the report for not investing sufficiently in renewable energy.

The world’s entire clean energy investments are estimated at about $1.8tn (£1.44tn), according to the IEA. But fossil fuel producers are responsible for just 1% of that – or $18bn – with the rest coming from governments and other industries. 

Brendan Curran, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said:

This report from IEA highlights that despite that cacophony of claims from oil and gas producers, the actual levels of investment in the transition to net zero sector are negligible and the industry isn’t really doing anywhere near enough. This is during a period when oil and gas companies have been recording record profits.”

The fossil fuel industry reported revenues of $5tn in 2022 – a record high. And earlier this year BP and Shell rolled back on previous commitments to cut oil production following record profits. 

As well as criticising fossil fuel companies the report also warned countries against drilling for oil as a means to provide energy security. Earlier this year UK PM Rishi Sunak granted new North Sea oil and gas licences as part of efforts, he said, to improve the UK’s resilience to volatile energy markets.

Dr Birol told the BBC that he wouldn’t comment on individual countries but that any new fossil fuel projects announced today would face “not only climate risks but business risks”, because by the time the oil reaches the market in seven or eight years’ time global oil consumption will be declining.

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Australian News

AUSTRALIA CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT: Getting closer to 2030 emissions target, amid debate over renewable energy push

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GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – The government says Australia is on its way to hitting its 2030 climate targets as it faces criticism from conservation groups for support of fossil fuels.

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.27: 2023: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen speaks to the media during a press conference.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen says Australia is on track to hit its climate target by 2030. 

New federal government data, which will be released to parliament this week, projects Australia’s greenhouse emissions are to be 42 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

The projections are based on existing government climate policies and as more policies are finalised and deployed, it says the emissions outlook will improve further.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who will reveal the annual Climate Change Statement later this week, told ABC’s Insiders he was “pleased” with what his government had achieved so far but not yet satisfied as “the task is big”.

“But, I think the figures we are showing today show we have done well, we have more work to do,” he said on Sunday morning. 

Earlier this week,  the government announced it was expanding a taxpayer-funded scheme to subsidise and underwrite new renewable energy projects, in the hopes of bringing emissions down.

Within seven years, the government wants 82 per cent of Australia’s power to come from renewable sources, including wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro — up from about 35 per cent now.

In hopes of reducing power outages going into what could be a challenging hot summer for the national grid, Mr Bowen told Insiders the biggest threat to the reliability of the country’s energy system is unexpected outages of coal-fired power stations. 

“As coal-fired power leaves, we need to get more renewable and dispatchable energy on to replace it before it leaves, otherwise we have a big threat to reliability in the system,” he said. 

“We need to get more energy on quicker, a transition that is more orderly and faster, and that’s what we are doing.”

The minister refused to say how much public funding would be going into the scheme, and reiterated that the cost would be budgeted but not published to maintain commercial confidentiality.

“When the government is entering into commercial negotiations in option, it is quite standard budget treatment to say we will not indicate our pricing expectations as we are about to enter an option auction,” he told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday. 

One tonne saved is seven tonnes created: Conservation group

The government wasn’t the only body to release new climate data on the weekend; the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) shows “16 new fossil fuel projects that have been approved or received material support under the Albanese government would release 6.9 billion tonnes of carbon pollution over their lifetimes”.

The report said for every tonne of climate pollution the government has reduced, it adds more than seven tonnes of additional pollution through the approval of new coal and gas projects.

“This analysis shows the continued approval of and support for coal and gas projects is outweighing the impact of emissions-cutting programs by about seven-to-one,” ACF CEO Kelly O’Shanassy. said. 

Mr Bowen said he had read through the report and didn’t agree with their analysis, though he did admit there had been metallurgical coal developments under an Albanese government.

“We need metallurgical coal for steel. Nobody can suggest that green steel isn’t coming but it’s not here yet,” he said. 

He added there had been a “very small” gas expansion by his government. 

The minister was also questioned over the prospect of furthering nuclear energy in Australia, as the opposition moves towards taking a nuclear energy policy to the next election. 

“Nuclear for Australia is a fantasy wrapped in delusion accompanied by pipedream,” Mr Bowen said.

The energy minister will head to the climate change conference COP28 in Dubai where he said he would be highlighting the loss and damage fund, and its flow through to small island states like Australia’s neighbours in the Pacific.

“It’s about supporting those impacted by climate change and they are the most vulnerable,” he said.

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Global Warming & Climate Change

FEATURED IMF BLOG NEWS & VIEWS Climate Change is Disrupting Global Trade

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GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – Panama’s drought shows how trade disruptions from climate extremes can reverberate around the world

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.27: 2023: —This blog was co-authored by the PortWatch team, which includes Parisa Kamali. See the press release: IMF and University of Oxford Launch “PortWatch” Platform to Monitor and Simulate Trade Disruptions.TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

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Around 1,000 ships pass through the Panama Canal each month carrying a total of over 40 million tons of goods—about 5 percent of global maritime trade volumes. But water levels in this vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have fallen to critical lows because of the worst drought in the canal’s 143-year history.

Drought restrictions imposed amid insufficient rainfall at the Gatún Lake, which feeds the canal, have reduced throughput by some 15 million tons so far this year. Ships have faced an additional six days in transit. The authorities are exploring strategic options to boost the water supply in the canal.

As the Chart of the Week shows, ports in Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador and Jamaica are suffering most from these delays, with 10 percent to 25 percent of their total maritime trade flows affected. But the drought’s effects are felt as far away as Asia, Europe and North America. The drought will hamper trade for months to come, with canal passages set to halve to 18 ships per day by February, down from 36 in ordinary times. Economies reliant on the canal for trade should prepare for more disruption and delay.

Amid climate change, droughts, floods, tropical storms and other disasters are becoming more common and pose a serious threat to maritime infrastructure.

With PortWatch, an open platform launched today by researchers from the IMF and the University of Oxford, policymakers can prepare for trade disruptions caused by shocks like climate extremes and decide how to respond to them.

The platform uses real-time satellite data to track nearly 120,000 cargo ships and tankers worldwide—over 99 percent of global maritime trade. It provides daily estimates of trade volumes at 1,400 ports and more than a dozen pinch points, such as the Panama Canal.

PortWatch simulates international spillovers from a port closure and plots disruptions to onward supply chains on an interactive map. It enables climate scenario analysis, providing modeled risk estimates for a range of climate extremes. PortWatch also sends alerts on potential and actual trade disruptions after major disasters.

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Global Warming & Climate Change

FEATURED NEWS & VIEWS CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT: Lizards, fish and other species are evolving but not fast enough

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GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – Is this threatening the survival of plants and animals around the globe as temperatures rise and habitats change.

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.26: 2023: The Conversation by Published: November 21, 2023 1.27pm GMT: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Some species have been able to meet the challenge with rapid evolutionary adaptation and other changes in behavior or physiology. Dark-colored dragonflies are getting paler in order to reduce the amount of heat they absorb from the sun. Mustard plants are flowering earlier to take advantage of earlier snowmelt. Lizards are becoming more cold-tolerant to handle the extreme variability of our new climate.

However, scientific studies show that climate change is occurring much faster than species are changing.

A tiny, royal blue fish with gold stripes looks into the camera. The downward slant of its mouth and shadow at the top of its eye give it an annoyed look.
Zebrafish have evolved to thrive in water a degree or so warmer than normal, but they struggle to survive at higher temperatures. isoft/E+ Getty Images

What is evolutionary adaptation?

The word “adaptation” is used in many ways by climate scientists, but it has a very specific meaning to biologists: It refers to genetic changes that are passed on from one generation to the next and improve a species’ ability to survive in its environment.

These genetic modifications make evolutionary adaptation different from “acclimation” or “acclimatization,” which involve advantages that are not passed on to offspring. For example, when people move to high-altitude cities, they start producing more red blood cells as they acclimate to the low oxygen.

All over the world, plants and animals have adapted to many different warm and dry habitats, prompting scientists to question whether speciesmight also adapt to our rapidly changing climatetoo.

Thus far, the answer seems to be no for most species.

Evolving, fast and slow

recent study of the populations of 19 bird and mammal species, including owls and deer, shows one potential barrier to adaptation. 

In animals that take several years to reach breeding age, the climate has already shifted by the time their offspring are born. Genes that gave the parents an advantage – like hatching at exactly the right time or growing to the best size – are no longer as beneficial for the offspring.

Populations of these slow-maturing animals are adapting to climate change, but not enough during each generation to thrive in the changing conditions. In fact, the rate of evolution is so mismatched to the rate of global warming that the study’s authors estimate that nearly 70% of the local populations they studied are already vulnerable to climate-driven extinction over the coming decades.

A dragonfly with dark bands on its wings.
Black bands on dragonflies heat up their bodies. Research shows some dragonflies have evolved smaller black bands as the climate warms. Michael P. Moore
A heat map clearly shows that the dark bands on the wings absorb more heat.
In this heat map of the same dragonfly, white areas are the warmest and purple areas are cooler. The dark bands on the wings stand out. Michael P. Moore

Small-bodied animals, such as many fish, insects and plankton, typically mature quickly. Yet, recent research on small fish and a type of fast-maturing plankton called a copepod revealed another hurdle for rapid genetic adaptation to climate change.

Many species possess genes that permit them to live in environments that are 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (about 2 to 4 Fahrenheit) warmer than today, but new genetic mutations must arise to enable survival if climates reach 4 to 5 C (about 7 to 9 F) warmer, as is possible in some regions, particularly if greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate.

To test species’ resilience, scientists warmed populations of these fast-maturing species over many generations to observe their genetic changes. They found that both the copepods and the small fish were able to adapt to the first couple degrees of warming, but populations soon went extinct above that. This was because genetic mutations that increased their ability to live in hotter conditions occurred at a slower rate than the temperatures rose.

A tiny nearly translucent oval creature with a tail and egg sacks trailing behind it.
A live copepod with egg sacs at 10 times magnification. These ocean creatures produce new generations quickly, allowing for speedier evolution.NNehring/E+ Getty Images

Cold-blooded species, such as lizards, frogs and fish, are especially vulnerable to climate change because they have a limited capacity to regulate their own body temperatures. Their ability to evolve in response to climate change is expected to be critical for their survival.

However, rapid adaptation to climate change often comes at a cost: Populations get smaller due to the deaths of individuals that cannot tolerate new, hotter temperatures. Therefore, even if species do evolve to survive with climate change, their smaller populations may still go extinct due to problems such as inbreeding, harmful new mutations or plain old bad luck, such as a disease epidemic.

In a now-classic study, researchers studying lizards in Mexico discovered that the high death rates of just the heat-sensitive individuals – representing only a subset of the entire population – caused 12% of all lizard populations in Mexico to go extinct between 1975 and 2009. Even with some heat-tolerant adult lizards surviving in each population under the warmer conditions, the researchers estimated climate change would kill so many heat-sensitive adults within each population that 54% of all populations would go extinct by 2080.

Evolutionary adaptation isn’t species’ only option

Another way species adjust to rising temperatures is acclimation, sometimes called “phenotypic plasticity.” For example, great tits in the U.K. – small birds that are common in yards and forests – lay their eggs earlier in warmer years so that their nestlings hatch right as the winter weather ends, no matter when that happens.

A small bird with a yellow body and black head with white cheeks sits on a branch.
A great tit – Parus major. In the U.K., these common birds have been laying their eggs earlier in warm years. Hedera.Baltica via FlickrCC BY-SA

However, a recent analysis of more than 100 beetle, grasshopper and other insect species all over the world found that acclimation may not help those species enough.

The study’s authors found that the species they reviewed gained an average of only 0.1 C (about 0.2 F) greater heat tolerance when acclimating to 1 C (about 2 F) warmer air temperatures during their development. Thus, the rate of global warming seems to be outstripping species’ abilities to acclimate, too.

Plants and animals could also escape the impacts of global warming by migrating to cooler habitats. A global analysis of more than 12,000 different plants and animal species recently showed that many species are migrating toward the poles fast enough to keep pace with rising temperatures, and many tropical species are moving upslope to higher elevations as well.

Nonetheless, migration has its limits. Research shows that tropical birds that already live high in the mountains could be doomed because there is no room for them to migrate any farther upward. Tropical species, therefore, may be on what the authors call an “escalator to extinction.”

A yellow-and-black moth sits on a yellow flower in an alpine field with snow-covered mountains in the background.
Police car moths living at high elevations have little room to migrate to escape increasing heat. Michael P. Moore

High-latitude and high-elevation habitats also present numerous challenges for species to overcome besides temperature.

Our own research across 800 species of insects all over the Earth shows that butterflies, bees and other flying insects are especially hindered from migrating to higher elevations because there is not enough oxygen for them to survive.

Many species lack obvious climate strategies

Overall, evolutionary adaptation appears to help lessen the impacts of global warming, but the evidence thus far shows that it is insufficient to overcome current rates of climate change. Acclimation and migration provide faster solutions, but research shows that those may not be enough, either.

Of course, not all evolution is driven by warming temperatures. Plant and animal species appear to be also gradually adapting to other kinds of environments, including human-created ones like cities. But the fast pace of global warming makes it one of the major threats that species must respond to immediately.

The evidence indicates that humanity cannot simply assume that plants and animals will be able to save themselves from climate change. To protect these species, humans will have to stop the activities that are fueling climate change.

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Global Warming & Climate Change

BREAKING ANTARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT: A23a: World’s biggest iceberg on the move after 30 years

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GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – The world’s biggest iceberg is on the move after more than 30 years being stuck to the ocean floor.

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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.24: 2023: BBC Science News By Jonathan Amos: Science correspondent: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

A23a's current position
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The iceberg, called A23a, split from the Antarctic coastline in 1986. But it swiftly grounded in the Weddell Sea, becoming, essentially, an ice island.

At almost 4,000 sq km (1,500 sq miles) in area, it’s more than twice the size of Greater London.

The past year has seen it drifting at speed, and the berg is now about to spill beyond Antarctic waters.

Great icebergs, such as the recent A68 object, “fertilise” the oceans with mineral nutrients

A23a is a true colossus, and it’s not just its width that impresses. 

This slab of ice is some 400m (1,312 ft) thick. For comparison, the London Shard, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, is a mere 310m tall. 

A23a was part of a mass outbreak of bergs from the White Continent’s Filchner Ice Shelf.

At the time, it was hosting a Soviet research station, which just illustrates how long ago its calving occurred.

Moscow despatched an expedition to remove equipment from the Druzhnaya 1 base, fearing it would be lost. But the tabular berg didn’t move far from the coast before its deep keel anchored it rigidly to the Weddell’s bottom-muds. 

Iceberg A23a first began to stir from its long static slumber in 2020

So, why, after almost 40 years, is A23a on the move now?

“I asked a couple of colleagues about this, wondering if there was any possible change in shelf water temperatures that might have provoked it, but the consensus is the time had just come,” said Dr Andrew Fleming, a remote sensing expert from the British Antarctic Survey. 

“It was grounded since 1986 but eventually it was going to decrease (in size) sufficiently to lose grip and start moving. I spotted first movement back in 2020.”

A23a has put on a spurt in recent months, driven by winds and currents, and is now passing the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Like most icebergs from the Weddell sector, A23a will almost certainly be ejected into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which will throw it towards the South Atlantic on a path that has become known as “iceberg alley”.

This is the same movement of water – and accompanying westerlies – that the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton exploited in 1916 to make his escape from Antarctica following the loss of his ship, the Endurance, in crushing sea-ice.

Shackleton aimed his lifeboat for South Georgia, and it’s at this island that you will frequently see the big tabular bergs sitting offshore. The blocks’ keels mean they have a tendency to get pinned on the British Overseas Territory’s shallow continental shelf. 

Eventually, all bergs, however big, are doomed to melt and wither away. 

Scientists will be following A23a’s progress closely. 

If it does ground at South Georgia, it might cause problems for the millions of seals, penguins and other seabirds that breed on the island. A23a’s great bulk could disrupt the animals’ normal foraging routes, preventing them from feeding their young properly.

But it would be wrong to think of icebergs as being just objects of danger – Titanic and all that. There’s a growing recognition of their importance to the wider environment. 

As these big bergs melt, they release the mineral dust that was incorporated into their ice when they were part of glaciers scraping along the rock bed of Antarctica. This dust is a source of nutrients for the organisms that form the base of ocean food chains.

“In many ways these icebergs are life-giving; they are the origin point for a lot of biological activity,” said Dr Catherine Walker, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was born in the same year as A23a. “I identify with it; it’s always been there for me.”

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