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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 19.01.2018
2017 ‘warmest year without El Niño’

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News.

2017 'warmest year without El Niño'
BBC News Read Article

2017 was the second or third hottest year on record – after 2016 and on a par with 2015, the BBC reports. But those two years experienced an El Niño – a natural weather phenomenon focused on the Pacific which works to raise temperatures worldwide. If you remove this natural variability from the equation then last year would probably have been the warmest year on record, scientists say. “The planet is warming remarkably uniformly,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. NASA reported that 2017 was the second-hottest year on record, while scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the UK’s Met Office found that 2017 was the third-warmest on record. The different results exist because the agencies use different methodologies to calculate global temperature, the Washington Postreports – but either way the results say that the past four years are the warmest in our 138-year archive. The Guardian highlights that 2017 also saw a number of extreme weather events around the world, from heatwaves to hurricanes, many of which have been shown to have been made more likely by global warming. The New York TimesInside Climate NewsReutersTime, the HillScientific American and the Independent also have the story.

Norway aims for all short-haul flights 100% electric by 2040

Avinor, the public operator of Norway’s airports, has said that all of Norway’s short-haul airliners should be 100% electric by 2040, in a bid to be the “first in the world” to switch to electric air transport. “We think that all flights lasting up to 1.5 hours can be flown by aircraft that are entirely electric”, its chief executive Dag Falk-Petersen, told AFP. Last year, energy think tank Energi Norge said it was possible for Norway to become the first country powered by 100 per cent clean electricity. The Guardian and the Independent also carry the story

Study: White House abandoning science advice at unprecedented levels
The Hill Read Article

A report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on Thursday has found that the White House has been sidelining advice from scientific advisory councils since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. The analysis found that science advisory committees had experienced “unprecedented” levels of disrespect and neglect from the White House and other agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump has also failed to fill the majority of government posts designated by the National Academies of Science as key science and technology positions, Scientific American reports, with just 20 out of 83 appointed. The total number of science advisory committee meetings in 2017 also decreased 20% from 2016, the study found, with the drop most notable at key federal science agencies: the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and DOI, the Hill writes. “Experts serving as members of federal advisory committees are being frozen out of the very avenues that were designed to encourage external input on scientific issues to the federal government,” said Genna Reed, a science and policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked on the report. Newsweek and Science Magazine also have the story.

Coral reefs 'at make or break point', UN environment head says
The Guardian Read Article

Erik Solheim, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme has said that the battle to save the world’s coral reefs is at a “make or break point”. Speaking after the launch of International Coral Reef Initiative’s international year of the reef, Solheim said that countries that host them have a special responsibility to take a leadership role in protecting reefs by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, plastic pollution and impacts from agriculture. “We have seen a huge decline in the reefs and that is absolutely serious,” Solheim said. “But there are also signs of change. We see now a huge global shift from coal to solar and wind and that is very good news for our efforts to reduce the effects of climate change.” Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, also made a plea to protect the reefs: “Today I appeal to every single person on Earth to help us. We must replace the present culture of abuse with a culture of care”.

Concern over climate change linked to depression, anxiety: study
Reuters via Sydney Morning Herald Read Article

A study of the mental health effects of climate change has found that depression and anxiety are affecting Americans who care about the environment, with women and people with low incomes the worst affected of this group. The study in the journal Global Environmental Change says symptom include restless nights, feelings of loneliness and lethargy. Risks to mental health from climate change are a “creeping development” said Sabrina Helm, lead author of the paper and professor of family and consumer sciences at the University of Arizona.

Comment.

Exiled by Trump, climate scientists lead the resistance against the denier-in-chief
Clark Mindock, The Independent Read Article

A feature in the Independent examines how the scientists being “pushed out” by current US administration’s hostility to addressing climate change are “adding to the resistance”. The funding cuts “has left a growing pool of climate experts unfettered by connections to federal bureaucracy”, the Independent writes. “I’m finding now that I have a much greater voice”, said Joel Clement, who worked at the Interior Department for seven years, and is one of a number of former government employees interviewed in the piece. Clement continues: “I think the Trump effect has been positive for public awareness, and public engagement on climate change”.

Antarctica: Aerial Photos Reveal Impact of Climate Change
Jeffrey Kluger and Paolo Pellegrin, Time Magazine Read Article

“It’s hard to wreck a continent you can barely get your hands on”, but Antarctica is no longer beyond the reach of our damaging influence, begins a photoessay in Time Magazine, which features spectacular images of cracking Antarctic ice shelves. “While the disappearance of Arctic sea ice is enough of an environmental calamity, it’s the ice that covers Antarctica that is a bigger real menace”, Kluger, Time’s editor-at-large, writes. “As it melts and sloughs off the land, it raises sea levels worldwide.” The pictures showing the impact of climate change on Antarctica, captured from a plane of NASA’s IceBridge mission “are stark, scary, beautiful and otherworldly”, he says, and “may serve as a reminder to care for the Earth in a way that better protects our profound good fortune”.

Science.

Does replacing coal with wood lower CO2 emissions? Dynamic lifecycle analysis of wood bioenergy
Environmental Research Letters Read Article

Assuming biofuels are carbon neutral may worsen irreversible impacts of climate change before benefits accrue, a new study suggests. Using a new model for analysing the lifecycle for bioenergy, researchers simulated the substitution of wood for coal in power generation for forests in the eastern US. The results show the immediate impact of substituting wood for coal is an increase in atmospheric CO2 relative to coal. This is because “combustion and processing efficiencies for wood are less than coal,” the researchers say. The payback time for this carbon debt ranges from 44–104 years after clearcut, the study finds – depending on forest type and assuming the land remains forest.

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