Carbon Brief has a guest post from the authors of a newstudy looking at how heavy rainfall and high water levels combineto cause “compound flooding”, a major risk facing many major UScities over the last century.

Analysis of a global survey finds that more than a third ofthe world’s adults have never heard of climate change. For somecountries, such as South Africa, Bangladesh and Nigeria, this risesto more than two-thirds of the adult population.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton yesterdayunveiled ambitious goals for tackling climate change and producingenergy from renewable sources. She set a goal to produce 33% of thenation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2027, up from 7%today – a higher target than the 20% that President Obama hascalled for by 2030. Clinton also called for half a billion solarpanels to be installed by 2020 and to generate enough energy fromcarbon-free sources within 10 years of her inauguration to powerevery home in America, through she is stillrefusingto say if she opposes theKeystone XL pipeline. Clinton’s words are significant but they arenot “bold,” the word her campaign used to describe them,saysInsideClimate News. To betransformational would require her to set a price on carbon andwalk away from big investments in long-lived fossil fuel projects.Promising to make climate change a key pillar of her campaignplatform, these proposals are the first steps toward fleshing outwhat has mostly been bare-boned climate rhetoric,saysReuters.

A new survey across 119 countries finds that developednations have a much higher awareness of climate change thandeveloping ones, mainly thanks to higher access to education andcommunication. However, when participants were asked whether or notthey perceived climate change as a threat, over 90% of people inevery South American country, Mexico, India, Tanzania and Moroccoall said yes. In Australia, the US, UK and most of the rest ofEurope, more than 75% of people were aware of climate change butfar fewer considered it to be detrimental to themselves or theirfamilies, reportsThe Guardian. Japan is one of the fewhighly advanced economies whose population shows very high concernabout the risks of climate change.

Climate Central covers new research which looks at how stormsurges occurring at the same time as heavy rainfall can up the riskof flooding in US cities. Author Thomas Wahl tells Time, “Usually it requires an extremestorm surge to cause flooding or an extreme rainfall event. But thecombination of two events that are not really extreme on their ownmay cause larger damages than one of the two events alone.” CarbonBrief has aguest postfrom the authorsexplaining their research.

The latest forecasts suggest the El Nino brewing in thePacific is set to be the largest in well over a decade, and willincrease the price of coffee, chocolate and sugar. But competingweather patterns mean the phenomenon is unlikely to bringdesperately needed relief to California, say scientists. If currenttrends continue, it should officially be termed a strong El Ninoearly in August, peak sometime near the end of year and peter outsometime next spring, reportsAssociated Press.

Laurence Tubiana, France’s chief climate ambassador, hassaid she is very concerned at the slow rate of progress on anegotiating text that will form the basis of a new internationaldeal on global warming in Paris later this year. In an interviewwith the Guardian, Tubiana said the French government would takeaction in October if more progress has not been made.

The Chinese economy is clearly going through its mostserious downturn in more than 30 years, which, given China’s rolein the international energy economy, will have serious implicationsworldwide, says Butler. Even if the downturn is temporary it willbe disruptive to a market already sinking under the weight ofexcess supplies of oil, coal and natural gas.

Dana Nuccitelli factchecks a string of recent news storiesabout therecent findingsthat Arctic sea iceloss experienced a brief respite in 2013, after a particularly coolsummer. Lead author Rachel Tilling explains why the “short termblip” does not mean Arctic sea ice is in recovery and why the Maileditorial’s statement that the northern ice cap is “bigger than atany time for decades” is flat-out wrong. The sentence has sincebeen corrected, the piece notes. AseparateGuardian piece looks at acomplaint made to the Independent Press Standards Organisation byCambridge professor Peter Wadhams, who says he was misquoted in aTimes newspaper story about the deaths of three leading Britishscientists in 2013.

A run down of what can be drawn from the streamlined versionof a negotiating text for a proposed Paris agreement, released onFriday. Under the headline “Paris agreement”, the text couldunderline the overall commitments countries will need to make whilea separate set of proposals will focus on how countries willachieve their commitments, without specifying individual targets.The underlying message is clear, says King, countries should comeprepared and quit time-wasting. Over at InsideClimate News, John. H. Cushman Jrsays the new draft treaty is still a tangled mess, but is growingclearer.

Author Margaret Atwood takes a long look at the impacts ofclimate change worlwide and imagines a necessary future withoutoil: “Oil! Our secret god, our secret sharer, our magic wand,fulfiller of our every desire, our co-conspirator, the sine qua nonin all we do! Can’t live with it, can’t?-?right at thismoment?-?live without it. But it’s on everyone’s mind.”

A study of Arctic plants over the past 21 years showsflowering times are either around the same or later in the year,despite warmer temperatures. This counterintuitive result waslikely due to delayed snowmelt over the study period as a result ofincreased winter snowfall, the researchers say. Despite delayedflowering, the timing of seed development showed no significantchange over time, suggesting that warmer temperatures may promotemore rapid seed development, the paper says.

A new study reviews the scientific evidence base for theimpact of climate change on childhood undernutrition in subsistencefarmers in low- and middle-income countries. Although scattered andlimited, current evidence suggests a significant but variable linkbetween weather variables and stunted growth in children, theresearchers find. The study considers rainfall, extreme weatherevents (floods/droughts), seasonality and temperature, as well aseconomic and agricultural factors.

Conservation of carbon-rich mangroves in Indonesia should bea high priority for strategies to mitigate climate change, a newstudy says. Researchers found that Indonesia has lost 40% of itsmangrove forests in the past three decades, and mangrovedeforestation makes up 6% of its total forest loss each year. Ifthis were halted, total emissions would be reduced by an amountequal to 10-31% of estimated annual emissions from land-use sectorsat present, the study finds.