El Niño indicator hits record high & Senators demand Paris deal gets Senate vote regardless of legal form
News
El Niño indicator hits record high, adds to weather risks: NOAA
A key indicator for the strength of El Niño has reached a record high, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last week, temperatures in the Nino 3.4 region, the central band of Pacific ocean running either side of the equator, were 3C above average. This is highest reading in data that goes back to 1990, beating the previous record of 2.8C in 1997. Mike Halpert of NOAA said record was only for the weekly value and that “we won’t know exactly where this event ranks until sometime next year.” The MailOnline also has the story.
Senators demand Paris deal gets Senate vote regardless of legal form
Three senators – including climate sceptic Republican Jim Inhofe – have introduced a resolution demanding that any outcome from the UN climate summit in Paris must be put to a Senate vote. The non-binding resolution intends intended to block a new international climate deal if it put US industry to a disadvantage to that of developing countries. The Obama administration has insisted that the Republican-controlled Congress would not need to ratify the deal since it won’t be a formal treaty, says the Hill. The move comes after the Senate voted on Tuesday to repeal the President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, says the Guardian. Obama has said he will veto any bill to repeal the new rules to limit power plant emissions.
London to keep Zero Carbon Homes goal, says Mayor Boris
London Mayor Boris Johnson is to press ahead with plans for all new homes to meet a “zero carbon” standard, despite the government scrapping the target earlier this year. Answering questions from the London Assembly this week, Johnson said City Hall would issue guidance for developers on how it planned to implement the target in the capital. The Treasury announced in July that it would abandon the ambition for new homes to be zero carbon by 2016, arguing that red tape discourages housebuilders from starting new developments.
Leading energy firms to support ‘near doubling’ of renewable capacity
Sixteen of the world’s leading energy and technology firms have launched a joint “scaling up renewables” action plan to support the deployment of 1.5 terawatts of extra capacity by 2025. The firms, which include the likes of EDF and Vestas, yesterday pledged to remove barriers to large-scale deployment of clean energy. Specific actions include improving connections between renewables and the grid; encouraging green bond finance, and speeding the development of low-carbon micro grids to promote clean energy in remote areas.
UK reversing and undoing climate change policies, say doctors and nurses
The UK is reversing its policies on climate change “without offering credible alternatives”, according to an alliance of Britain’s doctors, nurses and other health professionals. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they say that natural disasters, food and water insecurity, the spread of infectious diseases and forced migration “are already affecting human health and provide a glimpse of the near future”. The UK is bucking a positive global trend to curb emissions, they say.
UK heritage hit by climate change, warns National Trust
Press Association via Guardian
More erratic weather, changes to rainfall and rising temperatures are already having an impact on the properties and land that make up the UK’s heritage, says a new National Trust report. The Trust says the value of their monthly insurance claims from extreme weather damage has more than quadrupled. The reports lays out the challenges brought by climate change and how the Trust will have to find new ways of managing the heritage in its care. Director-general Helen Ghosh said: “The risk of permanent damage to landscape and heritage as a result of not planning for a future with a radically different climate is ever increasing.”
Comment
Tackling climate change should be the UK’s top energy priority
In a letter to the Guardian, Green MP Caroline Lucas describes Energy Secretary Amber Rudd’s recent speech on energy policy as “a spectacular display of governmental cognitive dissonance – saying one thing while acting in an entirely contradictory manner.” Rudd spoke of building infrastructure fit for the 21st century, yet “her department ploughs ahead with firing up outdated high-carbon gas power stations,” says Lucas. The letter also criticises the government’s commitment to subsidise “outrageously expensive nuclear power stations while slashing support for solar and wind.”
The Forgotten U.N. Climate Goal: 1.5°C
While much of the attention on a historic Paris climate meeting in the coming weeks will focus on trying to keep global warming below 2C, delegates representing island states will be pushing for the formal adoption of a long-overlooked goal – 1.5C, says Upton. Such a goal would be ambitious, he says, as some negotiators and onlookers “already seem to have given up hope of limiting warming to less than 2C, much less 1.5C.” Upton talks to negotiators and academics to see how achievable 1.5C is.
Science
Long-term variations in global sea level extremes
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Discounting for a minute the human-caused trend towards rising sea levels, a new paper examines how sea level extreme highs and lows have varied over time. Using tide gauge records, the authors find the intensity and frequency of extreme sea levels have changed from one decade to the next and that the pattern exists across different parts of the world. This points to a common large-scale forcing of the long term changes in storminess, say the authors.
Climate Finance in and between Developing Countries: An Emerging Opportunity to Build On
A new study critiques the way climate finance is dealt with in international climate negotiations, saying it remains “too mired in an increasingly antiquated North–South, developed–developing country dichotomy.” A trend towards climate finance within developing countries could help unlock additional resources through multilateral development banks and move things forward, say the authors, without diminishing the need for developed countries to increase support.
Other stories
- Even as Congress investigates the global warming ‘pause,’ actual temperatures are surging (The Washington Post)
- The Summit: the 2015 Paris climate talks (Christian Science Monitor)
- Global temperature records smash claims of ‘pause’ in global warming (ABC Radio National)
- Timeline: UN climate negotiations (The Conversation)
- 139 Countries Could Get All of their Power from Renewable Sources (Scientific American)
- North-south climate rift hurts poor people (Climate Home)
- Top Polish climate envoy Korolec dismissed a week before Paris talks (Carbon Pulse)
- Renewables are changing the climate narrative from sacrifice to opportunity (The Guardian)
- Organisers of cancelled Paris climate march urge global show of support (The Guardian)
- Paris climate talks: Russia will use its huge forests as a bargaining chip (The Conversation)
- Oil traders prepare for next big price drop in March 2016 (Reuters)
- Brazil carbon emissions dip overall, but most sectors show increases (Reuters)
- Climate change speeds retreat of Trinidad’s idyllic beaches (Climate Home)