3)Energy security is an important factor in making energy choices.
4) Climate change has been a normal feature of the Earth’s history, but human activity has contributed to recent changes.
5) There has been significant debate about the causes of climate change.
6) Climate change causes widespread and significant impacts on a global scale.
7) Mitigation attempts to reduce the causes of climate change.
8) Adaptation attempts to manage the impacts of climate change.
Macron awards US scientists grants to move to France in defiance of Trump | Environment. Eighteen climate scientists from the US and elsewhere have hit the jackpot as France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, awarded them millions of euros in grants to relocate to France for the rest of Donald Trump’s presidential term. The “Make Our Planet Great Again” grants – a nod to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan – are part of Macron’s efforts to counter Trump on the climate change front.
Macron announced a contest for the projects in June, hours after Trump declared he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord. More than 5,000 people from about 100 countries expressed interest in the grants. Most of the applicants – and 13 of the 18 winners – were US-based researchers. Macron’s appeal “gave me such a psychological boost, to have that kind of support, to have the head of state saying I value what you do”, said winner Camille Parmesan, of the University of Texas at Austin.
The research of the winning recipients focuses on pollution, hurricanes and clouds. Golden eagle migration out of sync with climate change. Image copyright SPL Golden eagles in North America may have the timing of their migration shifted out of step with a seasonal boom in food they need to raise their young, according to scientists. A project to track the impact of climate change on migrating animals has revealed that adult golden eagles are unable to shift the timing of their migration.
Lead researcher Scott LaPoint from Columbia University presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He explained that day length, or photoperiod, appeared to give the great birds the cue to go "as far and as fast as possible". When analysing tracking data, composed of 20 years' worth of tagging birds with satellite tags and following their seasonal migrations, Dr LaPoint noticed an unusual pattern. "But the adults get this photoperiod trigger and it's 'Time to go!
' "I would have expected an older, wiser bird to better time their migration," he added. Birds younger than five years are sub-adult. Theconversation. Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change. Recently at least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have been lost completely to sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and a further six islands have been severely eroded. These islands lost to the sea range in size from one to five hectares. They supported dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old. Nuatambu Island, home to 25 families, has lost more than half of its habitable area, with 11 houses washed into the sea since 2011. This is the first scientific evidence, published in Environmental Research Letters, that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people.
A warning for the world Previous studies examining the risk of coastal inundation in the Pacific region have found that islands can actually keep pace with sea-level rise and sometimes even expand. Security Check Required. How Northern European waters soak up carbon dioxide. Image copyright AFP The seas around the UK and the rest of northern Europe take up a staggering 24 million tonnes of carbon each year. It is a mass equivalent to two million double-decker buses or 72,000 747 jets. The number was produced by scientists studying the movement of carbon dioxide into and out of the oceans. The team, led by Heriot-Watt University and Exeter University, has produced a software "engine" that will allow other scientists to do the same for different parts of the globe.
"It's a software toolbox essentially, that we've made available," said Exeter's Jamie Shutler. "We've used it for our own work. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by seawater acts as a moderator in the climate system. It is estimated that a third of all human-produced CO2 emissions, from fossil fuel burning and the like, ends up in the oceans. Researchers are keen to understand how this budget might change over time. Image copyright EXETER UNIVERSITY "Temperature is a key driver," explained Dr Shutler.
Carbon emissions 'postpone ice age' Image copyright Ittiz The next ice age may have been delayed by over 50,000 years because of the greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere by humans, scientists in Germany say. They analysed the trigger conditions for a glaciation, like the one that gripped Earth over 12,000 years ago. The shape of the planet's orbit around the Sun would be conducive now, they find, but the amount of carbon dioxide currently in the air is far too high. Earth is set for a prolonged warm phase, they tell the journal Nature. "In theory, the next ice age could be even further into the future, but there is no real practical importance in discussing whether it starts in 50,000 or 100,000 years from now," Andrey Ganopolski from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said. "The important thing is that it is an illustration that we have a geological power now. We can change the natural sequence of events for tens of thousands of years," he told BBC News.
This has seen ice sheets come and go. Planet rock.
Everything you need to know about the Paris climate summit and UN talks | Environment. What is happening in Paris this December? The governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.
Why now? Current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions run out in 2020, so at Paris governments are expected to produce an agreement on what happens for the decade after that at least, and potentially beyond. Why is this important? Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we will pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. That threshold is estimated as a temperature rise of 2C above pre-industrial levels, and on current emissions trajectories we are heading for a rise of about 5C. Why has nobody thought of getting a global agreement on this before now? They have: global negotiations on climate change have been carrying on for more than 20 years. Nepal's forests under threat over fuel crisis - BBC News. Image copyright AFP/Getty Nepal's world-renowned community forests are under threat from a sudden rise in demand for firewood because of a fuel crisis, officials say.
A blockade on the Himalayan nation's border with India has halted imports. Ethnic communities in the southern plain bordering India are protesting against the new constitution, saying it does not adequately represent them. At least 40 people have died and hundreds of trucks have been stuck across the border in India. Nepal is a landlocked country and totally reliant on India for all its fuel, food and medicine imports. Supplies have been disrupted for over two weeks. Conservationists say people have been left with no choice but to cut down trees for firewood despite having a tradition of protecting their forests. "We have received information from our different member community forests that people are now entering forests to collect firewood and in several areas trees have been chopped down.
" Illegal logging Mr. Political dispute. Climate Time Machine. Designers create the 'impossible' zero-carbon house - BBC News. Designers at Cardiff University say they have constructed the sort of house George Osborne once described as impossible. The chancellor scrapped a requirement for new homes to be zero carbon by 2016 because he said it would prove too expensive. But Cardiff University say they have built a house that exports more power to the grid than it uses. And crucially they say the cost fell within the normal budget for social housing. A government spokesman said house builders needed to be given more time to develop low energy homes. 'Excess energy' The house took just 16 weeks to construct and cost £1,000 per sq m - that's within the range for social housing of £800 to £1,000 per sq m, the designers said.
In future, they say its owners will make money from selling excess energy. The property, near Bridgend, has insulated render on the outside and air heating systems that rely on the sun. Another zero-carbon home is close to completion at the Building Research Establishment near Watford. Obama's clean energy plan expected to boost renewables - BBC News. After a year of consultations and over 4 million public comments, President Obama's Clean Power Plan will be finalised early next week. The strategy will outline restrictions on CO2 from electricity that individual states will have to implement.
To give reluctant states more time to comply, the starting date is expected to be delayed by 2 years. It's likely that new supports for renewable energy will also be announced. In June last year the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) first put forward its proposals for restrictions on power plants. The EPA said that emissions from electricity generation need to be reduced by 30% of the 2005 level by 2030. At that time the EPA said that individual states need to get their plans in place by 2016 and they were to become operational by 2020. But after consultations with industry, states and 4.3 million comments from the public, the EPA is likely to extend the deadline for the start of carbon cutting until 2022.
"We will finalise a stronger rule. " Carbon nanofibres made from CO2 in the air - BBC News. Scientists in the US have found a way to take carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and make carbon nanofibres, a valuable manufacturing material. Their solar-powered system runs a small current through a tank filled with a hot, molten salt; the fluid absorbs atmospheric CO2 and tiny carbon fibres slowly form at one of the electrodes. It currently produces 10g per hour. The team says it can be "scaled up" and could have an impact on CO2 emissions, but other researchers are unsure. Nonetheless, the approach offers a much cheaper way of making carbon nanofibres than existing methods, according to Prof Stuart Licht of George Washington University. "Until now, carbon nanofibres have been too expensive for many applications," he told journalists at the autumn meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
The question is whether the "one-pot" reaction demonstrated by Prof Licht and his team could help to drop that cost. But Prof Licht is confident his design can succeed. Islamic call on rich countries to end fossil fuel use - BBC News. Islamic environmental and religious leaders have called on rich countries and oil producing nations to end fossil fuel use by 2050. The Islamic Climate Declaration says that the world's 1.6bn Muslims have a religious duty to fight climate change. It urges politicians to agree a new treaty to limit global warming to 2C, "or preferably 1.5 degrees.
" The Declaration asks Muslims, in the words of the Koran, "not to strut arrogantly on the Earth". Drafted at an international symposium in Istanbul, the Declaration calls for "all people, leaders and businesses ...to commit to 100% renewable energy". It also argues for increased financial support for communities vulnerable to climate change. The main focus though is on "well-off nations and oil-producing states," who are urged to lead the way in phasing out greenhouse gases, no later than the middle of this century. "Someone should be articulating this because it's an impossibility, they can't do it - And this applies not just to Muslim countries.
" Fukushima disaster: Japan reopens radiation-hit Naraha - BBC News. Japan is inviting residents to return to a town evacuated in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Naraha is the first town to allow people to return permanently, following several years of decontamination work. But many say they are not ready to come back, and only a fraction have returned for brief stays since a trial period began in April. The Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered a series of meltdowns following a massive earthquake and tsunami. After the disaster, all of Naraha's 7,400 residents moved out. The town, about 20km (12 miles) south of the nuclear plant, is seen as a test case for the return of evacuated residents.
Some 100,000 people in the area are still unable to return to their homes. Authorities in Naraha are issuing people with devices to check radiation levels and have been rebuilding local services, including shops and clinics. Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto said the lifting of the evacuation order was "just a start". Image copyright AP. The Evacuated Chernobyl Is Now Teeming With Wildlife.