A tour to promote more aggressive climate action by the Biden Administration begins in Michigan this month, a year after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The tour, spearheaded by the Green New Deal network, includes Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and, from Congress, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Summer Lee, and Jamaal Bowman, the Guardian reports yesterday.
“The Inflation Reduction Act was the largest climate investment in US history,” said John Paul Mejia, a national spokesperson for the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, one of the groups hosting the tour. “But for the next 10 years, we should work to make [it] the smallest by winning stuff that’s much larger.”
The Green New Deal Network includes such environmental groups as Greenpeace, the Sunrise Movement, the Climate Justice Alliance, and the Movement for People’s Action and the Movement for Black Lives.
“Since we introduced the Green New Deal resolution in 2019, we’ve succeeded in putting climate at the top of the political agenda,” said Markey. “We held the line on ‘no climate, no deal’ during the Build Back Better negotiations, which then resulted in the movement that won the Inflation Reduction Act, which was an historic accomplishment.”
IPCC Climate Scientist Tom Wigley discusses Net-Zero Does Not Mean What You Think It Does, suggesting “While we may not need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions all the way to zero to meet the Paris Agreement targets, the required reduction in CO2 emissions is huge and rapid. It is an enormous and daunting challenge.”
Since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, the term ‘net-zero emissions’ has become a much-used phrase and a buzzword for an aspirational policy target. But the term is frequently misused. Neither net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nor net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions mean that carbon dioxide emissions need to drop to zero.
Emissions scenarios are the foundation for making projections of future climate change. They are typically divided into two types, ‘reference scenarios’1 and ‘policy scenarios’
NPR reports on findings that climate change has brought a tropical disease to the US.
Medical providers will need to get familiar with leishmaniasis, say experts, as climate change puts more parts of the world at risk for the disease.
"Research projections suggest that the sand fly vector, which is prevalent throughout the southern U.S., over the next number of decades is likely to be able to move further north with climate change," Melby says.
This week, Planet Earth and Beyond suggests The Toll Of Extreme Weather Is Mounting
This year, we have seen some of the most frequent and potent extreme weather ever worldwide, though you hardly need reminding of that. But a vast majority of the death and destruction of this has mostly gone unreported, and it is only set to get worse.
As with most unreported disasters, this centres around Africa. The continent has been one of the hardest hit by extreme weather this year. From horrific floods to winter heatwaves and prolonged droughts that continue to this day, the people of Africa have suffered greatly under our rapidly changing climate.
Why it matters that Earth is on the brink of 1.5 degrees Celsius in warming.
A study published Monday in Nature Climate Change, which assessed the size and uncertainty of the remaining global carbon budget, found that by early 2029, if greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at the current rate, the planet may be unable to remain below the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.
This time frame projects that the carbon budget – that is, the net amount of carbon dioxide that humans can still emit without exceeding 1.5 degrees – will run out three years earlier than the previously expected expiration year of 2032.
Analysis: Global CO2 emissions could peak as soon as 2023, IEA data reveals
The IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2023 says it now expects CO2 emissions to peak “in the mid-2020s” and an accompanying press release says this will happen “by 2025”.
Yet the IEA’s own data shows the peak in global CO2 coming as early as this year, partly due to what the outlook describes as the “legacy” of the global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
SHUT DOWN THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE
It's time to shut the Dakota Access Pipeline down once and for all.
The pipeline – carrying up to of 750,000 barrels of oil a day – crosses Lake Oahe, a culturally significant water source that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe depend on for drinking water and fishing.
It’s not a matter of if the pipeline will leak oil, but when.
Plus, burning the oil carried in the pipeline will only accelerate climate change at a time when we need to be cutting emissions as quickly as possible – not generating exponentially more.
We cannot let Big Oil continue to profit from an energy system that threatens both our planet and Indigenous land, sovereignty, and history.
Without Warning: A Lack of Weather Stations Is Costing African Lives
A scarcity of weather stations in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South means millions of people cannot be alerted about impending extreme weather events. What’s needed is funding for equipment and early warning systems, which will reduce damage and save lives.
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