RSS Feed
Archive for December 12th, 2015
What does the Paris climate agreement mean for Australia?
Posted by Guardian: Lenore Taylor on December 12th, 2015
Guardian: Surely Australia can use this Paris climate agreement to finally end the barren, wasted years of climate policy war.
There’s already an uneasy ceasefire, a let-up in the mind-numbing slogans. Labor is promising some kind of emissions trading scheme and a relatively ambitious renewable energy target – but no details yet lest it once again feels the barrage of a full bore axe-the-tax scare campaign. Under the sceptical gaze of his party’s hard right, Malcolm Turnbull is also unwilling to even hint...
Posted in 
Decoding Paris climate deal: What does it mean?
Posted by Climate Home: Gerard Wynn on December 12th, 2015
Climate Home: A two-week climate conference in Paris ended on Saturday with the first universal agreement on climate change.
Some 186 countries have made national pledges for climate action, and agreed a global long-term goal to phase out greenhouse gas emissions, marking a turning point in the fossil fuel era.
The Paris outcome has two documents.
The all-important, 12-page document “Paris Agreement”, which sets out new commitments for climate action beyond 2020, and potentially through this century....
Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord Paris
Posted by New York Times: Coral Davenport on December 12th, 2015
New York Times: Representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord on Saturday that would, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.
Delegates who have been negotiating intensely in this Paris suburb for two weeks gathered for the final plenary session where, suddenly, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, gaveled the session...
World leaders adopt 1.5 C goal — damn well going to hold them to it
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 12th, 2015
Grist: Here’s the crucial plaintive paragraph from the preamble to the Paris climate agreement released today, written in the almost indecipherable bureaucratese that attends this international circus:
Emphasizing with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature...
Paris talks overlooking immediate threats, say climate change activists – video
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 12th, 2015
Guardian: Climate change activists express their disappointment on Saturday at the final draft of the COP21 climate deal saying that it was too little, too late. Guillaume Durin, an activist from French environmental collective Alternatiba,says people are already affected by climate change and that the agreement is a way of delaying meaningful action
What is the future of coal power production?
Posted by Environmental News Network: Fred Pearce, Environment360 on December 12th, 2015
Environmental News Network: Is Paris the beginning of the end for coal? Coal burning is declining fast in both of the world's two largest carbon dioxide emitters, China and the the United States, with resulting declines in the emissions of both countries. The fuel looks incompatible with a world that warms by no more than two degrees Celsius, bringing calls for its rapid phaseout as the world is "decarbonized."
But, with or without a deal here in Paris later this week, will the calls be heeded? Has the demise of King Coal...
Calif drought: state gets much-needed snow and rain ahead of winter
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 12th, 2015
Guardian: In an encouraging prelude to winter, California got a heavy dose of snow and rain that the drought-stricken state badly needed, and the wet weather may not be done yet.
While ski resorts rejoiced at the deep snows they were seeing, on the coast rain and wind gusts prompted high surf warnings and repeated cautions from highway patrol to slow down when driving Friday.
California needs all the snow and rain it can get, given years of drought that have dried up reservoirs and left trees parched....
Most Climate Change Damage Will Happen Before the Two-Degrees Warming Threshold
Posted by Newsweek: Zoë Schlanger on December 12th, 2015
Newsweek: Most discourse regarding climate change is based around a simple premise: The more the Earth warms, the greater the damage done to the planet. But in new paper published in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers found that presupposition is fundamentally flawed. The reality, they write, is more ominous.
Almost all the damage from climate change to vulnerable categories like coral reefs, freshwater availability and plantlife could happen before two degrees Celsius warming, the internationally...
Canada: The Coal Bust
Posted by Globe and Mail: Kelly Cryderman AND Brent Jang on December 12th, 2015
Globe and Mail: Tanis Graham is having trouble sleeping.
At night, the shop owner in the small town of Hanna worries about the downturn in the oil and gas industry and how she's going to afford the Alberta government's plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
And in the past few weeks, Ms. Graham, 43, has been kept awake by news that the nearby coal-fired generating station will be closed a decade earlier than scheduled due to the province's new climate-change strategy.
About 110 people from the...
Analyzing options for increasing affordability of flood insurance
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 12th, 2015
ScienceDaily: A new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies an approach for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to evaluate policy options for making premiums through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) more affordable for those who have limited ability to pay. Microsimulation is a modeling approach that is well-suited to estimating premiums and future flood damage claims at the individual policyholder level, the report says....