UN Climate Panel: Emissions Must Fall Rapidly by 2030 to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change

10.10.2018

climate-change-2063240_960_720 — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its highly anticipated report Sunday on what needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The answer: social and technological change on a scale for which “there is no documented historic precedent,” The Washington Post reported.

The IPCC, a UN body formed to give policy makers accurate scientific information about climate change, was asked to prepare the report as part of the Paris agreement. The final draft included the work of 91 researchers from 40 countries and cited more than 6,000 scientific resources, the Huffington Post reported. It was released following a summit in Incheon, South Korea.

The report offers a narrow window for rapid climate action: By 2030, emissions would have to fall to 45 percent below 2010 levels. By 2050, all or nearly all coal burning must stop.

“It’s like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen. We have to put out the fire,” UN Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim told The Washington Post.

While the report laid out the difficulties of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, it also reinforced the importance of doing so. Allowing the planet to warm a full 2 degrees, the upper limit set up by the Paris agreement, could have devastating consequences.

Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 would:

Prevent 10 additional centimeters (approximately 4 inches) of sea level rise.
Lower the chance of ice-free Arctic summers from once-per-decade to once-per-century.
Prevent permafrost thaw in an Alaska-size chunk of the Arctic.
Limit the die-off of tropical coral reefs to 70 to 90 percent instead of 99 percent.
Save hundreds of millions of people from climate risk and poverty by 2050.

“1.5 degrees is the new 2 degrees,” Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan told The Washington Post.

Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would also require technological innovation. The percentage of electricity the world gets from renewable energy would have to increase from the current 24 percent to 50 to 60 percent within the next decade. Transportation would have to rapidly increase its transition to electric vehicles and fossil fuel plants would need to be equipped with carbon capture and storage technology to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere and then store them in the ground.

The report also calls for converting land from agriculture to forests for carbon storage, and an untested technology called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, which works by growing crops for energy, then capturing the carbon and storing it underground.

Experts agree that ambitious negative emissions strategies require international cooperation on a massive scale.

“Even if it is technically possible, without aligning the technical, political and social aspects of feasibility, it is not going to happen,” Center for International Climate Research in Oslo Research Director Glen Peters told The Washington Post. “To limit warming below 1.5 C, or 2 C for that matter, requires all countries and all sectors to act.”

But that kind of cooperation has been made more difficult by the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw the high-emitting country from the Paris agreement.

“Today the world’s leading scientific experts collectively reinforced what mother nature has made clear—that we need to undergo an urgent and rapid transformation to a global clean energy economy,” former U.S. Vice President and climate action advocate Al Gore told CNN. “Unfortunately, the Trump administration has become a rogue outlier in its shortsighted attempt to prop up the dirty fossil fuel industries of the past. The administration is in direct conflict with American businesses, states, cities and citizens leading the transformation.”

Source: Eco Watch

Climate Change Economists Win Nobel Prize

10.10.2018

romer-portrait-464x696 — Photo: nobelprize.org

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics to a duo for their work on how the world can achieve sustainable growth.

The prize was divided equally to William D. Nordhaus of Yale University and to Paul M. Romer of New York University’s Stern School of Business, both Americans, who have “designed methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth,” the academy said Monday in a press release.

Nordhaus is known for his pioneering model describing how economic activities drive climate-warming emissions. He is a major advocate of using carbon taxes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He has worked on this topic since the 1970s, when scientists became increasingly worried about fossil fuelscontributing to a warming world, the academy said.

Coincidentally, the academy’s announcement was issued the same day that a United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report about the catastrophic effects of unmitigated climate changeand advised rapid government action. The report builds on and cites Nordhaus’ work, The New York Timesreported.

When it comes to averting climate change, “the policies are lagging very, very far—miles, miles, miles—behind the science and what needs to be done,” Nordhaus said in an interview after his win.

He added that the United States has fallen behind in mitigating global warming due to the “disastrous policies” of the Trump administration. President Trump has pushed for fossil fuel usage and infamously pulled the U.S. out of global Paris agreement to limit warming.

Romer, whose work focuses on how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations, laid the foundation of what is now called “endogenous growth theory,” the academy said. The theory explains how ideas require specific conditions to thrive in a market.

Romer is less pessimistic about the future of the planet in light of the IPCC’s dire report, but said work needs to be done to slash carbon emissions.

“It is entirely possible for humans to produce less carbon,” he said at the press conference announcing his prize. “Once we start to try to reduce carbon emissions, we’ll be surprised that it wasn’t as hard as we anticipated.”

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Nobel prize in economics.

“The contributions of Paul Romer and William Nordhaus are methodological, providing us with fundamental insights into the causes and consequences of technological innovation and climate change,” the academy said. “This year’s Laureates do not deliver conclusive answers, but their findings have brought us considerably closer to answering the question of how we can achieve sustained and sustainable global economic growth.”

Source: Eco Watch

We Have 12 years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN

09.10.2018

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The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.

The half-degree difference could also prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic, according to the 1.5C study, which was launched after approval at a final plenary of all 195 countries in Incheon in South Korea that saw delegates hugging one another, with some in tears.

“It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, a co-chair of the working group on impacts. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilises people and dents the mood of complacency.”

Policymakers commissioned the report at the Paris climate talks in 2016, but since then the gap between science and politics has widened. Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the US – the world’s biggest source of historical emissions – from the accord. The first round of Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday put Jair Bolsonaro into a strong position to carry out his threat to do the same and also open the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness.

The world is currently 1C warmer than preindustrial levels. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, upgraded its risk warning from previous reports, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would worsen the impact.

Scientists who reviewed the 6,000 works referenced in the report, said the change caused by just half a degree came as a revelation. “We can see there is a difference and it’s substantial,” Roberts said.

At 1.5C the proportion of the global population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower than at 2C, it notes. Food scarcity would be less of a problem and hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty.

At 2C extremely hot days, such as those experienced in the northern hemisphere this summer, would become more severe and common, increasing heat-related deaths and causing more forest fires.

But the greatest difference would be to nature. Insects, which are vital for pollination of crops, and plants are almost twice as likely to lose half their habitat at 2C compared with 1.5C. Corals would be 99% lost at the higher of the two temperatures, but more than 10% have a chance of surviving if the lower target is reached.

Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 if the half-degree extra warming brought a forecast 10cm additional pressure on coastlines. The number affected would increase substantially in the following centuries due to locked-in ice melt.

Oceans are already suffering from elevated acidity and lower levels of oxygen as a result of climate change. One model shows marine fisheries would lose 3m tonnes at 2C, twice the decline at 1.5C.

Sea ice-free summers in the Arctic, which is warming two to three times fast than the world average, would come once every 100 years at 1.5C, but every 10 years with half a degree more of global warming.

Time and carbon budgets are running out. By mid-century, a shift to the lower goal would require a supercharged roll-back of emissions sources that have built up over the past 250 years.

The IPCC maps out four pathways to achieve 1.5C, with different combinations of land use and technological change. Reforestation is essential to all of them as are shifts to electric transport systems and greater adoption of carbon capture technology.

Carbon pollution would have to be cut by 45% by 2030 – compared with a 20% cut under the 2C pathway – and come down to zero by 2050, compared with 2075 for 2C. This would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2C target. But the costs of doing nothing would be far higher.

“We have presented governments with pretty hard choices. We have pointed out the enormous benefits of keeping to 1.5C, and also the unprecedented shift in energy systems and transport that would be needed to achieve that,” said Jim Skea, a co-chair of the working group on mitigation. “We show it can be done within laws of physics and chemistry. Then the final tick box is political will. We cannot answer that. Only our audience can – and that is the governments that receive it.”

He said the main finding of his group was the need for urgency. Although unexpectedly good progress has been made in the adoption of renewable energy, deforestation for agriculture was turning a natural carbon sink into a source of emissions. Carbon capture and storage projects, which are essential for reducing emissions in the concrete and waste disposal industries, have also ground to a halt.

Reversing these trends is essential if the world has any chance of reaching 1.5C without relying on the untried technology of solar radiation modification and other forms of geo-engineering, which could have negative consequences.

In the run-up to the final week of negotiations, there were fears the text of the report would be watered down by the US, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries that are reluctant to consider more ambitious cuts. The authors said nothing of substance was cut from a text.

Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the final document was “incredibly conservative” because it did not mention the likely rise in climate-driven refugees or the danger of tipping points that could push the world on to an irreversible path of extreme warming.

The report will be presented to governments at the UN climate conference in Poland at the end of this year. But analysts say there is much work to be done, with even pro-Paris deal nations involved in fossil fuel extraction that runs against the spirit of their commitments. Britain is pushing ahead with gas fracking, Norway with oil exploration in the Arctic, and the German government wants to tear down Hambach forest to dig for coal.

At the current level of commitments, the world is on course for a disastrous 3C of warming. The report authors are refuseing to accept defeat, believing the increasingly visible damage caused by climate change will shift opinion their way.

“I hope this can change the world,” said Jiang Kejun of China’s semi-governmental Energy Research Institute, who is one of the authors. “Two years ago, even I didn’t believe 1.5C was possible but when I look at the options I have confidence it can be done. I want to use this report to do something big in China.”

The timing was good, he said, because the Chinese government was drawing up a long-term plan for 2050 and there was more awareness among the population about the problem of rising temperatures. “People in Beijing have never experienced so many hot days as this summer. It’s made them talk more about climate change.”

Regardless of the US and Brazil, he said, China, Europe and major cities could push ahead. “We can set an example and show what can be done. This is more about technology than politics.”

James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist who helped raised the alarm about climate change, said both 1.5C and 2C would take humanity into uncharted and dangerous territory because they were both well above the Holocene-era range in which human civilisation developed. But he said there was a huge difference between the two: “1.5C gives young people and the next generation a fighting chance of getting back to the Holocene or close to it. That is probably necessary if we want to keep shorelines where they are and preserve our coastal cities.”

Johan Rockström, a co-author of the recent Hothouse Earth report, said scientists never previously discussed 1.5C, which was initially seen as a political concession to small island states. But he said opinion had shifted in the past few years along with growing evidence of climate instability and the approach of tipping points that might push the world off a course that could be controlled by emissions reductions.

“Climate change is occurring earlier and more rapidly than expected. Even at the current level of 1C warming, it is painful,” he told the Guardian. “This report is really important. It has a scientific robustness that shows 1.5C is not just a political concession. There is a growing recognition that 2C is dangerous.”

Source: Guardian

Planting More Trees Won’t Be Enough to Save the Planet

09.10.2018

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One way of mitigating the adverse effects of man-made climate change is to plant trees. The more trees there are, the more CO2 they absorb from the atmosphere, thereby alleviating the greenhouse effect because plants build their roots, stems and leaves from the CO2 they suck out of the air.

Here’s the thing, though: it’s not a cure-all option. Why? Because to offset the massive amounts of carbon dioxide that we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere, we would need to plant so many trees that there would be little space left for anything else on land around the planet, according to scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. The scientists have calculated that the size of the required plantations would be so vast that they would have to take the place of natural ecosystems worldwide.

“In this scenario, they would replace natural ecosystems on fertile land the size of more than one third of all forests we have today on our planet,” the scientists explain. Either that, or we would lose most of our crops because “more than a quarter of land used for agriculture at present would have to be converted into biomass plantations – putting at risk global food security.”

Needless to say, neither option is feasible. What we can do, however, is grow biomass “in well-selected places with increased irrigation or fertilization” so as to keep the increase in global temperatures under 2 degrees Celsius, a threshold widely regarded as manageable. But to do so, we will also rein in our CO2 emissions globally.

“If we continue burning coal and oil the way we do today and regret our inaction later, the amounts of greenhouse gas we would need to take out of the atmosphere in order to stabilize the climate would be too huge to manage,” said Lena Boysen, the lead-author of a new study published in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

“Even if we were able to use productive plants such as poplar trees or switchgrass and store 50 percent of the carbon contained in their biomass,” she added, “in the business-as-usual scenario of continued, unconstrained fossil fuel use the sheer size of the plantations for staying at or below 2°C of warming would cause devastating environmental consequences.”

In other words, we have to reduce our CO2 emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, rather than hope that we can solve the problem of excessive atmospheric CO2 by creating vast biomass plantations later on, as it has been suggested. “Our work shows that carbon removal via the biosphere cannot be used as a late-regret option to tackle climate change,” says Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, in the UK, who was a co-author of the study. “Instead we have to act now using all possible measures instead of waiting for first-best solutions.”

Source: Sustainability Times

Lego Says It Will Eliminate Plastic by 2030

09.10.2018

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In children’s playrooms and family living room floors around the world, small plastic blocks are a staple. In today’s world, Lego is synonymous with plastic. For this reason, the recent news from Lego, that they will move to all non-plastic or recycled materials by 2030 is quite significant, even at a time when it seems like just about every second company is staking their claim in the anti-plastic movement.

In a statement, Lego said, “Resources should be sourced and used responsibly, so they will still benefit future generations. We are constantly in pursuit of more sustainable solutions to our raw materials consumption and our packaging.”

According to its own reporting, the Danish company is responsible for roughly one million tons of carbon dioxide annually and is under pressure to innovative both to stay competitive in an increasingly online world of play, and to reduce its carbon footprint. The vast majority of its emissions come from the raw materials needed to create the petroleum-based plastic blocks. In an effort to reduce their carbon emissions, Lego has also claimed a goal of 100% renewable energy by 2020.

As a first foray into sustainable materials, Lego is set to release this year a new line of nature-inspired blocks, that come in earth tones and shapes. These first blocks are made from bioplastics, sourced from sugarcane. The announcement has received criticism for not being biodegradable and other potentially negative environmental impacts from increased land use for sugar cane production. This is, however, a first step to eliminating plastics along Lego’s sustainability journey and the company recognizes this as a process of innovation towards a fully sustainable solution by 2030.

Lego is hoping that its move to become plastic free won’t mean a step away from the colours, shapes and ingenuity behind simple plastic blocks that click together to build an endless number of possible structures. But much work, research, and investment are required until then to make it a reality. To get there, the company is investing 1 billion kroner and ramping up staff dedicated to these sustainability initiatives.

Tim Brooks, Lego’s Vice President of environmental responsibility, said: “At Lego, we want to make a positive impact on the world around us, and we are working hard to make great play products for children using sustainable materials. This is a great first step in our ambitious commitment of making all Lego bricks using sustainable material.”

Source: Sustainability Times

Landmark UN Climate Report Urges ‘Rapid and Unprecedented’ Action to Limit Global Warming

08.10.2018

It warns human activities have already caused around 1°C of warming above pre-industrial levels and is likely to reach 1.5°C by as early as 2030

Governments across the world must take “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to avoid catastrophic consequences of global warming.

The world’s leading climate scientists have issued a stark warning on the global impacts of rising temperatures in a new report published today, drawing on more than 6,000 scientific studies.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) said limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities, with global human-caused carbon emissions required to fall by around 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050.

The scientists believe the climate change pledges made by governments over the last three years are not enough to keep warming below 1.5°C and what happens between now and 2030 is “critical”.

They warn human activities have already caused around 1°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels and is likely to reach 1.5°C by as early as 2030 if it continues to increase at the current rate – and could be 3°C warmer by the end of the century.
That could lead to an increase in extreme drought, wildfires, food shortages and flooding for hundreds of millions of people across the world.

Panmao Zhai, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I said: “One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes.”

The landmark report adds allowing global temperatures to temporarily exceed or “overshoot” 1.5°C would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air, however, they note the effectiveness of such techniques are unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable development.

It suggests limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C would avoid a number of climate change impacts: for instance by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10cm lower, coral reefs would decline by 70% to 90% compared to their extinction with 2°C and the likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in the summer would be once per century.

At 1.5°C, the proportion of global population exposed to water stress could also be 50% lower than at 2°C, in addition to food scarcity being less of an issue, with hundreds of millions fewer people, especially in poor countries, at risk of climate-related poverty.

Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III said: “Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes.”

The report was commissioned by policymakers during the Paris climate talks in 2016 – when governments agreed to limit the rise in average global temperatures to well below 2°C and as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – and is expected to set the agenda for climate action for decades to come.

Source: energylivenews

A New Phone Battery Could One Day Recharge Itself on CO2

08.10.2018

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Ah, those lithium batteries in our phones. They tend to go flat just when we need them most. Then again, that’s Murphy’s law for you, isn’t it? Encouragingly, lithium-ion batteries are getting better and better with more and more oomph in them. But what if your phone’s lithium battery could recharge itself on the go?

Actually, there are already such batteries in development. Ok then, how about a lithium battery that soaked up carbon dioxide to power itself? Such a battery may soon be on the way too.

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States has designed a type of battery made partly from carbon dioxide captured from power plants. At the moment, power plants equipped with carbon capture systems require as much as 30% of the electricity they generate just so as to power the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emitted by the plant itself. Any process that could improve the efficiency of this wasteful process could be highly beneficial.

This is where the MIT team’s breakthrough comes in. They have developed a new approach that could tap into a power plant’s waste stream to make the material for one of a lithium battery’s main components. The researchers have found a way to convert carbon dioxide electrochemically with the help of a carbon electrode. The key, they say, is to pre-activate the carbon dioxide by incorporating it into an amine solution.

“What we’ve shown for the first time is that this technique activates the carbon dioxide for more facile electrochemistry,” says Betar Gallant, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the university. “These two chemistries — aqueous amines and nonaqueous battery electrolytes — are not normally used together, but we found that their combination imparts new and interesting behaviors that can increase the discharge voltage and allow for sustained conversion of carbon dioxide.”

Although the new battery is still in a nascent phase of development, once it is fully realized it could carry on converting CO2 into a solid mineral carbonate as it discharges, according to the researchers who published their findings in the journal Joule. For the moment, the cycle life of the new battery is limited to a mere 10 charges-discharges so researchers will have to improve its rechargeability as well as its cell components’ durability.

“Lithium-carbon dioxide batteries are years away,” Gallant cautions. Yet once they arrive, they “could open up new avenues for tailoring electrochemical carbon dioxide conversion reactions, which may ultimately help reduce the emission of the greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.”

Source: Sustainability Times

UK MPs Demand Fashion Brand Bosses to Disclose Environmental Impacts

08.10.2018

The Environmental Audit Committee has written to 10 retailers to find out how they are mitigating them

They include Marks and Spencer, Primark, Next, Arcadia, Asda, TK Maxx and Homesense, Tesco, JD Sports Fashion, Debenhams and Sports Direct International
The production of clothing involves water and energy intensive processes, resulting in pollution and greenhouse gases and contributing to climate change
The Committee is investigating how the UK’s fashion industry – worth £28bn a year – can reduce its environmental footprint

A cross-party group of MPs are calling on the heads of fashion brands to disclose the environmental and social impacts of the clothes and shoes they sell.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has written to the chief executives of the UK’s 10 fashion retailers to find out that actions they are taking to reduce the environmental impact of their products and operations as “fast” fashion is harming the planet.

They include Marks and Spencer, Primark, Next, Arcadia, Asda, TK Maxx and Homesense, Tesco, JD Sports Fashion, Debenhams and Sports Direct International.

The request for evidence will inform the Committee’s inquiry into the sustainability of the fashion industry, which is investigating how the UK’s fashion industry – worth £28 billion a year – can reduce its environmental footprint.

The production of clothing involves water and energy intensive processes, resulting in pollution and greenhouse gases and contributing to climate change.

The EAC says it also uses chemical dyes, finishes and coatings, some of which are said to be toxic and when clothes are washed, they release microplastic fibres which make their way into the ocean.

It adds while unwanted and outdated clothing end up in landfill, some charities have complained second hand clothes are exported and dumped on overseas markets.

Source: Energy Live News

Chernobyl Goes Solar

08.10.2018

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Chernobyl in Ukraine is infamous for having been the site of a nuclear disaster in what was then the Soviet Union. For the past 30-odd years, since the catastrophic meltdown at the local plant in 1986, the area has been deemed unfit for human habitation. That has led to a resurgence of nature and wildlife in the contaminated area with wolves and bears having reclaimed local forest undisturbed.

But Chernobyl is now home to something else other than wild animals: a new solar farm.

Oppose the decommissioned nuclear plant, which is encased in a giant sarcophagus to prevent radiation, sprawl the solar panels of a new 1 megawatt solar farm. The photovoltaic project dubbed Solar Chernobyl started operating on October 5, only about 100 meters from the old nuclear reactor.

Evhen Variagin, chief executive of the company Solar Chernobyl LLC, which is behind the project, stressed the symbolism of the selected location for the new solar farm. “It’s not just another solar power plant,” Variagin insisted. “It’s really hard to underestimate the symbolism of this particular project.”

The farm, which cost €1 million and is a joint venture by the Ukrainian company Rodina and Germany’s Enerparc AG, ensures that the infamous site produces electricity again. The solar farm is expected to meet the energy needs of about 2,000 households. Plans are underway to boost the site’s capacity to 100 MW in future.

Ukraine is investing heavily in renewables, adding more than 500 megawatt of capacity between January and September this year, which is more than twice the capacity added all of last year.

Valery Seyda, head of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, has welcomed the new solar farm at the site. “Now we are seeing a new sprout, still small, weak, [but one that is] producing power on this site and this is very joyful,” he enthused.

Source: Sustainability Times

Mazda Commits to Making 5% of Cars Fully Electric by 2030

07.10.2018

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The firm expects the majority of its cars to be hybrids by this time.

Mazda commits to 5% of its vehicles going electric by 2030.

The car manufacturer says all of the vehicles it sells will incorporate electrification by this time, as part of a pledge to reduce emissions by producing more petrol-hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles (EVs).

By 2020 it plans to develop two battery EVs, one of which will be entirely battery-powered and one will be a hybrid featuring the company’s famous rotary engine, which will serve as a range-extending device claimed to be able to double the distance a car can travel without being recharged.

Mazda aims to reduce its average ‘well-to-wheel’ carbon dioxide emissions by 90% from 2010 levels by 2050 – this refers to the entire process from fuel being extracted to being used on the roads.

The company also said it would continue to work to maximise the efficiency of the internal combustion engine.

Source: Energy Live News

Explained: Works of 3 Evolutionary Scientists That Got Them a Nobel

06.10.2018

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One Briton and two American scientists bag the prestigious award for their work that is meant to create cleaner fuels and treat diseases.

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has been announced. One half of the prize has been awarded to Frances H Arnold for the directed evolution of enzymes and the other to George P Smith and Gregory P Winter for their work on the phage display of peptides and antibodies. Let’s understand their work.

Arnold’s work

Enzymes are biological catalysts which speed up biochemical reactions in human bodies. Arnold, who is currently at the California Institute of Technology in the United States, was the first to demonstrate directed evolution of enzymes to create new catalysts in 1993. Such new enzymes can be used to manufacture pharmaceuticals with less negative consequences on the environment and renewable bio fuels which can have a huge impact on the world’s transportation sector.

She has become the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before her Ada E Yonath in 2009, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in 1964, Irene Curie in 1935 and Marie Curie in 1911 had bagged this Nobel Prize. This is the first time in the history of Nobel Prizes that women have won both the physics and chemistry prizes. Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in physics on October 2 becoming the third woman to do so, after a 55-year hiatus.

Smith-Winter technique

Antibodies are proteins produced by the human body to fight foreign micro organisms which can cause disease and infection. Peptides are made up of amino acids and are smaller than regular proteins. They are often used to study the structure of other proteins and also create new antibodies.

Phage display is a technique by which a bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria, is used to produce new proteins. Antibodies produced by this method have been used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel diseases, autoimmune diseases and even metastatic cancer. Smith, who was the first to develop phage display in 1985, is currently at the University of Missouri in the US and Winter, who used it for the directed evolution of antibodies, works at the MRC laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom (UK).

All the three laureates this year have understood the basic principles of evolution and applied them to hasten the process a thousand times, paving the way for the development of new chemical molecules.

180 people have won a Nobel for chemistry

A total of 180 individuals have now won the coveted prize in Chemistry for making “the most important chemical discovery or improvement”, as Alfred Nobel had mentioned in his final will instituting the Nobel prizes.

Frederick Sanger is the only person to have won the prize twice, in 1958 and 1980. He had won it in 1958 for his work on the structure of proteins, especially insulin. In 1980, he got it alongside Walter Gilbert for the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids which is an important part of the human genetic build up.

Source: Down to Earth

London ‘Among Cities Sinking into the Sea’

06.10.2018

Christian Aid says climate change means coastal cities are becoming more vulnerable to flooding.

London is among the cities sinking into the oceans as climate change raises global sea levels.

That’s according to a new report from Christian Aid, which says Houston, Jakarta, Lagos and Shanghai are other coastal settlements set to become extremely vulnerable to severe storms and flooding.

The organisation expects the sea level to rise by around 40 centimetres if global warming is not limited to 1.5°C – it says this will particularly threaten increasingly populated regions on the edges of landmasses.

Its report claims around 40% of the Indonesian city of Jakarta lies below current sea levels and is subsiding at a rate of 25 centimetres a year – its natural sea defences like mangroves being removed has made it more vulnerable to storm surges.

Christian Aid says London is sinking partly due to glaciers in Scotland melting, resulting in these regions literally rising as the weight moves off them. This has resulted in London and the south of England sinking downwards in a see-saw motion, providing one factor as to why the Thames Barrier is having to be used increasingly often.

It also warns Nigeria’s capital Lagos could see 740,000 residents losing their homes if the sea rises by just 20 centimetres, with the government threatening to fine and imprison people who drill boreholes to access water without authorisation.

Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid’s Global Climate Lead, said: “These global metropolises may look strong and stable but it is a mirage. As sea levels rise, they are increasingly under threat and under water.”

Source: Energy Live News

World Animal Day: How Animal Lovers Around the World Are Celebrating

05.10.2018

Thursday is World Animal Day, a day dedicated to improving the well-being of animals across the planet.

“To achieve this, we encourage animal welfare organisations, community groups, youth and children’s clubs, businesses and individuals to organize events in celebration of World Animal Day. Involvement is growing at an astonishing rate and it’s now widely accepted and celebrated in a variety of different ways in many countries, with no regard to nationality, religion, faith or political ideology,” the event’s website says.

Here are some of the creative, informative and sometimes adorable happenings around the world in honor of both wild and domestic animals.

Jakarta, Indonesia

Activists in Jakarta, Indonesia have organized a moving protest to oppose the killing of mother macaques, whose children are then captured and sold as pets. On World Animal Day, the Jakarta Animal Aid Network is asking concerned citizens to mail or bring flowers to decision makers’ offices in order to commemorate the thousands of monkeys killed in Indonesia every year as part of this cruel practice and to encourage them to put a stop to the deaths.

Dhaka, Bangladesh

The People for Animal Welfare (PAW) Foundation is offering free checkups to pets at its clinic, the Dhaka Tribune reported. They also offered discounts on vaccines and vaccinated 20 stray dogs for free.

Cape Town, South Africa

The Cape Animal Welfare Forum, a conglomeration of 31 animal welfare organizations in Cape Town, is organizing a Moonlight Dog Walk on Friday to raise funds. They aim to get 1,000 dogs walking around the Killarney International Raceway in Cape Town for a first in Africa.

Serbia and the Philippines

Organizations across the globe are teaming up for an international art contest to promote “care and responsibility to animals.” The “Pets are Family Too” art competition, hosted by Animal Kingdom Foundationin the Philippines and the Society for the Protection of Animals LJUBIMCI in Serbia will invite school children from both countries to send in artwork celebrating their pets. Selected entries will be displayed at exhibits in both countries.

New York, USA

Cruelty Free International and the Body Shop are celebrating their success in partnering to collect more than 8 million signatures in favor of prohibiting the use of animal testing for beauty products. The event will take the form of a roundtable hosted by the Permanent Mission of Guatemala to the United Nations, and speakers will include representatives of the three host organizations plus members of British and European parliaments and actors Declan McDermott and Maggie Q.

Source: Eco Watch

Great Lakes ‘at Risk’ from Plan to Replace Aging Enbridge Pipelines, Environmentalists Argue

05.10.2018

mackinac-175761_960_720 — Photo: Pixabay

The state of Michigan and Canadian pipeline company Enbridge announced a deal Wednesday to replace controversial aging pipelines that environmental groups worried put Lakes Michigan and Huron at risk for an oil spill, The Detroit Free Press reported.

Under the new plan, the existing 65-year-old pipelines, which are part of Enbridge’s Line 5 carrying oil and liquefied natural gas between Wisconsin and Ontario, will be replaced with a new pipeline in a tunnel to be drilled into the bedrock beneath the Straits of Mackinac connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan, The Associated Press reported. The project will take seven to 10 years to complete and cost as much as $500 million. Enbridge will foot the bill.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder called the proposal “a common-sense solution” to the problem posed by the aging pipelines, saying that it would resolve “nearly every risk” of an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac.

But environmental groups, who have long opposed the pipeline, disagreed that the new plan was any sort of solution.

“Today, Governor Snyder cemented his disastrous legacy for the Great Lakes and the people of Michigan,” Michigan organizer for Clean Water Action Sean McBearty told The Detroit Free Press. “As his administration comes to a close, he announced a last-minute deal with Enbridge Energy that will succeed in keeping the Great Lakes at risk from a massive Line 5 oil spill for the foreseeable future.”

Mike Shriberg of the National Wildlife Federation also told The Associated Press that the plan would leave the body of water vulnerable to spills for many years, and David Holtz of Oil and Water Don’t Mix said that Michigan’s own studies showed there were better ways to provide the state with energy.

Enbridge said it would take measures to reduce the risk of an oil spill from the older pipelines during construction, including (a) conducting underwater investigations, (b) placing cameras in the straits to keep track of ship movements and enforce a no-anchor zone, and (c) making Enbridge staff available to manually shut down the pipeline during high-wave days if electric mechanisms fail.

The Line 5 pipelines have been the subject of lawsuits and protests in recent months. The National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Law & Policy Center sued the Coast Guard in August over an inadequate oil-spill response plan, in an ultimate bid to shut down the pipeline, since one is not allowed to operate a pipeline without a satisfactory response plan in place. Also in August, indigenous activists set up a protest camp in Northern Michigan to protest the pipelines.

A study in July found that an oil spill from the pipelines could damage 400 miles of Great Lakes shoreline and cost Michigan $2 billion.

Source: Eco Watch

Critically Endangered Gorilla Gives Birth at Florida Zoo

05.10.2018

980x — Photo: Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida announced on Wednesday the arrival of a healthy baby western lowland gorill, a critically endangered species.

The 4.8-pound female was born last Friday and has not yet been given a name, according to the zoo’s press release. The zoo said that the baby’s mother, a 22-year-old named Kumbuka, initially displayed normal maternal behavior toward her baby. However, she was improperly cradling and carrying the little gorilla, similar to how she behaved when she lost two previous offspring at another zoo.

Because Kumbuka is hearing impaired, it is believed that her disability may prevent her from detecting when her youngsters are in distress, the zoo said.

“Faced with a life-threatening situation, the extremely difficult decision was made to remove Kumbuka’s baby for short-term assisted rearing by gorilla care staff,” the zoo said, adding that the decision was supported by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Gorilla Species Survival Plan (SSP).

The Gorilla SSP recommended that Kumbuka join the Jacksonville Zoo troop to learn maternal behavior from the other mother gorillas. Zoo keepers will also show Kumbuka how to properly hold and carry her youngster.

The new mom can see and smell her daughter, who is being given around-the-clock care by keepers next door, the zoo said. Keepers will care for the young gorilla for the next four months and allow mom to maintain a close connection, which is essential for a successful reintroduction.

“Welcoming the newest member of our zoo family is always exciting, and this little gorilla’s arrival is both special and challenging,” said Dan Maloney, JZG Deputy Director of Animal Care and Conservation in the press release. “I’m so proud of the animal care and health teams who are working so hard on behalf of Kumbuka and her baby.”

Wild western lowland gorillas can be found in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Their population is estimated in the order of a few hundred thousand. However, despite their abundance and wide geographic range, the gorillas are listed as “critically endangered” because their population has reduced more than 80 percent in roughly six decades due to ongoing poaching, disease, habitat loss and climate change, the IUCN says.

Source: Eco Watch

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