November, 02 2014, 08:15pm EDT
IPCC Report: Urgent Action Needed to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change, says Friends of the Earth
Reacting to the publication today (Sunday 2 November) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s 5th Synthesis Report, Friends of the Earth's International Climate Campaigner Asad Rehman said:
"Politicians can't say they weren't warned - climate change poses a catastrophic threat to our food, livelihoods and homes.
"David Cameron and EU Governments still haven't woken up to the threat we face - their recent decision to do little to cut emissions until 2030 puts the interests of big polluters ahead of people and the planet.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark
Reacting to the publication today (Sunday 2 November) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s 5th Synthesis Report, Friends of the Earth's International Climate Campaigner Asad Rehman said:
"Politicians can't say they weren't warned - climate change poses a catastrophic threat to our food, livelihoods and homes.
"David Cameron and EU Governments still haven't woken up to the threat we face - their recent decision to do little to cut emissions until 2030 puts the interests of big polluters ahead of people and the planet.
"If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change governments must stop dithering and take bold action to slash our carbon emissions by at least 80 per cent in the next 15 years. That means saying no to any new dirty energy sources, including fracking.
"Rich nations who are most responsible for the climate crisis we face need to provide a 'climate Marshall plan' that provides finance and technology to protect all our futures.
"It's time to listen to the science, end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and develop a safer future based on energy efficiency and clean renewable power."
Friends of the Earth International is the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 74 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With over 2 million members and supporters around the world, FOEI campaigns on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.
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"The announcement of the fourth global bleaching event is an urgent call to do two things: reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work together to prioritize resilient coral reefs for conservation."
Apr 16, 2024
Scientists said Monday that the world's coral reefs are facing a fourth global bleaching event as the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency pushes ocean temperatures to record highs, imperiling the critical underwater ecosystems that sustain thousands of species.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI)—which NOAA co-chairs—said they documented coral bleaching in the northern and southern hemispheres of every major ocean basin on Earth between February 2023 and April of this year. It could be the worst global bleaching event on record.
"Since early 2023, mass bleaching of coral reefs has been confirmed throughout the tropics including Florida in the U.S.; the Caribbean; Brazil; the eastern Tropical Pacific (including Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia); Australia's Great Barrier Reef; large areas of the South Pacific (including Fiji, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Samoas, and French Polynesia); the Red Sea (including the Gulf of Aqaba); the Persian Gulf; and the Gulf of Aden," the organizations said in a statement.
"NOAA has received confirmation of widespread bleaching across other parts of the Indian Ocean basin as well, including in Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Tromelin, Mayotte, and off the western coast of Indonesia," they added.
"More than half the reefs on the planet have basically experienced bleaching-level heat stress in the last year."
Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, said that "as the world's oceans continue to warm, coral bleaching is becoming more frequent."
Excessively warm water causes corals to expel algae from their tissues, causing the organisms to turn white. While they can recover, such bleaching is evidence that corals are under significant stress and at risk of death.
The latest global bleaching event is the second in the last 10 years and "should be a global wake-up call," Manzello toldThe Washington Post.
"More than half the reefs on the planet have basically experienced bleaching-level heat stress in the last year," said Manzello.
NOAA and ICRI's statement comes as scientists around the world are voicing growing alarm over high ocean temperatures. Research released last month showed that global ocean surface temperatures had broken records every day of the year up to that point, underscoring the need to aggressively rein in fossil fuel production and use.
"Temperatures are off the charts," Emily Darling, director of coral reefs at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said Monday. "While many corals are suffering from extreme heat stress and bleaching, some locations and species show different types of natural resilience. Finding and conserving these priority coral reefs are critical to any global strategy to safeguard the planet's oceans and blue economies."
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The Center for Biological Diversity on Monday lamented what it called the Biden administration's failure to improve "outdated" limits on nitrogen and soot air pollution.
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The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set primary, or health-based, and secondary, or welfare-based, "national ambient air quality standards" for pollutants including sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter—better known as soot. However, the EPA has failed to update the secondary standards for nitrogen and sulfur air pollution for more than half a century. Key portions of the EPA's secondary soot standards also haven't been updated in decades.
According to the CBD:
The agency published today's proposal under an agreement that resulted from a 2022 lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Environmental Health. That agreement requires the agency to finalize its decision on the air quality standards no later than December 10, 2024.
The agency will hold a virtual public hearing on the proposed rule on May 8.
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Harris and President Joe Biden–Democrats who are seeking reelection in November—campaigned as climate champions in the 2020 cycle but have had a mixed record on the topic since entering office.
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claimed last year that "practically speaking," he had already declared a national climate emergency; however, as campaigners and experts have stressed, actually doing so would unlock various federal powers to tackle the fossil fuel-driving crisis.
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