COP26: Cautious welcome for unexpected US-China climate agreement

Activists and politicians have cautiously welcomed an unexpected US-China declaration that vowed to boost climate co-operation.  The EU and UN described the move as encouraging and an important step, but Greenpeace said both countries needed to take concrete action. The US and China are the… Read More

Climate change: Pledge of $100bn annual aid slips to 2023

A key pledge ahead of an upcoming climate change conference has still not been met and the money is not sure to be available before 2023. The UK government has set out a new financing plan ahead of next week’s climate change conference – COP26.… Read More

Climate change: UN emissions gap report a ‘thundering wake-up call’

National plans to cut carbon fall far short of what’s needed to avert dangerous climate change, according to the UN Environment Programme.  Their Emissions Gap report says country pledges will fail to keep the global temperature under 1.5C this century. The Unep analysis suggests the world is… Read More

U.S. Democrats scramble to hammer out climate legislation ahead of Glasgow talks

Congressional Democrats and the White House scrambled on Wednesday to find agreement on measures to tackle climate change as part of President Joe Biden’s centerpiece spending legislation ahead of coming UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. Democrats have negotiated for weeks over a spending bill… Read More

Climate change: Is the UK on track to meet its targets?

The UK has committed to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050.  Net zero is the point at which the country is taking as much of these climate-changing gases out of the atmosphere as it is putting in. As part of this promise,… Read More

COP26: UK still lagging on climate policy, report says

Britain is lagging way behind its schedule for cutting carbon emissions in the run-up to November’s climate summit in Glasgow, a report says. Think tank the Green Alliance says current plans will deliver less than a quarter of the cuts needed to meet the UK’s… Read More

Climate change: Arctic warming linked to colder winters

A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to accelerated warming of the Arctic.  The scientists found that heating in the region ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex. This allowed… Read More

Climate change: Europe’s 2020 heat reached ‘troubling’ level

Last year was the warmest on record across Europe, breaking the previous high mark by a considerable distance, say scientists. Temperatures across the region were more than 1.9C above the long-term average between 1981 and 2010. The State of the Climate 2020 report from the American Meteorological… Read More

Climate change : Low-income countries ‘can’t keep up’ with impacts

Low-income countries are struggling to protect themselves against climate change, officials and experts have told the BBC.  Organisations representing 90 countries say that their plans to prevent damage have already been outpaced by climate-induced disasters, which are intensifying and happening more regularly.  The UN says… Read More

Climate change : At-risk nations fear extinction after IPCC report

Nations vulnerable to climate change have warned they are on the “edge of extinction” if action is not taken. The warning by a group of developing countries comes after a landmark UN report argued that global warming could make parts of the world uninhabitable. World leaders… Read More