Re: Climate Change News & Discussions
Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:27 am
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/ocean-warming-study
"This is one of those 'sit up and read very carefully' moments," said one science journalist.
Julia Conley
Apr 25, 2023
Scientists are so alarmed by a new study on ocean warming that some declined to speak about it on the record, the BBC reported Tuesday.
"One spoke of being 'extremely worried and completely stressed,'" the outlet reported regarding a scientist who was approached about research published in the journal Earth System Science Data on April 17, as the study warned that the ocean is heating up more rapidly than experts previously realized—posing a greater risk for sea-level rise, extreme weather, and the loss of marine ecosystems.
Scientists from institutions including Mercator Ocean International in France, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the United States, and Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research collaborated to discover that as the planet has accumulated as much heat in the past 15 years as it did in the previous 45 years, the majority of the excess heat has been absorbed by the oceans.
(Eurasia Review) The Republic of Vanuatu is a small country in Oceania that plays an important role in climate diplomacy. This is not surprising since climate change threatens to wipe the small Pacific nation off the geographical and political maps. The current president of Vanuatu, Nikenike Vurobaravu, claims that the best defense of his country is being loud in international institutions. And Vanuatu diplomats do this fantastically. Vanuatu was the country that in 1991 promoted the idea that industrialized countries should pay for the irreversible damage caused by climate change that is most affected by developing countries. In November of last year, at the climate talks of the United Nations in Egypt, after 30 years of negotiations, this happened. An agreement was reached on the establishment of a fund that would help poor countries cope with the damage caused by climate change.
Vanuatu – a leader in the fight against climate change
In September of last year, Vurobaravu used the rostrum of the UN General Assembly in New York to call for an agreement on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels for the first time. At the end of last year, Vurobarava presented Vanuatu’s most radical proposal so far. He said he wants the International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague, to rule on whether governments have “legal obligations” to protect the population from climate hazards, and more importantly, whether failure to meet those obligations can carry “legal consequences” under existing international law. In short, the court is being asked to rule on whether states can be sued for climate negligence. “As a small country that was historically unimportant,” Vurobravu said, Vanuatu has learned to innovate: “If you try to do things the way others do them, I believe we wouldn’t get very far.”
The idea of seeking a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice came from a group of law students four years ago who understand the dangers of climate change.
(Common Dreams) Expressing solidarity with people in frontline communities where the fossil fuel industry has for decades polluted the air and water and exposed millions of people to public safety risks, nearly two dozen campaigners with Greenpeace Belgium on Saturday entered the liquefied natural gas terminal of energy infrastructure company Fluxys in Zeebrugge, to demand an end to European imports of LNG from the United States.
Ten people climbed the infrastructure and 12 people kayaked into the terminal, displaying signs that read "U.S. Gas Kills" and "Solidarity with the U.S. Gulf South."
The campaigners came from countries including Austria, France, and Germany and climbed onto platforms used for loading and unloading the tankers that transport LNG, which is gas that's been cooled and liquefied after fracking or drilling extraction process. They unfurled a large banner reading, "Gas kills."