Climate Change News & Discussions

[caltrek]

Concordia Study Shows Solutions are a Big Part of Alternative Media’s Environmental Reporting but Need Consistent Support
March 25, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) There’s no getting around it: staying on top of the world’s environmental challenges can be a grim experience. Climate change, floods, wildfires, collapsing biodiversity — it’s enough to turn many readers off the news entirely.

To push back against this relentless tide of negativity, some journalists engage in a practice called solutions journalism. This approach uses standard journalistic methods to present behaviours, actions and strategies that can mitigate, reverse or help us adapt to environmental damage: in other words, offer solutions to existing problems.

There has been a noticeable shift in the Canadian media landscape toward solutions journalism over the past decades, and leading that transition are the country’s independent alternative media outlets.

In a paper published in the journal Environmental Communication, two Concordia researchers study the frequency of solutions journalism in environmental reporting in seven Canadian alternative media outlets. Through content analysis and interviews with reporters, the researchers found that the practice requires strong institutional support, even when climate journalism is an integral part of a given outlet’s coverage.

“If a newsroom does not have an environment that is nurturing toward solutions journalism, it won’t happen, even in organizations like alternative media outlets where it is part of their mission,” says study co-author Amélie Daoust-Boisvert, an associate professor in the Department of Journalism.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1078108

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New Analysis Reveals Global Warming of More than 3°C this Century May Wipe 40% Off the World’s Economy
by Timothy Neal
April 1, 2025

Introduction:

(The Conversation) The damage climate change will inflict on the world’s economy is likely to have been massively underestimated, according to new research by my colleagues and I which accounts for the full global reach of extreme weather and its aftermath.

To date, projections of how climate change will affect global gross domestic product (GDP) have broadly suggested mild to moderate harm. This in part has led to a lack of urgency in national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, these models often contain a fundamental flaw – they assume a national economy is affected only by weather in that country. Any impacts from weather events elsewhere, such as how flooding in one country affects the food supply to another, are not incorporated into the models.

Our new research sought to fix this. After including the global repercussions of extreme weather into our models, the predicted harm to global GDP became far worse than previously thought – affecting the lives of people in every country on Earth.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/global-war ... -253032

[wjfox]

Landmark deal to put shipping on course for net-zero is in sight

Next week, governments will try to agree on how to get the global shipping industry to meet its net-zero emissions goal, with a levy and green fuel standard under discussion

Apr 3, 2025

If all goes well, on April 11, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) will announce that governments have reached a deal to put the global shipping sector on course to net-zero emissions by 2050. Countries must not miss this opportunity to secure this landmark agreement.

Despite the shipping business accounting for around 3% of global emissions, the Paris Agreement on climate change does not contain mechanisms to control planet-heating emissions from shipping or aviation. So this deal has the potential to be a significant moment that finally aligns this critical industry with global climate targets. It would in fact be even stronger than the largely voluntary Paris accord, with mandatory enforcement of targets.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/ ... -in-sight/



Credit: Bernard Spragg/Flickr

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[caltrek]

New Trump EO Would Punish States for Combating Climate Change
by Jackie Flynn Mogensen
April 9, 2025

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at “protecting” American energy from “state overreach.” The move, some energy experts say, is a legally dubious federal overstep designed to undermine the rights of states and local authorities to combat climate change.

The order claims “many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”

It specifically points to Blue-state policies like Vermont’s Superfund rules, which require fossil fuel companies to pay for damage to the climate, and California’s cap-and-trade program as examples of efforts to “dictate national energy policy.” In Section 2 of the order, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify state laws or policies “burdening” access to “domestic energy resources that “are or may be…unconstitutional, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable.”

What might some of those state laws be? According to the executive order, that could include any effort to address “climate change,” support “environmental justice,” or reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions, among others.
That’s not the end of it. The order also directs the attorney general to “expeditiously” take action to “stop the enforcement of State laws and continuation of civil actions” determined to be illegal.

Read more of the Mother Jones article here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... di-c02/

For the full text of the Executive Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential ... verreach/

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[wjfox]

Santos wins final approval for Barossa gas project as environment advocates condemn ‘climate bomb’

Tue 22 Apr 2025

Santos has received federal approval to commence production from its Barossa offshore gasfield off the coast of the Northern Territory.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) decided to accept the environment plan for the project’s production operations. It marks the final approval required for the project, clearing the way for the gas giant to extract and pipe the gas to Darwin.

The Barossa field is known for its 18% carbon dioxide content, which is a higher concentration than other Australian gasfields.

The development is projected to add more than 270m tonnes of heat-trapping CO2 to the atmosphere over its life once the gas is sold and burnt overseas.

“This is Australia’s dirtiest gas project and it should never have been given the green light,” said Gavan McFadzean, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s climate change and clean energy program manager.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ims-ntwnfb



The Barossa gasfield is offshore from the Tiwi Islands, part of the Northern Territory. Photograph: Rebecca Parker

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Global coral bleaching crisis spreads after hottest year, scientists say

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/ ... 025-04-23/

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Rubio eliminates office that oversees climate talks

Source: Politico

Thu, April 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM EDT

The State Department is eliminating the Office of Global Change, which oversees international climate change negotiations for the United States.

Staff were told about the move verbally Thursday afternoon, according to three people who were granted anonymity to speak about the decision to avoid reprisal. The news thrust the office into chaos and raised questions among staff about when the office would be permanently shuttered.

“This will hamstring international climate cooperation at the worst possible time,” said one official, referring to the upcoming global climate talks called COP30. It’s “just strategically fucking dumb when it comes to China,” that person added, saying the move would leave a leadership vacuum that China could fill.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that the office is being eliminated to comply with President Donald Trump’s directives to cease participation in international agreements. “Consequently, this office — which supported the efforts of previous Administrations to hobble the United States through participation in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and other agreements purporting to limit [or] prevent climate change, is unnecessary,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/2 ... e-00308505

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The world’s biggest companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates

https://apnews.com/article/climate-chan ... 69f56297f1

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World on course to trigger multiple climate 'tipping points' unless action accelerates, research warns

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-world-tri ... ction.html

Based on current policies and the resulting global warming, their most conservative estimate is a 62% risk of triggering these tipping points on average.

Time to change our policies then.

[caltrek]

White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On
by Abrahm Lustgarten
April 24, 2025

Introduction:

(Pro Publica) Over the past two months, the Trump administration has taken steps to eliminate regulations addressing climate change, pull back funding for climate programs and cancel methods used to evaluate how climate change is affecting American society and its economy. Now it is directly undermining the science and research of climate change itself, in ways that some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists say will have dangerous consequences.

Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.

The gutting of NOAA was outlined earlier this month in a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget that detailed steep reductions at the Department of Commerce, which houses the science agency. The memo, which was viewed by ProPublica, has been previously reported. But the full implications of those cuts for the nation’s ability to accurately interpret dynamic changes in the planet’s weather and to predict long-term warming scenarios through its modeling arm in Princeton have not.

According to the document, NOAA’s overall funding would be slashed by 27%, eliminating “functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people” including almost all of those related to the study of climate change.

Read more here: https://www.propublica.org/article/tru ... on-gfdl

caltrek's comment: Of course, we know that there is no real differences between the Biden and Trump administrations, right? /sarcasm

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[caltrek]

Scientific Societies to do Climate Assessment after Trump Administration Dismissed Authors
by Maya Yang
May 3, 2025

Introduction:

(The Guardian) Two major US scientific societies have announced they will join forces to produce peer-reviewed research on the climate crisis’s impact days after Donald Trump’s administration dismissed contributors to a key Congress-mandated report on climate crisis preparedness.

On Friday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) said that they will work together to produce over 29 peer-reviewed journals that will cover all aspects of climate change including observations, projections, impacts, risks and solutions.

The collaboration comes just days after Trump’s administration dismissed all contributors to the sixth National Climate Assessment, the US government’s flagship study on climate change. The dismissal of nearly 400 contributors had left the future of the study in question; it had been scheduled for publication in 2028.

The NCA had been overseen by the Nasa-supported Global Change Research Program – a key US climate body which the Trump administration also dismissed last month. The reports, which have been published since 2000, coordinated input from 14 federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists.

Additional extract:

In addition to widespread dismissals across federal agencies, federal websites have been purged of information pertaining to climate change and extreme weather events since Trump took office in January.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20 ... e-report