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CLIMATE SCIENCE
2018 temperatures set to be among hottest on record: UN
By Nina LARSON
Geneva (AFP) Nov 29, 2018

Aussie kids skip school for mass climate protest
Sydney (AFP) Nov 30, 2018 - Thousands of Australian students skipped school Friday to join nationwide protests demanding government action on climate change.

The demonstrations were held as more than a hundred bushfires blazed in scorching temperatures in the northeast and a day after Indian mining firm Adani vowed to go ahead with a massive and controversial coal mine.

Primary and secondary students rallied in state capitals and rural areas across the country, in defiance of Prime Minister Scott Morrison who earlier said kids should stay in the classroom.

"Our prime minister thinks we should be in school right now and maybe you should be," 13-year-old student Siniva Esera told a crowd of more than a thousand in Sydney.

"But how can we sit by and not do anything to protect the future of this planet," she added, to a rapturous applause.

Morrison told parliament earlier in the week that the government was committed to tackling climate change, "but I'll tell you what we are also committed to: kids should go to school."

Students creatively rebuked the prime minister, who goes by the nickname ScoMo, with humorous banners saying, "I hate ScoMo more than I hate school".

They also carried placards calling for the government to block the Adani mine project, a day after the Indian mining firm had announced it would go ahead with a scaled-back version of the coal mine in northern Queensland.

"If we don't stop temperatures going over two degrees we won't have the Great barrier reef, Antarctica will melt and there will be no such thing as polar bears," 11-year-old Lucie Atkin-Bolton told the crowd.

"My life will be so much more complicated than my parents' life, because of one simple thing: climate change."

The protests capped off a week of brutal weather in Australia.

More than a hundred fires continued to blaze Friday across Queensland state amid an unprecedented scorching heatwave.

The crisis forced hundreds to flee their homes Wednesday at its peak.

On the same day, in the neighbouring state of New South Wales, Sydney was hit by severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall forcing the cancellation of flights, closure of rail lines and leaving motorists stranded on flooded roads.

Scientists this week also launched the largest-ever attempt to regenerate the endangered Great Barrier Reef, where large swathes of coral on the 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) reef have been killed by rising sea temperatures linked to climate change.

Global temperatures in 2018 are set to be the fourth highest on record, the UN said Thursday, stressing the urgent need for action to rein in runaway warming of the planet.

In a report released ahead of the COP 24 climate summit in Poland, the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, and that "2018 is on course to be the 4th warmest year on record."

"This would mean that the past four years - 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 - are also the four warmest years in the series," the UN agency said in its provisional report on the state of the climate this year.

The "warming trend is obvious and continuing," WMO chief Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva.

The report shows that the global average temperature for the first 10 months of the year was nearly 1.0-degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era (1850-1900).

- 'Last generation' -

"It is worth repeating once again that we are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it," Taalas warned.

With levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, at a record high, "we may see temperature increase of 3-5C by the end of the century," Taalas said.

"If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise will be considerably higher."

Delegations from nearly 200 countries are due in Poland next week for the latest COP24 climate summit, aimed at renewing and building on the Paris deal and limiting global warming.

World leaders have been trying to breathe new life into the 195-nation agreement amid backsliding from several nations -- most notably the United States -- over commitments made when it was signed in December 2015.

It is to take effect in 2020 and calls for limiting global warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

But experts warn that global warming is on track to surpass three degrees by 2100 and urge governments to do more than first planned to rein it in.

"Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life," WMO deputy chief Elena Manaenkova stressed in a statement.

"It makes a difference to economic productivity, food security, and to the resilience of our infrastructure and cities," she said.

"It makes a difference to the speed of glacier melt and water supplies, and the future of low-lying islands and coastal communities."


Related Links
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation


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CLIMATE SCIENCE
Global warming outpaces efforts to slow it: UN
Paris (AFP) Nov 28, 2018
Humanity is falling further behind in the race against climate change, with the gap between greenhouse gas emissions and levels needed to achieve the Paris climate treaty temperature goals continuing to widen, the UN said Tuesday. With only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, the world has seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes. On current trends, temperatures are on track to rise roughly 4C by the century's end, a scenario that would tear at the fabric of civilisa ... read more

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