Biden invites 40 leaders inluding Modi, Xinping to climate summit

WASHINGTON, March 27: US President Joe Biden has invited 40 world leaders including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a virtual leaders summit on climate scheduled for next month.

The leaders' summit on climate will underscore the urgency - and the economic benefits - of stronger climate action, according to a statement by the White House on Friday. The two-day summit will be held from April 22 to 23.

It will be a key milestone on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow.

Biden has invited 40 leaders of the summit including, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. From Southeast Asia, he has invited -- PM Modi, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Bhutan Prime Minister Lotay Tshering among others.

In his invitation, the President urged leaders to use the summit as an opportunity to outline how their countries will contribute to stronger climate ambition, according to the White House statement.

By the time of the Summit, the White House said that the US will announce an ambitious 2030 emissions target as its new Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement.

The summit will reconvene the US-led Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which brings together 17 countries responsible for approximately 80 per cent of global emissions and global GDP, the statement read.

"The President also invited the heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership, are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, or are charting innovative pathways to a net-zero economy. Some business and civil society leaders will also participate in the Summit," the statement read.

The themes of the Summit will include galvanising efforts by the world's major economies to reduce emissions during this critical decade to keep a limit to warming of 1.5 degree Celsius within reach and mobilising public and private sector finance to drive the net-zero transition and to help vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts.

Earth's ice loss increases at record speed: Study

LONDON, Jan 27: Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017, according to a study which reveals that the rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet is speeding up.

The research, published on Monday in TheCryosphere journal, found that the rate of ice loss from the Earth has increased markedly within the past three decades, from 0.8 trillion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tonnes per year by 2017.

The team, led by researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK, is the first to carry out a survey of global ice loss using satellite data.

The researchers noted that ice melt across the globe raises sea levels, increases the risk of flooding to coastal communities, and threatens to wipe out natural habitats which the wildlife depends on.

The study shows that overall, there has been a 65 per cent increase in the rate of ice loss over the 23-year survey.

This has been mainly driven by steep rise in losses from the polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

“Although every region we studied lost ice, losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated the most,” said lead author Thomas Slater, a Research Fellow at Leeds University.

“The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century,” Slater said.

The researchers noted that the increase in ice loss has been triggered by warming of the atmosphere and oceans, which have warmed by 0.26 and 0.12 degrees Celsius per decade since the 1980, respectively.

The majority of all ice loss was driven by atmospheric melting (68 per cent), with the remaining losses (32 per cent) being driven by oceanic melting, they said.

The survey covers 215,000 mountain glaciers spread around the planet, the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the ice shelves floating around Antarctica, and sea ice drifting in the Arctic and Southern Oceans.

US President-elect Joe Biden vows to rejoin Paris Climate Accord on day one of presidency

PARIS, Dec 12: US President-elect Joe Biden pledged Saturday to rejoin the Paris climate accord on the first day of his presidency, as world leaders staged a virtual gathering to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the international pact aimed at curbing global warming

Heads of state and government from over 70 countries were joining the online event hosted by France, Britain, Italy, Chile and the United Nations, to pledge greater efforts in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming.

The United States, which quit the Paris accord under President Donald Trump, wasn’t represented at the federal level.

In a statement, Biden noted that the US had been key to negotiating the 2015 agreement, which has since been ratified by almost all countries around the world.

“The United States will rejoin the Paris Agreement on day one of my presidency,” he said. “I’ll immediately start working with my counterparts around the world to do all that we possibly can, including by convening the leaders of major economies for a climate summit within my first 100 days in office.”

Biden reiterated his campaign pledge that his administration will set a target of cutting US emissions to net zero “no later than 2050.”

Experts say commitments put forward by the international community in the past five years have already improved the long-term outlook on climate change, making the worst-case scenarios less likely by the end of the century. But wildfires in the Amazon, Australia and America, floods in Bangladesh and East Africa, and record temperatures in the Arctic have highlighted the impact an increase of 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times is already having on the planet.

The Paris agreement aims to cap global warming at well under 2C (3.6F), ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7F), by the end of the century.

Achieving this will require a phasing-out of fossil fuels and better protection for the world’s carbon-soaking forests, wetlands and oceans.

Biden insisted that the dramatic economic shifts needed would be positive for American workers.

“We have before us an enormous economic opportunity to create jobs and prosperity at home and export clean American-made products around the world, harnessing our climate ambition in a way that is good for American workers and the US economy,” he said.

American representatives at the virtual meeting included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and US business leaders, such as Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook.

Also absent from the event were major economies such as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico, none of which has offered significant improvements on its existing emissions targets.

Environmental campaigners singled out Brazil’s recent announcement that it will stick to its target of cutting emissions by 43 percent over the next decade compared with 2005 levels and aim for net zero by 2060 — far later than most other countries.

By contrast, an agreement Friday by European Union members to beef up the continent’s 2030 targets from 40% to at least 55% compared with 1990 levels was broadly welcomed, though activists said it could have aimed even higher.

China, the world’s biggest emitter, also surprised the world in September by announcing a net zero target of 2060, with emissions peaking by 2030. Observers say this is likely a low offer that Beijing can significantly improve on in years to come.

The 189 countries that are party to the Paris agreement are required to submit their updated targets to the United Nations by the end of the year. This would normally have occurred at the annual UN climate summit, but the event was postponed for a year due to the pandemic.

The gathering, now scheduled to take place in Glasgow in November 2021, will see haggling over financial support for poor countries to cope with climate change, and fine-tuning the rules for international markets in emissions trading. Britain, next year’s host, announced this month it is aiming to cut emissions by 68% over the next decade and end state support for fossil fuel industry exports.

Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who was a key player at the Paris negotiations, said leaders had a duty to be optimistic about their ability to curb global warming.

“Because if we don’t, the alternative is unthinkable,” she said. “None of us adults alive today want to have on our shoulders the responsibility of turning over a world that is a world of misery for generations to come.”

UN Secretary General urges world leaders to declare states of ‘climate emergency’

LONDON, Dec 12: World leaders should declare states of “climate emergency” in their countries to spur action to avoid catastrophic global warming, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks to a climate summit on Saturday.

More than 70 world leaders are due to address the one-day virtual gathering aimed at building momentum for much steeper cuts in planet-warming emissions on the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“Can anybody still deny that we are facing a dramatic emergency?” Guterres said via video. “That is why today, I call on all leaders worldwide to declare a State of Climate Emergency in their countries until carbon neutrality is reached.”

Guterres said that economic recovery packages launched in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic represented an opportunity to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future - but warned this was not happening fast enough.

“So far, the members of the G20 are spending 50% more in their stimulus and rescue packages on sectors linked to fossil fuel production and consumption, than on low-carbon energy,” Guterres said.

“This is unacceptable. The trillions of dollars needed for COVID recovery is money that we are borrowing from future generations,” he said. “We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden future generations with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.”

On Friday, summit co-host Britain announced it would pledge to end direct government support for overseas fossil fuel projects at the summit, aiming to spur similar moves by other countries to accelerate a shift to cleaner energy.

Diplomats are watching summit speeches for any signs of significantly stronger climate pledges from countries including China, which surprised many observers by announcing a goal to become carbon neutral by 2060 in September, India and Japan.

Emissions hit new record, world on track for 3C warming, says UN

LONDON, Dec 9: Greenhouse gas emissions reached a new high last year, putting the world on track for an average temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius, a UN report showed on Wednesday.

The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - the latest to suggest the world is hurtling toward extreme climate change - follows a year of sobering weather extremes, including rapid ice loss in the Arctic as well as record heat waves and wildfires in Siberia and the US West.

On Monday, researchers at Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the hottest-ever November on record.

“The year 2020 is on course to be one of the warmest on record, while wildfires, storms and droughts continue to wreak havoc,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director.

The annual “emissions gap” report measures the gap between anticipated emissions and those consistent with limiting the global temperature rise this century as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Under the global climate pact, nations have committed to a long-term goal of limiting the average temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it even further to 1.5C.

Emissions have, however, grown by an average 1.4 percent per year since 2010, with a steeper increase of 2.6 percent last year due, partly due to a large increase in forest fires.

Total 2019 emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) hit a new record of 59.1 gigatonnes.

This year, there has been a temporary emissions dip as economies slowed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The resulting drop in travel, industrial activity and electricity generation are likely to work out at a 7% reduction in emissions, the report said. That translates to only a 0.01C reduction in global warming by 2050.

Green investment under government stimulus packages to pull economies out of the pandemic-induced slump could cut up to 25% off emissions predicted in 2030.

Such packages could put emissions in 2030 at 44 GtCO2e - within the range that gives a 66% chance of holding temperature rises to below 2C, but still insufficient to achieve the 1.5C goal.

The United Nations and Britain are holding an online event on Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, and governments are under pressure to come forward with tougher climate targets before the end of the year.

A growing number of countries have committed to net zero emissions by mid-century but these need to be translated into strong near-term policies and action, the UNEP report said.

“The levels of ambition in the Paris Agreement still must be roughly tripled for the 2C pathway and increased at least fivefold for the 1.5C pathway,” it added.