Tag Archives : IPCC

A lot of skepticism has grown regarding the success of the just opened United Nations Climate Change Conference (December 7-18, 2009), more commonly called Copenhagen Climate Conference. Skeptics believe that climate agreements will not be reached during the summit. On the other hand, chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), [...]

Right before the Copenhagen Climate Conference, ‘a group of scientists issued an update on the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their conclusions? Ice at both poles is melting faster than predicted, the claims of recent global cooling are wrong, and world leaders must act fast if steep temperature rises are to be avoided.’ The [...]

The ClimateGate scandal involves the unauthorized and surprising disclosure of private email conversations that transpired among climate change scientists. This top echelon in climate science is comprised of respected individuals in the field. They are a small group of climate experts, noted and noteworthy, that has been principally responsible for [...]

Cleantech depends on energy policy. US President Obama deals with two core climate issues: meeting the larger goal of reducing carbon emissions, and finding a way of rescuing the renewables industry from Wall Street’s collapse. The benchmark of 450 ppm is a crucial figure issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ‘Limiting concentration [...]

Farmland and climate change are related in the way that ‘global warming will make it harder to feed the world in 2050.’ Higher temperatures are feared to possibly ‘turn arid shrub lands into deserts while improving the growing season in colder steppes.’ There are other possibilities as to the effect of global warming: evaporation could occur [...]

The billion-dollar floodgates being installed in Venice might not save the city. These mobile floodgates are being constructed with the aim of safeguarding the 1,300-year-old island city of Venice. The ambitious and costly engineering feat may not be enough to protect the city from rising sea levels due to climate change. Having risen from mudflats [...]

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that ‘the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth’ and ‘could be ice-free by 2030.’ Ban recently visited the Polar Ice Rim in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard where he observed firsthand the impact of climate change on the Arctic. Ban promptly called on governments to achieve in the international [...]

Pakistan has started to be beset by water problems, undermining its stability even more. Water shortages in the country have led to grain shortfalls. Flour became scarce in 2008. Thousands of government troops were sent to guard wheat stores. The rivers are drying up as the glaciers that regulate Kashmir’s waters melt. It is estimated that Pakistan [...]

Oceans becoming more acidic and warmer due to emissions of carbon dioxide would cause the death of coral reefs around the world by the end of the century, according to a warning from several experts that recently gathered in London. More than twenty experts on coral reefs and climate change came together on behalf of several universities, government [...]

The world is increasingly close to the atmospheric limit for carbon dioxide. Failure to drastically and urgently reduce CO2 emissions will very soon make it impossible to avoid an average warming of the Earth at the 2ºC threshold which is considered dangerous to life. Moreover, we have already spent half of a hypothetical budget of 3.7 billion tons [...]