Analysis in new report from the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate & Energy Policy shows that producing hydrogen from fossil fuels carries significant risks, and is likely to be incompatible with decarbonisation objectives. These findings have big implications as Australia looks to become a ‘hydrogen superpower’.
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A new peer-reviewed study has found that the vast majority of Australian voters support climate action, but also highlights that more will need to be done to counter the fact that support for strong climate policy action may be limited by voters’ preparedness to incur personal costs, especially among older and conservative voters.
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In energy transition conversations, hydrogen is having a bit of a moment. But, as ever, there’s a catch. So here, from the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Julie McNamara, an introduction to hydrogen as a decarbonisation pathway, to help differentiate between the promise and potential and the distractions and misdirections.
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Future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world.
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Reuters reports that, according to an annoucement from China’s state news agency Xinhua on Saturday 17 October 2020, China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, passed a new biosecurity law aimed at preventing and managing infectious diseases.
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The International Monetary Fund has released its World Economic Outlook October 2020: A Long and Difficult Ascent, calling for global carbon emissions to decline to zero by mid-century, and setting out a model of what might be achieved.
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A new UNDRR report shows that natural disasters caused by climate-related events have doubled in the past twenty years, affecting billions of people and costing trillions of dollars. The report highlights the need for governments to plan to spend more to deal with the impact and consequences of natural disasters.
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The first multilateral attempt to legally bind countries to emissions cuts will enter into legal force on 31 December 2020, one day before the treaty expires. Does it matter, or is the outcome largely symbolic?
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The UNHCR’s Global Trends report brings together important information about the scale and changing nature of forced displacement. The Report describes a reality that solutions for refugees are in decline, at the same time that “we are witnessing a changed reality in that forced displacement nowadays is not only vastly more widespread but is simply no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon”.
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Governments around the world are planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement pathways. What can be done?
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The Paris climate agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century, a target likely to be exceeded by 2024. This first overshoot would be temporary – but it casts new doubt on whether Earth’s climate can be permanently stabilised at 1.5℃ warming. Modelling shows that if emission reductions are large and sustained, the Paris goals can still be met, and the most severe damage to the natural world, economy and people may be avoided. But worryingly, we also have time to make it far worse.
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Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are at record levels, and emissions that saw a temporary decline due to the pandemic are heading towards pre-COVID levels, while global temperatures continue to hit new highs, according to a major new UN report. UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized that there is “no time to delay” if the world is to slow the trend of the devastating impacts of climate change.
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By the end of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic risks doubling the number of people who face acute hunger from around 135 million to around 265 million people. The pandemic may have a more severe impact on the number of hungry than the global food crisis of 2007–2008, potentially constituting a ‘hunger pandemic’.
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