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Federal Environment Minister won’t say if Canada can develop oilsands and meet climate targets
Posted by Calgary Herald: None Given on March 30th, 2016
Calgary Herald: Canada`s environment minister won`t say if the country can meet its climate change commitments and at the same time green-light new pipeline projects.
Catherine McKenna told reporters today after a luncheon speech to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations that Canada needs to de-carbonize its economy but stressed it won`t happen overnight.
The Canadian government has come under increased pressure to explain how it can increase development of Alberta`s oilsands and also meet its ambitious...
Study questions China’s CO2 emissions dip
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on March 30th, 2016
Climate Central: China's greenhouse gas emissions are on a downward trajectory, but its emissions may not have fallen quite as much over the past two years as the Chinese government and the International Energy Agency have suggested.
That's the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, which says China's emissions may have actually increased in 2014, rather than fallen.
The International Energy Agency estimated last year that both the decline in China's coal use and falling electricity...
Cold War-era Alaskan tunnel yields clues on climate
Posted by ClimateWire: Margaret Kriz Hobson on March 30th, 2016
ClimateWire: Ten miles north of Fairbanks, along a man-made valley cleared by industrial gold dredgers in the early 1900s, a small red building at the base of a hill provides a portal to the geologic history of central Alaska.
Behind a locked metal door lies the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, a 360-foot tunnel that gives scientists hands-on, underground access to frozen permafrost dating from the present to nearly 50,000 years in the past.
Operated by the Army Corps of Engineers and the...
British health systems ‘unprepared for devastating effects of climate change’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2016
Guardian: British health systems are unprepared for the “devastating” effects of climate change, leading health bodies have warned.
As extreme weather events such as flooding or heatwaves become more common, the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change urged ministers not to “wait for disaster” before acting.
The new alliance, made up of leading health bodies including royal colleges, medical faculties, medical publications and doctors’ organisations, called on the government to be “properly prepared”. ...
Tonga policy aims to build climate change resilience by 2035
Posted by Matangi: None Given on March 30th, 2016
Matangi: An ambitious National Climate Change Policy to build a Resilient Tonga by 2035 was launched by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change, Hon. Siaosi Sovaleni in February. The policy aims for 100% renewable energy, and includes a mulititude of other goals that check boxes such as gender considerations and equity for disadvantaged groups, along with designing Category 5 cyclone resistant homes. He admitted that to aim for a Resilient Tonga by 2035 is an ambitious and a costly...
$1tn could be wasted on ‘unneeded’ new coal plants, report warns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2016
Guardian: Almost $1tn of investment in new coal-fired power stations could be wasted if growing concerns about climate change and air pollution leave the plants unused, according to a new report.
About 1,500 new coal plants are in construction or planning stages around the world but electricity generation from the fossil fuel has fallen in recent years, the detailed report from the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and CoalSwarm found. In China, existing plants are now used just 50% of the time, coal use is falling...
Irrigation district intervenes in Rio Grande water lawsuit
Posted by KCBD: None Given on March 30th, 2016
KCBD: The board of directors for one of New Mexico's major irrigation districts has voted to intervene in a lawsuit concerning decades-old permits and the authority to pull water from the Rio Grande. Environmentalists are challenging the office of the state engineer, saying New Mexico's top water managers have failed to force the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District to prove it's putting the water to beneficial use. The district's counsel, Chuck DuMars, contends the irrigation district demonstrated...
These tiny mangroves hold vast stores of carbon
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 29th, 2016
Climate Central: Squat mangrove forests that seem at first blush to simply eke by along the coasts of Baja California are sitting on a big secret — one with sweeping implications in an era of accelerating climate change. Despite their diminutive appearance, scientists discovered that these mucky coastal ecosystems store huge amounts of carbon, helping to slow global warming. The peninsula’s low-growing mangrove forests harbor at least as much carbon as towering mangrove forests found elsewhere, scientists led by...
Could Pacific waters give early warning of East Coast heat waves?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: For much of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, the summer of 2012 brought a heat wave that smashed temperature records, triggered extensive crop failures, and helped fuel a powerful line of thunderstorms known as a derecho, which moved eastward out of Indiana to leave nearly 4 million customers without power as it eventually swept through the mid-Atlantic states. The heat wave and derecho accounted for more than 100 deaths.
Inspired by that summer's events, a team of researchers says...
Arctic sea ice falls to record low for winter
Posted by Climate Home: Alex Pashley on March 29th, 2016
Climate Home: Arctic sea ice fell to its lowest winter extent in recorded history for a second straight year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA.
Ice cover in the polar region averaged 14.52 million square kilometres (5.607 m sq miles) on March 24, the US science agencies said in a statement on Monday.
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached a record low wintertime maximum for 2nd year in a row https://t.co/L2Ki4T2FK9 pic.twitter.com/WUsnLikuh6
-- NASA (@NASA) March...