Climate

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In the halls of Cop29, activists from Oil Change International gathered around a computer to watch a Dutch court’s ruling on a major ruling.

In this morning’s verdict, the Dutch appeals court struck down a 2021 ruling ordering oil and gas giant Shell to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. The activists were devastated.

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Low-income countries need at least $1 trillion a year to manage climate change. Donald Trump’s victory just made that more difficult, but options exist.

Environmental Protection Agency rule seeks to curb ‘super pollutant’ more potent than carbon dioxide in short term

Oil and natural gas companies for the first time will have to pay a federal fee if they emit dangerous methane above certain levels under a rule being made final by the Biden administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule follows through on a directive from Congress included in the 2022 climate law. The new fee is intended to encourage industry to adopt best practices that reduce emissions of methane – the primary component of natural gas – and thereby avoid paying the fee.

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Negotiators at the summit in Azerbaijan fear that the return of Donald Trump will sap momentum for global climate action.

Our nation needs an economic disaster preparedness tool kit to avoid the scourge of inflation.

Keir Starmer said the government won't be 'telling people how to live their lives' as part of the drive to achieve climate goals. Speaking to reporters on day two of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, the British prime minister confirmed a stringent new climate goal for the UK to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. The goal would be achieved by decarbonising the power sector and through a big expansion of offshore wind, as well as through investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy

• We can hit UK’s big carbon cut without disruption to people’s lives, says Starmer – UK politics live

• UK has ‘huge opportunity’ to lead on green investment, Starmer says

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Last month, 44 climate scientists from 15 countries wrote an open letter to the Nordic Council of Ministers highlighting the risk of a potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a critical ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean. In the letter, the climate scientists stress that the risk of an AMOC collapse due to climate change has been greatly underestimated according to new observational evidence.

Not only would the collapse of the AMOC lead to “catastrophic” impacts on the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland), but it would also shift weather patterns worldwide. For the United States, an AMOC collapse would lead to warmer ocean temperatures and greater sea-level rise along the East Coast, leading to devastating impacts on fisheries and ecosystems in the coastal Atlantic Ocean, as well as greater flood risk to coastal communities and infrastructure.

The potential collapse of the AMOC—which could happen within this century, or be triggered within this century and play out over a longer timeframe—comes as a result of climate change caused by additional heat-trapping emissions like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But what exactly would cause the AMOC to collapse? And if it does, could climate mitigation efforts restart the AMOC to its original circulating strength?

What is the AMOC?

To understand what exactly the AMOC is, a better question to start might be: why does the Earth’s climate system exist? Because the Earth is a sphere, it receives incoming light (electromagnetic radiation) from the sun at different intensities depending on what latitude you’re located at. For example, the polar regions of the planet receive indirect light from the sun, as the sun’s rays are spread out over a larger surface area. Closer to the Equator, the sun’s rays are more direct. This unevenness in sunlight leads to regions closer to the Equator to be warm and regions closer to the North and South Poles to be cold.

The Earth’s climate system does not like imbalances in heat! And that’s why the AMOC exists: it does everything in its power to mix the warm and cold regions together in order to establish an equilibrium. Both the ocean and atmosphere play a role in this mixing—the AMOC is the oceanic piece of this circulation that brings warm ocean water up from the equator to the northern Atlantic Ocean, and then transports colder water back to the equator in an attempt to even out the differences in temperature (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The AMOC is an oceanic circulation that transports warm, fresh water from the Equator to the North Atlantic and cold, salty water from the North Atlantic to the Equatorial region. Figure from NOAA.

In addition to transporting warmer water north and cooler water south, the AMOC also mixes an imbalance in salt levels in ocean water. Water near the Equator is much less salty than water in the North Atlantic. Why? The Tropical Atlantic Ocean receives significantly more rainfall than the North Atlantic, where it rains much less. More rainfall in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean results in less salty water. This imbalance in the climate system forces the AMOC to transport fresh, warm (low density) water north and salty, cold (high density) water south.

The AMOC is a vital circulation of our climate system, and because of all the warm water it transports to the North Atlantic, human civilization has flourished in very high latitudes in Europe, as well as allowing the development of complex ocean dwelling life and ecosystems.

Picture Quebec City in Canada and London in the UK. Quebec City is famous for its winters with snow and sub-zero temperatures. London, on the other hand, barely receives snow, even during the winter season. But here’s the kicker—London is significantly further north (closer to the North Pole) than Quebec City. London is warmer despite it being further north in part due to the existence of the AMOC, which brings warm water up from the Equator to northern Europe.

What causes the weakening and potential collapse of the AMOC?

As global temperatures warm due to human-caused climate change, the Greenland ice sheet is melting rapidly, leading to vast amounts of freshwater entering the North Atlantic. Because of this, the ocean waters in the north are less salty and less dense than before. This partly reduces the density imbalance between the Equator and the northern Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the AMOC to weaken or potentially collapse (Figure 2).

The idea of a potential AMOC collapse is not new: some scientists were already thinking about this in the early 1960s. However, with the advent of sophisticated climate models in recent decades, climate scientists are better able to study what exactly happens when freshwater increases in the north Atlantic Ocean, forcing the weakening of the AMOC.

Figure 2. AMOC strength over the past 1,600 years according to paleoclimate data. The y-axis shows the temperature anomaly in the North Atlantic—a cooler temperature indicates more sea ice/freshwater melt entering the North Atlantic. Figure from Oceanography | Vol. 37, No. 3 p.24. What would happen if the AMOC weakens or collapses?

In the early phases of a weakened or collapsed AMOC, huge changes would be expected in the local climate of northern Europe. Scandinavia, the UK, Iceland, and Ireland would experience winters much colder than currently observed, with weather becoming even more unpredictable. In fact, in the open letter published last week, there is a dire warning that a weakening AMOC “would potentially threaten the viability of agriculture in northwestern Europe.”

But the impacts of a weakened or collapsed AMOC would spread worldwide. As the AMOC circulation weakens, warm water would start to pool up against the eastern North American coast, leading to significantly warmer ocean temperatures and higher sea level rise compared to other regions across the globe. Near the tropics, monsoon patterns and other tropical rainfall belts would shift. Globally, the circulation of the atmosphere, which governs where weather patterns set up, would change in intensity. All of this as a result of an oceanic circulation in the Atlantic Ocean slowing down.

How likely is this scenario?

Why did this group of scientists suddenly sound the alarm? In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, published in 2023, scientific consensus stated that there was a “medium chance” the AMOC would collapse before the end of the 21st century. However, four recent peer-reviewed observational studies have found that the AMOC is in fact already showing signs of collapse (see references 6-9 in the open letter).

In one study published in Science Advances, scientists developed a physics-based early warning signal for an indication of when AMOC could be heading towards a collapse. Unfortunately, they found that based on observations, the AMOC has already weakened so much that the Earth is closing in on a tipping point with the AMOC potentially collapsing.

If the AMOC did collapse, it would be nearly impossible to bring it back to life. In physics-based and climate modeling simulations, the AMOC experiences something called hysteresis. Hysteresis is a phenomenon where any change to a system, such as the AMOC, depends on its history. The AMOC has existed and persisted for thousands of years in the stable pre-industrial climate. Therefore, it’s difficult to force the AMOC out of its current circulation state. If we reach the tipping point of an AMOC collapse, it would be very difficult to change back to a circulating state, simply because the AMOC would need a lot of push to get it going again.

What are climate scientists demanding?

Dozens of climate scientists have sounded the alarm for the Nordic Council of Ministers. They do not discuss the potential of the AMOC collapse lightly, as it would directly affect and have devastating impacts on the communities that many of these scientists live in.

Perhaps even more alarming is the language around their call to action: they recognize that adaptation for citizens in the Nordic countries to an AMOC collapse is not a “viable option,” and that the leaders of these countries should instead “take steps to minimize this risk as much as possible.”

The scientists call on the leaders of these countries to use their international standing to push world governments to take drastic steps to cut the release of heat-trapping emissions and stay close to the 1.5-degree Celsius target set by the Paris Agreement. However, current estimates from the United Nations Emissions Gap Report predict we’re on track to warm 2.6-3.1 degrees Celsius.

Will the world’s governments and corporations heed the warning from these scientists? We hope so. Countries must do everything in their power to drastically reduce heat-trapping emissions, and we must hold governments accountable to protect the oceanic circulation in the Atlantic Ocean, and limit the risk of its collapse and the potential to upend civilization in northern Europe and beyond.

A lower court had ordered the company to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030, but the oil giant argued that a single firm should not be hit with arbitrary pollution-reduction requirements.

'2024 – a masterclass in climate destruction.' That is how the UN secretary general, António Guterres, started his address to world leaders at Cop29 on Tuesday. 'Families running for their lives before the next hurricane strikes; workers and pilgrims collapsing in insufferable heat; floods tearing through communities, and tearing down infrastructure; children going to bed hungry as droughts ravage crops. All these disasters, and more, are being supercharged by human-made climate change,' he said

• Cop29: 2024 has been ‘masterclass in climate destruction’, says UN chief – live updates

• Critics say approval of ‘climate credits’ rules on day one of Cop29 was rushed

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Oil and gas company had challenged 2021 ruling that it must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030

Shell has won its appeal against a landmark climate judgment by a Dutch court, which in 2021 ordered the fossil fuel company to sharply reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

A court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that, while Shell does have a “special responsibility” to cut its emissions as a big oil company, this would not be achieved by imposing a specific legal goal.

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PM says Britain can ‘win the race’ as Trump’s election casts doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change

Britain has a “huge opportunity” to get ahead of other countries in the race for green investment after the election of Donald Trump as US president, Keir Starmer has said, as he arrives in Azerbaijan for the Cop29 summit.

Trump’s election victory last week has cast doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change, which the president-elect has called a “hoax”. But as the most senior world leader attending the summit in Baku, Starmer said the global political turmoil could benefit the UK economy.

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The former congressman from New York is a strong supporter of Donald Trump and voted against certifying the 2020 election.

President-elect says ex-New York congressman will ‘ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions’ as EPA administrator

• US politics – live updates

Donald Trump has picked Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vowing the appointment will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” by the regulator.

Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said that Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “he will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet”.

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Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action

Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

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Agreement on rules paving way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad breaks years-long deadlock

Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home.

The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

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UN climate chief Simon Stiell gave a moving speech at the Cop29 opening plenary on Monday, writes Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for Guardian US, who is reporting from Baku.

“In tough times, up against difficult tasks, I don’t go in for hopes and dreams,” he said. “What inspires me is human ingenuity and determination. Our ability to get knocked down and to get up again over and over again, until we accomplish our goals.”

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Even if president-elect rolls back climate progress, John Podesta reaffirms commitment to a clean planet at Cop29

The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.

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Much is unclear about how Donald Trump’s return to power will affect efforts to tackle global heating, but there are a few things we can say

You’ve likely already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.

We have been here before. As the writer and analyst Ketan Joshi points out, in 2016 it was projected that Trump’s policies would lead to a steep rise in US emissions – a fork in the road at odds with the decline forecast if Hillary Clinton had won.

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Exclusive: Environmental group says it is ‘concerned’ to hear progress on cleaning up air pollution from diesel-burning may have hit a wall

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Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants “has stalled”, despite the project beginning six years ago and comparable nations limiting emissions years earlier, New South Wales government documents have revealed.

State and federal environment ministers agreed in 2018 to examine pollution from non-road diesel engines as part of the national clean air agreement. These machines totalled more than 640,000 – ranging from mining trucks, outboard motors and forklifts to electricity generators – and were forecast to reach 945,000 by 2043.

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How do you capture the effects of the climate crisis on people right now? We have collected testimonies from around the world

• This is climate breakdown: ‘I heard on the scanner there’s a child in the water’

In March 2024, the Guardian’s environment desk began collaborating on a project that we hope will give voice to the growing number of people around the world living through the daily impact of climate breakdown. Our journalists have worked alongside researchers and humanitarian workers at the Climate Disaster Project (CDP) in Canada and the International Red Cross to compile a series of testimonies from survivors of recent extreme weather events.

CDP is an international teaching newsroom coordinated out of the University of Victoria in Canada that collaborates with disaster survivors. The teams are trained in trauma-informed interview skills, and spent hours speaking with people, listening to their stories and then relaying them in a way that takes us all through the experience. In publishing these testimonies and sharing them with you, we were able to help fulfil the project’s aim of creating “a people’s history of climate change” that would honour the dignity of the survivors.

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