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UN report on climate crisis confirms the world already has solutions — but politics are getting in the way

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UN report on climate crisis confirms the world already has solutions — but politics are getting in the way

However whereas the concentrate on options give the report an optimistic tone, it additionally serves as a reminder of how insurance policies lag far behind science, know-how and even economics.

UN Secretary Common António Guterres known as the report “a litany of damaged guarantees” and “a file of disgrace, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on monitor in direction of an unlivable world.”

“The jury has reached a verdict. And it’s damning,” Guterres stated. “We’re on a quick monitor to local weather catastrophe.”

If the world does not strengthen its insurance policies towards renewable vitality, world warming might blow by means of the 1.5 degree-Celsius threshold that scientists have warned of and surpass 3 levels by the top of the century, the report exhibits.

The report was printed after marathon talks between world representatives went effectively into Sunday night time, throughout which fossil fuel-producing nations against a declarative name to finish the usage of coal, oil and fuel within the close to future, a supply aware of the talks informed CNN, with out naming explicit nations.

The report relies on hundreds of research by a whole lot of scientists, and the negotiations had been the longest within the historical past of the IPCC’s talks, which span greater than three a long time.

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Listed here are its key takeaways.

Wind and photo voltaic at the moment are economically viable replacements for fossil fuels

The price of wind and photo voltaic vitality have dropped dramatically previously decade and at the moment are aggressive with coal and fuel for electrical energy, the report exhibits. In some contexts, these renewable sources of vitality are even cheaper than fossil fuels.

Many nations have ramped up the set up of wind generators — each on and offshore — and photo voltaic panels, whether or not on buildings or in large photo voltaic farms that may energy whole communities.

Big-box stores could help slash emissions and save millions by putting solar panels on roofs. Why aren't more of them doing it?
And the quantity of electrical energy generated by renewables is rising quickly. A latest report by local weather assume tank Ember confirmed the world generated a record-setting 10% of its vitality from wind and photo voltaic 2021. The Worldwide Power Company stated in a latest report that renewable vitality capability develop by greater than 60% by 2026, from 2020 ranges.

Whereas onshore wind and photo voltaic at the moment are value aggressive with coal and pure fuel for energy, there are nonetheless large upfront prices for set up which add to the inequities of the renewable vitality transition, in response to the report. For that purpose, many creating nations — significantly within the International South — lag behind within the adoption of photo voltaic and wind energy.

In deliberations over Monday’s report, some creating nations had been calling for wealthy nations to switch extra money to the International South to assist it pay for the transition, in response to a supply aware of the talks. These nations argued that rich nations had been traditionally extra accountable for local weather change and will shoulder extra of the monetary burden.

We have to ditch fossil fuels — and quick

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A bulldozer pushes coal onto a conveyor belt at the Jiangyou Power Station in Jiangyou, Mianyang City, Sichuan Province of China.

To restrict warming to 1.5 levels, and even 2 levels, the world’s vitality techniques should quickly decarbonize, the report’s authors say. Ending fossil gasoline subsidies might additionally cut back emissions by as much as 10% by 2030.

“We can not run our fossil fuel-based infrastructures anymore the best way we did,” stated Jan Christoph Minx, a local weather researcher and a lead writer on the report, at a information convention. “The massive message coming from right here is we have to finish the age of fossil gasoline. And we do not solely want to finish it, however we have to finish it in a short time.”

Majority of remaining fossil fuels must stay in the ground to limit climate crisis below critical threshold, study shows

By 2050, electrical energy ought to contribute little or no to greenhouse fuel emissions, the report concludes. If the world builds new fossil gasoline infrastructure, it is at critical threat of locking in the usage of coal, oil and fuel for many years to return, which is able to undermine efforts to include world warming.

However even persevering with to function present fossil gasoline infrastructure places the world off monitor for staying underneath 1.5 levels.

Any newly constructed fossil gasoline tasks threat changing into “stranded property,” or being deserted, the report concludes, which carries huge monetary threat. The estimated losses from stranded fossil gasoline infrastructure is projected to be between $1 trillion and $4 trillion, from 2015 to 2050, in a state of affairs the place the world limits world warming to 2 levels.

However the report does depart room for continued fossil gasoline use that makes use of carbon seize and storage — or CCS — a course of through which the emissions from coal, oil and fuel are captured and saved. The report’s authors say that is solely viable if the overwhelming majority of emissions are captured.

CCS is extremely controversial given it would enable the continued use of fossil fuels, even when extra economical renewable sources can be found. And research have questioned how a lot greenhouse fuel the CCS course of can actually seize.

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We’ll must suck CO2 out of the air

Climework's Orca project -- a carbon dioxide removal system -- at the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant in Iceland.

As we slash emissions, the report’s scientists say we additionally want to start out eradicating the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is already within the air.

Carbon dioxide removing (CDR) will be achieved by planting timber and restoring forests and grasslands, however scientist say we should assume past that. Some vital forests, due to human exercise, are already transitioning from absorbing carbon dioxide to emitting it.

“We’re already utilizing planting timber and taking on soil carbon as as greenhouse fuel removing applied sciences, however they’re clearly restricted in scope,” stated Jo Home, a local weather researcher and lead writer on the report. “There’s solely a lot land and you may’t count on the land to mop up all of the fossil gasoline emissions.”

The world is banking on giant carbon-sucking fans to clean our climate mess. It's a big risk.
Some firms are creating machines that basically act as large vacuums, pulling carbon dioxide out of the air, however to date these applied sciences function at a really small scale.

One other solution to obtain that is ocean fertilization, the place vitamins are added to the higher layers of water to encourage plankton blooms, which take in carbon dioxide from the air. That been confirmed to work, however the methodology has not been studied for lengthy sufficient to know whether or not unwanted side effects (like poisonous algae blooms) could outweigh the advantages.

Regardless of restricted analysis and know-how growth in CDR, the report’s authors say the world should take away as a lot carbon dioxide from the air as potential — whereas lowering emissions — if warming is to be restricted to 1.5 and even 2 levels.

“[The report] foresees that along with making this pivot to scrub vitality, that the chance can be going to be to take away, by means of numerous means, a number of the air pollution that is already within the system or that is already being poured into the system now,” Pete Ogden, the UN Basis’s vp for vitality, local weather, and the setting, informed CNN. “Significantly carbon dioxide, as a result of it’s so lengthy lasting that to show the ship round, we actually want to make use of all of the instruments we are able to.”

Slashing methane is a fast solution to flip down the warmth

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The majority of human-induced local weather change comes from carbon dioxide, however methane makes up round 20% of worldwide greenhouse fuel emissions and is the second-biggest contributor to local weather change.
The fuel has greater than 80 occasions the warming energy of CO2 within the brief time period, and the primary installment of the IPCC report printed final 12 months discovered slashing methane emissions was one of many quickest methods to show down the warmth.
Scientists say this invisible gas could seal our fate on climate change
Methane emissions can come from leaky oil, fuel and coal infrastructure and mines. Additionally they come from landfill and agricultural practices — and sure, even from flatulent cows. The focus of methane within the environment is greater now than any time in a minimum of 800,000 years.

“One of many greatest takeaways is that as a way to decrease the temperature rise, which is getting greater, and from pushing ourselves over potential tipping factors and irreversible impacts, we actually must make to drag arduous on the lever of methane discount,” Ogden stated, “as a result of that offers us a near-term alternative to shave off a number of the temperature rise.”

Final 12 months, the US and European Union introduced a worldwide pledge to cut back methane emissions by practically 30% by the top of the last decade. Since then, round 100 nations joined that pledge. China, the world’s greatest greenhouse fuel emitter, has not but joined.

People might play an essential position — however solely with political help

Scientists say individual choices about the cars they drive and the food they eat could play an important role, but policies need to help consumers make those changes.
People have been utilizing fossil fuels to warmth houses, prepare dinner meals and gasoline automobiles for many years. Over the course of greater than a century, fossil fuels turned entrenched in each facet of the economic system and other people’s lives to the purpose that they are usually the one possibility accessible.

It is this heavy reliance on coal, oil and fossil fuel that’s behind local weather change. Whereas particular person selections and monitoring your “carbon footprint” have been standard methods for individuals to answer the disaster, there’s a rising understanding that actual change should come from lowering the supply of fossil fuels, not simply the demand.

The best way client selections are offered must shift dramatically, the report says, as a result of it might assist people undertake low carbon-intensive existence — plant-based diets, food-waste discount and renewable vitality choices, for instance — with out in the end pinning all of the onus on them.

With out help for these adjustments, the influence of particular person motion will probably be modest, the report exhibits.

Folks both “do not have the applied sciences accessible or they cannot afford them,” Home stated. “So a part of that is concerning the structure of selections, about making selections accessible to individuals, in order that they will take the selections that they wish to take, however in a sustainable and inexpensive approach.”

The wealthy world’s monetary contributions are falling brief

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South Sudanese refugees try to repair their hut during the country's floods in 2021.

The speed of local weather finance — cash that wealthy nations promised to supply creating nations to deal with the disaster — has slowed down, in response to the report, whereas the financing of fossil fuels stays excessive.

Though local weather finance insurance policies have elevated over the previous a number of years, the report discovered rich nations should enhance the circulate of cash to low-income nations past the present $100 billion-a-year, promised underneath worldwide local weather agreements.

The least developed nations in addition to small island nations have traditionally contributed lower than 0.5% of worldwide fossil gasoline emissions, in response to the report, but they bear a disproportionate burden of the impacts of the local weather disaster.

The cash contributed so far has largely gone towards lowering these nations’ greenhouse emissions. Extra of it, scientists say, ought to go towards adaptation — discovering methods to dwell with the change.

On the COP26 local weather talks in Glasgow, Scotland, final 12 months, creating nations complained that the world’s richest nations had been failing to assist them financially, regardless of having performed a negligible position in inflicting the disaster.

Mohamed Adow, director of the local weather vitality assume tank Energy Shift Africa, stated nations in Africa will play a basic position in “deciding whether or not the world avoids catastrophic local weather change or not.”

“Africa could possibly be the main instance in avoiding emissions by harnessing our ample wind and photo voltaic vitality,” Adow, who is just not concerned with the report, informed CNN. “This may solely be potential with vital monetary help and know-how sharing from richer nations, whose emissions have brought on this disaster.”

This story has been up to date with the report’s findings.

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Sweden criticises China for refusing full access to vessel suspected of Baltic Sea cable sabotage

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Sweden criticises China for refusing full access to vessel suspected of Baltic Sea cable sabotage

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Sweden has sharply criticised China for refusing to allow the Nordic country’s main investigator on board a Chinese vessel suspected of severing two cables in the Baltic Sea.

The Yi Peng 3 sailed away from its mooring in international waters between Denmark and Sweden on Saturday, and appears to be heading for Egypt after Chinese investigators boarded the ship on Thursday.

The Chinese team had allowed representatives from Sweden, Germany, Finland and Denmark on board as observers, but did not permit access for Henrik Söderman, the Swedish public prosecutor, according to authorities in Stockholm.

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“It is something the government inherently takes seriously. It is remarkable that the ship leaves without the prosecutor being given the opportunity to inspect the vessel and question the crew within the framework of a Swedish criminal investigation,” foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said in comments provided to the Financial Times.

The Swedish government had put pressure on Chinese authorities for the bulk carrier to move from international waters into Swedish territory to allow a full investigation over the severing of Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German data cables last month.

People close to the probe said the boarding of the vessel on Thursday had shown there was little doubt it was involved in the incident.

Yi Peng 3 belongs to Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, a company that owns only one other vessel and is based near the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo. A representative of Ningbo Yipeng told the FT in November that “the government has asked the company to co-operate with the investigation”, but did not answer further questions.

There is a split among countries over the motivation behind the cutting of the cables. Some people close to the investigation said they believed it was bad seamanship that may have led to the Yi Peng 3’s anchor dragging along the seabed in the Baltic Sea.

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However, other governments have said privately that they suspect Russia was behind the damage and may have paid money to the ship’s crew.

The severing of the two cables was the second time in 13 months that a Chinese ship has damaged infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The Newnew Polar Bear, a Chinese container ship, damaged a gas pipeline in October 2023 by dragging its anchor along the bottom of the Baltic Sea for a considerable distance during a storm. Officials reacted slowly to that incident, allowing the vessel to leave the region without stopping, something that they were keen to prevent in the case of the Yi Peng 3.

Nordic and Baltic officials are sceptical about the possibility of the same thing occurring twice in quick succession. “The Chinese must be truly dreadful captains if this keeps on happening innocently,” said one Baltic minister.

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College students get emotional about climate change. Some are finding help in class

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College students get emotional about climate change. Some are finding help in class

At Cornell University, one professor is helping students navigate their emotions about climate change by learning about food.

Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG


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Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG

More than 50% of youth in the United States are very or extremely worried about climate change, according to a recent survey in the scientific journal The Lancet.

The researchers, who surveyed over 15,000 people aged 16–25, also found that more than one in three young people said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives.

The study adds to a growing area of research that finds that climate change, which is brought on primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is making young people distressed. Yet experts say there are proven ways to help young people cope with those feelings — and college classrooms could play a key role.

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“When any of us talk about climate with students, we can’t just talk about what’s happening in the atmosphere and oceans,” says Jennifer Atkinson, a professor at the University of Washington. “We have to acknowledge and make space for them to talk openly about what’s happening in their own lives and be sensitive and compassionate about that.”

Atkinson studies the emotional and psychological toll of climate change. She also teaches a class on climate grief and eco-anxiety, during which students examine the feelings they have around climate change with their peers. The first time the class was offered in 2017, registration filled overnight, Atkinson says.

While teaching, Atkinson says she keeps in mind that many of her students have lived through floods or escaped wildfires — disasters that have increased in intensity as the world warms — before they even start college, yet often have had few places to find support. In the classroom, students come together, frequently finding solace and understanding in one another, she says.

“Students repeatedly say that the most helpful aspect isn’t anything they hear me say,” says Atkinson. “But rather the experience of being in the room with other people who are experiencing similar feelings and realizing that their emotions are normal and really widespread.”

Students at Cornell University discuss how climate change threatens some of the foods they eat. They also learn what they can do about it during a class on climate change and food.

Students at Cornell University discuss how climate change threatens some of the foods they eat. They also learn what they can do about it during a class on climate change and food.

Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG

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Making climate change personal in class

Atkinson is one of several professors around the country who has opted to put emotions and solutions at the center of her climate teaching to help students learn how to address their worries about human-driven climate change.

At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Michael Hoffmann, who directed the Cornell Institute for Climate Change Solutions and held other university leadership positions before becoming a professor emeritus, introduced a class on food and climate change last year. The point of focusing on food, Hoffmann says, is to teach students how to connect with climate change through their personal experiences.

“When you tell the climate change story, it has to be relevant to people,” says Hoffmann. “I’d argue there isn’t much more anything more relevant than food.”

In 2021, Hoffman co-wrote a book on how climate change could impact beloved foods like coffee, chocolate, and olive oil. He started the class in 2023 after students told him they were feeling dread about what climate change could mean for their futures.

Part of the goal, Hoffmann says, is to provide students with clear steps they can take to address climate change. Evidence suggests that approach could counteract students’ anxieties.

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Since 2022, researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication have published a biannual report on climate change’s influence on the American mind. In the most recent report, released in July, they found most people are able to cope with the stress of climate change. However, about one in 10 say they feel anxious or on edge about global warming several days per week.

Bringing students together to connect about climate change and learn about solutions could help curb that toll, according to lead researcher and program director Anthony Leiserowitz.

“The best antidote to anxiety is action,” says Leiserowitz. “Especially, I would make a plug for action with other people.”

Facing the problem

Students, too, welcome more creative and emotionally-minded climate classes. Three-quarters of those who responded to the recent Lancet survey endorsed climate education and opportunities for discussion and support in academic settings.

At Cornell University, dozens of students have taken Hoffmann’s class. They learn about the global risks to food brought on by warming temperatures and how personal food decisions can play a role in contributing to planet-warming pollution.

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Freshman Andrea Kim, who enrolled in the class this semester, welcomes those lessons. For a recent class, students met in a campus dining hall to make their dinner selections. Then they headed to the seminar room next door, where they partnered up to tell each other how the foods on their plate would be impacted by climate change.

After inspecting a classmate’s dinner, Kim explained that the rice, fish, and salad the student had chosen would all be threatened as global temperatures rose. It’s the kind of assignment, she says, that has helped her better understand the dangers of climate change and steps she can take.

“I think it’s good that we’re not just, like, pushing away the problem,” says Kim. “Because it’s still going to be there, whether or not we address it.”

Kim says she sometimes feels stressed about climate change, especially while scrolling through the news on her phone. But she and several other students say the class has helped them navigate those feelings.

Jada Ebron, a senior at Cornell, says she began the class feeling like there wasn’t much she could do about climate change. She says she was frustrated that large companies and governments continue to pollute and that people who are low-income and non-white suffer more as a result.

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The class doesn’t shy away from those truths, says Hoffmann. But it aims to show students that their actions aren’t futile either.

To Ebron, that framing resonates.

“It forces you to challenge your beliefs and your ideas about climate change,” says Ebron, who spent part of the summer before her senior year researching how climate change impacts communities of color. “There is something that you can do about it, whether it’s as small as educating yourself or as big as participating in social justice movements.”

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Read Blake Lively’s Complaint Against Wayfarer Studios

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Read Blake Lively’s Complaint Against Wayfarer Studios

187. The significant spike in the volume of negative sentiments toward Ms. Lively,
included notable spikes on approximately August 8 and 14, 2024, and continued to trend mostly negative
Net Volume of Positive and Negative Mentions of Blake Lively
June 14, 2024 – December 19, 2024
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increase in negative comments including hypersexual content and calls for Ms. Lively to “go fuck”
17 herself.55
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190. Nearly decade-old interviews of Ms. Lively were surfaced, commenting on her
tone, her posture, her diction, her language. 5
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55 @pocketsara, X post, https://x.com/pocketsara/status/1824146308707291152, (Aug. 15, 2024) (“Blake Lively is a cunt”)
@imtotallynotmol, X, Aug. 15, 2024 (“You’re a piece of shit, genuinely go fuck yourself”); FluffyPinkUnicorn VII, Reddit
post, https://www.reddit.com/r/DListedCommunity/comments/1escnuy/blake_lively_getting_criticized_over_press_tour/,
(Aug. 14, 2024) (“Bottled blonde + long legs + fake tits – (brains, judgement, & humility) = Blake Lively”); KettlebellFetish
Reddit
post,
(Aug.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DListed Community/comments/1escnuy/blake_lively_getting_criticized_over_press_tour/,
14, 2024) (“Even with the nose job, she’s such a butterface, great body, hair, but odd face and that body would be so easy to
dress, just a dream body, and nothing fits right, odd clashing colors, just tacky.”); Creative_Ad9660, Reddit_post,
https://www.reddit.com/r/DListed Community/comments/1escnuy/blake_lively_getting_criticized_over_press_tour/, (Aug.
15, 2024) (“Boobs Legsly”); @chick36351, X post, (Aug. 16, 2024) (“Well Blake I a bitch.. She always has been, nice to see
people realize it now… Also WAY too much plastic surgery..”); @Martin275227838, X post,
https://x.com/LizCrokin/status/1824618500431724917, (Aug. 17, 2024) (“@blakelively is a pedophile supporting bully . . .”);
@ZuperGoose, X post, (Aug. 17, 2024) (“Liz tag the bitch @blakelively Blake = pedo”); @myopinionmyfact, X post, (Aug.
22, 2024) (“…@blakelively YOU ARE SUCH A BITCH! What a horrible rude bitch you are. I cannot believe somebody
fucked u, made a kid with u, married u and now has to be stuck with your bitch ass. OMG LMAO I would run!”).
56 Beth Shilliday, Blake Lively Taking a Social Media Break After Being Labeled a ‘Mean Girl’ Amid ‘It Ends With Us’
Backlash, Yahoo Entertainment (Sept. 5, 2024, 8:04) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/blake-lively-taking-social-media-
57

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