Good & Bad News – March 2017

By G. Hanchet

Here’s a collection of some of recent good and bad news about climate change that Al Slavin has compiled from around the web.

Some bad news

While some technological and political progress is being made to slow the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions, almost all the climate science news is bad, showing an accelerating problem that is worse than earlier predicted. There is no way the world can stay within below the “dangerous” 2° C rise in temperature without rapid and radical reductions in our energy use.

March 27, 2017. Climate change key suspect in the case of India’s vanishing groundwater.

March 13, 2017. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at the fastest rate ever recorded

March 13, 2017. New Evidence Confirms Risk That Mideast May Become Uninhabitable (within a few decades)

February, 2017. Environment and Climate Change Canada predicts Canada will have almost no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 below the 2005 level, contrary to Canada’s target of a 30% reduction.

December 13, 2016. ‘The Arctic Is Unraveling’ Scientists Conclude After Latest Sobering Climate Report

December 1, 2016. Climate change will stir ‘unimaginable’ refugee crisis, says military. Global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century.

November 30, 2016. Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening.

September 30, 2016. Forget Paris, Scientists Say ‘Radical Change’ Only Way to Stay Below 2 Degrees.

Some good news

Do not despair, there’s also good news of changes that will make a difference. Mostly it’s news of changes that take us in the right direction, but are they fast enough to avoid serious degradation?

March 17, 2017. Energy carbon emissions in 2016 flat for third year: IEA.

March 13, 2017. Wind power blows through nuclear, coal as costs drop at sea.

January 1, 2017. Battery Storage Poised to Expand Rapidly.

December 22, 2016. India plans nearly 60% of electricity capacity from non-fossil fuels by 2027.

October 25, 2016. Renewables made up half of net electricity capacity added last year.

September 6, 2016.  EU hits energy reduction target six years early

June 12, 2016. Coal and gas to stay cheap, but renewables still win race on costs (by 2030). (But not fast enough to keep us below +2° C of warming.)