Environment of 6 Months 2021-22

CURRENT AFFAIRS SUPPLEMENT 2021-2022 ENVIRONMENT
PART 1 (October 21-March 22)
ENVIRONMENT
CONTENTS
1. Great Barrier Reef suffers first mass bleaching under cooling La Niña.
2. We are running out of sand and global demand could soar 45% by 2060.
3. Arctic and Antarctic see extreme heat and historically low sea ice.
4. Cutting biofuels can help avoid global food shock from Ukraine war.
5. Crucial COP15 biodiversity summit set to be delayed a fourth time.
6. Are we on the verge of a global initiative to clean up ocean plastics?
7. Global emissions must peak in just three years to stay below 1.5°C.
8. We can still avert climate catastrophe – but there is barely time.
9. How the war in Ukraine will change the way the world uses energy.
10. UN biodiversity talks fail to agree on new targets to protect wildlife.
11. A possible rare sponge reef found near California.
12. Solar panel add-on pulls water from air without consuming electricity.
13. Photosynthesis rates are increasing globally due to rising CO2 levels.
14. UK advisers urge tougher climate tests on new oil and gas projects.
15. Covering crops in red plastic can boost yields up to 37 percent.
16. Engineered bacteria produce chemicals with negative carbon emissions.
17. Most schemes to capture and reuse carbon actually increase emissions.
18. Wild Wild Life newsletter: When species steal each other’s genes.
19. Cold blob in Atlantic may be slowing ice loss from Iceland’s glaciers.
20. Rare earth elements for smartphones can be extracted from coal waste.
21. Thin glaciers suggest Andes faces 'peak water' sooner than thought.
22. Dog waste may harm nature reserve biodiversity by fertilising the soil.
23. Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US.
24. Hong Kong’s car pollution sensors help it clean its air in world first.
25. England’s gas boiler ban for new homes should begin next year, say MPs.
26. There may be 9200 more tree species in the world than we thought.
27. Lightning flash measuring 768 kilometres is the longest ever recorded.
28. Gene-edited food is 5 years away in England, says government scientist.
29. Pristine coral reef discovered in deep water off the coast of Tahiti.
30. Climate change made the past 7 years the warmest on record.
31. Ozone pollution causes $63 billion damage per year to East Asia.
32. UK energy crisis: Why renewable subsidies will help avoid price shocks.
33. Can electric fields help plants grow? New claims met with caution.
34. Animal decline is hurting plants' ability to adapt to climate change.
35. Record levels of greenhouse gas methane are a ‘fire alarm moment.’
36. Extreme air pollution from US wildfires now affects millions of people.
37. ‘Near impossible’ plant-growing technique could revolutionise farming.
38. Outdoor workers are losing hours due to overheating from deforestation.
39. Freshwater fish can recover from mercury pollution in just a few years.
40. Will paused Cambo oil plans mark the decline of North.
41. Tropical forests can regrow within 20 years on some abandoned farmland.
42. Extreme lack of sea ice in Hudson Bay puts polar bears under pressure.
43. Race to start commercial deep-sea mining puts ecosystems at risk.
44. Megafauna extinctions led to more grassland fires worldwide.
45. Atlantic Ocean water began warming the Arctic as early as 1907.
46. Over three-quarters of the world’s vital carbon stores are unprotected.
47. COP26: World agrees to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and reduce coal.
48. COP26: People from climate-ravaged regions say we need action now.
49. COP26: Governments and industry aim for zero-carbon shipping corridors.
50. Cutting ammonia emissions may be the best way to reduce air pollution.
Great Barrier Reef suffers first mass bleaching under

cooling La Niña
• Unusually warm ocean temperatures have turned corals white on Australia’s Great
Barrier Reef in the first-ever mass bleaching under the cooling conditions created by the
La Niña weather pattern.
• Warmer oceans under climate change have led to an increase in mass bleaching events
at the world’s largest reef: this is the sixth since modern records began in 1988, and the
fourth in just seven years.
• The bleaching is particularly notable for happening when the region is in a cooling phase
brought about by La Niña. The worst mass bleaching event happened in 2016, the
planet’s hottest year on record, when an El Niño warming phase was in effect.
• coral reef species dying off in the greatest numbers during mass bleaching are those
with a physically complex, more three-dimensional structure. Their loss hurts the reef’s
ability to provide a habitat for fish and mitigate coastal flooding.
• the bleached coral could still recover if the waters cool, as happened in 2020 when there
was relatively little coral die-off despite the most widespread bleaching ever.
We are running out of sand and global demand could

soar 45% by 2060
• Dozens of islands disappearing in Indonesia as a result of unscrupulous mining and

Growing demand for building and other vital construction materials.
• Global building sand demand will jump from 3.2 billion tonnes a year in 2020 to
4.6 billion tonnes by 2060, led by areas in Africa and Asia. The figure is based on a
central scenario of future population rises and economic growth.
• It is unclear if the world can sustain such a big increase. “Sand, and the sand crisis, has
been overlooked, creating severe environmental and social consequences.
• The single biggest reduction in sand use could come from more efficient use of space:
allocating less floor space per person in buildings, sharing offices, and so on.
Arctic and Antarctic see extreme heat and historically

low sea ice
• Arctic sea ice appears to have been historically low this winter. Temperature records were
broken in Antarctica as warm air swept unusually far into the heart of the continent. Concordia
station, which is high above sea level and has an annual average temperature of -50°C, reached
an all-time high of -12.2°C on 18 March, beating the -13.7°C record set in December 2016.
• Abnormally hot air has hit both of the world’s poles at once. A band of westerly winds around
Antarctica usually isolates the continent from other weather systems. But in the past week, an
“atmospheric river” of hot air, originating in the mid-latitudes, travelled down from Tasmania
and South Australia, breaching those winds to travel far across the ice,
• The record temperatures come shortly after Antarctic sea ice declined to a record low minimum
extent, at 1.92 million square kilometres on 25 February. The cause of the heat is a pulse of
warm, moist air being sent northwards from the North Atlantic, Arctic sea ice in 2022 has
likely reached its 10th lowest winter maximum. 2017 holds the record for the lowest.
• The heat in the far north comes as Arctic sea ice has settled at its 10th lowest winter maximum
on record, at just under 15 million square kilometres.
• Unlike Antarctica, the Arctic has seen two very clear signals of climate change: the long-term
decline of sea ice and temperatures rising three times faster than global increases.
Cutting biofuels can help avoid global food shock from

Ukraine war
• Europe and the US could more than compensate for the loss of Ukraine’s exports by diverting
crops destined to be made into biofuels into food production instead. This would bring food
prices down and help prevent a major global food shock. The war in Ukraine has already caused
food prices to shoot up as global markets anticipate a loss of wheat and maize exports from one
of the world’s largest producers of these crops.
• In the US, a third of the maize grown is converted into ethanol and blended into petrol. Around
90 million tonnes is used for ethanol, nearly double the 50 million tonnes exported by Ukraine
and Russia. If the US and Europe were to decrease their use of ethanol made from grain by 50 per
cent, they would effectively replace all of Ukraine’s exports of grain.
• On 11 March, the Czech Republic ended its mandate requiring ethanol to be blended with
petrol. It did this to reduce the costs of fuel rather than food, but Brunner is calling for other
countries to follow suit. “It absolutely would make a difference. It would begin to relieve prices
immediately.”
• In general, fuel price rises affect those who can afford to drive cars and fly, whereas people with
low incomes spend most of their money on food. “It’s profoundly immoral to try to solve a
shortage of energy by creating a shortage of food,”
Crucial COP15 biodiversity summit set to be

delayed a fourth time
• The COP15 conference, which was due to be held at Kunming in China during April and May, will
now start at the end of August instead. Past delays have been blamed on the covid-19 pandemic,
despite similar major meetings on climate change going ahead.
• One of the key parts of the deal being negotiated, known as the Post-2020 Biodiversity
Framework, is a goal to make 30 per cent of Earth’s land and seas into protected areas by
2030. Other issues include the ecological integrity of those areas and the agricultural subsidies
that are a key driver of biodiversity loss.
Are we on the verge of a global initiative to clean up ocean

plastics?
• In the Seychelles, the country’s government decided to stamp out a dangerous recreational
substance: balloon latex. The war on plastic was inspired in part by its stewardship of Aldabra, a
large coral atoll south-west of the main island Mahé and a UNESCO world heritage site with a
strict nature reserve and still it has a major plastic pollution problem.
• Last year’s COP26 conference in Glasgow and in a high-level summit with the presence of heads
of state, world leaders promised about ocean conservation and sustainable development.
• Animal species are known to die from plastic, or be affected by it. That number is now more than
2000 species and is constantly increasing. Animals stuck in plastic become less capable of finding
food and become also easy victims for predators. For whales, entanglement in plastic is a greater
threat than whaling. The sharp threads of nets can cut into their flesh, causing whales to lose fins
or tails.
Global emissions must peak in just three years to stay

below 1.5°C
• The world can afford to emit just 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from 2020 onwards for a
50 per cent chance of holding temperature rises to 1.5°C, a level on a par with the last decade of
global emissions as the window for staving off dangerous warming has shrunk .
• “Carbon budget” require emissions to peak by 2025, before falling 43 per cent by 2030 on 2019
levels. That would require a gargantuan political effort, given global emissions rose by a record
5.5 per cent in 2021, Coal use must drop 95 per cent by 2050 on 2019 levels, oil by 60 per cent
and gas 45 per cent to meet the 1.5°C goal, figures
• “Rapid and deep” emissions reductions will be needed across all sectors, using a mix of
renewable energy, carbon capture and storage (CCS), lower energy demand, better energy
efficiency and a huge ramp-up of ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as direct air
capture machines.
• For the first time, the IPCC considered the role of behavioural change on emissions reductions,
such as shifting diets. It found that such measures could cut emissions by up to 70 per cent by
2050 in some sectors. “The way we move around, we eat, we generate energy, everything needs
to change.
We can still avert climate catastrophe – but there is barely

time
• Global greenhouse gas emissions peak in three years and are cut by 43 per cent by 2030. Achieve that, and
we have a 50 per cent chance of staying under 1.5°C of global warming. The IPCC itself points out, without
stronger policies from governments, global emissions are projected to keep rising beyond 2025. The current
trajectory is for a planet that has warmed by a hellish 3.2°C.
• Emissions have grown despite years of UN climate talks though: average annual growth was 1.3 per cent
between 2010 and 2019; it was 2.1 per cent in the decade before. Yet reaching a plateau remains elusive.
Covid-19 restrictions delivered a record fall in fossil fuel emissions in 2020, but a coal-fuelled rebound in
2021 wiped out those savings. Emissions are expected to rise this year too.
• The richest in society could deliver the biggest emissions cuts, if people curbed their consumption of goods
and services. The 10 per cent of households worldwide with the highest per capita emissions are
responsible for 45 per cent of all consumption-based household emissions.
• Last year, 196 countries promised to “revisit and strengthen” their national climate plans in 2022. To
date, none has.
How the war in Ukraine will change the way the

world uses energy
• The war in Ukraine has changed everything and energy security is now the most pressing
priority. A crucial question is how this will play out for the environment. A renewed race towards
renewables, or a rush to exploit domestic fossil fuels and new suppliers of oil and gas.
• Many countries have long depended on oil and gas from Russia, which is one of the world’s top
exporters of fossil fuels. Now they are scrambling to find other ways to meet their energy
needs.The European Union has committed to cutting imports of Russian gas by two-thirds by the
end of the year.
• 200 countries at the COP26 climate summit in November 2021 promised to “phase down” coal,
a first for the UN climate talks. But that hasn’t happened.
• A surge in coal use in 2021 wiped out the pandemic-driven emissions savings made in 2020.The
UK government is reportedly talking to energy firms about postponing the planned closure
of coal-fired power plants.
• A good starting point is the EU’s new energy strategy, released on 8 March. It doubles down on
energy efficiency, wind and solar power, with more ambition than under the existing climate plan
and it includes those cuts to Russian gas But most of that gas will simply be swapped for gas from
elsewhere, sourced through pipelines from Africa and shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
from countries such as the US.
• In Asia, many nations have been lowering their emissions by switching from coal to gas, a cleaner
if still problematic fuel. But Europe is now looking for more shipments of LNG, prices are going
up and those Asian countries will end up burning more coal.
• Dependence on gas can be reduced by switching to heat pumps, insulating houses and
building more wind farms.
• Only 70 million tonnes of hydrogen are produced globally per year and almost all of this is made
from fossil fuels through a process called steam reformation, which releases carbon dioxide.
• “Energy security comes not from being disconnected and isolated, but actually from more
interconnection and integration,”
• To become more self-sufficient and use low-carbon energy countries need new forms of long-
duration power storage such as pumped hydro, which involves pumping fluids uphill, storing
them there, and then letting them flow downwards to turn a turbine and generate power when
needed. It may also involve more embryonic forms of storage, such as compressed air.
UN biodiversity talks fail to agree on new targets to

protect wildlife
• Officials from 195 countries met in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the “post-2020
global biodiversity framework”, a new mission and set of 21 targets on everything from
increasing the extent of protected areas to stemming species extinctions. But they failed
to fully agree on any of the targets or even the overarching mission.
• That means a UN biodiversity summit to agree the final deal, in Kunming, China, will
officially be delayed for a fourth time. It will now take place in late August. An extra
negotiating meeting will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 21 June to try to achieve
breakthroughs on the deal.
• there has been some progress on the new deal’s overall mission, which is converging on
a “nature positive” commitment to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
• New money for lower-income countries to pay for conservation projects was a sticking
point at the talks. The draft calls for higher-income nations to offer an extra $10 billion
a year for funding to protect nature in poorer countries.
A possible rare sponge reef found near California
• Vast mounds made of the skeletons of glass sponges have been discovered 600 metres
down on the seabed of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off California. The
mounds are unlike anything found before in the area and could be examples of a very
rare kind of habitat known as a sponge reef.
• The mounds consist mainly of the silica skeletons of dead glass sponges, turned
brownish by a coating of sediment. However, there are many other species living on and
in the mounds, including fish, clams and sponges of both the reef-building and non-reef-
building kinds.
• Sponge reefs were common during the time of the dinosaurs, but were thought to have
vanished completely from modern oceans. Then in the 1980s, living sponge reefs were found
off the coast of British Columbia in Canada, and a few others have been found elsewhere.
“Glass sponge reefs are spectacular, but fragile, ecosystems,”
Solar panel add-on pulls water from air without

consuming electricity
• A three-month trial in Saudi Arabia has shown that a solar panel add-on system can harvest
water without using any electricity by exploiting the day-night warming and cooling of solar
panels. In fact, the system slightly increases the electricity-generating efficiency of the panels
by keeping them cooler.
• The new approach uses a layer of hydrogel placed under each photovoltaic panel and
encased in a metal box. During the night, the box is open to allow the desert air to flow
through it where the hydrogel absorbs water vapour.
• During the day, the box is closed. The sun warms the solar panel, and thus also the
hydrogel underneath it, making the water evaporate from the gel. The humidity in the
closed box gets so high that the water condenses on the metal and can be drained from
the box.
• One advantage of using the add-on is that no extra land is required. Another is that electricity
generation increased slightly – by nearly 2 per cent – because the transfer of heat to the
hydrogel and water-harvesting box cools the solar panels.
Photosynthesis rates are increasing globally due to rising

CO2 levels
• Plants produce energy through photosynthesis which takes in CO2 from the atmosphere or
from water – a process known as primary production. The rate of this can increase in response
to rising concentrations of the gas. This phenomenon is known as the CO2 fertilisation effect.
• the growing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has led to an increased rate of
photosynthesis around the world,
• negative effects of climate change may ultimately offset the CO2 fertilisation effect reported in
the study. For example, more frequent and intense droughts due to climate change are
adversely affecting plants globally, as are more frequent forest fires and insect outbreaks due
to continued warming, “Reducing emissions is the only way we can prevent continued future
warming.”
Climate change causing widespread and irreversible impacts, says IPCC
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that up to 3.6
billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change, largely from extreme heat,
heavy rainfall, drought and weather setting the stage for fires. During a press conference, UN
secretary general Antonio Guterres called it “an atlas of human suffering”.
According to a landmark report warning it has become increasingly clear there are limits to how
much humanity can adapt to a warming world. “What has come out is a really, really strong
message that at 2°C the risks are several times greater than they are at 1.5°C. Many things
become much, much more difficult to manage at 2°C than 1.5°.”
The world’s most vulnerable people are found to be in mostly low-income nations in West, East
and central Africa, South Asia and South America, as well as those living in island states and
Arctic regions. Deaths from floods, droughts and storms in those regions were found to be 15
times higher than the least vulnerable areas, mostly high-income nations such as Canada and
the UK, between 2010 and 2020.
It isn’t only humans bearing the brunt but nature too: climate change is thought to be
responsible for at least two species’ extinctions. If global average temperatures rise by 1.5°C, up
to 14 per cent of species on land will be likely to face a very high risk of extinction in future. At
3°C, the figure is up to 29 per cent.
The assessment, part of the sixth round of reports by the IPCC since the first in 1990, closes with
an urgent message: “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on
adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to
secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”
UK advisers urge tougher climate tests on new oil and gas

projects
• The Climate Change Committee (CCC) stopped short of urging an end to issuing new oil and
gas exploration licences, calling instead for a tightening of proposed government tests to decide
whether new projects are compatible with climate targets.
The very best way to shelter ourselves from the kind of price volatility we are seeing is to
pursue net. “It’s a winning strategy for the climate; it’s also a very good strategy for energy
security.
• The CCC said there should be a “presumption against exploration” and that ending new
exploration would send a “clear signal” the UK is committed to the goal of keeping the world’s
temperature below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. “We think an end to UK production is
credible,”
• One improvement would be to make approval conditional on projects cutting their operational
carbon emissions by 66 per cent on 2018 levels by 2030, a deeper cut than the 50 per cent
proposed by industry and a regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority. The committee also suggests
extending the tests to cover projects that have already been licensed but haven’t yet been
consented, a later development stage that allows rigs to be built.
Covering crops in red plastic can boost yields up to 37

percent
• For centuries, humans have used greenhouses to help plants grow outside of tolerable
conditions. Now, as it turns out, it might be much better if instead of greenhouses, we built
redhouses.
• The red spectrum of light stimulates the leaves of plants to produce more chlorophyll, and an
Australian ag-startup is wielding this basic science to create thick red films to cover existing
greenhouses in order to boost plant production beyond what either the sun, or greenhouses are
capable of. Luminescent-Light Emitting Agriculture Films, or “LLEAF” was founded in a
partnership between the Universities of New South Wales and Western Sydney.
• LLEAF 620 is a low-red spectrum color to boost photosynthesis and increase production in most
plants, while for aquatic plants, LLEAF 590 is the best choice for applications where light
penetration through water for increased growth rate is required.
• Far-red spectrum light is better for fruiting trees and flowers, for which LLEAF sells two different
films, one for production and another for growth, which climb to the 700 nanometer range of
the light spectrum. The films are made from special dyes that absorb and diffuse
photons from the green spectrum of light, and emit it again as red light to increase plant
photosynthesis. The plastics can be easily retrofitted to any existing greenhouse
structure, and are very durable.The dyes are 100% biodegradable and carbon-based,
containing no metals, while the plastic sheeting is 100% recyclable.
Engineered bacteria produce chemicals with

negative carbon emissions
• Bacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into compounds used in paint remover and hand
sanitiser could offer a carbon-negative way of manufacturing industrial chemicals.
The engineered bacteria ferment carbon dioxide from the air to produce the chemicals. “One
can imagine the process similar to brewing beer.” But instead of using a yeast strain that eats
sugar to make alcohol, It is a microbe that can eat carbon dioxide.”
• This equates to up to a 160 per cent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, if this method were to
be broadly adopted, say the researchers. The technique could also be made more sustainable by
using waste gas from other industrial processes, such as steel manufacturing.
• “The approach we’ve developed provides the blueprint for future development and will
accelerate development of other chemicals that can be produced in a similar carbon-negative
way,”
Most schemes to capture and reuse carbon actually

increase emissi
• Most carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies, which pull carbon dioxide from the air
and use it for other emissions-lowering processes, emit more carbon than they capture. This
finding suggests that CCU projects, which have attracted billions of dollars in investment, won’t
do much to achieve the Paris Agreement‘s emissions targets to prevent warming by more than
1.5°C.
• CCU technologies take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, either capturing it directly from the
air or absorbing it at polluting sources, and puts it to use in processes such as making fuel,
plastics and concrete. Unlike straightforward carbon capture technology, CCU doesn’t store the
CO2 for long periods. CCU technologies either use energy to convert CO2 into fuels or use CO2
itself to drive other industrial processes like oil extraction or growing plants.
• Many of the technologies also don’t appear ready for deployment on a large scale, so they may
not be helpful in hitting the Paris Agreement’s emission targets by 2030, such a technology that
does not have the potential to really reduce emissions drastically, and preferably to net zero, then
that could be a situation that’s undesirable.”
Wild Wild Life newsletter: When species steal each other’s

genes
• Computational analysis suggests that a species of whitefly (Bemisia tabaci, pictured above)
has acquired 50 genes from the plants they eat. No discovery like this has ever been made
before, and while we don’t know how the genes got into the flies, there are signs that the genes
are functional.The gene in question allows plants to store defensive toxins in a safe way, and the
fly appears to use it to eat plants without being harmed by these toxins.
• The finding suggested that horizontal gene transfer – the movement of useful DNA codes
between entirely different species – may be much more widespread in the natural world than we
suspected. Now, a different team has analysed the DNA of the whitefly to identify a full 50 genes
that appear to have come from plants, and experiments suggest that many of them are used by
the fly.
• when there are implications for evolution. We’ve long known that bacteria swap genes – they
do this mostly by sharing circles of DNA called plasmids with each other, a process that has had a
big impact on us because this is how unrelated strains and species give each other antimicrobial
resistance genes. The whitefly studies suggest that the species has found a use for at least some of
the genes it has acquired from plants.
Cold blob in Atlantic may be slowing ice loss from

Iceland’s glaciers
• A new study says a patch of unusually cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean, known as the “blue
blob,” could forestall some of Iceland’s glacier melt in the next three decades, The cold water,
south of Iceland and Greenland, is creating more snowfall over Iceland, replenishing the island’s
glaciers as they melt and run off.
• The cold blob is expected to linger until the mid-2050s, granting a temporary reprieve against
glacial melt.
• Researchers found that the “blue blob” was bringing cooler air to Iceland and causing more
snowfall, offsetting some of its melt. The study blends climate models with field research to
determine that ice loss has slowed in recent years and may continue to do so as long as the blob
exists.
• “But this is only temporary because afterwards, warming in the blue blob starts again and then
the mass loss would accelerate again. And we could predict that about a third of the total ice
volume would be lost by the end of the century.” Swift action on climate change, however, could
make the blob last longer, and it could prevent ice loss acceleration in Iceland and elsewhere.
Rare earth elements for smartphones can be extracted from

coal waste
Neodymium, europium, terbium and other rare earth metals that were once barely
heard of are now commonplace in phone touchscreens, electric vehicle motors, wind
turbines and other modern technologies due to their useful magnetic and electronic
properties. Mining them is expensive and inefficient, since large areas of land must be
dug up to extract small amounts.
• a way to recycle these metals from fly ash, a fine black powder that is left over when coal
is burned in power plants. Rare earth elements that are vital to smartphones and
electric vehicles can now be extracted from coal waste instead of being dug out of the
ground.
• A technique has been developed called flash joule heating that involves packing the ash
into a quartz tube and running a large electrical current through it for 1 second to heat it
to 3000°C.
• This rapid heating breaks open microscopic glass spheres in the ash that contain rare
earth metals. It also converts the metals from phosphate to oxide forms that are easier
to separate out using mild acids.
Thin glaciers suggest Andes faces 'peak water' sooner

than thought
People living in the Andes in South America will reach “peak water” – defined as a
declining availability of water – much sooner than expected because the glaciers they
rely on have been found to be much thinner than thought. The area’s glaciers have 27 per
cent less ice than than previously estimated
o The study, which excludes Antarctica and Greenland, found that glaciers in the
Himalayas have 37 per cent more ice than thought. That is good news for the 250
million people in the region who face pressure on water supplies as glaciers
disappear under climate change.
o “This new data set of the world’s glaciers has a huge impact on water resources.”In some
regions, it’s positive, because in the Himalayas it reduces the pressure on the fresh
water, but in other regions like the Andes, it’s increasing the pressure on fresh water
availability.
o The research found that if all the glaciers melted globally, it would raise sea levels by
about 26 centimetres, a fifth less than previous estimates.
Dog waste may harm nature reserve biodiversity by

fertilising the soil
• Taking your dog for a walk in a nature reserve could harm biodiversity because its
faeces and urine bring in excess nitrogen and phosphorus to the ecosystem.
• While the effects of dogs on wildlife, through disease transmission and disturbance,
have been well-studied, little is known about the impact of their waste.
• dogs bring 5 kilograms of phosphorus per hectare per year and 11 kilograms of nitrogen
per hectare per year into suburban nature reserves.
• Too much phosphorus or nitrogen – common components of fertilisers – in the soil can
lead to loss of plant biodiversity and habitat degradation.
Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from

Russia and US
• Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that governments recently agreed to slash by 2030.
• While huge plumes of methane leaking from gas pipelines have been detected by satellites at
individual sites, such as a gas well in Ohio and several pipelines in central Turkmenistan,
little has been know about their extent globally.
• Now, images captured by an instrument aboard a satellite have been run through an algorithm
to automatically detect the biggest plumes of methane streaming from oil and gas facilities
worldwide.
• About a tenth of the global oil and gas industry’s methane emissions have been found to come
from a group of “ultra-emitter” sites located mostly in Turkmenistan, Russia and the US.
• These ultra-emitters were spotted pumping out more than 25 tonnes of methane an hour. That’s
“a heck of a lot.
• The study also found that ultra-emitting sites are releasing so much methane, which could be
sold, that it should be cost effective to solve. For the six worst countries, tackling those plumes
should cost up to $300 less per tonne than it would typically cost to reduce methane from oil and
gas facilities in those nations. “Getting rid of these would be very inexpensive,”
Hong Kong’s car pollution sensors help it clean its air in

world first
• To identify the worst-offending vehicles, Hong Kong installed sensors on highway ramps that use
infrared and ultraviolet beams to detect carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon levels in
tailpipe exhausts of passing vehicles.
• Vehicles that run on petrol and diesel emit harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and
hydrocarbons. New cars have technology for reducing these emissions, but they can become more
polluting over time. Many older cars that are still on the roads are heavy emitters.
• Cameras capture the licence plates of the most polluting vehicles so their owners can be notified.
Owners must repair their vehicles and pass an emissions test, paid for themselves, before their vehicles
are allowed back on the road.
• Since the enforcement programme began in September 2014, more than 16,000 high-emissions
vehicles have been detected and 96 per cent have been fixed and passed the compulsory
emissions test.
• The scheme has rapidly improved air quality in Hong Kong. In 2015, independent monitoring
found that average concentrations of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides at roadside locations
had dropped by 26 and 27 per cent respectively compared to 2012 levels.
England’s gas boiler ban for new homes should begin

next year, say MPs
• A ban on gas boilers in new homes in England should be brought forward by two years to 2023,
according to a report by a group of MPs who say the UK government must be clearer about how it
plans to decarbonise heating in homes.
• The report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee comes ahead
of energy regulator Ofgem announcing the new level of a price cap covering 22 million homes in
Great Britain.
• the average home’s energy bill will jump 50 per cent to £1915 a year under the new cap from 1
April, driven primarily by surging gas costs and collapsed energy suppliers. The
government is reportedly preparing to intervene with loans to energy suppliers to help them
soften the immediate impact on consumers.
• Heat pumps, heat networks and hydrogen boilers are seen as the three main alternatives to gas
boilers, which heat 85 per cent of UK homes today. The government has set a target that all new
heating systems installed in UK homes from 2035 should be low carbon.
• “The headline problem is that the government has announced a target, but they’ve not
really announced how they’re going to deliver it.”
• Gas boilers will be a challenge because of “scale, complexity, and cost. Some 36,000 heat pumps
were installed in 2020 compared with nearly 2 million gas boilers. Meeting a government goal
of 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 will be vital if the UK is to avoid missing its target of
reducing the entire economy to net-zero emissions by 2050, the committee says.
• One solution would be to bring forward a ban on gas boilers in new homes in England from 2025
to 2023 to avoid costly retrofits later, the report says. Another would be a public awareness
campaign with energy suppliers to tackle “extremely limited” consumer awareness of low-carbon
heating.
There may be 9200 more tree species in the world

than we thought
• According to researchers who say thousands of species are still to be discovered in South
America alone.South America is also the continent with the highest number of rare species. Less
common trees are at greater risk of being wiped out by a natural disaster or land use change by
humans, and are less likely to be able to adapt to climate change. “Rare species are especially
vulnerable, and losing these species will have ripple effects that impact entire ecosystems.
• the planet’s 3 trillion trees belong to an estimated 73,300 species, up more than 14 per cent on
the number identified by scientists to date. The increase comes from an estimated 9200 extra
undiscovered species, many of which are rare.“It’s a celebration of life: everyone loves trees,”
Lightning flash measuring 768 kilometres is the longest ever

recorded
• The world’s longest lightning flashes – both in terms of the distance covered and duration – have
been measured from space and confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
• One of the flashes occurred in the southern US in April 2020 and had a length of about 768
kilometres, or the distance from London to Hamburg in Germany, which is 60 kilometres longer
than the previous record set in Brazil in 2018.
• The second flash was measured in June 2020. It straddled the Uruguay-Argentina border, and
lasted for 17 seconds, longer than any other flash ever detected.“We now have clear proof that
single lightning events can last 17 seconds,”
• “This is important to scientists because it improves our understanding of the dynamics of
lightning: how, where and, importantly, why lightning occurs the way it does.”
• The flashes were seen in thunderstorm hotspots, in the Great Plains of North America and the Río
de la Plata basin in South America, respectively.
• While the lightning strikes measured didn’t make ground contact, their length and duration are
still an important reminder of how far lightning can strike from its parent region
Gene-edited food is 5 years away in England, says

government scientist
• New crops that have been gene-edited to be more nutritious and less environmentally harmful
are at least five years away from being sold in England, according to one of the UK government’s
leading scientists.
• The UK government plans to change current laws so that gene-edited plants are treated
differently to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs can involve genes inserted from
one species into another, while gene-editing usually involves using CRISPR technology to edit the
DNA of one organism in an accelerated version of natural breeding techniques. Wheat edited to
be less likely to cause cancer is one example being trialled. Crops resistant to pests so that they
require less pesticide are another.
• “One of the really big wins are the environmental benefits, things that use less pesticides, are
more tolerant of climate change,”What comes next, at an unspecified date, is a law change so
gene-edited food can be commercially grown and sold.
For animals, the main issue is whether gene editing could be used to make them more productive
at the expense of their welfare, akin to breeding chickens so heavy they break their legs. Ethicists
have warned that the UK government’s gene-editing drive should guard against such risks.
Pristine coral reef discovered in deep water off the

coast of Tahiti
• This spectacular rose-shaped coral has been found off the coast of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, at
depths of between 35 and 70 metres. It forms part of a reef that stretches for more than 3
kilometres and measures 70 metres across at its widest. It may be one of the largest found at
such depths.
• This spectacular rose-shaped coral has been found off the coast of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, at
depths of between 35 and 70 metres. It forms part of a reef that stretches for more than 3
kilometres and measures 70 metres across at its widest. It may be one of the largest found at
such depths.“It looks like a giant rose garden going as far as the eye can see.”
Climate change made the past 7 years the

warmest on record
• The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) analysed the six main global temperature
data sets, which revealed that last year was the seventh hottest to date, at 1.11°C above pre-
industrial levels.
The past seven years were the warmest on record as climate change continued apace, despite the
cooling effect of the La Niña weather pattern in 2021, the United Nations has found.
• Governments at the COP26 climate summit in November reaffirmed their commitment to
trying to hold temperature rises to 1.5°C and well below 2°C at worst. But emissions reductions
pledges currently have the world on course for 2.4°C or more.
• Although not a record for surface air temperatures, 2021 was another record-breaking year
for heat content in the upper levels of the oceans, which are absorbing much of the carbon
dioxide emitted by humans and the heat that this gas traps.
• The cooling effect of the La Niña weather pattern is expected to give way later this year to its
opposite, El Niño, which was responsible for 2016 being the hottest year on record.
Ozone pollution causes $63 billion damage per year to

East Asia
• Ozone is a highly reactive gas. Its presence in the stratosphere is beneficial as

it blocks dangerous ultraviolet light, but ground-level ozone harms plants and
animals. Surface ozone forms when nitrogen oxides (NOx) react with volatile
organic compounds in the presence of sunlight.
• Increasing concentrations of ground-level ozone in East Asia are causing ever
more damage to crops. The relative fall in yields of wheat, rice and maize in
China, Japan and South Korea is costing $63 billion a year. Surface ozone
concentrations in China have been rising by around 5 per cent a year
• Surface ozone levels have increased in many regions worldwide because of
NOx pollution, mainly from vehicles. Based on measurements from 3000 sites
in China, Japan and South Korea, Feng’s team estimates that ozone pollution is
causing relative yield losses of 33 per cent for wheat, 23 per cent for rice and 9
per cent for maize.
• Because farming is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas

emissions and continued land clearance for farms is causing habitat loss, the
findings mean that ozone pollution is also indirectly leading to global warming
and biodiversity loss. But the relationship between ozone and other air
pollutants is complex, making it hard to tackle the problem in the short term.
One of the reasons ozone levels are rising in China is due to falling levels of
particulate pollution,
UK energy crisis: Why renewable subsidies will help

avoid price shocks
• Amid the UK’s increasingly heated debate over what to do about soaring energy bills,
targeting green levies has repeatedly been suggested as a way to soften rising costs.a new
milestone announced this week points to how these environmental levies are the solution, not
the problem, when it comes to avoiding energy price shocks.
• The green levies, along with social ones such as efforts to alleviate fuel poverty, make up 15 per
cent of the average dual fuel bill for households in England, Scotland and Wales. One of the
major green levy items is a scheme to incentivise development of new wind farms, known as
Contracts for Difference (CfD).
• Under this, energy suppliers usually pay electricity generators, such as wind farm owners, the
difference between wholesale power prices and a “strike price” that is a better reflection of the
cost of producing renewable energy.
• “Support for renewables has added material costs to bills for the last decade, but rapidly
declining costs and rising fossil fuel prices now mean that for the first time they are actually
bringing down the cost for our energy suppliers.”
Even when wholesale prices do come down, future renewables projects may cost consumers
nothing or even return money to suppliers like now. CfDs awarded for wind farms due to come
online in 2025 are already below more typical, lower wholesale prices. And a new auction of
CfDs for wind, solar and tidal projects later this decade will help further.
Can electric fields help plants grow? New claims

met with caution
• A high-voltage electric field generated using wind and rain can boost crop yield, but other
scientists say the results should be treated with caution. The effectiveness of using electric fields
to stimulate crop growth, known as electroculture, is far from established, despite being tested in
Europe, the US and China. A “golden age” is dawning for the
• Two sets of peas were grown in a greenhouse, one of which was exposed to an electric field.
Previous tests have drawn electricity from the grid to create the field, a small device was used – a
triboelectric nanogenerator – to generate it from wind and rainfall.
• The result: pea yields increased by almost a fifth, and the plants germinated faster than the
control peas too. “The main advance is that the self-powered system can boost crop yield by
harvesting the wasted wind and raindrop energy in our daily life.”
• the mechanism for how electric fields might increase yield could be photosynthesis, based on his
analysis showing the peas under the electric field had more chlorophyll. But exactly how electric
fields affect crops remains unclear.
• The wider problem with electroculture is that a 2018 systematic review of studies looking at how
electric fields affect seed germination and plant growth found that all the studies suffered from
methodological flaws.
Animal decline is hurting plants' ability to adapt to climate

change
• About half of plants rely on animals to disperse their seeds, and research has shown the
importance of large animals for transporting seeds over long distances. But the impact of wildlife
declines on seed dispersal hasn’t been measured at a global level before.
• The team found that seed dispersal globally had “steeply declined” compared with a model of a
world that hadn’t experienced the bird and mammal losses recorded to date. The individual
declines vary, but the biggest were in northern temperate regions rather than the tropics.
• The declines in seed dispersal are disproportionately bigger than the animal declines that
triggered them. “Animal biodiversity supports climate adaptation for the world’s plants,”
Record levels of greenhouse gas methane are a

‘fire alarm moment’
•
According to data compiled by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
average atmospheric concentrations of methane reached a record 1900 parts per billion (ppb) in
September 2021, the highest in nearly four decades of records. The figure stood at 1638 ppb in
1983.
• The record shows the importance of more than 100 countries acting on their methane-cutting
pledge at the COP26 climate summit. Rising levels of the powerful greenhouse gas methane
reaching a new milestone should serve as a “fire alarm moment”,
The new high is unsurprising because methane levels have been climbing since 2007, thought
to be driven primarily by changes in wetlands and agriculture in the tropics and – to a lesser
degree – by leaks from oil and gas production. “The September data continues the exceptional
trends that we’ve been seeing over the past few years.”
• Two possible drivers are wet conditions in the tropics, which are common when, as now, the
world is experiencing a weather pattern called La Niña, and heat in the Arctic.
Extreme air pollution from US wildfires now affects millions
of people
• California and other western states have seen historic forest fires in the past five years that
have claimed lives, destroyed property and forced evacuations. Now there is evidence that the
human cost reaches much further than the blazes’ immediate vicinity. The area of the western US
hit by the unusually high co-occurrence of two air pollutants because of wildfires has more than
doubled in the past decade, exposing millions more people to dirty air.
• Two types of air pollution – tiny particulate matter called PM2.5 and ozone – are both linked to
human health concerns, but they tend to peak at different times of the year. If there is a
significant level of wildfire activity, however – which in the western US can occur between July
and September – it is possible to see simultaneous peaks in the two pollutants. Such a co-
occurrence is thought to have a disproportionately more severe health impact than either
pollutant in isolation.
“It’s a public health crisis, in the sense that likelihood of direct harm to an individual is somewhat
low but the cumulative harm to the millions and millions of people who are exposed repeatedly is
very high.”
‘Near impossible’ plant-growing

technique could revolutionise farming
• Plant grafting, where the root of one plant is attached to the shoot of another, has been used in
agriculture for thousands of years to improve crop growth and eradicate diseases, in plants such
as apples and citrus fruits. But this technique wasn’t thought to work for a major group of plants:
the monocotyledons (or monocots). This group includes all grasses like wheat and oats, as well as
other high-value crops like bananas and date palms. These plants lack a tissue called vascular
cambium, which helps grafts heal and fuse in many other plants.
A new technique for grafting plants could increase production and eliminate diseases for some of
the world’s most imperilled crops, such as bananas and date palms. The tissue stimulated growth
and fused the two plant halves together. The research team used fluorescent dyes to verify that
the root and shoots had fused and could transport liquids and nutrients up and down the stem.
• The method appeared to work on a wide range of monocot plant families, including important
crops such as pineapple, banana, onion, tequila agave, oil palm and date palm. This may protect
the wheat from soil-borne disease
The technique could be especially useful for combating disease in vulnerable species like the
Cavendish banana, which forms the vast majority of the world’s supply. Unable to reproduce
sexually, the Cavendish is only reproducible by cloning, meaning the crop is highly genetically
uniform and so vulnerable to diseases like Panama disease, which is caused by a soil-borne
fungus.
Outdoor workers are losing hours due to overheating from

deforestation
• Tropical forests are known to have a localised cooling effect, not only through providing
shade, but also via a process called evapotranspiration, in which water is sucked up from the
soil and evaporates from the leaves.
Deforestation in tropical regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas has reduced the cooling
effects of trees, decreasing safe working hours – by an average of at least half an hour per
day between 2003 and 2018 – for about 2.8 million outdoor workers.
The data from population surveys and mapping tree cover loss over a 15-year period,
Parsons and his colleagues have estimated the effect of deforestation on outdoor workers –
in, for instance, agriculture, fishing or forestry – across 41 countries.
• “Climate change has already pushed tropical locations right to the edge of what would be
considered safe for heavy outdoor labour. Deforestation tips those locations into being even
more unsafe.”The researchers then turned to population surveys to estimate the number of
outdoor workers in these areas. This revealed that some 2.5 million outdoor workers in Asia
lost at least half an hour of safe work per day, between 2003 and 2018, due to increased
temperatures in deforested regions.
• “Removing tropical rainforest not only contributes to global climate change, but also
threatens the livelihoods and well-being of local communities. Future deforestation
combined with climate change will be a one-two punch for those who are most vulnerable,”
says Parsons.
Freshwater fish can recover from mercury pollution in just a

few years
• A 15-year study of a lake in Canada found that eight years after the metal’s supply
ceased, concentrations of methylmercury – a highly toxic substance made from mercury
by bacteria in aquatic ecosystems – fell by 76 per cent in northern pike (Esox lucius) and
38 per cent in lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis).
• Mercury pollution is still a major global environmental problem, with small-scale gold
mining and coal burning being the two biggest sources. Transported in the atmosphere
and rained down on lakes and oceans, the metal’s accumulation in freshwater and
marine species has raised concerns over the human health impact of eating fish.
• New research shows that mercury is accumulating at “remarkably” high rates in the
hadal zone, the deepest part of the ocean that extends down as far as 11 kilometres.
Will paused Cambo oil plans mark the decline of

North
• 800 million barrels of oil in the seabed 125 kilometres west of Shetland in the UK now looks
likely to stay in the ground after an energy firm put its drilling plans on hold.
Huge reserves of oil will have to remain untapped if the world is to meet its climate change
targets. Globally, 58 per cent of oil will have to stay unused to keep future global warming
to 1.5°C. Yet by governments around the world would see 60 per cent more oil extracted by
2030 than needed to meet that temperature goal.
• Extracting hydrocarbons in the North Sea is a relatively high-cost operation, and production has
been declining since it peaked around the turn of the century. “The UK North Sea is a very
marginal field,”
• Nonetheless, it is clear that the political and regulatory environment for big new oil and gas
projects is shifting in the UK. The Scottish government is in talks with an alliance of countries
pledging to phase out new production and can make life hard for new schemes even if it doesn’t
have the power to grant oil and gas licences.
• Cambo’s standstill is a a victory for climate campaigners and will give pause to investors in future
oil fields. It will also increase reliance on imports.
Tropical forests can regrow within 20 years on some

abandoned farmland.
• The destruction of tropical forests is happening at an alarming rate to make way for crops and
pastures for livestock. After these lands are depleted of nutrients, they are typically abandoned,
which can lead to the natural regrowth of the forest that was once there.
Tropical forests can re-establish themselves quickly on land that was originally deforested for
agriculture and then abandoned. The finding suggests that so-called recovered forests, also
known as secondary forests, could play a key role in restoring ecosystems and tackling climate
change.
Secondary forests currently make up over 28 per cent of tropical forests in central and south
America, and are important for locking up carbon which is crucial to tackle climate change. In
addition, they attract mammals, birds and insects back to the area, which is important for
ecosystem restoration. They can also be vital for the livelihoods of people who live close by.
• These results are promising and highlight that natural regeneration and assisted natural
regeneration are excellent restoration strategies in many cases.
•
• London cat 'serial killer' was just foxes, DNA analysis
confirms
• The cats often had their heads or tails cut off, as well as the cleanliness of their wounds, led many
to suspect human involvement. The researchers conducted post-mortem examinations on the
cats, as well as CT scans. They also swabbed the cats’ fur to test whether they could find DNA
belonging to other animals such as dogs, foxes or badgers.
•
Testing for DNA, the researchers concluded that the cats had all been mutilated by foxes after
they had died. The post-mortem examination revealed that there was no single cause of death
among the cats. They suspect that just 10 of the 32 cats they analysed were killed by foxes.
Extreme lack of sea ice in Hudson Bay puts polar bears

under pressure
Ice normally starts building up across Hudson Bay in November, but the area has remained almost
entirely ice-free in the face of temperatures 6°C above average. In the north-western part of the bay, ice
extent is at a record low, with just 13 per cent of the area covered in ice. In an average year, 70 to 80
per cent of this part of the bay is covered in ice by this stage in the year.
• That has left polar bears standing by the shore, waiting for the ice to form so they can hunt seals.
Temperatures in recent days have begun dropping and the US National Snow and Ice Data Center says
the bay will eventually freeze this winter. But the agency says the current low is “extreme” and, across
the bay as a whole, second only to 2010 for this time of year.
• An extreme lack of sea ice in Canada this winter should serve as a “wake-up call” for the risk climate
change poses to polar bears, say conservationists.
Research suggests that almost all the world’s remaining 26,000 polar bears will be pushed to the edge of
their fasting limits by the end of the century due to climate change.
Race to start commercial deep-sea mining puts

ecosystems at risk
• Deep-sea mining is the process of retrieving mineral deposits from the deep sea – the area
of the ocean below 200 m which covers about 65% of the Earth’s surface. . Depleting terrestrial
deposits and rising demand for metals are stimulating interest in the deep sea, with
commercial mining imminent.
The scraping of the sea floor and pollution from mining processes can wipe out entire species –
many yet to be discovered.
• There is growing interest in the mineral deposits is largely due to depleting terrestrial deposits
for metals such as copper, nickel, aluminium, manganese, zinc, lithium and cobalt, coupled with
rising demand for these metals to produce high-tech applications such as smartphones and green
technologies.
• The seafloor contains an extensive array of geological features. These include abyssal plains
3,500–6,500 m below the sea surface, volcanic underwater mountains known as seamounts,
hydrothermal vents with bursting water heated by volcanic activity, and deep trenches such as
the Mariana Trench, which at almost 11,000 m is the greatest depth registered in the
ocean. These remote areas support species that are uniquely adapted to harsh conditions such as
lack of sunlight and high pressure. Many of these species are unknown to science.
• The scraping of the ocean floor by machines can alter or destroy deep-sea habitats, leading to the
loss of species and fragmentation or loss of ecosystem structure and function. Many species living
in the deep sea are endemic – meaning they do not occur anywhere else on the planet – and
physical disturbances in just one mining site can possibly wipe out an entire species. This is one
of the biggest potential impacts from deep-sea mining.
Megafauna extinctions led to more grassland fires

worldwide
A study has found that the continents that lost the most of these grazing megafauna had the biggest
increases in wildfires in grasslands and savannahs.
From the giant armadillo to the giant bison, many large plant eaters have been wiped out in the past
50,000 years.
“There’s evidence today that herbivores can limit fire by reducing fuel load.” In fact, some advocates
of rewilding argue that restoring large herbivores can help reduce wildfires.
A few studies have already found that there were more fires in specific regions after the loss of
megafauna during the past 50,000 years.the biggest increases in fire activity were in the continents, such
as South America, that lost the most big herbivores, with lower increases where there were fewer
extinctions, such as in Africa.
Atlantic Ocean water began warming the Arctic as early as

1907
• The Arctic is warming faster than any other part of the world and the increasing influence of
water from the Atlantic Ocean, which is on average warmer and saltier than the Arctic Ocean, is
likely to be leading to further ice loss. This effect is known as “Atlantification.” But it is hard to
quantify because we only have 20 years of confirmed data about the interaction between these
waters,
The layers of the core correspond to sediments laid down over the past 800 years, which hold
clues to the time they were deposited. “Every centimetre gave us climate information for about
four to five years.”The team is unsure what caused this dramatic shift in temperature. “It could
be a natural event that propagated from the subpolar regions to the gate of the Arctic Ocean.”
Over three-quarters of the world’s vital carbon stores

are unprotected
• Our planet stores carbon in a range of ecosystems, such as forests and peatlands.
When humans degrade these ecosystems for commercial purposes, such as agriculture,
large amounts of carbon may be released into the atmosphere, contributing to global
warming.
• Once released, it can take years, centuries or even millennia for carbon to be stored in
such ecosystems again. The carbon that can’t be recovered by 2050, which is when the
world must reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, is
known as irrecoverable carbon.
• Only 23 per cent of Earth’s most vulnerable and crucial carbon storage ecosystems are
in protected areas. But a study that pinpoints these carbon stores could help inform
initiatives to keep them safe from development, while also protecting biodiversity.
COP26: World agrees to phase out fossil fuel

subsidies and reduce coal
• Nearly 200 countries have made an unprecedented and historic pledge at the COP26 climate
summit to speed up the end of fossil fuel subsidies and reduce the use of coal, after India pushed
through an 11th hour intervention to weaken the language on coal.
• 196 countries meeting in Glasgow, UK, committed to issuing stronger 2030 climate plans next
year in a bid to avert dangerous global warming. Pledges at COP26 are expected to see Earth
warm 2.4°C this century, better than the predicted 2.7°C predicted before the summit but still a
rise that would bring extreme climate impacts and see countries overshoot their shared goals
of 1.5°C and “well below” 2°C.
The promise to “revisit and strengthen” new plans by the end of 2022 means the UK government
hosting the summit can credibly claim to have delivered its aim of “keeping alive” the 1.5°C
target.
• This time, high-income countries agreed that by 2025 they must double adaptation finance to
about $40 billion a year. And nations agreed to work out a new global adaptation goal in future
talks.
Countries also reached agreement on technical but important rules on the Paris Agreement that
have proved intractable in the six years since the world’s first comprehensive global climate
treaty was agreed. Chief among those are the rules governing a new global carbon market under
“Article 6” of the Paris accord, paving the way for a successor to a past scheme called the UN
Clean Development Mechanism.
COP26: People from climate-ravaged regions say we need

action now
A key issue at the COP26 climate summit has been whether countries around the world will act together
to address adaptation, tackling the worst effects of climate change happening right now. Last year, 30
million people globally were displaced from their homes due to extreme weather and the problem is
likely to only get worse.
Along with other problems, hotter temperatures mean rising sea levels, shrinking coastlines and more
flooding. This is happening right now. The failure of crops in her home country is leading to people
starving and struggling for money. Across the world, homes are being lost to extreme weather events like
hurricanes and wildfires.
Last year, higher-income countries gave about $20 billion to poorer nations to help them adapt to the
effects of climate change. Lower-income countries, like Bangladesh, and island states, like Fiji, want more
money now to tackle the worst of these effects. If it doesn’t come, people may have to flee their homes.
Floods aren’t new to Sudan, but they are becoming more frequent and intense. The issue isn’t simply that
people are losing their homes, they are losing their livelihoods and food too. “There are 16 million cows in
the country,” says Jamal. “But they are not equipped to deal with mud. They just stand there and stay
stuck.” Some people are selling their cows for a tenth of their cost because they know the animals will
starve to death anyway. Waterlogged fields have also led to the devastation of sorghum crops, a staple
used to make a type of bread. If this becomes a permanent situation, millions of people will have to
move to other parts of Sudan.
UNHCR’s special adviser on climate action, says it is important to note that most people who are displaced
by extreme weather don’t move across international borders. “Almost everyone tries to stay close to their
communities.”
COP26: Governments and industry aim for zero-

carbon shipping corridors
Shipping blasts over a billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, accounting for 2.9
per cent of all human-made emissions in 2018. Under a business-as-usual scenario, that figure
could double by 2050.
The 22 initial signatories to the initiative, known as the Clydebank Declaration, commit
themselves to develop technology, expertise and port infrastructure that will allow key
international shipping routes to go zero-carbon, as part of a strategy to decarbonise the entire
industry by 2050
Australia in particular has ambitious plans for expanding production of “green” hydrogen made
by electrolysing water. It might be used to fuel ships on its own, or to make ammonia fuel. The
first ships could be plying the route to Japan by 2026, according to a report by the Getting to Zero
Coalition, which is working to decarbonise shipping. Technology is available, it is there. We can
today build vehicles that run on something other than oil. The main stumbling blocks are the
availability and cost of alternative fuels.
• Cutting ammonia emissions may be the best way

to reduce air pollution
Fine particulates less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter are formed when ammonia reacts with
nitrous oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide. These particulates, known as PM2.5, can pass from the
lungs into the bloodstream and cause illnesses such as asthma, coronary heart disease and
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Aiming to reduce ammonia emissions may be a more cost-effective way to mitigate air
pollution than focusing on nitrogen oxides alone. “Nitrogen is an important precursor that can
lead to air pollution, so if we want to control air pollution, we have to control nitrogen emissions
to the air,”
A new way to calculate the contribution of nitrogen compounds to PM2.5 pollution called the N-
share. They estimate that, in total, nitrogen emissions caused roughly 23.3 million years of lost
life in 2013, with an economic cost of $420 billion.
• Targeting ammonia emissions – the majority of which come from agricultural sources such as
livestock production – would be a more cost-effective way to reduce PM2.5 pollution than
focusing on NOx emissions, which are produced chiefly by combustion, such as in car engines.
Updating the way we produce meat, for example via changes to animal housing and diet, could
help reduce ammonia emissions, since about 80 per cent comes from agriculture.
• Currently, most places around the world focus on reducing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
to tackle fine particulate air pollution. While ammonia reductions have been suggested as a
focus for the European Union, other countries, including China and the US, have no policies on
ammonia emissions.“Globally, around 5 million people die each year due to [ambient] air
pollution.





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CURRENT AFFAIRS SUPPLEMENT 2021-2022 ENVIRONMENT

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Great Barrier Reef suffers first mass bleaching under

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

We are running out of sand and global demand could

• Dozens of islands disappearing in Indonesia as a result of unscrupulous mining and

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Arctic and Antarctic see extreme heat and historically

Cutting biofuels can help avoid global food shock from

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Crucial COP15 biodiversity summit set to be

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Are we on the verge of a global initiative to clean up ocean

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Global emissions must peak in just three years to stay

We can still avert climate catastrophe – but there is barely

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

How the war in Ukraine will change the way the

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

UN biodiversity talks fail to agree on new targets to

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

A possible rare sponge reef found near California

Solar panel add-on pulls water from air without

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Photosynthesis rates are increasing globally due to rising

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Climate change causing widespread and irreversible impacts, says IPCC

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

UK advisers urge tougher climate tests on new oil and gas

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Covering crops in red plastic can boost yields up to 37

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Engineered bacteria produce chemicals with

Most schemes to capture and reuse carbon actually

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Wild Wild Life newsletter: When species steal each other’s

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Cold blob in Atlantic may be slowing ice loss from

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Rare earth elements for smartphones can be extracted from

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Thin glaciers suggest Andes faces 'peak water' sooner

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Dog waste may harm nature reserve biodiversity by

Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Hong Kong’s car pollution sensors help it clean its air in

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

England’s gas boiler ban for new homes should begin

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

There may be 9200 more tree species in the world

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Lightning flash measuring 768 kilometres is the longest ever

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Gene-edited food is 5 years away in England, says

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Pristine coral reef discovered in deep water off the

Climate change made the past 7 years the

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)

Ozone pollution causes $63 billion damage per year to

PART 1 (October 21-March 22)