Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Climate change could force 216 million people out of their homes and into other parts of their country by 2050 to escape flooding, water scarcity and declining crop production
This is so brain-dead as to be hardly worth talking about. Warmer oceans would give off MORE rain, leading to BIGGER foodcrops, not "water scarcity. CO2 is good for crops too
Without immediate action to combat climate change, 216 million people could be forced to migrate to other parts of their country by 2050.
A new report from the World Bank modeled the impact of rising sea levels, water scarcity and declining crop productivity on six regions, concluding that climate migration 'hotspots' will emerge as soon as 2030.
The poorest parts of the world will be hit hardest, researchers said: Sub-Saharan Africa alone would account for 86 million of the internal migrants, with 19 million more in North Africa, the report showed,
South Asia would be home to 40 million internal migrants, and another 49 million in East Asia and the Pacific.
Such movements will put significant stress on both sending and receiving areas, straining cities and urban centers and jeopardizing development gains, the report said.
For instance, sea-level rise threatens rice production, aquaculture and fisheries, which could create an out-migration hotspot in Vietnam's low-lying Mekong Delta.
But the Red River Delta and central coast region, where those people are likely to flee, face their own threats, including severe storms.
Conflicts and health and economic crises such as those unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic could compound the situation, the bank said.
And the number of climate migrants could be much higher since the report does not cover most high-income countries, Middle Eastern nations, small island states, or people migrating to new countries.
An AI map developed in 2020 by researchers at the University of Southern California suggests that, in the US, nearly 13 million Americans will be forced to move internally by the end of the 21st century.
Many will relocate inland from coastal areas to land-locked cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas.
Already, climate change is responsible for 37 percent of the planet's heat deaths each year, according to a May 2021 study published in Nature Climate Change.
That's equal to about 9,700 people in 732 cities.
'These are deaths related to heat that actually can be prevented. It is something we directly cause,' Ana Vicedo-Cabrera, an epidemiologist at the University of Bern's Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine, told the Associated Press in May.
But it's only a sliver of climate's overall toll on human mortality — more people die from other extreme weather amplified by global warming, like hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and droughts.
Kanta Kumari Rigaud, the World Bank's lead environment specialist and co-author of the new report, said the Earth was 'already locked into' a certain amount of global warming and that climate migration was a present reality not a future problem.
'We have to reduce or cut our greenhouse gases to meet the Paris target, because those climate impacts are going to escalate and increase the scale of climate migration,' Rigaud added.
According to The New York Times, without major changes, nearly 20 percent of the globe will be a 'barely livable hot zone' by 2070.
Rigaud and the other authors say their findings should be seen as an urgent wakeup call to regional and national governments to act now to reduce greenhouse gases, close development gaps and restore ecosystems.
Doing so, they said, could reduce that migration number by 80 percent, to 44 million people.
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Britain’s last coal power stations to be paid huge sums to keep lights on
And Greenies pretend we can do without them!
Owners of the UK’s last remaining coal power stations are in line to be paid record sums to keep the lights on as energy prices reach fresh highs, and could be pushed even higher by lower wind power.
Coal plants have been called on to supply power steadily in recent months, through one of the least windy summers on record since 1961 and sharply rising prices in the wholesale energy market.
The UK’s electricity system operator (ESO) spent more than £86m last week alone to keep the lights on, which involved making payments of up to £4,000 a megawatt-hour for fossil fuel power stations to generate electricity at short notice, including the West Burton plant in Nottinghamshire and a coal unit at the Drax site in North Yorkshire.
Britain has largely been weaned off coal power in recent years, but the remaining plants are available on standby to accept eye-watering offers from National Grid ESO at times of need, such as during cold spikes or low wind conditions . The Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant near Nottingham is also in line to benefit from record power prices this week.
The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station near Nottingham is among the coal-fired plants to benefit from record energy prices.© Photograph: eye35.pix/Alamy The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station near Nottingham is among the coal-fired plants to benefit from record energy prices.
The price of electricity on the UK’s main power auction rose above £400 a MWh for the first time on Monday, while the price of gas surged to a record of 150 pence a therm.
The increases follow market highs last week. Experts predict UK wholesale energy prices will climb higher in the days ahead owing to forecasts of low-wind speeds, which will limit the country’s renewable energy generation.
The price for electricity during Tuesday evening’s peak power demand hours has reached a new record of £1,750 a MWh, more than 2,900% higher than the average price over the last decade, according to Bloomberg data.
Prices have soared in recent months owing to a global gas market surge, which followed a cold winter in the northern hemisphere that left gas storage facilities depleted. The record gas price has made electricity more expensive in the UK, where almost half of all electricity is generated in gas power plants.
In addition, the UK has faced a “perfect storm” of power plant outages and low wind speeds that has forced energy prices higher despite demand “not being very high at the moment”, according to Rajiv Gogna, a partner at LCP Energy Analytics.
Phil Hewitt, a director at the energy consultancy EnAppSys, added that Wednesday and Thursday looked even more volatile than the start of the week, “so we suspect that this is not the end of the high prices”.
The record market prices are expected to lead to hikes in household energy bills through until 2022, plunging more than people in the UK into fuel poverty for the first time and causing many small energy suppliers to go bust.
Clare Moriarty, the chief executive of Citizens Advice, said it was deeply concerning that energy prices were continuing to rise, “meaning we’re likely to see yet another hike in bills next year”.
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New CO2 monitoring credit card enables tracking of ‘carbon footprint on every purchase’ – ‘Monitors & cuts off spending when we hit our carbon max’
For fanatics only
Get ready for a Chinese-style social credit system scoring when it comes to your personal spending habits and how they impact “climate change.” A new credit card called Doconomy, has launched that is “working in tight collaboration with Mastercard” and an alliance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is now available so you can monitor your personal CO2 budget on every purchase you make.
The new CO2 monitoring Mastercard called Doconomy debuted in order to enable “all users to track, measure and understand their impact by presenting their carbon footprint on every purchase.” The credit cards feature the slogan on them reading “DO. Everyday Climate Action” and have a personal pledge on the rear of the card boasting: “I am taking responsibility for every transaction I make to help protect the planet.” The Mastercards feature the UN “Global Climate Action” logo on them as well.
The World Economic Forum praised Doconomy. “While many of us are aware that we need to reduce our carbon footprint, advice on doing so can seem nebulous and keeping a tab is difficult. DO monitors and cuts off spending, when we hit our carbon max,” the World Economic Forum wrote on the Doconomy CO2 monitoring website.
The Doconomy credit card website explains: “With fat, sugar and salt levels labeled on food we buy, why shouldn’t our CO2 emissions be just as visible?” asks the Doconomy website. “This type of information shouldn’t be a premium or luxury that consumers pay for, but rather an essential part of every shopping journey.” The website details how the credit card will help consumers “understand their impact by presenting their carbon footprint on every purchase.”
Mathias Wikström, the CEO of Doconomy, explained, “Reducing carbon emissions needs to be prioritized by all parties. At Doconomy we are proud to engage and educate around our lifestyle’s impact on the planet…The financial sector has developed a tremendous efficiency. Now that same force can address the planetary fragility.”
This new CO2 monitoring credit card follows on the heels of the new study in the Journal Nature in August 2021 calling for “personal carbon allowances” that would monitor individuals’ CO2 emissions through smart meters and tracking apps.
Doconomy’s new CO2 monitoring card boasts that it has started “providing 90 million consumers with carbon footprint insights.” The credit card was launched with the aim of “educating all consumers around climate impact information as a first step towards driving awareness around the climate crisis.” The Doconomy CO2 credit card website claims it is the “largest initiative ever taken by a bank in educating its users on the impact of consumption.”
“Working in tight collaboration with Mastercard, setting a global standard for carbon calculations on everyday transactions, and other frontrunners like Klarna in banking, Doconomy aims to reach 1 billion users by COP26 in November,” the Doconomy CO2 credit card website explains.
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Trudeau pledges to cut Canada's oil emissions even as country keeps pumping more
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to reduce Canada's oil sector emissions starting in 2025 looks unlikely to slow the growth of crude production, environmental activists and oil companies say, raising questions about how effectively the pledge will help meet the country's goals to slow climate change.
Trudeau is in a close race with the Conservatives, and some voters are demanding decisive climate action
He promised late last month, if re-elected on Sept. 20, to immediately cap emissions from the oil and gas sector, which is responsible for 26% of national emissions, and require lower emissions in five-year intervals, starting in 2025.
The sector's emissions have stayed roughly flat since 2014, although oil sands emissions have risen.
The pledge would force the world's fourth-largest oil and gas producer to shift focus away from curbing emissions mainly on a per-barrel basis to cutting absolute emissions. Countries with much smaller production, including Denmark and France, have banned oil and gas exploration, while Norway's oil industry has voluntarily pledged to cut absolute emissions 40% by 2030 from 2005 levels.
The Canadian government has authority to set emissions levels, but it has less ability to influence oil production, which Trudeau's pledge does not address.
Regardless of who forms the next government, Canada is likely to keep raising oil production to satisfy growing global demand, while also cutting emissions, said Tim McMillan, president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
"Canada should play a larger role in global supply," he said.
Canadian oil production will expand for nearly two more decades, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) forecast last November.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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