Top International Energy Agency (IEA) officials offered a bleak assessment Tuesday of the prospects for global progress on preventing big temperature increases. [The Hill]
Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, said Tuesday that he sees “no momentum” on climate, noting that prospects for a legally binding global agreement are currently a “stretch.”
He said climate change is “slipping off the policy radar screen.”
According to study released late Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters the ocean is already rising faster than the most recent authoritative report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was projecting as recently as 2007. [Climate Central]
Though it’s tricky to link a single weather event to climate change, Hurricane Sandy was “probably not a coincidence” but an example of the extreme weather events that are likely to strike the U.S. more often as the world gets warmer, the U.N. climate panel’s No. 2 scientist said Tuesday. [Washington Post]
The United Nations sounded a stark warning on the threat to the climate from methane in the thawing permafrost as governments met for the second day of climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar. [Guardian]
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest slowed dramatically last year as the government stepped up efforts to detect and halt illegal farming and logging, though some environmental groups warn that recent changes to the law protecting the forest might slow further progress. [Wall Street Journal]
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire on Tuesday ordered state agencies to take initial steps to combat ocean acidification, making it the first state to address problematic changes in ocean chemistry that threaten shellfish farms, wild-caught fish and other marine life. [Los Angeles Times]
Scientists said on Tuesday they had proof that climate change was hitting the Perigord black truffle, a delight of gourmets around the world. [AFP]
Beneath a 50-foot-thick sheet of ice, the salty, frigid Antarctic Lake Vida is somehow teeming with life. That’s according to a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Los Angeles Times]