Climate change Tag

Speaking with video At the UN climate summit in New York last week, Chinese President XI who air conditioned his country’s climate ambitions. While the stated goals may not have been aggressive because some ecologists would like, XI would at least confirm the Chinese green commitment.

“Despite some countries that pass against the trend, the international community should remain on the right path, maintain unwavering self-confidence, unwavering action and uninhabited efforts,” he said. Each reference to Donald Trump and the United States is certainly intended (although not explicitly).

March transition is long, but it has to start somewhere. And with this approach, China has already taken a lot of steps.

Beijing Stands (mostly) alone

There is no race today that would be a climate leader. The world is far from the COP26 conference in November 2021. year, when resolving threats, climate change appeared to be a global priority. A few months later Russia attacked Ukraine; The next energy crisis and inflation hit the air conditioning from many political programs.

While Joe Biden and the United States responded to the Law on Inflation Trap, which is the priority of investment in renewable energy, Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement – the second time in accordance with the local agreement – the second time. The European Union was also stunned: Too internally divided, did not exceed the proclamation of the line at the intention at the UN climate summit. There were not many movements from India, a country of nearly 1.5 billion people. And the emissions of other nations are simply too small for matter.

Given this background, it becomes easy to understand how, in this scenario, China has become a global leader in a clean energy transition. The XI speech did not enter much detail, but he mentioned all the main points of the Chinese strategy.

Cut the show between 7 percent and 10 percent until 2035. years

In New York, XI recognized the importance of transition, and the first time agreed to reduce gas emissions in the greenhouse, and they do not simply promise to slow them down. The Chinese goal is between 7 percent and 10 percent reduction by 2035. years.

How do you assess these plugs? While the obligation is unclear, it is still significant; Earlier, the regime only promised to until 2030. reach maximum emissions, tie the reduction in economic growth. In XI’s speech, you will see the Chinese transition from developing countries in the role in the role of more on the figure of industrialized countries, whose emissions decreased.

Slopo is going?

It should be emphasized that the reduction of emissions at the pace promises Beijing means a drop of about 1 percent per year. According to the analysis of William Lamb at the Institute Potsdam to explore the IMPACT climate, this is a slower pace than those maintained by most industrialized nations. Italy, for example, reduced them by an average of 3.2 percent every 12 months from his top in 2006. years; United Kingdom on average 2.8 percent since 2004. years; France by 2.3 percent.

“China often promised a little and achieved a lot,” Notes Andreas Sieber, an emergency director for politics and campaigns for the global climate of the non-profit 350.org, suggested that China could overpay. The lack of democracy in the country also means that its policies are not at risk of reversing each electoral cycle.

About renewable selections

Xi Jinping’s speech involved the commitment of reaching 3,600 gigavat (GW) installed wind and solar capacity by 2035. year, six times more than 2020 figures in the country. This is already a leading country in terms of installed renewable government, and the giant on the front of technology, and universe environmentally friendly and climate technological research in full speed and attracting scientists from abroad in numerous fields. He also announced the commitment for an energy mixture with more than 30 percent of renewable energy sources.

On electric vehicles

Mobility is a long question for China, which moved from the bicycles, sainted until the 1990s, to the mass car. Pictures of the 2008 Olympics in 2008. They are unforgettable: Smoga blanket bury the city. The government has been in recent years with regard to powerful reinforcement of electrical mobility: At the climate summit, the plans for the development of EVS “mainstream”, it prevailed in sales. It helps to have ready access to rare minerals of the earth that are necessary to build batteries. And for that state, the state would be with giant car companies such as BODD and CATL, which deliver batteries to about 50 global brands, including Tesla and Volkswagen.

In the carbon market

XI said his intention to expand the National Carbon Trading Market Market Market on the multiple sectors of intense emissions than today.

On forests

China has made additional obligations on forests, which writes will achieve from 34 billion cubic meters.

China has reshaped the green technology market.

Skeptics expect wider measures and the cloak of true global leadership from China, this is not a specially conceived title these days – especially if the US remains the reverse climate courses. As a senior counselor Bernice Lee of Think Tank Chatham House Notes, China invested 625 billion dollars last year in the transition of pure energy; It is almost a third of the quotal total number.

Not only: The research and huge adoption of renewable technologies have led to a dramatic drop in prices, and the Chinese large domestic market is an amazing mover. “The growth of Chinese renewable energy energy transforms the global economy and replaces coal in the domestic market,” Lee says.

It is hope that other countries will convince that commitment, the Chinese example will follow, not America.

Foundation created Eric Schmidt, former executive director of Google will finance the project for sending drones in the rough ocean around Antarctica to collect data that could help solve the key climatic puzzle. The project is part of the financing package announced today from Schmidt Sciences, which Schmidt and his wife Wendy have created to focus on research projects in the global carbon cycle. He will spend $ 45 million in the next five years to finance these projects, including investigating Antarctica.

“Ocean provides this really critical climate regulation service to all of us, and yet we do not understand that,” says Galen McKinley, Professor of the Environmental Science and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and one of the main scientists on the project. “I’m just excited to see how much this data can really withdraw the community of people trying to understand and quantify the ocean model.”

The world’s oceans are its greatest carbon sinks, are absorbed about a third of the CO2 people in the atmosphere every year. One of the most important carbon sinks is the southern ocean, the body of water around Antarctica. Despite the fact that the second least of the five oceans in the world is, the southern ocean is responsible for about 40 percent of all acean-shaped absorption on the ocean.

Scientists, however, know a little slightly why, exactly, the southern ocean is such a successful carbon sink. What more, climate models that successfully predict the absorption of oceans in the form of otherwise elsewhere in the world significantly departed when it comes to the southern ocean.

One of the biggest problems with understanding more about what is happening in the southern ocean is simply a lack of data. This is very grateful in extreme conditions in the region. A passage from Drake who works between South America and Argentina, is one of the most severe parts of the ocean for ships, due to incredibly strong currents around Antarctica and dangerous winds; It is even spent in winter months. The ocean also has a particularly pronounced cloud blanket, says, which makes satellite observation difficult.

“The southern ocean is really far away, so we just didn’t do a lot of science there,” McKinley says. “It’s a very big ocean, and this is a dramatic and scary place.”

For a living Earth, the oceans are necessary. Not only supply us with food and resources, they also play a big role in maintaining a stable climate: between one quarter to one-third of all coins₂ Emited by people, which would otherwise stay in the atmosphere for further intensification of climate change, are captured and stored by the sea.

But the oceans are in trouble. Already confronted by human pressures – including excessive fishing, pollution, growing temperatures and acidification – world sea must see the burden that is placed in the next few decades. This would have huge negative consequences for biodiversity as well as for people around the world.

The International Team, led by the National Center for Analysis and Synthesis of the University of California, Santa Barbara, models that the pressure was placed on the world’s oceans in the future. Their analysis of projects Yes by around 2050. year, cumulative pressure on the oceans could increase 2.2 to 2.6 times compared to today. The fastest increase in influence will appear near the equator, on columns and in coastal areas.

“Our cumulative impact on the oceans, which is already significant, doubles by 2050 – in just 25 years,” Ben Halpern, the marine ecologist and the director of the NCEAS explained in the University statement. “It’s sober. And he’s unexpectedly, and not because the influences will increase – that’s not surprising – but because it will increase so fast.”

Halpern and his team, in cooperation with Nelson Mandela in South Africa, integrated 17 sets from all over the world to create a comprehensive global model to the extent of the impact of human activities on the ocean. Last studies often dealt with the impacts of specific activities in isolation; The current study integrates these activities to the clearer emphasis on the future vision of the marine environment.

What appears is a picture of further deterioration in already very vulnerable areas, such as coastal waters, as well as the rapid spread of the influence over the tall sea, which are relatively stable so far. In equatorial regions, the influence of human activities could increase almost three times between the 2040s and 2050s.

Specific main influences include growing sea temperatures, refusing sea resources due to fishing, growing seabed levels, sheaving seawater (which is the consequence of the co₂ Solvement in the sea), and algalic flowers due to the influx of nutrients that invest in the ocean, mainly from the farm. Although these loads are serious in isolation, their combined effects could exceed ecosystem resistance and lead to irreversible losses.

Researchers warn that this cumulative impact will then hit the company, for example, by killing food in tourism and fishing, flooding of low-letter countries and destroying coral reefs that protect the shores of storms and tsunami. There will be direct influences on human resources and the economy, leading to regional economic instability, Halpern said.

Earths in the development and small island nation, they are especially economic to take measure adjustments, despite their often severe dependence on sea resources. Cumulative effects will therefore appear unequable throughout the countries. Ocean change is not just environmental issues; It is a matter related to the stability of the international community as a whole.

However, the projections of this study are only opportunities; Such a future does not have to arrive. Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for climate change and ocean acidification, systematically manage fishery resources, avoiding coastal pollution, and the preservation of coastal mongoons and wet salts can help alleviate deterioration. There is still a space to minimize the impact.

This story originally appeared Wired Japan And it was translated from Japanese.