This Week on Earth: Oct 23-29
Fall foliage on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. (Lindsey Nickel/ION)
Worldwide
The U.N. published their annual Emissions Gap Report on Oct. 24, issuing a warning that it’s “climate crunch time” for reducing carbon emissions. Findings conclude that the planet is on track for 3.1°C of warming by 2100 with current emission trends.
The report parallels a recent sobering discovery by an international team of researchers that all trees and land absorbed a net-zero amount of carbon in 2023.
“The message of today’s Emissions Gap Report is clear,” UN Secretary General António Guterres stated in a speech Thursday. “We are teetering on a planetary tight rope.”
The UN contends that it is still possible to limit the increase in global average temperatures to 1.5°C. However, meeting that target would require a “whole-of-government” approach and a reformation of global financial architecture.
The report comes ahead of the UN’s annual climate conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan next month. Negotiations will focus on updating each nation’s emissions-cutting strategy, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which are due February 2025.
Samoa
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) took place in Apia, Samoa last week. Climate change was on the top of the agenda.
Many of the 56 countries in the association are small island nations concerned with the existential risk posed by rising sea levels. A recent publication from NASA stated that Pacific Island nations are expected to experience at least 15 cm (6 in.) of sea level rise in the next 30 years.
Senior officials from Vanuatu and Fiji pressed Australia, Canada and the U.K. at the meeting, backing a report from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative that underlines the wealthy countries’ significant role in global emissions.
Negotiations culminated in the adoption of the Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration for One Resilient Common Future, which outlined goals for marine protection.
“The [declaration] must be a line in the sand from which the world collectively transforms ocean exploitation into protection and sustainable stewardship,” said Samoa PM Naomi Mata’afa.
South Carolina
Tree felling for a controversial mega-development in Charleston, South Carolina continued this week after the South Carolina Court of Appeals denied an injunction to halt progress on Oct. 10.
The project, a 9,000 acre housing development located on a historic floodplain, paused development several times last year due to concerns over the potential impact on habitats for threatened and endangered species.
After a year of surveys, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined this summer that the 18,000 home project would have a minimal effect on the populations of two local endangered species: the northern long-eared bat and the red-cockaded woodpecker.
Local environmental groups remain apprehensive about the project. “This is one of the most ecologically valuable, undeveloped tracts left in coastal South Carolina,” said Christopher DeScherer, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s South Carolina division.