Global Warming or Climate Change

Member states report a 23% drop since 1990, but the pace is slowing and several countries have missed renewable and energy efficiency targets   A huge solar installation in Les Mees, in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. France is predicted to miss both renewable and energy efficiency targets. Photograph: Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters Greenhouse gas emissions  in Europe have plunged to the lowest level ever recorded after the EU’s member states reported an estimated 23% drop in emissions between 1990 and 2014. The bloc has now overshot its target for 2020 of cutting emissions by one-fifth – at the same time that its economy grew by 46%, according to the EU’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Canete . “We have shown consistently that climate protection and economic growth go hand-in-hand,” he said. “This is a strong signal ahead of the Paris climate conference.” Diplomats are currently meeting in Bonn  to try to thrash out a negotiating text for the Paris summit, amid conce

Waters in the north-west Atlantic have warmed 99% faster than the rest of the world’s oceans in the past decade due to changes in the Gulf Stream and Pacific   Cod quotas have been cut in the Gulf of Maine but stocks kept falling because of the rapidly warming waters. Photograph: Rick Price/CORBIS A rapid warming of the Gulf of  Maine  off the eastern United States has made the water too warm for cod, pushing stocks towards collapse despite deep reductions in the number of fish caught, a US study has shown. Maine lobster and Cape cod under threat from rapidly warming seas   Read more The Gulf of Maine had warmed faster than 99% of the rest of the world’s oceans in the past decade, influenced by shifts in the Atlantic Gulf Stream, changes in the Pacific Ocean and a wider trend of climate change, it said. Scientists said the findings showed a need to take more account of changing water temperatures in managing global fish stocks usually based on historica

 Defence ministers of neighbouring Chad and Niger described the growing desertification of Africa’s Sahel region as a multiplier of threats. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer A UN conference on climate in Paris  this year will also be a “conference for peace”, given that global warming threatens the world’s security, a top French official said on Wednesday. Government officials from several African and island nations gathered in Paris on Wednesday to discuss the implications of climate change for defense issues. “Climate and international security are closely linked,” French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said. Major droughts, floods and famines force people to migrate and “increase the risk of conflicts”, he said. In addition, making the transition to renewable energy sources will help ease power struggles over the control of oil and natural gas resources, Fabius added. Everything you need to know about the Paris climate summit and UN talks   Read

Analysis of nations’ carbon emissions pledges ahead of Paris climate summit shows they would see 2.7C warming by 2100, breaching 2C ‘safety’ threshold   A coal power plant in Germany. Pledges to cut carbon emissions by 140 countries are welcome but not enough to avert dangerous global warming, one analysis has found. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP Plans submitted by 140 nations to limit their greenhouse gases would go some way towards tackling climate change, but not enough to prevent the planet from warming by well over 2C compared to pre-industrial times, experts say. The plans by countries from Albania to Zimbabwe, led by top emitters China and the United States, were submitted by an informal United Nations deadline on Thursday as building blocks towards a climate accord that negotiators will try to clinch at a summit in Paris in December . A Climate Action Tracker (CAT) by four European research groups projected the plans, if implemented, would limit average temperature ris

An international conference of top judges hears call for 'judicial determination' of the scientific evidence 8 5 0 42 55 Email Poles apart: in 2013, the year scientists had forecast that the Arctic would be 'ice free’, its thickness increased by a third    Photo: Alamy By  Christopher Booker 1:43AM BST 11 Oct 2015 9586 Comments We might think a proposal to an international conference of top judges - assembled in the highest courtroom in Britain - for a ruling to 'scotch' claims that challenge the 'consensus' on manmade global warming was odd enough to be worthy of front-page coverage. Last week I mentioned that the Prince of Wales had sent a message to this conference calling for the UN’s forthcoming climate meeting in Paris to agree on “a Magna Carta for the Earth”. But only a series of startling posts by a sharp-eyed Canadian blogge