Today, we celebrate our tiny yet mighty friends – the bees! 🐝✨ These incredible pollinators play a crucial role in our ecosystems, supporting the growth of plants, flowers, and crops that feed our planet. 🌸🌿
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the hard work of bees and raise awareness about the importance of protecting their habitats. 🏡💚 Small actions like planting bee-friendly flowers, avoiding pesticides, and supporting local beekeepers can make a big difference. 🌺🌼
Join us in buzzing about bees and spreading the word on how we can all contribute to a bee-friendly world! 🐝💛
A group of activists is fighting for the right to scrutinize Russia’s climate policies, particularly its substantial methane emissions, in court. Russia’s constitutional court is considering a claim brought by 18 individuals and the NGO Ecodefense. They argue that the Russian state’s insufficient action to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions violates their rights to life, health, and a healthy environment.
Another organization that planned to join the case, Moscow Helsinki, was shut down last year by a different Russian court. It was the country’s oldest human rights group.
The claimants initially asked Russia’s supreme court to examine the national climate policy, but it refused. They then brought a new claim to the constitutional court, which was responsible for upholding the country’s constitution. While the court has decided on some environmental cases in the past, including state liability for the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, it has not yet addressed climate breakdown. Read More
The record-breaking heatwave that scorched the Philippines in April would have been impossible without the climate crisis, scientists have found. Searing heat above 40°C (104°F) struck across Asia, causing deaths, water shortages, crop losses, and widespread school closures.
A recent study revealed that extreme heat was 45 times more likely in India and five times more likely in Israel and Palestine due to human-caused global warming. The scientists emphasized that the high temperatures exacerbated the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where displaced people are living in overcrowded shelters with limited access to water.
This study highlights the severe impacts of human-caused global heating, with only 1.2°C of average warming above preindustrial levels over the past four years.
Another “impossible” heatwave hit West Africa and the Sahel in late March, causing deaths and reaching 48.5°C in Mali. Deaths from extreme heat are poorly recorded in many countries, but previous research suggests millions have died prematurely over the past two decades. In Europe, where records are more comprehensive, heat-related deaths rose by 25% in the past decade.
The scientists warned of worse to come. If global temperatures rise to 2°C, repeats of April’s extreme heat will occur every two to three years in the Philippines and every five years in Israel, Palestine, and neighbouring countries. Hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists recently told the Guardian that they expect global inaction on ending fossil fuel burning to result in at least 2.5°C of warming.
“From Gaza to Delhi to Manila, people suffered and died when April temperatures soared in Asia,” said Dr. Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, part of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study team. “The additional heat, driven by emissions from oil, gas, and coal, is resulting in death for many people.”
Dr. Carolina Pereira Marghidan, a heat risk consultant at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, added, “The heat really compounded an already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with displaced populations having limited to no access to food, water, or healthcare and generally living in overcrowded shelters that trap heat or living outdoors.”
This underscores the urgent need for global climate action to mitigate these increasingly frequent and severe weather events. Read More
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported significant increases in hunger and disease across Latin America, attributed to a year marked by unprecedented heatwaves, floods, and droughts. According to the WMO, Latin America sandwiched between unusually hot Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, likely endured tens of thousands of climate-related fatalities in 2023, along with at least $21 billion (approximately £17 billion) in economic losses, and experienced the most substantial nutritional deficit of any region globally.
The ongoing climate crisis, fueled by human-induced global warming coupled with natural phenomena like El Niño, continues to wreak havoc, with recent devastating floods in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, resulting in at least 95 deaths and extensive damage to farmland. This follows the hottest April on record globally, part of a larger trend that has seen global heat records shattered month after month for nearly a year.
The report highlights that Latin America and the Caribbean are among the hardest hit, with 13.8 million people currently facing severe food insecurity due to a combination of climate disasters and socioeconomic challenges. This situation underscores the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to address the root causes and effects of climate change in the region. Read More
Climate scientists have issued a stark warning in a recent survey by The Guardian, suggesting that global heating is likely to exceed internationally agreed limits, leading to devastating climate events such as catastrophic heatwaves, floods, and storms.
Five companies contribute a staggering 24% of global plastic waste. The study analysed waste collected from 2018 to 2022, identifying over 900,000 pieces with visible branding. Coca-Cola stands out, responsible for 11% of global branded plastic pollution.
Scorching weather has baked Europe in more days of “extreme heat stress” than its scientists have ever seen.
According to the EU’s Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization, Heat-trapping pollutants that clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the highest or second-highest levels ever recorded.
Europeans are suffering from unprecedented heat during the day and are stressed by uncomfortable warmth at night. The joint State of the Climate report from the two organisations found that the death rate from hot weather has risen 30% in Europe in two decades. Read More
Governments of wealthy nations are being urged by civil society experts and economists to commit significantly more funds to overseas aid, specifically through the World Bank, to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis. The International Development Association fund, a World Bank branch that provides loans and grants to poorer countries, currently holds approximately $93 billion (£75 billion).
However, economic experts suggest that this amount needs to be nearly tripled by 2030. This week, during the World Bank’s annual spring meetings in Washington DC, government representatives are expected to discuss new aid commitments. Both the World Bank and its global counterparts, along with the International Monetary Fund, face considerable pressure to demonstrate their capacity to lead the global shift towards a low-carbon economy. Read More
Average incomes are projected to decrease by nearly a fifth by 2046 due to the climate crisis, according to a comprehensive study recently published in the journal Nature. This study forecasts that rising temperatures, increased rainfall, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events will lead to $38 trillion (£30 trillion) in annual damages by mid-century.
The study highlights that this economic toll, significantly higher than previous estimates, is already inevitable due to substantial past emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The cost of these damages is estimated to be six times greater than the expense of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Read More
Researchers at James Cook University in Australia have uncovered a vast network of undocumented “ghost roads” penetrating untouched rainforests in the Asia-Pacific region, leading to significant deforestation.
Using Google Earth to analyze tropical forests on the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and New Guinea, the team documented approximately 1.37 million kilometres (850,000 miles) of roads—three to seven times the amount officially recorded in road databases. These ghost roads, which include bulldozed tracks through natural rainforest and informal roads on palm oil plantations, are strong indicators of imminent rainforest destruction, according to the study published in the journal Nature. The researchers described these roads as “among the gravest of all direct threats to tropical forests.” Read More
