Environmental
-
Study offers verdict for China’s efforts on coal emissions
Researchers from China, France and the USA have evaluated China’s success in stemming emissions from its coal-fired power plants (CPPs). CPPs are one of the main contributors to air pollution in China, and their proliferation over the last 20 years has had significant impacts on air quality and public health. These impacts led authorities to […]
-
Paris Agreement hampered by inconsistent pledges, new research finds
Some countries’ Paris Climate Agreement pledges may not be as ambitious as they appear, a new study has found. The Paris Agreement takes a bottom-up approach to tackling climate change, with countries submitting pledges in the form of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to greenhouse gas emissions. However, writing today in Environmental Research Letters, researchers from […]
-
Post-Soviet food system changes led to greenhouse gas reductions
Changes in agriculture, trade, food production and consumption after the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a new study has found. From 1991 to 2011, there was a net emissions reduction of 7.61 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalents – the same as one quarter of the […]
-
Selective logging will not be enough to sustain timber production in Amazonia
Amazonian forests are unlikely to provide enough timber to meet current demand over the long term, even with the use of improved logging practices. That is a key finding of a new study led by the Tropical managed Forests Observatory (TmFO), published today in Environmental Research Letters. Dr Camille Piponiot, junior scientist from the University […]
-
Could climate change make Siberia more habitable?
Large parts of Asian Russia could become more habitable by the late 21st century due to climate change, new research has found. A study team from the Sukachev Institute of Forest, Krasnoyarsk Federal Research Center, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the National Institute of Aerospace, USA, used current and predicted climate scenarios to […]
-
How could a changing climate affect human fertility?
Human adaptation to climate change may include changes in fertility, according to a new study by an international group of researchers. They found that, through its economic effects, climate change could have a substantial impact on fertility, as people decide how much time and money they devote to child-rearing, and whether to use those resources […]
-
Summer extremes of 2018 linked to stalled giant waves in jet stream
Record breaking heatwaves and droughts in North America and Western Europe, torrential rainfalls and floods in South-East Europe and Japan – the summer of 2018 brought a series of extreme weather events that occurred almost simultaneously around the Northern Hemisphere in June and July. These extremes had something in common, a new study published today […]
-
NASA study verifies global warming trends
A new study by researchers from NASA has verified the accuracy of recent global warming figures. The team used measurements of the ‘skin’ temperature of the Earth taken by a satellite-based infrared measurement system called AIRS (Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder) from 2003 to 2017. They compared these with station-based analyses of surface air temperature anomalies – […]
