‘Warming could put SDGs beyond reach’

Carbon emissions underestimated

LONDON, Oct 31, (RTRS): As global warming brings wilder weather, more harvest failures and the risk of growing migration and poverty, “sustainable development as we think of it today may be out of reach”, a top UN specialist in climate change losses warned on Wednesday.

Nations around the world in 2015 agreed to pursue a set of “sustainable development goals” (SDGs) aiming to end poverty and hunger, and provide safe drinking water and affordable clean energy to all, among other targets, by 2030.

But with the planet heating up fast, serious threats – from expanding cities facing rising seas and floods to small islands watching their coral reefs die and water supplies turn salty – mean those “worthy” global goals may no longer be the right focus, said Koko Warner of the UN climate change secretariat.

“These (climate) changes out in the world are in some cases unfolding at a pace that’s a bit surprising,” the economist told a conference on researching climate-related damage at Sweden’s Lund University.

With Indonesia already planning to shift its flood-prone capital and other nations grappling with problems such as worsening water shortages, pushing to meet the SDGs could be a matter of “trying to solve the problems of the 20th century” even as grave new 21stcentury challenges loom, she said.

Leaders and societies seeking to protect the well-being of their people may need to refocus on tougher issues, she said.

Those could include what lifestyle changes people are willing to make to reduce climate risk and protect things they prize, such as securing their children’s futures or being able to stay in their home nations rather than be forced to move.

“We need to understand what people value and what’s acceptable or

areas near plants that emit it for potentially elevated cancer risks.

Exposure to dangerous levels of the gas can cause cancer including leukemia and lymphoma, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Earlier this year, Illinois authorities closed a large plant owned by sterilization company Sterigenics after detecting high outdoor not,” said Warner, who leads work on climate change impacts and risks for the UN climate body.

As more protesters take to the streets around the world, demanding faster climate action, governments will need to make policy shifts that are acceptable to both activists and the broader public – and “that’s a hard needle to thread”, she said.

Dealing with growing climate threats also might require reshaping international institutions, she added.

The UN climate secretariat, for instance, which oversaw the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, focuses primarily on nationallevel action on climate threats.

But with cities growing so fast – about 70% of the world’s population will be urban by 2050, the United Nations predicts – much of the work to cut carbon emissions and build climate-safe infrastructure is happening at city level, Warner said.

Processes

Today’s international processes to fight climate change do not necessarily focus “where action needs to occur”, she added.

Reinhard Mechler, a scientist who looks at socio-economic aspects of disasters and climate change, said discussions on climate-related losses will need to explore more deeply damage to culture, traditions and heritage, as well as economies.

Already, there is a move to examine “existential” threats, said Mechler of the Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

UN climate talks in 2013 established the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, to explore ways of dealing with climate-related harm to people, property and nature.

That mechanism is up for review at the next round of UN climate talks, scheduled for December.

Digging into the wider implications

levels of the gas. This month, the company announced the plant would not reopen.

Another Sterigenics plant in Georgia has been closed for maintenance since August after state officials detected potentially dangerous emissions at the Atlanta facility. The company has been working to reduce emission levels from the plant.

Georgia had gone to court earlier this of climate losses is important now as they have started to surge, Warner said.

From small islands facing a decline in tourism as coral reefs deteriorate to Germany seeing its famed forests die off, “we are talking about profound change”, she noted.

Also: KUALA LUMPUR:

The amount of planet-warming carbon emitted by the world’s lost tropical forests has been under-reported as estimates failed to take into account the longer-term effects of tree destruction, researchers said.

A new international study re-evaluated the carbon impacts of forests that were destroyed or degraded between 2000 and 2013, adding up to 49 million hectares (121 million acres), roughly the size of Spain.

The carbon released from losses to those “intact forests” will amount to more than six times previous estimates when additional emissions caused by changes to the forest up to 2050 are included, it found.

Intact forests are large areas of continuous forest with no signs of intensive human activity, like agriculture or logging.

“Once you’ve caused the initial round of damage, you have committed to a lot of further emissions in the future once the forest has opened up,” said study co-author Tom Evans of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

“It’s a bit like if you’re injured at work you have lost earnings for years into the future,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Those carbon lost earnings turn out to be the biggest part of the picture for these intact forests.”

Trees suck carbon dioxide from the air, and store carbon, the main greenhouse gas heating up the Earth’s climate. But they release it when they are cut down and are burned or rot.

month seeking a temporary closure of the Covington plant. Gov Brian Kemp said in a statement that Monday’s agreement “allows for cleaner operations and improved, long-term accountability at BD’s medical sterilization facilities in Covington” and another location. (RTRS)

Workers protest rules:

Thousands of Dutch construction workers converged on The Hague on Wednesday to protest restrictions they say are crippling their industry, the latest large-scale demonstration against the government’s environmental policies.

A central park in The Hague filled up early with trucks, diggers, cranes and construction workers in orange high-visibility jackets. The demonstration disrupted traffic around The Hague for hours, forcing police to block the main highway into the city to prevent even more trucks from arriving.

The industry is protesting government limits on nitrogen emissions and rules about transporting sand and earth contaminated with tiny amounts of chemicals known as PFAS, which are used in firefighting foam, nonstick pots and pans, water-repellent clothing and many other household and personal items.

The protests underscore how difficult it is for the Dutch government to push through reforms aimed at cleaning up the environment and reducing emissions without hurting essential industries like construction and agriculture. (AP)