Technicolour Thailand is back after a black-clad mourning year for late king

BANGKOK: Thailand officially ended a year of mourning for its late King Bhumibol Adulyadej yesterday, marking a return to colours for some after a monotone year during which many wore black from headto-toe out of respect for their revered monarch.

Hundreds of thousands of people thronged Bangkok’s historic quarter to bid farewell last week to King Bhumibol, who died in October 2016. His 90 milliondollar funeral, full of pomp and ancient ritual, took place over five days.

His remains were brought to their final resting place within Bangkok’s Grand Palace on Sunday. Portraits of the bespectacled late king, who became a father figure for many during a seven-decade reign, were hung across Thailand. The blackand-white funeral bunting that had hung on the gates of Bangkok’s Government House for a year was taken down yesterday and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha made a televised announcement to mark the official end of the mourning period.

“The government would like to thank officials, both soldiers and civilians ... and the more than 10 million Thais who came to pay respects to the royal body over the past year,” Prayuth said.

May Kanokwattana, 29, an office worker, wore bright yellow as she waited at the Siam BTS, a major Bangkok transport interchange.

“I wore black for one year. I needed to show my sorrow. Today is the first day I am wearing a different colour,” May said. — Reuters

Carbon dioxide levels grew at record pace in 2016, UN says

GENEVA: The amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere grew at record rate in 2016 to a level not seen for millions of years, potentially fuelling a 20-metre rise in sea levels and adding 3 degrees to temperatures, the United Nations said yesterday.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main man-made greehouse gas, hit 403.3 parts per million (ppm), up from 400.0 in 2015, the UN World Meteorological Organisation said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

That growth rate was 50 percent faster than the average over the past decade, driving CO2 levels 45 per cent above pre-industrial levels and further outside the range of 180-280 ppm seen in recent cycles of ice ages and warmer periods.

“Today’s CO2 concentration of ~400 ppm exceeds the natural variability seen over hundreds of thousands of years,” the WMO bulletin said.

The latest data adds to the urgency of a meeting in Bonn next month, when environment ministers from around the world will work on guidelines for the Paris climate accord backed by 195 countries in 2015.

The agreement is already under pressure because US President Donald Trump has said he plans to pull the United States out of the deal, which seeks to limit the rise in temperatures to ‘well below’ 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times.

Human CO2 emissions from sources such as coal, oil, cement and deforestation reached a record in 2016, and the El Niño weather pattern gave CO2 levels a further boost, the WMO said.

As far as scientists can tell, the world has never experienced a rise in carbon dioxide like that of recent decades, which has happened 100 times faster than when the world was emerging from the last ice age.

Scientists know prehistoric levels from tiny air bubbles found in ancient Antarctic ice cores, and they can derive even older data from fossils and chemicals trapped in sediment. — Reuters