24 September 2014
Multinational oil and gas companies, major producing states, and over two dozen cities joined forces to slash methane emissions in a partnership that can have an immediate impact in reducing global warming as part of UN Secretary-General’s strategy to tackle climate change. (more…)
22 November 2013
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his address to the high-level segment of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change taking place in Warsaw, Poland, that ‘climate change threatens current and future generations’. He also said that ‘all of us in this room share a momentous responsibility (…) We must rise to these challenges with wisdom, urgency and resolve to address climate change’. He expressed deep concern that the scale of efforts being undertaken by the international community are still insufficient to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
27 September 2013
On 27 September 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its fifth report on climate change. The report says that scientists are 95 percent certain that humans are the ‘dominant cause’ of global warming since the 1950s.
The panel warns that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all aspects of the climate system. To contain these changes will require ‘substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions’.
Source: BBC | IPCC climate report: humans 'dominant cause' of warming
7 December 2012
The New York Times reported that global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2, the most significant heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere) were at a record level in 2011. Researchers believe the global emissions of carbon dioxide are likely to hit record again in 2012, because efforts to limit emissions seem to be failing.
Due to continued increase of global emissions, the objective of limiting global warming is difficult to achieve.
Source: The New York Times | With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming
6 December 2012
Rich countries are to blame for climate change and should take the lead in forging a global climate pact by 2015, a deadline that “must be met,” the head of the United Nations said on 5 December 2012. In addition, he said that it was “only fair and reasonable that the developed world should bear most of the responsibility” in fighting the gradual warming of the planet.
The comments were made as the Doha Climate Change Conference draws to a close on Friday 7 December 2012. It opened on Monday 26 November 2012 in Doha, Qatar to produce agreement on an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires later this year.
Source: Guardian | Ban Ki-moon: rich countries are to blame for global warming