Climate Trace: Tracking CO2 emissions from humans and animals in the South of the ErdHOR5 era

As COP15 kicks off, researchers and policy experts are concerned that countries still disagree on too many issues to secure a deal that will protect species and ecosystems effectively. Nature compared the extent of the crisis and what scientists say should be done to succeed.

There have been some bright spots over the years. Australia, under the leadership of a newly progressive government, doubled its planned cut to 43 percent below 2005 levels. A handful of other countries, including Chile, which is working to enshrine the rights of nature into its constitution, have already promised more cuts or say they will soon. Most of the updates are from smaller offenders, and Australia is one of them, that are trying to catch up after previously submitting goals that were woefully lacking in detail. “A lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked,” Jansen says.

The wins put the emitters in a good position to make good on their promises. Fransen points to the United States, where the recent Inflation Reduction Act represented a massive step toward meeting its pledge of a 50 percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels. But the US still isn’t on track to reach that commitment. Further upping the ante on its goals this year would “strain credibility,” she says, given the nation’s political gridlock.

Fransen is one of the people in the business of keeping track of all those emissions plans. It’s tricky to take stock. Measuring how much carbon nations emit is one thing. The effects of emissions on the climate will be shown in a number of years.

It can take a while to find out how much CO2 humanity is producing, or whether nations are keeping their pledges. That’s because the gas is all over the atmosphere, muddying the origin of each signal. Natural processes also release carbon, like decaying vegetation and thawing permafrost, further complicating matters. It’s like trying to locate a leak in a swimming pool. Researchers have tried pointing satellites at the Earth to track CO2 emissions, but “if you see CO2 from space, it is not always guaranteed that it came from the nearest human emissions,” says Gavin McCormick, cofounder of Climate Trace, which tracks greenhouse gas emissions. “That’s why we need more sophisticated methods.” For instance, Climate Trace can train algorithms to use steam billowing from power plants as a visible proxy for the emissions they’re belching. Some scientists have been using weather stations to monitor local emissions.

Climate-driven disasters, pleas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the creation of a new global weather early warning system are some of the warnings that have been made in today’s international climate negotiations.

The United Nations, which organizes annual climate negotiations, says about 44,000 people are attending this year’s meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. That includes leaders from many countries. To cut greenhouse gas emissions, and pay for the costs of climate change, they have two weeks.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres did not mince words in his opening remarks. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” he warned.

The global population is expected to hit 8 billion during this climate meeting, he said. “How will we answer when baby 8-billion is old enough to ask ‘What did you do for our world?’ when you had the chance?” asked the UN Secretary-General.

Extreme storms and floods are things that the United Nations plan to warn people about. It is called Early Warning for All.

The new plan calls for $3.1 billion to set up early-warning systems over the next five years in places that don’t already have them, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable countries and regions. More money will be needed to maintain the warning systems longer-term.

Multiple world leaders voiced their frustration that wealthy countries, including the United States, are not paying enough for the costs of climate change. Developing countries are at the talks pushing for compensation for the damages from extreme storms and rising seas.

The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, went one step further in her opening speech to fellow leaders. She called out corporations that profit in our fossil-fuel intensive economy, including oil and gas companies themselves.

“We would like other organizations and communities to see where they are vulnerable to climate change and take steps to become more resilient,” said Lake in a news release.

The Climate Risk and Resilience Portal will initially provide information about temperature, precipitation, wind and drought conditions. There will be more risks in the coming months.

Why did COP27 kick off? The impact of climate change on the UK, the UK and the European Union on the forests and climate leaders’ partnership

More than two dozen countries say they’ll work together to stop and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030 in order to fight climate change.

Chaired by the United States and Ghana, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership includes 26 countries and the European Union, which together account for more than one-third of the world’s forests.

The COP26 conference in Glasgow last year resulted in 141 countries agreeing to conserve forests. However, the U.N. said on Monday that not enough money is being spent to preserve forests, which capture and store carbon.

The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) ended last Sunday morning with researchers mostly frustrated at the lack of any ambition to phase out fossil fuels.

Some delegates struggled to find reasons to be cheerful about the slower pace of decarbonization as they called for the phase out of fossil fuels. The energy crisis was blamed on the lack of progress on fossil fuels.

The attendance of a record 45,000 people at COP27 raises the question of whether such a format is appropriate to tackle a planetary emergency. “The negotiations that are happening are completely devoid of reality,” says Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment, an environment research organization in New Delhi.

She fears that the meeting’s purpose was lost due to value in bringing people together to share ideas and build momentum. I’ve never seen anything like this before. She says that the whole thing has been reduced into a spectacle.

The people who attended the first ever talks described disbelief as the government spent days haggling over a single word in the document.

The way the IPCC is set up means that if governments want its advice, they must make a formal request. It’s been long since that request is now due. Blutus Mbambi, co-founder of the Centre for Climate Change Action and Advocacy in Lusaka, Zambia, tells Nature that it was shocking to see how long negotiators in Sharm El-Sheikh spent in debates over the text, and how little evidence they had before them to make their decisions. Research needs to start getting match fit by the next round.

LMICs and China were confident that the creation of a new fund to compensate for loss and damage due to climate change was on the agenda of the conference.

COP27 saw little by way of new dedicated funding for food systems from governments. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it would spend over one billion dollars over four years to help small farmers deal with the effects of climate change. “Every moment the world delays action, more people suffer, and the solutions become more complex and costly,” the foundation’s chief executive Mark Suzman said in a statement.

US climate envoy John Kerry came to the conference against a fund and said funds already existed to pay for climate-related losses. US negotiators also opposed the suggestion that high greenhouse-gas emitters should accept liability for their historical emissions, fearing this could lead to claims running potentially into trillions of dollars.

The European Union was also sceptical initially, but eventually changed its position, which put pressure on the United States to follow. The fine print — including how much will go into the fund and who will contribute — will have to be discussed at next year’s conference.

It has taken thirty years to get to this point due to arguments between richer and poorer countries on a bunch of issues. A lack of agreed definitions of what constitutes climate finance is just one of the reasons for these.

Despite the fact that the negotiations received a boost after the G20 summit in Indonesia where wealthy countries agreed to provide $20 billion to help Indonesia off coal, the focus was on the European rush for natural gas.

Germany has signed a deal with Egypt to advance green hydrogen as well as exports of liquified natural gas, and other governments and companies are courting projects in countries such as Senegal, Tanzania and Algeria.

European leaders insist that these measures are short-term fixes that won’t detract from their long-term commitments, but the optics are very bad, says Narain. The higher income countries used to say that fossil fuel projects in lower income countries would not be funded. Everybody is asking for more supply.

The failure to rein in fossil-fuel interests could also undermine the success of loss-and-damage negotiations, says Joab Okanda, senior Africa adviser for the advocacy organization Christian Aid, based in Nairobi. More fossil fuels cause more loss and damage.

Mohamed Salem Nashwan, who studies construction engineering at the Arab Academy of Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Cairo, is not confident that there will be much progress on fossil fuels at COP28, which is due to be held in Dubai next year. He says the host is linked to fossil-fuel industries.

The food crisis isn’t about money, nor is climate finance a problem for LMICs and low- and middle-income countries

The new additions are welcome, says Claudia Sadoff, executive director of CGIAR, a global network of agricultural research centres, but she adds that “the text on the food crisis is not supported by actions that need to be taken”.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that between 29% and 39% of the global emissions are caused by food systems. “The opportunities for ‘carbon farming’ and land-use change to make a contribution to [climate] mitigation are ignored,” says von Braun.

Arguments over money resurface at every COP. Doubtless they will return at COP28, which is due to be held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in a year’s time. The size of the loss-and-damage fund, who will contribute and which countries will benefit are all yet to be discussed.

The IPCC has done such a role before. In 1998, it established an expert task force on accounting for greenhouse-gas emissions, to bring consistency to an array of different national methodologies. In 1995, it assessed the literature on whether humans are causing climate change and agreed with the phrase: “The balance of evidence suggests a human influence on global climate.” The first legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions was made after that, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Donor countries, for example, count money that has been pledged or promised, say for investment in flood defences or wind energy. But low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) would prefer to count only money that has actually been received by projects on the ground, often a much smaller amount. Donors also count loans — which account for the lion’s share of climate finance — whereas LMICs would prefer to count only grants or other money that does not have to be repaid. Then there’s the question of scope. If a new housing development in an area of high temperatures is fitted with special cool roofs, say, some would like to count the whole development as climate finance, whereas others would say just the roof part qualifies.

The need for global leadership in climate negotiations: a multipurpose fund for bio-diversity, and how to share it fairly and equitably

The task of getting a deal over the line at the COP15 is not easy, with many unresolved and disputed issues in the text. What’s needed above all is global leadership to empower national negotiators to reach a strong deal, including a new fund of some kind for biodiversity. More than 90 heads of state and heads of government have signed a pledge to tackle the nature crisis. At the time, only Trudeau has confirmed that he is to attend in person.

If we intend to limit global warming and avert the worst impacts of climate change, we must protect and restore our northern forests. The same thing is true for wetlands, grasslands, temperate and tropical forests, marine ecosystems and even landscape architecture in urban areas. The recently announced White House nature-based solutions roadmap is an encouraging start.

But when it comes to getting stalled negotiations motoring again, the scale of support by world leaders that was a feature of climate’s road to Paris is currently lacking.

Change needs time to come. There is a possibility of nature being on the verge. Of 20 decadal targets to preserve nature that were set in Aichi, Japan, in 2010, not a single one had been fully met by 2020. More species are now at risk of extinction, because of inadequate funding and lack of regard for the rights of Indigenous peoples. Huge impacts on human wealth and health from the loss of planet Earth are looming ever larger. The last three years have seen four difficult rounds of negotiations attempt to agree on a framework to replace Aichi. Hundreds of issues remain unresolved.

A second major sticking point is how to fairly and equitably share the benefits of digital sequence information — genetic data collected from plants, animals and other organisms. Communities in biodiversity-rich regions where genetic material is collected have little control over the commercialization of the data, and no way to recoup financial or other benefits. A multipurpose fund for bio-diversity could provide a simple and effective way to share the benefits of these data and support other conservation needs of LMICs.

Climate Change and the Survival of the Toad: The Impact of the Brazilian Prime Minister on the Nature of Biodiversity and the Conservation of the Earth

There is a good chance of a breakthrough because of the change in leadership in Brazil. Conservation organizations such as the wildlife charity WWF have accused the world’s most biodiverse nation of deliberately obstructing previous negotiations, holding up agreement on targets such as protecting at least 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030. But Brazil’s incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has signalled that the environment is one of his top priorities. Although he does not take over until January 2023, he is thought to be sending an interim team of negotiators to Montreal.

As this vitally important convention gets underway, here is what we know: Because of human activity, life on Earth is undergoing an extinction crisis approximately 1,000 times faster than natural rates, according to a landmark study published in Conservation Biology. One million species face extinction at our hands, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform. According to the Science paper, North America has lost 29% of its birds since 1970, and half of all birds worldwide have declined over the same period.

The at-risk group are the salamanders and corals. A global assessment shows that more than a quarter of the earth’s animals are at risk of extinction.

The toads were thought to be extinct until the year 2000, when some were spotted by a team led by a herpetologist. The researchers found that the infections with chytrid were caused by the same fungus that has destroyed amphibian populations around the world. Kusrini says that climate change is probably making life hard for the tiny toad, which got its common name from the crimson, splatter-like spots covering its body. Warm weather can stimulate fungal outbreaks and shift the timing of behaviours, such as the toads’ breeding season, making the amphibians vulnerable.

Global warming, which has been raising sea temperatures, is also responsible for harming coral reefs around the globe (see ‘Threat assessment’). Over a period of 9 years, up to 2018, 14% of the world’s coral died out — a massive problem, because today, coral reefs support one-quarter of all marine species.

The Biodiversity of an Ecosystem: What Is It Tells Us? A Newer Look at What Happens When Diverse Ecosystems Break Down

It’s difficult to predict, because doing so requires knowledge of which species are present in a particular ecosystem, such as a rainforest, and what functions they have, says Shahid Naeem, an ecologist at Columbia University in New York City. Much of that information is often unknown. Some scientists claim that less biodiversity is not good at capturing resources and turning them into food and fuel.

Neither are less-diverse ecosystems as good at decomposing and recycling biological materials and nutrients. For example, studies show that dead organisms are broken down, and their nutrients recycled, more quickly when a high variety of plant litter covers the forest floor4. Ecosystems with low biodiversity also have low resilience — they are not as able to bounce back after a perturbation or shock, such as a fire, as more-diverse systems are, Naeem says.

He says that parts of the system won’t function efficiently if they are lost. The rock solid science is behind it.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04370-4

Species loss in Central America and the role of exotic predators in the control of the Malaria problem: the needs for a quantified framework

Ecosystems also provide clean water and can sometimes prevent diseases from spreading to humans. The services get worse when species are lost. Many insects, like roaches and termites, are considered pests when it comes to the treatment of the salamanders. Malaria cases have gone up in areas of Central America where the amphibian population has gone down. Kusuki says that people use more pesticides to kill the insects because they rise in numbers.

The framework draft calls for halving the introduction of species that are not native to the area. Some estimates suggest that invasive predators, such as cats and rats, are responsible for more than half of all extinctions of birds, mammals and reptiles7.

It’s important that nations agree on a framework with at least some quantifiable targets, so that progress can be measured, and so that countries can be held accountable if they fail to meet their targets, researchers say. Pimm believes that they will make a long list of waffle. We need some sort of quantification.

Wild Things, Wild Places: Adventurious Tales of Wildlife and Conservation on Planet Earth (with an appendix by Jane Alexander)

Editor’s Note: Jane Alexander is former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. She has served on the boards of Audubon, Wildlife Conservation Society and the American Bird Conservancy. Alexander is the author of a book called Wild Things, Wild Places: Adventurous Tales of Wildlife andConserve on Planet Earth. She is also an Academy Award-nominated actress. Her views are not reflected in this commentary. CNN has more opinion articles.

From my home in southwest Nova Scotia, I look out on the warming and rising Atlantic Ocean with alarm. The kelp forest, which is a nursery to numerous aquatic species, was failing to deal with the heat this summer. This continued decline in the aquatic environment.

The beach by my home was a place of worship for birds, many of them succumbing to their own flu, which wreaked havoc on seabirds throughout Canada.

Meanwhile, my local spruce trees and other conifers are giving way to deciduous trees, ending much of the seed cone production that rodents, birds and insects depend on.

Steven Guilbeault, the Canadian environment minister, considers the COP15 to be the most significant biodiversity conference ever held. At a meeting of the legislature, he said that the framework had taken a step forward in history.

Our own lives are supported by the holes in the fabric of life on Earth. We rely on Earth’s diverse and varied form of life for food, medicine, clean air and water, our mental health, inspiration and materials for great feats of art and engineer, pure joy and recreation, and so much more.

There is hope. In my lifetime, for example, bald eagles, peregrine falcons and ospreys have rebounded sharply from mid-20th century population crashes that resulted from widespread use of the insecticide DDT, which caused birds’ eggshells to thin and break. Banning the pesticide led to their recovery.

The Role of Respect, Innovation, and Cooperation in Conserving and Preserving the Environment and Biodiversity of World Governments and NGOs

The countries need to protect the global flora and fauna in Canada. There are three steps we can take to get there.

Too often, governments and NGOs still fail to honor and invest in indigenous peoples’ rights and expertise across the board. We have the power to change this.

Third, world governments must fulfill their obligations in the face of extraordinary circumstances. Too much is at stake and apathetic half-measures simply won’t do. We need robust, meaningful commitments coming out of Montreal.

Another example of ambitious thinking and action is the 30 by 30 initiative, which challenges world governments to protect 30% of lands and oceans by 2030. More than 100 countries are in support of this global goal.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/opinions/cop15-world-biodiversity-alexander/index.html

A United Nations Framework for Biodiversity Protection and Development: Progress Report on the Beaver Dam, Montreal, Canada, June 13 – 2025

At my Nova Scotia home, I’ve found a partner in restoration and rejuvenation: a beaver, who took up residence in my pond. There is a flourishing market for small fish, lizards, turtles, and insects because of the beaver dam. Beavers, Canada’s national emblem, were once threatened with extinction by overhunting for their pelts. Life finds a way if we give it a chance.

MONTREAL — Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world.

The draft calls for raising at least $200 billion by 2030. it also calls for raising more than $500 billion for nature from a variety of sources. The framework for the financing package states that at least $20 billion will be given to poor countries annually by 2025 or more than what is currently provided. The number would increase to $30 billion a year by the year 2030.

Some advocates wanted tougher language around subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world. The document only calls for identifying subsidies by 2025 that can be reformed or phased out and working to reduce them by 2030.

Overall, the deal marks progress toward tackling the problem but it is not a drastic change that scientists were hoping for. I am not sure that it has the strength to stop the activities that do the most harm.

Many of the officials from 190 countries agree that protecting biodiversity is a priority, with many comparing those efforts to the climate talks that ended in Egypt last month.

Goals for 30×30: A key issue for many countries in the epoch of progress over the UN Convention on Biodiversity

The financing was one of the main issues that delegates from 70 countries walked out of negotiations on Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

Pierre du Plessis said that the key to reaching agreement in the UN was a balance of unhappiness. “Everyone got a bit of what they wanted, not necessarily everything they wanted. Let’s see whether there is a spirit of unity.

Others appreciated the document acknowledging the rights of Indigenous communities. In the past, indigenous rights were often ignored while the larger discussions only included a reference to their traditional knowledge. The framework will give Indigenous peoples a say in decision making.

The Wildlife Conservancy and other environmental groups were worried that the draft would put off the goal of stopping the extinction of species, preserving the integrity of the ecosystems, and maintaining the genetic diversity within populations. They fear that timeline is not ambitions enough.

There is a provision in the deal which states that at least 30 percent of land, inland water, and coastal and marine areas will be protected by the year 2030. In recent years, without an international agreement, some governments and businesses have pushed to achieve the target, often referred to as “30×30.” Even though the US and the Vatican are not formally members of the UN Convention on Biology, the Biden administration has a goal of preserving 30% of US land and water by 2030. The Bezos Earth Fund is giving $1 billion to 30×30 initiatives.

The 30×30 target on social media is a big green lie according to some human rights advocates. The non government organization Survival International says that the land grab will force millions of indigenous people off their ancestral lands.

The task of making progress is even harder now that the framework is a start, all while attempting to avoid the harms of the past.

It really felt like a championship game heading into extra time, Deutz said. The next phase of hard work already beckons for the global biodiversity community.

A United Nations Framework for Biodiversity Financing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a representative of the Natural Environment Fund

At several points during the United Nations summit, which ran from 7–19 December, arguments over details threatened to derail a deal. In the final hours of negotiations, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) objected to how the framework would be funded. The gavel was brought down on the agreement by the China’s environment minister.

The deal is so weak on tackling drivers of biodiversity loss because it doesn’t set a specific target for commercial fishing and agriculture or call out the most damaging industries, that it won’t make a difference, according to researchers.

The ecologist at the National University of Crdoba, in Argentina, said she wanted more ambition in the targets to address those drivers.

Stuart Pimm, head of Saving Nature, a non-profit, says the framework is a positive start with clear targets that will allow us to understand progress and reasons for success.

A brand new fund for biodiversity financing should be established by low and middle-income countries. The minister from Gabon told Nature that the current Global Environment Facility is slow to distribute funds and that it is hard for LMICs to access.