Situation Report

Image: An employee holds a gas pump at a petrol station in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo

reuters.com - November 16th 2016 - Amanda Cooper

The International Energy Agency expects global oil consumption to peak no sooner than 2040, leaving its long-term forecasts for supply and demand unchanged despite the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement entering into force.

The Paris accord to cut harmful emissions seeks to wean the world economy off fossil fuels in the second half of the century in an effort to limit the rise in average world temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

But while demand for oil to power passenger cars, for example, may drop, other sectors may offset this fall.

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irinnews.org - November 14th 2016 - Lou del Bello

After the shock win in the US presidential election of climate change denialist Donald Trump, what was expected to be an uneventful round of UN talks in Marrakesh has suddenly taken on far greater importance.

Behind closed doors, diplomats are scrambling to anticipate Trump’s next move. What was billed as a technical conference on the procedural issues of implementing the Paris Agreement – which came into force just this month – is now being cast as a desperate attempt to safeguard global action.

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COP22 President and Morocco’s Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar (left) with COP 21 President and France’s environment Minister in charge of climate-related international relations Ségolène Royal at the opening of COP 22 in Marrakesh, Morocco. Photo: UNFCCC

un.org

13 November 2016 – Ten days after the entry into force of the landmark Paris Agreement, dozens of heads of State and Government are expected on Tuesday at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 22), which started in Marrakech, Morocco, on 7 November 2016.

Before the Conference wraps up on 18 November, State Parties hope to define the rules for the accord and to lay out a viable plan for providing at least $100 billion a year to developing countries to support climate action.

Adopted by 196 States Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last December, the Paris Agreement, so-named after the French capital where it was approved, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It entered into force in record time on 4 November 2016.

New study provides one of the strongest cases yet that the planet has entered a new geological epoch

Fishermen float onboard a boat amid mostly plastic rubbish in Manila Bay, the Philippines. Humans have introduced 300m metric tonnes of plastic to the environment every year. Photograph: Erik de Castro/Reuters

CLICK HERE - The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene

theguardian.com - by Adam Vaughab - January 7, 2016

There is now compelling evidence to show that humanity’s impact on the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and wildlife has pushed the world into a new geological epoch, according to a group of scientists.

The question of whether humans’ combined environmental impact has tipped the planet into an “Anthropocene” – ending the current Holocene which began around 12,000 years ago – will be put to the geological body that formally approves such time divisions later this year.

The new study provides one of the strongest cases yet that from the amount of concrete mankind uses in building to the amount of plastic rubbish dumped in the oceans, Earth has entered a new geological epoch.