The third most important contributor to global warming isn’t included in official tallies of greenhouse gases or mentioned in plans to cut them. And it’s time the world did something about it, according to a research analysis published Thursday in th... [4102 chars]

A major source of global warming has been left out of official climate plans, with indirect greenhouse gases contributing roughly 0.3 C of warming to date.

The Japan Times 

Scientists urge countries to look beyond CO2 to tackle warming

Planetary heating is intensifying and key climate indicators are deteriorating, top scientists said Thursday, warning that funding decisions affecting Earth observation systems in the United States and other countries threaten efforts to track global... [4504 chars]

Planetary heating is intensifying and key climate indicators are deteriorating, top scientists said Thursday, warning that funding decisions affecting Earth observation systems in the United States and other countries threaten efforts to track global warming.

Phys.org

Record heat pushes human-driven warming to 1.39C, 1.5C could arrive by 2030

In a new paper published in Science, leading scientists and climate policy experts show that 15% of current global warming (0.3°C) from human emissions stems from pollutants that fall outside most existing climate policy frameworks. Most of these ove... [4276 chars]

In a new paper published in Science, leading scientists and climate policy experts show that 15% of current global warming (0.3°C) from human emissions stems from pollutants that fall outside most existing climate policy frameworks. Most of these overlooked pollutants are called "indirect greenhouse gases" and include carbon monoxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and molecular hydrogen.

Overlooked pollutants are responsible for about 15% of current global warming, study shows

The Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) report found that the world’s remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C has shrunk to just 130 billion tonnes of CO2, enough for only about three years at current emission levels, underscoring th... [2652 chars]

The latest Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) report warns that human activities have pushed global warming to 1.37°C, drastically shrinking the remaining carbon budget.

The Financial Express

Climate alarm: Earth’s heat imbalance at record high as warming nears 1.5°C threshold

If you feel like things have been getting more expensive, you’re not imagining it. The average American household spent $15,400 more for basic necessities in 2025 than it did in 2019, according to research from the Common Sense Institute, a non-parti... [2951 chars]

A new survey reveals 67% of American voters believe global warming is affecting the cost of living in the U.S.

TIME

How Climate Change is Making Your Life More Expensive

In 2022, about 149 million children under age five worldwide suffered from childhood stunting. A critical marker of chronic undernutrition, stunting is more than a metric of physical height. It represents a lifelong constraint on human potential, car... [6544 chars]

In 2022, about 149 million children under age five worldwide suffered from childhood stunting. A critical marker of chronic undernutrition, stunting is more than a metric of physical height.

News-Medical.net

Global warming increases childhood stunting rates in poor communities

PARIS (FRANCE) - Planetary heating is intensifying and key climate indicators are deteriorating, top scientists have said, warning that funding decisions affecting Earth observation systems in the United States and other countries threaten efforts to... [4524 chars]

PARIS (FRANCE) - Planetary heating is intensifying and key climate indicators are deteriorating, top scientists have said, warning that funding decisions affecting Earth observation systems in the United States and other countries threaten efforts to track global warming.

Bangkok Post

Scientists warn of record heat as climate monitoring threatened

NEW DELHI: Earth's climate system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate as human activity pushed global warming to 1.37 degrees Celsius last year, with the figure projected to surpass the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees in about four ... [3905 chars]

NEW DELHI: Earth's climate system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate as human activity pushed global warming to 1.37 degrees Celsius last ye.

Times of India

Paris accord threshold could be breached in 4 years as warning accelerates: Analysis

NEW DELHI: Earth's climate system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate as human activity pushed global warming to 1.37 degrees Celsius last year, with the figure projected to surpass the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees in about four ... [3907 chars]

Paris accord threshold could be breached in 4 years as warming accelerates: Analysis

Climate change mitigation is to a considerable degree a highly politicized, and often politically polarizing, issue. As previous research has shown that public perceptions of political polarization can undermine support for climate change policy, it is important to understand what factors shape levels of perceived polarization on climate change mitigation. This paper investigates: (1) the extent to which the public perceives political parties to be polarized on climate change mitigation, (2) how these perceptions relate to expert estimations of political polarization, and (3) what individual level factors explain variations in levels of perceived polarization on climate change mitigation. By combining public opinion and expert survey data, the results show that public perceptions of polarization on climate change generally are lower than expert assessment, but also that there is a considerable variation in public perceptions. This variation in perceptions is found to mainly be driven by how individuals view the climate policy position of the party they identify with, their attachment and ideological proximity to the party, as well as their level of interest in politics. The results underscores the importance of understanding the formation of public perceptions of climate change politics well in order to enact effective and legitimate climate change policy.

Climate change mitigation is to a considerable degree a highly politicized, and often politically polarizing, issue. As previous research has shown that public perceptions of political polarization…

Exploring public and expert perceptions of political polarization on climate change policy

This report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey – Climate Change in the American Mind – conducted jointly by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Interview dates: April 17-26, 2026. Interviews: 1,068 adults (18+), 930 of whom are registered to vote. Average margin of error for registered voters: +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Principal Investigators:
Anthony Leiserowitz, PhD
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
John Kotcher, PhD
George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication
Seth Rosenthal, PhD
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD
George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication
For all media and other inquiries, please email:
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication: Emily Richards (e.richards@yale.edu) and Michaela Hobbs (michaela.hobbs@yale.edu)

This report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey – Climate Change in the American Mind – conducted jointly by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Interview dates: …

Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2026

Nearly 90% of U.S. Christian religious leaders believe humans are driving climate change. When churchgoers learn how widespread this belief is, they report taking steps to reduce its effects, as we found in our research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We examined data collected in 2023 and 2024 from a nationwide survey of 1,600 religious leaders in the United States. The sample included religious leaders from fundamentalist and evangelical churches, Baptists, Methodists, Black protestants, Roman Catholic denominations and more – all recruited to match the proportions of churches across the country. The survey assessed religious leaders' beliefs about climate change and whether they discuss climate change with their congregations.
According to that data, while the overwhelming majority of Christian religious leaders accept the human-driven reality of climate change, nearly half have never mentioned climate change or humans' role in it to their congregations. Further, only a quarter have spoken about it more than once or twice.
Why it matters
When it comes to climate change, faith communities are often seen as divided. There is an assumption that religious conservatism and climate skepticism go hand in hand. This assumption is based on religious beliefs such as that the Earth was created by God and therefore humans cannot and should not alter it, along with rejection of climate science and diminished concern about climate change.
We then surveyed a sample of Christian Americans from major denominations across the country and found they think roughly half of Christian leaders in the U.S., and in churches like their own, deny that humans cause climate change. Given the actual number is closer to 1 in 10 based on the data we examined, it appears Christians overestimate the prevalence of climate denial among their leaders by around five times the level found in polling.
Churchgoers who think their religious leaders don't believe humans cause climate change report being less likely to discuss it with fellow congregants and less interested in attending events that aim to address climate change or raise awareness of the issue.
The research also tested what would happen if we informed churchgoers of the true level of consensus among their religious leaders who accept that climate change is driven by humans. In a brief survey, Christians were told the percentage of Christian leaders nationally, and among their denomination specifically, who accepted that human activities cause climate change. As a result, we found, their perceptions and attitudes toward climate change shifted in a variety of ways.
Specifically, churchgoers who were informed about the actual consensus among religious leaders in accepting climate change were more likely to state that 'taking action to reduce climate change' was consistent with their church's values.
Churchgoers who received this information were also more likely to feel it would be inconsistent with their church's values to vote for a political candidate who opposes actions that could slow climate change.
These findings highlight that religious leaders have a unique power to influence climate action – but only if they let their beliefs be known.
What's next
These findings are not focusing on what is going on in specific churches and denominations. We provided churchgoers only with information on the consensus of acceptance of human-made climate change among Christian religious leaders across the U.S. A natural next step is to conduct research with religious leaders to examine the impact of their communication directly with their congregations, including if they convey the consensus described in this work.
Religious leaders, often viewed as moral guides, have the ability to reshape climate discourse within faith communities. If they vocalize their acceptance of human-made climate change, we believe they can correct widespread misperceptions, foster dialogue and encourage action in ways that secular authorities may struggle to achieve.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Stylianos Syropoulos, Arizona State University and Gregg Sparkman, Boston College
Read more:
Stylianos Syropoulos is affiliated with DearTomorrow, the See Change Institute, the Applied Cooperation Initiative and Think Beyond The Pump.
Gregg Sparkman receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Churchgoers who think their religious leaders don't believe humans are driving climate change are less likely to discuss it with fellow congregants or take action to mitigate the effects.

Research shows that a majority of Christian religious leaders accept the reality of climate change but have never mentioned it to their congregations

Two Taubman College faculty members have been recognized by the Tulane Prize for Climate Change Curriculum in the Built Environment with Honorable Achievements for Climate Change Curriculum.
El Hadi Jazairy, director of the Master of Urban Design and professor of architecture, received an Honorable Achievement for Climate Change Curriculum in Urban Design for Post Carbon Necklace: Designing for Climate Change in Boston. The studio focuses on how urban designers can help dismantle spaces of environmental violence and structural inequity brought on by climate change in the northeastern U.S. Through design informed by their own travel experiences, students articulated a concrete set of proposals to decarbonize the city of Boston, amplify public space, and better equip communities for the forthcoming effects of climate change.
Kathy Velikov, FAIA, associate dean for research and creative practice and professor of architecture, received an Honorable Achievement for Climate Change Curriculum in Innovative Studio Pedagogy for Arid Logics: Climate Coexistence in Desert America. The thesis seminar and studio explores architectural and infrastructural development as a territorial and environmental agent in the Las Vegas Valley. This once lush meadowland faces threats of water scarcity and increasing urbanization. Working across territorial, infrastructural, and material design scales, students developed design strategies embedded within ecological paradigms and speculative scenarios to envision future climate-conscious and place-based architectural practices for coexistence with the changing climate and communities in the region. This seminar and studio, including travel to the region, was sponsored by J. Windom Kimsey, B.S.Arch '83, M.Arch '85.
The Tulane Center on Climate Change and Urbanism, within Tulane University's School of Architecture and Built Environment, hosts the Tulane Prize to honor faculty members for significant achievements in teaching climate change. The prize is awarded annually to faculty members who demonstrate excellence in the development of core and elective curriculum in climate change and the built environment.
Among an international roster of nominations, selected awardees and honorees represent benchmark contributions for their work in developing cutting-edge curriculum relating to climate change mitigation and adaptation in the training of future urban planners, architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and other allied professions of the built environment.
Read more at the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment.

Two Taubman College faculty members have been recognized by the Tulane Prize for Climate Change Curriculum in the Built Environment with Honorable Achievements for Climate Change Curriculum.

Jazairy, Velikov receive Honorable Achievements from Tulane Prize for Climate Change Curriculum

The world's hottest years over the past decade have coincided with stagnant economic productivity, rising prices and geopolitical instability.
Is this just coincidence or has the current level of climate change been one of the drivers? Climate change is often framed as a problem for the future. But how much economic damage has today's current level of ~1.35°C of warming already caused?
To answer that question, we analysed the effects of climate change to date on the New South Wales economy. The results were released today as part of a Net Zero Commission report.
We estimate climate change has already caused median losses of around 18% (probability range 4–33%) to the NSW economy, the biggest economic jurisdiction in the country. At a median 18% loss, that translates to about A$21,300 per person on average in yearly income.
We show that it's not local bushfires or flooding that are driving the majority of damage, but changing global weather that in turn affects our cost of living.
Imagine a world without climate change
Studies typically project the global economic damage that climate change will do by 2050 or 2100.
Some influential estimates have suggested climate damage would be fairly small. But our recent research and work by others shows the economic damage coming down the pipeline could be more than four times larger than previously thought.
Our research question for this report was different: 'What would the NSW economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?'
This requires a thought experiment: imagining a past where we burn fossil fuels at the historical rate, but the additional carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases do not cause changes to temperature or rainfall patterns.
Answering this question will allow us to understand the economic losses we have already endured from historical climate change.
How we did it
First, we collected data on historical economic growth and weather across the world over the past 70 years. We then modelled how weather changes (or shocks) impacted economic growth over this period. There is significant debate on how to do this, so we adopted a variety of approaches.
Then we had to plausibly guess at how the weather would have evolved in the past four decades without climate change. To create this hypothetical weather series, we simply removed any trend found in the weather data which we ascribe to human-caused climate change. This works because there is no evidence natural causes have contributed to the upward trend in temperatures.
Finally, we compared economic growth rates predicted by the models under the observed and under the hypothetical weather conditions. The contrast between the total economic production of the NSW economy in the two scenarios is the economic cost of historical climate change for a given year.
What we found
We estimate the median economic loss for NSW in 2024 was 18%. There is significant uncertainty in this figure, with the lower estimates around 4% and the higher around 33%.
The median loss figure of 18% translates into an average of $21,288 in losses per person in yearly income (in 2023–2024 dollar values). In other words, the model finds that if historical warming had not occurred then people living in NSW would each have $21,288 more dollars, on average, in their pockets every year. This amount is large enough to meaningfully improve the quality of life of the state's average household.
The models suggest the primary mechanism through which this loss has occurred is the rise in the global average temperature. When people think about losses associated with climate change in NSW, they might consider how climate change exacerbated the bushfires of 2019–20, or the floods that followed. The damages they caused are, of course, real and significant.
However, the economic models suggest the majority of the damage has come from shifts in weather globally. Given the interconnectedness of modern economies through trade and global supply chains, it is reasonable to assume that climate shocks to supply chains affect the whole globe.
How we think about climate change
When pollsters ask Australian voters what issues they care about, 'climate change' is often listed as one issue among many. Voters are asked to assess how important climate change is to them relative to the cost of living, public health, interest rates, secure employment, and other important things.
Presenting issues in this way reinforces a common misconception that they are independent, and that one can be prioritised over the other.
To the contrary, there is now good evidence that climate change is strongly related to economic outcomes, which in turn drive the cost of living, interest rates, investment in in health and education and the labour market.
It's time to stop thinking of climate change as 'merely' an environmental issue, which can be discarded when economic times are tough. Instead, we should recognise what it really is: a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.
This article is republished from The Conversation. It was written by: Timothy Neal, UNSW Sydney and Ben Newell, UNSW Sydney
Read more:
Timothy Neal receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Ben Newell receives funding from the Australian Research Council

It's time to recognise climate change for what it is. A new study shows it's a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.

Climate change has already made Australians in one state much poorer, and more's to come

A study supported by a Rutgers-led consortium shows climate change is reshaping coastal flood risks worldwide
Rising seas are increasing the frequency of coastal flooding in many parts of the world, prompting researchers to better understand the role of human-caused climate change in those regions.
Until now, scientists have had limited ability to quantify how much climate change contributes to coastal flooding at local and regional scales. But
a new study helps fill that gap by identifying the extent to which human-caused sea level rise is driving increases in extreme water levels around the globe.
'Sea level rise is making both tidal flooding and storm-driven flooding more frequent, extensive and expensive,' said
Robert Kopp
, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) at Rutgers University and a coauthor of the study. 'This work allows us to pinpoint the human role in driving these changes.'
This work allows us to pinpoint the human role in driving these changes.
Robert Kopp
Distinguished Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
The research,
published
in
Science Advances
and led by Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that conducts climate science research and public outreach, used two independent approaches to identify the role of climate change in rising sea levels. One estimated how much sea level rise resulted from warming oceans and melting land ice, both driven by human-caused warming. The other compared observed sea levels with a modeled version of the world in which climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution had never occurred.
Despite taking different approaches, both methods reached similar conclusions, providing evidence that human-caused sea level rise is responsible for much of the increase in extreme water levels observed throughout the world.
Scientists found that human-caused sea level rise is detectable at 97% of global tide gauge sites investigated and that climate change was responsible for 58% of the observed days with extreme water levels during 2000 to 2018. Averaged across all locations, climate change has nearly tripled the number of days exceeding extreme water level thresholds since the 1970s.
'This highlights how we've loaded the climate dice against not only our children and grandchildren, but ourselves,' said
Daniel Gilford
, a climate scientist at Climate Central and an author of the study. 'The effects of human-caused climate change are already here. We will continue to face growing threats like increasing coastal flood risks unless we immediately and sharply reduce our climate pollution.'
Those findings are echoed by a complementary study
published concurrently
in
Nature Climate Change
by researchers at Tulane University. That study examined the contribution of human-caused sea level rise to changes in storm-driven coastal flooding.
Together, the two studies provide some of the clearest evidence to date that climate change is increasing coastal flood risks worldwide, Kopp said.
Both studies were co-supported by MACH, a National Science Foundation-funded, Rutgers-led consortium focused on advancing the science of coastal climate risk and helping communities adapt to rising seas and increasing flood hazards. Through partnerships among researchers, practitioners and community leaders, MACH works to improve understanding of coastal change and strengthen resilience across vulnerable regions.
Explore more of the ways Rutgers research
is shaping the future
.

Rising seas are increasing the frequency of coastal flooding in many parts of the world, prompting researchers to better understand the role of human-caused climate change in those regions. Until now,…

Researchers Find Human-Caused Sea Level Rise Is Behind the Most Recent Increases in Extreme Water Levels

A fully resourced Year 7 Geography unit exploring climate systems, climate change, climate justice and sustainability through an enquiry-based approach. Students investigate how Earth's climate works, how humans are changing it, who is most affected and which solutions should be prioritised. Includes 8 lessons, a revision lesson, end-of-unit assessment and revision crib sheet.
Included:
8 PowerPoint lessons
Revision lesson
End-of-unit assessment
Revision crib sheet
DME resources and activities
Topics covered:
Weather and climate, the greenhouse effect, climate change through time, human causes of climate change, the Anthropocene, climate impacts, the Maldives, climate justice, responsibility and climate solutions.

A fully resourced Year 7 Geography unit exploring climate systems, climate change, climate justice and sustainability through an enquiry-based approach. Students inv

Complete Year 7 Geography Climate Change Unit + Assessment

The Democrats have released their much-anticipated 2024 election autopsy report. It is deservedly getting harsh criticism for dodging many of the obvious factors contributing to the Democrats' election loss—Biden's cognitive state and late withdrawal, Harris' weaknesses as a candidate, and the party's unpopular positions on immigration and cultural issues, for example.
All the report had to say about climate change was: 'Climate change and green energy transition messaging created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.' This is probably accurate, as stated.
However, I want to push back on parts of the broader 'Why did the Democrats lose in 2024?' discourse which frame climate change as a losing issue for them overall. Kate Yoder wrote a good piece for Grist with a summary and links to recent contributions to this debate.
The 'climate is the problem' discourse usually starts from one or more of the following observations:
Many Americans find climate activists annoying (and ineffective), especially the ones who use extreme tactics like vandalizing art and harassing commuters.
There is cross-pollination between progressive climate activism and other types of progressive activism (e.g., on immigration, cultural issues, and Palestine) that many Americans find annoying. Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement are Exhibits A and B here.
Most Americans prioritize affordability and other kitchen-table issues over climate change.
My issue is not with these observations, which are backed by empirical evidence. (See links above for non-exhaustive examples.)
My issue is with drawing the conclusion that climate change is therefore a losing issue for Democrats in elections. That's also an empirical claim, and all the evidence I am aware of suggests that the truth is closer to the opposite.
Americans prefer Democrats to Republicans on climate change.
I won't belabor this point too much since I wrote a previous post summarizing this evidence for the 2024 election (link below), and my research group published a report estimating the effect of climate change on the 2020 and 2016 elections. (tl;dr: The magnitude of the climate change effect is impossible to estimate precisely, but the issue unambiguously helped the Democrats in both elections, likely more in 2020 than in 2016.)
When you ask voters which party they trust more on specific issues, many polls find climate change to have the single-largest difference, favoring the Democrats. (See the graph below for an example from a 2023 poll. Here is a 2024 poll with similar findings.)
When you ask voters what their most important issues are, climate change doesn't come out on top, but it usually doesn't come out on the bottom either. (The graph below shows this in a 2024 election exit poll, for example.)
Voters' top issues, from an Associated Press 2024 exit poll, visualized by the Wall Street Journal
.
If the Presidential election were run on the question of 'Should the President do more to address global warming?', the 'yes' side would have won in a landslide in 2023 (at the height of the Biden administration's climate policy, and before inflation had come all the way down); see the graph below. This landslide would be considerably larger today (see the graph at the very top of this post), suggesting that voters do not prefer the Trump administration's approach.
Source: Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2023.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—President Biden's signature climate law—was not unpopular.
Again, I have a previous post on this.
To summarize some key points:
Of course, this doesn't mean that all Democratic climate policies are or would be popular. For example, most Americans do not want to ban fracking (which Kamala Harris publicly supported during the 2020 primary, but backed off from in 2024) or phase out gas-powered cars (which some Biden administration regulations seemed to intend). (See below.)
Most Americans want their government to address climate change, while also prioritizing kitchen-table issues.
Climate politics discourse too often gets caught between extremes, whereas American voters are consistent and clear about wanting a balanced approach—one that is serious about climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but also serious about affordability and energy security.
Roger Pielke Jr. and Ruy Teixeira conducted a detailed 2025 poll that illustrates these points nicely (and consistently with other polling on these issues). Some of their key figures and tables are shown below.
What advice would I give the parties?
Given all of the facts above, how would I advise the two parties on climate change? Here is what I wrote in my post from last year on the repeal of the IRA. My advice today would be the same.
Advice for Democrats:
1) Stick with the subsidy and industrial policy approach, but be more efficient and targeted with it, given the country's debt challenges. Alex Trembath and Ted Nordhaus had a good suggestion for how to do this. In short, they suggest shifting subsidies away from solar, wind, and electric vehicles (EVs)—since these are now mature, market-competitive technologies—and focusing subsidies on batteries, charging stations, transmission, nuclear, and geothermal, which are more immature technologies and more important bottlenecks in clean energy expansion. Permitting reform also seems like a good idea that is ripe for bipartisanship. (My colleagues and I discussed some of the IRA's transmission and regulatory challenges here.)
2) Get climate change as far away from the culture wars as you can. This means distance Democratic climate change policymaking and platform-making from the strands of climate activism that are anti-American, anti-growth, woke, etc. The culture wars were a big part of Trump's election win, and there have been studies (from my research group and others) showing that injecting identity politics reduces voter and legislative support for climate change policies.
So, no one has to 'climate hush'. Just don't talk about it in a way that makes you sound like extremists with contempt for average Americans and their other concerns.
Advice for Republicans:
1) Keep focusing on national security, fiscal responsibility (moreso than OBBB does), and making energy cheap, but consider the fact that solar, batteries, and to some extent wind, are big parts of these equations now. As Noah Smith put it recently, regarding the OBBB: 'Would you rather have cheap energy, or stupid culture wars?' Of course, Smith's advice applies to the Democrats, too, as I noted above.
2) Don't forget that a huge majority of Americans do care about climate change, want something done about it, and they support an all-of-the-above approach to energy that supports solar and wind, even if they dislike it when Democratic climate policies raise their energy costs, or they find histrionic and woke climate activism annoying.
3) Don't decimate publicly funded climate science, nor science in general. Publicly funded climate science produces extremely valuable public goods that far exceed its costs. Publicly funded science has support from large majorities of the public. Publicly funded hard sciences (including climate science) are not the primary sources of the climate alarmism and wokeness that the Trump administration is concerned about. More on this here and here.
4) Don't forget—when considering whether or not to go along with unpopular hard-line anti-renewable policies—that the President doesn't have to run for re-election in 2026 and 2028, but many of you do.
For even more information, here is my hour-length talk on where common ground on climate change seems to be in the U.S.:

Some Democratic and activist rhetoric probably alienated voters, but the climate change issue hurt Republicans, not Democrats. Voters want a common-sense approach that takes the issue seriously.

Climate change did not cost Democrats the 2024 election

This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country's largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.
The haul of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, worth 200,000 Australian dollars ($142,000), was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales state, according to Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Madagascar hissing species is one of the world's biggest cockroaches, measuring 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in length. Photos released by the department showed a shiny, brown invertebrate larger than a person's finger.
It's much bigger than the country's common Australian cockroach, which measures between 0.9 and 1.4 inches (2.3 and 3.6 centimeters) long. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its sub-tropical climates and the country is home to hundreds of species.
Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the larger exotic species were likely being sold as as a cost-effective reptile food because their large size meant fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or wood roaches to feed their lizards instead.
Both Madagascar hissing and dubia cockroaches are illegal to import into Australia. They can't be legally kept, bred or sold no matter how they were obtained, the department said in a statement.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Bay Area's best free newsletter.
Stay informed, and entertained.
Email
Sign Up
Your website
By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.
Australia has strict biosecurity controls at its borders to protect its agriculture and horticulture sectors and native wildlife from pest infestations. Those smuggling in undeclared or illegal animal, insect or plant material can be fined thousands of dollars.
Exotic cockroaches 'have not been subject to an environmental risk assessment' and they could spread disease or harm native wildlife, the statement said. Officials warned of prosecutions against those caught with the invertebrates.
A spokesperson said charges weren't laid against the Bathurst breeder. The cockroaches seized would be euthanized, the department said.

Australian officials say they confiscated more than 100,000 illegal live cockroaches from a breeder in May in the country's largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates. The haul, worth over…

Australian cockroach kingpin caught with 100,000 illegal insects in record bug bust

Human beings are an extraordinary successful species. We went from having less than million of us (all in Africa) a few hundred thousand years ago to now covering the globe at 8 billion strong. But all that success comes with a price. The energy we've harvested from the planet (mostly in the form of stored solar energy i.e. fossil fuels) has changed the atmosphere and is now pushing the climate system into an uncharted direction. Climate change poses considerable risks for the future (just ask any insurance company). The magnitude of that risk is something scientists having been trying to figure out for a few decades. Over the last year or so we've got some good news and some bad news on the climate front. Today I wanted to briefly walk you through both.
Let's start with the good news (and thank the gods for any good news about anything these days). In a paper published just a few weeks ago, scientists found that the most worst-case scenario they'd been using in their studies can be taken off the table.
So what exactly does that mean?
In order to standardize their modeling, over the last couple of decades climate scientists developed a suite of projections for how much CO2 would get dumped into the atmosphere via fossil fuel use. Since CO2 is the greenhouse gas we care about most for climate change, each of these scenarios would then get fed into climate models. The models were then used to predict what Earth would look like by the year 2100. It was like scientist's had a menu of future human fossil fuel to use in their models. That's where the good news comes from. The most extreme fossil fuel future - which led to the most extreme climate change - can now be seen as 'implausible".
Of course, this being climate change with its endless climate denial, some people were quick to claim the news as evidence that climate change was always a hoax. That, of course, is not why the team eliminated the extreme scenario. Instead, they did so for the best reasons. Things changed becuase we changed them.
Despite our general lack of doing what's needed about climate change, we have done something. We've slowed our use of fossil fuels and that reason - and only that reason - is the extreme scenario is now unlikely. It's something to celebrate.
So what's the bad news? Well while the most extreme emissions scenario is off the table we are still driving the Earth into a different climate state. A while ago, scientists and policy makers set a 1.5 degree (oC) increase in average global temperature as a red-line that should not be crossed. That number came from looking at variations in average planetary temperature over the last 12,000 years. These were always less than 2 oC. Recently it was confirmed that humanity, for the first time, crossed that red-line. It looks like we'll soon be moving past it on a permanent basis. That puts us and our descendants into truly planetary uncharted territory. That uncertain future includes 'tipping points' which could quickly and irreversibly lead to dramatic new climate states.
So, we will take our good news we can find it but there can no doubt that we are headed into an ever more climate changed world. Our work is still ahead.

The most extreme fossil fuel emission future is off the table. But we are still headed into a climate changed world.

There's Good Climate And Bad Climate News: An Astrophysicist Explains

Climate Central-led paper finds climate change tripled the number of days with extreme water-levels at worldwide locations since the 1970s.
PRINCETON, N.J., June 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As sea level rise accelerates, more and more people, ecosystems, and infrastructure are facing increasing coastal flood risks globally. Until now, climate change's influence on local and regional flood risks has been underexplored, leaving communities without vital information they need. Now, a new paper led by Climate Central helps pinpoint how much human-caused climate change is responsible for increases in extreme water levels at local and regional scales across the globe.
The new research published in Science Advances finds that human-caused sea level rise is detectable at 97% of global tide gauge sites investigated and climate change was responsible for 58% of the observed days with extreme water levels during 2000-2018. Averaged across all locations, climate change has nearly tripled the number of days exceeding extreme water level thresholds since the 1970s.
Attributable sea level rise map showing how much sea level rise globally can be attributed to climate change over 1900-2018.
"These studies highlight how we've loaded the climate dice against not only our children and grandchildren, but ourselves!" said Daniel Gilford, paper author and climate scientist at Climate Central. "The effects of human-caused climate change are already here. We will continue to face growing threats like increasing coastal flood risks unless we immediately and sharply reduce our climate pollution."
Climate Central researchers used two largely independent methods to estimate the climate change signal in sea level rise and extreme water levels at 519 tide gauge sites around the world. Results from the first method were determined by calculating attributable sea level rise from four contributing factors: thermal expansion of water, melt from mountain glaciers, and ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.
The second method compared observed sea levels from 1900-2018 to a modeled scenario of the same period but without the influence of climate-warming pollution. Similar conclusions from both methods give confidence in the overall findings — human-caused sea level rise is responsible for driving the majority of extreme water levels worldwide.
These results are further supported by the findings in a complementary new paper in Nature Climate Change by researchers from Tulane University, titled, "Human-driven sea-level rise has quadrupled the frequency of coastal sea-level extremes since 1900", released concurrently with this work. For more on that paper, please see the Tulane University press release located here.
"Sea level rise is making both tidal flooding and storm-driven flooding more frequent, extensive and expensive," said Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) at Rutgers University and a co-author of the Science Advances study. "Together, these two studies allow us to pinpoint the human role in driving these changes."
Both studies were co-supported by MACH, a National Science Foundation-funded, Rutgers-led consortium focused on advancing the science of coastal climate risk and the practice of coastal climate adaptation.
SOURCE Climate Central

/PRNewswire/ -- As sea level rise accelerates, more and more people, ecosystems, and infrastructure are facing increasing coastal flood risks globally. Until...

Human-caused sea level rise drives rapid global increase in extreme water levels during 21st century, new research finds

As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his 'Time to Wake Up' speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half. He's accused 'climate hushers' of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet.
If you had to pinpoint the moment that 'climate hushing' began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it.
'Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,' Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist.
The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice 'Don't say climate change.' A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, 'When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.' An early draft of the Democratic National Committee's autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy 'created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.'
'It's very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it's really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,' said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there's no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show.
The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That's mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It's a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don't name it as one of their top issues.
Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they're bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it's not important. 'You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,' Mildenberger said.
In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump's agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular. 'All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it's helping climate delay,' Mildenberger said.
Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are 'poll-chasing,' parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. 'Many Americans don't believe Democrats are fighters,' Whitehouse said. 'The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.' As people in the U.S. struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into.
Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it's wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. 'There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,' Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn't been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden.
'If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,' Burgess said.
Exit polling suggests there's little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered 'U.S. efforts to fight climate change' a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration — concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. 'The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,' said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator.
Harris, in other words, didn't lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn't know enough about the federal government's involvement to give the administration credit.
Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it's harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about 'message discipline,' the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise.
'So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, 'How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?'' Bennett said. 'And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it's a good thing to talk about or not.'
The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is 'cheap energy' and tying it to rising electricity bills. Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans' appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy.
'We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It's a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,' Mildenberger said. 'But we have a discourse that somehow says that it's this massive cost.'
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? on Jun 8, 2026.

The common wisdom says it's a losing issue. Evidence suggests it actually helps Democrats.

Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change?

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a nurse-led educational program designed to improve nurse managers' awareness, knowledge, and attitudes regarding climate change and its health impacts.
Background/introduction: Climate change is one of the most urgent global public health challenges, jeopardizing key determinants of health such as air quality, access to safe drinking water, food security, and adequate housing. As frontline healthcare providers, nurses are uniquely positioned to identify environmental health risks and promote climate-resilient healthcare practices. Despite this critical role, evidence suggests that nurses' awareness and preparedness for climate-related health threats are insufficient. Therefore, strengthening climate literacy among nurse leaders is essential to enhance adaptation capacity in health systems.
Methods: This study used a pretest-posttest experimental design with hospital-level randomization and included 108 nurse managers working in two public hospitals in Istanbul. Participants were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The study was conducted between March and June 2025, with data collection carried out between April and May 2025. Data were collected using a Descriptive Information Form and the Climate Change Awareness Scale (CCAS). The intervention group received 90 min of face-to-face training, including theoretical content, case-based learning, and interactive assessment, whereas the control group received a 90-min lecture after data collection on climate change and its health impacts, followed by a brief question-and-answer session. Measurements were taken at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 1 month later. Data were analyzed using Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.
Results/findings: The intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in total and subscale CCAS scores at the postintervention time point compared with baseline and the control group (p < 0.05). Although a slight decrease was observed at the 1-month follow-up, scores remained higher than pretest levels. In the control group, although small differences were observed in certain subscales in the between-group comparisons, no statistically significant within-group changes were observed between the pretest, posttest, and follow-up scores.
Discussion: The findings suggest that structured and nurse-led climate training for nurse managers has the potential to strengthen climate-related awareness and preparedness capacity.
Conclusion: Even short-term training increases nurse managers' awareness of climate change and health.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT06905548.
Keywords: awareness; climate change; nurse managers; nursing education; sustainability.

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT06905548.

A Critical Intervention for Sustainable Health: Climate Change Awareness Among Nurse Managers

Are extremes the new normal? In the alpine region, warming has increased about twice as much as the global average since the late 19th century. Switzerland is particularly affected by the impacts of climate change. This affects a wide variety of areas of society and natural and cultural areas in Switzerland. Observations show that climate change is already influencing the natural hazard situation. The Confederation is taking various measures.
Observed climate change in Switzerland
Did you know?
«In the course of global warming, the climate of many cities is shifting hundreds of kilometres south. Bern is taking a climatic journey to northern Italy / Milan.» Jean-François Bastin, Researcher for Ecosystem Ecology at the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich. If you'd like to learn more about sister cities, read the study « Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues ».
Further information

Are extremes the new normal? In the alpine region, warming has increased about twice as much as the global average since the late 19th century. Switzerland is particularly affected by the impacts of climate change. This affects a wide variety of areas of society and natural and cultural areas in Switzerland. Observations show that climate change is already influencing the natural hazard situation. The Confederation is taking various measures.

Natural hazards and climate change

By Godwin Oritse
Representatives of local and international organizations have reaffirmed their commitment to advancing community-led climate governance, adaptation, resilience building, and environmental action, with a strong focus on empowering those most affected by climate change.
The renewed commitment was announced during a high-level engagement organized by Connected Advocacy and Charger for Change Climate and Environmental Working Group. The event brought together key stakeholders to recommend strategies to strengthen the role of local communities in climate action and decision-making.
The meeting followed the official launch of the Charter 4 Change Climate and Environment Memorandum at the 64th Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB64), a key global climate forum.
According to Prince Israel Orekha, Executive Director, Connected Advocacy, the host said that the Memorandum represents a collective pledge by humanitarian, climate, and development organizations to deepen localization by recognizing local actors as equal partners in climate governance, financing, and implementation.
Orekha emphasized that sustainable climate-humanitarian solutions can only be achieved when communities on the frontlines of climate change are given greater ownership of policies and programmes designed to address environmental challenges.
He stressed the need for increased access to climate financing for local organizations and stronger collaboration among governments, development partners, and grassroots groups to build resilient communities capable of responding to the growing impacts of climate change.
The environmental expert called on all Parties and participants at SB64 to ensure that climate engagement, policy formulation, financing mechanisms, and adaptation planning reflect local priorities and address the realities faced by communities on the frontlines of climate and environmental crises.
He said:' Local communities must not be treated as mere stakeholders but as indispensable partners whose leadership is critical to the success of global climate action. Effective climate governance requires a shift from consultation to genuine collaboration, underlining the principle that 'nothing about us without us.'
As part of the event, a multimedia presentation titled 'Voices from the Ground', a Connected Advocacy Short Video Series, highlighted the experiences of communities directly impacted by climate change and the need for their voices to shape policy decisions.
The presentation emphasized that while the climate crisis is experienced locally before it becomes a global challenge, many of the solutions already exist within affected communities. What is required, the stakeholders noted, is greater recognition, increased access to resources, trust, and meaningful partnerships.
Looking ahead to future climate negotiations, the participants urged governments, donors, and international institutions to move beyond symbolic engagement and embrace genuine power-sharing with local actors.
They maintained that building an inclusive, accountable, and resilient climate movement depends on placing the needs and experiences of frontline communities at the centre of climate action and decision-making.

Representatives of local and international organizations have reaffirmed their commitment to advancing community-led climate governance, adaptation, resilience building, and environmental action, with a strong focus on empowering those most affected by climate change.

UNFCCC SB64 Conference: Stakeholders advocate community-led governance

Climate Central-led paper finds climate change tripled the number of days with extreme water-levels at worldwide locations since the 1970s.
PRINCETON, N.J., June 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As sea level rise accelerates, more and more people, ecosystems, and infrastructure are facing increasing coastal flood risks globally. Until now, climate change's influence on local and regional flood risks has been underexplored, leaving communities without vital information they need. Now, a new paper led by Climate Central helps pinpoint how much human-caused climate change is responsible for increases in extreme water levels at local and regional scales across the globe.
The new research published in Science Advances finds that human-caused sea level rise is detectable at 97% of global tide gauge sites investigated and climate change was responsible for 58% of the observed days with extreme water levels during 2000-2018. Averaged across all locations, climate change has nearly tripled the number of days exceeding extreme water level thresholds since the 1970s.
"These studies highlight how we've loaded the climate dice against not only our children and grandchildren, but ourselves!" said Daniel Gilford, paper author and climate scientist at Climate Central. "The effects of human-caused climate change are already here. We will continue to face growing threats like increasing coastal flood risks unless we immediately and sharply reduce our climate pollution."
Climate Central researchers used two largely independent methods to estimate the climate change signal in sea level rise and extreme water levels at 519 tide gauge sites around the world. Results from the first method were determined by calculating attributable sea level rise from four contributing factors: thermal expansion of water, melt from mountain glaciers, and ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.
The second method compared observed sea levels from 1900-2018 to a modeled scenario of the same period but without the influence of climate-warming pollution. Similar conclusions from both methods give confidence in the overall findings — human-caused sea level rise is responsible for driving the majority of extreme water levels worldwide.
These results are further supported by the findings in a complementary new paper in Nature Climate Change by researchers from Tulane University, titled, "Human-driven sea-level rise has quadrupled the frequency of coastal sea-level extremes since 1900", released concurrently with this work. For more on that paper, please see the Tulane University press release located here.
"Sea level rise is making both tidal flooding and storm-driven flooding more frequent, extensive and expensive," said Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) at Rutgers University and a co-author of the Science Advances study. "Together, these two studies allow us to pinpoint the human role in driving these changes."
Both studies were co-supported by MACH, a National Science Foundation-funded, Rutgers-led consortium focused on advancing the science of coastal climate risk and the practice of coastal climate adaptation.
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/human-caused-sea-level-rise-drives-rapid-global-increase-in-extreme-water-levels-during-21st-century-new-research-finds-302797105.html
SOURCE Climate Central

Human-caused sea level rise drives rapid global increase in extreme water levels during 21st century, new research finds PR Newswire PRINCETON, N.J., June 10, 2026 Climate Central-led paper finds…

In May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) published an advisory opinion on climate change. Many expected that this decision would help to clarify the balance between the paradigms of ocean protection and utilisation in the context of climate change. This is especially relevant for governing emerging marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) approaches being proposed to increase the carbon drawdown potential of the ocean to mitigate climate change. Does mCDR constitute marine pollution or marine protection in the face of climate change? To help answer this question, we analyse the advisory opinion and map the different emerging interpretations of the decision in relation to mCDR. We find that, although the resulting advisory opinion provided clarity on the responsibility of states to protect the oceans from 'pollution' by atmospheric CO2, it left a lot of room for ambiguity about whether mCDR would constitute marine pollution or marine protection in the face of climate change. We show how this ambiguous decision could be used politically to either promote or prevent problem shifting of the climate problem to the marine environment. We caution that international treaty bodies and national regulatory authorities should be prepared for these different interpretations to play a role in ongoing climate and ocean governance processes.

In May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) published an advisory opinion on climate change. Many expected that this decision would help to clarify the balance between the…

Pollution or protection? The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea's advisory opinion on climate change and its relevance for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) - International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics

Abstract
In times of polycrisis, the range of interconnected risks – environmental, societal, economical, geopolitical, technological – create the milieu in which we must face these challenges as nodes within a network. No individual one can be addressed in isolation but instead must be understood as relational and operating within a unified system. Within this context, considerations of justice are increasingly referred to in relation to climate change. The system-wide changes needed in responding to the polycrisis ensures that social inequality must be understood as a central tenet across any potential or aspirational transformative change. As such, it is important to consider what justice might look like with regards to how we get there, who leads the narrative of the future, and in what fundamental ways is it different from where we currently are. We aim not to separate specific justice narratives (e.g., climate justice, energy justice) from societal justice on a broader level. Instead, within this paper, the importance of imagination in questions of justice is outlined as it is concerned with responding to climate change, and the polycrisis with which it is entangled. Climate (in)justice acts as a useful heuristic for understanding normative issues that may culminate in relation to climate change but is not operative as a specific isolated outcome or orientated. Climate justice is not a possible outcome outside of wider societal justice. Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to the human imagination in terms of the scope and scale of the impact on the natural world; the ability to visualise the social, political and economic consequences of these changes and envisioning changing course. Yet, since their foundations, questions of social justice have been related to processes of imagination. Within this paper, we explore the role of imagination in shaping attitudes and responses to the climate crisis, specifically examining how imaginative processes influence perceptions of justice and ethical considerations. The primary research question guiding this study is: How does imaginative processes contribute to shaping notions of justice in relation to the climate crisis?

In times of polycrisis, the range of interconnected risks – environmental, societal, economical, geopolitical, technological – create the milieu in which we ...

Imagining Justice: approaching justice as a process of imaginative hybridity in times of polycrisis

Here some facts from Statista that need little explanation:
New records for global high temperatures keep getting set every few years now. Nevertheless, the topic of climate change has still not reached the top of the agenda for many people, as data from Statista Consumer Insights shows.
Respondents in none of the 32 nations covered by the survey collectively rated climate change as the most important problem for their own country when asked to name the issues that were of the biggest significance to them.
Of the countries included in our infographic, Japan comes closest with climate change being named as a severe issue by the fifth-highest number of respondents, followed by China and India in rank 7.
Generally, this is more of an expression of the few problems of Japanese and Chinese people, as still only 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively, rated the climate change issue as severe.
Despite ranking only seventh in India, climate change was recognized as a big problem there by more people, 34.
Among developed nations such as France, Germany, South Korea or the U.S., worry about climate change hovered between 23 and 28 percent.
Given the lack of concern, why has climate change been relentlessly hyped for decades as an existential crisis? There are two reasons.
First, although they are a minority, there are a huge number oif folks who desperately need causes to sustain their internalized views of their own self-worth, that is to say their relevance. They are the serial protesters, and they are incredibly easy to manipulate.
Secondly, there are trillions at stake in money for grifters, universities, and power-seekers of every sort (e.g., politicians, media types, revolutionaries). They lobve anbd use the serial protesters as front-line troops to advance their various special interests, which are many.
It's that simple. Think of the climate change cause as a used car lot and the folks running it as supercharged, leisure-suited salesmen
Hat Tip: D. Snutes
#Statista #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateAlarmism #ClimateCult #Causes #Money #Power
Share
While you're here, please strike a blow for true justice by signing our petition!

Here some facts from Statista that need little explanation:

The Climate Change Cause Is Like A Used Car Lot Where Salesmen Fall All Over You to Sell You Something You Don't Really Want

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
(THE CONVERSATION) After four years of U.S. progress on efforts to deal with climate change under Joe Biden, Donald Trump's return to the White House is swiftly swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
None of Trump's moves to sideline climate change as an important domestic and foreign policy issue should come as a surprise.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
After being elected a second time, in 2024, Trump again chose Cabinet members who support the fossil fuel industry.
But it's important to recognize that Donald Trump is singing from the Republican Party songbook when it comes to climate change, and the music was written long before he came along.
Money, lies and lobbying
In 1979, the scientific consensus that climate change posed a significant threat to the environment, the economy and society as we had come to appreciate them began to emerge.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, commissioned by the U.S. National Research Council's climate research board, concluded then that if carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, there was 'no reason to doubt that climate changes will result.' Since then, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by about 25%, and temperatures have risen with it.
The report also concluded that land use changes and the burning of fossil fuels, both of which could be subject to regulation, were behind climate change and that a 'wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.'
But none of this came as a surprise to the oil industry. Working behind the scenes since the 1950s, researchers working for companies such as Exxon, Shell and Chevron had made their leaders well aware that the widespread use of their product was already causing climate change. And coinciding with the Ad Hoc Study Group's work in the late 1970s, oil companies started making large donations to national and state-level candidates and politicians they viewed as friendly to the interests of the industry.
The oil industry also implemented a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt about climate science and, in many cases, about their own internal research. The strategy, ripped from the pages of the tobacco industry playbook, involved 'emphasizing uncertainty' to cast doubt on the science and calling for 'balanced' science to sow confusion.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
This strategy was helped by the creation and financial backing of lobbying organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Global Climate Coalition, both of which played central roles in spreading falsehoods and casting doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change.
By 1997, when 84 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, the oil industry had built an effective apparatus for actively discrediting climate science and opposing policies and actions that could help slow climate change. So even though President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1998, the United States Congress refused to ratify it.
Partisan politics and the psychology of belonging
The Kyoto Protocol experience demonstrated that the lobbying and disinformation tactics used by oil companies to discredit climate science could, on their own, be highly effective. But they alone didn't shift climate change from a scientific question to an issue of partisan politics. Two additional ingredients for completing the transition were still absent.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The first of these came during the election campaign of 2000. At the time, the coverage of the major news networks converged on dividing the country into red states, which lean right, and blue states, which lean left.
This shift, though seemingly innocuous at the time, made politics even less about individual issues and more like a team sport.
Rather than asking people to construct their voting preferences based on a wide range of issues – from abortion and gun rights to immigration and climate change – votes could be earned by reminding and reinforcing for voters which team they should be cheering for: Republicans or Democrats.
This shift also made it easier for the fossil fuel industry to keep climate change off state and federal policy agendas. Oil companies could focus their money, lobbying and disinformation on Republican-controlled states and swing states where it would make the biggest difference. It shouldn't surprise anyone, for example, that it was a red state senator, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who brought a snowball to the Senate floor in February 2015 to 'prove' that the planet was not warming.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The final ingredient had everything to do with human nature. Building on the analogy of a rivalry in sports, the red vs. blue state dynamic tapped into the psychological and social forces that shape our sense of belonging and identity.
Within-group pressures also create stronger feelings of belonging among those who conform to the group's internal norms, such as which political positions to support. In turn, stronger feelings of belonging serve to further reinforce the norms.
Where to from here?
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Opposing or supporting action on climate change has become part of millions of Americans' cultural identity.
However, doubling down on climate policies that are in lockstep with our own political leanings will serve only to strengthen the divide.
A more effective solution would be to set aside political differences and invest in building coalitions across the political spectrum. That starts by focusing on shared values, such as keeping children healthy and communities safe. In the wake of devastating fires in my own city, Los Angeles, these shared values have risen to the top of the local political agenda regardless of who my neighbors and I voted for. It's clear to all of us that the consequences of climate change are very much in the here and now.
Natural disasters across the U.S. have also brought the risks of climate change home for many people across the country. This, in turn, has led to bipartisan action on climate change at the local and regional levels, and between government and the private sector.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors from both parties who are working to advance efforts to slow climate change, is one such example. Another example is the many U.S. companies with ties to government that participate in the First Movers Coalition, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries that have proven difficult to decarbonize, such as steel, transportation and shipping.
But, unfortunately for the climate as we know it, examples like these are still an exception rather than the norm. And this is a problem because the current climate challenge is much bigger than a single city, state or even country. The past year, 2024, was the hottest on record. Many parts of the world experienced extreme heat waves and storms.
However, every movement has to start somewhere. Continuing to chip away at the partisan barriers that separate Americans on climate change will require even more coalition building that sets an example by being ambitious, productive and visible.
With the new Trump administration poised to target the recent progress made on climate change while preparing executive actions that will increase greenhouse gas emissions, there's no better time for this work than the present.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/how-the-oil-industry-and-growing-political-divides-turned-climate-change-into-a-partisan-issue-243879.

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

How the oil industry and growing political divides turned climate change into a partisan issue

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
A landmark climate case is being heard by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. The request was brought by the Pan African Lawyers Union and other African civil society organizations. They've asked the court to issue advice on what responsibilities African governments have to protect their countries against the climate crisis and move away from an economy that harms the environment.
Zunaida Moosa Wadiwala and Tracy-Lynn Field of the Mandela Institute alongside several other organizations have asked to participate as friends of the court (amicus curiae). Their brief argues that African states have a duty to protect the climate system because a safe, stable climate is essential for people's rights.
What are the major climate change problems Africa faces?
The continent has made the least historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, which drive climate change. But it suffers unequally and more heavily from climate disasters like drought, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. All of these threaten human health and safety, food and water security and the development of society and the economy.
Climate change disrupts ecosystems, causes crop failure and lost food production, and increases poverty, disease, loss of lives and livelihoods, water and energy insecurity and loss of natural and cultural heritage.
What will climate change do to Africa's development?
Climate change is a major obstacle to development. This is because Africa's economies are very sensitive to climate change disasters and extreme changes to the climate. In fact, climate change threatens to reverse decades of development gains across Africa. We further argue in our brief to the court that in African countries, development cannot be understood purely through economic growth or gross domestic product figures.
Rather, development is also about giving people the ability to shape their own futures by protecting the environment, communities and culture.
This broader idea of sustainable development is protected by the African Charter. Article 22 says all people have the right to economic, social and cultural development. Article 24 says they have the right to a healthy environment that supports that development. Other African agreements, such as the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter, which protects women's rights, and the Algiers Convention on nature conservation, also stress that development must be sustainable, fair and balanced.
Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter—daily or weekly.
What should the governments of African countries do to prevent climate change?
The Mandela Institute amicus brief argues that a safe and stable climate is necessary if people are to realize or achieve their right to development. The brief also argues that a safe and stable climate is essential for the right to freely control and benefit from natural resources.
The rights to economic, social and cultural development and to national and international peace and security cannot be realized in a rapidly warming world.
There is growing international agreement that fossil fuel projects must be phased out. They have undermined people's rights in the past and will likely continue to do so in future. Our brief also acknowledges scientific evidence about increasing temperatures and global warming, which harm the climate system and threaten the right to development.
It therefore urges governments to cooperate and to make climate decisions based on the best available science, because Africa is especially vulnerable to climate change.
In other words, African governments should have a legal duty to prevent serious damage to the climate. They need to act urgently, carefully and according to the best available science as climate risks grow.
Our brief argues that climate action and human rights are closely linked. We point out that the African Union was created to protect both individual and peoples' rights under the African Charter.
What do you hope the court will state in its advisory opinion?
Advisory opinions give advice and are not legally binding. But they help explain what countries are already required to do under international law. They also guide courts on how to apply those rules. In this way, they can shape how governments, business and the public understand their responsibilities in the climate crisis.
In July 2025, the International Court of Justice in The Hague handed down a similar advisory opinion. That set out what the world's governments need to do to combat climate change. It said countries have legal obligations to protect the climate system and prevent serious environmental harm.
Kenya, Ghana, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Mauritius, Burkina Faso and Egypt all made submissions about climate change damage for this case. So even though the opinion itself was not legally binding, it was still important for Africa. It set up a strong argument that governments must consider human rights, development and climate justice before they allow fossil fuels and high-emissions projects to go ahead.
In the same way, the African Court's advisory opinion could become an important turning point for climate justice in Africa. The opinion could shape how development, human rights and climate accountability are understood across the continent.
The Mandela Institute hopes that the African Court will make it clear that African governments have a duty to protect the climate as part of their responsibility to ensure people can live in a healthy environment, benefit fairly from natural resources, develop economically and socially, and live in peace and security. These are the rights contained in the African Charter.
As global pressure grows to phase out fossil fuels, we also hope the court will clarify that governments must reduce dependence on fossil fuels when these projects threaten people's rights.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A landmark climate case is being heard by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. The request was brought by the Pan African Lawyers Union and other African civil society organizations. They've asked the court to issue advice on what responsibilities African governments have to protect their countries against the climate crisis and move away from an economy that harms the environment.

Africa's climate crisis is a legal crisis too: What are states' duties under human rights law?

This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change, En
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country's largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.
The haul of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, worth 200,000 Australian dollars ($142,000), was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales state, according to Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Madagascar hissing species is one of the world's biggest cockroaches, measuring 2 to 3 inches in length. Photos released by the department showed a shiny, brown invertebrate larger than a person's finger.
It's much bigger than the country's common Australian cockroach, which measures between 0.9 and 1.4 inches long. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its sub-tropical climates and the country is home to hundreds of species.
Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the larger exotic species were likely being sold as as a cost-effective reptile food because their large size meant fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or wood roaches to feed their lizards instead.
Both Madagascar hissing and dubia cockroaches are illegal to import into Australia. They can't be legally kept, bred or sold no matter how they were obtained, the department said in a statement.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Australia has strict biosecurity controls at its borders to protect its agriculture and horticulture sectors and native wildlife from pest infestations. Those smuggling in undeclared or illegal animal, insect or plant material can be fined thousands of dollars.
Exotic cockroaches 'have not been subject to an environmental risk assessment' and they could spread disease or harm native wildlife, the statement said. Officials warned of prosecutions against those caught with the invertebrates.
A spokesperson said charges weren't laid against the Bathurst breeder. The cockroaches seized would be euthanized, the department said.

Kenya became the first African nation to receive landmark climate disaster funding. It will be used to identify Kenyans who have suffered climate-related losses and damages during the last decade.
The Sh90 million ($700,000) in funding comes from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, a Switzerland-based United Nations mechanism funded by voluntary contributions from developed countries and the international community.
The Kenyan funding will be administered by the national government and used to identify Kenyan communities that have suffered losses as a result of climate-induced droughts, floods, crop failures and other extreme weather events.
Festus Ng'eno, principle secretary for Kenya's Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, announced the achievement at a recent U.N. climate meeting in Bonn, Germany. He said the assistance is a milestone as Kenya is only the second country globally to benefit from the fund. Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago, was the first.
In a Facebook post, the State Department for Environment and Climate Change in Kenya said, 'Despite enduring some of East Africa's most devastating climate shocks, Kenya has never fully measured the true scale of what has been lost. That is set to change.'
'It is long overdue for countries on the frontline of the climate crisis to receive support to build resilience,' Fred Njehu, a Pan-African political strategist with Greenpeace, told the Daily Nation. 'Kenya's allocation points to shifting climate actions, from frameworks, roadmaps, and dialogues to actual implementation.'
The funding comes as African countries continue to pursue climate justice and reparations from countries that are historically most responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.
Kenyan President William Ruto has often called for better financial models to hasten Africa's economic growth. The country has established ambitious goals to mitigate the climate crisis, Jeremiah Kioli, chairman of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, told Mongabay. He said Kenya, as the first African nation to receive loss and damage funding, demonstrates the country's commitment to climate action and fundraising.
The funds will largely be used to create systems to assess the losses that will require compensation. 'How do you measure loss and damage? You need the systems, just as it is with the Green Climate Fund,' Kioli told Mongabay.
'This achievement underscores Kenya's leadership in climate action and its commitment to building resilience against the growing impacts of climate change,' the Environment Ministry said, as reported by Capital News.
Banner image: Mechanics attempt to rescue parts of a vehicle that was swept away from an open air garage in the March 2026 flooding that caused the death of at least 110 people and displaced 34,700 in different areas across Kenya. Image by Maxwell Agwanda.

Kenya became the first African nation to receive landmark climate disaster funding. It will be used to identify Kenyans who have suffered climate-related losses and damages during the last decade. The Sh90 million ($700,000) in funding comes from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, a Switzerland-based United Nations mechanism funded by voluntary contributions from […]

Kenya is Africa's first country to receive crucial climate disaster funding

The report on Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI): A Case Study of District Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan presents an innovative and evidence-based framework for assessing climate vulnerability at the sub-national level in one of the world's most climate-vulnerable regions, Pakistan. Developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the research integrates indicators related to sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity into a multidimensional Climate Change Vulnerability Index capable of identifying vulnerability hotspots and informing targeted resilience interventions. The assessment demonstrates how climate change is increasingly reshaping food, water, land, health, and migration systems thereby creating complex development challenges that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Through a detailed analysis of district Rahim Yar Khan, in the Southern part of Punjab, Pakistan, the report reveals significant spatial and temporal variations in climate vulnerability driven by exposure to floods, heatwaves, water insecurity, socio-economic sensitivities, and differing levels of adaptive capacity. The findings further highlight the compounded risks faced by women, children, the elderly, and climate-displaced communities.
Beyond its local application, CCVI offers a scalable and replicable methodology for governments, development partners, humanitarian agencies, and researchers seeking to strengthen anticipatory action and climate adaptation planning. By transforming complex climate and socio-economic data into actionable intelligence, the framework supports evidence-based decision-making and contributes to global efforts aimed at building inclusive and climate-resilient communities in an era of increasing climate uncertainty.

The report on Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI): A Case Study of District Rahim Yar Khan, Pa

Climate Change Vulnerability Index: A Case Study of District Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan

..urges protection of wetlands, forests, floodplains to combat climate change
By Peter Duru, Makurdi
The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) has called for the adoption of nature-based solutions and climate-resilient physical planning as part of efforts to address the growing impacts of climate change across the country.
The Institute made the call in a statement by its Public Relations Secretary, Dr. Chiahemba Nor, on behalf of the National President, Dr. Ogbonna Chime, to commemorate the 2026 World Environment Day celebrated under the theme, 'Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future.'
According to the Institute, Nigerian cities are increasingly facing the devastating effects of climate change, including flooding, extreme heat, coastal erosion and air pollution, with many of the challenges being aggravated by unplanned urban growth and environmental degradation.
'Our cities are on the frontlines. Flooding, extreme heat, coastal erosion, and air pollution are no longer distant threats but are already affecting our daily lives,' the statement said.
The Institute noted that the impacts of climate change have been worsened by the loss of green spaces, poor drainage systems and weak enforcement of physical development plans.
It described the 2026 World Environment Day theme as a reminder of the critical role nature plays in addressing climate change and securing a sustainable future.
'The theme underscores the vital role of nature in addressing climate change and securing a sustainable future for generations to come. It reminds us that healthy ecosystems, green spaces, forests, wetlands, and biodiversity are not only environmental assets but also powerful tools for climate resilience and sustainable development,' the statement added.
NITP stressed that the development of livable, inclusive and climate-resilient communities requires planning approaches that work in harmony with nature.
'As professional planners, NITP recognizes that the creation of livable, inclusive, and climate-resilient communities requires planning approaches that work in harmony with nature. Through sustainable land-use planning, environmental conservation, green infrastructure and climate-smart urban development, planners have a critical role to play in mitigating climate change and enhancing the quality of life in our cities and rural communities,' it stated.
The Institute urged governments at all levels, private sector organisations, professionals and citizens to view climate change as a planning challenge requiring urgent and coordinated action, urging for the protection of natural resources, promotion of environmental sustainability policies and the adoption of climate-resilient planning strategies.
Among the measures advocated by the Institute are the protection of floodplains, wetlands and urban forests as natural buffers against environmental hazards, the development of compact and connected cities, and the promotion of waste-to-resource systems.
NITP also called for stricter regulation of practices that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, including open burning, uncontrolled landfills and building methods that worsen heat and flooding.
The Institute further urged government authorities to strengthen planning institutions and integrate climate adaptation and mitigation measures into national development policies. 'Together, let us be inspired by nature to take bold actions for the climate and build a healthier, greener, and more resilient future for all,' the statement said.

..urges protection of wetlands, forests, floodplains to combat climate change By Peter Duru, Makurdi The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) has called for the adoption of nature-based solutions and climate-resilient physical planning as part of efforts to address the growing impacts of climate change across the country. The Institute made the call in a […]

World Environment Day: NITP calls for climate-resilient urban planning

Image courtesy of the office of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Editor's note: This story was originally published by Grist. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his 'Time to Wake Up' speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade-and-a-half. He's accused 'climate hushers' of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet.
If you had to pinpoint the moment that 'climate hushing' began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it.
'Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,' Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist.
The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice 'Don't say climate change.' A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, 'When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.' An early draft of the Democratic National Committee's autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy 'created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.'
'It's very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it's really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,' said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there's no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show.
The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That's mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It's a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don't name it as one of their top issues.
Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they're bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it's not important. 'You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,' Mildenberger said.
In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump's agenda—blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement—is broadly unpopular. 'All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it's helping climate delay,' Mildenberger said.
Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are 'poll-chasing,' parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. 'Many Americans don't believe Democrats are fighters,' Whitehouse said. 'The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.' As people in the United States struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into.
Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it's wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. 'There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,' Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn't been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden.
'If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,' Burgess said.
Exit polling suggests there's little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered 'U.S. efforts to fight climate change' a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration—concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. 'The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,' said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck Strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator.
Harris, in other words, didn't lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn't know enough about the federal government's involvement to give the administration credit.
Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it's harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about 'message discipline,' the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise.
'So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, 'How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?'' Bennett said. 'And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it's a good thing to talk about or not.'
The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is 'cheap energy' and tying it to rising electricity bills. Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans' appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy.
'We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It's a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,' Mildenberger said. 'But we have a discourse that somehow says that it's this massive cost.'

'Climate hushing' is one reason why so many politicians who oppose Trump administration policies have been going silent on climate change. But polling shows that the president's agenda—blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, uprooting scientific instruments that monitor the ocean, and pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement—is broadly unpopular.

Conventional wisdom says climate change is a losing issue for Trump opponents. The evidence says otherwise.

As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his 'Time to Wake Up' speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half. He's accused 'climate hushers' of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet.
If you had to pinpoint the moment that 'climate hushing' began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it.
'Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,' Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist.
The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice 'Don't say climate change.' A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, 'When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.' An early draft of the Democratic National Committee's autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy 'created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.'
To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Here's How
'It's very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it's really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,' said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there's no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show.
The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That's mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It's a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don't name it as one of their top issues.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse speaks during a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing in 2025. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they're bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it's not important. 'You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,' Mildenberger said.
In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump's agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular. 'All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it's helping climate delay,' Mildenberger said.
To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Here's How
Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are 'poll-chasing,' parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. 'Many Americans don't believe Democrats are fighters,' Whitehouse said. 'The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.' As people in the U.S. struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into.
Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it's wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. 'There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,' Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn't been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden.
'If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,' Burgess said.
Exit polling suggests there's little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered 'U.S. efforts to fight climate change' a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration — concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. 'The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,' said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator.
Harris, in other words, didn't lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn't know enough about the federal government's involvement to give the administration credit.
Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it's harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about 'message discipline,' the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise.
'So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, 'How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?'' Bennett said. 'And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it's a good thing to talk about or not.'
The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is 'cheap energy' and tying it to rising electricity bills. Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans' appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy.
'We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It's a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,' Mildenberger said. 'But we have a discourse that somehow says that it's this massive cost.'

The conventional wisdom says it's a losing issue. Evidence suggests it actually helps Democrats win elections.

image:
Dr. Guy Dagan view more
Credit: Omer Roi Cohen
Researchers discover that tiny atmospheric particles can have opposite effects on Earth's climate depending on how quickly the atmosphere responds.
Why it matters: Aerosols are one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate projections. This study shows that their impact can change over time, initially warming the atmosphere before later cooling it. The findings could help scientists improve climate models and make more accurate predictions of future climate change.
A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem challenges a long-held assumption in climate science by showing that aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere—can either warm or cool the climate depending on the timescale considered.
Link to photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RbKp4l8aP7OWvnNoCJc0KmwS2PHqGSfz?usp=sharing
Led by Prof. Guy Dagan of the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, the research reveals that aerosol-cloud interactions can produce opposite climate effects in the short term and long term. The findings, published in Nature Communications , offer a new explanation for why aerosols remain one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate projections.
Aerosols come from a variety of natural and human-made sources, including air pollution, wildfires, sea spray, and dust. Scientists have long known that these particles influence how clouds form and how much heat the Earth retains, but accurately estimating their overall impact on climate has proven difficult.
Using advanced computer simulations, Prof. Dagan examined how clouds respond after a sudden increase in aerosol concentrations and how those responses evolve over time. The results revealed a surprising pattern.
During the first two days after aerosol levels increase, the atmosphere experiences a net warming effect. Changes in cloud processes lead to the formation of more high-altitude clouds, which trap additional heat that would otherwise escape into space.
Over time, however, the atmosphere adjusts. As upper layers of the atmosphere warm, cloud development changes, allowing more heat to escape. The initial warming effect gradually gives way to an overall cooling effect.
The study found that the balance between these competing effects depends on two key factors: how quickly aerosol concentrations change and how quickly the atmosphere responds. When aerosol levels fluctuate rapidly, short-term warming effects can dominate. When changes occur more gradually, the longer-term cooling response becomes more important.
The researchers also identified evidence of what scientists call "atmospheric memory." In some cases, the climate effect of aerosols depends not only on current aerosol levels but also on whether those levels have recently been increasing or decreasing. As a result, the same amount of aerosols can produce different climate effects under different circumstances.
According to Prof. Dagan, the findings have important implications for both climate observations and climate modeling.
"Much of what we know about aerosol-cloud interactions comes from observing the atmosphere at a single moment in time," said Prof. Dagan. "Our results show that the atmosphere has a memory. The climatic impact of aerosols depends not only on how many particles are present, but also on how rapidly conditions are changing and how much time the atmosphere has had to respond. Accounting for these timescales could help reduce one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate projections."
The findings suggest that scientists should pay closer attention to how atmospheric conditions evolve over days rather than relying solely on isolated observations. Incorporating these time-dependent processes into climate models could improve estimates of aerosol-driven climate effects and lead to more accurate projections of future climate change.
Note: This manuscript is being shared ahead of final publication and may contain minor changes following editorial review.

Researchers discover that tiny atmospheric particles can have opposite effects on Earth's climate depending on how quickly the atmosphere responds. Why it matters: Aerosols are one of the largest…

Aerosols may warm or cool the climate depending on timing, new study finds

BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 7,000 government delegates and other stakeholders gathered Monday in Bonn, Germany, for the opening of the UN June Climate Meetings, with climate resilience, finance and the implementation of previous climate commitments high on the agenda.
Known as the 64th session of the Subsidiary Bodies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or SB64, the annual June meetings are expected to advance technical and political work ahead of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), scheduled to take place in November in Antalya, Türkiye.
Speaking at the opening of the meetings, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said tackling the global climate crisis is "the hardest -- but most important -- thing humanity has ever tried to do together."
"It is worth doing, because we have no choice. Every economy and population depends on it," he said.
Stiell said the Bonn meetings should advance key issues, including the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a core component of the Paris Agreement that aims to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.
Additionally, the Bonn meetings will also discuss how to advance implementation of outcomes from the first global stocktake at COP28, the development of a just transition mechanism, and climate finance.
A just transition mechanism refers to ensuring that the shift to a low-carbon economy is fair and inclusive, particularly for workers and communities most affected. Climate finance involves funding, mainly from developed to developing countries, to support both emissions reduction and climate adaptation.
Stiell warned that continued dependence on fossil fuels would expose economies and communities to inflation, energy insecurity and climate disasters. "We must go further, faster: delivering fully on our Paris obligations and on plans made under the Agreement," he said.
The meetings are scheduled to run through June 18. ■

UN June climate meetings in Germany focus on climate resilience-

UN June climate meetings in Germany focus on climate resilience

Hail is getting larger due to climate change, environmental experts say
Climate researchers at Northern Illinois University found that golf ball-size hail or larger will become much more common in the United States.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Summer storms can bring heavy rain, flash flooding, tornadoes and, of course, hail. Sometimes, the hail is the size of a pea and harmless. Other times, it is big enough to smash windshields, shred roofs and leave homeowners with costly repairs. And new research shows that hail could be getting larger. Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: Guys, there are some more massive ones in this field over here. We're getting hail that is huge.
DAVID MARTIN DAVIES, BYLINE: On March 10, Matthew Cappucci sprang out of his car to check out freshly fallen hail.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CAPPUCCI: Holy - record hail.
DAVIES: Cappucci is the senior meteorologist at MyRadar, a weather app. Wearing a hard hat, he is recording himself running through an unplanted farm field covered in large hailstones in Kanakee (ph), Illinois, about 60 miles south of Chicago.
CAPPUCCI: We're talking millions and millions of hailstones in excess of 6 inches in diameter. That's bigger than a softball. That's bigger than a DVD. That's almost cantaloupe-size.
DAVIES: Cappucci says the biggest hailstone he found that day would have been a new Illinois state record, but even bigger hail was recovered nearby.
CAPPUCCI: The Denault family found a 6.6-inch stone, and then someone else found a stone near 8 inches in diameter, but unfortunately it melted before it could be measured.
DAVIES: Victor Gensini is a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University.
VICTOR GENSINI: One of the big challenges is always getting people to save the hail after they see it.
DAVIES: Gensini says there's evidence that hailstones are getting bigger, and that's because of climate change. A warmer atmosphere creates more powerful thunderstorms. Hail forms when drops of water are juggled up into the clouds and freeze. The dipping dots of ice grow larger the longer that they're held aloft by powerful updrafts.
GENSINI: That's the air that's rushing upward towards outer space. As those updrafts get stronger, it suspends these hailstones.
DAVIES: Gensini found that climate change is creating stronger updrafts, and those ice-dipping dots grow into frozen chunks that can smash a car windshield.
GENSINI: If you look at the hail size distribution records, there is some evidence that maybe this change is already occurring.
DAVIES: Gensini co-authored a study published in the journal NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science. He found it's not just hail that's getting bigger.
GENSINI: Every year, hail has a pretty hefty price tag. Last year in the United States alone, hail did over $50 billion in insured loss.
DAVIES: U.S. losses from hailstorms have increased fivefold since 2008. Keiana Holleman is a State Farm Insurance national spokesperson.
KEIANA HOLLEMAN: That's a national concern. Hailstorms are hitting often and doing damage. Just in March, those severe weather storms in the Midwest triggered over 50,000 claims.
DAVIES: State Farm says it paid more than $5.6 billion in U.S. hail claims in 2025 with about 1.4 billion paid in Texas alone - the state with the most hail damage. And compared to tornadoes, hail is much more destructive and not well understood. Cameron Nixon is a research scientist with Oklahoma University and the Storm Prediction Center.
CAMERON NIXON: Yeah, hail is, compared to tornadoes, very understudied.
DAVIES: He says, given the pummeling that homes are taking from large hail, solar panels getting hammered and cars being smashed, more science is needed in predicting and understanding hail.
NIXON: Well, I think when we do that, we're going to find out maybe these, you know, 6- to 8-inch stones that are just ridiculous might actually be slightly more common than we think they are.
DAVIES: So he says we should prepare for more record-smashing hail. For NPR News, I'm David Martin Davies in San Antonio.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

Climate researchers at Northern Illinois University found that golf ball-size hail or larger will become much more common in the United States.

Hail is getting larger due to climate change, environmental experts say

Is this just coincidence or has the current level of climate change been one of the drivers? Climate change is often framed as a problem for the future. But how much economic damage has today's current level of ~1.35°C of warming already caused?
To answer that question, we analysed the effects of climate change to date on the New South Wales economy. The results were released today as part of a Net Zero Commission report.
We estimate climate change has already caused median losses of around 18% (probability range 4–33%) to the NSW economy, the biggest economic jurisdiction in the country. At a median 18% loss, that translates to about A$21,300 per person on average in yearly income.
We show that it's not local bushfires or flooding that are driving the majority of damage, but changing global weather that in turn affects our cost of living.
Studies typically project the global economic damage that climate change will do by 2050 or 2100.
Some influential estimates have suggested climate damage would be fairly small. But our recent research and work by others shows the economic damage coming down the pipeline could be more than four times larger than previously thought.
Our research question for this report was different:'What would the NSW economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?'
This requires a thought experiment: imagining a past where we burn fossil fuels at the historical rate, but the additional carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases do not cause changes to temperature or rainfall patterns.
Answering this question will allow us to understand the economic losses we have already endured from historical climate change.
First, we collected data on historical economic growth and weather across the world over the past 70 years. We then modelled how weather changes (or shocks) impacted economic growth over this period. There is significant debate on how to do this, so we adopted a variety of approaches.
Then we had to plausibly guess at how the weather would have evolved in the past four decades without climate change. To create this hypothetical weather series, we simply removed any trend found in the weather data which we ascribe to human-caused climate change. This works because there is no evidence natural causes have contributed to the upward trend in temperatures.
Finally, we compared economic growth rates predicted by the models under the observed and under the hypothetical weather conditions. The contrast between the total economic production of the NSW economy in the two scenarios is the economic cost of historical climate change for a given year.
We estimate the median economic loss for NSW in 2024 was 18%. There is significant uncertainty in this figure, with the lower estimates around 4% and the higher around 33%.
The median loss figure of 18% translates into an average of $21,288 in losses per person in yearly income (in 2023–2024 dollar values). In other words, the model finds that if historical warming had not occurred then people living in NSW would each have $21,288 more dollars, on average, in their pockets every year. This amount is large enough to meaningfully improve the quality of life of the state's average household.
The models suggest the primary mechanism through which this loss has occurred is the rise in the global average temperature. When people think about losses associated with climate change in NSW, they might consider how climate change exacerbated the bushfires of 2019–20, or the floods that followed. The damages they caused are, of course, real and significant.
However, the economic models suggest the majority of the damage has come from shifts in weather globally. Given the interconnectedness of modern economies through trade and global supply chains, it is reasonable to assume that climate shocks to supply chains affect the whole globe.
When pollsters ask Australian voters what issues they care about,'climate change' is often listed as one issue among many. Voters are asked to assess how important climate change is to them relative to the cost of living, public health, interest rates, secure employment, and other important things.
Presenting issues in this way reinforces a common misconception that they are independent, and that one can be prioritised over the other.
To the contrary, there is now good evidence that climate change is strongly related to economic outcomes, which in turn drive the cost of living, interest rates, investment in in health and education and the labour market.
It's time to stop thinking of climate change as'merely' an environmental issue, which can be discarded when economic times are tough. Instead, we should recognise what it really is: a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.

Climate Change Has Already Made Australians In One State Much Poorer, And More's To Come. The world's hottest years over the past decade have coincided with stagnant economic productivity, rising…

Climate Change Has Already Made Australians In One State Much Poorer, And More's To Come

BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 7,000 government delegates and other stakeholders gathered Monday in Bonn, Germany, for the opening of the UN June Climate Meetings, with climate resilience, finance and the implementation of previous climate commitments high on the agenda.
Known as the 64th session of the Subsidiary Bodies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or SB64, the annual June meetings are expected to advance technical and political work ahead of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), scheduled to take place in November in Antalya, Türkiye.
Speaking at the opening of the meetings, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said tackling the global climate crisis is "the hardest -- but most important -- thing humanity has ever tried to do together."
"It is worth doing, because we have no choice. Every economy and population depends on it," he said.
Stiell said the Bonn meetings should advance key issues, including the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a core component of the Paris Agreement that aims to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.
Additionally, the Bonn meetings will also discuss how to advance implementation of outcomes from the first global stocktake at COP28, the development of a just transition mechanism, and climate finance.
A just transition mechanism refers to ensuring that the shift to a low-carbon economy is fair and inclusive, particularly for workers and communities most affected. Climate finance involves funding, mainly from developed to developing countries, to support both emissions reduction and climate adaptation.
Stiell warned that continued dependence on fossil fuels would expose economies and communities to inflation, energy insecurity and climate disasters. "We must go further, faster: delivering fully on our Paris obligations and on plans made under the Agreement," he said.
The meetings are scheduled to run through June 18.

BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 7,000 government delegates and other stakeholders gathered Monday in Bonn, Germany, for the opening of the UN June Climate Meetings, with climate resilience,…

Experts, government officials, traditional leaders, the media, civil society organisations, and others have called for stronger collaboration to address the growing impacts of climate change on communities, livelihoods and the environment across Nigeria.
The call was made on Friday at a two-day Climate town hall in Jos, organised by the Renewed Hope Climate Change Awareness Tour (REHCCAT) in partnership with the Plateau State Government as part of activities marking World Environment Day.
The meeting brought together environmental experts, policymakers, development partners, traditional rulers and community representatives to discuss practical solutions to climate-related challenges.
Speaking at the event, the State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, represented by his Deputy, Josephine Piyo, described climate change as one of the most pressing challenges facing societies today and urged citizens to embrace environmentally responsible practices.
He said the awareness tour was a timely initiative aimed at mobilising communities towards climate action.
'Climate change continues to threaten ecosystems, livelihoods, infrastructure, food security and public health, particularly in developing nations,' Mutfwang said.
The governor noted that the State's rich biodiversity, fertile landscapes and unique ecological assets place a responsibility on government and citizens to safeguard the environment for future generations.
'For us in Plateau State, environmental sustainability is not merely a policy aspiration; it is a moral obligation,' he said.
Mutfwang stated that his administration has prioritised environmental restoration, watershed protection, afforestation, sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management.
He added that programmes such as the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Project are helping to strengthen the State's resilience against environmental degradation and climate-related vulnerabilities.
He stressed the need for greater investment in green infrastructure, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable transport systems and effective waste management.
'As urban populations continue to grow, we must prioritise investments in green infrastructure, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable transportation, waste management systems and nature-based solutions that enhance the resilience of our communities,' he stated.
He also commended President Bola Tinubu for sustaining national efforts aimed at addressing climate change and promoting environmental sustainability.
Special Assistant to the President on Climate Matters, Yusuf Kelani, said the town hall formed part of the Federal Government's strategy to connect national climate policies with the realities faced by communities across the country.
Kelani warned that climate-induced migration is becoming an increasing concern as people relocate in search of safer environments and better livelihoods.
'The objective is to bridge the gap between national climate policies and local realities by taking these conversations directly to communities,' he said.
He noted that the Federal Government is supporting climate adaptation and resilience efforts, while commending the Plateau State Government for its commitment to environmental protection.
He explained that the Sustainable Climate Resilience Initiative for People and Transformation (SCRIPT-E) was designed to support climate-smart agriculture, improve food security and strengthen resilience among vulnerable communities.
Also speaking, Ibrahim Shelleng, Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Climate Finance and Stakeholder Engagement) said climate action must be supported by sustainable financing and strong accountability mechanisms.
Shelleng urged States to position themselves to attract international climate financing by developing credible policies, strengthening institutions and encouraging stakeholder participation.
He added that development partners maintain strict monitoring and auditing systems to ensure climate funds are utilised transparently and effectively.
Earlier, the State Commissioner for Environment, Climate Change and Mineral Development, Peter Gwom, highlighted measures undertaken by the State to mitigate the effects of climate change.
He said the Ministry has implemented projects focused on environmental restoration, water resource management, afforestation, climate adaptation and sustainable development planning.
Gwom disclosed that solar-powered boreholes have been installed across local government areas to improve access to water for domestic use, irrigation and livestock production.
He added that the state had established over 2,000 hectares of woodlots across the three Senatorial zones to support carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem restoration.
The Commissioner also cited progress in erosion control projects, including interventions around Plateau Club and Bingham University Teaching Hospital, as well as biodiversity conservation efforts at the Jos Wildlife Park.
The Gbong Gwom Jos, Da Jacob Buba, represented by the Ata Aten of Ganawuri, Yakubu Chaimang, assured stakeholders that traditional institutions would continue to mobilise communities in support of environmental sustainability.
Participants at the town hall, including Nansik Onu, the Executive Director of Centre for Gospel Health and Development, CeGHaD and others, unanimously called for stronger partnerships, increased public awareness and locally driven solutions to address the effects of climate change.
Highlights of the event included the signing of a memorandum of understanding on climate action and the presentation of a climate policy document by the Plateau State Government to the REHCCAT team.

Experts, government officials, traditional leaders, the media, civil society organisations, and others have called for stronger collaboration to address the growing impacts of climate change on communities, livelihoods and the environment across Nigeria. The call was made on Friday at a two-day Climate town hall in Jos, organised by the Renewed Hope Climate Change Awareness […]

FG, Plateau stakeholders seek collective action against climate change

image:
A new study found that rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, and that future food security will depend heavily on agricultural management and adaptation, not just climate change. view more
Credit: Photo by An Bui
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions — including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient inputs — played a central role in sustaining rice production and offsetting climate-related losses. The results of the study suggest that future food security will depend not only on environmental conditions, but also on how rice production systems are managed and adapted to changing conditions.
The study by climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain and former graduate student Tzu-Shun Lin combined observations and process-based modeling to examine the factors that shaped global rice production over the past half century. The researchers evaluated how environmental change and agricultural management together influenced rice production across regions and over time. The results of the study are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
'Rice sits at the intersection of food security, economic development and environmental change,' Jain said. 'Today, most of the world's rice grows in Asia, with China, India and countries across South and Southeast Asia accounting for the largest share of global production.'
Previous studies have examined how individual factors, such as climate change or CO2, affect rice yields. What makes the current study different is that it explicitly takes a comprehensive approach by accounting for the combined effects of environmental change and key rice management practices, including irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer and manure use, multiple growing seasons and different rice planting methods.
'The decisions made by farmers, industry and policymakers have been instrumental in sustaining rice production and improving food security for billions of people,' Jain said. 'Our study shows that the increase in rice production was driven primarily by management decisions — in the form of expanded irrigation, increased nutrient inputs and adoption of farming practices that helped farmers grow more rice — rather than by climate change.'
The study also demonstrates that climate change is the only factor in the analysis that reduced rice production, lowering global production by an estimated 7% between 2006 and 2015, due to warming temperatures, heat stress and water shortages. In contrast, rising atmospheric CO2 was the primary environmental factor, contributing to increased rice production by enhancing photosynthesis and improving water-use efficiency. Together, these findings illustrate the complex and sometimes opposing ways in which environmental changes influence agricultural production.
'Food security and environmental sustainability must be addressed together,' Jain said. 'This is critical, as our study shows that climate change is already affecting rice production in some of the world's most important rice-growing regions. India experienced the largest climate-related rice production losses, followed by Indonesia and China, highlighting the importance of developing management strategies that can sustain rice production while adapting to increasing climate pressures.'
The group's next step is to use this framework to identify pathways for meeting future rice demand under changing climate conditions while improving the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems.
Jain said that future research will also examine how strategies designed to increase food production affect greenhouse gas emissions, water resources and other environmental outcomes. 'Ultimately, our goal is to identify the pathways that can simultaneously improve food security, strengthen climate resilience and make rice production more sustainable,' he said.
Editor's note:
To reach Atul Jain, email jain1@illinois.edu. The paper 'Management practices and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels helped to sustain a high level of global rice production' is available online. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-55973-0.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The…

Global rice production nearly doubled despite climate change, driven largely by human management

A Climate Satyagraha Workshop, urged citizens to adopt sustainable lifestyles to combat climate change. Over 100 representatives pledged to avoid buying new clothes for a year, highlighting the fashion industry's environmental toll. The event emphasized grassroots solutions and collective behavioral change for a greener future.
Amid growing concerns over climate change and unsustainable consumption patterns, a Climate Satyagraha Workshop called on citizens to adopt more environmentally responsible lifestyles. To celebrtae the World Environment Day, the two-hour workshop was led by solar energy advocate and climate action campaigner Prof Chetan Singh Solanki. The event brought together more than 100 representatives from environmental groups, civil society organisations and community networks to discuss grassroots solutions to the climate crisis. Addressing participants, he stressed that individual lifestyle choices and consumption habits play a critical role in reducing carbon emissions and environmental degradation. He urged citizens to embrace sustainable living practices and rethink everyday consumption patterns.One of the key outcomes of the workshop was a collective pledge by participants to avoid purchasing new clothes for the next year. Organisers said the initiative aims to draw attention to the environmental impact of the fashion industry, which is a major contributor to waste generation, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.During the programme, the poster of a nationwide online environmental awareness contest recognised by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Environment.The workshop featured discussions on climate responsibility, sustainable consumption and community-driven environmental action. Participants said the session offered practical ideas for reducing their ecological footprint and contributing to broader climate goals.Organisers described the event as part of a larger effort to encourage citizen-led action on environmental issues, highlighting the importance of collective behavioural change in addressing the challenges posed by climate change.

Amid growing concerns over climate change and unsustainable consumption patterns, a Climate Satyagraha Workshop called on citizens to adopt more environmentally responsible lifestyles. To celebrtae…

Climate workshop urges lifestyle changes to tackle environmental crisis

president-climate action
Lee calls for joint efforts to fight climate change on World Environment Day
SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung on Friday called for joint efforts to fight climate change, marking World Environment Day.
In a message posted on his X account, the president urged people to "join hands in carrying out everyday climate action" to help build a sustainable country, referring to a namesake public campaign to be launched by the environment ministry.
The ministry was scheduled to launch the Climate Action campaign later in the day, promoting measures, such as reducing carbon emission, using public transportation and cutting plastic use, to help tackle climate change and protect the environment.
At the scheduled launch of the campaign, the whole of society, including religious and industrial sectors, as well as civil society and the government, will come together to commit themselves to climate action, Lee noted.
"Reducing the use of disposable items, turning off lights when they are not in use, walking short distances, using public transportation and carrying (reusable) shopping bags may seem trivial, but they can become a powerful force when practiced collectively," the president wrote.
He also pledged to bring about "tangible changes" by making utmost efforts.
pbr@yna.co.kr

president-climate action Lee calls for joint efforts to fight climate change on World Environment Day SEOUL, June 5 (Yon

Lee calls for joint efforts to fight climate change on World Environment Day

(Illustration by Michael Morgenstern)
When politicians and corporate leaders commit to becoming 'carbon neutral by 2030,' or climate scientists warn that the Arctic could be ice-free by 2035, they are doing more than making predictions or setting targets. They are also constructing a shared vision of the future that shapes how the public understands the urgency, timeline, and stakes of climate change. A new paper analyzes the temporality that sits at the heart of discourses about climate change and how it shapes visions of the future distributed across society. Who projects what, how far out, and have those projections shifted over time?
Oscar Stuhler, an assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University; Iddo Tavory, a professor of sociology at New York University; and Robin Wagner-Pacifici, a professor emerita at The New School for Social Research and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, examine 'the structure of anticipation' in US public discourses on climate change and how it has shifted over the last two decades. To map how the future of climate change is imagined in American society, the researchers assembled a comprehensive dataset comprising nearly a quarter million news articles drawn from major national newspapers, print magazines, and digital outlets containing mentions of climate change between 2000 and 2021. Rather than sampling selectively, the researchers sought to capture the full range of voices and venues through which climate futures enter public discourse through journalism. They applied methods from computational linguistics to this archive to build a system that could categorize forward-looking statements, such as plans, commitments, warnings, and predictions, scattered across decades of coverage. The result was what the researchers call a 'temporal landscape' of climate change: a systematic picture of how far into the future public discourse looks, which timelines dominate the conversation, and how the horizon of anticipation has shifted in 20 years of intensifying crisis.
This is 'a compelling, rigorous example of how textual analysis can provide concrete insights into one of the defining sociological conditions of our time: climate change,' says Benjamin Bradlow, an assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University. 'This study helps us to understand the patterns that news journalism has constructed about climate change, making it neither an event nor a non-event, but what the authors call a 'quasi-event.' Precisely because the temporality of climate change is so unstable, it becomes difficult to use its temporality as a way of structuring action to mitigate and/or otherwise respond to it.'
The authors' study yielded three findings. The first concerns how far into the future climate discourse looks when it comes to anticipated effects. Temporal horizons for climate-change impacts have diminished since 2000, but at a linear rate around a fixed reference point. Contrary to expectations that mounting scientific alarm would push projections closer to the present, the average reference point for climate change—the time at which climate change would transform the planet—remained stubbornly at roughly 2060. More striking still, vast stretches of the future—the decades between 2050 and 2100—barely registered in public conversation at all.
The second finding complicates this picture. When it comes to climate action rather than climate effects, the temporal horizon appears shorter, typically around 16 years out, and remains stable over the same period. Plans, commitments, and targets are framed using a similar timespan, regardless of how the broader conversation about climate consequences has changed.
In the third finding, the researchers document an expanding discourse of urgency, including demands to act now, warnings of imminent catastrophe, and language stripped of the measured future tense of prediction. Between 2000 and 2022, such expressions increased nearly twentyfold. But the surge did not unfold gradually. It followed the pattern that media researchers call 'media storms' to refer to dramatic spikes triggered by events such as the 2020 California wildfires, followed by rapid declines. The alarm rises and then recedes, leaving the underlying temporal structure of the discourse largely unchanged.
'Perhaps the most striking thing about these findings is the contrast between a drastic rise in expressions of urgency (people demanding we act 'now') and the stability in explicit horizons,' Stuhler says. 'This might suggest that there are certain deep-seated institutional rhythms that have been hard to change. It may also be the case that certain actors try to 'domesticate' climate change into temporalities and forms of action they already take for granted. Of course, even if temporal horizons remain fixed, climate action can set more ambitious targets.'
Find the full study: Oscar Stuhler, Iddo Tavory, and Robin Wagner-Pacifici, 'Time and Climate Change: U.S. Media Representations of Climate Actions, Horizons, and Events (2000 to 2021),' American Sociological Review, vol. 91, no. 1, 2026.
Read more stories by Daniela Blei.

Although climate discourse has expressed increasing urgency over time, it has retained the same temporal outlooks for climate effects and action.

Climate Change Discourse Becomes More Alarmist Maintains Same Timeframe

BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 7,000 government delegates and other stakeholders gathered Monday in Bonn, Germany, for the opening of the UN June Climate Meetings, with climate resilience, finance and the implementation of previous climate commitments high on the agenda.
Known as the 64th session of the Subsidiary Bodies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or SB64, the annual June meetings are expected to advance technical and political work ahead of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), scheduled to take place in November in Antalya, Türkiye.
Speaking at the opening of the meetings, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said tackling the global climate crisis is "the hardest -- but most important -- thing humanity has ever tried to do together."
"It is worth doing, because we have no choice. Every economy and population depends on it," he said.
Stiell said the Bonn meetings should advance key issues, including the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a core component of the Paris Agreement that aims to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.
Additionally, the Bonn meetings will also discuss how to advance implementation of outcomes from the first global stocktake at COP28, the development of a just transition mechanism, and climate finance.
A just transition mechanism refers to ensuring that the shift to a low-carbon economy is fair and inclusive, particularly for workers and communities most affected. Climate finance involves funding, mainly from developed to developing countries, to support both emissions reduction and climate adaptation.
Stiell warned that continued dependence on fossil fuels would expose economies and communities to inflation, energy insecurity and climate disasters. "We must go further, faster: delivering fully on our Paris obligations and on plans made under the Agreement," he said.
The meetings are scheduled to run through June 18. Enditem

Kenya secured the award on the sidelines of the United Nations climate meetings in Bonn, Germany.
The $700,000 package, equivalent to about KSh90 million, will finance a nationwide assessment of the economic and non-economic losses caused by climate change over the past decade.
Most importantly, the findings are expected to strengthen Kenya's case for future international climate financing by documenting the cost of floods, droughts and other extreme weather events.
ADVERTISEMENT
Festus Ng'eno, Kenya's Principal Secretary for Environment and Climate Change, said the decision recognised the country's 'leadership in climate action and its commitment to building resilience against the growing impacts of climate change'.
Support targets climate-loss data
However, the $700,000 package is not a direct compensation payment. Instead, it will finance the technical work needed to identify, measure and document climate damage.
Such evidence is often required to access climate finance because funding institutions need reliable data showing the scale, location and cost of the damage.
The assessment will bring together government agencies, technical experts, local communities and other stakeholders. It will identify the regions and sectors most exposed to climate shocks and guide recovery and resilience planning.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Santiago Network was established in 2019 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to connect vulnerable developing countries with experts and institutions that can help them address climate-related loss and damage.
Its role gained importance after governments established the Loss and Damage Fund at COP28 in Dubai in 2023.
Baboucarr Nyang, a coordinator at Climate Action Network, described the funding as 'proof that when the architecture of climate finance works as intended, it can deliver for Africa'.
'Now it must deliver faster and for all,' he said.
Business Insider Africa
ADVERTISEMENT
Climate shocks threaten Kenya's economy
Kenya is East Africa's largest economy by nominal gross domestic product, with the International Monetary Fund projecting output of about $147.3 billion in 2026.
Its position is supported by a diversified economy spanning financial services, agriculture, telecommunications, manufacturing, transport, tourism and technology.
However, climate shocks continue to expose its economic vulnerabilities. In March 2026, severe floods killed at least 62 people, displaced more than 2,000 families and disrupted flights at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Repeated floods and prolonged droughts have also damaged infrastructure, disrupted agriculture and livestock production, and increased pressure on public finances.
ADVERTISEMENT
Similar climate shocks are also straining other African economies, many of which have limited resources for disaster recovery and adaptation.
Ruto pushes for more climate finance
The award supports President William Ruto's efforts to position Kenya at the centre of Africa's climate diplomacy.
'Africa's carbon footprint remains small, but the human toll of climate change is disproportionately high,' Ruto said at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi in September 2023.
Kenya had also pushed to host the Santiago Network secretariat in Nairobi. Climate Home News, a UK-based climate politics publication, reported that reviewers appointed by the UN agencies managing the network recommended Nairobi as 'the optimal location'.
ADVERTISEMENT
They cited the city's strong UN relations with the Kenyan government, its 'maximum time zone coverage' for coordinating with developing countries and its role as the home of several UN agencies.
However, the network's advisory board chose Geneva, Switzerland, in March 2024.
The decision drew criticism from African climate campaigners. Mohamed Adow, the Nairobi-based founder of Power Shift Africa, called it 'yet another stitch-up by the Global North to keep power away from the places where the impacts of climate change are being felt'.
He added that the decision 'fails to put affected communities at the centre of decision-making'.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network International, described the outcome as 'a real missed opportunity', arguing that wealthy countries could use their ability to finance infrastructure to attract UN institutions.
ADVERTISEMENT
According to Climate Home News, Switzerland offered 1 million Swiss francs, about $1.1 million at the time, and pledged to cover office and infrastructure costs if the Santiago Network secretariat was located in Geneva.

Kenya has become the first African country to secure $700,000 in UN-backed technical assistance to assess the economic and non-economic damage caused by climate change, after losing its bid to host…

East Africa's largest economy secures Africa's first-ever $700,000 UN climate support after losing secretariat bid

Kenya secures Africa's first-ever $700,000 UN climate support after losing secretariat bid to Switzerland

Share article
Print article
The world's hottest years over the past decade have coincided with stagnant economic productivity, rising prices and geopolitical instability.
Is this just coincidence or has the current level of climate change been one of the drivers? Climate change is often framed as a problem for the future. But how much economic damage has today's current level of ~1.35C of warming already caused?
To answer that question, we analysed the effects of climate change to date on the New South Wales economy. The results were released today as part of a Net Zero Commission report.
We estimate climate change has already caused median losses of around 18% (probability range 4-33%) to the NSW economy, the biggest economic jurisdiction in the country. At a median 18% loss, that translates to about A$21,300 per person on average in yearly income.
We show that it's not local bushfires or flooding that are driving the majority of damage, but changing global weather that in turn affects our cost of living.
Studies typically project the global economic damage that climate change will do by 2050 or 2100.
Some influential estimates have suggested climate damage would be fairly small. But our recent research and work by others shows the economic damage coming down the pipeline could be more than four times larger than previously thought.
Our research question for this report was different: "What would the NSW economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?"
This requires a thought experiment: imagining a past where we burn fossil fuels at the historical rate, but the additional carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases do not cause changes to temperature or rainfall patterns.
Answering this question will allow us to understand the economic losses we have already endured from historical climate change.
First, we collected data on historical economic growth and weather across the world over the past 70 years. We then modelled how weather changes (or shocks) impacted economic growth over this period. There is significant debate on how to do this, so we adopted a variety of approaches.
Then we had to plausibly guess at how the weather would have evolved in the past four decades without climate change. To create this hypothetical weather series, we simply removed any trend found in the weather data which we ascribe to human-caused climate change. This works because there is no evidence natural causes have contributed to the upward trend in temperatures.
Finally, we compared economic growth rates predicted by the models under the observed and under the hypothetical weather conditions. The contrast between the total economic production of the NSW economy in the two scenarios is the economic cost of historical climate change for a given year.
We estimate the median economic loss for NSW in 2024 was 18%. There is significant uncertainty in this figure, with the lower estimates around 4% and the higher around 33%.
The median loss figure of 18% translates into an average of $21,288 in losses per person in yearly income (in 2023-2024 dollar values). In other word, the model finds that if historical warming had not occurred then people living in NSW would each have $21,288 more dollars, on average, in their pockets every year. This amount is large enough to meaningfully improve the quality of life of the state's average household.
The models suggest the primary mechanism through which this loss has occurred is the rise in the global average temperature. When people think about losses associated with climate change in NSW, they might consider how climate change exacerbated the bushfires of 2019-20, or the floods that followed. The damages they caused are, of course, real and significant.
However, the economic models suggest the majority of the damage has come from shifts in weather globally. Given the interconnectedness of modern economies through trade and global supply chains, it is reasonable to assume that climate shocks to supply chains affect the whole globe.
When pollsters ask Australian voters what issues they care about, "climate change" is often listed as one issue among many. Voters are asked to assess how important climate change is to them relative to the cost of living, public health, interest rates, secure employment, and other important things.
Presenting issues in this way reinforces a common misconception that they are independent, and that one can be prioritised over the other.
To the contrary, there is now good evidence that climate change is strongly related to economic outcomes, which in turn drive the cost of living, interest rates, investment in in health and education and the labour market.
It's time to stop thinking of climate change as "merely" an environmental issue, which can be discarded when economic times are tough. Instead, we should recognise what it really is: a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
A new study found that rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, and that future food security will depend heavily on agricultural management and adaptation, not just climate change. Credit: An Bui
Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions—including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient inputs—played a central role in sustaining rice production and offsetting climate-related losses. The results suggest that future food security will depend not only on environmental conditions but also on how rice production systems are managed and adapted to changing conditions.
The study by climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain and former graduate student Tzu-Shun Lin, combined observations and process-based modeling to examine the factors that shaped global rice production over the past half-century. The researchers evaluated how environmental change and agricultural management together influenced rice production across regions and over time. The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
"Rice sits at the intersection of food security, economic development and environmental change," Jain said. "Today, most of the world's rice grows in Asia, with China, India and countries across South and Southeast Asia accounting for the largest share of global production."
Previous studies have examined how individual factors, such as climate change or CO 2 , affect rice yields. What makes the current study different is that it takes a comprehensive approach by accounting for the combined effects of environmental change and key rice management practices, including irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer and manure use, multiple growing seasons, and different rice planting methods.
"The decisions made by farmers, industry and policymakers have been instrumental in sustaining rice production and improving food security for billions of people," Jain said. "Our study shows that the increase in rice production was driven primarily by management decisions—in the form of expanded irrigation, increased nutrient inputs and adoption of farming practices that helped farmers grow more rice—rather than by climate change."
The study also demonstrates that climate change is the only factor in the analysis that reduced rice production, lowering global production by an estimated 7% between 2006 and 2015 because of warming temperatures, heat stress and water shortages. In contrast, rising atmospheric CO 2 was the primary environmental factor contributing to increased rice production by enhancing photosynthesis and improving water-use efficiency. Together, these findings illustrate the complex and sometimes opposing ways in which environmental changes influence agricultural production.
"Food security and environmental sustainability must be addressed together," Jain said. "This is critical, as our study shows that climate change is already affecting rice production in some of the world's most important rice-growing regions. India experienced the largest climate-related rice production losses, followed by Indonesia and China, highlighting the importance of developing management strategies that can sustain rice production while adapting to increasing climate pressures."
The group's next step is to use this framework to identify pathways for meeting future rice demand under changing climate conditions while improving the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems.
Jain said future research will also examine how strategies designed to increase food production affect greenhouse gas emissions, water resources and other environmental outcomes.
"Ultimately, our goal is to identify the pathways that can simultaneously improve food security, strengthen climate resilience and make rice production more sustainable," he said.
Publication details
Tzu-Shun Lin et al, Management practices and elevated atmospheric CO 2 levels helped to sustain a high level of global rice production, Scientific Reports (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-55973-0
Journal information: Scientific Reports

Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions—including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient inputs—played a central role in sustaining rice production and offsetting climate-related losses. The results suggest that future food security will depend not only on environmental conditions but also on how rice production systems are managed and adapted to changing conditions.

Global rice production has nearly doubled over 50 years despite climate change

For the first time, leading scientists worldwide have united to affirm the vital role that wild animals play in climate mitigation and ecosystem resilience.
The 288 experts from six continents and a full range of climates and ecosystems have endorsed the Scientific Consensus on Wildlife and Climate, collectively calling on governments to explicitly incorporate wildlife and their ecological roles into climate policies and frameworks.
The consensus was announced June 11 at the SB64 — the 64th sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies in Bonn, Germany, as protecting wildlife becomes more broadly recognized as a cost-effective, nature-based solution to climate change.
'The science is becoming increasingly clear that wildlife contributes to ecosystem functioning in ways that are directly relevant to climate science,' said Trisha Atwood, a Utah State University ecologist among the academics who helped develop the consensus document. 'This is not about replacing emissions reductions or existing climate strategies — it is about ensuring climate policy reflects the full complexity of how ecosystems actually work.'
Experts in animal welfare, conservation and climate science have long called for global recognition of the contributions wild animals make to climate change mitigation and adaptation, but this is the first time scientists from multiple disciplines have agreed on language underpinning this body of research.
When living in their natural environments, animals can play a vital role as 'climate allies,' as their natural behaviors keep whole ecosystems functioning, including contributing to natural carbon storage and sequestration. For example, fish in the open ocean transport carbon to the deep sea, forest elephants spread the seeds of carbon-dense trees, and grazing bison encourage plant growth and nutrient recycling.
'Wildlife is more than a victim of climate change,' Atwood said. 'Animals help regulate food webs, move nutrients, shape habitats, and support ecosystem productivity and recovery. Those ecological processes are increasingly recognized as important components of the climate system.'
A 2023 Nature Climate Change paper led by Yale University estimated that restoring wild animal populations and their functional roles could increase carbon dioxide uptake by an additional 6.41 gigatons per year. This would help address the shortfall between what conventional nature-based solutions can deliver and what scientists say is needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Yet to date, the need to protect wild animals and their habitats has been largely absent from climate policy. Atwood noted that animals play active and often overlooked roles in shaping environmental processes tied to climate outcomes.
She added that the implications for policy are becoming harder to ignore because the question is no longer whether wildlife affects ecosystem functioning; it is whether we can afford to ignore those effects when they influence how carbon moves through and is stored across the planet.
While their role in climate action has been recognized in some processes, including under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, scientists say meaningful progress requires recognition within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Scientific Consensus on Wildlife and Climate was developed through a structured, transparent drafting process, with input from a global group of academics. The collective agreed, in essence, that: Animals can positively influence climate-related ecological processes through their natural behavior, such as grazing, predation, movement, feeding and excretion.
These processes play an important role in carbon storage and ecosystem regeneration and stability yet are largely overlooked in climate planning and policy.
In many cases, it is scientifically incomplete to assess nature-based climate solutions without considering how wild animals help ecosystems function.
The consensus is a united call for governments to explicitly account for wild animals and their functional roles in climate policies and frameworks, to strengthen holistic climate and biodiversity action. It provides policymakers with a credible reference that helps ensure wildlife and their functional roles are properly considered in climate and nature assessments, modelling, planning and delivery.

Trisha Atwood in USU's Department of Watershed Sciences is part of the global effort that resulted in a call on governments to explicitly include wildlife and their ecological roles in climate policy.

Over 260 Global Scientists Unite on Urgent Call for Wildlife Protection for Sake of Climate

{'rendered': '
The Federal Government has warned that climate change poses a growing threat to food security, livelihoods and national security, urging Nigerians to embrace climate action and sustainable practices to mitigate its impact.
The Director of the Department of Climate Change at the Federal Ministry of Environment, Iniobong Abiola-Awe, stated this on Thursday during a dialogue organised for secondary school students by the C-Circle Foundation to commemorate the 2026 World Environment Day.
Represented by the Principal Scientific Officer in the department, Mrs Dolapo John-Akhigbe, Abiola-Awe said climate change remained the defining challenge of the current generation, with far-reaching consequences for human existence.
She said, 'Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. Rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation threaten every aspect of human life, from food security and water availability to health, livelihoods and national security.'
According to her, Nigeria remains disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change despite contributing minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions.
'Nigeria, like many developing nations, is disproportionately vulnerable to these climate impacts despite contributing minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions.
'Yet, in this challenge lies an unprecedented opportunity, the opportunity to reimagine our economies, reshape our industries and reorient our societies toward sustainability,' she said.
Abiola-Awe said Nigeria had committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 29 per cent unconditionally and by 52 per cent with international support by 2030, while targeting net-zero emissions by 2060.
She also highlighted government interventions, including the Climate Change Act 2021, the Energy Transition Plan, the Great Green Wall Initiative and the National Adaptation Plan, aimed at building resilience and promoting low-carbon development.
Addressing students participating in the competition, she urged young Nigerians to become champions of climate action.
'To our students and participants in today's debate and dialogue: you are not just the leaders of tomorrow; you are the agents of change today.
'Your voices matter. Your ideas are powerful. Your generation has the creativity, energy and moral conviction to drive the transformation our world so urgently needs,' she said.
Speaking earlier, the organiser of the event and Executive Director of C-Circle Foundation for Sustainable Health and Environment, Dr Chimere Ohajinwa, said the annual competition was designed to raise awareness about environmental issues among young people.
'The idea is to raise awareness on environmental issues. Every year, we do this in commemoration of World Environment Day. The theme for this year is climate change and a sustainable future,' she said.
Ohajinwa noted that the effects of climate change were already being felt across the country through rising temperatures, irregular rainfall patterns, flooding and drought.
'We're already experiencing it. There is an increase in temperature. The rainfall is no longer the way it used to be. We are having flooding. We are having issues. If you're having flooding, there may be drought as well,' she said.
According to her, climate change is worsening existing socio-economic challenges, particularly in the agricultural sector.
'The grasses are not growing the way they're supposed to grow. Then it's causing farmers and herders to have clashes.
'That also means that food inflation is increasing because people who are supposed to farm for us are being displaced from their homes and are now living in IDP camps,' she said.
Ohajinwa explained that this year's event departed from the traditional debate format and adopted dialogue to encourage learning and collective problem-solving.
'This year is not going to be a debate. It's going to be a dialogue. It's a special edition because climate change and a sustainable future are not what we are going to be debating. It's about raising awareness. It's about you understanding what you're doing,' she said.
She said the platform was also intended to improve students' public speaking skills while helping them understand the relationship between environmental degradation, public health and food systems.
'This platform is set up to increase public speaking. Even while we are raising awareness on environment and health, we are also discussing how our environment affects our health, how it's affecting our food system and how it's affecting us, even though we pretend not to notice it,' she added.
Ohajinwa further blamed human activities for some of the environmental challenges confronting the country, urging Nigerians to adopt responsible waste disposal practices and environmental stewardship.
The programme was held in Abuja as part of activities marking the 2026 World Environment Day, with students drawn from different schools to participate in a climate change dialogue organised by the C-Circle Foundation.
The event brought together government representatives and environmental experts to sensitise young people on the growing impact of climate change on food systems, livelihoods and national security in Nigeria.

Climate change threatens food, national security — FG

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions — including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient inputs — played a central role in sustaining rice production and offsetting climate-related losses. The results of the study suggest that future food security will depend not only on environmental conditions, but also on how rice production systems are managed and adapted to changing conditions.
The study by climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain and former graduate student Tzu-Shun Lin combined observations and process-based modeling to examine the factors that shaped global rice production over the past half century. The researchers evaluated how environmental change and agricultural management together influenced rice production across regions and over time. The results of the study are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Atul Jain. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
'Rice sits at the intersection of food security, economic development and environmental change,' Jain said. 'Today, most of the world's rice grows in Asia, with China, India and countries across South and Southeast Asia accounting for the largest share of global production.'
Previous studies have examined how individual factors, such as climate change or CO2, affect rice yields. What makes the current study different is that it explicitly takes a comprehensive approach by accounting for the combined effects of environmental change and key rice management practices, including irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer and manure use, multiple growing seasons and different rice planting methods.
'The decisions made by farmers, industry and policymakers have been instrumental in sustaining rice production and improving food security for billions of people,' Jain said. 'Our study shows that the increase in rice production was driven primarily by management decisions — in the form of expanded irrigation, increased nutrient inputs and adoption of farming practices that helped farmers grow more rice — rather than by climate change.'
The study also demonstrates that climate change is the only factor in the analysis that reduced rice production, lowering global production by an estimated 7% between 2006 and 2015, due to warming temperatures, heat stress and water shortages. In contrast, rising atmospheric CO2 was the primary environmental factor, contributing to increased rice production by enhancing photosynthesis and improving water-use efficiency. Together, these findings illustrate the complex and sometimes opposing ways in which environmental changes influence agricultural production.
'Food security and environmental sustainability must be addressed together,' Jain said. 'This is critical, as our study shows that climate change is already affecting rice production in some of the world's most important rice-growing regions. India experienced the largest climate-related rice production losses, followed by Indonesia and China, highlighting the importance of developing management strategies that can sustain rice production while adapting to increasing climate pressures.'
The group's next step is to use this framework to identify pathways for meeting future rice demand under changing climate conditions while improving the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems.
Jain said that future research will also examine how strategies designed to increase food production affect greenhouse gas emissions, water resources and other environmental outcomes.
'Ultimately, our goal is to identify the pathways that can simultaneously improve food security, strengthen climate resilience and make rice production more sustainable,' he said.
Editor's note:
To reach Atul Jain, email jain1@illinois.edu. The paper 'Management practices and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels helped to sustain a high level of global rice production' is available online. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-55973-0.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana…

This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, a staff member holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change/Department of Climate Change, En
This image supplied by Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, seized from a commercial breeder at Bathurst, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water via AP)
Department of Climate Change, En
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country's largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.
The haul of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, worth 200,000 Australian dollars ($142,000), was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales state, according to Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Madagascar hissing species is one of the world's biggest cockroaches, measuring 2 to 3 inches in length. Photos released by the department showed a shiny, brown invertebrate larger than a person's finger.
It's much bigger than the country's common Australian cockroach, which measures between 0.9 and 1.4 inches long. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its sub-tropical climates and the country is home to hundreds of species.
Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the larger exotic species were likely being sold as as a cost-effective reptile food because their large size meant fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or wood roaches to feed their lizards instead.
Both Madagascar hissing and dubia cockroaches are illegal to import into Australia. They can't be legally kept, bred or sold no matter how they were obtained, the department said in a statement.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Australia has strict biosecurity controls at its borders to protect its agriculture and horticulture sectors and native wildlife from pest infestations. Those smuggling in undeclared or illegal animal, insect or plant material can be fined thousands of dollars.
Exotic cockroaches 'have not been subject to an environmental risk assessment' and they could spread disease or harm native wildlife, the statement said. Officials warned of prosecutions against those caught with the invertebrates.
A spokesperson said charges weren't laid against the Bathurst breeder. The cockroaches seized would be euthanized, the department said.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad

Participants of the first Korea-Peru Joint Committee on Climate Change Cooperation are photographed during a meeting held in Bonn, Germany, on June 11 on the sidelines of the 64th sessions of the subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (SB64). (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
South Korea and Peru held their first joint committee on climate change cooperation this week, discussing ways to strengthen collaboration on international greenhouse gas reduction projects and implementation of the Paris Agreement, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said Friday.
According to the ministry, the First Korea-Peru Joint Committee on Climate Change Cooperation was held on Thursday in Bonn, Germany, on the sidelines of the 64th sessions of the subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, known as SB64.
The meeting was co-chaired by Kwon Jong-ho, South Korea's assistant minister and ambassador for climate change at the Foreign Ministry, and Jessica Moscoso, director of climate change at Peru's Ministry of Environment. Officials from South Korea's Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, as well as Peru's Foreign Ministry and Environment Ministry, participated.
The committee marked the first meeting convened under a bilateral framework agreement on climate change cooperation signed in June 2024 and effective from December of the same year.
The two sides exchanged views on their domestic legal and institutional frameworks for implementing Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, which enables countries to cooperate through the voluntary international transfer of mitigation outcomes toward their climate targets. They also discussed ways to promote bilateral cooperation on international greenhouse gas reduction projects.
Both countries shared the view that such cooperation could help achieve their respective nationally determined contributions while supporting the sustainable development of host countries. They agreed to expand collaboration in identifying and implementing relevant projects.
During the meeting, the Peruvian side introduced a clean cookstove distribution project being carried out under its bilateral agreement with Switzerland, saying it expects the first transfer of carbon reduction outcomes to take place later this year. Peru also expressed its hope to pursue concrete international carbon reduction projects with South Korea.
The two countries also adopted the terms of reference governing joint committee operations. They agreed to continue consultations on detailed procedural rules, including approval processes for international mitigation projects and mechanisms for the cross-border transfer of carbon reduction outcomes.
The Foreign Ministry said it expects the inaugural committee meeting to help facilitate greater private-sector investment and expand cooperation between South Korea and Peru on international greenhouse gas reduction initiatives.

Participants of the first Korea-Peru Joint Committee on Climate Change Cooperation are photographed during a meeting hel

S. Korea, Peru discuss international carbon reduction projects at first climate committee

All around us, the profound effects of climate change are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. From devastating wildfires and hurricanes to extreme temperature fluctuations and melting glaciers, our world is crying out for urgent attention and action. For many, including myself, the reality of climate change has hit home, both literally and figuratively. It's not just an environmental issue; it's deeply personal. I have seen firsthand how unpredictable weather patterns have affected my community, disrupting livelihoods, endangering lives, and threatening our future.
Climate change is not a distant threat; it is happening now. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global temperatures have risen by approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century. This increase might seem negligible to some, but experts warn that even a slight uptick in global temperatures can have catastrophic consequences, including accelerated sea-level rise, ecosystem disruption, and more severe weather events.
Many actions can be taken to mitigate these effects and avoid the worst outcomes proposed by scientific models. Transitioning to renewable energy sources, enhancing energy efficiency, and supporting reforestation efforts are among the primary strategies. Implementing carbon taxes and investing in sustainable infrastructure are also crucial steps.
Your voice matters in this battle against climate change. We need to unite and push for policies that support a sustainable future that protects our environment, economies, and health. By signing this petition, you are not just advocating for our planet; you are standing up for our generation and those to come. Let's make climate action a priority for governments worldwide and ensure we leave a healthy planet for future generations.
Please sign this petition to demand immediate and effective action on climate change.

Petition · Combat climate change effectively

Read the source document here.
Norway
1. Introduction
During the past weeks/months, the website Climate Cosmos1 has flooded media news outlets such as MSN with strong statements about Global Warming and what they identify as its cause: emissions of carbon dioxide by human activities. The website appears to have a wide audience and seriously derides anyone claiming that humans are not causing the global temperatures to rise.
Amazingly, in stark contrast to those many articles, Climate Cosmos recently published an article that advised caution in promoting the above concept and that the predictions offered by climate scientists might be incorrect!
The purpose of this article is to provide a simple summary of the current state of Climate Alarmism as perceived by the authors.
2. Weaponizing Science
There has been a trend during the past couple of decades for politicians to weaponize some areas of science for their own political gains. A prime example was the recent exploitation of the Corona Virus to impose draconian laws upon an unsuspecting and gullible public. Another example that has been in operation for years is the weaponization of climate to introduce rules and regulations that have almost crippled the economies of western countries but have, not surprisingly, left other countries untouched and free to do as they like.
This unfortunate situation is described in more detail in an article written by Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of meteorology at MIT 1,2.
3. USA – Public Opinion about Global Warming
A recent article3 described how a 'large majority of Americans who have experienced extreme weather conditions' support warnings about 'Climate Change' and are strongly behind prioritizing alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power. This situation is the result of many years of brainwashing by pseudo-science. To convince those people that they have been misled for years by politicians and scientists with their (not so hidden) agendas based on the considerable funding they receive to continue their climate warnings, requires patience and ongoing work by those of us who know the warnings are nothing short of a gigantic hoax.
4. Politics of Global Warming
A book by Mike Hulme4 describes the social and political handling of the Climate Issue and how it has presented opinions, beliefs, or principles as undeniable truths, often without considering alternative perspectives or evidence. Furthermore, these views have been imposed on others in a rigid or authoritarian manner, shutting down debate or discussion.
5. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
In an encouraging development, the new IPCC leader, Jim Skea, started his work by asking for more moderation in discussions about climate change5.
Skea warned against placing too much value on the international community's current nominal target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era.
'We should not despair and fall into a state of shock if global temperatures were to increase by this amount', he said.
'If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyses people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change,' he said.
6. Climate Change Issues
It is not difficult to identify some of the climate issues being used in extreme arguments. There are at least four which are uppermost in debates about climate change:
a) The Nobel Fraud
Failure of the climate models used by IPCC and based on The Nobel Prize in physics for 2021 given to Syunora Manabe is an important issue that Climate Alarmists prefer to ignore. Opponents to the climate scare claim that IPCC's modelling of climate has failed significantly. Not surprisingly, climate researchers have denied this accusation, with harsh, negative comments directed at those producing scientific evidence that clearly show errors in the modelling.
b) IPCC Claims
The IPCC claims that changes to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere6 drive temperature changes. However, for more than a decade, it has been known that changes in global temperature precede changes to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. IPCC-proponents have denied this time lag, ignoring the scientific evidence. Their message has been the opposite; they have continued to claim that changes in concentration of CO2 is the force driving increases in global temperature.
c) Climate Modelling
A problem seen by some in the construction and use of Climate Models lies in the parameters used to represent the influence of each of the many factors that affect climate. Small errors in these parameters could cause massive differences in the predictions. Such errors won't necessarily be detected until recorded (raw) temperatures are compared against predictions, and it might take several years before being able to confirm that errors do exist.
Further errors can be introduced into modelling if the temperature data used is not raw data but is data that has been adjusted by climate scientists using techniques such as 'homogenisation'7. These 'adjustments' might modify the data to reflect the theories of some climate scientists rather than following the honest, scientific approach whereby models are created to reflect what is happening in the real world.
d) Climate Targets are Political Issues
A suggestion to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2.0 °C by 2100 was made by politicians during the COP15-meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
That target was a random choice, without any scientific basis.
Casting a shadow over that pronouncement, the IPCC also stated that as long as the climate could not be modelled, no prediction for the future could be made. Despite that pronouncement, the '2.0 °C by 2100' was established as dogma. During discussions at the Paris agreement (2016) the target was reduced to 1.5 °C, and vigorous debate continues. Future discussions of this issue will (hopefully) take advantage of the present emphasis on a more cautious approach by alarmists.
7. Discussion
A common strategy used by alarmists to propagate their theory about the cause of global warming and their claim that if nothing is done to stop it, the world will experience a global catastrophe by the year 2100, is to start their arguments with the following basic claims:
global temperatures are rising at an ever-increasing rate, more than previously experienced.
the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main cause of those increasing global temperatures.
97% of scientists agree with the premise that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by humans were the cause of increasing global temperatures.
There is general agreement by all that global temperatures are rising.
There is also general agreement that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at an ever-increasing rate of change and there is ample evidence that prove this is true.
The only real points of contention are claims by some Climate Scientists that: (a) global temperatures are rising at an accelerating rate of change, and (b) the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the cause of that acceleration.
Research by scientists in the field of molecular structures has shown clearly that the carbon dioxide molecule could not possibly be responsible for more than a trivial amount of atmospheric warming8.
Interestingly, a very recent article (April 2025) published by Climate Cosmos strongly implied that the 97% mentioned above, was unrealistic, indicating again that the managers of this website were beginning to cast doubts on some of the claims of Climate Alarmists.
Moreover, analysis of 19 sets of temperature data from Australian cities and towns and some global cities9 has shown that the rate of temperature increase now, and for the past couple of centuries, is a steady ~0.018 °C per year, which is within the boundaries of the temperature increases of between 0.012 and 0.025 °C per year measured from a number of glacial cycles that have occurred during the past many millions of years.
8. Conclusion
The almost religious passion shown by those who truly believe that humans are the main cause of climate change is unlikely to diminish over time. They continually ignore clear evidence disputing their belief and it is likely their belief will remain undiminished for many years. During that time span, global temperatures are likely to continue to rise at the steady rate of ~0.018 °C per year and at that rate, by the year 2100, seventy-five years from now, global temperatures will have risen by 1.35 °C.
1.35 °C is below the 1.5 °C limit set by COP members with no scientific basis which should make them happy. However, if politicians continue to believe the alarmists and continue to take mitigating actions which they believe will stop global temperatures from rising, then the economies of many western countries will be crippled.
There is nothing humanity can do to stop global temperatures from rising.
There is nothing that humanity should do to stop global temperatures from rising.
The continuing rise in global temperature is not a threat to humanity.
Thanks for reading Climath! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
1
Why Some of the World's Top Scientists Are Starting to Push Back on Climate Alarmism
2
Manufacturing Consensus on Climate Change - The American Mind
3
Americans and Extreme Weather: Experiences, Views of Related Policies | Pew Research Center
4
Climate Change isn't Everything - Liberating Climate Politics from Alarmism by Hulme Mike (9781509556151) | Akademika Bokhandel
5
'We are not in crisis': chair of IPCC climate body to AFP | news.com.au — Australia's leading news site
6
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature - ScienceDirect
7
Australia's Broken Temperature Record (Part 1) - Jennifer Marohasy
8
The absorption of thermal emitted infrared radiation by CO2 – ClimateCite
9
Ian L K McNaugton: Temperature versus CO2 & Population Growth - Science of climate change
Leave a comment

(aa1) Erik Bye - Ian McNaughton - April 14, 2025

Climate alarmism

TEHRAN – The Health Ministry is developing a national document on health and climate change to mitigate the impacts of climate change on public health and to develop a climate-resilient health system.

TEHRAN – The Health Ministry is developing a national document on health and climate change to mitigate the impacts of climate change on public health and to develop a climate-resilient health system.…

National document on health, climate change strategy being developed

Environment PS Festus Ngeno with Santiago Network representative Elizabeth Carabine during climate negotiations in Bonn on June 9, 2026.
Kenya has scored a major victory in the global fight against climate change after becoming the first country in Africa and only the second in the world to secure technical assistance from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage.
The breakthrough will see Kenya receive support valued at approximately $700,000 (about Sh90 million) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of climate-related loss and damage suffered across the country over the last decade.
The milestone was announced on the sidelines of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Bodies (SB64) Climate Meeting in Bonn, Germany.
According to the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, the funding will enable Kenya to undertake a nationwide assessment aimed at documenting the impacts of climate change and generating evidence to guide policy decisions, planning and resource mobilisation.
The findings are expected to strengthen the country's ability to respond to climate-related challenges and build resilience against future environmental shocks.
The development was formally communicated to Principal Secretary for Environment and Climate Change Dr Festus Ng'eno by Santiago Network representative Elizabeth Carabine during the ongoing climate negotiations in Bonn.
The achievement places Kenya at the forefront of climate action in Africa and highlights the country's growing influence in global climate discussions.
Dr Ng'eno was accompanied by National Environment Management Authority Director General Mamo Boru Mamo, NETFUND Chief Executive Officer Samson Toniok, Climate Change Directorate Director Dr Pacifica Ogola and other officials.
The latest recognition comes as Kenya continues to roll out ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation programmes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening resilience.
In April 2025, Kenya submitted its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the United Nations, committing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35 per cent by 2035, equivalent to avoiding 75.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
The target is part of the country's broader vision of building a climate-resilient society where livelihoods, communities and ecosystems can thrive despite growing climate threats.
Kenya is also implementing the 15 Billion Trees Programme, a decade-long initiative running from 2022 to 2032 that seeks to restore 10.6 million hectares of degraded landscapes. The programme targets the planting of 4.5 billion trees by 2027 and 15 billion trees by 2032.
The government has further committed to a complete transition to clean energy by 2030, while the National Climate Change Action Plan III prioritises low-carbon energy and transport solutions.
In February 2026, Kenya launched the National Buildings and Construction Decarbonisation Roadmap 2026-2040, which aims to reduce emissions from the building sector by 67 per cent by 2040.
The latest support from the Santiago Network is expected to provide Kenya with critical data and evidence needed to strengthen climate policies and unlock additional resources for addressing the growing impacts of climate change.

The breakthrough will see Kenya conduct a comprehensive assessment of climate-related loss and damage

Kenya secures Sh90 million climate fund boost in African first

IGNOU has launched a new two-year MSc in Climate Change programme for July 2026 admissions. Candidates can fill applications for IGNOU MSc in Climate Change till July 15, 2026. Check details here
IGNOU MSc Climate Change
IGNOU Admission 2026: Indira Gandhi National Open University has launched new Master of Science (MSc) in Climate Change programme for July 2026 admission cycle. Interested and eligible candidates can apply through IGNOU admission portal. Last date to complete IGNOU MSc Climate Change application form is July 15, 2026.
As per IGNOU, newly launched MSc Climate Change programme has been launched to increase impact of climate change on ecosystems, economies and human societies. The university said MSc course will help learners understand climate-related issues and develop sustainable, evidence-based solutions to tackle environmental challenges.

IGNOU MSc in Climate Change Admission 2026 Ongoing; Apply Till July 15

GATINEAU, QC, June 5, 2026 /CNW/ - Today, Environment and Climate Change Canada presented a seasonal outlook for the summer. Experts predicted warmer-than-normal temperatures across most of Canada. Although some regions have received higher-than-normal amounts of precipitation in recent months, delaying conditions favourable for wildfire, fire risk is expected to increase as the summer progresses.
This spring, most of Canada experienced a cold and wet start with brief warm-ups. There are some exceptions, such as southern British Columbia, the eastern Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northeastern Quebec, and Labrador, as those areas have had more dry weather.
A transition to El Niño is expected to develop this summer, taking full effect later this year. El Niño occurs when the surface water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than average. This rise in temperature changes the atmosphere circulation and weather patterns around the globe, which can impact food supplies, energy systems, and influence extreme climate, such as wildfire risk and a change in air‑quality conditions.
Environment and Climate Change Canada uses a variety of tools, such as Canada's Air Quality Health Index (AQHI), to help people understand what the air quality around them means for their health.
Thunderstorm Outlooks will be available on Canada.ca/weather and the WeatherCAN app next week. They will show where conditions may become favourable for thunderstorms or tornadoes in the next 36 hours. This will help emergency managers, industries, and the public stay aware and prepare before potentially dangerous weather develops.
Understanding the risks of these extreme weather events can help Canadians make informed decisions to protect their health, safety, and property. The public is urged to regularly monitor weather forecasts, monitor the AQHI and UV Index, take all weather alerts seriously, and get prepared this summer. Canadians can download the WeatherCAN app to receive weather alerts directly on their mobile devices and set personal notifications for temperature and the AQHI.
Quick facts
Climate change is causing extreme hot temperatures at a greater frequency than in the past, increasing the severity of heat waves and contributing to the risk of drought and wildfires.
Thunderstorm Outlooks will provide early awareness of potential storm activity and help people in Canada plan in advance.
Thunderstorms remain one of Canada's most frequent hazardous weather types, producing potentially life-threatening lightning, hail, damaging winds, flash floods, and tornadoes. Remember, when thunder roars, go indoors!
As Canada's official source for weather forecasts and alerts, Environment and Climate Change Canada is modernizing its public weather program to better serve Canadians. Following the successful introduction of colour-coded weather alerts, over the next year the Department will continue to launch a series of initiatives to improve its services, ensuring Canadians have the most accurate weather information when they need it most.
For the latest forecasts and severe weather warnings, visit Canada.ca/weather and download our meteorologist-verified WeatherCAN app (available for Android and iOS devices).
Associated links
Environment and Climate Change Canada's X page
Environment and Climate Change Canada's Facebook page
Environment and Natural Resources in Canada's Facebook page
Environment and Climate Change Canada's LinkedIn page
Environment and Climate Change Canada's Instagram page
SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada
Contacts: Keean Nembhard, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature, 343-552-2387, [email protected]; Media Relations, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 819-938-3338 or 1-844-836-7799 (toll-free), [email protected]

/CNW/ - Today, Environment and Climate Change Canada presented a seasonal outlook for the summer. Experts predicted warmer-than-normal temperatures across most...

Environment and Climate Change Canada presents summer seasonal outlook

Türkiye has signed the host country agreement for this autumn's UN climate change conference, COP31, during a gathering in Bonn, Germany.
Türkiye's Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum, who also serves as COP31 president, attended the signing ceremony during the Bonn Climate Change Conference, the ministry said in a post on Turkish social media platform NSosyal.
He signed the protocol with Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Inclusive process
Following the signing, Kurum said Türkiye's constructive cooperation with the UN secretariat would continue to grow in the coming days.
During his visit to Bonn, Kurum also held talks on Türkiye hosting the COP31 climate change conference, set to be held in Türkiye this November.

Türkiye's Environment Minister Murat Kurum signs the COP31 host country agreement during a high-level climate gathering in Bonn, Germany.

Türkiye signs COP31 host agreement ahead of landmark autumn climate summit

Despite widespread public concern about climate change, financing and institutional constraints continue to hamper the Philippines' efforts to strengthen climate resilience and adaptation measures, according to state-run policy think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).
In the study titled 'Climate Change Perceptions and Climate Finance Mechanisms in the Philippines: A 2025 Assessment,' PIDS found that Filipinos are among the most climate-conscious populations in Asia, but gaps in financing systems, local government capacity, and policy coordination are slowing the country's climate response, it noted in a statement on Monday, June 8.
The study combined findings from the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) 2024 Climate Change Perception Survey with key informant interviews, policy reviews, and assessments of climate finance systems.
Based on the ADB survey, nine in 10 Filipinos consider climate change a serious problem, while 86 percent believe it is already affecting their families or will do so within the next decade.
Flooding emerged as the top climate concern among 71.1 percent of respondents, followed by heat waves at 54.37 percent and unpredictable weather patterns at 45.62 percent.
The findings come as climate risks continue to intensify in the country. Data cited in the study showed that the Philippines has experienced hotter-than-normal temperatures since the 1980s, with annual mean temperature increasing by 0.75 degrees Celsius between 1951 and 2021.
The study noted that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns underscore the urgency of strengthening climate resilience, adaptation measures, and financing mechanisms.
Climate change also poses significant risks to the economy.
According to the study, World Bank projections estimate that climate change could reduce Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) by between six percent and eight percent by 2040, with losses potentially reaching as high as 13.6 percent.
Meanwhile, the ADB projects economic losses equivalent to 5.3 percent of GDP by 2040 due to sea-level rise, flooding, and lower labor productivity.
The survey likewise showed strong public support for climate-related investments, with nearly six in 10 Filipinos backing spending on climate-resilient infrastructure, renewable energy (RE), and public transportation systems.
Support was weaker for measures such as carbon taxes and stricter emissions regulations, indicating a preference for visible investments that directly strengthen resilience.
Respondents also favored transparent and accountable financing mechanisms, with 45.55 percent supporting efforts to reduce corruption and tax evasion as a means of funding climate action, while 44.7 percent favored greater support from international climate funds.
Despite this public support, researchers found that many local government units (LGUs) continue to face difficulties accessing and utilizing climate finance.
Interviews conducted for the study showed that limited technical expertise, inadequate project preparation capacity, and complex funding requirements often prevent LGUs from tapping financing mechanisms such as the People's Survival Fund (PSF) and international climate finance facilities.
The study noted that 'even with the increased internal revenue allocation under the Mandanas-Garcia ruling, local funds remain insufficient,' highlighting the need for stronger national government support and capacity-building programs.
PIDS said local governments are expected to play a central role in climate adaptation and disaster resilience efforts but often struggle to convert climate plans into projects that can secure financing and be implemented.
The study also identified broader institutional challenges, including fragmented financing mechanisms, complex funding processes, and coordination issues among agencies involved in climate governance.
It further noted that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) faces legal and institutional constraints that limit its ability to directly undertake developmental financing activities used by some central banks in the region to support climate-related investments.
Another challenge cited was the limited availability of climate and environmental data, including insufficient infrastructure for monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and other climate indicators.
According to PIDS, these gaps make evidence-based policymaking more difficult and hinder efforts to assess the effectiveness of climate programs and investments.
'The Philippines is uniquely positioned among Asian economies because Filipinos show exceptionally high levels of climate awareness and concern,' the study noted. 'However, institutional barriers continue to limit the country's ability to mobilize and deploy climate finance effectively.'
PIDS said addressing climate change requires more than increasing financial resources, stressing the importance of strengthening institutions, improving policy coordination, enhancing local government capacity, and expanding access to climate finance.
'Achieving these ambitions will require enhanced multilateral partnerships, domestic regulatory reforms, and inclusive stakeholder engagement to transform commitments into tangible low-carbon outcomes,' PIDS added.

Despite widespread public concern about climate change, financing and institutional constraints continue to hamper the Philippines' efforts to strengthen...

PIDS: Funding bottlenecks slow Philippine climate response despite strong public support

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice
Human-driven sea level rise has increased how often extreme coastal flooding occurs around the world, according to a study released Wednesday.
Experts say the findings are crucial for coastal infrastructure and flood planning as the planet warms.
Extreme flooding events are caused by a combination of storm surges, high tides and unusual sea level rise alongside natural climate patterns and human influence. Hurricane Ian in 2022, which caused significant flooding, is an example of a hurricane that scientists said was strengthened by climate change. Coastal flooding threatens hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas across the globe each year, causes billions of dollars in damage and can be deadly.
Extreme sea level events that were once historically rare — those with a 1% chance of happening in a given year — are now, on average, about 12 times more likely, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Wednesday. Those events have become about four times more likely due to human-driven climate change, the research shows.
The researchers examined the frequency of extreme sea level events — which are the drivers of coastal flooding — by considering long-term records from tide gauges at more than 100 sites alongside climate modeling. The study looked at the increase from 1900 to 2005. It was limited through 2005 due to the availability of models that attribute instances to human-driven climate change. The authors acknowledged the results were conservative, given that human contributions to changes in coastal extremes have only increased since then.
The experts separated the influence of human activity, natural forces and local land movement. While sea level changes earlier in the 20th century could largely be attributed to natural forces, since the 1960s, it's human-caused warming that's the primary factor behind rising sea levels, scientists say.
A separate study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday also supports the notion that human-caused climate change is responsible for extreme water levels. It found climate change at the root of 58% of the days with extreme water levels during a period from 2000 to 2018. Climate change has also, on average, nearly tripled the number of days exceeding extreme water level thresholds since the 1970s, according to that study.
'Essentially every coastal flood today has human fingerprints on it through climate change,' said Ben Strauss, chief scientist at Climate Central and a co-author of the Science Advances study. 'Without the extra bit of sea level rise caused by global heating, most of these events would not have reached the status of flood.'
The research in Nature Climate Change didn't fully examine individual human factors, said Sönke Dangendorf, the lead author, but he noted greenhouse gases — the result of burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal — are the most significant.
'In particular since the 1970s, it's by far the dominating factor, and this is of course not good news at the moment,' said Dangendorf, also an associate professor at Tulane University. 'The risk is evolving and with the evolving risk we need to do more for adaptation.'
Jeff Williams, a retired United States Geological Survey oceanographer who wasn't part of either study, said the research shows that planners need to take into account the increased risks. They should also consider what it will cost to increase coastal protection and determine who pays for it, he said.
The current protections for New Orleans, for instance, 'will likely not be adequate beyond the next couple decades,' Williams said.
Nations across the globe are increasingly using renewable energies like solar and wind. Last year, clean power generation exceeded overall global electricity demand growth, and the share of renewables hit more than one-third of the world's electricity mix for the first time. Even in the United States, where the Trump administration has boosted fossil fuels, solar is growing as coal power declines. As such, scientists have recently said the world is no longer on track for the worst case scenario for warming — but it's also not on track to the best case, either.
Dangendorf, the Tulane author, said: 'The impacts, even of a relatively little sea level rise, can be pretty impactful on our coasts.'
'There is a silver lining because we have control about how much we emit, right?" he said. "So we can stop that development, at least to some degree.'
___
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
Read more of AP's climate coverage.
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Human-driven sea level rise has increased how often extreme coastal flooding occurs around the world, according to a study released Wednesday

Human-driven sea-level rise has increased frequency of extreme coastal flooding, study says

Climate Study Coastal Flooding
Extreme floods that once swamped coastal communities only rarely are becoming far more common as climate change caused by humans pushes sea levels higher, according to new research published Wednesday. Experts say the findings are crucial for making plans about floods and coastal infrastructure as the planet warms.
These big coastal floods happen when high tides and storm surges — the amount above normal tide level — combine with seas that are already rising. Those pile on top of natural climate patterns and other human influence.
Climate change has strengthened storms like Hurricane Ian, which caused significant flooding in 2022, scientists say. Flooding threatens hundreds of millions of people each year in low-lying coastal areas across the globe. It also causes billions of dollars in damage and can be deadly.
Floods that historically had a 1% chance of striking a coastline in a year are now about 12 times more likely, on average, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Wednesday. Those events have become about four times more likely due to human-driven climate change, the research shows.
Researchers looked at how often extreme sea level events — which cause coastal flooding — happen by considering long-term records from tide gauges at more than 100 sites, as well as using climate modeling. The study looked at the increase from 1900 to 2005. It was limited through 2005 because after that, there weren't enough models that could point to instances of human-driven climate change. The researchers said their findings likely understate today's risk, because human contributions to changes in coastal extremes have only increased since then.
Researchers looked at which changes were caused by human activity, natural forces or shifts in the landscape. Although sea level changes earlier in the 20th century could mostly be chalked up to natural forces, the scientists found that since the 1960s, human-caused warming was the main reason sea levels are going up.
A separate study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday also supports the idea that extreme ocean heights come from climate change, specifically around 58% of the days with big floods from 2000 to 2018. Climate change has also, on average, nearly tripled the number of days where the sea tops extreme flood levels since the 1970s, according to that study.
'Essentially every coastal flood today has human fingerprints on it through climate change,' said Ben Strauss, chief scientist at Climate Central and a co-author of the Science Advances study. 'Without the extra bit of sea level rise caused by global heating, most of these events would not have reached the status of flood.'
The research in Nature Climate Change didn't fully examine individual human factors, said Sönke Dangendorf, the lead author, but he noted greenhouse gases — the result of burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal — are the most significant.
'Since the 1970s, it's by far the dominating factor, and this is of course not good news,' said Dangendorf, also an associate professor at Tulane University. He said the threat is growing, and communities need to do more to prepare.
Jeff Williams, a retired United States Geological Survey oceanographer who wasn't part of either study, said the research shows that planners need to take the growing threats into account. They should also think about how much money they'll need to increase coastal protection, he said, and figure out who pays for it.
The current protections for New Orleans, for instance, 'will likely not be adequate beyond the next couple decades,' Williams said.
Nations across the globe are increasingly using renewable energies like solar and wind. Last year, clean power generation exceeded overall global electricity demand growth, and the share of renewables hit more than one-third of the world's electricity mix for the first time.
Even in the United States, where the Trump administration has boosted fossil fuels, solar is growing as coal power declines. As such, scientists have recently said the world is no longer on track for the worst case scenario for warming — but it's also not on track to the best case, either.
'The impacts, even of a relatively little sea level rise, can be pretty impactful on our coasts,' Dangendorf, the Tulane author, said.
'There is a silver lining because we have control about how much we emit, right?' he said. 'So we can stop that development, at least to some degree.'
___
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
___
Read more of AP's climate coverage.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Extreme floods that once swamped coastal communities only rarely are becoming far more common as climate change caused by humans pushes sea levels higher, according to new research published…

Climate change makes once-rare coastal floods more likely, study says

Climate Central-led paper finds climate change tripled the number of days with extreme water-levels at worldwide locations since the 1970s.
Princeton, N.J. – June 10, 2026 - As sea level rise accelerates, more and more people, ecosystems, and infrastructure are facing increasing coastal flood risks globally. Until now, climate change's influence on local and regional flood risks has been underexplored, leaving communities without vital information they need. Now, a new paper led by Climate Central helps pinpoint how much human-caused climate change is responsible for increases in extreme water levels at local and regional scales across the globe.
The new research published in Science Advances finds that human-caused sea level rise is detectable at 97% of global tide gauge sites investigated and climate change was responsible for 58% of the observed days with extreme water levels during 2000-2018. Averaged across all locations, climate change has nearly tripled the number of days exceeding extreme water level thresholds since the 1970s.
Climate Central researchers used two largely independent methods to estimate the climate change signal in sea level rise and extreme water levels at 519 tide gauge sites around the world. Results from the first method were determined by calculating attributable sea level rise from four contributing factors: thermal expansion of water, melt from mountain glaciers, and ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.
'These studies highlight how we've loaded the climate dice against not only our children and grandchildren, but ourselves!' said Daniel Gilford, paper author and climate scientist at Climate Central. 'The effects of human-caused climate change are already here. We will continue to face growing threats like increasing coastal flood risks unless we immediately and sharply reduce our climate pollution.'
The second method compared observed sea levels from 1900-2018 to a modeled scenario of the same period but without the influence of climate-warming pollution. Similar conclusions from both methods give confidence in the overall findings — human-caused sea level rise is responsible for driving the majority of extreme water levels worldwide.
These results are further supported by the findings in a complementary new paper in Nature Climate Change by researchers from Tulane University, titled, 'Human-driven sea-level rise has quadrupled the frequency of coastal sea-level extremes since 1900', released concurrently with this work. For more on that paper, please see the Tulane University press release located here.
'Sea level rise is making both tidal flooding and storm-driven flooding more frequent, extensive and expensive,' said Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) at Rutgers University and a co-author of the Science Advances study. 'Together, these two studies allow us to pinpoint the human role in driving these changes.'
Both studies were co-supported by MACH, a National Science Foundation-funded, Rutgers-led consortium focused on advancing the science of coastal climate risk and the practice of coastal climate adaptation.
To connect with the authors of this paper, please contact Abbie Veitch at aveitch@climatecentral.org.
To connect with Science Advances, please contact vancepak@aaas.org

Climate Central bridges the scientific community and the public, providing clear information to help people make sound decisions about the climate.

Quezon City — Greenpeace Philippines welcomed the filing of House Resolution No. 1074[1], which seeks to align Philippine climate action with recent landmark international climate rulings and resolutions, including the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution supporting the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) advisory opinion on climate change, and the advisory opinion of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, among others. The group said the move could help accelerate the passage of legislation that would hold climate polluters accountable and require them to pay for the harms they have caused.
Typhoon survivors posing in front of the House of Representatives highlighting the worsening climate impacts and urging policymakers to pass the Climate Accountability (CLIMA) Bill.
© Grace Duran-Cabus / Greenpeace
The filing follows the UNGA's overwhelming vote in favor of implementing the ICJ advisory opinion on states' obligations regarding climate change.[2] Currently pending before the House Committee on Climate Change, House Resolution No. 1074 urges President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to align climate policies, legislation, and international engagements with the principles and obligations affirmed by the Court.
'The United Nations has spoken and lawmakers must act,' said Greenpeace Philippines Senior Climate Campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin. 'The adoption of this resolution may help speed up the passing of the Climate Accountability (CLIMA) Bill and bring us closer to holding major polluters accountable for decades of climate deception and destruction.'
'By moving this resolution forward, Congress is sending a clear signal: continued fossil fuel expansion, obstruction of climate action, and the deliberate distortion of climate science are not business as usual—they are acts that cause real harm to communities. This strengthens the legal and moral basis for regulating corporate polluters. The era of impunity for climate polluters must end,' Benosa-Llorin added.
The CLIMA Bill[3] seeks to transform the business practices of major climate-polluting corporations and establish mechanisms to hold them financially accountable for climate-related loss and damage suffered by communities. For countries like the Philippines – among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate impacts[4] despite contributing only a small share of global emissions – such measures are critical to ensuring that those most responsible for the crisis bear their fair share.
'I highly commend the filing of this resolution, particularly its call for the Executive Branch to integrate and align the legal obligations articulated by the ICJ Advisory Opinion into domestic laws, policies, and climate action frameworks,' said Nicole Anne Ponce, global advocacy lead of World's Youth for Climate Justice, who also works as a climate and human rights lawyer. 'This includes ensuring that the Philippines' positions in international climate negotiations, as well as the implementation and enhancement of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are fully consistent with the obligations and standards clarified by the Court. As implementation becomes the defining challenge of this moment, such efforts are essential to translating international legal commitments into tangible outcomes for present and future generations.'
Greenpeace urged lawmakers to seize the momentum created by the landmark advisory opinion and the UNGA resolution by prioritizing measures that protect communities facing escalating climate impacts and hold major polluters accountable. As the country braces for El Niño while continuing to endure increasingly destructive floods, storms, and heat extremes, Filipinos continue to bear the costs of a climate crisis driven largely by fossil fuel companies' actions.
'The science is clear, the impacts are undeniable, and the law is increasingly catching up with climate reality,' Benosa-Llorin said. 'We urge President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Congress to seize this moment and fast-track the passage of the CLIMA Bill. While no law can undo the lives, livelihoods, and futures already lost to the climate crisis, holding climate polluters accountable is a crucial step toward justice, reparations, and a safer future for all Filipinos.'
Notes to the editor:
[1] Lawmakers from the House of Representatives filed House Resolution 1074 last June 1, 2026 to recognize climate change as a human rights and intergenerational justice emergency. The resolution welcomed the advisory opinions of the ICJ and International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in respect of climate change. It also welcomed UNGA's decision on the AOs and urged the executive department to integrate them into Philippine climate policy, domestic legislation and international negotiations.
[2] UNGA heeds Pacific voices, backs world court on states' climate obligations
[3] Landmark climate accountability law to make corporate polluters pay pushed in Congress
[4] WorldRiskReport 2025
For more information and interview requests, please contact:
James Relativo, Communications Campaigner
Greenpeace Southeast Asia – Philippines
[email protected] | +63919 069 3424
Urge the Philippine Congress to protect our communities, future generations, and the environment by passing the Climate Accountability (CLIMA) Bill. Add your support by clicking the button below.

HR 1074 seeks to align Philippine climate action with recent landmark international climate rulings and resolutions, including the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution supporting the…

Greenpeace backs House Resolution 1074 on climate change, urges passage of CLIMA Bill

We talk to Vanessa Brizuela, Nandita Thatte, Clive Mutunga, Bernard Onyango and colleagues, authors of the recent PLOS Climate publication 'Research priorities in sexual and reproductive health and rights and climate change: Results of a consensus building and prioritisation process'
What led you to decide on this research question?
Over recent years, evidence linking climate change and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) has grown significantly, documenting associations with maternal and newborn health, access to contraception and abortion services, gender-based violence, and broader reproductive health outcomes. However, the evidence often remains fragmented and peripherical to climate action, with important gaps across regions, populations, and thematic areas. Building on earlier work from HRP in identifying these gaps, the need emerged to move beyond mapping evidence toward prioritizing the most urgent research questions. This also meant broadening the conversation beyond academic literature to include the voices of communities directly experiencing climate-related SRHR challenges and practitioners working on the ground. This led to a collaborative effort between HRP, the IBP Network, and AFIDEP to co-develop a more inclusive, participatory, and action-oriented research agenda grounded in both evidence and lived experience.
How did you go about designing your study?
The study used a modified Delphi process combined with elements of the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) methodology to systematically identify and prioritize research questions. In an attempt to broaden inclusivity and accessibility, we used virtual platforms, multilingual participation, and interactive online workshops to engage the range of global stakeholders involved. Through multiple rounds of surveys and consultations with participants from diverse disciplines —including SRHR, climate change, gender, development, and humanitarian action— we collectively proposed, refined, and ranked research priorities in this space to foster collective learning. This combination of structured prioritization methods and participatory dialogue helped ensure both methodological rigour and broad engagement in shaping the final priorities.
Did you encounter any challenges in collecting or interpreting your data?
There were challenges on a couple fronts. Relating to the topic: climate change and SRHR are two very large areas that engage and affect broad population groups and experts from different fields of work; in addition, climate change affects SRHR through multiple pathways. Relating to the methodology and implementation: while Delphi and CHNRI methods are widely used, they present with inherent challenges based on the people who participate; and while having an entirely online implementation allowed for a broader representation (and fewer carbon-fuelled trips around the world!) it also made engagement difficult at times. Relatedly, despite efforts to engage participants from low- and middle-income countries and to provide multilingual access, participation remained somewhat skewed toward English-speaking and higher-income settings. Albeit these challenges, the final product speaks of a rigorous and systematic approach engaging experts bringing a wide scope of experience and expertise.
What struck you most about your results? What are the key messages and who do you hope might benefit from these new insights?
There was a large degree of consensus around the importance of addressing evidence gaps in areas that have often been overlooked in climate and SRHR research. While maternal and newborn health featured prominently, participants also highlighted critical questions related to contraception, abortion access, gender-based violence, comprehensive sexuality education, and the intersection of climate change with poverty and gender inequality. The findings reinforced that climate change is not only an environmental issue but also a critical SRHR and equity issue. There is a clear need for more coordinated research, funding, and policy action aligned with the realities of affected populations. Our results also revealed important inquiry areas beyond individual outcomes, including health systems, policy, resilience, and equity. Strong interest emerged in how climate and SRHR can be better integrated into national policies, adaptation strategies, and health systems approaches, reflecting recognition that these challenges are interconnected and cannot be addressed in silos.
What further research would you like to see in this area?
The identified priorities provide an important foundation, but further research is needed to translate them into action. The literature showed and the experts agreed that hearing directly from the communities was central to future research. Strengthening partnerships with locally based organizations and networks is critical to ensuring that research agendas are grounded in real-world needs and contexts. Greater attention to intersectionality —across gender, age, disability, and socioeconomic status— will also be essential for understanding differential impacts and designing equitable responses. These results paved the way for a recent call for proposals on community experiences in adapting to climate change for sexual and reproductive health and rights led by WHO/HRP. Data emerging from the selected research projects will better strengthen our understanding and help shape evidence-informed policies on climate and health.
What made you choose PLOS Climate as a venue for your article?
PLOS Climate was a strong fit for this work given its focus on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of climate, health, and development. At the same time, the journal's commitment to open access and broad dissemination was another deciding factor. Making the findings freely available is not only a core mandate of any evidence emerging from WHO/HRP-supported research, is it critical in reaching researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and advocates —particularly in low- and middle-income countries where the impacts of climate change on SRHR are often most pronounced.
Ready to submit your own work to PLOS Climate? Follow our step-by-step guide to the submission process!

We talk to Vanessa Brizuela, Nandita Thatte, Clive Mutunga, Bernard Onyango and colleagues, authors of the recent PLOS Climate publication 'Research priorities in sexual…

Behind the paper: sexual and reproductive health and rights and climate change

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Climate change has increased the likelihood of heat that could impair player performance and slow match tempo for 97 of 104 matches at the upcoming World Cup, a nonprofit climate research and communications group said earlier this month.
Climate Central examined the odds of temperatures exceeding 28 C, a threshold linked to declines in player performance, such as decreased sprint frequency and slower recovery times. It said that the heat will threaten the safety of athletes and fans, as well as impact the quality of the game at the June 11-July 19 football event hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
The analysis compared current climate conditions influenced by human-caused climate change with a counterfactual world without climate change to determine how global warming alters the likelihood of performance-impairing heat during a match.
Japan's national team is likely to experience heat-related issues during the group stage. There is an estimated 95 percent chance of this occurring during the Sunday match against the Netherlands in Dallas, Texas; a 79 percent chance during the June 20 match against Tunisia in Monterrey, Mexico; and a 98 percent chance during the June 25 match against Sweden in Dallas.
The figures in all three cases are higher than they would be in a scenario without climate change.
According to the analysis, among all World Cup matches, climate change most boosted the odds of performance-impairing heat for the June 26 match in Guadalajara, Mexico, between Uruguay and Spain -- increasing the odds by 37 percentage points to 70 percent.
"Playing in temperatures above 28 C changes the game -- affecting tactics, tempo and overall quality," said Mike Tipton, a professor at the University of Portsmouth and a member of the Climate Central analysis team. "We see reduced intensity, less sprinting and potentially fewer chances being created."
Morten Thorsby, a player on the Norwegian national team, said, "This analysis makes clear that rising temperatures are not only a serious health risk for players and fans, but they are also starting to affect the quality of the game itself."
"When heat impacts sprinting, recovery and overall intensity, it changes the way football is played -- and not for the better," he added.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Climate change has increased the likelihood of heat that could impair player performance and slow match tempo for 97 of 104 matches a

Climate change increases heat risks in 97 of 104 World Cup matches

Climate Central-led paper finds climate change tripled the number of days with extreme water-levels

Kyun Jong-ho (left), South Korea's ambassador for climate change, and Dinara Kemelova, the Kyrgyzstani president's special representative for the Mountain Agenda, pose for a photo during the first Korea-Kyrgyzstan Joint Committee on Climate Change Cooperation meeting in Bonn, Germany, Wednesday. (Foreign Ministry)
Kyrgyzstan and South Korea agreed to accelerate joint carbon reduction projects and expand climate cooperation during talks held on the sidelines of UN climate meetings in Bonn, Germany, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The agreement was reached on Wednesday at the inaugural Korea-Kyrgyzstan Joint Committee on Climate Change Cooperation meeting, held alongside the 64th session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The two countries adopted detailed implementation procedures for international carbon reduction projects and approved operational guidelines for the joint committee. According to Korea's Foreign Ministry, the framework is expected to boost private investment and accelerate greenhouse gas reduction projects.
The Korean delegation was led by Kyun Jong-ho, Korea's ambassador for climate change. Kyrgyzstan was represented by Dinara Kemelova, the Kyrgyzstani president's special representative for the Mountain Agenda.
Discussions focused on cooperation under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to count emissions reductions generated abroad toward their national climate goals.
Korea has signed climate cooperation framework agreements with 11 countries.
Kyrgyzstan became the second country after Mongolia to adopt rules governing how future carbon-credit projects will be developed and certified.
The two sides agreed to expedite bilateral carbon reduction projects and seek approvals for key initiatives ahead of the inaugural Korea-Central Asia Summit in Seoul in September.
Both governments said their cooperation under Article 6.2 could help achieve their national emissions-reduction goals while contributing to sustainable development. They also stressed the need to build a transparent and credible global carbon market.
Korea and Kyrgyzstan both aim for carbon neutrality by 2050, with Korea stressing legally mandated emissions cuts and Kyrgyzstan focusing on green development, climate finance and resilience.
Kyrgyzstan, where more than 90 percent of the territory is mountainous, called for continued Korean support in promoting mountain-related issues in UN climate negotiations and ahead of the 2027 Global Mountain Summit in Bishkek.
The meeting was the first held under a bilateral climate cooperation agreement signed in December 2024 that entered into force in May 2025.

Kyun Jong-ho (left), South Korea's ambassador for climate change, and Dinara Kemelova, the Kyrgyzstani president's speci

Global Warming & Climate Change World News

Up to date worldwide news about global warming and climate change.

News List