wolfyvegan

One expert speaking at a forum on insurance and housing says climate change could soon mark a “death spiral” for the financial industry in parts of the country.

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• Cambodian authorities have approved a new cement factory inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, despite a 2023 moratorium on new mining licenses, raising concerns about enforcement and conservation integrity.
• Factory developer KP Cement, a politically connected firm previously linked to deforestation, was awarded a 50-year lease on 99 hectares (245 acres) within the ostensibly protected sanctuary and is already clearing forest near a planned limestone mine.
• Local communities have expressed alarm over environmental degradation, health risks from limestone dust, and being excluded from decision-making, saying the development benefits only elites.
• The project reflects a broader pattern of politically tied companies exploiting Prey Lang’s resources despite its protected status, with critics accusing the government of favoring industry over conservation.

archived (Wayback Machine)

• Cambodian authorities have approved a new cement factory inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, despite a 2023 moratorium on new mining licenses, raising concerns about enforcement and conservation integrity.
• Factory developer KP Cement, a politically connected firm previously linked to deforestation, was awarded a 50-year lease on 99 hectares (245 acres) within the ostensibly protected sanctuary and is already clearing forest near a planned limestone mine.
• Local communities have expressed alarm over environmental degradation, health risks from limestone dust, and being excluded from decision-making, saying the development benefits only elites.
• The project reflects a broader pattern of politically tied companies exploiting Prey Lang’s resources despite its protected status, with critics accusing the government of favoring industry over conservation.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Abstract

The growth rate of the atmospheric abundance of methane (CH4) reached a record high of 15.4 ppb yr−1 between 2020 and 2022, but the mechanisms driving the accelerated CH4 growth have so far been unclear. In this work, we use measurements of the 13C:12C ratio of CH4 (expressed as δ13CCH4) from NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network and a box model to investigate potential drivers for the rapid CH4 growth. These measurements show that the record-high CH4 growth in 2020–2022 was accompanied by a sharp decline in δ13CCH4, indicating that the increase in CH4 abundance was mainly driven by increased emissions from microbial sources such as wetlands, waste, and agriculture. We use our box model to reject increasing fossil fuel emissions or decreasing hydroxyl radical sink as the dominant driver for increasing global methane abundance.

Global average surface temperatures shattered all-time records in 2023 at 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above pre-industrial levels (WMO 2024). Worsened by climate change-induced drought, Canadian wildfires burned 18.5 million hectares, nearly three-times more land area than in any previous year on record (NRC 2023). Parts of the Amazon River reached their lowest levels in 120 years of data-keeping and, in places, recorded surface water temperatures near 40 °C (Rodrigues 2023). The world has reached the threshold of a 1.5 °C increase in global average surface temperature and is only beginning to experience the full consequences.

Methane (CH4) is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It contributed 0.5 °C of warming in the 2010s relative to the late 1800s—two-thirds as much warming as CO2 (IPCC 2021). It is also far more potent than CO2 ton for ton, with a global warming potential (GWP) >80 and 30 times more than CO2 for the first twenty years and century after release, respectively (Forster et al 2021).

Methane is rising faster in relative terms than any major greenhouse gas and is now 2.6-fold higher than in pre-industrial times. Global average methane concentrations reached 1931 parts per billion (ppb) in January of 2024 (Lan et al 2024). Annual increases in methane are also accelerating for reasons that are debated. Global methane concentrations rose by 15, 18, 13, and 10 ppb each year from 2020 through 2023, respectively, the second, first, fourth, and fourteenth largest increases since the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) methane time series began in 1983 (Lan et al 2024).

The Global Carbon Project updates its Global Methane Budget (GMB) every few years (Saunois et al 2016, 2020, 2024). The GMB integrates results of: (1) bottom-up (BU) estimates based on process-based models for estimating wetland surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, inventories of anthropogenic emissions, and data-driven extrapolations, and (2) top-down (TD) CH4 emission estimates based on atmospheric observations and an inverse-modeling framework. Here, we summarize new estimates of the GMB based on the new GMB (Saunois et al 2024). We estimate CH4 sources and sinks for the periods 2000–2002 and 2018–2020, as well as for the most-recent year (2020), the last year that full global TD and BU methane datasets are available. We compare 3 year-average estimates to smooth the inter-annual variability signals from climatic variability such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that influence natural emissions from wetlands and other ecosystems, as well as from the chemical sink.

We provide insights on data for methane sources and sinks globally and for the geographical regions and economic sectors whose emissions have changed the most since 2000. We also provide additional data on changes in recent years using satellite-based inversions using the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) (e.g. Yu et al 2023).

• Indonesia’s human rights commission has found serious rights and environmental violations in a government-backed plantation project in Papua, including land grabbing, lack of Indigenous consent, and militarization that has created fear among local communities.
• The project, aiming to clear 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) for sugarcane and rice plantations, threatens biodiverse forests and Indigenous livelihoods, violating national and international protections for land rights, food security and environmental health.
• Five key rights were found to be violated: rights to land, environment, food, participation in decision-making, and security — all guaranteed by Indonesian law and international norms.
• The rights commission, Komnas HAM, recommended legal recognition of Indigenous lands, fair participation, and restoration of rights, but civil society groups are calling for a complete halt to the project and demilitarization, warning of systematic harm if it continues.

(To be clear, they intend to cut down the rainforest and plant 3 million hectares of grass.)

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21579890

Massive wildfires that killed at least 32 people and scorched an area nearly double the size of Seoul in late March could become more common under human-driven climate change, scientists warn.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• study cited: summary and full PDF

Massive wildfires that killed at least 32 people and scorched an area nearly double the size of Seoul in late March could become more common under human-driven climate change, scientists warn.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• study cited: summary and full PDF