Latest news with #coastalcommunities
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Climate
- Washington Post
Coastal communities are flooding more than we realize. Here's why.
Fast-rising seas have forced some coastal communities to endure flooding far more frequently than previously thought, and much more often than federal tide gauges would suggest, according to a new findings from researchers in North Carolina. 'I view it as a harbinger of what's to come,' said Katherine Anarde, an assistant professor of coastal engineering at North Carolina State University and one of the lead authors of the study, published Monday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
The Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Communities could get cash for hosting solar farms and offshore wind schemes
Communities living near new clean energy schemes could get cash for sports facilities, better transport links and training schemes, the Government has said. Under the plans, coastal communities who host infrastructure linked to offshore wind farms, and those in rural areas where new solar or wind farms are built, will receive money from energy developers to spend on their local priorities. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the level of payments could range from tens of thousands of pounds a year up to millions of pounds a year, depending on the size of the development. The proposals would enshrine in law a requirement for renewable developers to pay into community benefit funds, with local people who are hosting the infrastructure needed to transform the UK's energy system to clean power able to choose what the money is spent on. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: 'If you live near an offshore wind or solar farm, your local community should benefit from supporting this nationally critical mission. 'The Prime Minister's mission to become a clean energy superpower is creating good well-paid jobs in these areas, building the infrastructure we need to get energy bills down for working people.' He added it would revitalise coastal and rural communities by creating wealth, better facilities and energy security. The Government has pledged to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind by 2030, as part of its plans to make the UK run almost entirely on clean energy by that point, as well as investing in carbon capture and storage, and long-term energy storage. But while renewable technologies are largely popular with voters, they are often controversial in the local areas where large-scale solar farms, onshore wind or the infrastructure bringing offshore wind power onto land are sited. The announcement builds on measure in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill where households within 500 metres of new or upgraded pylons and other transmission infrastructure will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years. The Government is inviting views on the plans from industry and others until July 16, including which types of energy infrastructure – such as renewables, low-carbon energy generation and storage – should be required to pay into community benefit funds.
Washington Post
21-05-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
Earth may already be too hot for the survival of polar ice sheets
Ten years ago, policymakers and nation states set the world's most important climate goal: limiting planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). If the Earth could stay below that threshold, a climate catastrophe and major rise in sea levels might be staved off. But a group of scientists have demonstrated that if the world stays on course to warm up to 1.5 degrees — or even stays at its current level of 1.2 degrees above preindustrial levels — polar ice sheets will probably continue to quickly melt, causing seas to rise and displacing coastal communities, according to a study published Tuesday in Communications Earth and Environment. 'There was a kind of misunderstanding that 1.5 was going to solve all our problems,' said Chris Stokes, a professor at Durham University in England who focuses on glaciers and ice sheets, and an author of the study. Now, the team surmised that limit is closer to around 1 degree Celsius, though more research is needed to come to an official conclusion. The team focused on Greenland and Antarctica, behemoth ice sheets that together could raise global sea levels by more than 210 feet if they melted. They are losing around 370 billion metric tons of ice each year at a rate that has quadrupled since the 1990s. To come to their analyses, scientists pored over more than 150 research papers and focused on three aspects of sea-level rise: recent observations of rapidly melting ice sheets, modeling that uses equations to predict how temperatures could affect the rates of ice melting and past sea-level change tens of thousands of years ago. To help gauge how high sea levels could rise over the coming centuries, scientists have looked back at what happened the last time the Earth was as warm as it is now: roughly 125,000 years ago, during a period known to scientists as the Last Interglacial. Back then, research shows, a wobble in Earth's orbit had changed how much sunlight hit the northern hemisphere, raising global temperatures. The warmer conditions allowed Neanderthals to venture into northern Europe. Mammoths and giant ground sloths migrated poleward. And the ice caps covering the Arctic and Antarctica began to melt, raising sea levels around the world. A vast array of ancient evidence — including ice cores, fossils, deep sea sediments and even octopus DNA — allowed the researchers to reconstruct how this sea-level rise unfolded. For example, ancient coral reefs found 25 feet above the current sea surface mark where the water once reached. Bits of bedrock uncovered in the middle of the ocean reveal how icebergs calved off disintegrating glaciers and then drifted across the sea. This research into Earth's ancient climate has revealed that ice sheet collapse depends on complex processes and can happen at surprising speed. Pulses of sudden sea-level rise, when the ocean surface may have risen multiple feet in less than a century, indicated that the ice sheets could have crossed temperature thresholds that caused them to shed mass all at once. The scientists then fed their findings into computer models of the Earth system, allowing them to confirm that the models' outputs matched what actually occurred. This gave them confidence in the models' forecasts for the future, and the results were sobering. 'Every fraction of a degree matters,' said Andrea Dutton, a research professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was a co-author of the study. 'We can't just adapt to this type of sea-level rise. We can't just engineer our way out of this.' Around 230 million people live within about three feet of sea level, the researchers noted. Over the coming centuries, if the Earth stays at the same temperature, the sea could rise several meters, displacing entire cities and even states. Because of gravitational effects, said Stokes, places closer to the equator, including Pacific islands like Micronesia and some Caribbean islands, will experience more sea-level rise. 'It's an existential threat,' he said. 'Some of these entire states are going to be underwater in a few centuries.'
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Experts sound alarm over creeping coastal collapse that could displace millions by 2050: 'Pushing many ... into poverty and hunger'
Advocates have warned that a number of coastal communities in Nigeria could cease to exist by 2050 if environmental protections aren't made a priority, urging the government to take action and stakeholders to come together. The alarming predictions were issued at a late-April event organized by nonprofit Academic Associates PeaceWorks in the Niger Delta region, where rising sea levels and chronic flooding pose significant threats, according to The Guardian (Nigeria). During the workshop, a focus of which was social conflict in coastal communities, participants said affected areas could be under water within the next 25 years if environmental laws already on the books are not enforced. Nimi Elele, a representative from the Rivers State Ministry of Environment's Climate Change Desk, shared that "fishing yields have also dropped significantly, pushing many coastal dwellers into poverty and hunger." The global average sea level has increased by 8 to 9 inches in the last century and a half, according to a 2023 report from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The government agency has said the warming climate is causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt, contributing to higher sea levels. Scientists confirmed that 2024 was Earth's warmest year on record. Meanwhile, human activities are responsible for most of the heat-trapping pollution entering the atmosphere. In fact, the United Nations reported that burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas accounts for more than 75% of greenhouse gases worldwide. Leading voices at the Niger Delta workshop highlighted the connections linking extreme weather events like major floods with resource depletion and human rights abuses. AAPW deputy director Nkoyo Toyo was among those voices. "When people are displaced and resources become scarce, tensions rise," she said. "You cannot address conflict without addressing environmental and climate issues; they are interconnected." They are compounding too. Communities vulnerable to rising sea levels and repeated floods can face the most immediate danger, with residents often forced to leave their homes. But this can put neighboring areas in jeopardy as well, as displacement can strain clean water access, food supplies, housing, and medical systems. Elele noted that "severe flooding … damages infrastructure and forces people to migrate inland, increasing social risks such as child molestation and sexual abuse," pointing to the disproportionate impacts of disaster on marginalized populations, including women and children. How often do you feel hopeful about the future of the planet when you read news stories or watch entertainment content? Often Sometimes Rarely Never Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Scientists are concerned about the collapse of coastal communities around the world. Researchers have observed that rising sea levels are exacerbating similar issues from New Zealand to New Orleans in the U.S. The Guardian reported that workshop participants from at least five Nigerian states "pleaded for immediate government intervention" to address these coastal threats. Noting that some "grassroots efforts … are increasingly undermined by external actors," governmental enforcement of environmental protection laws already on the books could be key. Some participants also surfaced the 2021 Petroleum Industry Act as a potential mechanism for strengthening investments in disaster mitigation for affected areas. While conflict and the climate crisis are interconnected, so too may be the strategies for addressing their adverse effects. The Guardian reported that Toyo called on stakeholders to collaborate on "a holistic approach to environmental enforcement, involving community leaders, policymakers, and security agencies." And after the workshop, the AAPW shared that one result of the gathering was a call to stand up a Coastal Communities Advocacy Network in support of coordination in the region. Working together at the local level can be an effective method for addressing extreme weather threats and for organizing the conservation projects that might reduce them. Neighbors can be ideal collaborators when it comes to disaster preparedness, possessing local knowledge of risks and routes to safety. They can also rally around initiatives close to home, like community solar programs, or get together to talk about the issues that matter most in their area. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
BBC News
16-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Kent County Council adult social care 'requires improvement'
Adult social care provision in Kent needs to improve, a watchdog has a report published on Friday, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) also said it found "stark contrasts" and "health inequalities" between inland and coastal communities in was a gap in life expectancy of up to eight years between some parts of the county, the body County Council has been approached for comment. The authority scored two out of four in seven of the nine categories it was judged in, and three out of four in the remaining Bullion, CQC's chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said investigators met "enthusiastic and committed staff" but also found "stark contrasts between different areas".He added: "Health inequalities persist despite the authority's efforts to address them."While Kent's health outcomes are often better than the national average, this isn't true for coastal areas where communities face worse health outcomes, poorer quality housing, and seasonal employment."The six-to-eight-year gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of Kent illustrates these inequalities."But he said the authority was doing "some good work" to reduce inequalities. The report found KCC did not manage transitions between services well, had an uneven distribution of care home places across the county and up to 600 people in hospital beds who could have been cared for commission praised the council's efforts to involve people who used services in decision making, and in using new technology, such as an online financial calculator for residents to work out their personal said there were "strong foundations" for the leadership of the council passed from the Conservatives to Reform in May's local elections.
