Latest news with #globalwarming
Reuters
9 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Why banks and investors find heat risks easy to ignore
LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - Heatwaves, which climate change has long made more frequent and taxing in tropical and desert regions, are now becoming more common in Europe. This summer's heatwave killed 2,300 people across Europe in the days leading up to July 2. Scientists confirm that global warming is making heatwave events more intense, more frequent and more widespread. Businesses from bakeries to museums have seen impacts from lower spending to forced closure, leaving profits wilting in the sun. Increasingly, economists link extreme heat to economic losses visible in everything from falling agricultural yields to lower worker productivity and in some cases a shuttering of all business activity. European Central Bank research says heatwaves can substantially reduce productivity, opens new tab, increase food prices and lower economic growth. Allianz, the German fund manager and insurer, said this month that this year's heatwaves may have knocked half a percentage point off European GDP. But it is difficult to translate these economic impacts into financial losses. In many cases, fund managers and banks say they are unable to really assess how physical shocks like heatwaves and droughts transmit to asset prices. Hedge fund giant Man Group gave it a stab and found U.S.-listed firms with facilities concentrated in heat-sensitive regions showed higher volatility during anomalously warm summers. But markets were not pricing in, opens new tab this risk, Man Group researchers said. "Very few asset managers are very actively looking at what can be done in portfolios to position them for resistance or resilience to more frequent catastrophes," Allianz Group's chief investment officer Ludovic Subran told me. I put the predicament to Miles Parker, a senior lead economist at the European Central Bank who recently published a blog post on heatwaves, opens new tab. Parker has spent 17 years researching links between climate, the economy and financial performance, though he's not a banking supervisor. One issue for banks, Parker said, is that the damage caused by heatwaves is not as easy to quantify or assess as that caused by storms or floods, where bridges or houses may be physically destroyed. "In terms of bank exposure, the loan loss there is obvious," he said. "When it comes to droughts and heatwaves, you don't have this direct physical damage, but there's still economic damage." Heatwaves reduce regional economic activity, lower incomes, and raise the risk of higher unemployment and more defaults from companies and households. "Even though it's not physical damage in these events, there is still risk to a bank loan book, and these indirect impacts can be quite big," he said. Another challenge for banks is how to quantify the prolonged and often indirect impact of the heatwave. ECB research from November showed regional activity can be 1.5% lower two years after a heatwave, opens new tab. While a business that has borrowed from a bank may not be directly exposed to physical risk, its supply chains and the local economy it operates in may be. "These indirect impacts can matter," he said. "So I think it's important for an institution to take into account this indirect general equilibrium risk." On the whole, investors like insurance and pension managers are the ones paying more attention to heat risk because they have to think longer-term. Subran tells me Allianz is actively working with asset managers to try to pick stocks or bonds with a higher tolerance for heatwaves, though the effort is complicated by a lack of data and clear adaptation. "When you are an insurer, you have to [look at this], that's your mission. That's your purpose," he said. "When you are an asset manager, you have fewer tools. When you're a hedge fund, you don't care." (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)
Associated Press
17 hours ago
- Science
- Associated Press
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change reports on NASA website as promised
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do. But on Monday, NASA announced that it aborted those plans. 'The USGCRP (the government agency that oversees and used to host the report) met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host data,' NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said. On July 3, NASA put out a statement that said, 'All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.' Related Stories Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down 'This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,' said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of several past national climate assessments. Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's library and the latest report and its interactive atlas can be seen here. Former Obama White House science adviser and climate scientist John Holdren accused the administration of outright lying and long intended to censor or bury the reports. 'The new stance is classic Trump administration misdirection,' Holdren said. 'In this instance, the administration offers a modest consolation to quell initial outrage over the closure of the site and the disappearance of the National Climate Assessments. Then, two weeks later, they snatch away the consolation with no apology.' 'They simply don't want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action,' Holdren said in an email. That's why it's important that state and local governments and every day people see these reports, Holdren said. He said they are written in a way that is 'useful to people who need to understand what climate change is doing and will do to THEM, their loved ones, their property and their environment.' 'Trump doesn't want people to know,' Holdren wrote. The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people's security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk. ___ 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
Arab News
a day ago
- Climate
- Arab News
Europe must learn to adapt to extreme heat
My recent visit to the beautiful Greek islands of Corfu and Paxos gave another indication that planning a holiday in search of the somewhat cooler months of early summer has become futile. Locals kept saying that it was unseasonably hot for the beginning of June, as temperatures hit 34 degrees Celsius, considerably higher than what a simple internet search suggests for this time of the year. As a matter of fact, the term 'unseasonable' has become redundant, as this is the new normal. And it is no longer just Southern Europe: Northern Europe is also experiencing extreme and prolonged periods of hot weather. Should you have been watching the tennis at Wimbledon on TV, do not be deceived by the lush green grass of its courts, as these are exceptional and a far cry from the bleached yellow acres of London's famous public parks. Thermometers do not lie. They indicate that Earth's average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record, at about 1.55 C above preindustrial levels. And the indications are that we could see this undesirable record broken again in 2025. While the need to combat global warming for the sake of humanity should by now be unquestionable, there is also the issue of how to make summers more bearable for European cities that are not geared to such a hot climate. Many of them, especially in the north, were built to protect from very cold weather or, in the process of modernization and urbanization, ignored the impact of massive stretches of concrete paving and densely built urban spaces. One of the great challenges we face is adapting to the new hotter conditions without exacerbating global warming through the mass installation of air-conditioning systems, which seems to be a growing trend. A European heat wave was once a genuine rarity, a phenomenon that would pass in a matter of days and not recur for years. This is no longer the case. In Spain, a record temperature of 46 C was recorded last month and temperatures are generally remaining higher. In London, they can remain at about 30 C for weeks, while rain is hard to come by. Hence, the first step in adapting to this new situation is to recognize that this is what summers are now going to look like for the foreseeable future. So, there is a need for measures to counter the trend, not only because it is unpleasant or uncomfortable, but because it also affects our quality of life and our health. It can even be life-threatening, particularly for our more vulnerable citizens — it has already been referred to as the 'silent killer.' It is estimated that June's heat wave killed 2,300 people across 12 major European cities in a matter of 10 days — and 1,500 of these deaths are attributed by scientists to the climate change crisis. The impact of extreme hot weather, nevertheless, goes beyond health risks, as it affects daily human functioning, including cognitive and physical performance, and interferes with quality of sleep; hence, it should not be taken lightly. The fast-tracking of modernization and urbanization has seen the retreat of large green areas. Yossi Mekelberg The instant solution has been to install more air conditioning, as has already been done in nearly 90 percent of homes in the US, compared to only 20 percent in Europe, mainly in the south. No more than a fraction of houses in the British Isles, Germany and the Nordic countries are air conditioned. But since this is a growing market, it must come with a stern warning. While it may provide instant relief from the heat, the heavy consumption of electricity that comes with it and the fact that air conditioners simply pump hot air back into the environment exacerbate climate change and contribute to the soaring summer temperatures. If the obvious answer to preventing future heat waves is to contain and reverse climate change, cities need to look into more short-term solutions, even if these provide only partial answers. There is, for instance, a broad consensus that developing more green and open spaces, planting more trees, has a dual effect on fighting pollution. Equally, those open places provide relief from the heat in densely built cities. According to the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, botanical gardens can cool the city air by about 5 C during heat waves, with parks and wetlands also significantly reducing air temperatures. However, the fast-tracking of modernization and urbanization has seen the retreat of large green areas and their replacement with high-rise buildings that bring more people and, with them, more pollution. Pavements also play their part in heating cities due to the materials they are made with, their color and how reflective they are. Using less concrete and more natural stone, which absorbs less heat, helps. Several cities in Australia and Canada are also identifying large areas for the removal of paving, allowing more plants and soil for the purpose of cooling urban areas. Municipal leadership is already responding with creative ideas. For instance, Barcelona has installed some 400 aesthetically pleasing canopy shelters where people can cool off for free, adding to the attraction of the city for both locals and tourists. The nongovernmental organization Climate Adapt is promoting the building, repairing and maintenance of fountains for drinking and cooling, as well as cooling by water spray from fountains and other recreational water features, such as splash pads and spray parks. Most European cities were built along rivers or by lakes and, after decades of neglect and pollution, there is a drive to clean them up, which could provide another source of relief from the heat. In Paris, the river Seine has reopened to swimmers, allowing them to take a dip in the French capital's famous waterway for the first time in more than a century, although it cost more than €1 billion ($1.1 billion) to clean it up and make it suitable for Olympic competitions last year. Hiding under a well-designed canopy or dipping in a park's paddling pool are ways to mitigate the effects of the unbearable heat waves that are becoming increasingly common. The ever-hotter summers that now go beyond mere inconvenience and have become harmful to health are another warning that, in the midst of a very busy domestic and international agenda, the most crucial issue for the survival of humanity and the planet has been sidelined, to the detriment of both. If we do not take the necessary action, at some point in the distant future, patchy measures — as important and comforting as they are — will become meaningless. In the meantime, do not forget to apply your sunscreen, carry a bottle of water and take a dip in a cool river near you. • Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Now scientists blame REDUCTIONS in air pollution in China for the acceleration in global warming
Reductions in air pollution might sound like a positive thing. But scientists now say that reductions in East Asia are actually to blame for the sudden, rapid acceleration in global warming. While air pollution kills millions, it also whitens clouds. In turn, this makes the clouds reflect more sunlight back into space - helping to keep our planet cool. As China and other nations slash their emissions, they are inadvertently removing the artificial shade that has been holding back the full force of climate change, experts from the University of Reading say. Co-author Professor Laura Wilcox, from the University of Reading, told MailOnline: 'This shading effect from air pollution has offset some of the warming we should have seen due to increasing greenhouse gases. 'As we improve air quality, we remove some of this shading effect, unmasking more warming from greenhouse gases. 'Reducing our aerosol emissions isn't causing warming directly, but revealing more of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.' Since 1970, the world has been warming by around 0.18°C (0.32°F) per decade, but this suddenly increased to around 0.24°C (0.43°F) starting from around 2010. For some researchers, this led to the worrying conclusion that the planet's climate sensitivity - how much warming is produced by a given amount of CO2 - might be at the higher end of estimates. However, Dr Wilcox and her co-authors have proposed an alternative theory. They noticed that the sudden increase in warming coincided very closely with East Asia's rapid air pollution cleanup. In the last few decades, countries in East Asia have undergone dramatic transformations to clean up their air. China, where air pollution is responsible for one million premature deaths per year, was responsible for three-quarters of all global air pollution reductions in the last decade. This has led to a 75 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions over the past 15 years. When pollutants like sulphur dioxide are released into the atmosphere, they form a fine mist of tiny particles called sulfate aerosols, which drift up into the atmosphere. These particles reflect sunlight themselves and influence the way clouds form to make them whiter and more long-lasting. This acts as a 'cooling sunshade' which prevents some solar radiation from reaching Earth and being trapped by the greenhouse effect. While the cleanup is absolutely necessary to save millions of lives, it also has the unintentional consequence of producing a temporary spike in warming. Previous studies predicted that our planet would become 0.23°C (0.37°F) warmer, but the planet actually warmed by 0.33°C (0.55°F). Using 160 computer simulations, the researchers showed that the East Asian cleanup produced almost all of the extra warming over the last 15 years. These simulations showed that East Asia's rapid cleanup is responsible for 0.07°C (0.12°F) of this increase. Overall, there has been so much pollution in the air that it has kept human-caused warming in check by up to 0.5°C (0.84°F) over the last century. While this is a very small amount compared to total human-caused warming, around 1.3°C (2.2°F) since 1850, it shows that Earth's climate sensitivity is lower than some feared. From this, it might be tempting to conclude that climate change is not really as bad as some scientists had thought. Now that air pollution has been largely reduced, CO2 will once again take over as the main driver of global warming and will not stop warming the planet on its current trend (illustrated) until CO2 levels are reduced However, the researchers say their study proves the complete opposite. Lead-author Dr Bjørn Samset, from the CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, told MailOnline: 'In one sense it means that global warming is worse than before.' Air pollution has been hiding the warming that CO2 levels should have produced, and the planet is only now catching up to where it should be. The worst of the catch-up period may now be over, but the planet will continue to warm as greenhouse gas emissions take over as the main driver of change. 'The majority of the warming is still, and will continue to be, from greenhouse gas emissions, and the planet will keep warming until we manage to reach net zero CO2 emissions,' says Dr Samset. 'We were always going to need to face up to the full effects of global warming. 'In fact, in order to keep to the targets of the Paris agreement, we now have to work even harder to rapidly cut our greenhouse gas emissions, since the acceleration has put us closer to 1.5 degrees of global warming even quicker than feared.' The invisible dangers of poor air quality Poor air quality is the largest environmental risk factor for early deaths leading to an estimated 8 million deaths per year globally, according to recent analysis by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. The World Health Organisation recently stated that almost every organ in the body can be impacted by air pollution and that due to their small size, some pollutants penetrate the bloodstream via the lungs and circulate throughout the entire body, leading to systemic inflammation and carcinogenicity. Exposure to air pollution can lead to strokes, ischaemic heart disease, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, pneumonia, diabetes, cognitive impairment, dementia and neurological diseases. There is also some evidence linking air pollution exposure to the increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as low birth weight.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
China's success in cleaning up air pollution may have accelerated global warming: Study
Efforts to clean up air pollution in China and across East Asia may have inadvertently contributed to a spike in global warming, a new study has found. The decline in aerosol emissions — which can cool the planet by absorbing sunlight — have added about 0.05 degrees Celsius in warming per decade since 2010, according to the study, published on Monday in Communications Earth & Environment. At that time, China began implementing aggressive air quality policies and was ultimately able to achieve a 75 percent reduction in emissions rate of toxic sulfur dioxide, the authors noted. Sulfur dioxide gas, harmful pollutants that result from fossil fuel combustion and volcanoes, are precursors of sulfate aerosols, which are the dominant aerosol species that cool the Earth today. Despite posing health threats to plants, humans and other animals, these particles are among the many types of aerosols that also cool the planet. When clouds form around aerosols, such particles can absorb solar energy from the atmosphere and thereby reduce sunlight at ground level. And if clouds are not present, aerosols can reflect sunlight back into outer space. Before China's air quality improvement policies took effect, pollution was a leading cause of premature death in the country, the study authors noted. However, with fewer cooling aerosols now present in the atmosphere, areas of East Asia and around the world have endured intensified warming — and are expected to face even more extreme heat, shifting monsoon patterns and potential disruptions to agriculture, according to the study. The plunge in sulfate levels 'partially unmasks greenhouse-gas driven warming and influences the spatial pattern of surface temperature change,' the researchers observed. 'Reducing air pollution has clear health benefits, but without also cutting CO₂, you're removing a layer of protection against climate change,' co-author Robert Allen, a climatology professor at the University of California, Riverside, said in statement. 'It highlights the need for parallel efforts to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,' he said. Allen and his colleagues drew their conclusions based on simulations from major climate models for the years 2015 to 2049, using data from the Regional Aerosol Model Intercomparison Project, which includes contributions from the U.S., Europe and Asia. They projected a global, annual mean warming of about 0.07 degrees Celsius due to aerosol emissions reductions, with 0.05 degrees Celsius of warming per decade already occurring since 2010. Emissions reductions applied to their simulations corresponded closely with those realized over the 2010 to 2023 period in East Asia, the authors noted, adding that emissions from the region are expected to continue to decline — albeit at a slower rate. Although their work focused on sulfate aerosols, the researchers stressed that carbon dioxide and methane emissions remain the biggest drivers of long-term climate change. 'Our study focused on the recent, dramatic speedup in global warming, which is very concerning but still small compared to the overall, long-term amount of warming from increased CO2 and methane,' said lead author Bjørn Samset, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway, in a statement. Allen, meanwhile, also emphasized that because aerosols are short-lived in the atmosphere, the spike in global temperatures could subside in the near future. 'Sulfur dioxide and sulfate aerosols have lifetimes of about a week,' he said. 'Once they're removed, we'll eventually settle back into a warming rate that's more consistent with the long-term trend.' As other regions across the world, including South Asia, Africa and North America, begin to phase out aerosol emissions, the scientists said they plan to analyze how potential shifts could shape forthcoming climate trends. 'Air quality improvements are a no-brainer for public health,' Allen said. 'But if we want to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, we have to cut CO₂ and methane too. The two must go hand in hand.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
