The environment is very much in the news today. First, new research from Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has shown that the amount of plastic packaging used in supermarkets actually increased from 2017 to 2018, going from 886,000 tonnes to 903,000 tonnes. A lot of the additional weight comes from 10p 'bags for life', which are made of thicker plastic than the flimsier and 'throwaway' 5p bags used previously. The report has found that each household buys an average of 54 'bags for life' a year, making them more 'bag a week' than 'bag for life', with sales up 26% to 1.5 billion bags in 2018.
Following on from yesterday's news that the world's greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high in 2018 at 55 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, the UN has said that significant cuts need to take place across the planet if we are to have any hope of limiting global average temperature increases by the year 2100 to 1.5C.
The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has released a new report showing that all key greenhouses gases measured in 2018 increased at above average rates for the last decade.
The newly-published Production Gap Report 2019, the first of its kind, aims to assess the difference between current government plans for fossil fuel production and the levels that would be necessary to achieve the 1.5C and 2C limits on global temperature increases proposed by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
The Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) have declared states of emergency because of the threat of bushfires, which are burning out of control. There are more than 120 bushfires burning across the two states. Nine homes have been destroyed in Queensland, whilst 150 have been razed to the ground in NSW.
'Climate strike' has been named the Word of the Year for 2019 by the Collins Dictionary. It topped a shortlist of new and notable words that reflected the events of the last 12 months. Interestingly, it is the second year in a row that en environmentally themed word has been chosen. The Word of the Year for 2018 was 'single-use', marking a massive increase in public awareness of plastic pollution.
US President Donald Trump began the process of formally withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement on 4 November 2019. The US will be the only country in the world not to be participating in the pact.
A new statement, published today in BioScience, a publication from the American Institute of Biological Sciences, has declared today "clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency". And the statement has the backing of more than 11,000 scientists from 153 nations around the world.
The government has halted fracking in England with immediate effect. It has also warned that it would not support future shale gas projects.
The decision was taken after a scientific report produced by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) concluded that it was impossible to rule out the possibility that people living near fracking sites might suffer 'unacceptable' consequences.
A lot has been going on during the last week on the topic of climate change. The Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned that companies and industries that are not heading towards a zero carbon future will be affected by investor pull-outs and risk going bankrupt.
