The Bank of England lays bare the “very real” trillion-dollar risks of climate change: QUARTZ

My message today is simple. Climate change poses significant risks to the economy and to the financial system, and while these risks may seem abstract and far away, they are in fact very real, fast approaching, and in need of action today.

That’s how Sarah Breeden began her speech titled “Avoiding the storm: Climate change and the financial system” (pdf) yesterday. Breeden is the Bank of England’s executive director of International Banks Supervision and she was speaking at the Official Monetary & Financial Institutions Forum in London.

The urgency in Breeden’s speech was also on display on London’s streets. Earlier in the day, the environmental group Extinction Rebellion blocked traffic in five iconic locations across the city in a peaceful, non-violent protest to bring attention to “inactivity” of governments on fighting climate change.

Read the QUARTZ article

Rapid permafrost thaw unrecognized threat to landscape, global warming researcher warns: PHYSORG

A "sleeping giant" hidden in permafrost soils in Canada and other northern regions worldwide will have important consequences for global warming, says a new report led by University of Guelph scientist Merritt Turetsky. 

Scientists have long studied how gradual permafrost thaw occurring over decades in centimetres of surface soils will influence carbon release to the atmosphere. But Turetsky and an international team of researchers are looking at something very different: rapid collapse of permafrost that can transform the landscape in mere months through subsidence, flooding and landslides.


"We are watching this sleeping giant wake up right in front of our eyes," said Turetsky, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Integrative Ecology.

Read the PHYSORG article

Cartoon: Mr Churchill Comments

Alaska's in The Middle of a Record-Breaking Spring Melt, And It's Killing People: WP

From Science Alert

Bryan Thomas doesn't want any more "wishy-washy conversations about climate change." For four years, he has served as station chief of the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, America's northernmost scientific outpost in its fastest-warming state.

Each morning, after digging through snow to his office's front door, Thomas checks the preliminary number on the observatory's carbon dioxide monitor. On a recent Thursday it was almost 420 parts per million - nearly twice as high as the global preindustrial average.

It's just one number, he said. But there's no question in his mind about what it means.

Alaska is in the midst of one of the warmest springs the state has ever experienced - a transformation that has disrupted livelihoods and cost lives.

SARAH KAPLAN, THE WASHINGTON POST

22 APR 2019

Read the complete WP article

Large potential reduction in economic damages under UN mitigation targets: Nature IJS

"International climate change agreements typically specify global warming thresholds as policy targets¹, but the relative economic benefits of achieving these temperature targets remain poorly understood^2,3. 

Uncertainties include the spatial pattern of temperature change, how global and regional economic output will respond to these changes in temperature, and the willingness of societies to trade present for future consumption. 

Here we combine historical evidence⁴ with national-level climate⁵ and socioeconomic⁶ projections to quantify the economic damages associated with the United Nations (UN) targets of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming, and those associated with current UN national-level mitigation commitments (which together approach 3 °C warming⁷)."

Read the complete Nature IJS article

Is the Australian coalition government suggesting we shouldn’t try to limit global warming to below two degrees?

The cost of doing nothing about climate change

"Not explicitly, but it is worth asking. 

One of the odd things about the Coalition’s analysis is that it is partly based on a World Bank-backed study that found global carbon prices in 2030 would need to be between US$50 and US$100 to limit global warming to two degrees. But it doesn’t acknowledge that the Coalition has also committed to the two degrees goal (and more) by signing the Paris agreement.

Should we also assume the equivalent of up to a US$100 carbon price under Coalition policies? Or is it walking away from its commitment to Paris?

Media reporting often focuses on the cost of climate policy while ignoring the other side of the equation – the cost of doing nothing. Several studies have suggested it is significant.

A paper in the journal Nature estimated warming of between two and a half and three degrees could cut per-capita economic output by between 15% and 25% this century. Four degrees would be worse again.

This sort of scenario is increasingly being considered and factored in by insurers and long-term investors, who say they want action to avoid it. Whether political leaders and newspaper editors are listening is another question."

Read The Guardian article

‘You did not act in time’: Greta Thunberg’s full speech to MPs: The Guardian

"Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.

Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.

You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard."

Read The Guardian article