The 26th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, will be held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2020. The pre-COP will take place in Milan, Italy.
Climate Change Conference
Glaciers melt three times faster than last century
A rivelarlo è uno studio dell’università di Zurigo, che ha analizzato alcune centinaia di ghiacciai sparsi sul globo terrestre.
Over the past 15 years, global glaciers started melting at rate significantly higher than registered in the 20th century. Such alarming figure has emerged from a study carried out by the World Glacier Monitoring Service of the University of Zurich, and published by the scientific magazine The Journal of Glaciology.
The analysis has been made on the basis of data from in-situ observations, between 2001 and 2010, in hundreds of glaciers worldwide. Measurements have compared with earlier data from air-borne and satellite-borne observations. “The observed glaciers currently lose between half a meter and one meter of its ice thickness every year—this is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century,” explained Michael Zemp, lead author of the study and director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.
“These glaciers will suffer further ice loss, even if climate remains stable. Exact measurements of this ice loss are reported from a few hundred glaciers only,” Zemp continued. “However, these results are qualitatively confirmed from field and satellite-based observations for tens of thousands of glaciers around the world”. Therefore, international community’s goals couldn’t be enough: during the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21), to be held in Paris in December, governments will try to find a binding deal on the average temperature increase (2°C) by the end of the century.
Data for the past few years, which are not included in the study, confirm the dramatic nature of the current situation: “Preliminary results of 2011-2014 show that glaciers continue to melt at unprecedented pace”. In fact, the melting record registered in 1998 has already been exceeded in 2003, 2006, 2011 and 2013.
Siamo anche su WhatsApp. Segui il canale ufficiale LifeGate per restare aggiornata, aggiornato sulle ultime notizie e sulle nostre attività.
Quest'opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.
Thanks to activists, the voice of the world’s peoples resounded through the COP25 like an alarm bell. Governments didn’t reach the results they demanded, but their cries and messages were stronger than ever, reaching even those who weren’t in Madrid.
Climate change poses a risk for millions. However, women are the most vulnerable to its negative consequences: a few simple considerations by the Italian Climate Network help us perceive the global implications of this.
The COP25 ended two days late and with very few steps ahead made. Climate negotiations in 2020 will be an uphill battle as political will clearly seems to be lacking, once again.
The last ten years have been the most “exceptional” and hottest decade ever, with extreme weather hitting people and ecosystems harder and more frequently. 2019 is also on course to becoming the second or third hottest year since records began.
Unite Behind the Science: this was the title of the conference held at the COP25 on 10 December. Greta Thunberg’s presence filled the arena, but this time it was scientists’ turn to speak.
25,000 delegates meet for the COP25 from 2 to 13 December. What can we hope this UN climate change conference, whose venue was changed from Santiago de Chile to Madrid, will achieve?
100 eminent people from all over the world, including Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, have signed an open letter after the disappointing results of the COP24. A call-to-arms for climate against world leaders’ indifference.
The outcome of the COP24 in Katowice left many unsatisfied. Greta Thunberg, a young Swedish environmental activist, gave a harsh, heartfelt speech addressing world leaders.