This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including an alarming study on droughts worldwide, new record measurements in Greenland, and a new analysis of climate misinformation on YouTube.
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1. One-Quarter of Humanity Drought-Stricken Amid ‘Alarming Changes’ in Global Water Cycle, UN Says
From Panama to the Horn of Africa, from the Southwest US to China’s Yangtze River Basin, at least 1.84 billion people – nearly one in four people worldwide – across five continents experienced drought conditions in 2022 and 2023, according to the United Nations.
In a report released last December, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) shed light on the “silent devastation” of increasingly frequent and severe drought events, which wreak havoc on communities globally – but particularly in low-income, developing countries and rural areas – leading to widespread food and water insecurity, forced migration, and biodiversity loss.
According to World Bank estimates, approximately 85% of those affected by droughts live in low- or middle-income countries. Women and children are also disproportionately affected and are 14 times more likely to die from a climate-fuelled disaster.
Read more here.
2. COP29 Host Azerbaijan Appoints All-Men Organizational Committee
The organising committee for November’s 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) announced Saturday by Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev comprises 28 men and no women.
Azerbaijan – a highly fossil fuel-dependent state and the oldest oil-producing region in the world – was picked as the conference’s host country last month, becoming the third petrostate in a row to host the critical UN-led climate talks after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year and Egypt in 2022. The country is set to boost its gas production by a third over the next decade, an analysis revealed last week.
The 28-member organizational committee – which figures government ministers and officials as well as the director of Azerbaijan’s state gas distribution network Azerigas – is tasked with preparing and implementing an Action Plan related to the organization and conduct of the summit, the 19th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, and the 6th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.
Read more here.
3. YouTube Makes up to $13.4 Million a Year From Videos Containing Climate Denial Narratives that Undermine Green Solutions, Watchdog Says
The Center for Countering Digital Have (CCDH), a non-profit that monitors online hate speech, used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the text transcripts of 12,058 climate-related YouTube videos from the last six years containing what researchers labelled as “new denial” arguments. The study concluded that Google-owned online video sharing platform YouTube is making huge profits from videos containing climate falsehoods, breaching its own policy on climate misinformation.
New denial arguments – which the study argues constituted about 70% of all claims on YouTube in 2023 – focus more on denying the impacts of climate change and undermining solutions rather than on pushing the narrative that global warming is not happening or it is not a direct cause of human activities. They include claims that climate change impacts are harmless or beneficial, direct attacks to the scientific community over the unreliability of climate research, and arguments aimed at discouraging the shift to cleaner sources of energy. Researchers found that the latter category, and particularly claims against wind, solar, electric vehicles (EVs) and other green technologies, dominate the “new denial” by a large margin.
Read more here.
4. Greenland Ice Sheet Loss Since 1985 Was Highly Underestimated, New Study Reveals
Greenland’s ice sheet is seeing unprecedented melting, raising concerns about the potential collapse of vital ocean currents and its impact on global sea levels, according to a new study.
The analysis revealed that the ice lost in this timeframe has been underestimated by 20%, or about 1,000 gigatons (1 trillion metric tons), due to the overlooked retreat around Greenland’s perimeter, also known as calving.
Dr. Chad Greene, the lead researcher behind the study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, stressed the magnitude of the changes observed. “The changes around Greenland are tremendous and they’re happening everywhere – almost every glacier has retreated over the past few decades,” he said.
Read more here.
5. Atmospheric CO2 Jump in 2024 off Track With Trajectory Needed to Meet 1.5C Goal, Met Office Says
The UK weather forecast service said on Thursday that annual average CO2 concentrations at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii – which is home to the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2 in the world, dating back to 1958 – will be 2.84 parts per million (ppm) higher in 2024 compared to last year, reaching a high of 423.6 ppm.
Rising CO2 levels have devastating consequences on the environment, from amplifying extreme weather events including heatwaves, floods, droughts, and wildfires, to heating up oceans, resulting in rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and disruption of marine habitats and ecosystems.
Read more here.
