Up to half of plant and animal species in the world’s most naturally rich areas, such as the Amazon and the Galapagos, could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change if carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked.
The Amazon, Miombo Woodlands in Southern Africa, and south-west Australia are among the most affected places in the world, according to new research.
Efforts to protect tropical forests in Southeast Asia for the carbon they store may fail because protection payments are too low – according to University of East Anglia research.
A study published today in Nature Communications finds that schemes designed to protect tropical forests from clearance based on the carbon they store do not pay enough to compete financially with potential profits from rubber plantations.
Lightning may strike less often in future across the globe as the planet warms, a scientific study suggests.
The research forecasts a 15% drop in the average number of lightning flashes worldwide by the turn of this century, if global temperatures are in the top range of forecasts.
Millions of dollars are due to be paid out to small-scale farmers in Zambia affected by a recent severe dry spell, following the introduction of a new government insurance scheme powered by University of Reading science.
Satellite-based rainfall estimates for Africa produced by the University’s TAMSAT research group have allowed around US$2.8m to be triggered for farmers in 370 locations in Zambia between December 1 2017 and 20 January 2018.
A new research centre that will support communities threatened by climate change was launched at the University of Reading by former Irish President and UN human rights high commissioner Mary Robinson.
The Reading Centre for Climate and Justice is dedicated to putting justice at the heart of understanding the problems caused by climate change, and finding solutions to protect those most vulnerable to them. It seeks to deploy expertise at the University to identify gaps in knowledge, and emerging areas, that would benefit from a justice-focused approach.
Provisional figures for global average near-surface temperatures confirm that last year, 2017, was the warmest year on record without the influence of warming from El Niño.
When viewed alongside 2015 and 2016 – both of which were dominated by a significant El Niño – last year was the second- or third-warmest year for annual global temperatures since 1850.
Scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia‘s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit produce the HadCRUT4 dataset, which is used to estimate global temperature.