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However, it is the report’s summary for policymakers that is causing concern. This is the document politicians will use as a key climate guide when making changes to legislation. Reviewers of earlier drafts say it is being altered to make the dangers of climate change seem less alarming. As a result, they say, policymakers could seriously underestimate the risks of global warming. Cuts made to the final draft of the summary include:

• Any mention that temperature rises of above 1.5C could lead to increased migrations and conflict;

• All discussion of the danger of the Gulf Stream being disrupted by cold water flowing from the Arctic where more and more sea-ice is melting;

• Warnings about the dangers that 1.5–2C temperature rises could trigger irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet and raise sea levels by 1–2 metres over the next two centuries.

Other cuts from the summary include the sentence: “Poverty and disadvantage have increased with recent warming (about 1C) and are expected to increase in many populations as average global temperatures increase from 1C to 1.5C and beyond.” 

The original summary also stated “at 2C warming, there is a potential for significant population displacement concentrated in the tropics”. Again this is not mentioned in the report for policymakers. “The scientists who produce reports like these try to summarise the latest knowledge, but they have a reputation for being conservative about the worst risks of climate change,” Ward said. “This time they have outdone themselves in pulling their punches, however.”

An IPCC spokesman said member governments would work to ensure the summary for policymakers was consistent with the findings in the main report. “They may change the wording of text there to clarify, remove material from the summary for policymakers, or bring material from the main report that was not there at the start of the session. Any text in the summary for policymakers … is based on the assessment in the main report. Even if it is removed from the summary for policymakers, the finding it is based on remains in the main report.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/23/scientists-changing-glob...

A centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for those people vulnerable to the impacts of climate change who are usually forgotten – the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world.

It is a platform for solidarity, partnership and shared engagement for all who care about global justice, whether as individuals and communities suffering injustice or as advocates for fairness in resource-rich societies.

The Foundation provides a space for facilitating action on climate justice to empower the poorest people and countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable and people-centred development.

Read more:

https://www.mrfcj.org

An urgent call to arms by one of the most important voices in the international fight against climate change, sharing inspiring stories and offering vital lessons for the path forward

Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people – people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of climate change had become, in an instant, deeply personal.

Mary Robinson's mission would lead her all over the world, from Malawi to Mongolia, and to a heartening revelation: that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself. From Sharon Hanshaw, the Mississippi matriarch whose campaign began in her East Biloxi hair salon and culminated in her speaking at the United Nations, to Constance Okollet, a small farmer who transformed the fortunes of her ailing community in rural Uganda, Robinson met with ordinary people whose resilience and ingenuity had already unlocked extraordinary change.

Powerful and deeply humane, Climate Justice is a stirring manifesto on one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time, and a lucid, affirmative, and well-argued case for hope.

read more

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/climate-justice-9781408888452/

Buckled train tracks, grounded planes, melting bitumen and massive blackouts: the dystopian vision of the 50-degree city is closer to reality every day.

With wildfires raging around the Arctic Circle, unprecedented heatwaves in the Northern Hemisphere and record temperatures being set from Algeria to Canada, the world is getting inexorably hotter.

And the combination of rising global temperatures with increasing urban density is proving deadly.

Now, 50 degrees Celsius, once only associated with places like California's Death Valley or the desert wilderness of Oman and Iraq, is an increasingly frequent occurrence.

A recent study, led by Australian National University climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis, speculated that 50C days could occur in Sydney and Melbourne within the next few decades.

So, what happens to urban populations when our cities get halfway to boiling? Are they equipped for the impeding heat or are we heading toward urban catastrophe?

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-29/50-degree-cities-becoming-closer-t...

Anyone reading this know that Gus has already explored the 50 degrees Celsius possibility on this site. Please read all the global warming articles on this site.