Climate Change

New report provides a review of the current scientific literature on climate impacts in northern forests.

COP29 showed insufficient progress in climate pledges. Greenhouse gas emissions must decrease by at least 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 to meet Paris Agreement goals.

Over the next months, the EU will negotiate a pathway and set a 2040 target outlining the steps required to meet the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement.

For the first time in 16 years, the World Health Assembly adopted a new WHO resolution on climate and health at the end of May.

Last May, at the 45th session of the joint FAO/UNECE Working Party on Forest Statistics, Economics and Management, governments held a thematic discussion on climate change and northern forests.

The urgency of addressing climate change and its impacts has never been more apparent, and the “Early Warnings for All” initiative stands at the forefront of global efforts to enhance resilience against meteorological risks. At COP28, the initiative received significant attention.

Recently, The Guardian and many other media reported that the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos) has stated that states have a legal responsibility to control greenhouse gases which are to be viewed as pollutants.

A new study suggests that a doubling of CO2 could warm the planet by up to 8ºC. It also indicates that the last time CO2 levels matched today's levels was 14 million years ago. 

The IPCC fifth assessment report that was finalised last year clearly stated that there is still a window to limit temperature rise to the 1.5°C target agreed in Paris in 2015.

Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% by 2050 due to climate change, a new study published in “Nature” finds.

There are multiple, feasible, and effective options available now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change.

The IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6) provides crucial information on how to tackle climate change, in particular identifying pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C with zero or limited overshoot. 

In the last month, fires have ravaged forests in both Canada and Russia. This is just the latest of many similar examples.

If ocean acidification was redefined as an effect of climate change, the UNFCCC could interpret its existing framework so that parties were required to take action on the issue.

UN and G20 summits reaffirm that limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires global CO₂ emissions to be reduced by 45% by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net zero by 2050.

Paris Agreement compatible scenarios need the EU to do much more to reduce emissions and increase renewables and energy savings.