greenhouse gas emissions
How much does air travel warm the planet? New study gives a figure
When Milan Klöwer spoke to Mongabay, he was fresh off the train in Germany. As a postdoctoral researcher and climate scientist at the University of Oxford, Klöwer said he does his best to avoid flying in planes — one of the worst climate change culprits. “We’re climate scientists and we try to also lower our […]
Indonesian bill turns coal-derived fuels clean by ignoring true scale of emissions
JAKARTA — Indonesia looks set to continue its heavy reliance on coal in its energy mix under a legislative sleight of hand: it will define fuels derived from coal as “new energy” and ignore any carbon emissions associated with them as “minimal.” The proposal has drawn heavy criticism from energy experts, who say it contradicts […]
‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
The Amazon Rainforest is resilient: the largest rainforest on the planet has been around for at least 55 million years, surviving repeated ice ages and warming. But human impacts, combined with climate change, are decreasing that resiliency, causing the forest to lose its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study published […]
Study: Indonesia’s forest-clearing moratorium underdelivered — but so did donors
JAKARTA — An eight-year effort by Indonesia to protect its remaining forests contributed just 4% of its emissions reduction target, yet still yielded carbon savings worth far more than it was paid under a deal with Norway. That’s the finding from a new study, which calls for better carbon pricing and financing at the global […]
2019 fires in Indonesia were twice as bad as the government claimed, study shows
JAKARTA — In 2019, fires raged through Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands, sparked by the deliberate burning of land for agriculture, and fanned by an El Niño system bringing drier-than-usual weather conditions. Ultimately, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry would put the total affected area at 1.64 million hectares (4.05 million acres), an area half […]
New restoration “Playbook” calls for political, economic, and social change
International forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology Playbook, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, recognizes that issues such as climate change and forest loss are not just biophysical and environmental problems, […]
Scientists urge Biden to remove logging, fossil fuels, biomass from budget bills
More than 100 scientists have issued a letter urging U.S. President Biden and Congress to remove provisions promoting logging, forest biomass and fossil fuels from the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and reconciliation (Build Back Better) bills.
Indonesia to retire coal-fired power plants while also adding more
JAKARTA — Indonesia says it will begin retiring coal-fired power plants for good — while still continuing to build more than a hundred new ones, in the latest mixed message from one of the last coal-friendly countries in the world. PLN, the state-owned power utility, which has a monopoly on the national grid, announced late […]