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Assessment finds global heating is endangering 96% of coral reefs across 80 countries – a figure scientists say should serve as a ‘wake-up call’ Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here Almost every shallow-water coral reef on the planet, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, faces a high risk of ecosystem collapse before 2075 because of global heating, according to an assessment by United Nations nature advisers. About 24% of the planet’s reefs across more than 80 countries are already critically endangered, the assessment said, but when the expected impacts of global heating were added this rose to 96%. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

"We must pull out all the stops to minimize peak warming and return to 1.5°C by the end of the century.”

The global effort to slow warming to 1.5-degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has failed, a report from the UN Environment Program said.

Overall global warming is now likely to be between 2.6℃ and 2.8℃ by the end of the century, the UN Environment Programme predicted.

Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin. Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C , in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep). Continue reading...

The U.S. is the only major economy where planet-warming pollution dramatically increased last year. The United Nations warns the planet is on track for catastrophic warming.