AFP UK

The impacts of climate change are already being felt across the world

Country climate pledges leave the world on track to heat by as much as 2.6 degrees Celsius this century, according to a United Nations assessment Wednesday warning that emissions must fall 45 percent this decade to limit disastrous heating.

The United Nations Environment Programme, in its annual Emissions Gap report, found that updated national promises since last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow would only shave less than one percent off global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The Emissions Gap examines the difference between the CO2 pollution that will be released under countries’ decarbonisation plans and what science says is needed to keep the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to between 1.5-2C from pre-industrial levels.

A day after the UN’s climate change agency said governments were still doing “nowhere near” enough for 1.5C, UNEP found progress on emissions cutting had been “woefully inadequate”.

It said that additional pledges made since the COP26 summit in Glasgow last year would result in emissions being less than one percent lower by 2030. It said failure left the world “hurtling towards” a temperature rise far in excess of the Paris goals. 

“It’s another year squandered in terms of actually doing something about the problem,” report lead author Anne Olhoff told AFP.

“That’s not to say that all nations have not taken this seriously. But from a global perspective it’s definitely very far from adequate.”

The report found that in order for temperatures to be capped at 2C, emissions would need to fall 30 percent faster by 2030 than envisioned under countries’ most up-to-date plans. 

For 1.5C, the gap is 45 percent.

Under the 2015 Paris deal, countries are required to submit ever deeper emission cutting plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. 

UNEP found that “unconditional” NDCs — which countries plan regardless of external support — would likely limit global warming to 2.6C by 2100 — a level that scientists warn would be catastrophic for humanity and for nature. 

Conditional NDCs, which rely on international funding to achieve, would likely see a 2.4-C temperature rise this century, it said. 

All told, current plans are likely to see a 5 to 10-percent reduction in emissions by 2030 — a far cry from the near halving required for 1.5C. 

– ‘Missed opportunity’ –

UNEP said that 2020 saw emissions reductions roughly in line with what is needed every year this decade to stay on track for 1.5C, with carbon pollution falling more than seven percent largely due to Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions. 

However, it said that 2021 could end up being the highest on record for greenhouse gas emissions — some 52.8 billion tonnes — as countries power on with their fossil-fuelled pandemic recoveries.

“We see a full bounce-back in emissions after Covid,” said Olhoff. “It’s a missed opportunity in terms of utilising these unprecedented recovery funds to accelerate a green transition.”

“We basically need emissions reductions in that order of magnitude (in 2020) every single year, until 2030, to get on track to the Paris Agreement goal.”

UNEP said that while the switch to renewables in the power sector was accelerating, several industries were lagging behind in the push towards net-zero emissions. 

For example in the food sector, responsible for around a third of emissions, dietary changes and cutting food loss could help reduce the sector’s footprint by more than 30 percent by 2050. 

– ‘Transformation’ – 

Olhoff said the financial sector was “part of the problem rather than part of the solution” to climate change, with hundreds of billions funnelled annually to fossil fuel projects. 

UNEP suggested the introduction of an effective carbon price under a global cap and trade system that would push investors to consider the environmental impact of their portfolios.

It also called for central banks to make more funds available and help create global low-carbon technology markets.

“We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen. “Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

Last year the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change said that the world was likely to reach and even exceed the 1.5C Paris goal within decades, no matter how quickly emissions fall in the short term. 

Olhoff said that for every year that passed without significant emissions cuts, 1.5C was getting “less realistic and less feasible”.

But she insisted that governments needed to accelerate the green transition to avoid as much damage as possible. 

“The more we learn, it’s absolutely clear that we should aim to get (temperature rises) as low as possible,” she said. 

“Even if that means 1.6C instead of 1.5C. That’s definitely better than 2C degrees, just as 1.7C is worse than 1.6C.”

Even if energy emissions peak in 2025, the world is still on track for a dangerous rise in temperatures

The International Energy Agency said Thursday it believes global energy emissions will peak in 2025 as surging prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine propel investment in renewables.

Only last year the IEA said there was “no clear peak in sight” in energy emissions, but the new higher investment in wind and solar is setting up demand for all fossil fuels to peak or plateau, leading to a drop in emissions.

“The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system,” the IEA said as it released its latest annual World Energy Outlook report.

Based on the latest measures and policies announced by governments in the face of soaring energy prices, the IEA forecasts global clean energy investment to rise by more than 50 percent from today’s levels to $2 trillion per year by 2030. 

Those measures will propel sustained gains in renewables and nuclear power.

“As a result, a high point for global emissions is reached in 2025,” the IEA said.

Global energy-related CO2 emissions are then set to fall back slowly from a high point of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050, it added.

The Paris-based organisation, which advises energy-consuming nations, said that its forecast sees demand for all types of fossil fuels peaking or hitting a plateau.

Coal use, which has seen a temporary bump higher, will drop back in the next few years as more renewables come online.

Natural gas hits a plateau in the end of the decade, instead of the previous forecast of a steady rise.

Oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s and then gradually declines towards mid-century due to uptake of electric vehicles, instead of the earlier estimate of a steady increase.

Overall, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix in the IEA’s stated policies scenario falls from around 80 percent to just above 60 percent by 2050.

– Energy markets ‘changed’ –

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement as the report was released.

But that will still leave the world on track for a rise in global temperatures of around 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which would likely trigger severe climate change impacts.

The IEA also has a scenario to arrive at zero net emissions in 2050, which is seen as necessary to hit the 1.5C warming target enshrined in the Paris climate pact.

That would require clean energy investments to rise to $4 trillion per year by 2030, instead of the current forecast of $2 trillion.

“The IEA, with all its expertise and authority is clear: clean energy investments must triple by 2030, and gas is a dead end,” said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and France’s former climate ambassador.

“The current European energy crisis clearly proves the dangers of gas: high price, volatility, geopolitical dependence,” she added.

Even if energy-related emissions peak in 2025, the world is still on track for a dangerous rise in temperatures

The International Energy Agency said Thursday it believes global energy emissions will peak in 2025 as surging prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine propel investment in renewables.

Only last year the IEA said there was “no clear peak in sight” in energy emissions, but the new higher investment in wind and solar is setting up demand for all fossil fuels to peak or plateau, leading to a drop in emissions.

“The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system,” the IEA said as it released its latest annual World Energy Outlook report.

Based on the latest measures and policies announced by governments in the face of soaring energy prices, the IEA forecasts global clean energy investment to rise by more than 50 percent from today’s levels to $2 trillion per year by 2030. 

Those measures will propel sustained gains in renewables and nuclear power.

“As a result, a high point for global emissions is reached in 2025,” the IEA said.

Global energy-related CO2 emissions are then set to fall back slowly from a high point of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050, it added.

The Paris-based organisation, which advises energy-consuming nations, said that its forecast sees demand for all types of fossil fuels peaking or hitting a plateau.

Coal use, which has seen a temporary bump higher, will drop back in the next few years as more renewables come online.

Natural gas hits a plateau in the end of the decade, instead of the previous forecast of a steady rise.

Oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s and then gradually declines towards mid-century due to uptake of electric vehicles, instead of the earlier estimate of a steady increase.

Overall, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix in the IEA’s stated policies scenario falls from around 80 percent to just above 60 percent by 2050.

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement as the report was released.

But that will still leave the world on track for a rise in global temperatures of around 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which would likely trigger severe climate change impacts.

The IEA also has a scenario to arrive at zero net emissions in 2050, which is seen as necessary to hit the 1.5C warming target enshrined in the Paris climate pact.

That would require clean energy investments to rise to $4 trillion per year by 2030, instead of the current forecast of $2 trillion.

“The IEA, with all its expertise and authority is clear: clean energy investments must triple by 2030, and gas is a dead end,” said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and France’s former climate ambassador.

“The current European energy crisis clearly proves the dangers of gas: high price, volatility, geopolitical dependence,” she added.

Even if emissions peak in 2025, the world is still on track for a dangerous 2.5 degree Celsius rise in temperature

The International Energy Agency said Wednesday it believes global emissions will peak in 2025 as surging energy prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine propel investment in renewables.

Only last year the IEA said there was “no clear peak in sight” in energy emissions, but the new higher investment in wind and solar is setting up demand for all fossil fuels to peak or plateau, leading to a drop in emissions.

“The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system,” the IEA said as it released its latest annual World Energy Outlook report.

Based on the latest measures and policies announced by governments in the face of soaring energy prices, the IEA forecasts global clean energy investment to rise by more than 50 percent from today’s levels to $2 trillion per year by 2030. 

Those measures will propel sustained gains in renewables and nuclear power.

“As a result, a high point for global emissions is reached in 2025,” the IEA said.

Global CO2 emissions are then set to fall back slowly from a high point of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050, it added.

The Paris-based organisation, which advises energy-consuming nations, said that its forecast sees demand for all types of fossil fuels peaking or hitting a plateau.

Coal use, which has seen a temporary bump higher, will drop back in the next few years as more renewables come online.

Natural gas hits a plateau in the end of the decade, instead of the previous forecast of a steady rise.

Oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s and then gradually declines towards mid-century due to uptake of electric vehicles, instead of the earlier estimate of a steady increase.

Overall, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix in the IEA’s stated policies scenario falls from around 80 percent to just above 60 percent by 2050.

– Energy markets ‘changed’ –

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement as the report was released.

But that will still leave the world on track for a rise in global temperatures of around 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which would likely trigger severe climate change impacts.

The IEA also has a scenario to arrive at zero net emissions in 2050, which is seen as necessary to hit the 1.5C warming target enshrined in the Paris climate pact.

That would require clean energy investments to rise to $4 trillion per year by 2030, instead of the current forecast of $2 trillion.

“The IEA, with all its expertise and authority is clear: clean energy investments must triple by 2030, and gas is a dead end,” said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and France’s former climate ambassador.

“The current European energy crisis clearly proves the dangers of gas: high price, volatility, geopolitical dependence,” she added.

Even if emissions peak in 2025, the world is still on track for a dangerous 2.5 degree Celsius rise in temperature

The International Energy Agency said Wednesday it believes global emissions will peak in 2025 as surging energy prices due the Russian invasion of Ukraine propel investment in renewables.

Only last year the IEA said there was “no clear peak in sight” in energy emissions, but the new higher investment in wind and solar is setting up demand for all fossil fuels to peak or plateau, leading to a drop in emissions.

“The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system,” the IEA said as it released its latest annual World Energy Outlook report.

Based on the latest measures and policies announced by governments in the face of soaring energy prices, the IEA forecasts global clean energy investment to rise by more than 50 percent from today’s levels to $2 trillion per year by 2030. 

Those measures will propel sustained gains in renewables and nuclear power.

“As a result, a high point for global emissions is reached in 2025,” the IEA said.

Global CO2 emissions are then set to fall back slowly from a high point of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050, it added.

The Paris-based organisation, which advises energy-consuming nations, said that its forecast sees demand for all types of fossil fuels peaking or hitting a plateau.

Coal use, which has seen a temporary bump higher, will drop back in the next few years as more renewables come online.

Natural gas hits a plateau in the end of the decade, instead of the previous forecast of a steady rise.

Oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s and then gradually declines towards mid-century due to uptake of electric vehicles, instead of the earlier estimate of a steady increase.

Overall, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix in the IEA’s stated policies scenario falls from around 80 percent to just above 60 percent by 2050.

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement as the report was released.

But that will still leave the world on track for a rise in global temperatures of around 2.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which would likely trigger severe climate change impacts.

The IEA also has a scenario to arrive at zero net emissions in 2050, which is seen as necessary to hit the 1.5C warming target enshrined in the Paris climate pact.

That would require clean energy investments to rise to $4 trillion per year by 2030, instead of the current forecast of $2 trillion.

“The IEA, with all its expertise and authority is clear: clean energy investments must triple by 2030, and gas is a dead end,” said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and France’s former climate ambassador.

“The current European energy crisis clearly proves the dangers of gas: high price, volatility, geopolitical dependence,” she added.

A new study has compared the relative safter of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, left, with the rival Pfizer jab

AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine has been linked to a 30-percent higher risk of getting a very rare blood clotting condition compared to the Pfizer jab, a large international study said Thursday.

Several countries have already altered their advice after previous research indicated that — in a tiny number of cases — thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) can be a possible side effect of Covid vaccines that use an adenovirus vector, or “engineered” virus, such as those from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

Thrombocytopenia produces potentially life-threatening blood clots with low levels of blood platelets — the small cell fragments in our blood that prevent bleeding.

The new study, published in the journal BMJ, was the first to compare thrombocytopenia rates between adenovirus and mRNA vaccines — such as Pfizer — across multiple countries.

The international research team analysed health data from more than 10 million adults in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States who received at least one vaccine dose between December 2020 and mid-2021.

In Germany and the UK, they matched the data of 1.3 million people who had a first dose of AstraZeneca to 2.1 million who took Pfizer.

There were a total of 862 “thrombocytopenia events” recorded in the 28 days after a first dose of AstraZeneca, compared to 520 for Pfizer, the study said.

That meant AstraZeneca’s vaccine had a 30-percent higher risk of thrombocytopenia than Pfizer. 

However when it came to a second dose, there was no additional risk between any of the vaccines.

The study was observational, meaning it could not show cause and effect. But the researchers said that additional analysis found the results to be consistent.

While very rare, these risks “should be considered when planning further immunisation campaigns and future vaccine development,” the study said.

– ‘Safe and effective’ –

Sarah Pitt, a microbiologist at the UK’s Brighton University who was not involved in the research, said the “well-designed” study “adds to the data showing that all vaccines are safe and effective”.

The “extremely rare” cases of thrombocytopenia occurred after just 0.04 percent of vaccine doses in Germany and the UK, she told AFP.

Most countries had already been avoiding using adenovirus Covid vaccines for the older and young age groups who are more at risk, she added.

European countries have largely pivoted towards mRNA vaccines. AstraZeneca’s jab was never authorised in the US, which limited the use of the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 jab to certain individuals earlier this year

However both AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines play a pivotal role in Covax global vaccine distribution scheme, which provides doses to lower-income countries.

The findings are 'an urgent wakeup call for decision-makers'.

Across virtually every sector, the greening of the global economy is unfolding far too slowly to stave off climate catastrophe, according to a sobering report Wednesday from a consortium of research organisations.

From industry, power and transport to food production, deforestation and finance, progress across 40 key indicators must accelerate dramatically — in many cases ten-fold or more — to stay in line with the Paris treaty goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Earth’s surface has already warmed 1.2C, enough to unleash a deadly and costly crescendo of climate-enhanced storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves.

In at least five areas those trend lines are still moving in the wrong direction entirely, according to the 200-page analysis, which comes 12 days ahead of crunch UN climate talks in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt. 

These include the share of natural gas in electricity generation, the share of kilometres travelled by passenger cars, and carbon pollution from agriculture.

“We are not winning in any sector,” said Ani Dasgupta, head of the World Resources Institute, one of half a dozen climate policy think-tanks that contributed to the report.

The findings, he said, are “an urgent wakeup call for decision-makers to commit to real transformation across every aspect of our economy”.

– Clean energy –

Comparing current efforts to those required by 2030 and mid-century to limit warming to 1.5C, researchers quantified the global gap in climate action. 

“The hard truth is that none of the 40 indicators we assessed are on track to achieve their 2030 targets,” said lead author Sophia Boehm, a researcher at Systems Change Lab.

To prevent dangerous overheating, global carbon pollution must decline 40 percent by the end of this decade. By 2050, the world must be carbon neutral, compensating any remaining emissions with CO2 removal.   

Most worrying, the authors said in a briefing, are shortfalls in the power sector and the lack of progress in halting deforestation. 

The phase-out of coal used to generate electricity without filtering CO2 emissions must happen six times faster, equivalent to retiring nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants annually over the next seven years, they found.

The power sector is the biggest source of global CO2 emissions, and coal — accounting for nearly 40 percent of electricity worldwide — is by far the most carbon intensive of fossil fuels. 

“If our solution to many things is electrification, then we need to make sure that electricity is clean and free of fossil fuels,” said co-author Louise Jeffery, an analyst at New Climate Institute.    

Huge increases in solar and wind power have not been enough to keep up with expanding demand for energy.

– ‘Irreversible’ forest loss –

Progress in the battle against deforestation must accelerate two- to three-fold to keep the 1.5C goal within striking distance, according to the report.

“The loss of primary forest is irreversible, both in terms of carbon storage and as a haven for biodiversity,” said co-author Kelly Levin, chief of science, data and systems change at the Bezos Earth Fund.

“If meeting the 1.5C target is challenging now, it is completely impossible when you chip away at our carbon sinks,” she added, referring the fact that forests and soil consistently absorb some 30 percent of humanity’s carbon pollution.  

Other key findings from the report on the pace of change needed this decade:

– Public transport systems such as metros, light-rail and public bus networks must expand six times faster;

– The amount of carbon emitted in cement production must decline 10 times faster;

– Per-capita meat consumption — still on the increase — must drop, and the shift to sustainable diets must happen five times faster.

The report also looked at climate finance.

“Governments and private institutions are failing to deliver on the Paris Agreement’s goals of aligning financial flows with the 1.5C limit,” said Claire Fyson, an analyst at Climate Analytics.

Global climate finance — sure to be a key sticking point at UN talks in Egypt — must grow more than 10 times faster than recent trends, from $640 billion in 2022 to $5.2 trillion in 2030.

At the same time, governments are still pouring money into fossil fuels, spending nearly $700 billion of public financing on coal, oil and gas in 2020.

As humanity’s “carbon budget” runs out, the world will need to scale up technologies that suck CO2 out of the air, according to the UN’s IPCC climate science advisory panel.

How much will depend on how quickly carbon emissions are drawn down, but the IPCC estimates that billions of tons per year will need to be removed.

“Today, less than one million tons is captured from the atmosphere and stored permanently each year,” said Fyson.

“So we’d have to see a rate of growth that’s several hundred times faster that recent trends.”  

In the past year alone the world has been battered by increasingly intense heatwaves and crop-withering droughts

The world’s current climate pledges are far off track to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius and will steer a world already wracked by increasing floods, heatwaves and storms towards “catastrophic” warming, the UN said Wednesday.  

In a report released just over a week before high-stakes climate negotiations, the United Nation’s climate change organisation, said combined commitments from nearly 200 nations put Earth on track to warm around 2.5C compared to pre-industrial levels by the century’s end.

With the planet already battered by weather extremes after 1.2C of warming, experts say the world is failing to act with sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions.     

“We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” said UN Climate Change chief Simon Stiell. 

“To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.”

The UN’s climate experts have said emissions — compared to 2010 levels — need to fall 45 percent by 2030 in order to meet the 2015 Paris climate deal’s more ambitious 1.5C goal.

Current commitments from governments around the world will in fact increase emissions from the 2010 benchmark by 10.6 percent by 2030, the UN said. This was a slight improvement from a similar analysis a year ago.

UN chief Antonio Guterres stressed that the goal of limiting warming to 1.5C was still within reach, but warned that the current trajectory of countries’ climate commitments was “catastrophic”. 

“We must absolutely start reducing emissions now,” he said in an interview with the BBC.  

– ‘Disappointing’ –

When nations met for landmark climate talks in Glasgow last year, they agreed to speed up national climate pledges to cut carbon pollution and increase financial flows to vulnerable developing nations. 

But only 24 countries had updated their plans at the time of the report, which Stiell said was “disappointing”.    

“Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” he said.

He called on governments to revisit and strengthen their carbon-cutting plans in line with the Paris temperature goals before the UN climate meeting, which will be held from November 6 to 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Nations are meeting in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cascading global crises of hunger, energy prices and living costs, exacerbated by extreme weather.  

Research by the World Resources Institute suggests that the world needs to curb emissions six times faster by 2030 than current trends to meet the 1.5C warming cap. 

Australia and Indonesia have offered “some momentum” by stepping up their climate pledges since the last UN climate negotiations, said WRI’s Taryn Fransen, adding that further announcements from a range of countries including the European Union, Turkey and Vietnam are expected this year.  

She said the world’s second biggest emitter, the United States, took a “massive step” this year with measures in its new sweeping climate and inflation bill and urged China, the biggest emitter, to set a specific goal to cut planet-warming methane pollution.  

– ‘Transformative response’ –

A second UN report also released Wednesday looked at longer term and “net-zero” climate goals to around mid-century put forward by dozens of countries. 

It found that those countries’ greenhouse gas emissions would be 68 percent lower by 2050 than they were in 2019, if all strategies were fully implemented. 

“This is a sobering moment, and we are in a race against time,” said Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and President-Designate of the upcoming UN COP27 talks.   

The report comes as the UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned that levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new records last year.

It raised particular concerns about an “exceptional” surge in powerful methane, which is released from fossil-fuel, waste and agriculture sectors as well as through natural processes. 

The WMO said it was “not clear” what caused the biggest year-on-year jump in concentrations since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago, but said it appeared to be from both human and biological sources. 

Scientists have warned that any rise above 1.5C risks the collapse of ecosystems and the triggering of irreversible shifts in the climate system.

With the impacts slamming hardest into countries least responsible for fossil fuel emissions, calls have grown louder for richer polluters to pay “loss and damage” to vulnerable nations.

In a landmark report this year on climate impacts and vulnerabilities, the UN’s 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that time had nearly run out to ensure a “liveable future” for all. 

That report was signed off by the same governments that will return to negotiations in Egypt. 

Which is the right direction? A study has found that bees organise number from left to right

Bees order numbers in increasing size from left to right, a study has shown for the first time, supporting the much-debated theory that this direction is inherent in all animals including humans.

Western research has found that even before children learn to count, they start organising growing quantities from left to right in what has been called the “mental number line”.

However the opposite direction has been found in people from cultures that use an Arabic script which reads from right to left.

“The subject is still being debated between those who think the mental number line has an innate character and those who say it is cultural,” said Martin Giurfa, a professor at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France.

There has been recent evidence that newborn babies and some vertebrate animals, including primates, organise numbers from left to right.

Giurfa led a study, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), aiming to find out if the same holds true for insects, via an experiment on bees.

“It has already been shown that bees are able to count — at least up to five,” Giurfa told AFP.

They also process information differently in the two hemispheres of their brains, he added. This trait they seem to share with humans, and is thought to be a potential reason for the “the existence of the mental number line,” Giurfa said.

– A numbers game –

For the experiment, the researchers had individual honeybees fly into the first of two compartments of a wooden box. 

Sugar-water was then used to entice the bees to select a number affixed to the middle of the back of the second compartment.

The number stayed the same for each individual bee, but varied randomly across the group from between one, three or five, in shapes of circles, squares or triangles.

Once the bees were trained to fly towards their set number, the researchers removed it and put another number on both sides of the second compartment, leaving the middle blank.

They then removed the sugar-water reward and observed which way the bees went.

For example, if the bee was trained to select the number three, and was now faced with two number ones on either side and nothing in the middle, which way did they fly?

Around 80 percent of the time the bees chose the option on the left — the “correct choice” if brains order numbers from left to right, Giurfa said.

But if those same bees were given two number fives to choose from, they went right, again supporting the mental number line.

And bees trained to go for number one went to the right for a number three, while bees targeting a five went left for their three.

So if animals do in fact think of numbers from left to right, why is this not true for all humans?

Giurfa said it was more complicated than directly choosing between nature and nurture.

Even if the mental number line “is innate, culture can still modify it, even reverse it — or on the contrary accentuate it,” he said.

Bees, on the other hand, have to stick to what nature dictates.

In the past year alone the world has been battered by increasingly intense heatwaves and crop-withering droughts

International climate pledges remain far off track to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a UN report released Wednesday, less than two weeks ahead of high-stakes negotiations to tackle global warming.

The combined climate pledges of more than 190 nations that signed up to the 2015 Paris climate deal put Earth on track to warm around 2.5C compared to pre-industrial levels by the century’s end, the UN said. 

With the planet already battered by climate-enhanced heatwaves, storms and floods after just 1.2C of warming, experts say the world is still failing to act with sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions.     

“We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change. 

“To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.”

The UN’s climate experts have said emissions — compared to 2010 levels — need to fall 45 percent by 2030 in order to meet the Paris deal’s more ambitious goal.

In this latest report, the UN said that current commitments from governments around the world will in fact increase emissions by 10.6 percent by 2030, from 2010. This was a slight improvement from a similar analysis a year ago.

– ‘Disappointing’ –

When nations met in Glasgow last year for a previous round of climate negotiations, they agreed to speed up their climate pledges to cut carbon pollution this decade and increase financial flows to vulnerable developing nations. 

But only 24 countries, of 193, had updated their plans at the time of the report, which Stiell said was “disappointing”.    

“Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” he said.

He called on governments to revisit and strengthen their carbon cutting plans in line with the Paris temperature goals before the UN climate meeting, which will be held from November 6 to 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Nations are meeting in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cascading global crises of hunger, energy prices and living costs, exacerbated by extreme weather.  

Research by the World Resources Institute suggests that the world needs to curb emissions six times faster by 2030 than the current trajectory to meet the 1.5C warming cap. 

Australia and Indonesia have offered “some momentum” by stepping up their climate pledges since the last UN climate negotiations, said WRI’s Taryn Fransen, adding that further announcements from a range of countries including the European Union, Chile, Turkey and Vietnam are expected this year.  

She said the world’s second biggest emitter, the United States, took a “massive step” this year with measures in its new sweeping climate and inflation bill and urged China, the biggest emitter, to set a specific goal to cut planet-warming methane pollution.  

– ‘Transformative response’ –

A second UN report also released Wednesday looked at longer term and “net-zero” climate goals to around mid century put forward by dozens of countries. 

It found that those countries’ greenhouse gas emissions would be 68 percent lower by 2050 than they were in 2019, if all strategies were fully implemented. 

“This is a sobering moment, and we are in a race against time,” said Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and President-Designate of the upcoming UN COP27 talks.   

Countries need to do more, he said, adding that the “alarming findings merit a transformative response” in Egypt. 

Scientists have warned that any rise above 1.5C risks the collapse of ecosystems and the triggering of irreversible shifts in the climate system.

With the impacts slamming hardest into countries least responsible for fossil fuel emissions, calls have grown louder for richer polluters to pay “loss and damage” to vulnerable nations.

In a landmark report this year on climate impacts and vulnerabilities, the UN’s 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that time had nearly run out to ensure a “liveable future” for all. 

That report was signed off by the same governments that will return to negotiations in Egypt.