Climate Change

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• phys.org article
• research cited

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The past decade has seen “a consistent, sustained pattern" of violence against Indigenous people who oppose corporate human rights abuses.

Although Indigenous peoples make up 6 percent of the world population, they accounted for one-fifth of the crimes documented in the report. They also were more likely than others to be killed, particularly in Brazil, the Philippines, and Mexico.

Fossil fuel companies were hardly the only offenders, however. Dobson and her team identified several cases involving renewable energy sectors, where projects have been linked to nearly 365 cases of harassment and more than 100 killings of human rights defenders.

But mining, including the extraction of “transition minerals,” leads every sector in attacks on defenders. Forty percent of those killed in such crimes were Indigenous, a reflection of the fact that more than half of all critical minerals lie in or near Indigenous land.

The report: Defending rights and realising just economies: Human rights defenders and business (2015-2024)

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• Grist article
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[...] The colonial model of resource exploitation has not disappeared – it has merely evolved.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the global phenomenon of eco-apartheid – the unequal distribution of environmental harm and protection along racial and economic lines. While the wealthiest nations insulate themselves with green technology and clean infrastructure, poorer nations, often former colonies, bear the brunt of rising sea levels, droughts, deforestation, and pollution, despite contributing the least to the crisis.

European and North American companies remain heavily invested in fossil fuel projects in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, ensuring a cycle of dependence and vulnerability. [...]

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One climate scientist, who declined to speak on the record out of concern that the administration might punish his institution, said the declining funding is forcing researchers to shrink their scientific ambitions down to a question of “What can I do with my laptop and existing data sets?”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35842538

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China’s long-term outlook for natural gas demand remains bullish despite some short-term uncertainties caused by the country’s economic growth and geopolitical tensions with the US, delegates said at a recent industry conference held in China last week.

[...]

Longer term, senior Chinese executives still see strong growth for gas demand, but the extent of the increase hinges on how fast gas-fired power capacity catches up with renewables and the affordability of LNG.

"Price and stability of supplies are the most important factors. … If LNG prices are not so high and volatility is not so high, LNG demand will increase, especially in the relatively rich areas in the east and south part of China,” Wang Zhen, the president of state major China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s (CNOOC) research arm, the CNOOC Energy Economic Institute, said at the event.

“LNG has a big potential, but it must work hard,” he noted, adding that China's solar and wind capacity is growing fast.

China’s gas consumption in 2024 rose by 8% year on year to 426 billion cubic meters, according to China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Demand during the January to March 2025 period fell 2.2% on year to 105.75 Bcm.

Strong Long-Term Gas Demand

Chinese gas demand will reach 620 Bcm in 2035-40, state major Sinopec Chairman Ma Yongsheng said at the conference.

[...]

China’s largest gas supplier, China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), boosted its peak demand forecast earlier this year to 620 Bcm-650 Bcm by 2035, compared to the company’s peak demand forecast of 600 Bcm it gave last year.

CNPC said the country’s peak gas demand could rise to 700 Bcm if there is a significant boost to domestic gas production due to technological advances, such as through shale gas developments and coal gasification.

[...]

LNG remains the most expensive gas source in China when compared to domestic gas production and pipeline imports, industry sources say.

LNG will increasingly compete with pipeline imports as LNG moves further inland to meet demand in central and western parts of Asia, said Zhu Xingshan, a professor with the Institute of Energy at Peking University.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35840245

• Despite having the world’s largest thermal power fleet, China is producing more coal than it can consume.
• This results in a 42% year-on-year (YoY) increase in mine stockpiles and a 25% annual rise in inventories at northern Bohai area ports.
• Chinese coal production continues to rise, with a 6.6% increase from January to April, reaching 1.58 billion tonnes.
• This production growth persists even as industry profits have plummeted by 48.9% YoY for the same period, as shown by official data.

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China is pressing its coal-fired power plants to stockpile more of the fuel and import less in an effort to shore up domestic prices, sources with knowledge of the matter said, but traders are sceptical the measures will help to stop the slide.

The coal industry in China faces rising stockpiles of the fuel after a massive expansion of output following shortages and blackouts in 2021 is churning out more coal than even the world's largest thermal power fleet can consume.

To support miners whose profits are under pressure, the state planner has asked power plants to prioritise domestic coal and increase thermal coal stockpiles by 10%, setting an overall target of 215 million metric tons by June 10, the sources said.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

[...]

China imported a record 542.7 million tons of coal in 2024, but the total is expected to fall this year. Coal imports slid 16% in April on the year.

[...]

Chinese mine production continues to grow despite the collapse in prices, with a government haunted by the shortages and blackouts of 2021 and 2022 unlikely to consider output cuts. "I think they're very mindful to avoid a repeat of that," said LSEG lead coal analyst Toby Hassall. "They will tolerate a period where some domestic production is really struggling." China's coal production rose 6.6% on the year during the period from January to April, to stand at 1.58 billion tons. Industry profits fell 48.9% year-on-year for the same period, official data showed on Tuesday.

Researchers installed sensors inside stormwater drains and cameras above them in three North Carolina communities. They found a startling amount of flooding.

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Peatlands are one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks. These naturally waterlogged boggy swamps can hold thousands of years’ worth of compressed, partially decomposed vegetation matter — despite covering just 3-4% of Earth’s land surface, they’re thought to store more carbon per area than the world’s forests combined.

In honor of World Peatland Day on June 2 we present three recent Mongabay stories that shed light on this critical ecosystem.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23013881

Won't be long now.

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In the spring of 1987, Cathy Holdorf and her husband, John, drove to the end of a gravel road in Soap Creek, Oregon, a rural community 10 miles north of Corvallis. Here, where the smooth spread of the Willamette Valley begins to buckle against the Coast Range, they’d come to look at a property for sale: 30 acres of oak savanna draped over a south-facing hillside. They parked at the foot of the hill and set out walking. The lower land was intriguing — iron-doored bunkers from a World War II-era training camp cut into the earth and a creek ran nearby — but it wasn’t until they climbed the slope that they knew they’d found what they were looking for.

On a knoll partway up a ridge called Poison Oak Hill, they stood to take in the view: Slender meadows wove through a tumble of foothills. Beyond, wooded ridges stacked deep blue into the distance. Even before starting back down, they’d begun to dream of a home here: a woodshop, a house, a garden.

The property was owned by Robert and Daniel Bunn. Known around town as the Bunn Brothers, these siblings also owned the local landfill, which was dug into the south face of Coffin Butte just across the valley from Poison Oak Hill. Despite its proximity — less than a mile north — the dump didn’t immediately concern the Holdorfs. From where they stood that day, it was out of sight. It was relatively small, locally owned, and, they’d been told, soon to close. Besides, over 100 undeveloped acres, also owned by the Bunns, spanned between the dump and the property for sale. This land, the Bunns assured the Holdorfs, would always serve as a buffer: No trash would ever be placed there.

“We were just so convinced that it was a small dump, that it was being run well and would sunset soon.” Cathy told me recently. “Maybe it was naive, but we didn’t even consider that all of that could change.”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/23588701

Communities in northern Nigeria have been experiencing prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change and excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during the brief wet season.

In videos and photos on social media, floodwaters covered neighborhoods and homes were submerged, with their roofs barely visible above the brown colored waters. Waist-deep in water, residents tried to salvage what they could, or rescue others.

this is an ongoing disaster related to the previous post https://slrpnk.net/post/22954566

Also because of its location just north of the equator, Nigeria's climate is characterized by the hot and wet conditions associated with the movement of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) north and south of the equator.

When the ITCZ is to the south of the equator, the north-east winds prevail over Nigeria, producing the dry-season conditions. When the ITCZ moves into the Northern Hemisphere, the south westerly wind prevails far inland to bring rainfall during the wet season.

The result is a prolonged rainy season in the far south of Nigeria, while the far north undergoes long dry periods annually. Nigeria, therefore, has two major seasons, the dry season and the wet season, the lengths of which vary from north to south.

https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/tropical/convergence-zone

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65574725

Abstract

Without rapid emission reduction, it is increasingly likely that global temperatures will overshoot 1.5°C before carbon dioxide removal may help reverse warming. Such temperature overshoots affect the future hydrological cycle, with implications for land water availability. However, the hydrological response to such temperature overshoots is not well understood. Here, we investigate regional and seasonal changes of precipitation minus evaporation (P − E) in an ensemble of Earth system model simulations of temperature overshoot. Most climate models broadly show P − E reversibility after overshoot. However, models exhibiting an irreversible shift of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) during the temperature overshoot experience reduced wet-season and enhanced dry-season land water availability in tropical regions, which has long-lasting effects on the amplitude of P − E seasonality after the overshoot, constituting irreversible changes on human timescales. While some regions may experience alleviating seasonal hydrological conditions, others are subject to more intense seasonality. Half a century of CO2-stabilization after the temperature overshoot only halves the legacy effects of the overshoot on land water availability on over 23% of the world population in 12% of the global land area, covering regions of various hydrological regimes. Based on the model ensemble presented here, a strong irreversible shift of the ITCZ after an overshoot is a low-probability but high-impact outcome that would entail long-lasting hydrological changes with consequences for ecosystems and human societies.

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As cities heat up, reflective roofs could lower energy bills and help the climate. But dark roofing manufacturers are waging a quiet campaign to block new rules

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