global warming news, articles and features | 91av

The last-ditch plan to save coral reefs from utter destruction

Thomas Lewton — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:00:22 +0000

2026 will be the hottest year on record, leading scientist predicts

Alec Luhn — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:24:54 +0000

The second half of this year will almost certainly see the start of an El Niño phase that could lead to extreme heat across much of the globe, and James Hansen expects that to make this year surpass 2024 as the hottest on record

Why global warming is accelerating and what it means for the future

Alec Luhn — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:00:52 +0000

Scientists disagree whether human-made climate change or natural fluctuations are mostly to blame for worse-than-expected heat in recent years

Shift in the Gulf Stream could signal ocean current collapse

Alec Luhn — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:51:07 +0000

Models show that as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation gets weaker, the Gulf Stream will drift northwards. There are signs that this is already happening, and a more abrupt shift could warn of more severe climate impacts

Earth is now heating up twice as fast as in previous decades

Alec Luhn — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:00:11 +0000

Ocean warming has led to widespread bleaching of warm-water corals

Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images

Global warming has accelerated and is now happening twice as fast as in previous decades, meaning major climate catastrophes could happen sooner than expected. Earth was warming by about 0.18°C per decade prior to 2013-14. Since then, it has been heating up by about 0.36°C per decade, according to an analysis by at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and US statistician Grant Foster.

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Is Earth’s climate in a state of ‘termination shock’?

If warming continues at this rate, humanity could breach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C in 2028, even sooner than other research has projected. “Every tenth of a degree matters and makes the impact of global warming worse in terms of extreme weather events, in terms of ecosystem impacts, also the risk of crossing tipping points,” says Rahmstorf. “The world, apart from the US, is trying to halt global warming, reduce it, and that’s why the fact that it’s now actually doing the opposite, accelerating, is of great concern.” After a string of record-hot years, climate scientists began widely debating in 2023 whether global warming is speeding up. But natural fluctuations, such as the El Niño climate phase, which caused additional warming in 2023 and 2024, made it difficult to tell if the faster rise in temperatures was due to climate change or just random weather. Rahmstorf and Foster’s study is the first to find a statistically significant acceleration due to climate change, making that attribution with 98 per cent confidence. The team analysed five different datasets of global temperature, some of which show a higher number. According to the analysis of the dataset from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, global warming could reach 1.5°C above the preindustrial period this year, based on a 20-year average. Warm-water coral reefs are starting to collapse, and breaching 1.5°C risks crossing other tipping points like irreversible melting of Greenland and west Antarctica and the dieback of the Amazon rainforest. Many scientists think the acceleration in global heating was caused mainly by a crackdown in 2020 on sulphur dioxide in shipping emissions. While that substance is harmful to human health, it also formed a haze of aerosols that was blocking sunlight and cooling the planet.

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Is the climate change food crisis even worse than we imagined?

Now that this sunlight has been unblocked, the warming rate may slow down, but it’s hard to say for sure, says Rahmstorf. The transition away from fossil fuels will continue to diminish air pollution that is masking warming. “There will be further aerosol reductions, [but] probably not as rapid as those shipping emissions were reduced,” he says. “It’s quite possible that the warming rate will be lower in the next decade.” In addition to El Niño, the authors estimated the effects of volcanic eruptions, which also create sun-blocking haze, and increased solar radiation during cycles of high sunspots. After excluding these effects, they fitted two types of curve to global temperatures, both of which showed an acceleration in warming, although at different times. It’s unlikely, however, that the researchers were able to completely remove the temperature effects of El Niño, volcanoes and sunspots, according to at Berkeley Earth in California. That means they could be slightly overestimating how much global warming has sped up. But the study does offer convincing proof it has quickened, he says. “The broader takeaway is that we have strong evidence for acceleration even if we don’t know precisely how much the rate of warming has increased as of yet,” Hausfather says. “We will need to wait a few more years to get more data.”

Journal reference:

Geophysical Research Letters

The totemic 1.5°C climate target: Best ideas of the century

Madeleine Cuff — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:00:17 +0000

Although we’re on course to cross 1.5°C of warming, the alliance of small island nations that revised our goal down from the 2°C threshold transformed global climate policy

The Australia-Tuvalu climate migration treaty is a drop in the ocean

91av — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 18:00:00 +0000

A lifeline has been extended to the people of Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific nation where rising sea levels are creating ever more problems. Each year, Australia will grant residency to 280 Tuvaluans. The agreement could see everyone currently living in Tuvalu move within just a few decades.

Effectively the world’s first climate migration agreement, the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union will also provide adaptation funds to help those who stay behind.

Is this a model for how climate migration can be managed in an orderly way, before disaster strikes? Far from it. To get this deal, Tuvalu must allow Australia a say in future security and defence matters. Few other countries are likely to agree to similar terms.

Tuvalu’s population is also very small. Taking in around 10,000 climate migrants would be inconsequential for a country of 28 million like Australia. Worldwide, it is estimated that between 25 million and 1 billion people might be forced to move by 2050 because of climate change and other environmental factors. Where will they go?

One billion people might be forced to move by 2050 due to environmental factors

Many argue that the wealthy countries that emitted most of the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet have a moral duty to help people displaced by climate change. But these kinds of discussions have yet to be translated into the necessary legal recognition or acceptance of forced climate migrants. On the contrary, many higher-income nations seem to be becoming more hostile to migrants of any kind.

There has been a little progress in setting up “loss and damage” funds to compensate lower-income countries for the destruction caused by global warming. This could help limit the need for climate migration in the future – but the money promised so far is a fraction of what is required.

The most important thing nations should be doing is limiting future warming by cutting emissions – but globally these are still growing. Sadly, the Falepili Union is a drop in the ocean, not a turning of the tide.

Why climate change fades into the background – and how to change that

Rachit Dubey — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 18:00:00 +0000

The public is tuning out the seemingly slow warming of the world, but it doesn't have to be that way, argue Grace Liu and Rachit Dubey

Why the climate crown is ready for China to take – if it wants to

91av — Wed, 21 May 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so, too, does geopolitics. With the US under Donald Trump vacating the stage when it comes to tackling global warming, the climate crown is waiting to be claimed – and if China’s president, Xi Jinping, wants it, it is his for the taking. China’s climate record is mixed. Since 2006, it has been the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, as the nation has rapidly industrialised. On the other hand, that industrialisation has seen it become the world leader in solar panel manufacturing. Xi himself has also shied away from the global climate stage. He hasn’t attended a COP climate summit since Paris in 2015, when countries agreed a target of holding warming below 1.5°C. While many nations have since interpreted this as needing to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, China has only pledged to reach carbon neutrality, a weaker promise, by 2060. But that could all be about to change. As we report on page 10, China’s emissions appear to have peaked. It also looks like Xi is planning to make an appearance at COP30 when it is held in Belém, Brazil, this November. The pieces are falling into place for a major climate intervention from China – but what will it be?

The pieces are falling into place for a major climate intervention from China – but what will it be?

The most likely announcement is an interim target on the way to 2060, perhaps a pledge for certain cuts by 2040. But if Xi wants to be the world’s climate leader, he should go further, with a pledge of net zero by 2050. That this would simply match existing targets by the likes of the UK is no small thing, as there is a feeling in many nations that those who were first to industrialise should also be first to cut emissions. China adopting the 2050 target would make it harder for others to wriggle out of it, and could spur on green tech. Will Xi go so far? Probably not. But with reports that COP30 may be a disappointment (see “Is the COP30 climate summit already in crisis, with six months to go?”), the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has made no secret of his desire for strong relations with China, would do well to work on convincing Xi to act. If China is to take the crown, Brazil can be the crown bearer.

An early-warning system for climate ‘tipping points’ is an awful idea

Bill McGuire — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Improving our understanding of sudden climate shifts is welcome. But framing this as creating an "early-warning system" is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin, says Bill McGuire