Super Typhoon Ragasa pounded Taiwan, Hong Kong and China before moving into Vietnam on Thursday night, though as a much-weakened storm. At its peak Ragasa had mean wind speeds of 165mph as it moved to the south of Taiwan, where it brought significant heavy rain resulting in 17 deaths as a barrier lake burst. The storms then moved westwards just to the south of Hong Kong, before making landfall on Wednesday in the Guangdong province of China, with mean wind speeds of 150mph – equivalent to a category 4 hurricane.…
Tag: Environment
China has announced its first target to cut emissions in real terms. What does it mean for Australia?
Anything China does on energy and climate change is very big news. Its plans ripple around the world, whether that’s in changing the demand for fossil fuels or affecting the impacts on the planet from global heating. On Thursday, Australia woke to the news that China’s president, Xi Jinping, had told the United Nations that for the first time his country was setting a target to cut – in absolute terms – its greenhouse gas emissions. In a video address, Xi said China’s emissions would fall by 7% to 10%…
Super Typhoon Ragasa batters Hong Kong – video
Super Typhoon Ragasa has caused widespread flooding and damaged roads in Hong Kong, which resumed international flights on Thursday but kept kindergartens and some schools closed. Ragasa, the strongest storm so far this year, killed 14 people in Taiwan and 11 in the Philippines, according to officials. More than 100 people were injured in Hong Kong The Guardian
The Guardian view on the climate crisis: green energy is booming – but fossil fuels need to shrink too | Editorial
All is not lost, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, told the Guardian last week. But the latest planetary health check from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is a brutal reminder of how close the Earth is being pushed beyond repair. Seven of the nine planetary boundaries are now breached, with ocean acidification added to the danger list. Yet the world has proved that cooperation works: the ozone layer is healing, air pollution controls are working. A decisive test looms at the end of the month, when governments…
‘Science demands action’: world leaders and UN push climate agenda forward despite Trump’s attacks
World leaders have unveiled new targets to cut planet-heating pollution at the United Nations, in a bid to spur fresh impetus to the beleaguered climate effort a day after Donald Trump called the crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated upon the world”. A total of 120 countries and the European Union announced new goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in New York on Wednesday. The pledges most notably include one from China, the world’s leading emitter. António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, convened the special summit for the new goals…
Weather tracker: Flash floods and landslides wreak havoc in California
Flash flooding and landslides led to the death of a two-year-old boy in California in the US last week, after heavy rainfall followed on the heels of Tropical Storm Mario further south. The storm skirted the Pacific coast of Mexico with minimal disruption, eventually dissipating to the west of Baja California on Tuesday, but the remnants went on to cause havoc on Thursday. Residual moist air from the tropical storm was drawn north-east towards California, bringing heavy downpours and thunder to central and southern counties. The heaviest rainfall was in…
‘Something is working’: UN climate chief optimistic about green transition
Cleaning up industry and the global economy will produce massive economic dividends for countries that grasp the opportunity – as the example of China has shown, the UN climate chief has said, before a crunch summit of world leaders this week. In a last-ditch call to heads of government summoned to New York by the UN secretary general this week, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said governments would almost certainly fail to come up with the climate commitments needed to fulfil the…
Billion-dollar coffins? New technology could make oceans transparent and Aukus submarines vulnerable
Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators. The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power – then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology. “Speed and stealth and firepower,” the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, Jonathan Mead, told the Guardian two years ago of Australia’s forthcoming fleet of nuclear submarines. “The apex predator of the oceans.” But for how much longer? In the first quarter of the 21st century, nuclear submarines have proven a formidable force:…
‘There is only one player’: why China is becoming a world leader in green energy
China’s vital statistics Chinese power took on an old-fashioned hue in the past week with a huge military parade, a gathering of former allies Russia and North Korea, and President Xi Jinping’s defiant vow not to be intimidated by bullies. Soldiers march during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images That display reminded many of the cold war, but it captured only a fraction of China’s far greater modern…
Taiwan referendum on reopening last nuclear plant fails
A referendum to push for the reopening of Taiwan’s last nuclear plant has failed to reach the legal threshold to be valid, though the president said the island could return to the technology in the future if safety standards improved. The plebiscite on Saturday, backed by the opposition, asked whether the Maanshan power plant should be reopened if it was “confirmed” there were no safety issues. The plant was closed in May as the government shifts to renewables and liquefied natural gas. The small Taiwan People’s party proposed the referendum…