Canada is in an advantageous position to reach its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a new report suggests, if governments capitalize on the right opportunities today.
The long-shot resolution follows a statement from Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer
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However, it would face an uphill battle to cross the 60-vote threshold to become filibuster-proof and could also face opposition from moderate Democrats.
The legislation cites both warming temperatures and a statement from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which calls for “far-reaching, multilevel and cross-sectoral climate mitigation” to prevent climate risks.
It says that in response to the national emergency, Biden should invest in major resiliency projects that will help prepare the country’s infrastructure for climate change’s impacts and make investments in clean energy that are socially and racially just.
Climate change is causing oceans to rise quicker than scientists’ most pessimistic forecasts, resulting in earlier flood risks to coastal economies already struggling to adapt.
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By Jonathan Tirone (Bloomberg) Climate change is causing oceans to rise quicker than scientists’ most pessimistic forecasts, resulting in earlier flood risks to coastal economies already struggling to adapt.
The revised estimates published Tuesday in
Ocean Science impact the two-fifths of the Earth’s population who live near coastlines. Insured property worth trillions of dollars could face even greater danger from floods, superstorms and tidal surges. The research suggests that countries will have to rein in their greenhouse gas emissions even more than expected to keep sea levels in check.
“It means our carbon budget is even more depleted,” said Aslak Grinsted, a geophysicist at the University of Copenhagen who co-authored the research. Economies need to slash an additional 200 billion metric tons of carbon equivalent to about five years of global emissions to remain within the thresholds set by previous forecasts, he said.