How will the UN’s yearly climate treaty talks in Egypt next month touch domestic U.S. reporting? The latest Backgrounder has an outlook, with close attention to the question of compensation for nations suffering the worst impacts of global warming, plus the politics of war and energy, methane and HFCs. The prospects for action in and after Egypt.
"Pakistan is facing a disaster within a disaster as diseases spread rapidly and deaths mount following widespread deadly flooding - a crisis worsened by the country's weak health system and lack of emergency planning, medical experts warn."
Concerns about seaborne plastic waste go back decades, but science writer Juli Berwald suggests that myths and disinformation about sources and solutions continue to cloud the waters. From lentil-sized nurdles to sprawling fishing nets, 200 million tons of plastic now fill the ocean and, for her, it has become evident that the ocean plastics story is really a land story. But will the newly signed international treaty on plastics offer relief?
"A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived this year, leaving locals immediately downstream of the potential sites worried and experts confounded."
How water moves through the global ecosystem and shapes our landscapes is the subject of a must-read new book by writer Erica Gies, according to BookShelf editor Tom Henry. A significant part of water’s story is how humanity invariably fails when trying to manipulate it. But hope may reside with Gies’ various “water detectives,” who explore how to “let water go where it wants to go.”
"The World Health Organization raised the alarm Saturday about a “second disaster” in the wake of the deadly floods in Pakistan this summer, as doctors and medical workers on the ground race to battle outbreaks of waterborne and other diseases."
"A growing field called attribution science is helping researchers rapidly assess the links between global warming and weather disasters."
"The devastating floods in Pakistan are a "wake-up call" to the world on the threats of climate change, experts have said."
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"John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special presidential envoy for climate, has praised China’s efforts at tackling global warming and urged Beijing to resume suspended talks on the issue, even as tensions flare with Washington over the status of Taiwan."
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