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January 2025 is 1.75 degrees higher than historical record

Record January 2025 warmth puzzles climate scientists

Reuters Firefighter dressed in full protective clothing, including mask and helmet, with large flames covering the area behind him.

Last month's Los Angeles fires were one of the costliest disasters in US history

Last month was the world's warmest January on record raising further questions about the pace of climate change, scientists say.

January 2025 had been expected to be slightly cooler than January 2024 because of a shift away from a natural weather pattern in the Pacific known as El Niño.

Chlamydia could make koalas extinct. 2024

Chlamydia could make koalas extinct. Can a vaccine save them in time?

Tiffanie Turnbull/BBC A drowsy koala wrapped in a towel and held by a vet

Joe Mangy is one of thousands of koalas treated for chlamydia each year

On the table, unconscious and stretched out on a pillow, Joe Mangy looks deceptively peaceful. The koala's watery, red-rimmed eyes are the only sign of the disease at war with his body.

Tubes snarl out of a mask covering his face as a vet tech listens to his chest with a stethoscope. He is not healing as well as they had hoped.

30 % + of Species could go extinct if warming is not checked.

How many species could go extinct from climate change? It depends on how hot it gets.

 

Two Kea birds, Arthurs Pass South Island New Zealand. The species is listed as threatened in that country and climate change is among the reasons their numbers are in danger.

Two Kea birds, Arthurs Pass South Island New Zealand. The species is listed as threatened in that country and climate change is among the reasons their numbers are in danger.

 

To consider how climate change could cause some extinctions, imagine a tiny mountain bird that eats the berries of a particular mountain tree.

That tree can only grow at a specific elevation around the mountain, where it's evolved over millennia to thrive in that microclimate. As global temperatures rise, both the tree and the bird will be forced to rise too, tracking their microclimate as it moves uphill. But they can only go so far.

5 Proven Ways to Help Nature

Industrial wastelands to wildlife oases: Five nature wins that have actually worked:

Getty Images An orangutan in a rainforest (Credit: Getty Images)

World leaders are gathering in Cali, Colombia, to agree ways to save species from extinction and restore nature. Here are five powerful solutions to halt biodiversity loss.

There's a treasure trove of ways to save species in decline, and restore their habitats so they can live safely. In a healthy state, rich and biodiverse habitats can replenish our water, air, soil and reduce the risk of dangerous contagious diseases.

Politicians not doing enough to stop biodiversity crisis. COP 16 2024 UN Biodiversity Summit in Cali.

Politicians not ambitious enough to save nature, say scientists

A delegate at the UN biodiversity summit, COP 16

UN biodiversity summits happen every two years - this year in Cali, Colombia

Scientists say there has been an alarming lack of progress in saving nature as the UN biodiversity summit, COP 16, draws to a close.

The scale of political ambition has not risen to the challenge of reducing the destruction of nature that costs the economy billions, said one leading expert.

Climate change: recent, rapid ocean warming alarms scientists - 2023

sun over the oceabn

A recent, rapid heating of the world's oceans has alarmed scientists concerned that it will add to global warming.

This month, the global sea surface hit a new record high temperature. It has never warmed this much, this quickly.

Scientists don't fully understand why this has happened.

But they worry that, combined with other weather events, the world's temperature could reach a concerning new level by the end of next year.

Experts believe that a strong El Niño weather event - a weather system that heats the ocean - will also set in over the next months.

What is biodiversity and how are we protecting it?

 

Baby Amur leopard also known as the Manchurian leopard, at the Parc des felins, in Nesles, south-eastern Paris.

Amur leopards are one of the most endangered species in the world


Targets to reverse the decline of biodiversity by 2030 may be missed without urgent action, according to a new report.

This goal was a key part of the UN global summit on biodiversity held in December 2022.

Nearly a third of all monitored species are currently endangered due to human activities.

Biodiversity targets may be slipping out of reach - 2023

White stork

The researchers studied more than 600 species of birds and mammals


Ambitious targets to halt the decline in nature may already be slipping out of reach, a study suggests.

Scientists say the effects of climate change and habitat loss on animal populations have been underestimated.

They say bringing back wildlife may take longer than expected and that unless we act now global biodiversity targets will be out of reach.

In December almost 200 countries agreed to halt the decline in nature by the end of the decade.

2023 - Accelerating melt of ice sheets now unmistakable

Greenland Ice Sheet

Warmer air is melting the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet

If you could shape an ice cube out of all the ice losses from Greenland and Antarctica over the past three decades, it would stand 20km high.

An international group of scientists who work with satellite data say the acceleration in the melting of Earth's ice sheets is now unmistakable.

They calculate the planet's frozen poles lost 7,560 billion tonnes in mass between 1992 and 2022.

Seven of the worst melting years have occurred in the past decade.

Mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica is now responsible for a quarter of all sea-level rise.

This contribution is five times what it was 30 years ago.

The latest assessment comes from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise, or Imbie.

Climate Roadmap - 2023

Today, In 2023, Humanity is facing a catastrophic human-induced climate crisis which seriously threatens our very survival. 

Fundamentally, Humanity is faced with this climate crisis for a few principal reasons, which are important to understand in order to advocate the best solutions.

 

  1. Pollution (including that of overpopulated species, which can be seen from the point of view of Earth as a form of toxic pollution) does not recognize national boundaries and borders while Earth is subdivided politically into self-regulating nation-states, which regulate, or fail to regulate, pollution and population for their own people and territories.

 

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