The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which sent tens of millions of tons of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere and caused reflection of solar heat and cooling ocean temperatures, has masked the worsening effects of industrial pollution on global sea levels.
Between 2005 and 2015, the presidents of the U.S. issued 832 separate emergency or disaster declarations for which Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided either public assistance—defined as funding for state, tribal, and local governments—or individual assistance in the form of grants typically made to homeowners and renters whose home damage was not covered by homeowners insurance.
Storm surges and higher tidal flows caused by climate change could gobble almost 1.9 million houses in hundreds of cities, according to a report by the real estate company Zillow. In total, homeowners could lose some $882 billion by 2100.
The report published by World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery states that total annual damage, averaged over a 10-year period, grew up tenfold during last 40 years and reached over $140bn in 2005-2014, and the average number of people affected each year exceeds 170 million.
Study published by researches from Australia confirms the connection between human-caused climate change and quick shoreline erosion of 33 South Pacific reef islands, including five that were completely vanished between 1947 and 2014, as well as six with decrease of shorelines by more than 20 percent.
According to Climate Central's analysis, exceptionally strong El Niño this year caused weather transformation leading to disastrous events like tornadoes, droughts, wildfire, floods, food and water shortages all over the world. El Niño shifts a large pool of warm ocean waters from the western to the central and eastern tropical Pacific, disrupting its typical atmosphere circulation patterns, what can impact weather thousands of miles away.
The Alberta government declared a provincial state of emergency due to a devastating forest fires that has destroyed 1,600 homes in Fort McMurray and promoted the largest evacuation due to fire in Alberta’s history.
Today Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, world’s worst technological catastrophe. Over 100 times more radiation was released than by Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Thirty-one plant workers and firemen died in the immediate aftermath of the accident, most from acute radiation sickness. According to UN report, published in 2005, “up to 4,000” could eventually be killed by the invisible poison in Ukraine and neighbouring Russia and Belarus.
The 112-day leak at the Aliso Canyon, California facility released about 5 billion cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere, making it by far the biggest single emitter of the gas anywhere in the country. The leak leak effect is equivalent to the annual exhaust emissions from nearly 600,000 cars.
Fourteen people were killed as a result of weather-related incidents in South Carolina since Thursday. Thousands of homes are damaged, hundreds of roads and bridges remained closed. At least nine dams breached or failed completely, state emergency management officials said. Damage from the storm across the state has been estimated at more than $1 billion.
A team of researchers from the Institute of the Environment
at the University of California analyzed data for the last 105 years and found
that high-elevation California forests fires have seldom happened in the past.
International team of scientists published
results of the study which lays responsibility of recent climate change slow
down on volcanic eruptions, whose particles it has found reflect twice as much
solar radiation as previously believed, serving to temporarily cool the planet
in the face of rising CO2 emissions. Combining and analyzing data from the two
sources led the scientists to conclude that, while the impact of volcanic
eruptions was small between 1999 and 2002, between 2005 and 2012 they had a big
influence.
International donors already
confirmed commitments to provide €540 million of necessary €615 million. EBRD
will coordinate the negotiations with countries-donors to arrange the remaining
€75 million.This information is from the briefing of
Ukrainian Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Igor Shevchenko, who took part
last week in international conference in London for raising funding to
build NSC structure above destroyed nuclear reactor, Read
more at http://www.menr.gov.ua
The New Safe
Confinement will eventually rise to a height of 110 metres, will be 165 metres
long, have a span of 260 meters and a lifetime of a minimum of 100 years. The
arch-shaped structure will weigh more than 30,000 tons. Its frame is a huge
lattice construction of tubular steel members built on two longitudinal
concrete beams. Work on the NSC at the site started in late 2010 and, according
to the current schedule, is expected to be completed by 2017. Read
more at http://www.ebrd.com/
