Starting on Tuesday, Climate Forward will be coming out twice a week. Plus, Somini Sengupta, our global climate reporter, will be writing a new column.
This week, we’re covering a landmark report on wildfires, the outlook for California’s drought, and some unsung heroes of carbon storage.
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Scientists warn of a ‘global wildfire crisis’
The apocalyptic scenes have appeared all around the globe in recent years: hillsides swathed in smoke, animals blackened to a crisp, city skies turned orange by the haze from distant blazes.
A new United Nations report has declared it a “global wildfire crisis.” And, as I reported this week, the organization says many societies are thinking about the problem in the wrong way.
Government spending is skewed toward firefighting instead of improving forest management or understanding which fires are probably beyond our control, the report said. “Public opinion in many places favors putting out fires at all costs.”
Quotable: “The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes,” said the report, which was published on Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program.
Numbers: Even in a moderate scenario for global warming, the likelihood of extreme, catastrophic fires could increase by up to a third by 2050 and up to 52 percent by 2100, the report estimates.
From the Opinion Section
The West’s delusion of energy independence
America must secure the raw materials that a clean energy future requires, Dennis C. Blair and Joseph F. Dunford Jr. write in a guest essay.
California’s drought appears set to drag on
Californians could be forgiven for thinking a few months ago that the state’s drought might finally be coming to an end. A wet autumn had left reservoir levels higher than normal and there was deep snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.
But what a difference six weeks make. A dry January, followed by more of the same in the first half of this month, has vastly changed the outlook. Another year of drought now seems likely, according to forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although conditions may not be as severe as last year.
Understand the Latest News on Climate Change
A world on fire. A United Nations report has concluded that the risk of devastating wildfires around the world could increase by up to 57 percent by the end of the century, as climate change further intensifies what the authors of the document described as a “global wildfire crisis.”
The outlook for relief from drought is poor elsewhere in the West as well.
As I wrote in an article last week, forecasters say that La Niña, a cooling of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific that affects the jet stream and can influence weather around the world, is likely to keep much of the region warm and dry through May. Only part of the Pacific Northwest, where La Niña typically brings wetter conditions, is expected to see much improvement.
Numbers: According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 99.6 percent of California is in some degree of drought. But the percentage where drought is rated “extreme” or “exceptional” has fallen drastically since last summer, to a little more than 1 percent from nearly 90 percent.
Also important this week:
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The conflict in Ukraine is threatening Europe’s green energy ambitions.
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Researchers are combing the Antarctic waters for one of the most revered ships in the history of polar exploration, Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, which sank in 1915.
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The Biden administration has halted new oil and gas drilling amid a legal fight how to calculate the cost of damage from climate change.
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Mayor Eric Adams of New York wants to suspend the expansion of the city’s composting program.
And finally:
The unsung heroes of carbon storage
Here’s an amazing fact: Peatlands, soggy ground like bogs and fens, make up just 3 percent of land on Earth, but they store twice as much planet-warming carbon as all the world’s forests combined.
The bad news is that humans have often treated peatlands as a nuisance. They’re too soft to build houses, too wet for agricultural crops and they make an excellent home for mosquitoes. In some climates, that brings a high risk of malaria. As a result, about 15 percent of the world’s peatlands have been drained.
That’s a problem because damaged peatlands, rather than storing carbon, can become major emitters of greenhouse gases. It’s all explained in this article by Sabrina Imbler, a reporting fellow at The Times.
So, how do we protect those unsung heroes of carbon capture? To answer that question, Ruth Maclean, our West Africa bureau chief, traveled to the Congo Basin, site of a huge tropical peat swamp larger than England. The peat there is relatively intact because there is so little infrastructure, but threats are looming. To read her article, and see stunning photos by Nanna Heitmann, please follow this link.
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