Threatened ozone layer shows first sign of recovery: U.N.

[Buster's Uncle]

Threatened ozone layer shows first sign of recovery: U.N.
Reuters
By Tom Miles  11 minutes ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - The ozone layer that shields life from the sun's cancer-causing ultraviolet rays is showing its first sign of thickening after years of dangerous depletion, a U.N. study said on Wednesday.

Experts said it showed the success of a 1987 ban on man-made gases that damage the fragile high-altitude screen, an achievement that would help prevent millions of cases of skin cancer and other conditions.

The ozone hole that appears annually over Antarctica has also stopped growing bigger every year, though it will be about a decade before it starts shrinking, said the report co-produced by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program.

"International action on the ozone layer is a major environmental success story ... This should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of tackling climate change," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

Past studies have suggested the ozone layer has stopped getting worse.

"Now for the first time in this report we say that we see indications of a small increase in total ozone. That means recovery of the ozone layer in terms of total ozone has just started," said WMO senior scientific officer Geir Braathen.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned or phased out ozone depleting chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once widely used in refrigerators and spray cans, would prevent 2 million cases of skin cancer annually by 2030 according to UNEP.

The agreement would also help avert damage to wildlife, agriculture, human eyes and immune systems, the agency added.


CLIMATE IMPACT

The ozone layer was expected to recover toward its 1980 level by mid-century, or slightly later for Antarctica, where it gets dangerously thin every year between mid-August and November or December.

"The development you saw during the 1990s that the ozone hole got bigger from year to year - that development has stopped, so it has leveled off," said Braathen.

"We think in about 2025 or thereabouts we'll be able to say with certainty that the ozone hole is getting smaller," he added.

Progress could be sped up by as much as 11 years if existing stocks of ozone-depleting substances - many of them stored up in old fridges and fire-extinguishers - were destroyed.

The largest ozone hole on record was about 30 million square km in 2006. The hole now covers about 20 million square km - big enough for the moon to pass through - but may not have peaked this season.

The size of the hole varies from year to year, partly due to temperature in the upper atmosphere.

The reduction of ozone-damaging chemicals would also help the environment, the report said, as many of the substances were also greenhouses gases blamed for global warming.

But the rising levels of other greenhouses gases in the atmosphere had "the potential to undermine these gains," said the report.

One of the ozone-depleting substances that was supposed to have been phased out - carbon tetrachloride, a solvent - was still being released into the atmosphere suggesting, the report said, illicit production and usage over the past decade.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


http://news.yahoo.com/threatened-ozone-layer-shows-first-sign-recovery-u-181903374.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Scientists say the ozone layer is recovering
Associated Press
By SETH BORENSTEIN  39 minutes ago



This undated image provided by NASA shows the ozone layer over the years, Sept. 17, 1979, top left, Oct. 7, 1989, top right, Oct. 9, 2006, lower left, and Oct. 1, 2010, lower right. Earth protective but fragile ozone layer is finally starting to rebound, says a United Nations panel of scientists. Scientists hail this as rare environmental good news, demonstrating that when the world comes together it can stop a brewing ecological crisis. (AP Photo/NASA)



WASHINGTON (AP) — Earth's protective but fragile ozone layer is beginning to recover, largely because of the phase-out since the 1980s of certain chemicals used in refrigerants and aerosol cans, a U.N. scientific panel reported Wednesday in a rare piece of good news about the health of the planet.

Scientists said the development demonstrates that when the world comes together, it can counteract a brewing ecological crisis.

For the first time in 35 years, scientists were able to confirm a statistically significant and sustained increase in stratospheric ozone, which shields us from solar radiation that causes skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.

From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels went up 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes at about 30 miles high, said NASA scientist Paul A. Newman. He co-chaired the every-four-years ozone assessment by 300 scientists, released at the United Nations.

"It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together," said chemist Mario Molina. In 1974, Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland wrote a scientific study forecasting the ozone depletion problem. They won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work.

The ozone layer had been thinning since the late 1970s. Man-made chlorofluorocarbons, called CFCs, released chlorine and bromine, which destroyed ozone molecules high in the air. After scientists raised the alarm, countries around the world agreed to a treaty in 1987 that phased out CFCs. Levels of those chemicals between 30 and 50 miles up are decreasing.



This undated handout photo provided by Centro Mario Molina shows Mario Molina in Mexico City. Earth protective but fragile ozone layer is finally starting to rebound, says a United Nations panel of scientists. Scientists hail this as rare environmental good news, demonstrating that when the world comes together it can stop a brewing ecological crisis. It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together, said chemist Mario Molina. In 1974, Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland, first wrote a scientific study forecasting the ozone depletion problem. They shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for their work. (AP Photo/Centro Mario Molina)


The United Nations calculated in an earlier report that without the pact, by 2030 there would have been an extra 2 million skin cancer cases a year around the world.

Paradoxically, heat-trapping greenhouse gases — considered the major cause of global warming — are also helping to rebuild the ozone layer, Newman said. The report said rising levels of carbon dioxide and other gases cool the upper stratosphere, and the cooler air increases the amount of ozone.

And in another worrisome trend, the chemicals that replaced CFCs contribute to global warming and are on the rise, said MIT atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon. At the moment, they don't make much of a dent, but they are expected to increase dramatically by 2050 and make "a big contribution" to global warming.

The ozone layer is still far from healed. The long-lasting, ozone-eating chemicals still lingering in the atmosphere create a yearly fall ozone hole above the extreme Southern Hemisphere, and the hole hasn't closed up. Also, the ozone layer is still about 6 percent thinner than in 1980, by Newman's calculations.

Ozone levels are "on the upswing, but it's not there yet," he said.

Paul Wapner, a professor of global environmental politics at American University, said the findings are "good news in an often dark landscape" and send a message of hope to world leaders meeting later this month in New York for a U.N. climate summit.

"The precedent is truly important because society is facing another serious global environmental problem, namely climate change," said Molina, a professor in San Diego and Mexico City. The 71-year-old scientist said he didn't think he would live to see the day that the ozone layer was rebuilding.

Earlier this week, the United Nations announced that atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, surged to another record high in 2013. The increase from 2012 was the biggest jump in three decades.

___

Online:

United Nations ozone program: http://ozone.unep.org/new_site/en/index.php


http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-ozone-layer-recovering-181611231.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Good news: The hole in the ozone layer is finally starting to heal
Vox
Updated by Brad Plumer on September 10, 2014, 5:45 p.m. ET @bradplumer brad@vox.com



Image of the largest Antarctic ozone hole ever recorded (September 2006), over the Southern pole  NASA



Sometimes the world really can get together and stop a major environmental catastrophe before it's too late. A new UN report finds that the Earth's protective ozone layer is finally starting to recover — after efforts in the 1980s to phase out CFCs and other destructive chemicals.


Scientists have finally detected signs that the ozone layer is healing


Back in the 1970s, scientists first realized that we were rapidly chewing a hole through Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

The culprit? Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — chemicals that were widely used in refrigerators and air conditioners. These chemicals had already created a massive "hole" in the ozone layer around Antarctica and had the potential to destroy even more stratospheric ozone elsewhere in the world.

Had we created an even bigger hole, skin-cancer rates likely would have skyrocketed worldwide — as they have in Puentas Arenas, Chile, which lies under the existing hole. What's more, the sun's UV rays would have likely done severe damage to crops and vital organism's in the ocean's food web.

Fortunately, that apocalyptic scenario never came to pass. Scientists discovered the problem in time. And, under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, world leaders agreed to phase out CFCs (despite industry warnings that abolishing the chemicals would impose steep costs). The hole in the ozone layer stopped growing. The global economy thrived.

Now comes further good news. The latest UN assessment, by some 300 scientists, has found that the ozone layer is just now starting to heal — and should be back to relatively healthy 1980 levels by 2050, although there will be ups and downs along the way.

The video below from NASA describes the recovery — showing the minimum concentration of ozone in the southern hemisphere each year from 1979 to 2013. Ozone levels continued to decline in the 1980s and 1990s, but they've recently begun to bounce back:

Ozone Minimums, 1979 to 2013

Minimum concentration of ozone in the southern hemisphere for each year from 1979-2013 (there is no data from 1995). Each image is the day of the year with the lowest concentration of ozone. (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/M. Radcliff)


"There are positive indications that the ozone layer is on track to recovery towards the middle of the century," said UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner in a press statement. "The Montreal Protocol — one of the world's most successful environmental treaties — has protected the stratospheric ozone layer and avoided enhanced UV radiation reaching the earth's surface."


We just barely dodged a bullet with the ozone layer

It's worth emphasizing what a close call we had with the ozone layer. When scientists first began measuring ozone concentrations in the Antarctic region in the 1960s and 1970s, the readings were so unexpectedly low that researchers thought the instruments were simply wrong.


Had Dupont used bromine instead of chlorine, we might have destroyed the ozone layer before anyone noticed


It wasn't until 1974 that chemists Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland published a paper linking the depleted ozone levels with the fact that concentrations of CFCs were lingering in the atmosphere for a long time. But this connection was difficult to prove — and it was fiercely disputed by Dupont, the world's biggest manufacturer of CFCs, for years.

By the 1980s, scientists finally had incontrovertible evidence that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer — that's when they discovered that "hole" over Antarctica. But we were lucky that the damage wasn't greater. As luck would have it, Dupont had been using chlorine instead of bromine to produce CFCs. As far as anyone could tell, the two elements were basically interchangeable (though chlorine had the advantage of being cheaper). As Paul Cruzen later observed, bromine is 45 times more effective at destroying ozone. Had that been used, the ozone layer might've been destroyed before anyone noticed.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. As part of the Montreal Protocol of 1987, the nations of the world agreed to ban the production of CFCs used in refrigerators, spray cans, insulation foam and fire suppression — and eventually phase out their use. And, by and large, countries complied. Atmospheric concentrations of ozone depleting substances have declined.

In their report today, the UN Environment Programme notes that without this agreement, atmospheric levels of ozone depleting substances could have increased tenfold by 2050. Models suggest there would have been 2 million additional cases of skin cancer by 2030. That's to say nothing of the crop damage that would have resulted.

To be sure, the ozone layer is still slowly recovering from the damage — since CFCs are still lingering in the atmosphere. The report notes that the Antarctic hole still appears every winter. And occasionally things can get worse — a cold Arctic winter in 2011 led to further ozone depletion in that area.


Unexpected side effects of the Montreal Protocol

There have been, however, a few unexpected side effects of this whole affair.


A popular substitute for CFCs contributes to global warming


For one, in many cases, companies and countries stopped using CFCs and started using HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) as a replacement. As it turns out, HCFCs are a potent greenhouse gas that can contribute to global warming. So, in a sense, we've swapped out one problem for another.

"Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) do not harm the ozone layer but many of them are potent greenhouse gases," the UN notes. "They currently contribute about 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year. These emissions are growing at a rate of about 7 per cent per year. Left unabated, they can be expected to contribute very significantly to climate change in the next decades."

Currently, there's a push to revisit the Montreal Protocol and phase out HFCs and HCFCs in favor of chemicals that neither hurt the ozone layer nor contribute to global warming.


http://www.vox.com/2014/9/10/6132991/ozone-layer-starting-to-recover

[Buster's Uncle]

Earth's Protective Ozone Layer Shows Signs of Recovery
LiveScience.com
By Laura Geggel, Staff Writer  20 minutes ago



The minimum concentration of ozone in the Southern Hemisphere from 1979 to 2013. Each point represents the day with the lowest concentration that year.



Following a harrowing depletion in recent decades, Earth's protective ozone layer, high in the planet's atmosphere, is on the track to recovery, according to a new report released today (Sept. 10) at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The evaluation, conducted by 282 scientists from 36 countries, credits much of this recovery to international action that phased out the production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals.

Since the last comprehensive ozone assessment in 2010, the use of most of these harmful substances has continued to drop, and the ozone may be on the path to recovery, according to the new report.

"There are telltale signs of ozone recovery in the upper part of the stratosphere," A.R. Ravishankara, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) emeritus scientist, professor at Colorado State University and co-chairman of the panel that prepared the report, said in a statement.

The ozone layer, located in Earth's stratosphere miles above the ground, shields the planet from much of the sun's damaging ultraviolet radiation. In the 1970s, researchers realized that gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons — which were commonly used in appliances such as refrigerators, spray cans, insulation foam and fire suppressants — led to the depletion of the ozone layer, NOAA researchers said. In 1985, the scientific community found a seasonal "ozone hole" over Antarctica, and spurred action to prevent its growth.

Starting in 1987, almost 200 countries joined together to ratify the Montreal Protocol, which is designed to phase out ozone-depleting substances, NOAA researchers said.

"There are positive indications that the ozone layer is on track to recovery towards the middle of the century," UN Under-Secretary-General and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement. "The Montreal Protocol — one of the world's most successful environmental treaties — has protected the stratospheric ozone layer and avoided enhanced UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface."

If the Montreal Protocol had not passed, the use of ozone-depleting substances could have increased tenfold by 2050, UNEP officials said. Instead, by 2030, the protocol will have prevented an estimated 2 million cases of skin cancer annually, and will continue to protect wildlife and agriculture, according to the UNEP.

The new report also highlights the intricate links between the ozone layer's recovery and climate change, Ravishankara said. For instance, some chemicals that have replaced ozone-depleting substances are still potent greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

To fight back, scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory are testing potential substances that are safe for the ozone layer, climate and environment, experts said.

If countries continue to abide by the Montreal Protocol, ozone levels across the globe are expected to recover to 1980 concentrations before the year 2050, but the hole over the South Pole likely won't heal until 2070, Ravishankara said.

Researchers affiliated with the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) plan to keep a close eye on ozone levels in the years to come, WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement.

"Human activities will continue to change the composition of the atmosphere," Jarraud said. "WMO's Global Atmosphere Watch program will, therefore, continue its crucial monitoring, research and assessment activities to provide scientific data needed to understand and ultimately predict environmental changes, as it has done for the past 25 years."

Researchers will present the report, dubbed the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014, in November, at the annual meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Paris. The full report, which is expected to inform policymakers, will be published in early 2015.


http://news.yahoo.com/earths-protective-ozone-layer-shows-signs-recovery-130222858.html

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Scientists say the ozone layer is slowly recovering
THE WEEK
Catherine Garcia  12:41am ET



You can call it a comeback: The ozone layer is slowly recovering, scientists say, with a significant increase in stratospheric ozone, which protects the planet from solar radiation.

nzherald   @nzherald 
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A United Nations scientific panel found that between 2000 and 2013, ozone levels went up 4 percent in mid-northern latitudes at 30 miles up. In the 1980s, scientists issued a dire warning about CFCs, man-made chemicals found in aerosol cans and refrigerants that released chlorine and bromine into the air, destroying ozone. In 1987, countries agreed to a treaty that phased CFCs out. "It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together," Mario Molina, a chemist who co-wrote a 1974 study forecasting ozone depletion, told The Associated Press.

"More than 98 percent of ozone-depleting substances agreed over time have actually been phased out," says Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program. If that hadn't happen, "we would be seeing a very substantial global ozone depletion today."
It's not all good news, though. MIT atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon told AP the chemicals that replaced CFCs contribute to global warming and are expected to increase significantly by 2050.
   

http://theweek.com/article/index/267932/speedreads-scientists-say-the-ozone-layer-is-slowly-recovering

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UN says CO2 pollution levels at annual record high
Associated Press
By JOHN HEILPRIN  September 9, 2014 3:29 PM



Surging levels of carbon dioxide sent greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a new record in 2013, while oceans, which absorb the emissions, have become more acidic than ever, the UN said on Tuesday



GENEVA (AP) — Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2013 as increasing levels of man-made pollution transform the planet, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.

The heat-trapping gas blamed for the largest share of global warming rose to global concentrations of 396 parts per million last year, the biggest year-to-year change in three decades, the World Meteorological Organization said in an annual report.

That's an increase of 2.9 ppm from the previous year and is 42 percent higher than before the Industrial Age, when levels were about 280 parts per million.

Based on the current rate, the world's carbon dioxide pollution level is expected to cross the 400 ppm threshold by 2016, said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. That is way beyond the 350 ppm that some scientists and environmental groups promote as a safe level and which was last seen in 1987.

CO2 emissions are growing mainly in China and other large developing countries as their economies expand. So far developed and developing countries have failed to reach a binding pact that would curb emissions globally. The goal of U.N. climate talks is to deliver such an agreement next year.

Concentrations of CO2 build up over time because it stays in the atmosphere for decades. So even if emissions stopped today it would take many years before concentrations dropped significantly.



This Jan. 23, 2013, file photo, shows a poor air quality sign is posted over a highway, in Salt Lake City. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2013 as increasing levels of man-made pollution transform the planet, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)


Top climate scientists are now becoming increasingly skeptical that countries across the globe will meet the voluntary goals they set at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit of limiting global warming to about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels.

In a draft report last month the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it is looking more likely that the world will shoot past that point and by mid-century temperatures will increase by about another 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) compared to temperatures from 1986 to 2005. And by the end of the century that scenario will bring temperatures about 6.7 degrees warmer (3.7 degrees Celsius), it said.

"We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels," Jarraud said. "Time is not on our side, for sure."

To address the challenge, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited heads of state and other leaders to a Sept. 23 climate change summit in New York on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly. President Barack Obama has said he will attend to help spur new commitments from governments, industry and civil groups for reducing greenhouse gas emissions ahead of next year's global climate talks in Paris.

The WMO report Tuesday said the rate of ocean acidification, which comes from added carbon absorbed by oceans, "appears unprecedented at least over the last 300 million years."



In this April 12, 2013 file photo, a woman walks through a neighborhood near a coal-fired power plant in Beijing. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2013 as increasing levels of man-made pollution transform the planet, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)


Between 1990 and 2013, carbon dioxide and other gas emissions caused a 34 percent increase in the warming effect on the climate, the report said.

The warming effect, or "radiative forcing," measures the net difference between the sunlight that the Earth absorbs and the energy it radiates back into space. More absorption leads to higher temperatures.

After carbon dioxide, methane has the biggest effect on climate. Atmospheric concentrations of methane reached a new high of 1,824 parts per billion in 2013, up 153 percent from pre-industrial levels of about 700 parts per billion.

About 40 percent of the methane comes from natural sources such as termites and wetlands, but the rest is due to cattle breeding, rice agriculture, fossil fuel burning, landfills and incineration, according to the agency.

___

Associated Press writer Karl Ritter contributed to this report from Stockholm.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-co2-pollution-levels-annual-record-high-085620660.html

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Development banks pledge to step up climate action
Reuters
6 hours ago



OSLO (Reuters) - The world's six multilateral development banks promised on Thursday to do more to help emerging nations fight climate change as part of efforts to reinvigorate flagging work on a U.N. deal to limit temperature rises.

In a statement before a Sept. 23 summit on global warming to be hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York, the World Bank and other banks said they had delivered $75 billion in financing since they started joint tracking of funds in 2011.

"We now pledge to build on our work so far and to enhance our climate finance action, in accordance with our organizations’ respective mandates, expertise, and resources," the banks said in a statement.

They did not give any target for funds.

The statement was signed by the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank Group.

Developing nations often complain that they need far more aid to help rein in rising greenhouse gas emissions as part of a 200-nation U.N. deal to limit global warming that is due to be agreed in late 2015 at a summit in Paris.


BOLD PLEDGES?

Ban is hoping for "bold pledges" at the Sept. 23 summit to reinvigorate world attempts to limit emissions that a U.N. scientific panel says are the main driver for more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.

But many nations may be unwilling to make big announcements. Under an informal deadline, they are meant to outline national contributions for the Paris deal by March 31, 2015. Some may prefer to wait until then.

"Nations face quite a challenge in meeting something that's considered 'bold'" at Ban's summit, said Liz Gallagher of the London-based E3G environmental think tank.

So far, the United Nations says existing plans for curbing emissions fall far short of what is needed to keep warming below an agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Developed nations promised in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year, from public and private sources, by 2020 to help developing nations cope with climate change. Developing nations say the rich are not on track.

The multilateral development banks said their funds could generate wider flows. Under a set of programs helping 48 developing nations, $8 billion in public funds were expected to mobilize $55 billion of financing from all sources.

The banks also said they were looking to new instruments, such as providing new technologies, developing renewable energy legislation and issuing green bonds.

Josué Tanaka, the EBRD’s managing director for energy efficiency and climate change, said the bank's climate finance of $20 billion since 2006 was expected to lead to annual carbon dioxide emissions reductions of 67 million tonnes.

That is roughly equivalent to Austria's annual emissions.

The U.N.'s panel of climate scientists says it is at least 95 percent probable that man-made greenhouse gases, rather than natural swings in the climate, are the main cause of warming since 1950.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Dale Hudson)


http://news.yahoo.com/development-banks-pledge-step-climate-action-114311189--sector.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN climate envoy says summit key to reinvigorate global pact
Reuters
By Megan Rowling  8 hours ago



Pedestrians walk along a footpath in front of a massive chimney billowing smoke for a coal-burning power station in central Beijing January 12, 2012. REUTERS/David Gray



BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As climate-changing emissions surge globally, a summit of world leaders this month should help revitalizes ambitions to tackle climate change despite the absence of government heads from China and India, U.N. climate envoy Mary Robinson said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Sept. 23 gathering in New York to mobilizes political will for an international accord due to be agreed in Paris in 2015 that will legally bind countries to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the summit is not part of formal climate treaty negotiations, it kicks off a crucial 15 months for climate talks and will be attended by more than 125 heads of state and government although the line-up is missing the leaders of India and China, the world’s largest carbon emitter.

But Robinson, while describing their absence as "disappointing", did not believe this would undermine a renewed drive to tackle climate change - almost five years after disastrous talks in Copenhagen failed to secure a binding pact.

"I see the summit not as an end product or an event in itself, but as the start of a momentum," the former Irish president told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

"Obviously it would be preferable if we had all the key heads of state attending .. (but) I think it will be around 130 something - which is still very, very significant."

Robinson's job as one of Ban Ki-moon's three special envoys for climate change will be to drive momentum created in New York to the next major U.N. climate talks in Lima in December, and then push for a successful outcome in Paris next year.

"I think we need to talk in terms of transformation, of change - it's not business as usual with a bit of green attached. That won't do it," Robinson said.


PRESSURE GROWING

The World Meteorological Organization said this week the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a record high in 2013 as the volume of carbon dioxide increased.

Scientists warn the world is off track to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius this century as governments have promised, and predict worsening extreme weather and rising seas.

Countries must put forward their national commitments to cut emissions as part of a new global climate deal by March 2015, meaning most will not present their final offers in New York.

But Robinson expects some countries to indicate they will make pledges to a fledgling U.N. Green Climate Fund, seen as crucial to building battered trust between richer and poorer nations in the U.N. climate negotiations.

The fund will help poorer countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and adopt cleaner energy as they grow.

Robinson, who runs her own climate justice foundation, said leaders’ statements at the U.N. summit would give "some idea of how far we still have to go before the March commitments".

"I hope it will be a good deal more ambitious (than previous announcements), and open the way for further understanding that we need pressure and urgency of real commitments," she said.

She hopes this pressure will come from a growing movement of people worldwide wanting greater action to tackle climate change, and from businesses, many of whom will be part of a new coalition launched in New York to press for stronger climate policies, arguing they make economic sense.

Two days before the New York summit, thousands of people representing youth, women and indigenous groups, among others, are planning to take to streets around the world for a "People's Climate March", calling for carbon pollution to be phased out, organisers say. Robinson will join that demonstration.

"This is not just an add-on to the climate summit. It is crucial if leaders are going to be ambitious enough," Robinson said, confident that the motivation for a new global pact is greater now than in 2009.

Until recent years, the onus was on industrialized countries to emit fewer greenhouse gases, but richer nations have argued that emerging economies like China and India, whose emissions have risen fast, should act too.

Robinson said the United States and China, both top emitters, have started to move forward on climate action, talking about cooperation, and should hopefully play a constructive role in the negotiations.

"The reality is that we have more countries that are seeing (climate change) as something that affects every country," she said. That means "every country has to work to have a plan, both on the mitigation and adaption side, which suits their circumstances."

- To hear more from Mary Robinson on expectations for the Climate Summit 2014, and to ask her questions, join us for a live online debate on September 15: http://www.trust.org/spotlight/climatesummit2014/

(Editing by Laurie Goering and Belinda Goldsmith: belinda.goldsmith@thomsonreuters.com)


http://news.yahoo.com/un-climate-envoy-says-summit-key-reinvigorate-global-090901768.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Warmer air caused ice shelf collapse off Antarctica
Reuters
By Alister Doyle  3 minutes ago



Aerial photographs taken in February and March 2002 of parts of the Larsen B shelf in the Antarctic show different aspects of the final stages of the collapse that reignited fears of global warming and its catastrophic effects.



OSLO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Warmer air triggered the collapse of a huge ice shelf off Antarctica in 2002, according to a report on Thursday that may help scientists predict future break-ups around the frozen continent.

Antarctica is a key to sea level rise, which threatens coastal areas around the world.. It has enough ice to raise seas by 57 meters (190 feet) if it ever all melted, meaning that even a tiny thaw at the fringes is a concern.

Until now, the exact cause of the collapse of the Larsen-B ice shelf, a floating mass of ice bigger than Luxembourg at the end of glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula, had been unknown. Some experts suggested it was thinned by sea water from below.

Writing in the journal Science, a team of scientists blamed rising air temperatures, saying that melt water and rain in the brief Antarctic summer had flowed into deep cracks.

Water expands when it turns to ice, and the re-freezing meltwater in the Larsen-B shelf - perhaps 200 meters thick - led to a build-up of huge pressures that shattered the ice in 2002.

A rival theory had been that warmer sea water had destabilized ice where the shelf was grounded on the seabed. Studying the seabed, however, the scientists found evidence that water had flowed freely under the ice for the past 12,000 years.

"This implies that the 2002 Larsen-B Ice Shelf collapse likely was a response to surface warming," they wrote. Since 2002, several other shelves have broken up around the Antarctic Peninsula, which is below South America.


WARNING SIGN

The Larsen-B captured the public imagination and even featured in a Hollywood disaster movie about climate change, "The Day After Tomorrow", showing a huge crevasse appearing through a scientific base on the ice.

"Hollywood underplayed that one," said Eugene Domack, an author of the study at the University of South Florida. "It fractured into thousands of icebergs, not just one huge crevasse."

Loss of floating ice shelves does not directly affect sea levels but can accelerate the slide of glaciers from land into the sea, raising levels. Thursday's study was by scientists in Italy, the United States, Portugal, Germany, Canada and Britain.

Domack told Reuters the findings could help scientists spot other ice at risk of breaking up. Pools of summer meltwater on the surface of ice shelves - visible from space - could be an early warning sign, he said.

The northern part of the Larsen-C ice shelf, further south and four times the size of the Larsen-B shelf, has been showing signs of instability, he said.

Scientists have linked warmer air over the Antarctic Peninsula to climate change and to a thinning of the ozone hole that shields life from cancer-causing solar rays, driven by man-made chemicals.

A U.N. report on Wednesday said that the ozone layer is showing its first signs of recovery after years of depletion, in a rare piece of good news about the environment.

(Editing by Alison Williams)


http://news.yahoo.com/warmer-air-caused-ice-shelf-collapse-off-antarctica-180955770.html

[Buster's Uncle]

The Ozone Layer Is Growing Back
The Atlantic Wire
By David Ludwig  1 hour ago



The United Nations finally has some good news about the climate. Well, sort of.

According to a report released by U.N. scientists on Wednesday, the ozone layer, which has been thinning since the late 1970's, is showing signs of recovery.



Recovery in the ozone layer since 1979 / NASA


Scientists say that the implementation of the U.N.'s 1987 Montreal Protocol has contributed to a statistically significant increase in the stratospheric ozone layer,  the thin layer of gas that protects the earth from U.V. rays linked with skin cancer. Thanks to the reduction of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) found in refrigerants and aerosol cans the ozone is predicted to return to 1980 levels by mid-century.

This will prevent 2 million additional cases of skin cancer a year starting in 2030. 

U.N. Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner heralded the monumental success.

The Montreal Protocol - one of the world's most successful environmental treaties - has protected the stratospheric ozone layer and avoided enhanced UV radiation reaching the earth's surface.

Chemist Mario Molina, one of the co-authors of a 1974 study predicting ozone depletion, echoed this sentiment in an interview with the Associated Press. 

It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together.

Okay, so it looks like a strong scientific consensus coupled with worldwide action can have an important effect on reducing negative effects on the planet, right?

Ironically, it turns out that the substances being used to replace ozone-harming CFCs are contributing to global warming, MIT scientist Susan Solomon told the AP. Greenhouse gases are repairing the ozone layer while simultaneously serving as one of the major causes of global climate change.

Fixing global climate problems is a two steps forward, one step back affair.

Ozone Minimums, 1979 to 2013

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/09/the-ozone-layer-is-growing-back/380039/