Global warming. Disappearing plant and animal species. Fertile land turning to desert. Plastic in the oceans, on land, and the air we breathe.
These urgent environmental challenges will be in the spotlight over the next few months as the United Nations hosts four major sessions to address key threats to the planet.
– Biodiversity –
First up is a “Conference of the Parties” — a COP — dedicated to biodiversity being held in Cali, Colombia, from October 21 to November 1.
These are called every two years to debate how the world can cooperate to better protect the rich variety of plant and animal life in the natural world.
The COP16 isn’t expected to break new ground but will take stock of progress since the last summit secured historic assurances for biodiversity.
In 2022 in Montreal, nations agreed to place 30 percent of the planet under environmental protection by 2030 in a landmark pact aimed at arresting biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems to health.
In Cali, countries will put forward national strategies to meet this global objective, and observers hope Colombia as host will provide a model for others to follow.
– Climate –
The world’s most important conference on climate change is this year being hosted by Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic heavily dependent on oil and gas exports, from November 11 to 22.
While the last summit in Dubai in 2023 delivered a historic commitment to transition the world away from fossil fuels, supporting poorer countries with climate change will top this year’s agenda.
The summit, known as COP29, is expected to land a new agreement on “climate finance“: money from rich nations most responsible for global warming to developing countries vulnerable to climate change.
There isn’t an agreed figure yet, or even consensus on where the money should come from, who should receive it, and what form it could take.
But developing countries are pushing for much more than the $100 billion pledged in 2009. This was only reached for the first time in full in 2022.
The result of the US election, just six days before COP29 begins, could throw a last-minute curveball into the final negotiations, which have proved divisive so far.
It also remains to be seen how many world leaders travel to Baku, the capital on the Caspian Sea, with some expected to focus their energy on COP30 in Brazil next year.
– Desertification –
The least high profile of the three COPs, this session in Saudi Arabia addressing the loss of fertile land to desert is nonetheless critical.
Climate variation like droughts and human activities like overgrazing can result in desertification, a process mainly in dry areas where land degrades and becomes unproductive.
Experts hope the COP16 on desertification, scheduled to take place in Riyadh from December 2 to 13, can act as a turning point in addressing this problem.
“Discussions will focus on ways to restore 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030, as well as putting in place agreements to manage the droughts that are already affecting many regions of the globe,” said Arona Diedhiou from the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development.
– Plastic –
In 2022, some 175 nations agreed to fast-track negotiations toward a world-first treaty on plastic pollution, and the final session gets underway on November 25 in South Korea.
The treaty aims to marshal an international response to the plastic trash choking the environment, from oceans and rivers to mountains and sea ice.
Some nations want the treaty to restrict how much plastic can be made while others — particularly oil and gas producing countries that provide the raw materials to make plastic — want a focus on recycling.
Hellen Kahaso Dena, head of Greenpeace’s Pan-African Plastics Project, hopes that countries “will agree on a treaty that prioritises reducing plastic production”.
“There is no time to waste with approaches that will not solve the problem,” the activist told AFP.

NEW DELHI: One in every two El Nino events could be extreme by 2050 if current trends in greenhouse gas emissions continue, a new study has found. El Nino, a weather pattern known for triggering warmer extremes like heatwaves and floods, is known to raise sea surface temperatures, while its counterpart La Nina leads to cooling effects. Both are phases of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate driver.
Multiple studies have provided evidence that a consistently warming climate favours more frequent and intense El Nino events, which are known to fuel extreme weather events.
In this study, conducted by researchers including those from the University of Colorado Boulder, US, used computer models to stimulate El Nino events over the past 21,000 years — the peak of Earth’s last Ice Age, one of the planet’s coldest periods.
It was found that as the Earth’s climate warmed since then, El Nino events increasingly became more frequent and intense.
The model also predicted that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current rates, by 2050, one in every two El Nino events could be an extreme.
“The highest (ENSO) variability occurs in response to greenhouse warming, with one in two events reaching extreme amplitude,” the authors said in the study published in the journal Nature.
An increased ENSO variability signals higher levels of human-induced global warming.
The study’s findings mean a relatively lesser time for people to recover, along with increased impacts to life and property, according to lead author Pedro DiNezio, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“If these extreme events become more frequent, society may not have enough time to recover, rebuild and adapt before the next El Nino strikes. The consequences would be devastating,” DiNezio said.
The most recent 2023-24 El Nino has been linked to global temperatures breaking records for 12 straight months, starting June last year. The climate driver is thought to have played a major role behind this summer’s record breaking temperatures registered across India, especially in the north.
The study’s model was validated against data from fossils of foraminifera, ocean-dwelling single-celled organisms that existed long before humans.
Through an analysis of preserved oxygen in these fossils, the team reconstructed how El Nino drove changes in temperatures across the Pacific Ocean for the past 21,000 years.
The World Meteorological Organization has described the 2023-24 El Nino as one of the five strongest ones on record, causing widespread natural disasters, including heatwaves, floods and wildfires. It also said that 2023 was Earth’s hottest year since records began.
Currently, neutral conditions are said to be prevailing before La Nina is expected to set in later this year, according to the United Nation’s weather and climate agency.

Puerto Escondido, Mexico — Hurricane John struck Mexico’s southern Pacific coast with life-threatening flood potential after growing into a major hurricane in a matter of hours. It came ashore near the town of Punta Maldonado late Monday night as a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph. John’s rapid intensification forced authorities to rush to keep pace and warn people of its potential destruction.

“Seek higher ground, protect yourselves and do not forget that life is the most important thing; material things can be replaced. We are here,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote on the social media platform X.

By early Tuesday, John had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph maximum sustained winds, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was expected to batter Punta Maldonado and the nearby tourist hubs Acapulco and Puerto Escondido before being weakened over the high terrain inland.

The center said before landfall that “life-threatening” storm surges and flash floods were already ravaging the Pacific coast near Oaxaca.

Hurricane John shows growing threat of rapid intensification

The unexpected surge in strength caught scientists, authorities and residents of the area by surprise, something AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Matt Benz and other experts have attributed to warmer oceans, which add fuel to the hurricanes.

As a result, surprise surges in hurricanes’ strength have become increasingly common, Benz said.

“These are storms that we haven’t really experienced before,” he said. “Rapid intensification has occurred more frequently in modern times as opposed to back in the historical record. So that’s telling us there’s something going on there.”

Rapid intensification is defined by meteorologists as an increase in the maximum sustained winds of a tropical cyclone of at least 30 knots (about 35 mph) over a 24 hour period, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.  

Residents were tense in Oaxaca’s coastal cities as the forecast shifted and authorities responded.

Laura Velázquez, the federal coordinator of civil protection, told residents of Pacific coastal cities they should evacuate their homes and head to shelters in order to “protect theirs and their family’s lives.”

“It’s very important that all citizens in the coastal zone… take preventive measures,” Velázquez said.

Ana Aldai, a 33-year-old employee of a restaurant on the shores of the tourist hub Puerto Escondido, said businesses in the area began closing after authorities ordered the suspension of all work on the area’s main beaches.

The governments of Guerrero and Oaxaca states said classes would be suspended in a number of coastal zones on Tuesday.

Oaxaca’s governor said the state government had evacuated 3,000 people and set up 80 shelters. It also said it sent out 1,000 military and state personnel to address the emergency.

Videos on social media from Puerto Escondido showed flip-flop-clad tourists walking through heavy rain and fishermen pulling their boats out of the water. Strong rains in previous days have already left some roads in the region in a precarious position.

Aldai said she was “a little bit distressed” because notice from authorities came quickly. “There was no opportunity to make the necessary purchases. That also distresses us,” she said.

A lingering impact for a coast battered a year earlier by Otis

Benz, the meteorologist, expressed concern that the storm could slow once it hits land, leaving the storm hovering over the coastal zone, which could cause even greater damage.

The hurricane is bleak news for the region, which last year was walloped by Otis, a similar rapidly intensifying hurricane.

Otis devastated the resort city of Acapulco, where residents had little warning of the strength of what was about to hit them. One of the most rapidly intensifying hurricanes ever seen, scientists at the time said it was a product of changing climate conditions.

Otis blew out power in the city for days, left bodies scattered on the coast and desperate family members searching for lost loved ones. Much of the city was left in a state of lawlessness and thousands scavenged in stores, scrambled for food and water.

The government of López Obrador received harsh criticism for its slow response to Otis, but authorities have since pledged to pick up their speed.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum said her government planned to work on improving an early alert system, similar to what the country has with earthquakes.

Through Thursday, John is expected to produce 6 to 12 inches of rain across coastal areas of Chiapas state with more in isolated areas. In areas along and near the Oaxaca coast to southeast Guerrero, between 10 and 20 inches of rain with isolated higher totals can be expected through Thursday.

“You’re going to feel the impacts of the storm probably for the next couple of weeks to a couple of months,” meteorologist Benz added.

The outlook for “Doomsday Glacier” just got gloomier. 

Scientists are warning the Antarctic Ice Sheet, known formally as the Thwaites Glacier, will deteriorate “further and faster” and that sea level rise triggered by the melting could impact “hundreds of millions” in coastal communities.

“Towards the end of this century, or into the next century, it is very probable that we will see a rapid increase in the amount of ice coming off of Antarctica,” said Dr. Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado. “The Thwaites is pretty much doomed.”

The findings are the culmination of six years of research conducted by the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a collective of more than 100 scientists.

The “Doomsday Glacier,” roughly the size of the state of Florida, is one of the largest glaciers in the world. Scientists predict that its collapse could contribute to 65 centimeters, or roughly 26 inches in sea level rise.

If you account for the ice the Thwaites will draw in from the large surrounding glacial basins when it collapses, the sea level rise could be even higher. “That total will be closer to three meters of sea level rise,” Scambos said.

According to the researchers, the volume of water flowing into the sea from the Thwaites and its neighboring glaciers has doubled from the 1990s to the 2010s.

Approximately 1/3 of the front of the Twaites is currently covered by a thick plate of ice — an ice shelf — floating in the ocean that blocks ice from flowing into the sea. However, Scambos said the melting is accelerating and that the ice sheet is “very near to the point of breakup.” 

“Probably within the next two or three years, it will break apart into some large icebergs,” he said. 

This will eventually leave the front of the glacier exposed. This may not necessarily lead to a sudden acceleration in melting, but it will change how the ocean interacts with the front of the ice shelf, Scambos said.

Deep ridges that prevent ice from flowing into the ocean are on their way out. The ridges, in the bedrock below the ice sheet in Antarctica, provide a “resistive force” against the ice, Scambos said, that slows down its flow into the ocean. As the Thwaites collapses, it will lose contact with these protective ridges, causing more ice to empty into the ocean.

One of the more surprising findings to come from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration was how tidal activity around the glacier is pumping warmer sea water into the ice sheet at high speed. That water, which is a couple of degrees above freezing, is getting trapped in parts of the glacier and forced further upstream.

“It goes in every day, it gets squashed up under the glacier. It completely melts whatever freshwater ice it can, and then it gets ejected, and then the whole thing starts again,” said Scambos.

The new findings from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration add to a vast body of research on how the deterioration of glaciers worldwide could contribute to sea level rise. In May, a study found that high-pressure ocean water is seeping beneath the “Doomsday Glacier” leading to a “vigorous ice melt.”  

Study co-author Christine Dow called the Thwaites the “most unstable place in the Antarctic” and said the speed at which its melting could prove “devastating for coastal communities around the world.” 

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine predicted the ocean could rise by about 60 centimeters, or about 23.6 inches, roughly on par with the predictions from scientists part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.

Scientists also have also warned about the potential consequences if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt. Greenland’s melting ice mass is now the No. 1 driver of sea level rise, according to Paul Bierman, a scientist at the University of Vermont. If it melts completely, scientists project it could lead to 20 to 25 feet of sea-level rise.

Scambos said rising global temperatures linked to climate change have warmed oceans and generated new wind patterns that make these glaciers more susceptible to melting.

“It is very likely related to increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which changed wind patterns around Antarctica, and therefore changed ocean circulation around Antarctica,” he said. “That’s the main culprit.”

Scientists project that without intervention, the Thwaites could completely disappear by the 23rd century.