CLIMATE CHANGE

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak softening the pace of Britain's net-zero agenda will make its targets harder to achieve while costing people more, his own government's climate advisers said Thursday.

What makes a good or bad year for wine? But the paper argues that because there is broad consensus about what makes good versus bad wine, the taste scores offer a reliable means to monitor how crops are changing over time -- and they attempted to statistically control for the effects of improving winemaking technology.

Bill Gates is emphatic: "I don't plant trees," he declared recently, wading into a debate about whether mass tree planting is really much use in fighting climate change.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Wednesday began hearing a case brought by six Portuguese youths against 32 nations for not doing enough to stop global warming, the latest bid to secure climate justice through the courts.

Natural disasters are now happening so frequently that reinsurers -- the firms that sell insurance to insurance companies -- are scaling back their exposure to such risks.

In France's southern Bordeaux region, the grape harvest is often now done at night to ensure the peak freshness required to obtain the best wine but this is also a response to climate change.

Two huge and fast-moving wildfires merged overnight in western Canada, threatening hundreds of homes and forcing continued evacuations in British Columbia province, officials said.

Climate change is forcing big and small changes to the American fishing industry as animals, fishermen and policymakers adjust to rising sea temperatures.

France's government said Thursday it would hold a crisis meeting to tackle a heatwave that could reach its high point at the weekend, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne's office told AFP Thursday.

"India doesn't have to add new coal-based power plants, and all future growth in demand will be met by efficient usage of existing assets and new renewable energy sources," Sunil Dahiya from Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said.

The insurance industry is becoming increasingly sensitive to the effects of climate change on their businesses. Some insurers are reducing coverage or new policies in California and Florida. This raises difficult questions about the future of doing business in certain regions of the United States, too.

If the shift in the weather pattern is the case, it could lead to a slowdown and even a reversal of tourism trends between northern and southern Europe, as north Europeans would rather spend their summer vacation time at home than travel in south Europe.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday the "world must help" Brazil protect the Amazon, ahead of a summit next week on the world's biggest rainforest, a key buffer against climate change.

China deployed military helicopters on Tuesday to deliver supplies to stranded train passengers in Beijing, state media reported, after deadly rainstorms wreaked havoc in the capital.

These supercritical thermal power plants "can reduce waste heat by 25% and lower pollution and CO2 emissions by approximately the same percentage," said Manish Vaid, a junior fellow at Observer Research Foundation. "Nevertheless, these improvements fall short of meeting the ambitious climate targets set by the Paris Agreement."

Climate observers anticipate a hotter climate will make it harder to work outdoors, raise the cost of electricity, affect the reliability of the food supply and make it harder to insure homes and businesses.

Global warming poses a threat to all humankind and requires a new kind of cooperation between China and the United States, US climate envoy John Kerry told Chinese officials on Tuesday.

Chinese citizens flocked to air raid shelters to keep themselves cool and away from the scorching heat as the world experienced its hottest week ever.

High in the Austrian Alps, hundreds of construction workers toil in a huge underground project aimed at storing hydropower as climate change has reduced the country's water-dependent electricity production.

"Flooding, drought, and other extreme weather events worsened by climate change force many people to leave their homes. This can lead to an increase in human trafficking. Women and girls are especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation in this situation," said Michael Gerrard, an acclaimed environmental lawyer.

"Given China's outsized role in adding to carbon pollution, it needs to move away from coal power-- fast. Yet when clean power runs short, including when climate-fueled drought shuts hydropower plants down, China falls back on coal. To succeed at emissions reduction, China needs to break that cycle," climate risk expert Alice C. Hill told IBT.