The Environment Chronicle

On 4 October 2016, in the presence of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the United Nation's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the President of COP 21 Ségolène Royal, the European Parliament approved the ratification of the Paris Agreement by the European Union.

India, one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, will ratify the Paris global climate agreement pact on 2 October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on 26 September 2016. "Ratification is yet to be done and India too is yet to do it. I announce that India will ratify the decision on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi," Mr Modi said in a speech at a national meeting of his ruling party in the southern state of Kerala.

On 30 September 2016, EU ministers approved the ratification of the Paris Agreement by the European Union. The decision was reached at an extraordinary meeting of the Environment Council in Brussels.

The Parties of CITES had weighed four proposals to protect four Asian and four African species of pangolins, and chose to give them the strongest possible global protections from trade. Pangolins are the most illegally traded mammal in the world. The decisions were reached at the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP 17) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Johannesburg, South Africa, and as a result, the international commercial trade of all eight species of pangolin and pangolin parts is officially prohibited.

The mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet is bigger than previously estimated. This is the result of a study by international scientists to be published in Science Advances. The work shows that up to now the so-called glacial isostatic adjustment, i.e., the uplift of the bedrock, was not correctly taken into account when measuring the glaciers’ mass balance with data from GRACE satellite observations. The new calculations by the team yield 272 Giga tons (Gt) of mass loss per year from 2004 to 2015 compared to previously calculated 253 Gt per year. The uplift of the bedrock is due to thinning of the Greenland Ice Sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum, around 20,000 years before present. The scientists measured this upward movement with a new GPS network that has its sensors placed directly on the bedrock surrounding the ice sheet. They showed that the uplift rate is bigger than previously estimated and modelled. The results also point to a much greater ice loss since the Last Glacial Maximum. Current estimates put the sea level rise when spread over the whole global ocean due to the reduction of the size of the Greenland Ice Sheet at 3.2 meters over the last 20,000 years. The new study, however, gives a value of 4.6 meters since that time.

The Dutch parliament has voted for a 55% cut in CO2 emissions by 2030, which would require the closure of all the country’s coal-fired power plants. The unexpected vote on 21 Setember 2016 by 77 to 72 would bring the Netherlands clearly into line with the Paris climate agreement, with some of the most ambitious climate policies in Europe. It is not binding on the government. A court in the Netherlands last year ordered prime minister Mark Rutte’s government to cut its emissions by a quarter by 2020, citing the severity of the global warming threat which the Netherlands has recognised in international treaties.

Tropical coral reefs lose up to two thirds of their zooplankton through ocean acidification. This is the conclusion reached by a German-Australian research team that examined two reefs with so-called carbon dioxide seeps off the coast of Papua New Guinea. At these locations volcanic carbon dioxide escapes from the seabed, lowering the water's acidity to a level, which scientists predict for the future of the oceans. The researchers believe that the decline in zooplankton is due to the loss of suitable hiding places. It results from the changes in the coral reef community due to increasing acidification. Instead of densely branched branching corals, robust mounding species of hard coral grow, offering the zooplankton little shelter. In a study published on 19 September 2016 at the online portal of the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers report that the impact on the food web of the coral reefs is far-reaching, since these micro-organisms are an important food source for fish and coral.

In September 2016, the Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk to 4.1 million square kilometres - the second lowest in the history of satellite measurements. It is exceeded only by the all-time record low of 3.4 million sq km in 2012. The Northeast and Northwest Passages have been ice-free again since the end of August 2016. For the past few weeks, Yachts and a cruise ship have been using the southern route of the Northwest Passage.

On 13 September 2016 Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, officially unveiled the MeyGen Project, the world’s largest free stream tidal power project, at a ceremony held at the Nigg Energy Park (“Nigg”) in Scotland. After the ceremony the turbine, measuring about 15 metres tall, with blades 16 metres in diameter, and weighing in at almost 200 tonnes, will begin its journey to the project’s site in the waters off the north coast of Scotland between Caithness and Orkney. The turbine will be the first of four to be installed underwater, each with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts, in the initial phase of the project.

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology show catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the last 20 years. The researchers mapped wilderness areas around the globe, with “wilderness” being defined as biologically and ecologically intact landscapes free of any significant human disturbance. The researchers then compared their current map of wilderness to one produced by the same methods in the early 1990s. This comparison showed that a total of 30.1 million km2 (around 20 percent of the world’s land area) now remains as wilderness, with the majority being located in North America, North Asia, North Africa, and the Australian continent. However, comparisons between the two maps show that an estimated 3.3 million km2 (almost 10 percent) of wilderness area has been lost in the intervening years. Those losses have occurred primarily in South America, which has experienced a 30 percent decline in wilderness, and Africa, which has experienced a 14 percent loss.

On 7 September 2016 Ecuador began pumping its first crude oil from the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) block in Yasuní National Park.

Endangered humpback whales in nine of 14 newly identified distinct population segments have recovered enough that they don’t warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries said on 6 September 2016. International conservation efforts to protect and conserve whales over the past 40 years proved successful for most populations. Four of the distinct population segments are still protected as endangered, and one is now listed as threatened.

The Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – has been listed as Critically Endangered due to illegal hunting, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ released on 4 September 2016 at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawaiʻi. IUCN Red List update also reports the decline of the Plains Zebra due to illegal hunting, and the growing extinction threat to Hawaiian plants posed by invasive species. Thirty eight of the 415 endemic Hawaiian plant species assessed for this update are listed as Extinct and four other species have been listed as Extinct in the Wild, meaning they only occur in cultivation. The IUCN Red List now includes 82,954 species of which 23,928 are threatened with extinction. This update of The IUCN Red List also brings some good news and shows that conservation action is delivering positive results. Previously listed as Endangered, The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is now listed as Vulnerable, as its population has grown due to effective forest protection and reforestation.

On 3 September 2016 Presidents of China and the United States handed over their countries' instruments of joining the Paris Agreement separately to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon in Hangzhou.

On 10 September 2016 the IUCN Congress closed with the presentation of the Hawai'i Commitments. This document, titled “Navigating Island Earth”, was shaped by debates and deliberations over 10 days, and opened for comment to some 10,000 participants from 192 countries. More than 100 resolutions and recommendations have been adopted by IUCN Members – a unique global environmental parliament of governments and NGOs – calling on third parties to take action on a wide range of urgent conservation issues. Key decisions included closure of domestic markets for elephant ivory, the urgency of protecting the high seas, the need to protect primary forests, no-go areas for industrial activities within protected areas and an official IUCN policy on biodiversity offsets.

On 31 August 2016, Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. announced the alarming results of the Great Elephant Census (GEC), the first-ever pan-African survey of savanna elephants. Revealed at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, the GEC shows a decline of 30 percent in African savanna elephant populations in 15 of the 18 countries surveyed. Over a two-year period, using standardized data collection and validation methods, the GEC accurately determined the number and distribution of the great majority of African savanna elephants and provides a baseline for future surveys and trend analyses. Final results show: Savanna elephant populations declined by 30 percent (equal to 144,000 elephants) between 2007 and 2014. The current rate of decline is 8 percent per year, primarily due to poaching. The rate of decline accelerated from 2007 to 2014. 352,271 elephants were counted in the 18 countries surveyed.

More than 300 million people in Asia, Africa and Latin America are at risk of life-threatening diseases like cholera and typhoid due to the increasing pollution of water in rivers and lakes, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Between 1990 and 2010, pollution caused by viruses, bacteria and other micro-organisms, and long-lasting toxic pollutants like fertilizer or petrol, increased in more than half of rivers across the three continents, while salinity levels rose in nearly a third, UNEP said in a report on 30 August 2016.

Since 1997 the Bat Night is organised under the auspices of the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS). The Bat Night has taken place every year in more than 30 countries on the last full weekend of August. Nature conservation agencies and NGOs from across Europe pass on information to the public about the way bats live and their needs with presentations, exhibitions and bat walks, often offering the opportunity to listen to bat sounds with the support of ultrasound technology.

On 26 August 2016, President Obama signed a proclamation expanding the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Previously the largest contiguous fully-protected conservation area in the United States at 362,073 km2, the expanded boundaries make it once again the biggest protected area on the planet at 1,508,870 km2, nearly the size of the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all U.S. national parks, many American national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. The NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management while also making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. It was created on 25 August 1916 by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act. The National Park Service is celebrating its centennial in 2016.

James Cook University (JCU), University of Sydney and Queensland University of Technology scientists working with laser data from the Royal Australian Navy have discovered a reef behind the Great Barrier Reef. JCU’s Dr Robin Beaman says the high-resolution seafloor data provided by LiDAR-equipped aircraft have revealed great fields of unusual donut-shaped circular mounds, each 200-300 metres across and up to 10 metres deep at the centre. “We’ve known about these geological structures in the northern Great Barrier Reef since the 1970s and 80s, but never before has the true nature of their shape, size and vast scale been revealed,” he said. The fields of circular donut-shaped rings are Halimeda bioherms, large reef-like geological structures formed by the growth of Halimeda, a common green algae composed of living calcified segments.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks-led research project has provided the first modern evidence of a landscape-level permafrost carbon feedback, in which thawing permafrost releases ancient carbon as climate-warming greenhouse gases. The study was published on 22 August 2016 in the journal Nature Geoscience. The project studied lakes in Alaska, Canada, Sweden and Siberia where permafrost thaw surrounding lakes led to lake shoreline expansion during the past 60 years. Using historical aerial photo analysis, soil and methane sampling, and radiocarbon dating, the project quantified for the first time the strength of the present-day permafrost carbon feedback to climate warming. Although a large permafrost carbon emission is expected to occur imminently, the results of this study show nearly no sign that it has begun.

On 16 September 2016, the luxury ship Crystal Serenity completed historic Northwest Passage Journey. The largest cruise ship to sail the Northwest Passage docked on the West Side of Manhattan, New York. On 16 August Crystal Serenity departed from Sward, Alaska carrying 1,700 passengers and crew, and escorted by an icebreaker.

On 8 August 2016, humanity used up nature’s budget for the year 2016, according to data from Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that is changing how the world manages its natural resources and responds to climate change. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.

On 5 August 2016 the Brazilian environmental agency IBAMA cancelled the process for licensing the São Luiz do Tapajós megadam in the heart of the Amazon. The 8,000-megawatt São Luiz do Tapajós dam would have been the sixth-largest hydroelectric dam in the world, spanning the five-mile wide Tapajós river and drowning 376 sq km (145 sq miles) of rainforest that is home to some 12,000 Munduruku Indians. But in an unexpected announcement, the Ibama protection agency on Thursday cancelled development permits saying that an environmental impact study submitted by a consortium of Brazilian, European and other companies seeking to build the dam had failed to present enough evidence to judge its social and ecological impacts.

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for August 2016 was the highest for August in the 137-year period of record, marking the 16th consecutive month of record warmth for the globe. The August 2016 temperature departure of 0.92°C above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F) surpassed the previous record set in 2015 by 0.05°C. Fourteen of the 15 highest monthly land and ocean temperature departures in the record have occurred since February 2015, with January 2007 among the 15 highest monthly temperature departures.

On 27 July 2016 the European Commission took the decision to register the 'People4Soil' European Citizens' Initiative. The 'People4Soil' European Citizens' Initiative invites the Commission to "recognise soil as a shared heritage that needs EU level protection and develop a dedicated legally binding framework covering the main soil threats." The registration of the 'People4Soil' initiative will take place on 12 September.

A UN committee has found that the EU is breaching the Aarhus Convention access to justice law. The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee ruled after ClientEarth brought a case against the EU for stopping citizens taking environmental cases to the European Court of Justice. The Committee said the way the European Court of Justice has been interpreting EU rules on access to the court breaches the Aarhus Convention. The regulation which applies the Convention also puts the EU in violation of the Convention. The Committee called for the regulation to be amended to ensure individuals and NGOs go to court to challenge the decisions of EU institutions in environmental matters. A UN committee has found that the EU is breaching the Aarhus Convention access to justice law. The Committee said the way the European Court of Justice has been interpreting EU rules on access to the court breaches the Aarhus Convention. The regulation which applies the Convention also puts the EU in violation of the Convention. The Committee called for the regulation to be amended to ensure individuals and NGOs go to court to challenge the decisions of EU institutions in environmental matters.

Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg have just flown all around the world in their solar aircraft "Solar Impulse 2", which is powered by four solar electric motors. The two scientists took off from Abu Dhabi on 9 March 2015, and landed back there on 26 July 2016 after flying more than 40,000 kilometres across two oceans and four continents. That is the first circumnavigation of the world in an airplane powered by renewable energy rather than fossil fuel. The two men want their mission to promote the use of renewable energy in the fight to mitigate climate change.

The first International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem was celebrated on 26 July 2016, to mark the critical importance of mangroves for food security, coastal protection, and mitigation of the impacts of climate change. The proclamation of the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem – which was adopted in November 2015 by the General Conference of UNESCO – underlined the importance of the mangrove ecosystem as a “a unique, special and vulnerable ecosystem, providing by virtue of their existence, biomass and productivity substantial benefits to human beings, providing forestry, fishery goods and services as well as contributing to the protection of the coastline and being particularly relevant in terms of mitigation of the effects of climate change and food security for local communities.”

On 22 July 2016, the Commission authorised three GMOs for food/feed uses, all of which have gone through a comprehensive authorisation procedure, including a favourable scientific assessment by EFSA. The authorisation decisions do not cover cultivation. The GMOs approved on 22 July had received "no opinion" votes from the Member States in both the Standing and Appeal Committees and the Commission adopted the pending decisions. The authorisations are valid for 10 years, and any products produced from these GMOs will be subject to the EU's strict labelling and traceability rules.

On 21 July 2016, the Mexican government announced new vaquita protections in the upper Gulf of California, the only place in the world where the vaquita lives. From September 2016, Mexico will permanently ban the use of gillnets throughout the range of vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus) in the upper Gulf of California. With just 60 individuals remaining in the wild, the vaquita porpoise is the world’s smallest, rarest and most threatened marine mammal. Night fishing will also be phased out by the end of this year, Mario Aguilar Sánchez, Mexico’s National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commissioner, told reporters.

Mitrabah, Kuwait, set a new highest temperature record for the Eastern hemisphere and Asia, with a reported temperature of 54.0°C (129.2°F) on 21 July 2016.

On 20 July 2016 the Global Restoration Council was launched in Bonn on the invitation of Federal Ministry for the Environment. The council brings together luminaries from the fields of politics, civil society and business. It was the council's first official meeting. The Global Restoration Council met on 20 and 21 July in Bad Godesberg, a neighbourhood in Bonn. The council is made up of internationally active, respected individuals well-known to the public. The former Swedish prime minister Göran Persson, the human rights and climate activist Bianca Jagger, and the representative of the African Green Belt Initiative Wanjira Mathai are among the members. The council will work together with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) to support the achievement of international targets for the restoration of destroyed forestland.

On 19 July 2016 Germany presented first report on the implementation of the global Sustainable Development Goals to the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Germany is one of the first countries to report on its efforts to implement the goals. The German implementation report was compiled with input from German civil society representatives. That is why, in New York, the German government presented the report together with the Federation of German Industries, the German Trade Union Confederation, the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, and the Association of German Development and Humanitarian Aid Non-Governmental Organisations (VENRO).

On 18 July 2016 the Council adopted a new regulation which updates the multiannual recovery plan for Bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The new rules improve the existing recovery plan. The regulation transposes into Union law measures adopted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) between 2012 and 2014. In particular it transposes recommendation 14-04, which rationalises the existing control provisions and sets out procedures in relation to the use of stereoscopic cameras, release operations and the treatment of dead fish in the recovery plan. The plan for Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) applies from 2007 until 2022. It was recommended by ICCAT, an inter-governmental fishery organisation responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas. The EU is a contracting party to ICCAT. This adoption by the Council confirms the first reading agreement reached with the European Parliament in April 2016. The regulation will enter into force and become applicable by the end of 2016.

Sixty percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by local activities; 50% of all fish stock in large marine ecosystems (LMEs) are overexploited; 64 of the world’s 66 LMEs have experienced ocean warming in the last decades, according to new alarming figures from global assessments on the state of the world’s high seas and large marine ecosystems presented by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO on 14 July 2016.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has estimated the degree of self- sufficiency in fish consumption achieved by the EU as a whole and for each of its EU27 member states; self-sufficiency is defined as the capacity of EU member states to meet demand for fish from their own waters. For the EU as a whole, fish dependence day is 13 July 2016, indicating that almost one-half of fish consumed in the EU is sourced from non-EU waters.

On 13 July 2016 the European Commission took an important step towards halting biodiversity loss, adopting a list of invasive alien species that require action across the EU. The list contains 37 species that cause damage on a scale that justifies dedicated measures across the Union.

On 11 July 2016 Member states backed a proposal by the European Commission to put limits on the use of the weed-killer glyphosate in the 28-nation bloc, including a ban on one co-formulant called POE-tallowamine. Other measures approved by the EU expert panel include reinforcing the scrutiny of glyphosate use before harvest and restricting the use of the substance in areas like public parks and playgrounds.