The Environment Chronicle

On 8 July 2015, UN-General Secretary Ban Ki-moon visited the Franco-German Arctic research base AWIPEV in Spitsbergen, Norway. He caught up on the latest development of climate change. In front of the Blomstrandbreen glacier he called for action against the climate change. The international community has to „take action now“, Ban said. „I am just close to 250 metres to the glacier. It looks magnificient. But at the same time, I am alarmed that there are so many cracks that will soon break. They are melting very rapidly, and I fully agree with what scientists have been projecting.“ Ban has already visited the glacier six years ago. „We have to keep global temperature rise below two degrees as soon as possible.“ Together with the AWI researchers and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Norway, Borge Brende, Ban launched a radio-sonde which measures the temperature, the air pressure and other important atmospheric climate parameters.

On 30 July 2015, the German weather service announced that a new all-time hot temperature record was confirmed for the country. At 3:40 p.m. local time, Kitzingen, Germany reached a scorching high temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius, breaking the old national temperature record of 104.4 degrees (40.2 degrees Celsius) which was previously set in 1983 and twice in 2003.

Researchers of the Institute of Aircraft Design showed the practicability of battery powered aircraft with a spectacular flight over the Alps. A milestone towards an energy efficient and carbon-neutral aviation has been reached. On 4 July 2015, the electric aircraft “e-Genius” flew from the airfield Hahnweide near Stuttgart over the Alps to Italy. On its way to the north-Italian airfield Calcinate del Pesce, the hi-tech aircraft had to cover a distance of 320 km and climbed to an altitude of 4000 m in order to pass the Swiss summits safely. The two seater aircraft was flown by the experienced record pilot Klaus Ohlmann and Ingmar Geiß of the University of Stuttgart. e-Genius arrived at its destination airfield in little over two hours. On the same day, the batteries were recharged and e-Genius headed back to Stuttgart in the afternoon. This was a particular challenge because of the steep profile of the Swiss Alps. In order to have enough time to climb, a flight path through the Gotthardpass was chosen, which meant the aircraft had to cover an even longer 365 km distance back to Germany. Besides the lack of carbon and noise emission, the energy consumption of the flight showed the huge potential of the new aircraft technology: for both flights combined, only 83 kWh were needed, the energy contained in 9.2 l of fuel. This leads to a total energy expense of only 21€ for the whole trip, assuming current electricity prices in Germany.

On 1 July 2015, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee confirmed the Great Barrier Reef would not be placed on its endangered list.

On 8 January 2015, the de Blasio Administration announced that as of July 1, 2015, food service establishments, stores and manufacturers may not possess, sell, or offer for use single service Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam articles or polystyrene loose fill packaging, such as “packing peanuts” in New York City.

The combined globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for July 2015 was the highest for any month since record keeping began in 1880. The July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average. As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880–2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C).

On 30 June 2015, the People's Republic of China submitted its new climate action plan to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). China will aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 60-65% from 2005 levels under a plan submitted to the United Nations ahead of crucial climate change talks in Paris later this year. China said it would increase the share of non-fossil fuels as part of its primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030.

On 29 June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives, an Environmental Protection Agency regulation meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Industry groups and about 20 states had challenged the E.P.A.’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its rule would impose. The Clean Air Act required the regulation to be “appropriate and necessary.” The challengers said the agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis.

On 27 June 2015, just four days after being lofted into orbit, Europe’s Sentinel-2A satellite delivered its first images of Earth. With a swath width of 290 km, the satellite’s first acquisition began in Sweden and made a strip-like observation through central Europe and the Mediterranean, ending in Algeria. The data were relayed in real time to Italy’s Matera ground station, where teams eagerly awaited their arrival for processing. While northern and central Europe were mostly cloudy, Italy’s typical sunny weather allowed the teams to get their first glimpse of the multispectral instrument’s capabilities over the northwestern part of the country and the French Riviera – and they were excited by what they saw. With a ground resolution of 10 m per pixel, the images show individual buildings in Milan, agricultural plots along the Po River, and ports along the southern French coast.

On 27 June 2015, Ecuador released 201 tortoises on Santa Fe Island in the Galapagos archipelago, where a similar subspecies went extinct more than 150 years ago. The 201 tortoises were raised in captivity and are between four and 10 years old. Santa Fe is the former home to Chelonoidis sp, a subspecies of giant tortoise which died out after humans took a hefty toll on the ecosystem, beginning in the 18th century when pirates and buccaneers decimated the population. "We released in Santa Fe 201 tortoises from the Chelonoidis hoodensis subspecies, which are from Espanola Island, and which have morphological and genetic similarities to the extinct subspecies on the (Santa Fe) island," rangers from Galapagos National Park said. Of these, 30 have a radio transmitter that will allow park rangers to follow the animals in the wild.

On 24 June 2015, the Hague District Court ruled that the State must take more action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands. The State also has to ensure that the Dutch emissions in the year 2020 will be at least 25% lower than those in 1990. The Urgenda Foundation had requested the court for a ruling. Based on the State’s current policy, the Netherlands will achieve a reduction of 17% at most in 2020, which is below the norm of 25% to 40% for developed countries deemed necessary in climate science and international climate policy. The legal proceedings were instituted by the Urgenda Foundation, a citizens’ platform which develops plans and measures to prevent climate change. The foundation also represents 886 individuals in this case.

The latest IUCN Red List of Endangered Species, update published on 23 June 2015, now includes 77,340 assessed species, of which 22,784 are threatened with extinction. The loss and degradation of habitat are identified as the main threat to 85% of all species described on the IUCN Red List, with illegal trade and invasive species also being key drivers of population decline. Update also shows that over-collection and habitat destruction are placing enormous pressure on many medicinal plants.

The ESA-developed Sentinel satellite – Sentinel-2A- was launched on 22 June 2015 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 22:52 local time. Sentinel-2A will complement the all-weather, day-and-night radar imagery provided by the first in the fleet, Sentinel-1A, launched on 3 April 2014. “Sentinel-2A, with its optical camera, is a complement to the radar images from Sentinel-1A,” said Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes. “It will support important areas of benefit to society such as food security and forest monitoring. “Its combination of wide swaths and short revisit time will allow users to view land change and vegetation growth with unprecedented accuracy. “By frequently revisiting areas, it will allow a new generation of operational products, from land cover and change detection maps, disaster maps and leaf area index to chlorophyll content and other bio-geophysical variables.” Data will be provided on a free and open basis. Raw data will be analysed, processed and harmonised by public and private sector service providers.

In a long-term study of more than 300,000 workers in France, the U.S. and the U.K., those with many years of exposure to low doses of radiation had an increased risk of dying from leukemia. Leukemia is known to be caused by exposure to high doses of radiation, like that released by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. In the years following those bombings, leukemia cases increased among the survivors, the authors note in The Lancet Haematology, online 21 June 2015. But such high doses are rare today. For the new study, researchers considered 308,297 nuclear energy workers whose radiation exposures were monitored. All had worked for at least a year for the French Atomic Energy Commission or similar employers or for the Departments of Energy and Defense in the U.S., or were members of the National Registry for Radiation Workers in the U.K.The workers were followed for an average of 27 years, with data on exposure and health status through the early- to mid-2000s, depending on their country. Researchers looked for deaths from leukemia or lymphoma. About 22 percent of the workers had died by the end of follow-up. There were 531 deaths due to leukemia and 814 due to lymphoma. As cumulative dose of radiation exposure increased, so did the risk of dying from certain kinds of leukemia, the researchers found.

'Laudato si' the climatate encyclical of Pope Francis was officially published on 18 June 2015 in Rome.

15 June 2015 was the first World Meat Free Day. Supported by a host of organisations, it is encouraging people around the globe to quit meat for the day, and aims to raise awareness that the meat and livestock industry is unsustainable.

On 12 June 2015 US officials rejected Exxon Mobil’s request to reconsider a $1m penalty imposed against the oil company over a 63,000-gallon crude spill into Montana’s Yellowstone river. The US Department of Transportation on Friday ordered the Texas company to pay the penalty within 20 days at a hearing in Billings, Montana.

On 6 June 2015, the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Environment Ministry invited a group of citizens selected at random to participate in the climate dialogue at the Jerusalem Church (Jerusalemkirche) in Berlin. The event was prepared and organised by the nexus Institute, which is in charge of coordinating consultations in Germany on a national level. Germany was not the only country to hold a public dialogue on this particular day: people came together in eighty countries across five continents to make their voices heard in the international discussion and negotiation process. The setup of the public dialogues entitled "World Wide Views on Climate and Energy" was the same in all participating countries, thus ensuring comparable results. The questions voted on were based on open and contentious issues in the international climate negotiations.

The decision to divest Government Pension Fund of Norway from coal assets was made on 27 May 2015, when an agreement between political parties was reached. It was formally passed by a parliamentary vote on 5 June 2015.

On 4 June 2015 a new study published online in the journal Science finds that the rate of global warming during the last 15 years has been as fast as or faster than that seen during the latter half of the 20th Century. The study refutes the notion that there has been a slowdown or "hiatus" in the rate of global warming in recent years. The study is the work of a team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) using the latest global surface temperature data.

In 2010, Germany adopted a law on excise duty on nuclear fuel (Kernbrennstoffsteuergesetz). That law introduced, for the period from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2016, a duty on the use of nuclear fuel for the commercial production of electricity. Kernkraftwerke Lippe-Ems, has challenged the duty before the Finance Court, Hamburg,Germany. Kernkraftwerke Lippe-Ems takes the view that the German duty on nuclear fuel is incompatible with EU law. The Finanzgericht Hamburg decided to submit questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the compatibility of the duty with EU law. On 4 June 2015, the Court of Justice replies that EU law does not preclude a duty such as the German duty on nuclear fuel.

On 3 June 2015, a consortium led by BirdLife International and financed by the European Commission published the new European Red List of Birds. 18% of the 451 species assessed are threatened at EU27 level. This means 82 species, of which 11 are Critically Endangered, 16 Endangered and 55 Vulnerable. 13% of the 533 species assessed are threatened at European level. That makes a total of 67 species, of which 10 are Critically Endangered. The study also found that 18 species are Endangered and an additional 39 Vulnerable. Negative trends: a total of 29 species have been uplisted since 2004 (formerly considered to be of Least Concern but are now threatened or Near Threatened in Europe). Improvements: a total of 20 species were previously considered regionally threatened and are now classified as Least Concern in Europe (although some are still globally threatened). Another 25 species are still threatened in Europe, but now have a lower extinction risk than a decade ago, and have seen their threat level downlisted.

On 3 June 2015, BirdLife Europe presented its assessment of progress in the first five years of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. The report "Halfway there?”,finds that although important progress has been made in some areas, overall the EU is still failing to reverse the decline of biodiversity, many plants and animals are threatened with extinction in the EU. The report (1) finds that substantial progress has been made on Target 1 (implementation of EU nature legislation), Target 4 (fisheries) and Target 5 (Invasive Alien Species). Little has happened with Target 2 (restoration of ecosystems), only limited progress on Target 6 (international biodiversity loss), while Target 3 (agriculture) has failed completely. The report documents a substantial failure of the EU in addressing the ecological crisis in EU farmland. The report finds that when and where the EU Birds and Habitats Directives have been properly implemented the results are spectacular, but the Directives suffer from a lack of funding and lax enforcement.

On 3 June 2015 the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and GIZ, India launched the “Indian Solar Radiation Atlas” in Chennai, the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The new Indian Solar Radiation Atlas is to be the basis for a broad expansion of solar energy in India. Within the framework of the solar mapping and monitoring project, the German Environment Ministry supported the development of the Atlas with almost two million euros. The Atlas will facilitate both the planning and the implementation of solar energy projects for which precise solar radiation data from the Indian regions are required. These are the data made available by the Solar Atlas. Investors will thus have a decision-making tool at hand which allows them to assess the concrete benefit of photovoltaic installations or solar thermal power plants, for instance. Over the past three years satellites and special measuring stations at more than 120 locations all over India measured solar radiation. The data compiled provide reliable information on the locations in India which are best suited for solar energy installations. The Solar Atlas is also part of the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Global Atlas initiative and as such an important step to globally mapping the potential for renewable energy.

A new book gives an overview of the current state of research and of research gaps concerning litter in our oceans: “Marine Anthropogenic Litter” will be released by Springer-Verlag as an Open Access publication in June 2015. The editors, Melanie Bergmann and Lars Gutow from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and Michael Klages from the University of Gothenburg’s Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, brought together experts from around the globe to contribute to the book. Estimates of the amount of litter in the world’s oceans, its distribution, effects on humans and biota, and prevention strategies are just some of the complex topics addressed in the book’s 16 chapters.

June 2015 was warmest June on record for the globe. Global land areas and oceans each record warm for June. During June, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.88°C above the 20th century average. This was the highest for June in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set last year in 2014 by 0.12°C. The June globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.26°C above the 20th century average. This was the highest for June in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2012 0.06°C. The June globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 0.74°C above the 20th century average. This was the highest for June in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set last year in 2014 by 0.06°C.

The 30 May 2015 was the first ever Global Day of Action (GDA) against climate change, fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition brings together leaders from across government, the private sector and civil society to share experience working with carbon pricing and to expand the evidence base for the most effective carbon pricing systems and policies. The coalition formed from a groundswell of support for carbon pricing at the 2014 UN Climate Summit, where 74 countries and more than 1,000 companies expressed support for carbon pricing. Its goal is to expand the use of effective carbon pricing policies that can maintain competitiveness, create jobs, encourage innovation, and deliver meaningful emissions reductions. The coalition was created in 2014 by the World Bank Group in conjunction with partners including the We Mean Business Coalition, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations Global Compact’s Caring for Climate Initiative.

Following the referrals of Slovenia and Poland to Court on similar grounds, the European Commission is now referring Germany to the EU Court of Justice over its failure to transpose EU legislation on the recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (known also as WEEE Directive) and communicate the national transposition measures. The EU rules, which should have been enacted into national law by 14 February 2014, are intended to prevent or reduce the negative environmental impact from this fast-increasing waste stream. The rules are based on a revision of the previous WEEE Directive, and they incorporate a number of new or substantially modified provisions, none of which have yet been transposed by Germany. The Commission is therefore asking the Court, on the basis of the procedure set out in Article 260(3) TFEU, to impose a penalty payment on Germany in the amount of EUR 210 078 per day until the law is enacted."

On 27 May 2015 the German cabinet adopted a draft 14th act amending the Atomic Energy Act. his draft act is limited to regulations required for implementing the provisions of an EU directive into national law. It does not pre-empt further discussions in the Bundestag commission on the storage of highly radioactive waste.

On 23 March 2015, the Federal government of Germany published the first monitoring report on climate impacts and adaptation. On the basis of data collected in 15 different sectors of society, the report describes the shifts caused by the changing climate, which are already becoming apparent today, as well as the counter measures that address them successfully. The monitoring report was adopted by the interministerial working party on adaptation strategies which brings together the responsible Federal ministries. It is part of the progress report on the German adaptation strategy to climate change (DAS), which was commissioned by the Federal Government following a cabinet decision in December 2008.

On 20 May 2015 the European Commission adopted a new report providing the most comprehensive picture yet on the ‘State of Nature in the EU’. The report is the first assessment to cover both the Birds and Habitats Directives, and it results from the largest collaborative data-collection and assessment of nature ever undertaken across the Member States in the period 2007-2012. Looking at birds, the report concludes that 52 % of all wild bird species assessed have a secure status. However, around 17 % of the species are still threatened and another 15 % are near threatened, declining or depleted. Looking at other species protected under the Habitats Directive, almost 23 % have a favourable assessment. However, 60 % are still in an unfavourable status. Grasslands, wetlands and dune habitats are of particular concern. Habitat types, on the whole, show a worse conservation status and trend than species, as only 16 % of habitat-assessments are favourable. The overwhelming majority of habitats have an unfavourable status, with 47 % of the assessments being unfavourable-inadequate and 30 % being unfavourable-bad. The main threats to habitats identified are certain agricultural practices and human-induced “modifications of natural conditions”.

On 19 May 2015, a large release of crude oil was reported from a pipeline operated by Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., just north of Refugio State Beach, in Santa Barbara County. Oil was released from the pipeline rupture into a culvert that drains into the Pacific Ocean. While the location of the pipeline release is in the ‘inland zone,’ the impacts to the environment are both inland and costal. On May 20, 2015, Refugio State Beach and El Capitán State Beach were closed and Governor of California Jerry Brown, declared a state of emergency in response to the oil spill.

On 19 May 2015, EU regulators agreed new test procedures that will, for the first time, measure the ‘real world’ emissions of diesel cars under the Euro 6 air quality standard. It will require vehicles to be tested on roads rather than in laboratories, overcoming obsolete tests and ‘cycle beating’ techniques used by carmakers to achieve results in tests many times lower than actual air pollution emissions on the road.

On 22 May 2015 Kazakhstan’s agriculture ministry said around one-third of the endangered saiga antelope population in this Central Asian nation has mysteriously died off in the last few days. The number of saiga that have died may have reached 85,000.

On 30 April 2015, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, Swedish Minister for Enterprise Mikael Damberg, Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz and Torsten Albig, Prime Minister of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, joined Magnus Hall, President and CEO of Vattenfall, and Dr Florian Bieberbach, CEO of SWM, in Hamburg today to celebrate the formal opening of the DanTysk offshore wind farm. Located 70 kilometres west of Sylt Island, the DanTysk offshore wind farm is the first infrastructure project jointly implemented by Vattenfall and SWM as part of the energy transition in Germany. Vattenfall holds a 51% stake in DanTysk Offshore GmbH, which is responsible for construction and operation, while SWM holds 49%. The site comprises a total of 80 Siemens wind turbines in the 3.6 megawatt (MW) class with a total installed capacity of 288 MW. The capital investment is more than EUR 1 billion. DanTysk will generate climate-neutral power equivalent to the annual consumption of more than 400,000 average households. Offshore construction started in February 2013.

On 29 April 2015, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order to establish a California greenhouse gas reduction target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

On 29 April 2015, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered that the UK government must submit new air quality plans to the European Commission no later than 31 December 2015.

EU countries will be required to reduce the use of the commonest and most polluting plastic bags drastically under new rules voted by Parliament on 28 April 2015. EU member states will be able to choose: either to take measures to reduce annual average consumption of non-biodegradable plastic bags to 90 lightweight bags per citizen by the end of 2019 and 40 by the end of 2025 or ensure that by the end of 2018, no more light plastic bags are handed over free of charge to shoppers. Furthermore, the European Commission is required to assess the impact on the environment of oxo-degradable plastic materials, which fragment into small particles, and propose suitable measures. By 2017, the European Commission will have to propose labelling and marking measures for an EU-wide recognition of biodegradable and compostable plastic bags.

During a meeting with Pope Francis on 28 April 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he very much look forward to the Pontiff's encyclical on climate change, which he said he believed would act as a moral voice on the issue. The U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki Moon spoke at the Vatican at an international gathering on the moral dimensions of climate change and sustainable development.