The Environment Chronicle

The international community has agreed for the very first time on common, political guiding principles for urban development in the decades ahead. The New Urban Agenda was adopted on 20 October 2016 at the end of the third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in the Ecuadorian capital Quito. With the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, the UN member states have committed to involving cities to a greater extent in their policies and measures and improving the framework for achieving sustainable and integrated urban development. This will enhance local capacity to act, financial options and participation. The overarching goal is implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement at local level.

Grauer's gorilla, which is confined to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is now Critically Endangered, according to a study published October 19, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andrew Plumptre from Wildlife Conservation Society, USA, and colleagues. This is the first analysis of the Grauer's gorilla population since civil war broke out in the region in 1996. Before the war, the population was estimated at 16,900 individuals. The researchers now estimate that there are only 3,800 Grauer's gorillas left in the wild, a 77% decline in a single generation. While this species was previously classified as Endangered, the gorillas are now listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species based on this new population estimate. The researchers believe that Grauer's gorilla could be lost from many parts of its range within five years, and call for greater conservation efforts.

The European Union has submitted a proposal, prepared by Germany, to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) for a marine protected area (MPA) in the Antarctic Weddell Sea. AWI scientists have compiled and analysed the scientific data on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Christian Schmidt, German Minister for Food and Agriculture, explains: "The marine protection area should be reserved for scientific research and strengthen international cooperation in this area. Both form the pillars of the Antarctic Treaty. It is our historic task to protect unique ecosystems like Antarctica."

On 15 October 2016 representatives from nearly 200 member countries of the Montreal Protocol agreed on a deal to reduce emissions of powerful greenhouse gases at a summit in Kigali, Rwanda. The landmark deal will reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the world's fastest-growing greenhouse gases, the UN Environment Program said in a statement.

On 13 October 2016 seventy-five diverse civil society organisations joined forces to formally launch SDG Watch Europe. This broad coalition will work to ensure that the European Union and its Member States live up to their commitments, made when signing the Agenda 2030 agreement in New York September 2015, to enable a sustainable future at home and abroad. A year ago, governments across the world agreed on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that calls for a bold transformation in policy and practice. Its 17 ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are aimed at ensuring that decisions by governments contribute to a more sustainable, inclusive and equal future for all by 2030.

Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks has welcomed the agreement reached by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to limit greenhouse gas emissions caused by aviation. Following on from the Paris Agreement, this agreement represents the first sector-specific mechanism for combating climate change. The global market-based measure (GMBM) will offset greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. Moreover, countries can implement their own additional climate measures for aviation. The ICAO aims to achieve carbon-neutral growth from 2020. To this end, a global Market-based measure (GMBM) was agreed, to be implemented in phases, which envisages a gradual offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. It will be launched in 2021 and participation will initially be voluntary.

Germany is officially a Party to the Paris Agreement. On 5 October at the United Nations in New York, the German Government deposited its instrument of ratification along with the European Commission and other EU Member States.

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.

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.”

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.

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.