At yesterday’s COP21 science briefing, University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins displayed a chilling (pun intended) colour-coded world map. Nation by nation, it showed which countries are already experiencing obvious effects of climate change. Hawkins' map isn’t published yet, so I can’t reproduce it here — but read on to find out who’s feeling …

Continue reading Who feels the heat first?

Starting later this month, the world’s nations will convene in traumatized Paris to hammer out commitments to slow down global climate change. Any long-term solution will require “decarbonizing” the world energy economy – that is, shifting to power sources that use little or no fossil fuel. How fast can this happen, and what could we …

Continue reading How fast can we transition to a low-carbon energy system?