Anthropocene

This year is "effectively certain" to be the hottest on record and the first above a critical threshold to protect the planet from dangerously overheating, Europe's climate monitor said Monday.

For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it's ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.

Two local government sanitation workers clean a river from plastic waste using a raft made of old plastic jerrycans in Jakarta on Sept. 20, 2024. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP)

The U.N. environment chief said Sunday she was beginning to see convergence on the world's first binding treaty on plastic pollution despite differences on production caps and a tax-like plastic fee.

More than 47,000 people died in Europe due to scorching temperatures in 2023, with countries in the region's south hit the hardest, according to a report by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published on Monday.

The average air temperature in the greater urban area of Athens could increase by more than 3.5 degrees Celsius between 2041 and 2070 compared to 1971-2000, due to the combined effects of climate change and the urban heat island phenomenon.

Over the past year, global temperatures have surged by 1.5 degrees Celsius, marking a period of unprecedented heat since the fossil fuel era began during the late 19th century. The data, cited by the "Guardian," reveals that between July 2023 and June 2024, Earth experienced its hottest temperatures on record.

On the third largest island of Greece, renowned for its extensive coastline, rich natural beauty, and historical and geological treasures, the inaugural event of the “Plastic Free Greece” campaign for 2024 unfolded.

The Earth Day environmental movement is calling for 'the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health.

Nature wraps bananas and oranges in peels. But in some modern supermarkets, they're bagged or wrapped in plastic too.

The world is getting hotter and humanity will have to shield itself against the new conditions in the coming years, according to Spyros Pandis, professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Patras and researcher at the Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences of the Technology and Research Foundation in Greece (FORTH).

Europe stands to suffer significant economic effects, amounting to some 7% of its output by the end of the century, even if the world manages to contain the increase of global temperatures to 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial level, according to a draft European Commission communication seen by Bloomberg.