Climate Change
1 dead, thousands evacuated as Australia’s northeast battles floods
“Residents in low-lying areas should collect their evacuation kit and move to a safe place on higher ground. This situation may pose a threat to life and property,” regional emergency management authorities said

One person died on Sunday in Australia's north Queensland state in heavy flooding, authorities said, urging thousands of people to move to higher ground because of torrential rains.
Queensland authorities said major flooding was underway in coastal Hinchinbrook Shire, a locality of about 11,000 people about 500 kilometers north of state capital, Brisbane. Several suburbs in the nearby city of Townsville were also affected, authorities said.
North Queensland has large zinc reserves as well as major deposits of silver, lead, copper and iron ore. Townsville is a major processing center for the region's base metals. In 2019, severe floods in the area disrupted lead and zinc concentrate rail shipments and damaged thousands of properties, Reuters reported.
"Residents in low-lying areas should collect their evacuation kit and move to a safe place on higher ground. This situation may pose a threat to life and property," regional emergency management authorities said on Sunday morning.
The flooding was triggered by heavy rain from a low-pressure system rich in tropical moisture, Australia's weather forecaster said on its website, adding that 24-hour rainfall totals were likely up to 30 centimeters.
"The potential for heavy, locally intense rainfall and damaging winds may continue into early next week subject to the strength and position of the trough and low," it said.
Frequent flooding has hit Australia's east in recent years including "once in a century" floods that inundated the neighboring Northern Territory in January 2023 during a multiyear La Nina weather event.
Climate Change
Afghanistan’s air pollution better than last year: officials

The National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) said on Sunday that air pollution in Afghanistan has decreased this year compared to last year.
Zainul Abedin Abed, the agency’s deputy director for policy and expertise, said in a press conference that in the past three months, Kabul authorities took 4,211 vehicles off the road that were releasing excessive emissions.
He also stressed that the world should not politicize the issue of climate change and that developed countries should pay “compensation” to poor countries to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Compensation should be taken from developed countries and compensation should be paid to the affected countries. The withdrawal of the Americans or Donald Trump from the Paris Agreement is a violation of human principles. Climate change is a human issue. There must be engagement on this issue. Instead of political considerations, engagement should be opted,” Abed said.
Officials from the National Environmental Protection Agency also said that aid to fight the effects of climate change has not been cut.
“As far as we know, mostly humanitarian aid has been cut off, but projects in the environment and climate change sectors have not been impacted,” said Rohullah Amin, head of climate change department at the National Environmental Protection Agency.
NEPA officials also said that in cooperation with other government agencies, a six-month action plan has been developed to prevent the increase of air pollution.
According to officials, since the Islamic Emirate’s return to power in 2021, the agency has held 3,000 awareness programs to reduce air pollution, in which more than 500,000 people have participated.
Officials at the agency also called on Kabul residents to refrain from using fuel that causes air pollution.
However, a number of Kabul residents complain about the increase in air pollution in recent days and ask the authorities to take more practical measures.
Air pollution in Kabul has always been a source of concern for the residents of the city.
Climate Change
Stanekzai calls on int’l community to help combat climate change effects in Afghanistan

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, deputy foreign minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, says the use of bombs and chemical weapons during decades of war in Afghanistan has harmed the country's environment.
Speaking at a National Climate Change Conference in Kabul on Wednesday, Stanikzai called on the international community and countries involved in Afghanistan's wars to not politicize environmental issues and to cooperate with Afghanistan.
“Those harmful bombs, devices, chemical weapons, and explosives that were used here unfortunately still have visible effects. In many of our areas, landmines are buried, and their effects are being seen in the second generation today,” said Stanekzai.
He further stated that 80 percent of Afghanistan's forests have been destroyed due to the wars and stressed that to overcome the current crisis, the country’s water resources must be managed, as Afghanistan is already facing a water shortage.
He said: “You can see that across all of Afghanistan, the water levels are dropping, and Afghanistan is facing a water shortage. If we don’t control our water, and if things continue this way, it will be detrimental to us, and a day will come when we won’t have any water to drink anywhere in Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, Muti-ul-Haq Khalis, head of the National Environmental Protection Agency, stated at the conference that climate change is a global phenomenon, and addressing it requires joint efforts and cooperation. He called on the world to assist Afghanistan.
Deputy Minister of Economy Abdul Latif Nazari also stated: “Sanctions should be lifted, and restrictions must be removed so that institutions and organizations can cooperate more easily with our agencies, including the National Environmental Protection Agency, without facing
problems in financial transactions.”
In the meantime, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said that UNAMA supports efforts to combat the effects of climate change in Afghanistan.
“I promise that UNAMA will support efforts to combat the effects of climate change. UNAMA plans to hold national and international meetings this year on climate change and its impacts in Afghanistan. I also urge UN agencies and NGOs to support these efforts with technical expertise and practical knowledge,” said Otunbayeva.
Currently, Afghanistan is the sixth most vulnerable country in the world due to climate change.
Climate Change
2024 was the first year above 1.5C of global warming, scientists say
Last year was the world’s hottest since records began, and each of the past ten years was among the ten warmest on record.

The world just experienced the first full year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial times, scientists said on Friday.
The milestone was confirmed by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which said climate change is pushing the planet's temperature to levels never before experienced by modern humans, Reuters reported.
"The trajectory is just incredible," C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters, describing how every month in 2024 was the warmest or second-warmest for that month since records began.
The planet's average temperature in 2024 was 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than in 1850-1900, the "pre-industrial period" before humans began burning CO2-emitting fossil fuels on a large scale, C3S said.
Last year was the world's hottest since records began, and each of the past ten years was among the ten warmest on record.
Britain's Met Office confirmed 2024's likely breach of 1.5C, while estimating a slightly lower average temperature of 1.53C for the year. U.S. scientists will also publish their 2024 climate data on Friday.
Governments promised under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent average temperatures exceeding 1.5C, to avoid more severe and costly climate disasters.
The first year above 1.5C does not breach that target, which measures the longer-term average temperature. Buontempo said rising greenhouse gas emissions meant the world was on track to soon also blow past the Paris goal - but that it was not too late for countries to rapidly cut emissions to avoid warming rising further to disastrous levels.
"It's not a done deal. We have the power to change the trajectory from now on," Buontempo said.
The impacts of climate change are now visible on every continent, affecting people from the richest to the poorest countries on earth.
Wildfires raging in California this week have killed at least five people and destroyed hundreds of homes. In 2024, Bolivia and Venezuela also suffered disastrous fires, while torrential floods hit Nepal, Sudan and Spain, and heatwaves in Mexico and Saudi Arabia killed thousands.
Climate change is worsening storms and torrential rainfall, because a hotter atmosphere can hold more water, leading to intense downpours. The amount of water vapour in the planet's atmosphere reached a record high in 2024.
But even as the costs of these disasters spiral, political will to invest in curbing emissions has waned in some countries.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has called climate change a hoax, despite the global scientific consensus that it is human-caused and will have severe consequences if not addressed.
The U.S. experienced 24 climate and weather disasters in 2024 in which the cost of damages exceeded $1 billion, including Hurricanes Milton and Helene, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Chukwumerije Okereke, a professor of global climate governance at Britain's University of Bristol, said the 1.5C milestone should serve as "a rude awakening to key political actors to get their act together".
"Despite all the warnings that scientists have given, nations... are continuing to fail to live up to their responsibilities," he told Reuters.
Concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, reached a fresh high of 422 parts per million in 2024, C3S said.
Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at U.S. non-profit Berkeley Earth, said he expected 2025 to be among the hottest years on record, but likely not top the rankings.
"It's still going to be in the top three warmest years," he said.
That's because while the biggest factor warming the climate is human-caused emissions, temperatures in early 2024 got an extra boost from El Nino, a warming weather pattern which is now trending towards its cooler La Nina counterpart.
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