2023-12-31 19:05:32
Global warming leading to chaotic weather anomalies, droughts, floods, melting glaciers, various pollution or even biodiversity in danger: if environmental news most often brings its share of bad news, a glance in the rearview mirror offers everything as well as something to rejoice over during the twelve months which have just passed.
Rhinos and saiga antelopes regain their strength
Poached for their horns, highly sought after in Asia for their alleged aphrodisiac properties, rhinos are gradually getting back into shape. According to figures published by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in September, their global population increased slightly, reaching 23,290 individuals, or 5.2% more than in 2021.
Thanks to various initiatives to preserve the species, the number of black rhinos in Africa is increasing; among white rhinos, we also see an increase: a first since 2012! Also poached for their meat but also their horns, the saiga antelopes, more than half of the world’s population of which was decimated ten years ago due to disease, are also in better shape.
Recognizable by their twisted horns and their long rounded snout, like a small trunk, saigas have come close to extinction several times. Wikimedia Commons/Navinder Singh
There were more than 2 million in the 1950s and only 50,000 in the 2000s and even only 750 for the subspecies Saiga tatarica mongolica. Here, again, preservation measures have allowed this antelope to move from “critically endangered” to “near threatened” status for the IUCN.
Overfishing on the decline
For the first time in 2023, the percentage of overexploited fish stocks in the Mediterranean and Black Sea fell below 60%, down 15% from the previous year. Overfishing still causes damage and “remains twice the level considered sustainable” according to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), but the effect of management plans and quotas is increasing. increasingly felt with overfishing pressure falling by a third since 2012.
Certain species that were once overexploited are no longer so: this is the case for common sole in the Adriatic Sea, which has “now reached sustainable exploitation rates”, and for turbot in the Black Sea, according to a Commission report General Directorate of Fisheries for the Mediterranean.
The development of aquaculture in marine waters, which has almost doubled over the last decade, also plays a role in reducing the damage caused by excessive fish harvesting.
The Amazon rainforest less devastated
The re-election as head of Brazil of President Lula offers some respite to the Amazon rainforest. The latter reduced deforestation operations by almost 33% during the first half of 2023 compared to the same period the previous year, according to data published by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research.
VIDEO. Satellites, drones, AI… how Brazil tracks illegal deforestation in the Amazon
The year 2023 is the year with the lowest rate of deforestation since 2019. Lula does not intend to stop there, since he promised to put an end to illegal deforestation by 2030. During the mandate of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, tree cutting in the Amazon increased by 60% compared to the previous four years. The Amazon rainforest stores around 100 billion tonnes of carbon each year.
Money to save corals
After fifteen years of discussions and negotiations, the UN finally adopted the first high seas protection treaty to preserve biodiversity in international waters. The member countries of this International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), of which France is a member, have committed to raising $12 billion to protect corals from climate change, the effects of pollution in the oceans and overfishing. .
Coral reefs are directly threatened by global warming and die rapidly by bleaching as soon as the temperature of the water in which they live increases by 1 to 2°C for just two consecutive weeks.
The increase in the acidity of ocean water, due to the absorption of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, is the other threat weighing on corals.
Marine snow, our best ally against CO2
Along with forests, oceans sequester most of the carbon dioxide responsible for global warming. And they are even more effective than we thought. An international research team has indeed discovered that “marine snow”, these living micro-organisms resembling miniature white flakes which bead from the surface of the seas to the abyss, ingest and feed on much more CO2 than scientists have calculated it so far, 20% exactly.
Be careful though, this absorption process takes place over tens of thousands of years and is therefore “not sufficient to counterbalance the exponential increase in CO2 emissions caused by global industrial activity since 1750” .
Fossil fuels now officially singled out
Despite numerous criticisms (organization in an energy-intensive megalopolis in the middle of the desert, presidency ensured by the boss of an oil company, etc.), the COP28 which ended in Dubai at the beginning of December, produced two agreements considered “historical”.
The first makes it possible to set up a global fund intended to finance what specialists call the “loss and damage” suffered by the most vulnerable countries, often the poorest, because of the effects of global warming, including the richest nations. are the most responsible.
A COP28 agreement calls in particular for the acceleration of efforts to reduce the production of electricity from coal, the most polluting fossil fuel (here the Garzweiler 2 mine in Germany). LP/Jean-Baptiste Quentin
The second, taken at the very end of the climate conference, calls for a transition away from fossil fuels, specifically pointing to oil, gas and coal. The text states that the world must “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a fair, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this crucial decade, in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”.
In particular, he calls for the acceleration of efforts to gradually reduce electricity production from coal, the most polluting fossil fuel.
Greenhouse gas emissions falling in France
According to figures from the Interprofessional Technical Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (Citepa), France reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 4.6% over the first nine months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
Three sectors contributed the most to this decline: industry (-9.3%), energy production (-9.4%) and buildings (-7.5%). Transport contributes more modestly to this downward trend (-1.8%).
An effort which, unfortunately, is far from that necessary to respect the commitments made in 2015 with the Paris agreement signed at the end of COP21. While a UN Climate report, published in mid-November, indicates that the drop, at the global level, is only 2%, climatologists recommend a drop of at least 43% to hope to limit global warming. to 1.5°C, the strongest commitment of the Paris agreement.
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