Leaders from the Caribbean states are calling on the Donald Trump administration to address in a serious manner the climate change crisis. The call comes amid the Atlantic Hurricane Season, one year after a series of hurricanes devastated several Caribbean countries and concerns that warming oceans could see another season of intense storms.

Caribbean leaders are urging the United States to rejoin the landmark Paris climate deal signed in 2015, from which they withdrew from in June 2017. Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, which as a consequence creates stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels. These events pose a unique threat to Caribbean countries.

The 2017 hurricane season impacted the Caribbean region significantly, with hurricanes Irma and Maria, both category five tropical storms, ravishing several Caribbean countries.

Scientists have already warned of an even stronger 2018 hurricane season. Selwin Hart, Barbadian ambassador to the U.S. told The Guardian, “in 2017 we saw some of the most devastating and destructive hurricanes we’ve seen in our history, this needs to be recognized.”

The consequences of climate change are real, as stronger hurricanes have been hitting the coastal populations. “This isn’t some scientific debate; it’s a reality with loss of life implications. We need the United States to be back at the table and engage. It’s imperative,” Hart told The Guardian.

“The U.S. is a major player in the world, and it needs to lead, we depend on it to be a moral voice on issues where people are vulnerable,” said Darren Henfield, foreign minister of the Bahamas. “We really hope the US readjusts its position. It seems there will be doubters until we start completely losing islands.”

Henfield explained Bahamians are “dramatically aware” of climate change.

He said: “We are being forced to put up sea walls to push back the rising tides….” adding: “We are very exposed and we could see the swallowing of the Bahamas by sea level rise. We don’t have much room for people, there’s nowhere for people to move. Climate change will exacerbate the issue of refugees.

“I don’t know what influences the mind of president Trump but the world will be negatively impacted by not dealing with climate change. We always talk to our neighbors in the north and part of our foreign policy is to sensitize them and the international community to the threat we face.”

While the Caribbean had sort assistance from several international bodies and foreign governments to deal with the immediate impact of the hurricanes and climate change, several regional initiatives have also been implemented to deal with the fallout and prepare the region for future events.

“Dominica was a real wake up call for us, it virtually got washed away,” said Didacus Jules, director general of the OECS. “We know the impacts are going to be increasingly catastrophic and we need to plan for that. We need to do things completely differently in order to protect life and limb.”

Didacus also explained his concern with the U.S.’ reversal on climate change. “We are very disturbed by what is going on, it’s a matter we’ll deal with aggressively in terms of diplomacy,” he said. “We will work with other island nations to make ourselves heard.”

However, many in the Caribbean fear the window of time to avert the worst is rapidly closing. Roosevelt Skerrit, prime minister of Dominica, addressed the UN last September in strikingly bleak terms, describing himself as coming “straight from the front line of the war on climate change.”

teleSUR – The Guardian

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Global Greenhouse Gases Surged to New Highs in 2017

Planet-warming greenhouse gases surged to new highs as abnormally hot temperatures swept the globe and ice melted at record levels in the Arctic last year due to climate change, a major U.S. report said.

The United States is the world’s second-leading polluter after China, but has rolled back environmental safeguards under Trump, who has declared climate change a “Chinese hoax” and exited the Paris deal signed by more than 190 nations as a path toward curbing harmful emissions.

The 300-page report issued by the American Meteorological Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mentioned the word “abnormal” a dozen times, referring to storms, droughts, scorching temperatures and record low ice cover in the Arctic.

It found that last year, the top three most dangerous greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — reached new record highs.

The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at the Earth’s surface climbed to 405 parts per million, “the highest in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years,” said the report.

“The global growth rate of CO2 has nearly quadrupled since the early 1960s.”

The record for hottest year in modern times was set in 2016, but 2017 was not far behind, with “much-warmer-than-average conditions” across most of the world, it said.

Annual record high temperatures were observed in Argentina, Bulgaria, Spain and Uruguay, while Mexico “broke its annual record for the fourth consecutive year.”

Smashing more heat records, the highest temperature ever noted — 43.4 Celsius — so far south anywhere in the world was marked January 27 at Puerto Madryn, Argentina. The world’s highest temperature ever for May was observed on May 28 in Turbat, western Pakistan, with a high of 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

“The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with the four warmest years occurring since 2014,” said the report. Last year marked either the second or third hottest since the mid-1800s, depending on which data is consulted.

In another alarming milestone, 2017 was also “the warmest non-El Nino year in the instrumental record,” referring to the absence of the occasional ocean warming trend that pushes temperatures higher than normal.

Unprecedented heat enveloped the Arctic, where the land surface temperature was 1.6 Celsius above the 1981–2010 average. Arctic temperatures were the second highest — after 2016 — since records began in 1900.

“Today’s abnormally warm Arctic air and sea surface temperatures have not been observed in the last 2,000 years,” it said.

In March, sea ice extent saw its lowest maximum in the 37-year satellite record. Meanwhile, the Arctic sea ice minimum in September was the eighth lowest on record and covered 25 percent less area than the long-term average. Glaciers across the world shrank for the 38th year in a row.

“Cumulatively since 1980, this loss is equivalent to slicing 22 meters off the top of the average glacier.” In the Antarctic, sea ice extent remained below average all year, with record lows observed during the first four months. “Precipitation over global land areas in 2017 was clearly above the long-term average,” said the report. Warmer ocean temperatures has led to increasing moisture in the air, particularly in the last three years, causing more rain.

Climate change can also exacerbate extreme weather. Some parts of the world suffered extended droughts, demonstrating that “extreme precipitation is not evenly distributed across the globe.”

Ocean warming over the last few years has been blamed for widespread coral bleaching, as disease spreads in this precious habitat for fish and marine life. “The most recent global coral bleaching lasted three full years, June 2014 to May 2017, and was the longest, most widespread and almost certainly most destructive such event on record,” said the report.

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