More than 40 scientists have written an open letter warning of a potential “tipping point” for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Arctic.

The letter to the Nordic Council of Ministers encourages countries in the region to prevent global heating from causing AMOC’s collapse, which could lead to sudden changes in weather patterns and damage to ecosystems.

“Science increasingly confirms that the Arctic region is a ‘ground zero’ for tipping point risks and climate regulation across the planet. In this region, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Barents sea ice, the boreal permafrost systems, the subpolar gyre deep-water formation and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are all vulnerable to major, interconnected nonlinear changes,” the scientists said in the letter. “The AMOC, the dominant mechanism of northward heat transport in the North Atlantic, determines life conditions for all people in the Arctic region and beyond and is increasingly at risk of passing a tipping point.”

AMOC is an ocean current system that brings warm water to the North Atlantic, giving Europe its mild climate, reported Reuters.

Members of the Nordic Council of Ministers include Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland.

“Such an ocean circulation change would have devastating and irreversible impacts especially for Nordic countries, but also for other parts of the world,” the scientists said.

The letter encourages the Nordic Council of Ministers to take action, such as calling for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reported.

In the letter, the scientists said that the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the risk of a tipping point for AMOC is a distinct possibility in the coming few decades.

AMOC’s collapse would raise sea levels in the Atlantic, make the Northern Hemisphere cooler, reduce precipitation in North America and Europe and change monsoon patterns in Africa and South America, the United Kingdom’s Met Office said, as reported by Reuters.

“If Britain and Ireland become like northern Norway, (that) has tremendous consequences. Our finding is that this is not a low probability,” said signatory of the letter professor Peter Ditlevsen of the University of Copenhagen, as Reuters reported. “This is not something you easily adapt to.”

Fossil fuel subsidies worldwide reached a record high of $7 trillion in 2022, the International Monetary Fund said.

According to professor Stefan Rahmstorf, head of the department of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, these kinds of subsidies indicate that there is not a viable effort being made to prevent this type of climate disaster.

“Given the increasing evidence for a higher risk of an AMOC collapse, we believe it is of critical importance that Arctic tipping point risks, in particular the AMOC risk, are taken seriously in governance and policy. Even with a medium likelihood of occurrence, given that the outcome would be catastrophic and impacting the entire world for centuries to come, we believe more needs to be done to minimize this risk,” the letter to the ministers said.

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A “supermajority” — 85 percent — of young Americans polled feel distressed about human-caused climate change and, and similar percentages want stronger action from corporations and the government, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

In the survey — the largest of its kind — most of the 16,000 respondents aged 16 to 25, from every state in the country, said they were worried about the impact climate change was having on humans and the planet, reported the Chicago Tribune.

More than 60 percent of those surveyed said they felt powerlessness, anxiety, fear, sadness and anger due to the climate crisis, with high levels of concern regardless of political affiliation.

“One of the most striking findings of the survey was that this was across the political spectrum,” said lead author of the study Eric Lewandowski, an associate professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, as The Guardian reported. “There was no state sample where the endorsement of climate anxiety came in less than 75%.”

A third of the respondents said their ability to focus on school or work, sleep, eat, have fun, enjoy their relationships and go about the activities of their daily lives was affected by their distress over the climate crisis, reported The Chicago Tribune.

“Honestly, the results don’t surprise me. I’ve seen it in my friends, I’ve seen it in myself. I’ve seen the despair,” said Zoharia Drizin, a 24-year-old Chicago resident who is a Climate Mental Health Network Gen Z advisory board member, as the Chicago Tribune reported.

The strong emotional response to the climate crisis did come with a hearty desire for action. More than two thirds of respondents want the government of the United States and other nations to prepare for and prevent the worst effects of global heating.

“To be able to put numbers on it is very heartening,” said co-author of the study Lise Van Susteren, who is a psychiatrist and George Washington University School of Medicine professor of behavioral sciences, as reported by the Chicago Tribune. “Because it feels that we’re going to be better at breaking through the denial or the dismissiveness or the downplaying that has kept society and everyone else from taking the action that is necessary.”

Researchers say young people do not feel that the climate crisis is being properly addressed, and as long as that continues, so will their feelings of distress.

Van Susteren said the purpose of the study was “to reach hearts and minds and get past the political hurdles that have been so divisive.”

The factors that were most referred to as contributing to concern included the actions of industries and corporations, the current U.S. government response and weather changes.

The study found that most people felt ignored and angry due to the actions of the government related to the climate crisis, as though those in charge had betrayed and failed them and younger generations.

“When young people speak about their personal feelings, you can hear a pin drop,” said Van Susteren. “And the response is that it can awaken in those powerful adults the sense of their moral and ethical responsibility to do what they can because they are people with the capacity to make change, whether it’s judges or lawyers or teachers or policymakers.”

The most common events those surveyed said they had experienced were heat waves or extreme heat and air or smoke pollution.

“Last summer… the alternation between severe rainstorms and then air pollution warnings, and just going back and forth between that was really jarring for me,” said Drizin, as the Chicago Tribune reported. “It kind of gave me this sense of claustrophobia, like the whole world was caving in, almost like there’s nowhere I can be that’s actually safe.”

The majority of respondents said their climate concerns are affecting life decisions like whether or not to have children and where to live. More than half of young people in the U.S. said they were unsure of having kids because of the climate crisis.

“I see elderly folks or even people who are 50,” Drizin said, “somebody in that age who is living their life full of love and doing the things they want to do in their family — I pray that I can get to that age and be able to experience that same joy.”

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The five biggest countries in the European Union spend 42 billion euros each year on subsidizing fossil-fuel-powered company cars, a new study commissioned by Transport & Environment (T&E) says.

The report by Environmental Resources Management (ERM), “Company car fossil fuel subsidies in Europe,” called for increased subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs).

“This is completely illogical and completely unacceptable, that we’re still pouring billions of taxpayer money into a technology that’s completely contradictory to the European Commission’s green transition agenda,” Stef Cornelis, T&E’s fleet director, told Reuters.

About 60 percent of new cars sold in Europe are company cars.

“Company cars are seen as perks provided to employees as a part of their salary. While they are partially intended for work travel, they are also used privately – such as for commuting – to the benefit of the driver,” a press release from T&E said. “This is the first study of its kind that calculates these subsidies for every car model registered in Europe’s six biggest car markets, rather than relying on archetypal averages or example models.”

According to the study, Italy gives 16 billion euros annually in fossil fuel company vehicle subsidies, followed by Germany’s 13.7 billion euros.

France provides 6.4 billion euros in dirty fuel company car subsidies each year, with Poland close behind with 6.1 billion.

“Very high fossil fuel subsidies are found in Italy, Germany, France and Poland. This is mainly due to significant benefit-in-kind (BiK) tax breaks for petrol and diesel company car drivers. This tax break overwhelmingly benefits the most affluent consumers, with company car drivers earning nearly double as much as the average European consumer,” T&E said in the press release.

Along with company cars, consumer tax offsets and fuel usage benefits are often provided, reported Reuters.

Drivers of company cars receive an average yearly tax benefit from 6,800 to 21,600 euros for larger, highly polluting car models.

“SUVs typically have much higher CO2 emissions than the average car and therefore a bigger climate impact,” the press release said.

EV sales in Europe have dropped recently to a three-year low. The largest EV markets in the EU — France and Germany — reported drops of 33.1 percent and 68.8 percent respectively, industry data said. Overall, EU sales of EVs were down 43.9 percent in August.

The study found that the United Kingdom was the only country to provide company car drivers with financial incentives to switch to EVs.

“The UK and Spain have a fairer tax system, with higher BiK rates counterbalancing tax breaks from depreciation write offs and VAT deduction for petrol and diesel vehicles. The UK specifically has a high BiK for polluting cars and a low rate for battery electric vehicles, which translates into a low fossil fuel subsidy and high corporate BEV uptake, reaching 21.5% in H1 2024. Spain has a relatively high BiK rate, but fails to incentivise companies to opt for electric cars, translating into a low corporate BEV uptake (at 3.7%),” T&E explained.

Just 12.4 percent of new company cars are totally electric, and the corporate car market is electrifying more slowly than private cars for the third year in a row.

“Tax benefits for company car drivers are one of the biggest fossil fuel subsidies out there. EU’s top governments have fiscal systems where the polluter pays principle does not apply and contradict the goals of the EU Green Deal. The European Commission needs to intervene,” T&E said. “Accelerating corporate car electrification will create a lead market for clean technology and boost demand for EVs while at the same time bring investment certainty for key industrial sectors such as carmakers, battery manufacturers and the power sector.”

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Over the next five years, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will receive almost $75 million to help Alaska Indigenous communities facing the impacts of climate change.

It is the biggest federal appropriation aimed at helping the state’s Native communities with climate resilience in Alaska history.

“Alaska is an underserved state on the front lines of climate change-related impacts that are altering the Arctic landscape and affecting every aspect of life in remote Alaska Native communities. The most effective way to increase preparedness and reduce exposure to negative impacts is to increase the region’s capacity to understand risk and develop and implement solutions,” a press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management said.

The grant of $74,950,045 was awarded through NOAA’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge, reported the Anchorage Daily News. It is part of $575 million in funding under the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The grant is part of a program with the purpose of building resilience to environmental changes and extreme weather in coastal communities across the United States.

NOAA and the U.S. Department of Commerce recommended the award. NOAA will be partnering with Alaska Tribal governments as part of the program.

“The funding and partnerships not only acknowledges the state of our lands but acknowledges Alaska’s tribes as the rightful leaders in this space,” said Natasha Singh, interim leader of the Tribal Health Consortium, as The Associated Press reported.

The funding will benefit almost 100 Alaska Native communities, focusing on three main adaptation efforts: the establishment of a climate risk assessment program; expanding technical assistance for Tribal adaptation statewide; and knowledge sharing and networking, NOAA said in the press release.

“This project envisions transforming Alaska Tribal climate adaptation activities from a state of very limited capacity to a thriving network of practitioners making rapid progress toward addressing extremely complex, long-term problems such as community relocation, behavioral health, and food sovereignty,” the press release said.

Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, leader of the consortium’s Climate Initiatives Program, said the funding will provide support for dozens of new positions, reported The Associated Press. Some of these will be technical jobs that require subject matter expertise in Anchorage consortium offices, while others will be located in rural areas affected by climate change.

“To build and advance the community of Alaska Tribal climate adaptation practitioners, this project will support the development of new networking and knowledge sharing activities to enable participants to learn from community experiences, share lessons learned, break down silos, and resolve other divisions to address resilience challenges holistically,” the press release said.

Jainey Bavishi, NOAA deputy administrator, said the new partnership and funding “will fundamentally change the landscape of Alaska tribal climate change adaptation,” The Associated Press reported.

Singh said climate change directly impacts people’s health and well-being. Melting permafrost and coastal erosion threaten buildings and infrastructure, while access to traditional native foods can be unpredictable.

By expanding resources and technical assistance, communities can start to identify and implement solutions tailored to their needs, Singh explained.

“Now the hard work begins, as we use this tribal self-governance model to allow tribes to lead us,” Singh said.

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If there is one natural resource that all life on Earth depends on, it’s water.

In a new report, The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water warns that, unless water resources are urgently conserved and the destruction of ecosystems is stopped, more than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failing within the next quarter century.

“The world faces a growing water disaster. For the first time in human history, the hydrological cycle is out of balance, undermining an equitable and sustainable future for all,” the authors of the report’s executive summary wrote. “Decades of collective mismanagement and undervaluation of water around the world have damaged our freshwater and land ecosystems and allowed for the continuing contamination of water resources. We can no longer count on freshwater availability for our collective future.”

Water scarcity already impacts half the global population, according to the report, and the climate crisis will only make it worse, The Guardian reported.

By 2030, freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40 percent.

The amount of water necessary for people to have adequate nutrition, good health and hygiene has been greatly underestimated by experts and governments, the report said. Because the necessary volume of water — approximately 4,000 liters per day — can’t be found locally in most regions, people depend on trade to provide it.

Earth’s atmospheric rivers transport moisture around the planet, and some nations benefit more from “green water” — soil moisture needed for food production — than the “blue water” that is found in lakes and rivers.

“Our policies, and the science and economics that underpin them, have also overlooked a critical freshwater resource, the ‘green water’ in our soils and plant life, which ultimately circulates through the atmosphere and generates around half the rainfall we receive on land,” the executive summary said.

The vegetation from nearby land use generates from 40 to 60 percent of freshwater rainfall that then puts water back into Earth’s atmosphere through transpiration, generating clouds that move downwind.

“The Chinese economy depends on sustainable forest management in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Baltic region,” said professor Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research’s director and co-chair of the commission, as reported by The Guardian. “You can make the same case for Brazil supplying fresh water to Argentina. This interconnectedness just shows that we have to place fresh water in the global economy as a global common good.”

Organized in the Netherlands in 2022, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water utilizes the work of leading economists and scientists in forming its review of the state and management of the planet’s hydrological systems.

For every degree Celsius of global temperature increase, seven percent more moisture is added to the atmosphere, which enhances the hydrological cycle.

“Most gravely, while itself a victim of climate change, the degradation of freshwater ecosystems including the loss of moisture in the soil has become a driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. The result is more frequent and increasingly severe droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires, playing out across the globe,” the executive summary said. “Nearly 3 billion people and more than half of the world’s food production are now in areas where total water storage is projected to decline.”

Razing forests and draining wetlands also disrupts the globe’s water cycle, which is dependent upon water storage in soils and transpiration from trees.

“Water is victim number one of the [climate crisis], the environmental changes we see now aggregating at the global level, putting the entire stability of earth’s systems at risk,” Rockström told the Guardian. “[The climate crisis] manifests itself first and foremost in droughts and floods. When you think of heatwaves and fires, the really hard impacts are via moisture — in the case of fires, [global heating] first dries out landscapes so that they burn.”

The report said developing countries need to be given access to financing for safe water and sanitation, the overhaul of water systems and halting the destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems.

Co-chair of the commission Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London professor of economics, said public sector bank loans made to developing countries should be contingent on water reforms.

“These could be improving water conservation and the efficiency of water use, or direct investment for water-intensive industries,” Mazzucato said, as The Guardian reported. “[We must ensure] profits are reinvested in productive activity such as research and development around water issues.”

The report also found that water scarcity had a disproportionate impact on women and children.

“More than 1,000 children under five die every day from illnesses caused by unsafe water and sanitation. Women and girls spend 200 million hours each day collecting and hauling water,” the executive summary said.

The report emphasized that there was still hope if we take immediate action.

“We can fix this crisis if we act more collectively, and with greater urgency. Vitally too, restoring stability of the water cycle is critical not only in its own right, but to avoid failing on climate change and safeguarding all the earth’s ecosystems, as well as on each and every one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will preserve food security, keep economies and job opportunities growing, and ensure a just and liveable future for everyone,” the authors said in the executive summary.

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