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Climate Change make perfect condition for growth of cyanobacteria, like plants these algae turn sunlight into food. These thrive in warmer waters and get even better condition to grow while warmer water mix more difficult so are absorbing sunlight more easily. Still rising concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere is in they's favour to. Blue-green algae toxins, also called cyanotoxins, are some of the deadliest on the planet, "Among the most potent toxins known, far more potent than industrial chemicals," the late Kenneth Hudnell testified to Congress in 2008. "They cause death at dosage levels in the low parts per billion range ... more potent than strychnine, curare (the poison dart toxin) and sarin (a nerve gas).".
Bonilla, Sylvia, Pick, Frances R. Freshwater bloom-forming cyanobacteria and anthropogenic change. Limnology and Oceanography e-Lectures, doi: 10.1002/loe2.10006
After huge wildfires in Australia Sydney's coastline suffered mass death event. Salinity has increased in shallow estuaries as freshwater inflows dropped with the dry period, then the bushfires brought additional phosphorous and nitrogen, including from fire retardants, which stimulated cyanobacteria growth.
Southern Africa temperature rise at twice of global average therefore is a perfect place for blooms which can be harmful for even biggest Earth's mammals. In 2020 hundreds of elephant corpses have been found in Botswana within a period of few months.
In 2018 Florida's waterway have been filed with this toxic algae. In slow-moving or dead-end waterbodies, like Cape Coral canals, the blue-green algae (also called cyanobacteria) piled up in putrid mats “so thick ducks would walk on it and iguanas run across it” Florida is US hotspot for diseases related to intoxication.
In such a situation, a question regarding possibility of airborne exposure to microcystin appeared. According to studies, cyanotoxins are 10 times more potent when inhaled. Generally, use of charcoal and oxygen is the simplest way to get rid of toxins, but have no idea it works in this case. Would be good to detoxicate oceans water using platinum somehow and biocultures binding heavy metals. Some benefits certainly could be derived by implementation of use as fertiliser fallen leafs collected from forest, it would prevent wildfires as well.
Green Daily
A summit that reset the rich-poor balance By Laura Millan Lombrafia At 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, climate negotiators in Egypt walked back from the abyss and struck an historic deal that resets the relationship between rich and poor countries. Approved without a single opposing voice, the agreement to create a fund to help developing nations face the devastation of climate change is a precedent-setting moment three decades in the making. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's climate minister, called the agreement the “ultimate test” of theCOP27 climate summit, which was finally wrapped up after running well past its scheduled close on Friday. “The establishment of a fund is not about dispensing charity,” she said. “It is clearly a down payment on the longer investment in our joint futures.” Pakistan has become a symbol of the ravages of climate change, after torrential rains flooded a third of the country, left hundreds dead and caused some $30 billion in loss and damage. But the agreement to set up the fund is just the first step toward helping Pakistan and other vulnerable nations. Details of how the mechanism will work and how much rich countries will contribute are to be thrashed out over the next few months, and then taken up at the COP28 meeting in the United Arab Emirates next year. The deal redraws the old divide between poor and wealthy nations, and leaves the door open for China and a number of oil-producing states to join the official ranks of rich countries that will become contributors to the fund. Yet skepticism remains. Rich nations have a track record of not living up to their climate promises, so for now “what we have is an empty bucket,” said Mohamed Adow, executive director at think tank Power Shift Africa. “We need money to make it worthwhile.” For many, getting the fund was a bitter victory. Efforts by the European Union, the UK and small island nations to secure stronger commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions failed. And attempts to have nations agree to peak global emissions by 2025 or phase down all unabated fossil fuels also fell flat. “Why are we celebrating loss and damage when we have failed on mitigation and adaptation?” said Aminath Shauna, environment minister for the Maldives, the world’s lowest-lying nation. “We are just a meter above sea level — I want my two-year-old daughter to live in the Maldives.” Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister who presided over the COP27 talks, had adopted a hands-off approach for much of the summit’s two weeks. Delegates were forced to extend negotiations and make last-minute concessions to prevent the whole event from ending in failure. “We were faced with a moral dilemma,” said Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s climate chief. “We had to give up some of the things we wanted to help this process and its parties to find a way forward.” Alok Sharma, Shoukry’s predecessor at COP26 in Scotland last year, complained that key points for which he’d fought were now either missing or watered down. “Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary? Not in this text,” said Sharma, visibly angry as the session came to an end. “Clear follow-through on the phase-down of coal? Not in this text. Clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels? Not in this text. The energy text? Weakened in the final minutes.” This year’s final text includes language allowing a transition to “low-emission” sources, which is being interpreted as a loophole for natural gas, the lowest-emitting of fossil fuels. There’s widespread criticism that COP27 was shaped by the presence of fossil-fuel representatives. At the same time, major hydrocarbon producers such as Saudi Arabia blocked language that would have called for a plan to phase out oil and gas. “The influence of the fossil-fuel industry was found across the board,” said Laurence Tubiana, chief executive officer at the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. “The Egyptian Presidency has produced a text that clearly protects oil and gas petrostates and the fossil-fuel industries. This trend cannot continue in the United Arab Emirates next year.” Ingenuity will transform climate change risk into financial, social, and environmental opportunities More momentum on methane 150 nations A bigger group of counties have now joined a methane pledge to cut emissions of the super-powerful greenhouse gas 30% by the end of the decade. Five takeaways from COP27 By Akshat Rathi Now that the books have closed on COP27, here’s a look at five key takeaways from more than two weeks of climate talks involving nearly 200 countries. 1. A new fund for loss and damage Climate change causes inequities and exacerbates them. Rich countries gained their wealth from fossil fuels, leaving poor countries who haven’t benefited from those emissions with huge bills from the resulting climate impacts. After decades of calls to compensate climate victims in the developing world, COP27 finally produced an agreement to create a fund that would address loss and damage. But this breakthrough comes with enormous question marks. No sums of money were actually committed at Sharm El-Sheikh, and the rules of how the fund would work were left to be decided at next year’s COP28 in the United Arab Emirates. Henry Kokofu, a Ghanaian politician and head of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, warned that without further concrete steps there is a risk of simply creating “an empty bank account.” 2. Possible changes coming to multilateral lenders For the first time, a COP meeting included a call to reform the global financial architecture so that it better aligns with climate goals. The idea is to tweak the mandates of multilateral development banks such as the World Bank and international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, to ensure that greater financing flows to energy-transition projects and efforts to adapt to a warming planet. “The moment is right,” said Laurence Tubiana, chief executive officer of the European Climate Foundation. “Climate impacts are beginning to be understood as a macroeconomic risk.” 3. The fight for the nitty-gritty The issue that held up negotiations and made COP27 the second-longest UN climate summit was the “mitigation work program.” The idea is to ensure that countries set clear targets, plans and metrics to reduce emissions on pace to meet climate goals. So far, commitments have not followed the same standard, with countries using different criteria and baselines for their targets. Without a common system, those pledges may not turn into actual emissions reductions. Climate-forward countries wanted to run the program until 2030. But opposition from laggards led to a compromise of running it until 2026, with a chance to extend it. If the program succeeds, it could have stronger implications than countries simply agreeing to political statements on phasing out all fossil fuels. 4. Weak rules for carbon markets Countries agreed at COP26 to create the rules that would allow nations to trade carboncredits. That means that Norway, for example, could pay to preserve Indonesian forests, and in return scrub emissions from the Norwegian carbon ledger. At COP27, negotiators outlined a more detailed framework for how such a carbon market would work, including allowing corporations to buy credits from governments. But experts warned the rules are still not strict enough. “The carbon market spirit of Glasgow turned into the offsetting ghost of Sharm El-Sheikh, which risks haunting effective climate action for years to come,” said Sam Van den plas, policy director at Carbon Market Watch. 5. The 1.5C goal remains in grave jeopardy Despite attempts by big powers like the US, India and the European Union, the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement failed to raise ambitions on reducing emissions. That could mean the world misses the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Calls to phase out all fossil fuels (not just coal) and to peak global emissions by 2025 (which is likely to happen anyway, according to the International Energy Agency) were shot down by many nations who export oil. While the phase-down of all fossil fuels didn’t make it to the final text, momentum grew around an idea that wasn’t even on the cards before the summit. As many as 80 countries now support it, Timmermans said, with the EU and others expected to lobby on the issue in the year ahead. As the world grapples with an energy crisis and high fossil-fuel prices fill the coffers of major producers, the political clout of carbon powers was on display at COP27. Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, expressed frustration at “being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers.” That fight is likely to get harder as COP28 heads to the United Arab Emirates, an oil and gas giant. |
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