Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Steve Schneider, leading climate scientist and communicator, has died, aged 65. Flying to London from a meeting in Sweden, he is believed to have suffered a heart attack. He had been diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma in 2001. "Today the world lost a great man," said Ben Santer from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States. "Stephen Schneider did more than any other individual on the planet to help us realize that human actions have led to global-scale changes in Earth's climate. Steve was instrumental in focusing scientific, political, and public attention on one of the major challenges facing humanity – the problem of human-caused climate change." Tiempo laments the passing of an old friend, a constant source of amusement and inspiration, who showed the way for those, like us, committed to the public understanding of science in all its complexity.

"A gripping and eloquent speaker, he had a gift for expressing complicated ideas in terms that made sense to people from all walks of life. Steve also had a remarkable ability to help people understand why they should care about an issue. He could, in a few sentences, range from dispassionate and analytical to fiery and angry, with a couple of memorable jokes in the middle. Sometimes, words poured from Steve at a dizzying rate. But regardless of the pace, Steve was invariably engaging. His arguments were based on the best available data. He never overstated his case. And he had a rare gift for turning a phrase that not only crystallized an important idea but also lodged it in your memory."
Extracted from In Memoriam: Stephen Schneider, 1945-2010, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Secretariat

Six countries, amongst those most vulnerable to climate change, plan substantial cuts in their carbon emissions as a sign of their commitment to combat global warming. "Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands and Samoa all pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions and pursue green growth and development," according to a statement from the Maldives government. "When those with the least start doing the most, it shows that everyone's ambitions can be raised," said Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives.

The Maldives and Samoa hope to be carbon-neutral by the year 2020, Costa Rica by 2021 and Ethiopia by 2025. The Marshall Islands plans to cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 and Antigua and Barbuda by 25 per cent by that year. "Cutting fossil fuels from our economy will benefit both the climate and our financial bottom line," commented Faumuina Tiatia, Samoan minister of natural resources and environment. "It is much cheaper for us to generate electricity from renewable sources than to import increasingly-expensive oil." The announcement was made in the Maldives at the second meeting of the Cartagena Group/Dialogue for Progressive Action, an informal space for discussion open to all countries committed to reaching an ambitious outcome through the climate negotiations and to becoming or remaining low-carbon.

As the second tropical storm in less than a week hit southern China, the national death toll for the year from floods and landslides passed 700. The government reported that water levels in over two hundred rivers in the country have risen beyond warning points, with two dozen exceeding historic highs. Tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed, 110 million people have been affected and economic losses have reached at least US$21 billion. The casualty and damage figures are the worst for a decade.

A state of emergency has been declared in 17 regions of Russia as high temperatures have destroyed nearly 10 million hectares of crops. The area of crops lost represents around 12 per cent of all lands sown in the country, costing the agricultural sector about US$1 billion. The area affected extends from the southern Urals and central European Russia to the Volga, the Agriculture Ministry reported. The heatwave began in late June and the resultant drought is described by the Russian Grain Union as the worst in 130 years.