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The UN climate conference was set to enter its final day on Friday with many issues still unresolved despite two weeks of intensive debate.

Negotiators from 196 countries sat into the night on Thursday in Katowice, Poland in a bid to make progress on drafting a rulebook for implementing and financing the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Back then it was agreed that global warming should be kept to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels and preferably to less than 1.5 degrees, but countries were to put forward their own plans to cut emissions.

Scientists say the measures agreed so far fall desperately short of what is needed.

At the COP24 talks in Katowice, delegates have clashed over financing, with poorer countries most affected by climate change demanding long-term financial support and recognition of the damage that it causes.

There is also a dispute over whether to issue a firmer commitment to preventing warming from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees.

A report from the Global Carbon Project revealed last week that greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 were projected to rise by at least 2 per cent.

This was the latest of several reports, the most notable of which was the UN IPCC report, which showed that it was unlikely the world would be able to prevent global warming from stopping at the 1.5 degree-mark.

Top climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told dpa not enough was being done to prevent climate change.

"The deficit is insane," he said. "Hardly any state is doing enough. We're driving this planet into the ground."

Ports of Lattakia and Tartous were re-opened on Thursday for maritime navigation as the weather conditions have improved.

Speaking to SANA reporter, Director of Ports Gen. Akram Ibrahim said that ports of Lattakia and Tartous were re-opened for maritime navigation.

On Tuesday, the  ports were shut down in front of maritime navigation as a result of the prevailing weather conditions.

The 24th Conference on Climate Change continued activities in the Polish city of Katowice with the participation of Syria.

Deputy Minister of Local Administration and Environment, Mohamed Wadah Qatmawi,  emphasized Syria’s commitment to agreements related to the environment .

He pointed out that the terrorist war on Syria, operations of the so-called “International coalitions” and unilateral economic coercive measures imposed by some countries negatively affected Syrian efforts to protect the environment.

Qatmawi,  who heads Syria’s delegation to the conference, stressed that the developed countries should assume their historic responsibility for climate change and adhere to provide financial and technical support within the framework of international environmental conventions for the implementation of the national plans for carrying out the Paris Climate Convention and encouraging investment in national projects.

The conference activities  began on December 2 and will continue until Friday.

Expansion of Russia’s presence in the Arctic should not be harmful for environment, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"We should not forget about ecology when implementing projects in the Arctic zone. Our presence in the region should not do harm to environment, as it regrettably occurred before," he said.

The Transport Ministry announced that the harbors in Lattakia and Tartous are closed for marine navigation due to the poor weather conditions from Tuesday and until further notice.

The Ministry said the Tartous Commercial Harbor, Banyas Harbor, Arwad Island Harbor, Lattakia Harbor, Jableh Harbor, and small harbors have all been closed until further notice as the Syrian coast is affected by southwestern winds of speeds up to 80 km/h.

The Harbors Department issued warnings to all ships and small harbors that have vessels to take precautions to deal with the weather, putting all staff at full readiness in case of emergency.

Researchers have found that the Greenland ice sheet, currently the biggest source of new water added to oceans, is melting at unprecedented levels in the modern era, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday.

Run-off from the ice sheet now occurs at a volume 50 per cent larger than during the pre-industrial era and 33 per cent greater than the 20th century alone, scientists from American and Dutch universities found.

The Greenland ice sheet is in places over 1.6 kilometres thick and contains enough ice to raise global sea level by seven metres.

"Greenland's ice is melting more rapidly in recent decades than at any point in at least the last 350 years, and likely more than any time in the last 7,000-8,000 years," Rowan University's Luke Trusel, the study's lead author, said.

"Greenland is more sensitive to temperature change today than just a few decades ago. Warming matters more than ever," Trusel added.

The researchers have reconstructed over three hundred years of melt patterns by using ice core data, creating the most comprehensive study of the phenomenon yet.

"By sampling ice, we were able to extend the satellite data by a factor of 10 and get a clearer picture of just how extremely unusual melting has been in recent decades compared to the past," Trusel said.

In June, another study published by Nature found that Antarctica has lost about three trillion tonnes of ice since 1992 and that the rate of melting had accelerated threefold in the last five years. 

The peak of new solar activity, the 25th since the observations began, will fall on 2022-2023, Yuri Nagovitsyn, senior researcher from Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg told TASS on Tuesday.

Earlier, media outlets published a forecast from analysts at Denmark’s Saxo Bank, in which the experts assessed the worst possible scenario for the development of the global economy in 2019. It said, in particular, that the new solar cycle the 25th (Solar Cycle 25) would trigger the most powerful solar storm that would destroy satellites from the side of the Western Hemisphere. This, according to analysts, will bring about chaos in GPS-dependent sectors and losses amounting to nearly $2 trillion.

"As for the new solar cycle, it may start in 2019, but most likely in 2020. This will be only the start of a solar cycle and geomagnetic disturbances are not expected," the researcher said.
," the research officer said.

"The solar maximum, when powerful solar flares are indeed possible, will surface somewhere in 2022-2023," Nogovitsyn told TASS.

He said it is difficult at the moment to assess the power of the flares that people on earth will face in three to four years, however, the possibility of losses running into many billions and the global cataclysms about which the Danish analysts warn of, is next to none.

"If we speak about Arctic aviation during a powerful flare, at the poles, where the geomagnetic impact is stronger, a pilot may catch a year’s dose of radiation, and the health of an astronaut would also be at risk if he happens to be on a spacewalk when hypervelocity particles flow by," he went on to say. "It is clear that some satellites may malfunction, both big and small, but global cataclysms are unlikely," he explained.

The German government is to provide nearly a billion euros of extra funding to improve air quality in cities plagued by pollution linked to diesel vehicle emissions, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.

Current funding of 1 billion euros is being boosted to 1.5 billion euros (1.7 billion dollars), with a further 432 million euros for retrofitting smaller trucks.

Merkel made the announcement after meeting representatives of towns and cities in Berlin on Monday. One aim of the talks is to avoid further bans on older diesel-powered vehicles coming into force in urban areas where high pollutant levels have been recorded.

The debate over air quality in German cities came in the wake of the 2015 Volkswagen scandal, when the carmaker admitted it had installed software in diesel vehicles that cheated on emissions tests and showed the vehicles to be cleaner than they really were.

German cities are facing court-imposed bans on older diesel-powered vehicles, after environmentalists resorted to legal action to enforce European Union regulations on air quality with respect to nitrogen oxides and fine particles.

The federal government aims, through its cleaner air programme running from 2017 to 2020, to cut emissions from municipal vehicles, with the German automotive sector also making a financial contribution.

The private sector is to support purchases of electric vehicles in the municipal transport fleet, the construction of charge points, digitalization of traffic management to reduce congestion and retrofitting diesel buses with improved exhaust filters.

Last year, 65 towns and cities exceeded the upper limit of 40 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic metre of air, with 15 exceeding 50 micrograms of the toxic gas.

Merkel said that Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer and Environment Minister Svenja Schulze would convene another meeting with the municipalities before the parliamentary summer break next year.

Raising water temperatures caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon could be responsible for a series of whale strandings in New Zealand, a marine scientist says.

More than 200 whales died in the six days to Friday in three different mass standings across the South Pacific country.

Marine mammal specialist Karen Stockin told Radio New Zealand late on Sunday that higher sea surface temperatures were changing the movement of the mammals’ prey, causing a knock-on effect for their predators.  

"You're going to see more frequent sightings of both strandings and live sightings of some of these marine mammal predators coming closer to shore," the Massey University lecturer added.

El Nino occurs every few years and involves fluctuations in ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific.

More than 145 pilot whales perished on a remote beach on Stewart Island on November 24, while four days later 12 pygmy wales were stranded on the North Island's 90 Miles Beach.

On Friday, about 90 pilot whales beached themselves in the Chatham Islands. Between 30 and 40 of them managed to refloat and returned to the sea, while 51 died.

There has also been an unprecedented number of blue whale sightings in the Hauraki Gulf off New Zealand’s North Island.

Whale strandings are relatively common in New Zealand, with the Department of Conservation responding to an average of 85 incidents each year. Most of these are single animals and not large pods.

Pilot whales are prolific stranders but such behaviour is not well understood. Factors may include sickness, navigational error, geographical features, a rapidly falling tide, being chased by a predator or extreme weather.

"The more this goes on, the more animals that are coming, the more we're starting to challenge if there is something going on more broadly that we're not yet aware of," Stockin said.

A UN climate conference in the southern Polish city of Katowice is to open officially on Monday against a backdrop of warnings about the planet's rising temperature.

For two weeks, representatives from just under 200 states are to take part in the annual gathering, which this year is to focus on fleshing out the rules for financing and implementing the 2015 Paris agreement.

The Paris pact provides an outline for countries working together to limit the earth's warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

Most efforts to prevent the planet heating up relate to stopping the release of greenhouse gases as soon as possible. Burning coal, oil and gas releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

However, the measures promised so far worldwide to reduce harmful greenhouse gases are far from sufficient to meet this goal.

The meeting, known as COP24, was preceded by demonstrations demanding climate protection in various European cities.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Berlin, Cologne and Brussels to demonstrate for a change of direction in energy policy.

Some 30,000 representatives from 200 countries are taking part in the 24th session of the UN Climate Change Conference that opened in Poland’s Katowice on Sunday.

The conference participants are due to discuss issues of implementing the Paris Climate Agreement, which set the goal of preventing a rise in the average temperature on the planet by more than two degrees Celsius compared with the pre-industrial area by 2100.

This year, Poland will chair the conference. The republic plans to draw attention of the participants to three key issues. The first issue is devoted to new technologies and is aimed at showing that modern environmentally friendly solutions could be used to develop cities while avoiding air pollution.

Another important issue is to show that all changes should be implemented taking into account the interests of people through a fair transformation of regions and industrial sectors. The third priority is multifunctional and stable forest management.

The 24th session will last until December 14. The organizers hope to adopt a roadmap and a package of measures on fulfilling the Paris agreement, and also endorse a plan on financing environment protection measures.

Egypt has won a seat at the World Water Council (WWC)'s Board of Governors, a statement released by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation on Saturday read.

The seat is a recognition of Egypt's contributions to addressing issues of water resources management at international forums as well as its efforts during the 1st Cairo Water Week which took place on October 14-18.

The World Water Council is an international multi-stakeholder platform organization whose mission is to mobilize action on critical water issues at all levels, including the highest decision-making level, by engaging people in debate and challenging conventional thinking.

The Council focuses on the political dimensions of water security, adaptation, and sustainability.

The ultimate authority of the World Water Council is the General Assembly of Members; they are governed by its Constitution and by-Laws.

The General Assembly elects and appoints a maximum of 35 members to the Board of Governors in accordance with the Constitution and by-Laws.

The year 2018 is set to become the fourth hottest on record amid mounting signs of global warming, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Thursday in Geneva.

The past four years saw the four highest annual average temperatures since measurements began in the mid-19th century, according to the UN agency.

The hottest 20 years all occurred in the past 22 years.

The WMO estimates the likelihood of an El Nino occurring within the next three months at 75 to 80 per cent.

This weather phenomenon that occurs every few years involves fluctuations in ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific.

It leads to droughts in tropic regions and reduces the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.

The 6th annual Oman Energy Forum 2018, organised by the Gulf Intelligence, in cooperation with Petroleum

Development Oman (PDO), was inaugurated in Muscat yesterday.

The forum discusses challenges and opportunities in implementing the country’s energy transition strategy to achieve more sustainable economic and social growth, Oman News Agency (ONA) reported.

The forum focused on revising and adopting comprehensive recommendations related to implementing oil and gas projects to contribute to accelerating the energy changes in the Sultanate. The speakers highlighted a range of issues related to elements of energy changes including resource value chains for conventional fuels, security and reliability of supply and sustainability for different stakeholder groups.

Salim bin Nasser Al-Oufi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of

Oil and Gas highlighted the importance of oil and gas sectors and the need to support the oil projects that enhance the industry.

Abdul Amir bin Hussain Al-Ajmi, PDO External Affairs and

Value Creation Director said that the forum discusses a theme each year and that the sixth version of the forum discusses oil and gas research and studies by focusing on renewable energy.

He noted that oil and gas will remain the main source for energy in the coming decades and that PDO achieved a number of successes in this area, such as setting up a solar power plant at Amin field south of Oman.

Al-Ajmi pointed out that the aim of this forum is to link specialists under one umbrella and to streamline the efforts made in this area.

The Sultanate has one of the world’s highest solar densities and has already made some significant steps towards its energy transition strategy in its goal to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewables by 2025. The move towards adopting energy transition strategies across the Gulf region is propelled by an urgency triggered by rapid consumption of energy, which has grown by eight percent annually since 1972, compared to two percent for the world.

An environmentalist has stopped his attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean, which was to take him through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, after technical difficulties hit his support vessel.

Ben Lecomte had completed some 2,780 kilometres of his 9,260-kilometre journey when the decision to abandon the swim was made due to a damaged mainsail, he wrote in a statement published Monday by science media company Seeker.

"The Swim has been challenging for us as we've continued to face treacherous winds and ocean swells. Unfortunately our sail suffered irreparable damages, forcing us to alter our course and timing," the French-American wrote.

"Safety is our number one priority, and at this point, the team is exploring all options in an effort to continue into the gateway of the Garbage Patch."

The 50-year-old left Japan's Pacific coast on June 5 heading for San Francisco before being forced to turn back due to violent storms.

He eventually took to the water again and had been swimming up to 8 hours a day with the aim of covering 1,600 kilometres of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. He and his team had collected over 1,000 samples of the water to determine levels of plastic pollution.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating accumulation of over 80,000 tonnes of plastic debris and other pollutants in the North Pacific Ocean.

Scientific Reports journal said in March that it covered an area of 1.6 million square kilometres and was growing exponentially.

Rare Atlantic walruses have been spotted in the White Sea again after several hundreds of years of not appearing in the area after unlimited exploitation, research fellow at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Alexander Agafonov told TASS on the eve of the Walrus Day.

"Atlantic walruses are still considered endangered species. Their population decreased initially because of intensive exploitation. For instance, they have not appeared in the White Sea since the 18th century. However, our records indicate that walruses returned to the White Sea, which most likely signals a positive dynamic," Agafonov said.

It is currently prohibited to hunt Atlantic walruses. When it comes to Pacific walruses whose population is currently estimated at 200,000 animals, only indigenous peoples are allowed to hunt them in limited quantities, Agafonov noted.

Ocean pollution does not directly affect populations of walruses but can lead to decrease in fish supplies for the rare animals, especially in case of technogenic disasters like large-scale oil spills, the expert said.

Senior research fellow at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Vasily Spiridonov noted that there is no worrisome information yet about populations of Atlantic walruses but it is important to watch them closely as no concrete data on their numbers is available. There is another problem that concerns mostly Pacific walruses - global warming forces them to migrate north as ice pads in the Bering Sea gradually melt. Thus, competition for ice pads in the north of the Pacific Ocean grows rather quickly, the expert explained.

Up to 145 pilot whales have died on a remote beach on New Zealand’s Stewart Island after becoming stranded over the weekend.

The grisly find was made by a hiker late Saturday who was camping near Mason Bay on the west coast of New Zealand’s most southern island, the Department of Conservation (DOC) said in a statement Monday.

Half of the whales had already died by the time they were found and the other half had to be euthanised.

“Sadly, the likelihood of being able to successfully re-float the remaining whales was extremely low,” the DOC’s Ren Leppens said.

The remote location, lack of nearby personnel and the whales’ deteriorating conditions meant the most humane thing to do was to euthanise the remainder of the whales which had stranded in two pods two kilometres apart. 

“However, it’s always a heart-breaking decision to make,” Leppens added.

Whale strandings are relatively common on New Zealand shores, with the DOC responding to an average of 85 incidents a year. Most of these are single animals and not large pods.

While pilot whales are prolific stranders, this behaviour is not well understood. Factors may include sickness, navigational error, geographical features, a rapidly falling tide, being chased by a predator or extreme weather.

In February 2017, more than 300 pilot whales died at the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island, in one of the biggest mass whale strandings ever recorded in the country. 

An Indonesian governor plans to charge tourists 500 dollars each to enter Komodo National Park, home to the giant lizard the Komodo dragon, according to local media reports. 

Victor Laidkodat, the governor of East Nusa Tenggara, of which the park is part, said the high entrance fee was intended to boost the prestige of the conservation area, the Kompas daily reported.

Visitors are currently charged 150,000 rupiah (10 dollars) for access to the park. 

"This is a rare place, only for people with money," Laiskodat was quoted as saying by Kompas. "Those who don't have enough money shouldn't come because this place is for extraordinary people." 

Laiskodat said a tourist ship entering the UNESCO World Heritage Site could be charged 50,000 dollars in the future.

The government has floated the idea of limiting access to only 5,000 visitors per month in an effort to ramp up security following a fire in August believed to have been sparked by a tourist's improperly discarded cigarette.    

The government's new proposal will also make online registration a necessity before accessing the park, which currently takes in over 10,000 visitors per month. 

Russia’s state-run shipping company Sovcomflot is considering the possibility of buying ships fueled by liquefied natural gas (LNG), the company's head Sergei Frank told reporters at the Transport of Russia exhibition on Wednesday.

"We are currently holding talks in other segments on vessels of other sizes. The LNG-fueled fleet will include not only Aframax tankers, but also MR class [Medium Range, medium-tonnage tankers] which will use the same technology - liquefied natural gas as primary fuel," Frank said.

"Now we are defining specifications of these vessels, since they must meet the long-term vision of the charterer. It’s still early to talk about the possible number of such vessels," he said adding that it will be "a series of vessels."

Sovcomflot is involved in hauling hydrocarbons and operational support on fields. In its corporate fleet, the shipping company has LNG carriers, crude oil tankers, product tankers, icebreaking support vessels, research and other vessels.

As of September 30, 2018, the group's fleet consisted of 147 own and chartered vessels with a total deadweight of 12.7 mln tonnes.

A public health warning was issued Thursday as a massive dust storm engulfed Sydney and other parts of the eastern Australian state of New South Wales.

Many locals took to social media to post photos of the city's skyline, which was blanketed by an orange haze largely due to strong winds from a low pressure system carrying thick dust across the drought-stricken state.

The storm, which stretches 500 kilometres, has reduced visibility to just metres in some areas, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said.

State health authority NSW Health issued a warning, saying the dust would likely reduce air quality and that children, older people and those with respiratory conditions should take extra care.

"It’s a serious situation from an air quality point of view," Richard Broome, the department's environmental health director, told Australian broadcaster ABC.

He said people should stay indoors as much as possible as dust particles could aggravate asthma, lung and heart conditions and could cause eye irritations and coughing.

"It's going to be very windy and unpleasant later today, but the system is going to be moving east into the ocean and clearing overnight," BOM forecaster Anita Pyne told local media.

Dust storms are common in parts of rural Australia, however a storm of this size in a coastal city is considered unusual.

The bleak situation in Palestine is noticeable on the streets. People throwing their rubbish out of their cars; walking in zigzags to avoid garbage on the footpath; and having to carry an empty packet for half an hour because rubbish bins are so far and few between. But this is only at a surface glance. The environmental problems of Palestine run far deeper than what meets the eye.

The ninth Palestinian Environmental Awareness and Education Conference,an initiative funded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church responsible for bringing pilgrims and visitors to the Holy Land, held in Jacir Palace spanning over two days attended by approximately 100 participants, saw professors, scientists, police, students and activists come together to discuss the environmental situation in Palestine today in the hopes that the local authority and the public can come together to create sustainable change. Work shops ranged from the impacts of pollution in Gaza to the burning of electronic waste.

The deputy of the Palestine Environment Authority, Jamil Al-Mutur wants Palestinians to support all action regarding the environment, developing policies to improve and maintain its natural surroundings.  The Palestinian strategic plan active since 2017 hopes by 2022 to improve all regulations and rules to achieve the goal of improving the environment

The theme of this year’s forum was about “promoting environmental action in Palestine”, with the speakers sharing insights on the problems and the causes, but more importantly – the plans and decisions that need to be made to ensure the improvement and success of the Palestinian environment.

Executive director from the Environmental Education Center, Simon Awad, speaks to PNN about the issues here. He simplifies the causes of the waste problems into three main categories. First and foremost, the Israeli Occupation, which is making it difficult to create sustainable and efficient dumpsites, on top of the fact that they send a lot of their waste to dump sites in Palestinian land. The waste that is dumped is not separated cleanly nor correctly, often meaning that the land, water and agriculture become contaminated by the toxic waste which creates pressure on local authorities.

Secondly, he says that the capacity of local authorities in Palestine is extremely limited. “There needs to be greater capacity for municipalities to deal with environmental issues”.

And lastly, Awad feels that the public needs to be aware of the environmental factors that affect their daily lives. Public awareness and education of waste, proper disposal and understanding its effects on the health of the land and the people.
On an global platform, Palestine has joined 13 international agreements concerning nature and climate change. However, the development and clean up of the environment must be a joined effort from all sectors of society within Palestine – the public, the private and the individual. The overall message from the conference was that society needs to proactively implement the tools, mechanisms and initiatives to secure the success of the environment and its people.

With a nation so proud of its land, waste management must be spearheaded with serious practical and force. As one comment from the audience at the conference said, “a crime against the environment is a crime against a human being”.