location: Saudi Arabia

location: Saudi Arabia

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COP25: Self-serving G20 spites youth, humanity, world at climate talks
- With 500,000 mostly young climate activists rallying in Madrid streets, COP25 delegates agreed to disagree on nearly everything, with smaller nations striving to pave the way for implementation of a strong Paris Agreement at COP26 in 2020, while G20 nations dragged their feet, obfuscated, and stopped forward progress.
- The climate conference failed to increase national Paris Agreement carbon reduction pledges, likely dooming the world to catastrophic temperature increases above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 unless dramatic advances are implemented next year at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
- The G20 and corporate allies kept the closing of carbon accounting loopholes off the agenda: tree plantations will be counted as forests; the burning of wood pellets (as carbon-polluting as coal) will be counted as carbon neutral; and tropical dams now known to produce major methane releases, will be counted as zero carbon sources.
- The U.S., blocked already promised “loss and damage” financial pledges made to the developing world. Double counting of emissions wasn’t banned. No carbon market mechanism was approved. Paris Agreement language assuring “human rights, the right to health, [and] rights of indigenous peoples” was stripped from COP25 official documents.

A lifeline for the last leopards (commentary)
- From being extinct in the wild, the Arabian oryx was reclassified in 1986 as “Endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species after its reintroduction to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. In 2011, with its global numbers increased to thousands, the Arabian oryx was the first animal ever to revert to “Vulnerable” status after having previously been listed as extinct in the wild.
- Today, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) aims to replicate this miraculous turnaround for the Arabian leopard – a little-studied, desert-dwelling subspecies listed as “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN’s Red List – and for leopard populations everywhere with a new $20 million commitment to the Global Alliance for Wild Cats.
- The Arabian Leopard Initiatives will support a holistic and urgent program to rigorously monitor the Arabian leopard’s population and distribution, as well as halt its decline through community conservation projects. The cornerstone will be a captive breeding program dedicated to shoring up Arabian leopard populations and reintroducing them into their former habitats.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince
- Big-cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with Saudi prince and culture minister Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Farhan Al Saud in which the latter’s royal commission has pledged $20 million to the protection of leopards around the world, including the Arabian leopard, over the next decade.
- The funds will support a survey of the animals in Saudi Arabia and a captive-breeding program.
- The coalition also hopes to reintroduce the Arabian leopard into the governorate of Al-Ula, which Bader heads and which the kingdom’s leaders believe could jump-start the local tourism sector.

COP24: US, Russia, Saudis downplay IPCC report in display of disunity
- The U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait rejected language strongly affirming the severity of global warming at the COP24 summit in Poland on Saturday night. The United States is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, while Russia has failed so far to ratify the accord.
- Some fear this could signal further obstruction this week by major oil producing nations as national leaders arrive at COP24 to wrestle with resolving a host of difficult issues, including an upping of Paris carbon-reduction pledges, completion of the Paris Rulebook measuring energy production, transportation, agriculture, and deforestation to curb climate change.
- Also, to be worked out, transparency rules on emissions, and plans for wealthy nations to help support poor nations adapt to climate damage. This daunting agenda isn’t helped by the leadership void created when the U.S. pulled back from the Paris agreement after Democrat Barack Obama was replaced as president by Republican Donald Trump.
- At COP24, Tom Steyer, a prominent U.S. environmental activist, said that “nothing short of transformational politics” in the United States will get international climate action back on track. He sees U.S. leadership as essential to preventing the worst impacts of global warming. But such a sea change won’t likely come until after the 2020 presidential election.

Illegal cheetah trade continues through Instagram, 4sale, YouTube
- Between February 2012 and July 2018, a total of 1,367 cheetahs were offered on sale through 906 posts on social media, a new analysis by the Cheetah Conservation Fund has found. Almost all of the investigated cheetah sale offers appear to be illegal.
- Instagram alone accounted for some 77 percent of the posts, followed by 4sale, a Kuwait-based mobile app, and YouTube.
- Nearly all of the posts had some link to the Gulf states, with more than 62 percent linked to users in Saudi Arabia, the analysis found.

Climate deal struck to curb ‘super greenhouse gases’
- Under the terms of the Kigali Amendment, the participating countries will collectively slash HFC levels in the atmosphere by 80 to 85 percent by midcentury.
- Experts say that the reduction could spare the planet as much a half a degree Celsius in warming.
- The HFC cutbacks will begin in developed countries first, giving more time to emerging economies and the warmest countries in most need of cooling solutions to scale back.

‘Fluorescent flashlights’: Newly discovered glow-in-the-dark polyps light up snails in the Red Sea
- Researchers first found the mud snails, and the tiny polyps that were embellishing their shells, during a night dive at Hindiya Reef on Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia, in October 2014.
- The green glow of these polyps is localized around their “mouth”, the team found, making them different from the previously known fluorescent sea hydroids.
- The ecological role of the fluorescence in these polyps however remains unclear, study says.

Two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t have reliable access to fresh water
- Researchers say two-thirds of the global population — some four billion people, half of them in India or China — live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month out of the year.
- As many as half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year.
- The majority of water usage is for food, researchers say, so water scarcity primarily means decreasing or failing crop yields.

Saudi Prince kills two percent of global population of endangered bird

In a three week hunting safari between January 11th and 31st of this year, Saudi Arabian Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his party allegedly shot down 2,100 Asian Houbara bustards (Chlamydotis macqueenii) in Balochistan, Pakistan. Scientists aren’t certain how many Houbara bustards survive today, but their best estimate is around 100,000 […]
Mysteries surrounding the legendary and vanishing oriental bald ibis

The efforts to ensure survival of the rarest bird in the Middle East Lubomir Peske engaged in fitting a satellite tag to a northern bald ibis in Syria in spring 2006. Photo @ G. Serra. In a remote corner of the Ethiopian highlands in January 2011, the bright tropical light combined with the fresh and […]
Cute animal picture of the day: baby Yemen chameleons

Baby Yemen chameleon. Photo courtesy of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. Ten Yemen chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) were recently born at the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Whipsnade Zoo. A popular pet species, the chameleons, also known as veiled chameleons, still thrive in the mountainous wilds of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It is listed as Least Concern by […]
Record number of nations hit all time temperature highs
To date, nineteen nations have hit or matched record high temperatures this year, according to Jeff Master’s Wunder Blog, making 2010 the only year to have so many national records. In contrast, no nation this year has hit a record cold temperature. Over the past decade, which was the warmest on record, 75 nations have […]
Summer from hell: seventeen nations hit all-time heat records
Asian continent sees warmest temperature ever recorded. The summer isn’t over yet, but already seventeen nations have matched or beaten their all-time heat records. According to Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Belarus, the Ukraine, Cyprus, Russia, Finland, Qatar, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Chad, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Ascension Island, and the Solomon Islands have all […]

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