Factfile-November 2021

Hello,

Welcome to the November Factfile! Finally, it is December, and Christmas is just around the corner! Settle in, and read all the hot info from November. Here's a quick reminder to vote about the fact file's future. It closes in a month! Thanks, and enjoy!

News

COP26

Quickly for everyone who does not know: COP stands for "Conference of the Parties" and is a conference hosted by the UN, which brings together the members of the UN to discuss climate issues and come up with agreements regarding these issues. This year, COP was held for the 26th time-hence COP26-in Glasgow from October 31st to November 13th. These are the main outcomes from this conference: The nations agreed on four main topics to take action on Mitigation, Adaption, Finance and collaboration. Apart from that, they agreed on keeping the 1.5 degrees limit but also stated that action must be taken immediately to make it. Mitigation is about reducing carbon emissions greatly, by moving away from fossil fuels, reducing methane emissions, reversing deforestation and switching to electric vehicles. Adaption is all about getting ready for the impacts of climate change that can already be felt all over the world. Money and resources are collected to be able to support countries affected by climate change. 80 countries are covered in adaptation communication or adaptation plans to battle the impacts of climate change and many have partnered up to improve access to money and resources.

Finance is all about having lots of money available to get more sustainable and have money ready for those in need of it when working on getting more sustainable and towards the common goal of net zero.

Lastly, collaboration, the name makes it quite obvious. It is about the governments working together and supporting one another. The Glasgow breakthroughs will accelerate collaboration between governments, businesses and civil societies to reach climate goals faster. All the while collaborative councils and dialogues in energy, electric vehicles and shipping and commodities will help deliver on commitments. The parties also agreed on an "enhanced transparency framework" meaning common reports of emission and support.

To read more about COP26, and find out all the details please read through the "Glasgow climate pact" here: https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/COP26-Presidency-Outcomes-The-Climate-Pact.pdf

Good news

China and US to work together to fight climate change

At the beginning of November, the US and China announced a new plan. They are planning on working together to reduce CO2 emissions. This is a huge success because China and the US are among the worst polluters in the world. We're all excited to see what will come out of this.

Bad news

Estimated 26 000 tons more plastic in the ocean due to covid

Masks, plastic gloves, most one-way items, and empty disinfectant bottles. The use of these items has boomed during the pandemic. But what happens to them when they've outlived their purpose? They get chucked into the ocean. An estimated 26 000 tons of 'covid plastic' has ended up in the ocean since the start of the pandemic. Countless water-dwelling animals have died due to this new wave of plastic pollution and it's only getting worse. The problem is, it's very hard to avoid this covid plastic.

Not enough people are willing to change their lifestyles to save the planet

An international survey has found that although many people are alarmed by the climate crisis, most think that they are already doing a lot more than everyone else including the governments. They are unwilling to make bigger drastic changes to their lifestyles. Although it is certainly good that they are aware of the crisis, it is definitely not good that so few are willing to change their lifestyle.

Animals and plant

Land - Arabian leopard

This is a critically endangered species of leopard. With only 100-250 individuals estimated to be alive in the wild, this leopard won't last much longer if things continue as they are. They are a lesser-known species, that lives in Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia although its historic territories reached Jordan, Egypt and Syria.

Arabian leopards are reasonably small, so they hunt small to medium-sized prey, including birds and insects.

So these are incredible cats.

Water - Basking shark

Basking sharks are quite scary at first sight - they have six rows of teeth on their upper jaw and nine rows on their lower jaw! That's about 1 500 hooked teeth. And seeing as they swim with their mouths wide open, you see all of them straight away!

But, they are actually harmless! They are one of the three filter-feeding shark species (whale sharks are another one of these species). They just swim along with their mouths wide open, filtering water as they go. They are also incredibly slow, swimming at about 2 miles an hour (3km per hour).

Basking sharks are found off the coast of Scotland, in the northeast U.S. and in Canada. They are currently classified as Vulnerable.

Air - Green woodpecker

There are three subspecies of the green woodpecker, but they all have green bodies, paler yellow underneath and a red crown. They are beautiful and very distinctive. I've actually seen one in my garden a few times! They are found across Europe (around 75% of them are in Europe) although not in the northern countries and Ireland but otherwise widespread. They are also found in western Asia. They nest in tall trees, and the same breeding hole may be used for over 10 years- though not always by the same pair. Their main food source is ants and other insects and small reptiles.

A very blurry image from my garden!

Plant - Frankincense tree

You probably know Frankincense from the Christmas Story as one of the gifts that were given by wise men to baby Jesus. However, Frankincense was also used by the ancient Egyptians in their religious rites and it does originate from a tree. It is called the Boswellia Sacra and it is a tree in the Burseraceae family. From this tree, a sort of dried sap is harvested. It is native to the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Africa. It has been used as a remedy and as noted above, is also a substance with many religious links too.

We hope you enjoyed this fact file and please don't forget to vote!

Green World Blog Team

Images:

Title image: This image is owned by a blog editor.

USA flag: This image, owned by Mike Mozart ( on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Green woodpecker: This image is owned by a blog editor.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/15/cop-26-agreement-victories-global-economy-climate-crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/10/china-and-the-us-announce-plan-to-work-together-on-cutting-emissions

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/08/about-26000-tonnes-of-plastic-covid-waste-pollutes-worlds-oceans-study

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/07/few-willing-to-change-lifestyle-climate-survey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_leopard

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/facts/basking-sharks

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/green-woodpecker/

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2019/12/frankincense-trees-of-biblical-lore-are-being-tapped-out-for-essential-oils

Comments

Ecosia

We all need to do something to save our planet: it is no use just leaving it to Greta Thunberg! She is very inspirational, yes, but she can only do so much. She isn't superhuman! The climate crisis is up to us; up to you. We all have to get stuck in. Research, learn, discover and most importantly: never give up! The world's animals need us. The world's trees need us and a simple way to do this is to switch to Ecosia. Ecosia is a search engine but it plants trees while you search the web. Okay, it doesn't have as many websites as google so you may want to have google as a backup but it plants trees: this is your opportunity to make a simple change. Just google Ecosia and search to plant trees. Make a difference. Image: This image is owned by Binyamin Mellish on pexels.com .

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