Best of our wild blogs: 4 Dec 18

FREE Talks and Tour on Ocean Plastic Pollution (7 Dec 2018, Friday at 7pm)
Celebrating Singapore Shores!

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Indonesia: Flood emergency status declared in West Aceh

Antara 3 Dec 18;

A resident takes out chair from his flooded home at Cot Amun Village, West Aceh District, Aceh Province, in October 2018). Floods that hit 10 sub-districts in West Aceh have affected 4.653 families or 15,309 people.(ANTARA FOTO/Syifa Yulinnas/wsj).

Banda Aceh, Aceh Province, (ANTARA News) - West Aceh District Head H. Ramli MS confirmed that the district was classified as a flood emergency area, as hundreds of villages were frequently flooded from September to December 2018.

"A flood emergency status is now declared in West Aceh District, so we are in dire need of support from the Aceh provincial government and central government," Ramli remarked while visiting flood victims in West Woyla on Sunday.

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World's strangest sharks and rays 'on brink of extinction'

Helen Briggs BBC News 4 Dec 18;

Some of the world's most unusual sharks and rays are on the brink of extinction because of threats such as commercial fishing, scientists have said.

A shark that uses its tail to stun prey and a ray half the length of a bus are on the list of 50 species.

The scientists say sharks have a bad image and people do not understand how important and threatened they are.

And losing even one of these "living fossils" would wipe out millions of years of evolutionary history.

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World Bank to invest $200bn to combat climate change

Sum available for 2021-25 represents doubling of current five-year plan
Fiona Harvey The Guardian 3 Dec 18;

The World Bank is to make about $200bn (£157bn) available to fund action on climate change from 2021-25, helping countries adapt to the effects of warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The sum represents a doubling of the five-year investment plan put in place after the landmark Paris agreement of 2015.

Governments will meet in Poland this week and next to thrash out an implementation plan for the Paris accord, which binds countries to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration of a 1.5C limit.

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Act now or risk disaster, nations told at UN climate summit

Patrick GALEY, AFP Yahoo News 3 Dec 18;

Katowice (Poland) (AFP) - After the starkest warnings yet of the catastrophic threat posed by climate change, nations gathered in Poland on Sunday to chart a way for mankind to avert runaway global warming.

The COP24 climate summit comes at a crucial juncture in the battle to rein in the effects of our heating planet.

The smaller, poorer nations that will bare the devastating brunt of climate change are pushing for richer states to make good on the promises they made in the 2015 Paris agreement.

Three years ago countries committed to limit global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.

But with only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, the world has already seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes made more destructive by rising seas.

UN General Assembly president Maria Espinosa told AFP that mankind was "in danger of disappearing" if climate change was allowed to progress at its current rate.

"We need to act urgently, and with audacity. Be ambitious, but also responsible for the future generations," she added.

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