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As revealed the most complete research submitted to the IPCC metrics (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), global air transport represents 3.5 % of anthropogenic climate warming.
These are the findings of a large international study led by Manchester Metropolitan University and involving the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Contrails
Researchers have analyzed all the factors in which the air transport industry has contributed to climate change since its inception: in total, has emitted 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide throughout the entire history of the industry, considered between 1940 and 2018.
According to the study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment on September 3, 2020, are contrails and resulting cirrus clouds (clouds of ice crystals produced by aircraft engines at high altitudes under certain weather conditions) the most important factor of this effect, not carbon dioxide emissions from air travel, which account for only a third of the climate impact.
Contrails reflect solar radiation back into space, which has a cooling effect. However, they also reduce the Earth's own heat radiation, which warms the climate.
The study also includes other climate-relevant emissions, such as water vapor, soot, aerosols, and sulfate aerosol particles found in the exhaust plumes of aircraft engines. Carbon dioxide emissions are the second largest contribution to the climate impact of air transport. About half of the total cumulative carbon dioxide emissions were generated in the last 20 years alone.
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The news
3.5 % of global warming is attributable only to air transport
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
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The Democracies around the world are 'regressing', as revealed a new study, and many governments are moving away from democratic ideals and towards authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism
In the mid-1970s, citizens around the world took to the streets to demand democracy from their governments, sparking a wave of democratization that transformed governments from Africa to Asia to Europe. But a worrying trend of democratic “backsliding” has taken place in recent years, writes the author of a new study in Science, as governments gradually move away from their democratic ideals and toward authoritarianism.
Even leaders of well-established democracies, such as the United States and India, have adopted authoritarian rhetoric. But in other countries, such as Russia and China, leaders are actively working to undermine the legitimacy of democracy.
This shift also provides an opportunity to examine whether citizen movements alone (without external support) are sufficient to rein in newly emboldened autocrats.
Western democracy promotion has always been partially undermined by geopolitical or partisan objectives and has been open to criticism on many dimensions. Still, the combination of direct democracy assistance and pro-democracy international norms operated in most regions of the world, both at the elite level, constraining leaders who would otherwise engage in more overtly authoritarian behavior, as well as at the citizen level, helping citizen movements in favor of democracy and supporting civil society.
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The news
Democracies are retreating around the world, according to a new study
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.