Global Warming

EU boosts Paris climate deal

The European Parliament approved the Paris accord to fight climate change on Tuesday, tipping it over the threshold needed for the global deal to enter into force, in what UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed as an historic vote.

The Paris Agreement reached by nearly 200 nations nearly one year ago will help guide a radical shift of the world economy away from fossil fuels in order to limit heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

European Union approval, expected to be signed off on by the bloc's 28 nations this week, will lift the deal over the required level of nations representing at least 55 percent of global emissions to enter into force.

Global Warming has detrimental effect on “good” gut bacteria

Rising temperatures may be too much for bacteria that form a mutually beneficial relationship with many animals - and may move up the food chain to humans. Global warming may wreak havoc on the food chain by killing off ‘good bacteria’ in the stomachs of insects and other animals, a new study suggests.

The researchers raised one type of insect – the southern green stinkbug – in an incubator kept 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the temperature outside. That is the average scientists expect the world to warm by 2100.

They found this produced a significant reduction in the “good bacteria” in their guts, with which they have a beneficial symbiotic relationship.

As a result, the young stinkbugs grew up to be smaller than normal and, at higher temperatures, none of them were able to reach sexual maturity, the researchers reported in the journal mBio.