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CLIMATE

US President Trump ‘not invited’ to Paris climate summit

US President Donald Trump is not among the around 100 heads of state and government invited to next month's climate summit in Paris, a French presidential aide said Tuesday.

Published: 7 November 2017 16:35 CET
US President Trump 'not invited' to Paris climate summit
File photo showing protesters in front of the White House during the People's Climate March in Washington DC, April 29th. Credit: Nicholas Kamm/ AFP
“For now, President Donald Trump is not invited,” he said, while noting that representatives of the US government would attend.
   
   
The pact calls for capping global warming at “well under” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, and 1.5 C if possible.
 
Around 800 organisations and public stakeholders will be on hand for the December 12 event to be held on Ile Seguin, an island in the Seine River southwest of Paris.
 
READ ALSO:

France hopeful of persuading Trump to stay in Paris climate deal

Photo: AFP
 
The meeting will follow the 23rd UN climate conference (COP23) that opened in Bonn, Germany, on Monday.
   
The Bonn meeting is dealing with mainly technical issues such as ensuring transparency and compliance, the reporting of emissions, and procedures for allocating climate funds.
   
The aide to French President Emmanuel Macron said the upcoming summit would aim to “build coalitions” involving cities, investment funds and development banks to further the goals of the accord.
   
“The idea is to show that there is action, that we must accelerate actions and find new sources of financing for very concrete projects,” he said, calling the meeting “very complementary” to the COP23.

CLIMATE

Central and southern Italy brace for storms and heavy snow

Storms and snowfall are forecast across much of central and southern Italy over the next few days, according to weather reports.

Published: 29 November 2021 15:13 CET
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy.
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy. Photo: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Italy’s Civil Protection Department on Monday issued ‘orange’ alerts for bad weather along Campania’s Tyrrhenian coastline and the western part of Calabria, while Sicily, Basilicata, Lazio, Molise, Umbria, Abruzzo, central-western Sardinia, and the remaining areas of Campania and Calabria are under a lower-level ‘yellow’ weather warning.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is warning Italy’s central-southern regions to prepare for a blast of polar air from the Arctic Circle that will bring heavy snowfall, rain and storms, reports national weather forecaster Il Meteo.

The village of Grotte di Castro in the province of Viterbo, two hours’ drive north of Rome, mountainous parts of Sardinia, and much of the province of Campobasso in the central-eastern region of Molise were already blanketed in snow on Monday morning.

The department is responsible for predicting, preventing and managing emergency events across the country, and uses a green, yellow, orange and red graded colour coding system for weather safety reports.

An orange alert signifies a heavy rainfall, landslide and flood risk, while a yellow alert warns of localised heavy and potentially dangerous rainfall.

The current meteorological conditions mean that snow is expected to reach unusually low altitudes of around 450-500 metres, with flakes already falling thickly on parts of the southern-central Apennines mountain range at 500-700 metres altitude.

The hills of Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Lazio, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Basilicata are likely to see heavy snow around the 500m mark, while areas at an altitude of 1000m or higher will see between 50-60 cm of fresh snow.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall. Photo: Vincenzo PINTO /AFP

In areas where the snow is unlikely to reach, heavy rains and thunderstorms are anticipated, with rain forecast throughout Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Lazio, reports Il Meteo.

Strong winds are forecast over the whole country, with the island regions of Sicily and Sardinia facing windspeeds of over 100km/hour and the risk of storm surges, according to the national newspaper La Repubblica.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

The north of the country, meanwhile, will see sun but low temperatures of below 0°C at night in many areas, including across much of the Po Valley.

While conditions are expected to stabilise on Tuesday, cold currents from Northern Europe are forecast to trigger another wave of bad weather on Wednesday and Thursday, with Sardinia and Italy’s western coastline again at risk of storms and heavy rainfall that will move up towards Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto in the north.

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