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Qatar will withdraw from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Qatar's Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi announced on Monday. The decision to quit the bloc of 15 oil-producing countries that account for almost half of the world's oil production was confirmed by Qatar Petroleum, the country's state oil company.

A simple molecule in the atmosphere that acts as a "detergent" to breakdown methane and other greenhouse gases has been found to recycle itself to maintain a steady global presence in the face of rising emissions, according to new NASA research. Understanding its role in the atmosphere is critical for determining the lifetime of methane, a powerful contributor to climate change. The hydroxyl (OH) radical, a molecule made up of one hydrogen atom, one oxygen atom with a free (or unpaired) electron is one of the most reactive gases in the atmosphere and regularly breaks down other gases, effectively ending...

Climatologists find familiar fluctuations in Pacific's past - test. “During past ice ages the tropical Pacific Ocean behaved rather as it does today in an El Niño event, bringing downpours to some places and drought to others.” Thus began a 2002 article Nature magazine (12 Jul 2002) For example, it could explain the low atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, during the last ice age. It is not clear whether this was a cause or a consequence of the difference in global climate, but such decreases would have lowered global temperatures still further,...

In a telegram earlier Monday, Putin had "stressed that the results of the vote fully speak of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's great political authority..." © Provided by AFP In a telegram earlier Monday, Putin had "stressed that the results of the vote fully speak of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's great political authority..." Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his re-election triumph in a phone call, after saying the result showed the Turkish leader's "great political authority" and mass support. On the call Putin and Erdogan confirmed their interest in "deepening partnership ties between the two...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making a move to open up Germany's market to U.S. gas companies, following a lobbying push from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported. Merkel told a group of lawmakers over breakfast in October that her government will co-finance a $576 million liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping terminal in northern Germany, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the meeting. The project had been stalled for years, but Trump has lobbied hard for Europe to increase LNG purchases from the U.S. while reducing their reliance on Russia. Germany gets most of its gas from Russia,...

BIERE, Switzerland - Cows burp and fart more than they need to, according to a Swiss firm that says it has developed a feed that cuts methane emissions from livestock - helping to combat global warming into the bargain. A single cow produces the equivalent of about three tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, says Agolin, based in Biere, near Lausanne. Co-founder and managing director Kurt Schaller told Reuters its specialist feed can reduce that by 10 percent. "We sell our mixture for around 1 million cows per year... There are 25-28 million cows in the European Union, so it...

“Germany is totally controlled by Russia … They will be getting between 60 and 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that is appropriate because I think its not,” Trump said. The U.S. president was speaking at a press conference in front of NATO representatives ahead of a two-day summit. The Trump administration’s policies indicate it views security and trade as intimately linked. And when it comes to the trade balance, no ally will be spared. Speaking in Brussels, Belgium on the first leg of his European trip, the U.S. president...

One Trump Administration achievement has been liberating U.S. energy producers of all kinds from federal shackles. Companies have responded with jobs and investment, but all of a sudden the Administration wants to do a Barack Obama imitation and play energy favorites. The National Security Council on Friday reviewed a 41-page internal memo, leaked to Bloomberg News, suggesting that President Trump invoke emergency authority to require grid operators to buy nuclear and coal power. But there’s no emergency, and the political intervention will do more harm than good. *** The supposed problem is that the U.S. is producing an abundance of...

Fertilisers washing into lakes could increase methane emissions, potentially undoing progress in addressing climate change. The biggest human influence on climate change and global warming is the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now research published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters is the first to show how the size of lakes and the nutrients in their waters from fertilisers are contributing to that influence. "Our research pioneers a new way of determining the global atmospheric effect of lakes using satellite information on lake greenness and size distribution," said Professor John Downing. "Our research team assembled the largest...

Earth’s surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions. A revised calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature reduces the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half, researchers said in the report, published in the journal Nature. “Our study all but rules out very low and very high climate sensitivities,” said lead author Peter Cox, a professor at the University of Exeter. How effectively the world slashes CO2 and methane emissions, improves energy efficiency,...

What Happens When You Don't Build Natural Gas Pipelines? Jude Clemente , CONTRIBUTOR The answer to the question posed is a really, really bad chain reaction: magnified during winter and peak demand...with a pipeline shortage...a natural gas shortage is created, prices for both natural gas and electricity skyrocket, CO2 emissions go up because more carbon intensive fuels are forced to compensate. Headquartered in New York, New Jersey, and New England (hereafter the "Northeast"), the devastating consequences of the anti-pipeline business just reared its ugly head again as we faced the coldest temperatures since The Polar Vortex of 2013-2014. Two of...

Farting, breaking wind, cutting the cheese, or gas. The English language has numerous words for flatulence and this is even before we devolve into the subcategories that make up the genre. Whatever you call it, farting is a taboo act, but it is also a source of fascination. It’s not for nothing that there is a popular children’s book series called Fart Squad or that the preview of the most recent installment of the Alvin and the Chipmunks dynasty led with the punchline, “Sorry, pizza toots.” Today farting is something for which we perfunctorily ask forgiveness, but in the past...

The Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge Wednesday to immediately enforce new restrictions on the release of potent methane emissions at oil and gas drilling operations on public land. The ruling came at the behest of California and other states, which charged the administration is required by law to enforce the new rules intended to cut the release of 175,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas annually, as well as reduce the emission of associated toxic pollutants. The Interior Department had been delaying enforcement as it mapped out a strategy to rescind the new rules, which industry has...

If you had plans for the weekend, a Christian numerologist says you won’t get to them because the world is about to end. David Meade, a self-proclaimed “researcher,” is predicting that a series of apocalyptic events will begin on Sept. 23 and, “a major part of the world will not be the same.” According to Meade, the mysterious rogue planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, is on a collision course with Earth, which will bring world-ending tsunamis and earthquakes. The numerologist claims the dates of recent events like the Great American Solar Eclipse and Hurricane Harvey’s flooding of Texas...

To honor cats on the International Cat Day, DW encourages their human companions to protect the planet we all share. From carbon pawprint to waste to wildlife, it is in our hands to take up better practices. Your cat’s sweet purring and loving, contented looks won’t change the fact that it’s guilty for the planet’s suffering — just like we are. A recent study confirms that pets’ meat-based diet has a fatal impact on the climate, due mainly to high carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, our loyal friends are big resource consumers and waste creators. The situation is particularly worrisome...

The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court Friday to hold off from enforcing its decision to allow Obama-era methane rules for fracking to move forward as it weighs its options for appeal. The agency asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for "relief from immediate compliance" with its Monday ruling, which said Trump's EPA lacked the legal authority to delay the methane rules on oil and natural gas drillers for two years while it mulled repealing the rule.

WASHINGTON — Dealing another legal blow to the Trump administration, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot suspend an Obama-era rule to restrict methane emissions from new oil and gas wells.The 2-to-1 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the first major legal setback for Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, who is trying to roll back dozens of Obama-era environmental regulations. The ruling signals that President Trump’s plans to erase his predecessor’s environmental record are likely to face an uphill battle in the courts.

An Arctic methane explosion that took place close to 12,000 years ago resulted in several large craters at the bottom of the ocean, a new study has discovered. But what stands out as interesting is the fact that thousands of years later, gas is still seeping out slowly from the seafloor. The study published earlier this week in the journal Science details yet another set of findings regarding these explosions that took place over the past thousands of years. And with climate change very much a hot-button topic these days, scientists are wondering whether it’s possible that these Arctic methane...

Researchers have discovered hundreds of huge craters, with many over 3,000 feet wide, on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The craters in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, formed through huge mounds full of methane exploding suddenly and catastrophically around 12,000 years ago, and are still leaking methane. Scientists say the discovery could help explain why so many craters have appeared in Siberia over recent decades, with the same processes causing these explosive events. ... he Arctic ocean floor hosts vast amounts of methane trapped as hydrates, which are ice-like, solid mixtures of gas and water. These...

Three Republicans joined Senate Democrats on Wednesday to reject an effort to overturn an Obama administration rule limiting methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling. Only 49 senators voted to move forward with debate on legislation to undo the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule, short of the 51 votes needed. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined all 48 members of the Democratic caucus in rejecting the resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Graham and Collins had previously publicized their plans to vote against the legislation. But McCain’s vote came as a...