Contrary to what was hoped for, global CO2 emissions actually increased in 2018.
Every major city in Europe is warmer in the 21st century than it was in the 20th. In December 2015, 195 member states of the UN agreed in the Paris Agreement to limit the temperature increase to 1.5â°C above preindustrial levels. For several cities on the Iberian Peninsula, this 1.5â°C threshold has already been reached.
In Lisbon â situated on the Atlantic Coast â the average temperature increased 0.5â°C and the number of hot days (24-hour average temperature above 24â°C) nearly doubled since 2000.
Even limited temperature increases have severe consequences. A hotter atmosphere can absorb more water leading to severe floods between longer and dryer periods. Heatwaves lead to excess mortality and mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever has been creeping North with epidemics in Portugal in 2012. Recent research shows that when the daily temperature increases above 22â°C, cognitive abilities of schoolchildren decrease.
The expectations are that the Mediterranean will heat up more than the global mean, resulting in a substantial decrease in the production of hydroelectric energy of which Portugal is more dependent than the Northern European countries.
Although Portugal had in 2018 the highest reduction in CO2 emissions of all EU member states, CO2 emissions of its national airline TAP Â skyrocketed in the last 2 years. This was mainly the result of an explosive 30% increase in the number of passengers.
Booming tourism has become the main money-spinner generating annually more than ⏠14 billion in government revenues but the downside is pollution.
Portela airport â with more than 650 flight movements per day – knows few restrictions for night flights with planes coming in just a hundred meters above rooftops.
Ultrathin particles are 20 times higher close to the airport than elsewhere in the city. Measurements of inner-city noise levels taken by the environmental group ZERO showed noise pollution for more than 400.000 people with levels above the legal limits of more than 16 dB at night and 10 dB during daytime.
About 300 giant cruise ships – with at least 600.000 passengers to embark – are every year docking at a brand-new (⏠50 million) terminal. Even though only 2 years old there is no portside electricity for the moored vessels.
Massive amounts of particulate matter and sulphur dioxide (SO2) have made Lisbonâs port the sixth most polluting in Europe.
SO2 emissions from those ships are 85% higher than those emitted by Portugalâs entire car traffic over a year.
Climate change can only be achieved by keeping hydrocarbons in the ground and capturing carbon from the atmosphere. Neither option has produced any result so far.
In order to prevent global warming catastrophe policymakers have to get serious about a carbon tax set high enough to price oil, coal and gas out of the market says William Nordhaus, one of the winners of last yearâs Nobel Prize for economics.
Bom fim de semana         Enjoy your weekend      (pic PĂșblico/Observador)
Portugalâs oldest tree – 3350 years old – can be admired in Mouriscas, the municipality of Abrantes. As one of the oldest trees in the world, it has provided shadow to innumerous people, from Celts to Romans and from Visigoths to Arabs. This monumental olive tree is not only a contemporary from pharaoh Ramses II and Moses (1250 years B.C) but also from you and me.
Another recent breakthrough in the green world has been the unraveling by Portuguese scientists of the 
It was on the 21st of March last year that the 234- year- old cork oak from Ăguas de Moura, a small village in the district of Palmela, was declared â
The Portuguese entry for this yearâs event – since 2011 organized by the Environmental Partnership Organisation (EPA) in which 15 European countries participate – is once again an oak. This time the 150- year-old