A rush to mine the deep ocean has environmentalists worried
Tiny Nauru is behind a push to fast-track talks on mining rules for the deep seabed, which could see fragile habitats opened to exploitation as early as 2023
UK needs to deliver on climate, not set higher 2030 target, say advisers
The Glasgow pact calls on countries to improve their 2030 plans next year but the Cop26 host's goal is already in line with 1.5C, the Climate Change Committee says
Morocco accused of “greenwashing occupation” of Western Sahara
The Polisario Front has released an unofficial climate plan for the Sahrawi people, saying Morocco has built wind and solar farms on their land without consent
UN shipping body considers zero emissions goal, defers decision to 2023
While the US, Japan and Panama backed setting a zero carbon shipping goal for 2050, emerging economies said rich countries needed to go first and provide finance
Why I am calling on EU lawmakers to put climate at the heart of agricultural policy
The proposed reform to the EU's farming subsidy programme continues a business-as-usual approach to farming that we cannot afford in a climate emergency
Nigeria commits to annual carbon budgets to reach net zero under climate law
After announcing a 2060 net zero goal at Cop26, the oil producing nation will set up a national council to oversee the implementation of its climate plan
Landmark Ruling Blocks Mining in Ecuadorian Forest, Citing Rights of Nature
Ecuador's constitutional court has blocked plans to mine copper and gold in Los Cedros, a protected cloud forest, ruling that the plans violate the rights of nature.
The U.S. generates more plastic waste than any other country, producing roughly 287 pounds of plastic per person per year, according to a new congressional report.
Why the Luster on Once-Vaunted 'Smart Cities' Is Fading
“Smart cities” built from scratch have so far failed to live up to their much-hyped promise. Some critics argue that rather than grafting a new city onto the landscape, it is better to integrate high-tech for clean, efficient energy and transportation into existing cities.
Emissions Fall in China, Rise in Europe Amid Covid Recovery
A tale of two continents: Europe's emissions rose by one fifth in the spring, as manufacturing and construction rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, in China, emissions scarcely grew in the spring and fell in the summer amid a shortage of coal and a slowdown in construction.
Nissan to Spend $18 Billion Developing a Cheaper, More Powerful EV Battery
Over the next five years, Nissan Motor Company will put 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) toward developing a cheaper, more powerful battery to serve its expanded lineup of electric vehicles, the company announced Monday.
No country has met welfare goals in past 30 years ‘without putting planet at risk’
No country has managed to meet the basic social needs of its population in the past 30 years without putting undue pressure on the Earth’s supply of natural resources, according to a study.
Former Coal Plant Site Being Transformed Into a '15-Minute City'
A decommissioned coal-fired power plant in a Toronto suburb will be developed into a small town with 8,000 housing units, as well as office buildings, shops, parks, and other amenities all within a 15-minute walking distance.
Why Putting Solar Canopies on Parking Lots Is a Smart Green Move
Solar farms are proliferating on undeveloped land, often harming ecosystems. But placing solar canopies on large parking lots offers a host of advantages — making use of land that is already cleared, producing electricity close to those who need it, and even shading cars.
New Study Shows Which Places Must Be Protected to Stave Off Catastrophic Climate Change
A new study maps out the old growth forests, peatlands, and mangroves that must be preserved to prevent catastrophic climate change. Though these areas cover only around 3 percent of land, they contain vast stores of carbon that, if unleashed, could not easily be recovered.
How to Repair the World’s Broken Carbon Offset Markets
Markets that connect businesses hoping to offset their carbon emissions with climate change mitigation projects have been plagued by problems. But an economist and his co-authors argue that carbon markets can be reformed and play a significant role in slowing global warming
Young Filipino Entrepreneur Looks to Build Southeast Asia's Biggest Solar Plant
Leandro Leviste, a 28-year-old Filipino entrepreneur, is planning to build what would be the largest solar installation in Southeast Asia, a 500-megawatt plant around 80 miles north of Manila, Bloomberg reported.
In the United States, armadillos were historically confined to Texas and the Deep South, but in recent years the hard-shelled mammals have been pushing north. Scientists believe that climate change has expanded their range by producing milder winters, allowing them to comfortably inhabit new areas, including parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains,The Guardian reported.
Glasgow Disappointed, But It Inched the World Forward on Climate
The UN climate agreement reached in Glasgow fell far short of what scientists say is needed, angering activists and many delegates. But the pact achieved progress, agreeing to toughen emissions targets by next year and to compensate developing nations for “loss and damage.”
UN Climate Agreement Is Reached, But Crucial Issues Remain Unresolved
The Glasgow climate conference reached a successful conclusion on Saturday, with almost 200 nations signing up unanimously to the Glasgow Climate Pact. The diplomatic success was palpable, but climatically the outcome was more ambiguous, with no new moves in the final hours to bridge the gap between the aspiration to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C and nations’ actual greenhouse gas emissions pledges on the table, which still would lead to future warming above 2 degrees C.
Major UN Climate Pact Is Reached, But Deal Does Not Put World on Target
A major agreement was struck in the overtime hours at the UN climate summit — a deal that does not set a course for adequately curbing emissions, reports our contributing writer Fred Pearce. Read the latest from Yale Environment 360’s coverage from the Glasgow conference.
As Glasgow Deadline Looms, Key Disputes Hold Up a Climate Agreement
The Glasgow climate conference edged toward a close on Friday, with agreement on a final declaration near. But detailed discussion on particular issues — especially finance for developing nations to cope with climate change — is widely expected to push the final session beyond the scheduled close at 6 p.m. local time Friday, and likely into Saturday.
An Ambitious U.S.-China Statement Galvanizes the Glasgow Summit
Delegates in Glasgow are applauding a joint statement from the United States and China delegations made on Wednesday evening that they believe can galvanize countries to up their game in the final hours of the conference. The “joint declaration on enhancing climate action in the 2020s” puts to one side the two countries’ mid-century commitments to net-zero emissions and instead focuses on the near-term action needed to drag down emissions during this decade.
Why Climate Change Could Put New Conservation Areas in Jeopardy
A global initiative to protect 30 percent of the earth’s land and oceans by 2030 is gaining momentum. But scientists warn that as the world warms, many conservation areas will become less and less suited to the types of species and ecosystems they were intended to protect.
Proposed Glasgow Accord Calls for Tougher Targets, Phasing Out Coal, and Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies
With ministers from around the world back in Glasgow to take control of negotiations, delegates at the UN climate talks Wednesday were digesting the first draft of the pact to be signed at the climate conference’s scheduled close on Friday. Having failed to persuade countries to up their commitments to meet the Paris target of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), the British hosts suggested that the agreement instead commit nations to having a second go in time for COP27 in Egypt at the end of next year.
Water War: Is Big Agriculture Killing Brazil’s Traditional Farms?
As streams and springs dry up, subsistence farmers in Brazil’s western Bahia are struggling to survive. They blame big agriculture for stealing their water for irrigation. But as climate change accelerates and drought increases, scientists disagree on who or what is to blame.
Work on the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) is underway. The Congressionally mandated report is the U.S. Government’s premier assessment of the science of climate change and its impacts on the Nation. It is written by hundreds of experts from around the country, who help ensure that the findings are accessible and useful to the widest...
The U.S. Global Change Research Program is pleased to announce that Allison Crimmins will serve as Director of the FIfth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). She is detailed to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation. As Director, Allison will oversee...
On May 19, 2021, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced that Dr. Mike Kuperberg is returning to USGCRP as Executive Director. This is his second stint in USGCRP leadership, having served previously as Executive Director from 2015 through November 2020. He is detailed from the Department of Energy’s Office of...
NASA, on behalf of USGCRP, issued a Federal Register Notice (FRN) seeking author nominations and scientific/technical inputs for the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). The FRN, which opened October 15, 2020 and closed the following month on November 14, also served as a notice of planned public engagement opportunities. Prospective authors...
Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, the latest in a series of spacecraft designed to monitor our oceans, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California on Saturday, November 21, 2020. The satellite will be followed in 2025 by its twin, Sentinel-6B. Together, the pair is tasked with extending our nearly 30-year-long record of global sea...
The U.S. Global Change Research Program extends our condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Mike Freilich, a widely respected geoscientist and former director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, and shares the loss of a longtime member of the USGCRP family.
Dr. Anthony Janetos, a longstanding member of the USGCRP community and Director of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, passed away on Tuesday, August 6, 2019. He was 64 years old. Dr. Janetos dedicated his career to interdisciplinary, policy-relevant global change science. Prior to the Pardee...
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is pleased to announce the release of Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) and the 2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR2). NCA4 Vol II NCA4 Vol II, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States , assesses a range of potential climate change-related impacts, with an...
The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) Vol. II remains on track for a December delivery in fulfillment of the Congressional mandate. NCA4 Vol. I, the Climate Science Special Report, is available at science2017.globalchange.gov. Final agency review and comment. Authors have been revising chapters and responding to comments submitted in the...
It’s been a while since our last update, but rest assured that we’ve been hard at work on Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4 Vol. II) in the meantime. Here’s a brief rundown of the goings-on: Public review and comment. This winter (November 3, 2017 through January 31, 2018), the public had the chance to weigh in on the draft...
The October contiguous U.S. average temperature was 56.97 degress Fahrenheit, 2.86 degress Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. The precipitation total was 3.11 inches, 0.95 inches above average.
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for October was 0.89 degrees C (1.60 degress Fahrenheit) above the 20th century average of 15.5 degrees C (59.9 degress Fahrenheit).
It was a slow start to the beginning of the 2021-22 snow season with less than one percent of snow cover across the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) until October 10. During mid-October, a potent cold front swept across the western U.S. and brought cold Canadian air and snow to portions of the Cascades, Bitterroots, Great Basin and central and northern Rockies. According to NOAA's National Snow Analysis, snow cover peaked for the month at about 12.
According to data from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, during October, there were 146 preliminary tornado reports. This is more than double the 1991-2010 average of 61 tornadoes for the month of October. This is also the second highest preliminary tornado count on record for October behind 2018. October was an active month for tornadoes with at least eight days reporting 10 or more tornadoes. There were also two EF-3 tornadoes reported on October 24 in Missouri and Illinois.
During October, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent (SCE) was 18.14 million square km (7.00 million square miles), 3.41% above the 1981-2010 average. The global sea ice extent was 24.40 million square km (9.42 million square miles), 7.72% below the 1981-2010 average.
The Atlantic hurricane season was relatively quiet in October. Major Hurricane Sam and Tropical Storm Victor both formed in September but continued into the first few days of October. In fact, Sam contributed most of the accumulated cyclone energy (ACE: an integrated metric of the strength, frequency, and duration of tropical storms) for October.
For October, 2,275 fires (5th least since 2000) burned 616,701 acres (2nd most on record), which is 271.1 acres burned/fire (2nd most on record). For January - October, 48,366 fires (5th least since 2000) burned 6,523,989 acres (10th least on record), which is 134.9 acres burned/fire (7th most on record).
The temperature and precipitation anomalies for the U.S. in October were driven in large part by a trough near the Pacific Northwest and a ridge near Hudson Bay. The trough was associated with strongly positive phases of the EPO and WPO throughout much of the month. The ridge was consistent with the strongly negative NAO, although it was shifted westward from its canonical position near Greenland.
Climate cost study authors accuse Bjørn Lomborg of misinterpreting results | Temperature Check
A key claim in a column by the Danish thinktank head frustrates scientists who modelled reducing emissions
Temperature Check is a weekly column examining claims about climate change made by governments, politicians, business and in the media. See the latest column and follow the series here
Poverty, not climate breakdown, caused Madagascar’s food crisis, finds study
But scientists say ‘moral imperative’ remains to prepare vulnerable populations for increasingly extreme weather
Poverty and a heavy reliance on annual rains are the key factors behind the devastating food crisis in southern Madagascar not climate breakdown, a new study finds.
A million people in the region are struggling for food following the worst drought in 30 years. But the scientific analysis did not show a convincing link to global heating, despite the World Food Programme describing it as the “world’s first climate-induced famine”.
Scientists attending Cop26 have sent a clear warning to policymakers: get a move on, because every moment of delay, every extra fraction of a degree of global heating will have dire consequences.
That message has been reinforced at Glasgow with reports, forums and discussions, but those involved in channelling the science to the world’s leaders are frustrated that words are still not being matched by actions.
Leading climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe: ‘You have the ability to use your voice’
Hayhoe says people can use their roles in their workplaces and communities to act on the climate crisis
Katharine Hayhoe has wrestled with her climate footprint. The climate scientist, who is now chief scientist for the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy, was shocked when she realized how much of her personal emissions came from work travel. But are these more justifiable because her work is educating people about the climate crisis?
There has long been a debate about how much individual actions matter when it comes to climate. The oil industry’s promotion of the concept of the carbon footprint has led some to believe that the whole idea is a huge distraction technique to divert attention from corporations driving the crisis. But as Greta Thunberg demonstrates, individuals can have a big impact, just not always in ways that can be measured.
Australia risks losing jobs to other countries if it fails to lift its below-average spending on research and development, a peak science body has warned, amid Scott Morrison’s vow to promote “technology not taxes” on climate policy.
Australia invests just 1.8% of its economic output in research and development, well behind the OECD average of 2.5%.
When the ambitious plan to allow sea water to flood over the Steart peninsula in Somerset was completed in 2014, critics called it a waste of money. Floods had recently blighted the nearby area, and some local people argued the £20m spent on creating a new 250-hectare (617-acre) salt marsh would have been better spent on other flood-prevention projects.
Seven years ago, the concept of “blue carbon” – how marine ecosystems store carbon – was in its infancy. Some research had looked at how mangrove forests absorb carbon, but little was known about how effective seagrass and salt marshes also were at absorbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Science Weekly podcast is in Glasgow, where we are bringing listeners daily episodes from Cop26. Each morning you will hear from one of the Guardian’s award-winning environment team. Today, host Madeleine Finlay talks to the Guardian’s energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose about plans to end coal use. And as Cop26 week one draws to a close U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry gives his thoughts
More than 40 countries agreed to phase out their use of coal-fired power, the dirtiest fuel source, in a boost to UK hopes of a deal to “keep 1.5C alive” at the Cop26 summit on Thursday.
Major coal-using countries including Canada, Poland, South Korea, Ukraine, Indonesia and Vietnam will phase out their use of coal for electricity generation, with the bigger economies doing so in the 2030s and smaller economies doing so in the 2040s. However, some of the world’s biggest coal-dependent economies, including Australia, China, India and the US, were missing from the deal, and experts and campaigners told the Guardian that the phase-out deadlines countries signed up to were much too late.
Climate depression is real. And it is spreading fast among our youth | Peter Kalmus
This is a crisis that cannot be solved by ‘positive messaging’. The only thing that will help is action from world leaders
If you are anything like me, you think of the climate emergency a lot. Possibly every waking hour. Perhaps you experience the psychological tension caused by feeling trapped between the truth of climate and ecological destruction on the one hand and inaction from world leaders on the other. I feel this tension myself, and as a parent and climate activist, I see it affecting young people especially hard.
We are in a growing epidemic of serious climate depression among young people. This is a crisis that cannot be solved by “positive messaging” any more than climate breakdown itself. Ultimately, the only thing that will help the mental and physical safety of every age group, including the young, is meaningful action from world leaders.
Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
The heatwaves and wildfires that caused devastation in Europe this summer would not have happened without global heating, new analysis shows.
The summer of 2021 was the hottest on record in the continent, with average temperatures about 1C above normal. The elevated heat caused wildfires and premature deaths.
Fiddling with plastics while the planet burns | Letters
Quentin Macfarlane regrets that we are not able to see the bigger picture of the crisis facing humanity; plus letters from Stephen Warde, Debbie Martyr and Tom Hardy
In his justifiably bleak piece (Capitalism is killing the planet – it’s time to stop buying into our own destruction, 30 October), George Monbiot claims that the existential crisis facing humanity has arisen in spite of our “greater intelligence” and “highly evolved consciousness”. In this aspect of his argument, he is wrong. Consciousness is an evolutionary process and, in terms of how far we have progressed, we are still in our infancy. As a result, we are not yet able to see the bigger picture and our place not only in the world but in the cosmos. We cannot think much beyond our next car, meal or overseas holiday – all of them contributors to systemic environmental collapse.
This is especially true of our political leaders, who cannot think much beyond the next election. Until we, as a species, attain a much higher level of consciousness, politicians are unlikely to place the planet ahead of economic interests, as this largely determines whether or not they hold on to power. It would be misplaced, therefore, to expect a major breakthrough on climate change any time soon. Monbiot rather dismisses the small things that we, as individuals, can do because, he argues, in the absence of seismic change, reducing our use of coffee cups or plastic makes little difference. Having not eaten meat for 15 years I’ve resolved this week of Cop26 to stop eating dairy. This small gesture will of course make not one iota of difference to climate change, but at least I can feel a little better about myself as we hurtle towards the apocalypse. Quentin Macfarlane Auchmithie, Angus
Dutch physicist who helped to identify the links between human-induced climate change and extreme weather disasters
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, who has died aged 59 of multiple myeloma, was co-founder and member of a team of scientists who identified — at speed and while politically a hot topic — the links between human-induced climate change and forest fires, heatwaves, drought, flood and other specific meteorological catastrophes.
This is trickier than it sounds. Extreme events have always happened, and for decades most climate scientists were not willing to say that this or that flood or heatwave was directly powered by ever-higher greenhouse gas emissions driven by profligate fossil fuel use. If they did, it was usually long after the event.
The big idea: Is democracy up to the task of climate change?
As elected governments fall short on their pledges, some look approvingly to the authoritarian playbook. Are they right?
It’s time to acknowledgea difficult truth: our democracies are failing us on the climate crisis. As world leaders meet for the crucial Glasgow summit, rhetorical commitments abound. But no government has a plan compatible with the goal that they have all agreed is critical to our collective future: limiting global average temperature rises to 1.5C. In some democracies, such as the UK, there is at least a consensus that something must be done; in others, such as Australia, Canada and the US, political debate rages over the most fundamental questions. Faced with a problem of these proportions, some are running out of patience. The veteran Earth scientist James Lovelock puts his faith in eco-authoritarianism. Climate change is so severe, he has said, that “it may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while”.
Lovelock may state this explicitly, but in my many years of work on climate policy and politics, I have been struck by how often people make the same argument implicitly. Bill Gates, in his breathlessly upbeat book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, describes how enlightened investment strategies from well-meaning entrepreneurs could save the day. No need to bother, he implies, with winning hearts, minds or votes. Then there are those who look approvingly towards China, a country where the very lack of democratic accountability, they argue, allows leaders to take tough and unpopular decisions. The common theme in all these accounts is that the public are not to be trusted – they do not understand, or care; they are too selfish, or too shortsighted. Better to let the experts decide.
We’re in uncharted territory for the world’s climate, UN says
Report sets out heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc this year
The climate crisis has driven the planet into “uncharted territory”, with far-reaching repercussions for today’s and future generations, according to the UN World Meteorological Organization. It said the Cop26 summit was a “make-or-break opportunity to put us back on track”.
The WMO’s State of the Global Climate report shows that the last seven years have been the hottest seven years on record, and that accelerating sea level rise hit new heights in 2021. It also sets out the heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods that have wreaked havoc across the planet this year and is intended to inform Cop26 negotiations.
Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe review – across the climate crisis divide
A scientist and gifted speaker makes a convincing case for calm, informed discussions in the race to avert catastrophe
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World is one of the more important books about climate change to have been written. Much of the literature to date feeds the appetite of readers who are already interested in the issue, but this book by Katharine Hayhoe, an internationally renowned climate scientist, could result in a massive expansion of interest in the subject.
Hayhoe is a gifted public speaker and Saving Us is a follow-up to her terrific Ted Talk in 2018, “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it”. It is an entertaining masterclass on the science of communication, which pulls no punches about the threat that humanity faces or the size of the task to avoid catastrophic consequences.
Cop26: Boris Johnson talks the talk but can he really deliver a climate deal?
This week’s talks in Glasgow will be a test of commitment. But there has been little hard diplomacy from Britain, the host nation, to ease the path to an agreement
Anyone who listened to Rishi Sunak’s budget speech last Wednesday could be forgiven for concluding that there is nothing particularly urgent for people to worry about – economically or existentially – on the climate front.
The chancellor was 35 minutes into his third budget address to MPs before he even alluded to matters environmental. And when a reference finally came it was a fairly brief one – to the government’s “ambitious net zero strategy” – of which he is said to be no great fan. Throughout the entire budget, Sunak did not use the phrase “climate change” once.
Prof Peter Stott: ‘Denialists question the cost of climate action … doing nothing costs far more’
The veteran scientist on Trump’s limited impact, Russia’s ruthless climate stance and on the urgency of COP26 in Glasgow
Prof Peter Stott is a forensic climate detective who examines the human fingerprint on extreme weather. A specialist in mathematics, he leads the climate monitoring and attribution team of the Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services at the Met Office in Exeter and was part of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that won the Nobel peace prize in 2007. Since he started in the field more than 25 years ago, Stott has often found himself on the frontline of the battle against the fossil fuel lobby, petrostates and sceptical rightwing US politicians, which he details in his new book. Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. He is also exploring new forms of scientific expression and is co-founder, with his wife, of the Climate Stories initiative, which brings artists, scientists and members of the public together to respond to the climate emergency by creating new poems, songs and pictures.
You have spent a quarter of a century in climate science. On a personal level, how does that feel? At times I have felt exhilarated about the progress of our science and hopeful that it will be acted on. In other moments, I felt dispirited that our warnings were ignored, such as at Copenhagen in 2009, or worried when we were attacked as in Moscow in 2004, or in the US and UK after Climategate. At those times, I felt I was uncovering an uncomfortable truth and there were people who were literally trying to stop me from saying it. Now I feel anxious that the clock is ticking on the whole issue. Another very hot year has gone by and there is no sign of action that is sufficient to change the data trends. That makes me concerned about the science I have spent 26 years doing. I hoped this work would make the world a better place, but I am increasingly anxious that this will not happen in time.
Capitalism is killing the planet – it’s time to stop buying into our own destruction | George Monbiot
Instead of focusing on ‘micro consumerist bollocks’ like ditching our plastic coffee cups, we must challenge the pursuit of wealth and level down, not up
There is a myth about human beings that withstands all evidence. It’s that we always put our survival first. This is true of other species. When confronted by an impending threat, such as winter, they invest great resources into avoiding or withstanding it: migrating or hibernating, for example. Humans are a different matter.
When faced with an impending or chronic threat, such as climate or ecological breakdown, we seem to go out of our way to compromise our survival. We convince ourselves that it’s not so serious, or even that it isn’t happening. We double down on destruction, swapping our ordinary cars for SUVs, jetting to Oblivia on a long-haul flight, burning it all up in a final frenzy. In the back of our minds, there’s a voice whispering, “If it were really so serious, someone would stop us.” If we attend to these issues at all, we do so in ways that are petty, tokenistic, comically ill-matched to the scale of our predicament. It is impossible to discern, in our response to what we know, the primacy of our survival instinct.
Cop26: Humanity 5-1 down at half-time on climate crisis, says Johnson
Prime minister on way to Italy says our civilisation could mimic the decline of the Roman empire ‘unless we get this right’
Boris Johnson has likened the globe’s battle against the climate emergency to a football team losing 5-1 at half-time, as he flew to Rome for a world leaders’ gathering seen as crucial for setting the tone for next week’s Cop26 climate summit.
Speaking to reporters on the flight to Italy for the G20 meeting, Johnson conceded that he had not always been convinced about climate change, and that his mind had been changed in part by a briefing given by government scientific advisers soon after he became prime minister.
For humanity to survive, we must make Australia's politicians feel our fear and rage | Peter Garrett and Paul Gilding
Australia needs a mass citizens’ movement, bringing together friend and foe, farmer and city dweller, across generations
There are no climate deniers any more. Whatever anger we feel at the opportunities missed, we still celebrate that the battle of ideas, at least, is won.
Now there are climate hawks and climate doves. Hawks see a global emergency and the need to mobilise as if human civilisation is at stake. Doves – the moderates in the business community and governments who serve their interests – see a serious environmental problem that we should address, but slowly and without too much disruption, especially to them.
Could planting a trillion trees help stop global heating? This man thinks so
Former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong has founded a company, Terraformation, aiming to reforest 3bn acres but others doubt that trees are a magic bullet for the climate crisis
In 2017, Yishan Wong was ready to retire in Hawaii after leaving behind his career in Silicon Valley. The CEO of Reddit until 2014, Wong had previously held senior positions at Facebook and PayPal. But then came what he calls the “moment” when he decided he was going to take on the climate crisis instead.
“I was literally on a beach trying to retire, and it was too hot,” he said. Temperatures in Hawaii at the time were abnormally high, and he thought: “The planet has a climate change problem. I need to solve it.”
Photographer James Balog gives an overview of his career in his big new book, “The Human Element: A Time Capsule From the Anthropocene.”
For many travelers at Denver International Airport, seeing James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey—timelapses constructed from hundreds of photos of glaciers retreating around the world, which ran for years on screens in the airport’s terminals—highlighted a contradiction. Viewers could watch the rivers of ice that are critical to the Earth’s ability to support life vanish before their eyes on their way to and from flights that are one of the drivers of the warming melting the glaciers.
A smelting company in Norilsk, a Russian city of 176,000 residents north of the Arctic Circle, is responsible for pollution that has carved a barren landscape of dead and dying trees out of the taiga, a boreal forest that is one of the world’s largest carbon sinks. Its wastewater has turned glacial rivers red. The acrid smoke that pours from its stacks carries the worst sulfur dioxide pollution in the world. And last year, 6.5 million gallons of diesel fuel spilled from the company’s complex into the Daldykan River.
Despite its environmental harms, the company, Norilsk Nickel, plans to increase production of metals for the “green economy” because electric vehicle batteries pose a major growth opportunity. The company has said it will spend billions of dollars to tackle the air pollution that has poisoned the landscape and reduced the quality of life in the Norilsk region, pledging to reduce sulfur dioxide pollution at Norilsk 45 percent by 2023 and 90 percent by 2025. Yet former workers who have confronted the company for its environmental wrongdoings doubt those goals will be achieved.
A column highlighting climate-related studies, innovations, books, cultural events and other developments from the global warming frontier.
By Katelyn Weisbrod
Around 70 percent of noble fir seedlings in the Pacific Northwest died this summer, after a harsh drought combined with an unprecedented, climate change-driven heatwave in June that drove temperatures to as high as 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The species makes up the majority of the Christmas tree crop in the region.
“The trees just couldn’t keep up with the water loss,” said Chal Landgren, a Christmas tree specialist at Or
The seven justices of the Constitutional Court found that mining activities pursued by a state mining company and its Canadian partner threatened the Los Cedros protected area’s right to exist and flourish.
By Katie Surma
Mining in a protected region of the Ecuadorian rainforest violates the rights of nature, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday, in a landmark decision interpreting the country’s constitutional provisions that grant rights and confer protections to ecosystems.
Today's Climate - New York’s Clean Energy Transmission Lines Inch Forward
Today's Climate - New York’s Clean Energy Transmission Lines Inch Forward
A twice-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-related news, released every Tuesday and Friday, written by Kristoffer Tigue.
New York’s Clean Energy Transmission Lines Inch Forward
New York has taken a step closer to achieving its ambitious climate goals while also rekindling a national debate over the harm and benefits of building massive transmission lines to carry renewable energy. To close the week, Today’s Climate is digging a little deeper into the issues surrounding these largely buried power lines.
On Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state has finalized its contracts with the developers of the Clean Path New York and Champlain Hudson Power Express projects, sending the contracts to state regulators for approval by next year. If approved, the two transmission lines could put New York on track to meet its legally binding targets of getting 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and 100 percent by 2040.
Together, the two lines are expected to provide 11,000 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 5 million New York homes. Clean Path New York would carry electricity 179 miles from solar and offshore wind farms in upstate New York down to the city. And the Champlain Hudson Power Express would deliver hydroelectric power 339 miles from Canada into New York. Both lines would be mostly buried underground.
“The stakes have never been higher for New York as we confront the effects of climate change and the economic and environmental destruction that extreme weather events leave behind,” Hochul said in a press release. “I’m proud that New York continues to lead the nation with innovative green energy initiatives and has set a global example of what must be done to take on climate change.”
The projects, which are expected to cost several billion dollars each, could also be critical in weaning power-hungry New York City off of fossil fuels, an effort that remains one of the largest barriers the state faces in meeting its climate mandates. New York City is the most energy-consuming area in the state and relies most heavily on fossil fuels for its power. With the closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant in April, the city now gets a mere 3 percent of its electricity from sources that don’t produce greenhouse gases, the New York Times reports.
But the proposed transmission lines have also been criticized by environmentalists and social justice activists, who say the projects could threaten aquatic life and riverside communities, and that dams have historically harmed Indigenous communities in Canada.
Environmentalists warn that as the construction of the lines pass through bodies of water, it can contaminate drinking water by stirring up harmful sediments, including mercury or a toxic group of chemicals named PFAS—so-called “forever chemicals.” High levels of mercury have also been known to build up behind dams, poisoning people who eat fish or game caught downstream.
Those concerns are partly why Maine residents voted last month to block a similar transmission line, the New England Clean Energy Connect project, which would carry electricity from Canadian dams 145 miles to Northeastern states. Several environmental groups wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week, requesting the agencies suspend federal permits already issued for that project.
It’s unclear if those criticisms could derail New York’s transmission lines, but with most of the permits for the projects already approved, Gov. Hochul appears to think that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Thanks for reading Today’s Climate, and I’ll see you again next week.
Today’s Indicator
Measured in metric tons, that’s the amount of plastic waste that enters the world’s oceans each year, or the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences.
Heat waves could soon be named and ranked for severity, similar to how forecasters treat tropical storms, according to legislation that California lawmakers plan to introduce to the state legislature in January, The Washington Post reports.
Ecuador’s highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature, a decision that advances a growing legal movement that says nature has its own right to exist, The Guardian reports.
Soaring commodity prices and supply chain bottlenecks are threatening to push up the cost of batteries, which could complicate efforts to transition to clean energy sources in the fight to slow climate change, Bloomberg reports.
Predominantly Latino residents in Grand Prairie, west of Dallas, say they’ve been told little or nothing about air, soil and groundwater poisoned by TCE, a known human carcinogen.
By Alejandra Martinez, KERA
First in a series with KERA in Dallas on the Delfasco Forge Superfund site in Grand Prairie, Texas, produced with the support of Investigative Editing Corps in a pilot project with Report for America.
A Canadian company wants to use compressed air to store energy in California.
By Dan Gearino
A grid that runs mostly on wind and solar, part of the future that clean energy advocates are working toward, will need lots of long-duration energy storage to get through the dark of night and cloudy or windless days.
A report from leading scientists found that the U.S. is the world’s leading generator of plastic waste, at 287 pounds per capita. It’s clogging the oceans, and poisoning plankton and whales.
By James Bruggers
The United States leads the world in the generation of plastic waste and needs a comprehensive strategy by the end of next year to curb its devastating impacts on ocean health, marine wildlife and communities, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concludes.
A grid that runs mostly on wind and solar, part of the future that clean energy advocates are working toward, will need lots of long-duration energy storage to get through the dark of night and cloudy or windless days.
Hydrostor, a Canadian company, has filed applications in the last week with California regulators to build two plants to meet some of that need using “compressed air energy storage.” The plants would pump compressed air into underground caverns and later release the air to turn a turbine and produce electricity.
The stored energy would be able to generate hundreds of megawatts of electric power for up to eight hours at a time, with no fossil fuels and no greenhouse gas emissions. Long-duration storage includes systems that can discharge electricity for eight hours or more, as opposed to lithium-ion battery storage, which typically runs for up to four hours.
This project and technology have potentially huge implications for the push to develop long-duration energy storage. But the key word is “potentially,” because there are many companies and technologies vying for a foothold in this rapidly growing part of the energy economy, and the results so far have been little more than research findings and hype.
“Their technology is not overly complicated,” said Mike Gravely, a manager of energy systems research for the California Energy Commission, speaking in general about CAES. “Compressed air is a very simple concept.”
The main challenge, as with so many clean energy technologies, is to get the costs low enough to justify building many of the plants.
Hydrostor, founded in 2010 and based in Toronto, has completed two small plants in the Toronto area, including a 1.75-megawatt storage plant that can run for about six hours at a time.
The company’s system begins with an industrial scale air compressor that runs on electricity and sucks in air from the environment. The compression of air produces heat, which the system removes and stores in a thermal storage vessel.
Meanwhile, the compressed air flows through a pipe into a cavern more than 1,000 feet below the surface. The cavern would be excavated for the project, as opposed to natural caves providing the storage.
To discharge the energy, the system releases water into the cavern, which forces the air to the surface, where it mixes with the heat that had been stored. The heated air then flows through turbines to produce electricity.
Hydrostor filed an application last week for a plant, called Pecho Energy Storage Center, that would be located in San Luis Obispo County and cost $800 million. It would have a generating capacity of 400 megawatts, with a duration of up to eight hours.
The company then filed an application on Wednesday for the second plant, called Gem Energy Storage Center, that would be located just east of the Pecho plant in Kern County and cost $975 million. It would have a generating capacity of 500 megawatts, with a duration of up to eight hours.
The projects, both of which could be built as soon as 2026, would help the region replace some of the electricity that now comes from Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County, which is scheduled to close by 2025.
“Long-duration energy storage is one of the cornerstone solutions to a carbon-free renewable energy future,” Hydrostor said.
The Bakersfield Californian reported in April that the Gem plant’s customers would include the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the operator of the state’s power grid.
But Hydrostor does not list a buyer for the electricity from the Pecho plant. This is a key detail that will help determine whether the project is financially viable. Asked about potential customers, a Hydrostor spokesman referred to a recent interview with the company’s president, Jon Norman, who said that talks are ongoing with potential buyers and that the company hopes to announce details “in the near term.”
Compressed air energy storage is not a new concept. A 290-megawatt compressed air storage plant went online in 1978 in Huntorf, Germany, and remains in operation today. Another went online in 1991 in McIntosh, Alabama, with a capacity of 110 megawatts. Both plants use a version of the technology that relies on natural gas to produce electricity.
For decades, researchers have seen the promise of compressed air storage and tried to develop a way to do it without fossil fuels. The results were disappointing, with projects that were announced but never completed, including one by the California utility PG&E in the early 2010s. PG&E said in a 2018 report that it found the technology to be promising, but couldn’t find the right partner to build the project at an acceptable price.
The difference today is that companies say they have learned how to build more efficient systems.
“They’re getting better because they’re making smarter designs,” said Gravely, of the energy commission, whose job gives him a close-up view of the evolution of storage technologies.
The big difference between Hydrostor’s proposals and the compressed air plants in Germany and Alabama is the way heat is stored for reuse, which is more efficient than allowing the heat to escape into the atmosphere as waste. In contrast, the older plants release much of their heat and then burn natural gas to produce additional heat later in the process.
Edward Barbour, of Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, has written about the push to develop “adiabatic” CAES, the term for the approach to heat management that Hydrostor is using.
Barbour said it’s a positive sign that Hydrostor is announcing the projects, but he’s also mindful of the history of companies like the now-defunct Lightsail Energy that announced plans for systems that were never built.
“I'm crossing my fingers that this will be different,” he said.
One difference today is the strength of demand for long-duration storage, with California officials and others recognizing the great need for energy resources to fill in the gaps of a grid that relies heavily on wind and solar.
In June, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a plan to require utilities to develop or buy 11,500 megawatts of new electricity resources that would come online from 2023 to 2026, including 1,000 megawatts of long-duration storage.
This requirement, along with California’s previous support for energy storage research, has made the state a proving ground for storage technologies.
“We probably have the most diverse portfolios of anybody in the world right now, particularly long-duration storage,” said Gravely.
The Energy Storage Association has a good rundown of the technologies being developed, such as long-duration batteries; mechanical storage systems—a category that includes compressed air storage—and systems that use electricity to produce hydrogen for storage and later use.
The new, long-duration storage systems would be in addition to a resource that is already well-established: pumped hydroelectric storage: systems that charge by pumping water to a high elevation and then discharge by releasing the water through turbines. There are 21.9 gigawatts of pumped hydro storage in the United States, and California leads all other states with 3.7 gigawatts.
“It’s a very exciting time now,” Gravely said. “I get calls weekly from companies looking to come to California from all over the world, because they know that’s where the market is, and they want to come here and demonstrate and go back to wherever they came from and sell more.”
Photo Courtesy of Hydrostor
Other stories about the energy transition to take note of this week:
Global Renewables Market is Accelerating, with China Poised to Be the Leader: The International Energy Agency issued a report Wednesday about the global market for renewable energy, showing that the world is on track to add a record 290 gigawatts of renewables this year. The report shows that China is on track to be the leader in renewable energy installations for the next few years, followed by Europe, the United States and India, as Anmar Frangoul reports for CNBC. The forecast includes revisions from last year that show an acceleration in IEA’s view of the pace of growth of renewables. The prices of some renewable energy components have risen this year, but this has not been enough to slow momentum.
New York Faces Big Challenges to Get to 100 Percent Clean Energy: New York has some of the most ambitious climate and clean energy goals of any state, but to meet them it will need to overcome some major challenges in the way electricity gets delivered within the state. Much of the electricity used in New York is produced in rural parts of the state or in other states and then transported to the New York City metro area by transmission lines. To increase the state’s use of renewable energy, the state will need to build many more lines, something that is politically challenging because communities tend to oppose the projects, according to Anne Barnard and Grace Ashford of The New York Times.
China’s Wind Turbine Makers Look to Expand in Global Markets: Chinese wind turbine manufacturers dominate the large market in their home country, but they have not been nearly as active in the rest of the world. That may be changing because China’s Goldwind and others are planning to expand in ways that would challenge turbine manufacturers like General Electric and Vestas, Bloomberg News reports. Goldwind has said it will be able to “run shoulder by shoulder” with its major overseas competitors, starting next year.
Norilsk in the Russian Arctic is Severely Polluted as It Shifts to Provide Metals for the Clean Energy Economy: Norilsk, Russia, is one of the most polluted places on Earth following generations of damage by a metal smelting company. Now, the company has the potential to grow because of demand for nickel and other metals used in lithium-ion batteries and other products that are part of the clean energy economy, as my colleague Marianne Lavelle reports. But the processes used in the production of metals in Norilsk are still immensely harmful for the air and water in a sensitive ecosystem, and the company and government are doing little to reduce the damage.
Inside Clean Energy is ICN’s weekly bulletin of news and analysis about the energy transition. Send news tips and questions to dan.gearino@insideclimatenews.org.
The legislation would increase tax breaks for carbon capture and carbon removal by 70 percent, potentially yielding payouts large enough to wipe out some companies’ income tax bills.
By Nicholas Kusnetz
With the Senate turning its attention to President Joe Biden’s climate and social policy bill in the coming weeks, lawmakers are poised to expand a key tax credit that energy industry lobbyists and some experts say could unleash an important climate tool.
Today's Climate - Despite Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, Big Challenges Remain
Today's Climate - Despite Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, Big Challenges Remain
A twice-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-related news, released every Tuesday and Friday, written by Kristoffer Tigue.
Despite Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, Big Challenges Remain
You’re reading Today’s Climate, and Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting North Carolina this week to promote the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was signed into law earlier this month.
Harris will visit the Tar Heel State on Thursday, the Charlotte Observer reports, accompanied by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, hoping to sell the $1.2 trillion package as a win for the administration in a state that voted for Donald Trump by just 1 percentage point over Joe Biden in 2020.
In many ways, swing states like North Carolina could play a key role in how successful the United States is in terms of slashing its greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of the worsening climate crisis. The Congressional makeup after next year’s midterms, as well as who gets elected president in 2024, will largely determine the kind of climate policy the nation pursues in the coming decades. Currying favor among swing state constituents now could also help Democrats pass their flagship climate legislation—the nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act—the fate of which still hangs in limbo.
North Carolina stands to gain plenty from the infrastructure bill. With some $550 billion in new federal spending to draw from, the state could grab upwards of $8 billion to go toward its roads, bridges, public transportation, electric vehicle charging stations and broadband internet. In fact, government heads from across the country are already vying to pay for their own projects with the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants up for grabs under the infrastructure law, according to a report from McClatchy DC Bureau.
Yet even with the passage of Biden’s infrastructure package, many big challenges remain. As climate change causes seas to rise and storms to become more severe and frequent, the cost of upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges and energy infrastructure will only continue to grow, The Washington Post reports.
In many cases, the risks from global warming could cost as much as $20 billion a year to manage by the end of the century—a sum equivalent to about 40 percent of current federal road spending—according to the 2018 federal climate change assessment.
The timetable the Biden administration has laid out for the new spending is also incredibly ambitious and could be difficult to accomplish, the New York Times reports, with much of the $550 billion aimed to be spent in as little as five years.
The construction industry is facing sharply growing costs for steel products, up by 142 percent in the last 12 months, and other key materials. And shortages of skilled labor are worsening, exacerbated by Covid-induced retirements. In addition to lengthy environmental reviews, all these factors will likely slow down progress of allocating money to infrastructure projects.
Meeting that timetable would mean approving and distributing an additional $100 billion per year compared to what federal, state and local agencies were handling in 2019, before the pandemic.
“It is a very big bump,” Ken Simonson, chief economist at Associated General Contractors of America, which represents major infrastructure builders, told the Times. “My guess is that we are not going to see $550 billion spent in the first five years.”
Thanks for reading Today’s Climate, and I’ll see you again Friday.
Today’s Indicator
That’s the portion of Republican voters who said addressing climate change is a top personal concern, according to a May poll by the Pew Research Center.
Newly released government data show that the European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 18 percent in the spring of 2021 compared to the same period last year, as pandemic-related lockdowns let up, The Hill reports.
A new study found that a large number of fashion giants, including brands such as Coach, H&M and Nike, have multiple connections to tanneries and other leather goods companies that contribute to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, The Guardian reports.
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