Bezos’ Billion-dollar Bet
Forge the Future #38
Welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly guide to all things climate.
The trend of carbon neutrality pledges is spreading, with Delta Airlines pledging to go carbon neutral globally from March - claiming to be the first major airline to do so. Orsted, one of the biggest wind farm developers in the world, is also looking to make its supply chain carbon neutral by 2040 (its core business will, it says, be carbon neutral by 2025). This would eliminate one of the last major sources of emissions for the wind industry - the manufacture and installation of the equipment.
The big one, however, is BP, long renowned as a bastion of greenwashing, who’ve declared under their new CEO that they will be net zero by 2050. They’ve released few details thus far, but it will include stopping their ‘corporate reputation advertising’ (whatever that consists of). It could be a change of face, but given they’ve made clean energy pledges before, we’ll need to see some concrete details before trusting them too much on this.
State of the Climate
CO2 levels this week: 414.40 ppm
This time last year: 412.70 ppm
A new Greenpeace report has found that 4 million premature deaths are associated with fossil fuel pollution per year, costing the global economy $8bn per day. Our World in Data released updated figures on the safety of different forms of energy. For each TWh of energy produced, coal kills around 25 people, versus 0.07 for nuclear, and 0.035 and 0.029 for wind and solar. The graphs highlight that though gas may be better than coal, ultimately there are no good forms of fossil fuel. A study on air pollution in the US found that around half of pollution-related deaths occurred due to pollution from out of state - not great news for a country with wildly differing attitudes towards fossil fuels across state boundaries.
The Antarctic has broken another temperature record, with a temperature of 20.75°C recorded on Feb 9th - almost a degree above the previous record, which had stood since 1982. The rising temperatures on the continent are thought to be behind huge drops in chinstrap penguins - colony sizes were up to 77% smaller than 50 years ago, with every colony having declined. Chinstrap penguins are seen as a canary species for the changing conditions, as they depend heavily on krill, which form the core of much of the Antarctic food web.
Visualisation of the Week
This week’s visualisation is a little different - ABC Australia have produced this excellent (and terrifying) interactive article which demonstrates just how hot Australia will get by 2050, under business as usual. Crucially, it also shows just what a difference reducing global emissions will have on those peak temperatures.
Our Magnanimous Masters
By now, you may well have seen the announcement that the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has committed $10bn to tackling climate change. Details are sketchy right now, given the announcement came via an Instagram post, but it’s easily the largest single amount put towards climate change. Even if doled out over 20 years, it would double US philanthropy in the climate space. It was also notable that the money is to be put towards scientists, activists and NGOs, and not business ventures (the approach favoured by Bill Gates, the other big tech philanthropist of our age).
This scale of money has huge potential, and various outlets have suggested potential uses, from deep clean-tech R&D to lobbying for more environmentally friendly politicians. The money will need to be allocated carefully to have maximum impact, and with few details, all we have is speculation thus far.
A more interesting question is - why? Bezos has famously not been a big philanthropist, despite his monumental fortune, so why is he giving up a whole 1/13th of his wealth now? Amazon has certainly received a lot of heat over its environmental record, so this could be seen as a way of silencing such critics. Much of that pressure has come from Amazon workers themselves, who’ve pushed for the company to clean up its act. However, as they said themselves in their announcement, ‘one hand cannot give what the other is taking away’.
A wider point to consider alongside this news is the role of philanthropy in tackling such crises. Multi-billion dollar pledges are still money towards good causes, but why do we have men (and it is almost universally men) with such vast wealth that they can make such huge displays of affluence? Rather than trust in a few powerful men to (hopefully) donate to the right causes (only 3% of global philanthropy is directed towards tackling climate change), should we not strive for a system where governments work towards the greater good? I know government trust is at an all time low, but should we not aim for better?
News Highlights
US vs the Climate
The battle over the largest oil refinery on the US east coast now appears to be over. The refinery site was auctioned off to a real-estate developer, but the White House intervened to push for continued use as a refinery. The final decision has fallen in favour of real estate development, to the relief of local activists.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is to rule on a case brought by energy generators that New York’s power market is unfair, as only clean power producers receive subsidies. The FERC recently ruled in favour of fossil fuel generators in another power market, and may well do the same here.
Environmental groups and timber companies in Oregon, after decades of legal battles, have finally agreed to overhaul forest regulations together, in a historic concession.
Democrats are trying to push through legislation putting the burden for plastic waste on producers rather than consumers. It is unlikely to pass, but the fact that it is getting attention at a federal level means that the tide of opinion on the area is shifting.
The first climate change-related lawsuit has been filed over fishing quotas in the US. Fishing quotas have traditionally been static, and the system has worked well to rebuild fish populations, but climate change is shifting fish populations, and the system isn’t changing to compensate.
A new study has found that the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill was around 30% larger than previously thought. Satellite measurements, often used for such spills, missed large areas of lower concentration (but still toxic) oil.
Other News
The EU is looking at implementing a carbon border tariff, to prevent ‘carbon leakage’ from their emissions trading scheme. It could help protect EU businesses as the EU pushes to become greener, whilst incentivising those outside the EU (including the UK!) to lower their emissions. On the other hand, trade partners are not likely to be happy.
The greenhouse gas emissions from the EU’s power sector fell by 12% in 2019, mostly due to a 24% drop in coal power generation. However, the EU is being accused of climate hypocrisy as it approves 32 major gas infrastructure projects, totalling €29bn.
Car sales have fallen in the EU by 7.4% as new lower emission rules have kicked in for January. The European car industry is predicted to contract by 2% this year as car makers struggle to adapt.
China’s EV sales are also falling sharply, as the country cuts all EV subsidies. The industry has also been hit by the effect of coronavirus, dealing a double blow.
The UK is moving its ban on petrol and diesel cars forward again, to 2032. The announcement comes as part of a wider environmental push to try and highlight the UK’s stance ahead of COP 26. This week also saw the announcement of a new £1.2bn supercomputer for the Met Office, to improve weather and climate modelling.
The UK’s first pieces of post-EU environmental legislation have been released. All contain gaps, flaws, and loopholes, raising concern about the UK’s true environmental stance.
Tesla’s new Berlin factory construction has been halted by legal challenges from environmentalists over the forest being removed to place the site.
Poland’s $1.5bn Ostroleka coal project may be shelved due to climate concerns, as the country negotiates for a share of the EU’s €100bn decarbonisation fund.
The world’s food waste problem may be worse than previously thought, as rich households are throwing away far more food than expected. An estimated 10% of developed nations’ greenhouse gas emissions come from food that is not eaten.
Long Reads
The story of how the US Bureau of Land Management has been ignoring the very environmental regulations it is meant to uphold.
CarbonBrief (yep, again!) have released a very long, but super interesting deep dive on 9 major potential climate tipping points. There are also follow-up articles with even more depth on four specific tipping points.
An exploration of efforts to tap supercritical fluids for geothermal power, which involves drilling miles down, and dealing with immense temperatures and pressures.
The End Times
That’s all I have for you this week. As always, thanks for reading, and if you’ve any feedback or suggestions for me, I’d love to hear them (you can reach me at oli@forgethefuture.com). If you feel like sharing this, I’d massively appreciate it!
See you next week,
Oli