Data to the Rescue
Forge the Future #47 - Or how we can’t tech our way out of the climate crisis
Welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly guide to all things climate. Happy Earth Day!
Shell has announced updated emissions goals, and is planning to eliminate emissions from its own operations as well as the bulk of emissions from fuels it sells to consumers by 2050. Unlike some of the previous announcements from the likes of BP, Shell acknowledges that its own footprint is dependent upon the emissions of the companies it serves, and seems to be seeking to reduce those emissions. They’re still an oil company, so not to be trusted, but this one-upmanship of targets is a pleasing trend to see.
Citigroup has also updated its investment rules, and has ruled out financing Arctic oil and gas operations, and is to withdraw from financing of thermal coal, and will similarly phase out of coal mining and coal-fired power plant projects.
In less positive news this week, Amazon has fired several activist employees for speaking out about the company’s warehouse working conditions. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa have led the company’s employee climate activism group, and recently criticised warehouse conditions during the pandemic. It’s extremely disappointing that such a massive and influential company continues to broker no criticism of its less than saintly impact and conduct.
State of the Climate
CO2 levels this week: 416.35 ppm
This time last year: 414.06 ppm
A new study found that Greenland alone contributed 40% of the sea level rise recorded in 2019. The melting was also primarily caused by high pressure systems over the country - an effect which hasn’t been incorporated into climate models fully, meaning they could be underestimating future melting by a factor of two. Research has now also suggested that the Arctic could see ice-free summers as soon as 2050, regardless of how much climate action is taken in the intervening years.
In Europe, large numbers of olive trees are being killed by a disease dubbed ‘olive leprosy’. At least 1m trees have died in Italy, and most of the productive regions in Italy, Spain and Greece are thought to be at risk, with a potential impact of €24bn in the next 50 years if nothing is done. Mitigation is not expensive, but as it involves rapidly culling healthy trees to slow the spread, is heavily resisted by farmers, despite the downsides of not taking action (this sounds rather familiar, don’t you think?).
Record temperatures have been recorded in parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans last month, which meteorologists are warning could lead to more extreme weather later in the year. This year’s storm season forecast for the US is already more severe than average, and the US is currently reeling from a second consecutive week of extreme weather, including tornadoes, hail and flooding.
Visualisation of the Week
CarbonBrief (again I know, but they make great content!) have produced an interactive map of all the studies that have attributed extreme weather to climate change - I highly recommend clicking through and exploring. The in-depth explainer that follows is also very useful for understanding the complexities of attributing weather events and trends to climate change.
This week I wanted to talk about data - a subject close to my heart as an recovering data engineer. We live in a world with more data than ever before, thanks to the rise of tech and Silicon Valley. As a software engineer, I’ve been taught that data can solve more problems, that capturing more data, and analysing it with ever more complex systems can yield incredible insights and unlock new solutions. Approaching the climate crisis, and particularly seeing the messy and incomplete nature of data on the subject, it’s tempting to leap to a conclusion of ‘More data! More analysis!’ - to tidy up the chaos with the all-seeing eye of technology.
Undoubtedly better data could help with some aspects of the climate crisis. However, we’re increasingly seeing the issues with data-centric approaches elsewhere. Data is biased, almost from the outset, and analysis only furthers that issue. We’re seeing this in tech already, where AI systems trained by largely white, male, middle class engineers unsurprisingly don’t adapt well to use by folks who fall outside of that small grouping. We want to believe that machines and data are agnostic - after all, how can numbers lie? But all we’ve done is hide human bias behind a facade of sleek technology.
Is that really what we want to use to fix a problem that is inherently about inequality? Much of the story of the climate is those with power maintaining the status quo at the expense of those without - we need to upend those biases, not reinforce them! Tech, and data, can play a role, but it has to be done carefully, and with oversight. We should make biases apparent, and bring as many different perspectives to bear as we can, particularly those who’ve traditionally been excluded. I don’t know what the solutions to the climate crisis look like, but they will likely be messy, chaotic and incomplete - in essence, very human.
News Highlights
US vs the Climate
The price of US oil has turned negative for the first time in history, as producers fear storage capacity could run out in May.
A judge has cancelled a key permit relating to water crossings for the Keystone XL pipeline, putting a spanner in the works just 2 weeks after work began after years of delays.
The EPA is looking to roll back mercury pollution limits after changing how the cost-benefit equation for the limits was calculated. A paper analysing the changes dubbed them ‘seriously flawed’. It has also changed the way it counts methane in its latest GHG emissions inventory, causing environmental groups to warn that it is significantly undercounting.
The Trump administration decided against tightening regulation on industrial soot emissions, despite last week’s paper linking air pollution to heightened COVID-19 death rates.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused the loss of 106,000 clean energy jobs so far in the US, with that number likely to rise to 500,000 by June.
The Trump administration has halted controlled burns on federal land in California, to the surprise of state officials, who are expecting an above average wildfire season this year.
The US airline industry has secured a $25bn bailout from the US government, with essentially no environmental strings attached, after a tense negotiation period. However, as part of the bailouts, airlines still have to fly regular routes, despite a ~96% drop in passengers.
Virginia has signed off a bill to move the state to 100% clean energy by 2050 - the first southern US state to make such a commitment.
Other News
South Korea’s Democratic Party is to implement a Green New Deal after winning a landslide victory. The party has promised to set a 2050 carbon neutrality goal, and end coal financing.
Austria has become the second country in Europe to eliminate coal from its grid, after the closure of a coal heating plant on Friday.
Environmental activist Adán Vez Lira was shot dead in Veracruz - the third climate activist to be killed in the country this year.
EV sales in Europe surged even in March, fueled by tightening emissions regulations, which force manufacturers to boost sales of battery vehicles to avoid steep fines.
Brazil is to boost oversight of the Amazon after recent figures showed a huge jump in deforestation. There are signs that the country wants to avoid the international condemnation it received last year.
China’s coal mining industry is calling for a 10% cut in production, as demand trails supply in the recovery from the coronavirus. Prices are the lowest seen since 2016.
Long Reads
CarbonBrief dives into the complexity of modelling carbon-cycle feedbacks, which could potentially introduce significant uncertainty into climate predictions.
With shale oil assets at record low prices, should environmentalists step in and buy up oil rigs to shut them down?
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!
Stay safe, and see you next week,
Oli