FtF News #116 – 25th August 2021
Climate reporting is more accurate than ever, although we still need more of it
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Unfortunately, this week is another rather grim one when it comes to climate news. As a counter to that, I offer up this week’s post from HEATED as a call to action. It often feels like there’s little to be done on a personal level (past the usual calls to recycle more, eat less meat and stop flying), but there’s a surprising number of ways to do more. Even working full time on climate-related projects, it can feel overwhelming, so it’s nice to have a reminder of small, concrete, achievable actions from time to time.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
2021 is continuing to be a wild one, weather-wise, with wildfires continuing to rage across both Europe and the US. Both France and Spain have seen major fires in the wake of the heatwave that swept across much of southern Europe. Montoro, in southern Spain, saw a record high for the country at 47.4°C, whilst the town of Floridia in Sicily saw an unofficial temperature of 51°C. Meanwhile, in California the Dixie Fire has now burned over 730,000 acres, and shows little signs of slowing, with another blaze, the Caldor fire, expanding from 6,500 to over 30,000 acres in just a single day.
North America is also now feeling the impacts of the Atlantic storm season, with Hurricane Henri becoming the first named storm to come ashore in Rhode Island since 1991, and Tropical Depression Fred causing heavy flooding. Flash floods in rural Tennessee have killed 20, and Hurricane Grace has flooded much of Veracruz, Mexico, with the state capital swamped in mud.
Attribution of heat-related events to climate change has become fairly commonplace in the past few years, but now scientists are making progress on extreme precipitation, despite the more complex causes of such events. A study of the recent European floods has found that they were made as much as 19% more likely by climate change. Whilst cold comfort for those affected, this type of science is vital to inform future climate adaptation, and it’s encouraging to see the progress of attribution science in just the past couple of years.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Accepting the facts?
A new study has found that, in Western media at least, climate reporting now accurately represents scientific consensus more than 90% of the time. The study was a follow-up to analysis from 2004, which found that in US media, over half of articles treated dissenting opinions on climate as equally valid. This latest study looked at media from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and seems to suggest that, in newspapers at least, the days of ‘both sides-ism’ are over. However, there’s still plenty more to do – calls for climate action still tend to receive less coverage than those suggesting doing nothing, and broadcast TV, particularly in the US, often gives little air-time to climate subjects.
Demanding a seat at the table
Extinction Rebellion are back out in force in London, kicking off another two weeks of protest and disruption. They’ve disrupted much of the centre of the city, and despite police complaints, are refusing to tone down the scale of their demonstrations. Direct action and risking arrest to protest the climate is not a course open to everyone, but it has proved effective in bringing climate to the attention of the public, even if coverage has not always been glowing with praise.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Profit incentives
Shell this week has finally agreed to pay $111m for a crude oil spill it caused in the Niger Delta in 1970. This in itself is a big positive, but the background to the case paints a different picture. The case was brought in 2008 by four local farmers, and the company has repeatedly challenged the verdict, bouncing it back through the courts for thirteen years. More and more cases are being brought against both companies and governments over the climate, which is definitely a positive, but even when such David vs Goliath cases succeed, enforcement is problematic. A major case against the Dutch government found that the government was in breach of commitments to climate action, but six years on, those behind the challenge may have to follow up with another, as nothing tangible resulted from the win.
Those who do score wins against such companies also have to contend with in some cases some very dirty tactics. Steven Donziger was found guilty of criminal contempt last month, after 700 days under house arrest. He was behind a multi-billion dollar victory against Chevron for massive ecological damage in Ecuador, but rather than pay the fine, the company went after Donziger instead, abusing loopholes in the US justice system to discredit him.
This is why many still scoff at the idea that oil companies should play a role in the transition. Whilst some are making efforts to change, case after case shows that many will do whatever they can to undermine climate action. For example, a gas company in LA was found to have paid residents to support natural gas-powered trucks rather than electric alternatives in a survey on tackling systemic air pollution issues around the Port of LA. Over in Texas, analysis of flaring by oil companies has found that many are abusing what is essentially an honour-based system for reporting, with huge amounts of flaring going unrecorded.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote an excellent piece in the FT this week about the scope of the climate challenge ahead of us. It is a giant prisoner’s dilemma, with every nation and actor locked in a stalemate that someone will have to break if we’re to take meaningful action. At the core of this is the market system, which is likely to have to change significantly to effectively power significant change. How? That is the trillion dollar question, and it’s one we need to figure out, and soon.
Africa is on the frontline of many climate impacts, but there’s a dearth of climate science covering the region. One of the core reasons for this is a lack of good climate data – African weather observation is the least developed in the world, with only 1/8th of the minimum density of weather stations recommended by the WMO. Solving this is no easy task – accurate weather observation is often not the highest priority in a region that has seen conflict, political turmoil and much more even in recent years.
Vehicle idling seems like a relatively minor problem, but in a car-centric country such as the US, it adds up rapidly, with an estimated 6bn gallons of fuel wasted each year, and idling thought to be responsible for 1.6% of total US emissions. However, it often falls in a blind spot of enforcement, with rules unclear, and enforcement spotty. New York tried financial incentives for reporting, which has helped, but it remains a persistent issue that may not really be solved until EVs become widespread.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
China has approved one of the largest green hydrogen projects in the world – it will produce around 67,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year once complete in mid-2023.
GM is to recall every single Chevy Bolt EV worldwide following a battery problem that has resulted in several fires.
Swedish company Hybrit has shipped its first batch of green steel, made using hydrogen rather than coal.