FtF News #127 – 10th November 2021
More climate pledges, Facebook’s continuing climate disinformation, and the hidden benefits of whales
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
COP26 continues until the end of this week, so we’re still awash with declarations and pledges. With the first week of the conference over, most of the big announcements have been made, world leaders have largely gone home, and the rest of the event will be focused on the nitty-gritty of negotiations and debates. However, there’s still room for more agreements and goals to emerge even as the conference draws to a close.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
It’s definitely seemed like there’s less extreme weather appearing in my climate news feeds of late. On the one hand, it’s definitely meant less grim reading about tragedy and destruction, but I can’t help but wonder – are the weather events still occurring, but simply happening in places that don’t make Western news feeds?
A new study suggests that baleen whales eat 2-3 times more than previously thought, which has made the impact of the whaling industry even more significant. At least 2m baleen whales were killed, and those would’ve consumed around 430m tonnes of krill each year – twice as much as exists globally today. It turns out that whales are a keystone species, fertilising algae and fuelling a vast ocean ecosystem, to a far greater extent than was previously realised – fewer whales means a far less rich ocean.
The latest numbers from the Global Carbon Project show that fossil fuel and cement emissions have rebounded more rapidly than expected after the pandemic. 2020 saw a 5.4% decline, but this year is on track for a 4.9% increase, whilst many were predicting that it would take two or three years to reach previous levels. However, there is some good news – emissions from land-use change, whilst still uncertain, appear to have been falling significantly since 2000, and might be barely half what they were thought to be previously. This means that increases in fossil fuel emissions have been potentially cancelled out by reductions in emissions from land-use change, resulting in global CO2 remaining largely flat for the past decade.
Visualisation of the Week
Insightful climate-centric visuals
I haven’t featured this section for some time, but I saw this map of industrial pollution in the US, and thought it too good not to share.
Good COP
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
The Good Stuff from COP26
We’re now into the second week of COP26, which means most of the big announcements have been made. So far, there’ve been some encouraging signs – whilst the hoped for goals of setting a date for eliminating coal and committing the world to 1.5°C remain out of sight, there’s still been progress.
Nigeria has committed to a net-zero target of 2060, though it is pushing hard for foreign support, saying it will be able to make much more progress by 2030 if it receives significant investment to help it decarbonise the electricity grid. Greece has also passed a new climate law banning fossil fuel cars from 2030, and ensuring that new taxis in major cities are electric or hybrid from 2025.
A UK-led pledge to move away from coal entirely has seen over 40 countries sign up, including major coal users like Poland, Vietnam and Chile, though as expected the US and China are steering well clear. The deadlines set are still too lax, but there’s hope that once on board, signatories can be persuaded to accelerate their timelines. South Africa has secured a multi-billion dollar deal to help finance its own transition away from coal power – a big move for a nation where coal is very tied into politics.
Another potentially significant pledge is a non-binding agreement to stop all foreign fossil fuel funding. Signatories include Canada and the US, and would see funding stopped by the end of 2022. However, despite China’s previous pledge to stop funding coal abroad, it’s steering clear of this pledge too, and other major fossil fuel funders Japan, South Korea and Spain have yet to sign.
The net result of all these new pledges is unclear yet, but several early analyses, including the IEA have said that if all are met, the world could be looking at 1.8°C of warming – still well beyond 1.5°C, but a huge step forward from the 2.7°C of warming that was predicted pre-COP26. However, it’s worth noting that these predictions assume that every pledged goal is hit, even those that are unrealistic or completely lacking detail. The UN is still sounding caution, saying that new pledges have made little difference to that 2.7°C number as yet.
Bad COP
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
The not so good news from the climate conference
One of the frustrations repeatedly voiced at COP26 has been the lack of involvement of under-represented groups. I mentioned in the lead-up to the conference that many of the nations most affected by climate change were unable to send many if any delegates to the conference, and that has been echoed now that it is under way. In addition, many environmental groups have been excluded from key debates, and attendees have in some cases been told to watch proceedings from their hotel rooms rather than attend in person. In one egregious mess-up, the Israeli energy minister was unable to attend a key meeting due to lack of wheelchair access.
One group who have been able to attend are fossil fuel industry representatives. One analysis totalled over 500 delegates representing fuel interests – if assembled as a single grouping, they would be bigger than any single country’s delegation by some margin.
A key objective of COP26 is to try and reach agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement – the section relating to carbon markets. Unfortunately, after some encouraging signs initially, progress has stalled. Lower income nations are calling for all transactions to incur a fee that could go towards funding adaptation and climate transitions (a sore point after the failure to reach the $100bn/yr pledge), but the EU and US have point blank refused to accept this. Alok Sharma says this year’s talks won’t overrun, but I feel he may be overly hopeful.
Denial of Service
Despite Facebook’s vague attempts to rectify the situation, new analysis suggests climate disinformation has only become worse on the platform. Engagement with climate denial posts has risen markedly since January, with only 4% of such messages fact-checked. To make things worse, the company is still taking ad revenue from a number of climate denial pages, all of which were flagged in a separate investigation into disinformation last year. This latest study simply adds to the huge body of information showing that Facebook has no interest in seriously tackling the disinformation and extremism it promotes.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Much of the work to reduce environmental impact looks at swapping out power sources or other like-for-like changes. But what about more radical ideas? The Bulletin talked to a researcher looking at alternative models for computing, such as devices that don’t require batteries, and other low-power ideas. It’s hard to know whether such concepts will catch on, but a research focus on more equitable, open approaches to software and computing is something we definitely need more of.
As part of UN climate proceedings, countries are required to submit declarations of their emissions. However, as the Washington Post has highlighted, many of these declarations are based on sketchy or outright false information. Much of the problem comes down to politics – emissions declarations affect an increasing number of political deals and agreements, so the incentives to fudge the numbers are high. However, such is the nature of international climate negotiations – it’s often more important to get everyone at the same table, even if some are not being entirely truthful, than to impose standards that could cause many to veto such discussions entirely.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
China plans to build at least 150 new nuclear reactors in a $440bn build-out plan as part of its efforts to decarbonise its grid.
UK government staff took over 107,000 domestic flights last year – nearly 300 a day – not a good look for the host of COP26.
Wright Electric, an aviation startup, has announced plans to launch a retrofitted 100-seat electric aircraft by 2027.