FtF News #148 – 20th April 2022
Intensifying storms, climate pledges potentially bring us under 2°C, and the link between populist parties and climate policy
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Well, it’s no surprise to see that the coverage of last week’s IPCC report has vanished without a trace, sinking under a sea of political scandals, war coverage, and cost-of-living crises. Of course, the intersectional nature of the climate crisis means that these are all linked, but that point remains a harder one to drive home as yet.
A quick organisational note – I’m joining a climate accelerator program next week (exciting times!), and so I will be pretty busy and travelling on and off for the next month or so. I’m hoping to still bring you FtF throughout, but there may be a few shorter issues for a while as I fit things in around my schedule!
Once again, this week’s issue was ably assisted by Syuan Ruei Chang, who contributed a number of the articles and stories featured this week.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
South Africa has seen catastrophic rainfall in the Durban region, with floods and landslides killing at least 341 people, with more than 40,000 people affected in one way or another. Some areas saw 45cm of rain in just 48 hours, nearly half the normal annual rainfall of 101cm. Photos of the aftermath show hillsides swept away and shipping containers strewn across roads like lego bricks. A week after the disaster, many are still without either running water or electricity, desperately scavenging what they can from broken pipes.
The Philippines has been struck by the first cyclone of the year – tropical storm Megi has killed at least 138 people, with another 100 or more still missing in the aftermath. The Philippines is struck by 20 or so major storms a year, but with cyclones intensifying in recent times, the impacts of storm after storm are becoming harder to manage.
In related research, a pair of studies has analysed major storms and discovered links between more intense effects and climate change. The first found that climate change is likely to have increased extreme rainfall in the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season by as much as 10%, mostly due to increased ocean surface temperatures. The second found that climate change was likely to have intensified the series of storms that drove through Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi earlier this year, though exact links are tricky to determine as, like much of Africa, climate data is very sparse.
To end on a more positive note – researchers have ranked the 12 most effective ways to reduce car traffic in cities. The impact of cars upon cities is huge, from air and noise pollution to traffic collisions, even influencing inequality, but cutting cars out of urban centres is far from simple. However, analysis of measures implemented in cities across the world has shown that there are definitely approaches that, especially when combined, can reduce car traffic massively. These include congestion charges, travel planning services, subsidising commuters to use public transport, and much more.
Climate Visuals
A picture tells a thousand words…
Images from Copernicus Climate Change Service (via Gizmodo) show just how quickly deforestation is progressing in the Amazon (above).
The Guardian explores how the global food system has become vulnerable to disease and climate change through its reliance on monoculture crops in this excellent interactive piece.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Promising Pledges
New analysis of global climate pledges across corporations, nations and more suggests that if all were met, we could keep warming below 2°C – a major sign of progress from just a few years ago. 1.5°C would require still more and stronger goals, and should remain on the table as long as possible, but 2°C of warming would still be a huge win. However, this would require every nation and company to implement policies to meet all of their pledges, which is by no means certain at this point – there is currently a vast shortfall in concrete actions to back up the promises made.
“There is a huge difference between government rhetoric and reality”
- Climate Action Tracker
Renewables on the Rise
The US passed a major milestone recently when wind turbines generated more electricity than either nuclear or coal plants for a day. The landmark was reached on March 29th, showing just how much wind power has been rolled out in the US in the last couple of decades. The country isn’t expected to see prolonged periods of high wind or solar power for some years yet, but it shows progress for a nation that has struggled to shed its fossil fuel habit. In another boost to global renewables, the NDRC, one of China’s top economic agencies, says the country is planning to add approximately 140GW of wind and solar capacity just this year.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Populism is bad for the planet
A study of more than 25 countries over the past decade has concluded that right-wing populist parties have a detrimental effect on climate policy. The presence of such a party in parliament and especially in government significantly slowed rollout of climate measures, and led to rollbacks of key policies in a number of cases. Factors like a proportional representation voting system and EU membership were found to help mitigate this effect, but given the rise of populist leaders of late, this is a trend to be concerned about. Right wing populists are excellent at riding crises, and with climate change, energy prices and the Ukraine war all dominating headlines, we can expect to see more parties and movements looking to exploit these issues.
Burying their heads in the (oil) sand
Canada’s leading banks have continued to pour money into oil sands projects even as their government unveiled a new climate roadmap recently. Funding of oil sands work by the five largest Canadian banks rose to $16.8bn in 2021, nearly double the previous year, despite all of them signing up to the UN’s Net Zero Banking Alliance. Three of the five have battled recently with shareholder proposals calling for stricter climate policies, whilst the other two are expected to face similar calls at their upcoming AGMs.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Media leanings on climate change can be hard to gauge day by day, especially as most of us tend towards publications that best reflect our own leanings. Thus Carbon Brief’s analysis of the last decade of UK climate coverage was an interesting read – showing associations between political leaning and climate views (broadly, right wing publications encouraged scepticism on climate and climate action), as well as changes over time. The good news is that overt climate denial has more or less disappeared, but unfortunately it has in many cases been replaced with its equally insidious cousin – climate delay.
Immigration has been an increasingly contentious topic of late, with many western nations implementing heavy handed and cruel anti-immigrant policies in recent times (including recent efforts by the UK to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda). However, as this piece by Atmos highlights, few immigrants make their journeys willingly. It interviews several members of the Miskito Indigenous community, who after years of persecution by the Nicaraguan government, were nearly wiped off the map by Hurricanes Eta and Iota last year. In desperation, some are making the dangerous journey north to the US to try and gain the money to rebuild. As climate impacts build, more and more will be forced from their homes, not by choice, but by necessity.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to end the use of fossil fuels in France as part of campaigning in the final stages of the presidential election.
The Dutch advertising watchdog has ruled that a KLM advert telling customers that they could fly carbon free is misleading.
South Korea is considering a stronger embrace of nuclear power to keep its decarbonisation plans on track.
Good luck at Carbon13!