FtF News #159 – 13th July 2022
Wild weather – drought, floods, and so much heat – Dutch flight caps and green colonialism
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
What a couple of weeks it’s been! I’ve been super busy in startup land, but we’ve also seen Supreme Court decisions, assassinations, and whatever you’d call the current state of British politics at the moment. Speaking of that particular circus, whilst it’s very unclear who will eventually take over from Boris’ walking catastrophe, most of the major candidates are starting to distance themselves from the UK’s net-zero goals in a worrying trend, even as the CCC (the body that advises the UK on climate) warns that the government is missing the mark on climate, and that climate policy would actively boost the UK’s GDP overall!
Unfortunately, I suspect I’ll be unable to assemble the newsletter again next week, so it’ll be two weeks again before your next dose of FtF, ably assisted as always 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
The weather over the past couple of weeks seems to have been on a bid to remind us that climate change is very much here and happening now. There’s been a real gamut of climate-induced extremes including droughts, floods, heatwaves and fire.
Italy is currently experiencing a drought so severe that the country has declared a state of emergency, with hydropower generation at 50% of normal levels, and the sea encroaching up the ultra-dry River Po so far it’s threatening to contaminate farming and drinking water supplies. Extreme heat also caused a glacier to collapse, killing several. That same heatwave is sweeping across Europe, with high temperatures expected for the next couple of weeks across the UK and Europe, having already induced a marine heatwave in the Mediterranean.
Such heatwaves are on the rise, both in frequency and severity, as the US has learned of late, with San Antonio experiencing 17 days above 100°F in June, versus an average of just two. Alaska is facing a record-breaking wildfire season, with a million acres burned by June 15th – a level normally only seen much later in the year. Australia’s bushfire season now lasts almost a month longer than it did just four decades ago, and that trend is only likely to continue.
That’s not even all the heat – Japan is in the midst of its own heatwave, at least the third this year, with thousands hospitalised, and the power grid near breaking point. China is also seeing the worst heat in decades, alongside massive June rainfall which has caused major flooding in the NE. Floods are continuing in NE India and Bangladesh, with more killed by mudslides due to the extreme rain. Meanwhile, Sydney saw its fourth set of major floods in 18 months, with 1.5 months worth of rain falling on the city in just the first four days of July.
In less weather-related but also concerning news, Brazilian deforestation continues to rise, reaching a new high for the first six months of 2022. An area five times that of New York City was razed, some 10.6% more than last year. In a glimmer of positive news, many polls are predicting that Jair Bolsonaro is likely to lose in October’s elections to leftist former president da Silva, who previously oversaw major reductions in deforestation. However, in the lead up to the elections, it’s likely to be open season in the forests with political attention elsewhere.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
The right direction
Some positive news has come out of Europe on a few fronts this week. First up, the Dutch government has put a flight cap on Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, currently Europe’s third busiest. From 2023, it will be limited to 440,000 flights per year, 12% less than 2019. Notably, this is the first time an airport has had a flight cap put in place in this manner. Given that aviation has few if any workable solutions for reducing impact currently, reducing traffic makes sense, but is not a popular move.
The EU also finally approved its deal to phase out combustion-engined vehicles by 2035, after talking down the last holdout countries. The deal has seen stiff opposition from car-maker lobbies such as the ACEA, which this week saw Volvo leave in protest at the group’s lack of climate ambition.
Finally, the UK saw its largest ever auction of renewables capacity, and the final agreed price was also the lowest yet, some 5.8% less than last time. The roughly 7GW of offshore wind capacity should come online around 2026, at a price that’s around a quarter of the UK’s current day-ahead power prices, showing just how much renewables could potentially ease the current cost-of-living crisis.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Both India and California have passed new laws on single-use plastic that hopefully will help push down levels of the materials in use. India has banned 19 types of single-use plastic products, including plastic cups, straws and ice-cream sticks – the first such measure to apply nationwide in a country that produces one of the largest amounts of plastic waste of any globally. Meanwhile, California has pushed through a law that sets targets for cutting single-use plastic, moves responsibility for waste onto producers, and also creates a ‘plastic pollution mitigation fund’.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Gas for me, but not for thee
Europe faces a complex conundrum, trying to wean itself off Russian gas whilst simultaneously sticking to their aggressive climate goals. Whilst for the most part they have managed to thread that needle, the process has not been without some major hiccups. Germany and Italy in particular were responsible for the G-7’s backslide on their commitment to no new foreign fossil fuel funding, and Germany this week has decided to un-mothball several coal power plants to mitigate against the risk that Russia turns off the Nord Stream 1 pipeline entirely.
African leaders in particular have accused Europe of hypocrisy, as European countries try to buy up every unit of African gas they can lay their hands upon, whilst refusing to fund more development of African gas infrastructure. Essentially, whilst Africa can sell the gas it has to Europe, it is not being allowed to develop more to provide Africans with power – a move many are calling out as green colonialism, perpetuating a legacy of western exploitation of the continent.
‘Freedom’ falls further behind
The US Supreme Court has decided to continue its war on vital legislation, ruling that the EPA cannot use powers granted to it under the Clean Air Act to phase out coal power in US electricity generation. The decision was not as wide-reaching as some feared in the wake of the roll-back of Roe vs Wade, but shuts down another of the few pathways remaining for those in power to enact change on the climate – big legislative bills are out, and now SCOTUS is going after any existing rules that can be leveraged to push for environmental action.
Bill McKibben suggests that ironically (given the business-centric lean of the right wing forces behind the current impasse), leveraging big business’ desire to act on the climate might be one of the only major levers left in the US for environmental control – they have far more ability and incentive to act than most lawmakers do.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Biodiversity is an oft-underappreciated topic in climate, with so much focus on greenhouse gas emissions that there’s little room for the role of ecosystems and nature itself. A new UN report this week highlighted this omission, noting that billions rely on some 50,000 wild species for food, medicine and income. It’s not clear how that biodiversity will evolve – whilst some species are holding up OK, others are being hunted to extinction, and still more are being impacted by warming itself. Many are migrating where they can – often tens of kilometres per decade – leading to a whole host of complex phenomena that we’re only beginning to grapple with. Some species can adapt, but others will find themselves trapped with nowhere to go, and some will come into contact with humans far more than previously, sometimes with worrying consequences.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
Climeworks has broken ground on its latest, larger Direct Air Capture facility. Called ‘Mammoth’, it will pull down 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The US has passed a crucial EV tipping point, with 5% of new sales now electric vehicles, meaning they could hit 25% by just 2025.
Chinese researchers have successfully tested technology that could potentially beam solar power down from space.