FtF News #171 – 4th January 2023

A look back at 2022 before we move forward into the coming year

Hello again, and welcome back to Forge the Future as we welcome in a new year. In what seems to be a growing trend, 2022 felt like a year that both raced past and lasted forever. We saw all manner of chaos, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Queen dying, multiple UK Prime Ministers, Elon Musk showing everyone his ugly side after buying Twitter, and plenty more besides!

To pull together this 2022 climate revue, I went back over the last 12 months of FtF issues, and was surprised at how much has happened this year – it really has been quite the rollercoaster! Despite the temptation to pull it together into some sort of madcap timeline, instead I’ve decided to pick the biggest themes of the year.

Wild Weather

Mother nature’s reactions to the ever-warming world

It’s been quite the year in weather – just my highlight reel of extreme weather events amounted to over 2 pages of links! Extreme rainfall and flooding impacted much of the world, from Brazil (multiple times), Ecuador, South Africa (multiple times), west Africa, Australia, Seoul, Iran, Bangladesh, China, India, and of course Pakistan. Many of these events, despite their severity, dropped out of headlines rapidly, but the impacts are still being felt even now.

Of course, to balance out the wet, there was also the dry – droughts developed or continued to intensify across the world. Some of this is due to the continuing La Niña phenomenon, which may last into a rare third consecutive year, but some is simply a sign of our changing world. Europe baked over the summer, with a 1-in-500 year drought, whilst the US west continues to dry out. East Africa meanwhile, is balancing on a knife-edge, with long-lasting drought leaving millions on the verge of starvation (exacerbated by food shortages from the invasion of Ukraine).

Extreme temperatures were also prevalent – 2022 won’t go down as the hottest year ever (thanks to that La Niña), but it’s up there. Argentina saw record temperatures at either end of the year, as did Alaska, whilst Europe, China, India, Pakistan and the US cooked over the summer. That fueled record fire seasons across the world, alongside spikes in Antarctic temperatures accompanying a record low in Antarctic ice levels.

It was also a year of storms (which are getting more frequent and more extreme), with south-east Africa getting pummelled by multiple weather systems in quick succession, and various record-breaking storms across Asia, central America and more. Then the US stole attention with first Puerto Rico experiencing Hurricane Fiona, then Florida being struck by Ian – the most severe storm ever to make landfall in the mainland.

Even this is just a quick snippet, missing plenty – remember the Tongan eruption at the start of this year? Nevertheless, the trends seem clear – weather is becoming wilder, and the impacts more severe. As always, coverage centres on events in the West, but the costs are rising far higher in the developing world, fueling increasing anger at richer nations for their continued reluctance to commit to meaningful climate action and reparations.

Party Political Broadcast

Climate politics are a special creature indeed

That brings us neatly onto politics, which were felt even more chaotic that usual (especially here in the UK!). Even sticking to the climate sphere, it’s been a real mixed bag. On the plus side, we saw Brazil elect Lula over Bolsonaro (though it was close!), and Australia finally boot out Scott Morrison and commit to climate action. The US passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive piece of climate-centric legislation, after months of deadlock, and then crowed about it to anyone who’d listen. However, it still refuses to acknowledge its huge climate impact and pay into global climate funds, and the Supreme Court is gradually dismantling key rulings such as Roe vs Wade.

Meanwhile, anger at richer countries grew through the year, peaking at COP27, which was solidly… meh. It wasn’t a complete disaster, as the final text agreed to a fund for loss and damage, but with few concrete details, and minimal new climate commitments, it wasn’t a resounding success either. The G7 agreed finally not to fund new fossil fuel projects overseas, then promptly rolled that back when Russia invaded Ukraine.

The invasion of Ukraine overshadowed much of the year, as much of Europe scrambled to shed dependency on Russian fossil fuels. Some of this movement was positive – the EU has accelerated rollouts of clean energy and insulation measures as part of a massive new policy initiative, showing that if the right impetus is there, climate action absolutely can happen fast! However, equally, some nations used the energy crisis as an opportunity to double down on fossil fuels, with some African nations accusing European countries of fossil fuel colonialism.

There were some positive developments in climate finance, with Indonesia and Vietnam joining South Africa in securing Just Energy Transition Partnership deals in the billions to move away from coal. The deals suggest a new route forward versus the COP-centric finance arrangements, which seem eternally mired in disagreement. However, the year has also seen report after report highlighting the huge funding shortfall still remaining, and the disproportionate impact climate change will have on developing countries.

The Future is Electric

Renewables, EVs and all things electrification

A continued positive in the climate sphere has been the growth of renewables. Despite some slowdown due to supply chain issues and scaling bottlenecks for key minerals, renewables have continued to scale at an impressive rate, with the IEA estimating that solar could surpass coal globally in just 5 years. The year saw various firsts and ‘biggest’ evers in the world of wind and solar, and all those heatwaves managed to fuel record renewables generation across the world, from California to Europe and Australia. 

On a related theme, EVs are also reaching mass market scales across the world, driven by huge growth in Europe and China (though 2- and 3-wheelers are taking a number of developing markets by storm too). In one of the few positives from the energy crisis, high fuel prices drove many consumers to make the leap to electric as the running cost difference suddenly shifted massively towards the cleaner choice. The EU also agreed to phase out combustion-engined vehicles entirely by 2035 in a long-hoped for move towards widespread electrification.

Climate Inequity

A hard look at the inequities of the climate crisis

Whilst I feel I could find plenty to cover in other areas, the last area I want to dwell on when looking back at 2022 is awareness of inequality. I already mentioned the rising (and righteous) anger of developing nations at the reluctance of developed countries to pay their fair share of the collective climate bill, but there’s been plenty more on this front to cover.

One aspect of this is the ever-growing body of research and reports on climate impacts, which often fall on the most vulnerable. Take pollution, which now causes 1 in 6 deaths globally, and is worst in poorer areas and poorer countries, compounding existing inequities. The latest instalment of the IPCC’s update reports, AR6, actually explored the impacts of climate on the most vulnerable for the first time, as well as the inequality in emissions between rich and poor.

That last element is also key. The emissions gap between rich and poor nations is (largely) well understood, but there have been several studies this year highlighting the difference within nations, and particularly the outsize impact of the richest among us. The 125 richest people have an impact larger than that of France, whilst even just the top 1% globally were responsible for a quarter of all emissions between 1990 and 2019. Meanwhile, entirely eradicating extreme poverty would raise global emissions by less than 1%.

It’s perhaps not the happiest note to end this yearly round-up upon, but it is, I feel, an important one. As we move into 2023, one movement I’d like to see more of is questioning the role extreme wealth plays in our society, whether in individuals or between nations. A fairer world is likely a cleaner, greener one, and that’s certainly a goal to aspire to.