FtF News #185 – 26th July 2023
It’s hot out there… really, really hot (and it’s only going to get worse)
I’ve been writing these newsletters for a few years now, and it’s rare that the stories for an issue so completely fall into a single theme. It feels like each successive year the wake-up calls for climate change become stronger, but this week especially, it feels like heat has arrived. Whether it’s the growing force of El Niño already impacting weather, or simply fluctuations in an already unstable climate, the breadth of high temperatures this week is shocking even for those who’ve followed climate stories for years. As the UN Secretary General said, ‘climate change is out of control’ – it’s hard to disagree.
If you spot any stories you’d like to share, you can submit them here.
Wild Weather
Mother nature’s reactions to the ever-warming world
Beijing has seen 9 consecutive days above 35°C as China deals with a major heatwave which saw a new record high of 52.2°C.
Death Valley reached 53.9°C, and many are expecting a new global record high in the region, whilst Phoenix, Arizona saw a record 19 consecutive days above 110°F (43.3°C).
Tokyo recorded a 150 year high, with temperatures reaching nearly 9°C above the seasonal average.
Europe has also been melting, with scorching temperatures across France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey, and records already falling.
Satellite imagery recorded a ground surface temperature of 60°C in parts of the Spanish Extremadura region.
The temperatures have kicked off a major spate of wildfires in Greece, with 19,000 people evacuated from Rhodes this weekend as a result.
The start of July saw the hottest 10 days ever recorded, and the WMO suggests it was likely also the hottest week on record.
On top of the heat, extreme rainfall has also been wreaking havoc worldwide, with floods in Spain, Japan, South Korea, India and the NE US. Many have been killed either by flooding or by landslides induced by extreme rainfall.
It’s Science!
The latest from in climate research and analysis
Estimates now put the chances of 2023 being the hottest year ever at 80%, having risen rapidly in recent months.
Research suggests that European countries are amongst the least prepared for warming, with Switzerland, the UK and Norway facing the biggest relative rise in hot days, whilst also lacking infrastructure or appropriate building stock.
Analysis has concluded that last year’s European heat wave killed 61,000 people, with the elderly and those in the Mediterranean particularly vulnerable.
The world’s oceans are changing colour due to warming, shifting from blue to green. The cause of the change is not yet clear, but has been detected in 56% of seas globally.
US urban areas are highly vulnerable to heat-induced sinking, with structures such as parking garages reaching up to 25°C warmer than other areas.
Party Political Broadcast
Climate politics are a special creature indeed
EU MEPs have voted in favour of rules to restore the bloc’s degraded ecosystem, despite strong pushback from right-wing groups which made the vote very close.
The European Commission looks set to break a key pledge to ban a host of hazardous chemicals after pressure from industry groups.
Deforestation fell 26% in the Colombian Amazon last year, largely linked to a new peace process being conducted with rebel groups across the country.
The COP28 president has finally laid out goals for the summit, which include deploying a long-awaited fund to compensate poorer countries impacted by climate change.
The UAE has updated its NDC ahead of COP28, but its plan is still rated ‘insufficient’ to keep to 1.5°C of warming, and includes a ramp up of fossil fuel production.
The UK government’s climate plans have leaked to the press, and experts have condemned them as ‘very weak’, in yet another blow to UK climate credentials.
To add insult to injury, new findings show that Germany has cut emissions faster than the UK since the 2015 Paris Agreement, with progress slowing in recent years.
A cross-party group of MPs has called on the UK government to halt deep-sea mining in international waters, amidst rising concern at the potential impact.
Money makes the world go around
The machinations of climate finance
The UNDP has warned that 165m people fell into poverty from 2020-23, as servicing debts overtook provision of vital services for many developing nations. They are calling for a ‘debt-poverty pause’ to redirect debt payments towards critical social expenditures.
Haha, Business!
Climate happenings in the corporate world
Amazon has finally started cutting down on plastics, reducing plastic usage by 12% from 2021-22, though it still used 86,000 tonnes of the stuff.
A Parisian social enterprise is collecting food waste from 10,000 households to turn into compost, collecting their waste by EV, e-bike and even horse.
Clean Green Energy Machine
Renewables versus coal – a look at the changing energy system
Coal financing outside of China is at its lowest point since 2010, with the vast majority of projects being cancelled outside of SE Asia, which remains committed to the fuel.
Vattenfall has halted work on the UK’s largest offshore wind farm, citing a 40% cost rise – the implications could be dire for the UK’s renewable energy targets.
Efforts to bring community-owned offshore wind to communities in the UK are facing an uphill battle against regulation, despite the benefits they bring in jobs, revenue and community inclusion in the green transition.
Breakthroughs
New inventions to inspire hope
Research teams across the world have broken a key solar efficiency milestone, cracking 30% efficiency through novel silicon perovskite approaches.
A team at Purdue University has made the world’s whitest paint, which can reflect up to 98% of solar radiation back into the sky, cooling surfaces up to 10°C.
Trials are ongoing for offshore solar as a way to utilise solar in nations without the land area to spare for conventional solar power.
Climate Inequity
A hard look at the inequities of the climate crisis
A new paper suggests that capping the usage of the top 20% of energy consumers in the EU-27 would reduce total energy consumption by 9.7%, whilst increasing that of the lowest energy users would increase usage by just 1.4%.
In a bizarre turn, the trial of billionaire fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has revealed plans to try and purchase the nation of Nauru as an apocalypse bunker for so-called effective altruists.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Brazil made a major shift to bio-derived ethanol 20 years ago, which massively reduced the impact of its cars, which are now almost all dual-fuel vehicles as a result. However, that change now risks locking it into a decarbonisation dead-end, as the sugar industry and existing investment all prevent an effective or rapid transition to EVs.