FtF News #189 – 20th September 2023
Devastating flooding, invasive species, and China’s unbelievable solar capacity
It’s another busy one this week, with the weather not letting up as El Niño continues to intensify, giving us a taste of what sustained 1.5°C will be like. Whilst the news from major climate reports continues to tell us that impacts are intensifying and we’re not doing enough, there are a few signs of positivity – California is weighing in against oil majors, and EVs and renewables continue to scale up at impressive rates. Is it enough? Only time will tell.
Unfortunately this will be the last FtF for a few weeks, as I have to travel for work (and taking a much-needed break), so you’ll see Forge the Future back in your inboxes at the start of November. In the meantime, 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
Libya is reeling after Storm Daniel caused flooding which collapsed two dams and has killed at least 11,000 people, with another 20,000 still missing.
Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria have been hit by fatal flash floods, with at least 12 people killed in some of the most extreme rainfall ever seen in the region.
Hong Kong saw its heaviest rainstorm since records began in 1884, with 3 months of rain in a single day, which flooded streets and subway stations.
Hurricane Lee, whilst fortunately mostly remaining out in the Atlantic, has become the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2019, fueled by the extremely warm ocean water.
Massive rainfall in the US NE has washed away roads, collapsed homes and caused widespread damage, even as the region braces for the impact of the aforementioned Hurricane Lee.
The summer has been officially classified as the hottest on record by a significant margin, with August the 534th consecutive warmer-than-average month – a span of more than 44 years.
It’s Science!
The latest from in climate research and analysis
A landmark UN study ahead of COP28 has assessed countries’ progress on their Paris Agreement pledges, and found that overall progress has been poor, with massive and rapid change required to prevent catastrophic warming.
The first complete assessment of all nine so-called ‘planetary boundaries’ has found that two thirds have been broken, and all bar one are threatened by human activity.
A new study estimates that temperature-related deaths could jump as much as five-fold in the US by 2100, with as many as 200,000 people killed by heat each year if warming is not abated significantly.
A new report has put the damage due to invasive species at a staggering $423bn each year, with thousands of species spread by human travel and trade.
A new study has found that Antarctica is warming twice as fast as the global average, and much more than most climate models predict.
Replacing 50% of the world’s meat and dairy consumption with plant-based alternatives by 2050 would effectively halt ecological destruction associated with farming.
New findings suggest that heat pumps are more than twice as efficient as fossil fuel heating systems in cold weather, and outperform them even down to -30°C.
Party Political Broadcast
Climate politics are a special creature indeed
California is suing five of the biggest oil majors over their obstruction of the truth on climate change – this piece from Drilled helps put the case into context alongside the many similar cases making their way through the courts.
The state has also passed new legislation that will require large companies to disclose scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions annually – the first such mandate in the US.
African leaders gathered for the continent’s first climate summit in Nairobi, with Kenyan president William Ruto positioning himself as the region’s de facto climate leader. The negotiations produced a declaration that demands major polluters commit more resources to help poorer nations.
Small island nations are seeking an opinion from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to try and force developed nations to act on their emissions.
EU emissions rules on shipping will soon force container ships to pay hundreds of thousands of euros extra per trip, though the fees will need to be higher still to make firms actively switch to lower carbon approaches.
Money makes the world go around
The machinations of climate finance
The US has racked up 23 billion+ dollar climate disasters so far this year, a new record, with four months still to go and several known impacts not yet accounted for.
Haha, Business!
Climate happenings in the corporate world
Microsoft’s water consumption has increased by over a billion litres from 2021 to 2022, and Google’s water usage has seen similar increases.
Apple has announced that its new Apple Watch is ‘carbon neutral’, but whilst its supply chain cleanup efforts are laudable, ultimately making more stuff will always have an impact.
US insurers are increasingly pulling out of states and refusing to insure against major climate disasters, but at the same time they continue to invest in and underwrite fossil fuel projects.
More documents have come to light showing how Exxon Mobil systematically undermined the IPCC and climate science even after publicly acknowledging the role fossil fuels played in the climate crisis.
The Future is Electric
EVs and all things electrification
China’s share of the European EV market has more than doubled in less than 2 years, and the EU is now considering protectionist measures to limit the influx.
The Orkney Islands are to trial two new electric hydrofoil ferries in a UK government-backed scheme to reduce emissions from inter-island transportation.
Clean Green Energy Machine
Renewables versus coal – a look at the changing energy system
China’s installed solar capacity is now expected to reach 1 terawatt by the end of 2026, after surpassing an already impressive 500GW at the end of this year.
The UK failed to attract new buyers for new offshore wind at its latest auction, after setting the price too low given recent inflation spikes. It is finally moving to change rules around its de facto ban on offshore wind, but experts say that despite the changes, it is still too difficult to build onshore wind power.
Satellite observations show that methane releases from oil and gas operations are as much as 30% higher than the figures officially reported to the UN.
Breakthroughs
New inventions to inspire hope
A Dutch innovation called Energiesprong allows building retrofits to be done faster and more cheaply by using a modular system that snaps around existing buildings.
Climate Inequity
A hard look at the inequities of the climate crisis
US consumers ate 20bn lb of beef in 2021 – 60 lb per person – but half of that amount is consumed by just 12% of the population.
Speaking truths
Efforts in activism and awareness
New York University now plans to divest its $5bn endowment from fossil fuels, after years of pressure from activists.
The Indian government is one of many ramping up efforts to suppress climate protest, silencing activists through sedition charges and other similar manoeuvres.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Kudzu is an invasive plant that is now highly prevalent in the southern US, ‘consuming’ around 50,000 hectares per year, and which so completely transforms the land it covers that it even makes soil release more CO2.