FtF News #207 – 14th July 2024

UK climate election wins, a record hurricane and China’s enormous renewables rollout

The news here in the UK this last week or so has been dominated by the landslide victory of the Labour party, who gained one of the largest majorities ever seen, despite a worrying rise in support for the hard right Reform party. It’s early days, but at least on climate, the signs are positive, with the new government making a number of sensible steps in the right direction (see this week's Party Political Broadcast section for more). It’s bringing a brighter note to what otherwise has been a grey and rainy summer here (although that may just be our Overton window shifting thanks to climate change – what feels normal now is far hotter than it used to be).

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Wild Weather

Mother nature’s reactions to the ever-warming world

• Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that June was the hottest ever June on record, making 13 consecutive hottest months ever.

• June also marks the 12th consecutive month of temperatures at least 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, which is a worrying milestone to have breached.

• Karachi, Pakistan has seen days of temperatures above 100°F with high humidity, with many in the city also protesting as both power and water outages have made the temperatures even less bearable.

• Japan has issued heatstroke alerts in 26 of 47 prefectures as temperatures reached 40°C in the country, well ahead of what is normally the hottest time of the year.

• Fires in the Brazilian Amazon have reached their worst level in 20 years for the first half of the year, with a 61% increase over last year. The Pantanal wetlands are also seeing a bad year for fires, with blazes raging out of control thanks to drier conditions.

• Hunan, China has seen its worst flooding in 70 years, with authorities declaring it a ‘wartime’ emergency situation.

• This week also saw Hurricane Beryl sweep across the Caribbean, flattening much of St Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as Grenada. The storm intensified at a staggering speed, and is the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic. The storm had weakened to category 1 by the time it reached Houston, where it still caused major power outages, with residents turning to a burger app to track blackouts after their power company failed to keep up with issues.

• Seven people have been killed by extreme weather and storms across Switzerland, France and Italy this week.

• Nearly 1,000 homes were destroyed by gale force winds in Cape Town as the city is buffeted by stormy weather.

It’s Science!

The latest from in climate research and analysis

• Scientists have identified a new potential tipping point for sea ice sheets in Antarctica, with sudden collapse possible given just a tiny increase in sea temperature.

• Analysis by Carbon Brief suggests that a Trump win in the US election could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030 – equivalent to the emissions of the EU and Japan combined.

• Colombian deforestation has fallen to the lowest level in 23 years, although that trend may not continue this year thanks to a break-down in negotiations with rebels who control many forested regions.

• The Key Largo tree cactus has become the first species to go locally extinct due to sea-level rise.

Party Political Broadcast

Climate politics are a special creature indeed

• The US Supreme Court has overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine, which allowed government agencies latitude to interpret vague laws. Given the difficulty in passing new laws, much of current US climate policy is built on such interpretations, along with a host of other key rules.

• A federal judge has also overturned the Biden administration’s pause on issuing permits for new LNG facilities.

• The administration has unveiled a proposal for federal worker protections from heat, meaning workers would get shade, breaks and drinking water in high temperatures.

• Meanwhile in the UK, the new Labour government is immediately pushing ahead on the climate, dropping the de facto ban on onshore wind farms within days.

• They have also said that the approval of a new coal mine in Cumbria was unlawful, and they will not challenge climate lawsuits brought against the approval.

• The UK government will assemble a Covid-19-style taskforce to deliver clean and cheaper energy by 2030, headed up by Chris Stark, the former head of the CCC, the UK’s independent climate advisory body.

Money makes the world go around

The machinations of climate finance

• The new UK Labour government is to establish a £7bn National Wealth Fund to immediately boost investment in clean technologies such as green steel.

Haha, Business!

Climate happenings in the corporate world

• Google’s emissions have jumped 48% in the past five years after its push into AI has led to increased data centre usage, putting its net zero target in doubt. The company has also stopped claiming that it is carbon neutral, halting purchases of carbon offsets in favour of avoiding and reducing its emissions.

• GM has been hit by a nearly $146m fine after its vehicles were found to be exceeding emissions limits by the US EPA.

• Universal Hydrogen, one of the few companies working on hydrogen aviation, has had to shut its doors after failing to raise further funding.

• The CEO of SBTi is to resign, after a change in tack to support the use of offsets by companies decarbonising drew intense criticism from staff and the wider environmental community.

• California has managed to persuade many shipping companies to slow down in areas with whale populations by offering prizes for those that meet the speed goals.

Clean Green Energy Machine

Renewables versus coal – a look at the changing energy system

• China is now building ⅔ of the entire world’s wind and solar projects, and is on track to reach 1,200GW of installed capacity by the end of 2024 – six years ahead of schedule.

• This massive roll-out of renewables is starting to have an impact on the country’s coal usage, which dropped to 53% of power in May, lending further credence to suggestions that China’s CO2 emissions may now have peaked.

• After 100 days with no power cuts, South Africa’s energy minister has vowed to roll out renewables aggressively, a sharp change in tone from his predecessor.

Breakthroughs

New inventions to inspire hope

• Innovators have come up with designs for fish-safe hydropower turbines, offering another route for hydropower facilities to reduce their ecological impact.

• The first solar project above a canal in the US is nearing completion in Arizona, shortly to be followed by another in California next year.

Climate Inequity

A hard look at the inequities of the climate crisis

• Research has shown that women are as much as 14 times more likely to die in natural disasters, thanks to the heightened impacts of gender inequities in disaster situations.

Long Reads

Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics

• Hurricane Beryl put the spotlight back on the outsize impact of hurricanes on Caribbean nations, which find themselves increasingly caught in an endless loop of disaster recovery that ultimately can be traced back to colonialism.