Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate happenings.
It’s been a toasty week for many of us in Europe. London, my home city, has had multiple consecutive days above 30°C, and much of western Europe has been suffering even higher temperatures. Despite this breaking records in many places, this is likely our new normal, and it shows how much we’re going to have to adapt to the changing climate. Our buildings, transport and even lifestyles are going to need to change if we are to adapt to this new state of affairs.
Despite the heat, it’s been a largely positive climate news week, and it feels like in a few areas at least, things are looking up.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
The heatwave rolling across western Europe has broken temperature records across the board. London saw its hottest day in recorded history, at 37.8°C, and Madrid hit 41.2°C. The heatwave was expected to be the one of the worst in over a century, with sustained temperatures like this only seen once since 1873.
Ice levels in the Arctic ocean hit the lowest levels for July since at least 1979 - some 27% below the 1981-2020 average. In Canada, 43% of the country’s last fully intact ice shelf collapsed at the end of July, with more of the sheet expected to follow. New Zealand’s glaciers have been shrinking significantly in what are known as ‘extreme mass loss’ events, but a new study has linked these definitively to anthropogenic climate change for the first time. The events were made at least 6-10x more likely by climate change, and other experts have suggested that, if anything, the effects are underplayed in the study.
On a more positive note, satellite imagery has revealed 11 previously unknown emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica, by spotting the distinctive guana left by the birds. The discoveries boost the number of known colonies by 20%, and include several far off the coast, on sea ice attached to icebergs. Unfortunately, the species as a whole is still vulnerable, as it is dependent on sea ice, which is likely to disappear if no further climate action is taken.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Green Ambitions
BP has unveiled more details on its climate ambitions. Whilst scepticism is always needed for any such announcement from an oil company, their plan has some solid and concrete goals, including developing 50GW of renewables by 2030, reducing oil production by 40%, and cutting upstream emissions to 235m tons, from 360m today. As always, they will need watching like a hawk, but this does seem to signal a change in direction for the company, though time will tell if it’s a commitment they stick to.
Part of the reason for believing that this time might be different comes from the enormous hits the biggest companies are taking right now. Saudi Aramco’s profits dropped 73% in Q2 2020 versus last year, and the world’s five largest oil companies cut the value of their assets by nearly $50bn in the same period. Whilst undoubtedly some are just trying to ride out what they see as a temporary crisis, some do appear to be seeing the writing on the wall, and are looking for ways to evolve.
Suing for Success
One theme that keeps jumping out, week after week, is the power of legal challenges from environmental groups. This week saw a successful challenge to Ireland’s 2017 climate plan, which was deemed well short of what was needed to hit the country’s commitments, and must be replaced. A similar challenge also succeeded in the Netherlands late last year. Time and again, environmental groups bring cases to the courts and make real progress in changing rules and standards. Even in the US, where the current political environment leans strongly against environmentalism, legal challenges are effective at blocking and delaying projects, as well as forcing more oversight into activities that otherwise would go unchallenged.
Ascendant EVs
EVs once again are all over the climate news cycle. Another pair of EV companies are heading public - Li Auto (a Chinese electric EV maker) just raised $1.1bn in a US IPO, and Lordstown Motors Corp., an electric pickup manufacturer, is to go public via a merger with a publicly traded funding vehicle. It’s very noticeable that both these companies, along with Rivian and Tesla, are all making SUVs and pickup trucks. Don’t get me wrong, electric SUVs are less bad than their non-electric counterparts for the environment, but big cars are also really not great for an urban environment, especially if we want to move to more bike- and pedestrian-friendly cities. The Citroën Ami could offer an alternative, as could the Japanese category of keijidōsha (‘kei’) cars - a class of ultra-mini highway legal cars designed for the country’s dense cities and tiny rural roads. The hard part will be persuading customers that such vehicles are desirable after years of advertising ever larger SUVs.
The number of EV charging points has now passed 1 million globally. The number was passed in May, after doubling in just 3 years. Most are in Europe and China, with the Netherlands having more than the entire of the US, despite having fewer drivers than New York state. Predictions for the future look rosy too, with a forecast suggesting that US electric trucks (the cargo carrying variety rather than pickups) are set to increase from 2,000 at the end of 2019, to over 54,000 by 2025 - most welcome given that they are the second biggest cause of transport emissions. Finally, Africa’s first electric bus plant is to open in Kampala, Uganda. Whilst initially many parts will be imported from China, it’s hoped that eventually all the major components will be made locally.
Peak Beef
The world is heading towards ‘peak meat’, with global total meat consumption likely to drop this year for the first time ever. Investors are throwing cash at alternative protein startups, with over $1bn invested so far this year. These are all encouraging signs for the environment, although meat will probably be with us for some time yet. Hopefully the meat industry that does remain is less grim than the industrial factory farming system that supplies much of the world’s meat currently.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Stormy Seas
The IMO has released the final report of the Fourth IMO Greenhouse Gas Study, showing that total emissions from maritime shipping are up 10% from 2012-2018. More concerningly, short-lived climate pollutants have increased significantly. Black carbon emissions are up 12% over the same period, and methane emissions are up 150%. This last part is particularly concerning given the outsized impact methane has over the short term. The IMO is looking to cut GHG emissions from shipping by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050, which is looking like a tall order - demand for shipping grew twice as fast as efficiency gains.
That’s it for this week, as always, thank you for reading! If you have any thoughts or suggestions, or want to complain about the stories I missed, do reach out - I always appreciate feedback and suggestions!
Stay safe, and see you next week,
Oli