FtF News #75 - 4th November 2020
Elections, storms and the future of energy
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Well, it’s election time in the US. By the time this goes out, election day itself will be over, though it remains to be seen whether the outcome will be clear (or even if the candidates accept the result). One way or another, the fate of US climate politics will be sealed in for at least the next four years, though whether in a good or a bad way only time will tell. Between the chaos in the states and the mess here in the UK, it feels like politics has taken a turn for the absurd in the last few years. I can only hope that when the dust settles this time we may face a more positive future.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
Both the Atlantic and Pacific storm seasons are still in full swing, with little sign of slowing. Hurricane Zeta made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday, but fortunately was relatively weak by the time it made it inland. However, Hurricane Eta, the 28th storm of the season (equalling the record 2005 storm season) is heading for Nicaragua and Honduras, and it looks like being a vicious one. It’s currently a category 4 Hurricane and still strengthening, and could bring storm surges, flash floods and landslides to coastal Central America.
Meanwhile, over to the East, there’s a constant train of storms streaming out of the Pacific. The Philippines are bracing for Typhoon Atsani, which comes just after Goni, which killed 20 and caused widespread destruction. Goni was one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, with winds of up to 195mph, and came shortly after Molave which killed 22 in heavy floods in the south of the country.
The wildfires in California continue to rage, with another pair of fires doubling in size overnight in southern California, forcing 90,000 people to evacuate. The fires have seen vast numbers of people left without power as utilities attempt to limit further fires from their equipment by cutting electricity entirely in high risk periods. The chaos from both the fires and hurricanes is adding to the chaos preceding the election, with worries that some may not be able to vote due to the ongoing disasters.
Over in the Horn of Africa, a new generation of locusts is breeding, with December likely to see fresh swarms heading south towards Kenya. Whilst preparations for the swarms are better than earlier in the year, the impact is still likely to be severe, coming as it does on top of previous swarms that hit Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen.
New research into plastic has found that the US is responsible for far more waste than previously thought. In 2016, the US produced more waste plastic than any other country, and accounting for illegal dumping, littering and scrap plastic exports, ranked third in the world for marine plastic pollution, behind only India and Indonesia. The research was based upon previous work looking at data from 2016, but with China’s recent harder stance on plastic waste imports, the US is now overwhelmed with domestic plastic, with many states turning to incineration as recycling facilities simply can’t cope.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Korea for Climate
Less than a week after Japan’s announcement of a 2050 net-zero target, South Korea has also stepped up its climate ambitions. The country has announced that it will become carbon neutral by 2050, backing up earlier ambition demonstrated by the country’s 42.7tn won green plan revealed earlier this year. That plan faced criticism from environmentalists for not setting a clear time frame for the goals it wanted to achieve, so this new announcement helps to assuage those fears. There are still a lot of missing details, but it’s nevertheless excellent to see another major country stepping up to the mark with a clear goal.
The Future of Energy
Bloomberg New Energy Fund has released its 2020 New Energy Outlook report, another attempt to figure out what the future of energy looks like for the next couple of decades. The good news is that their default scenario is looking more positive than ever before - with emissions peaking in 2027 and then declining 0.7% annually to 2050. That scenario also sees up to $11tn invested into green power, with wind and solar growing to 56% of electricity supply (and leading countries reaching 70-80%) by 2050. However, even under this situation, the world would still see temperatures of 3.3°C above pre-industrial times by the end of the century, so more is definitely needed.
In their more climate-centric scenario, the world will need some 100,000TWh of power by 2050 to fuel electricity and hydrogen production. This power system would generate 5x the electricity of today’s global grid, with around a third going to green hydrogen production. This massive step change in power would require between $78-130tn of new investment by 2050, but would keep emissions well below 2°C. In other words, we can still have a sub-2°C world, but we need to massively ramp up our efforts to achieve it.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
The fall of NOAA
Another week, another unravelling of environmental regulations and institutions. NOAA has largely managed to remain unaffected by the sweeping deregulation and revolving door of ex-industry appointees which has been the hallmark of the current US administration. However, that has changed this year, with the acting chief scientist removed in favour of a political appointee known for his aggressive anti-climate change stance. Communication policies have also been updated so that internal and external communication must be approved by political staff, reducing the freedom of the institution. Purportedly, the target of these changes is the National Climate Assessment, a major 4-yearly report that underpins many federal regulations on the environment. The Assessment is assembled by many agencies, but is orchestrated by the NOAA, and it seems the administration is hoping to weaken the report’s verdicts to attack yet more regulation.
Dirty Tactics
In a depressing but unsurprising turn of events, a new investigation has shown that Ford and GM knew about their vehicles’ impact on the environment as early as the 1960s. Much like the oil and coal industries, they then spent decades hiding and denying the links between their products and environmental damage, financing groups who helped block international climate agreements and opposed emissions standards. Between 1985 and 2010, the average mpg of Ford cars went from 20 to just 20.4, with similar abysmal performance from GM. Both companies are now finally switching heavily into EVs, having seen the writing on the wall.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
An exploration of the language of climate change (particularly in the US) with Genevieve Guenther is well worth a read. Climate change is so often not directly mentioned, even in stories about very climate-related events such as storms or wildfires, meaning the wider implications are often not made clear to the public.
The Rate of Change newsletter published a great primer on why capturing carbon dioxide from the air will always be expensive, and what sort of price it would cost, using ballpark numbers and rough estimates to show why we shouldn’t place all our eggs in the carbon capture basket.
Carbon Brief dived deep into the research on how climate change affects health, specifically on how climate change health impacts disproportionately affect women. What is very notable is that many of the causes are not due to physiological differences, but simply due to climate change exacerbating existing societal inequities. This again highlights the vital importance of not just reducing emissions, but tackling these wide-reaching seams of injustice throughout our society.
That’s all I have for you this week. As always, thank you for reading, and if you liked it, why not share it with a friend? If you’ve any thoughts, feedback or suggestions, I’d love to hear them - you can reach me at oli@forgethefuture.com.
Stay safe, wear a mask, and see you next week,
Oli