FtF News #86 – 27th January 2021
Increasing ice loss, La Niña, and more impacts of air pollution
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Somehow we’re already near the end of January – time flies when all the days blur into one repeating loop, it would seem! COVID remains a huge concern, but with vaccine rollouts starting to speed up, hopefully the world can start getting back upon its feet.
However, the climate does not wait. A new study released this week recalculated the remaining ‘carbon budget’ to keep the planet under 1.5°C. The results give us around a 2 in 3 to a 1 in 2 chance of not exceeding that threshold, but we have just 6-11 years of emissions at current levels. By these estimates, we need to reach net-zero, globally, by just 2042. We’ve got a lot of work to do!
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
A new study into global ice loss has found rates are accelerating alarmingly – increasing by 57% between 1994 and 2017 – with Greenland and the Antarctic the fastest melting. Rates of ice loss are now in line with the worst-case projections from the IPCC, implying that coastal communities are likely to face severe impacts from sea level rise even towards the end of this century. In a similar trend, new analysis of the Southern Ocean has found that it is warming far faster than was previously thought, with dire implications for Antarctic sea ice. The Southern Ocean is one of the least understood regions on the planet, and more research is required to grasp its rapidly evolving dynamics.
Lake heatwaves are a relatively recently discovered phenomenon, but are likely to increase significantly in both duration and temperature by the end of the century. Lake heatwaves occur when a lake’s surface water temperature rises above the 90th percentile of heat records for at least five days, and were relatively uncommon until around 2000, when they started occurring much more frequently. The events usually have dire impacts on the species living in and around the lake, from direct heat effects to poisoning from algal blooms.
The La Niña weather pattern, whilst providing some cooling on a global level, is affecting countries all around the Pacific rim. California’s fire season is still continuing thanks to ongoing drought, whilst Argentina’s soy crops are threatened by similar conditions. However, on the other side of the Pacific, Vietnam’s coffee crops are suffering due to prolonged rainfall, and Thai and Malaysian crop yields are being hit by severe flooding. Australia is perhaps the only winner, with rainfall there breaking a years-long drought that has diminished crop yields for some time.
Mozambique is reeling from the impact of Cyclone Eloise, which has flooded much of the centre of the country, and devastated the port city of Beira. Over 1,000 homes were completely destroyed, with another 3,000 badly damaged. The country is still recovering from two cyclones which hit in 2019, killing hundreds.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Spending Big
Spending on the global energy transition exceeded $500bn in 2020, a new milestone. The figure rose around 9% from 2019, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Renewable power still dominates spending, but has largely levelled out (though due to falling prices, that money buys more each year). However, spending was far from evenly distributed, with many larger economies falling behind, whilst smaller nations pushed forward – the UK’s spending increased 177%, the Netherlands by 221%, and Vietnam’s by 89%. Vietnam was likely the third largest solar market globally in 2020 after adding 6GW of rooftop solar in December alone! However impressive this half-a-trillion dollar figure is, there’s still so much more to do – here’s hoping that number rises yet further this year.
Moving Fast
The incoming US administration has moved fast, as many had hoped. President Biden issued a flurry of executive orders in his first day, rejoining the Paris Agreement and cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline (to the fury of Republican backers), as well as enacting a moratorium on all oil and gas permitting on federal lands and waters for 60 days. This last move is more about intent than immediate impact, as firms stockpiled leases before the election, but could signal the direction the new administration intends for the industry. John Kerry also announced that the US will make good on its pledge to donate to the Green Climate Fund, a global fund to help developing nations adapt to the warming planet. The US pledged $3bn in 2016, but Trump blocked further donations, meaning the US still owes $2bn, whilst other nations have since doubled their contributions.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Something in the air
A new large scale study in the UK has linked small increases in air pollution to higher risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) – one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness in the over-50s in developed nations. Whilst the biggest risk factors for AMD remain genetics and health conditions such as diabetes and obesity, air pollution is an ever present risk for many around the world. At this point, it seems there is little that isn’t caused or worsened by air pollution – highlighting the importance of measures to improve air quality.
Business as usual
Norway has awarded its latest block of offshore oil and gas exploration licences to 30 firms this week, continuing efforts to expand its existing production capacity. It will soon also be awarding the contentious Arctic exploration blocks that were subject to a recent lawsuit by environmental groups that was dismissed in December.
Saudi Aramco has come under criticism after it was discovered that carbon disclosures to investors omit facilities totalling around half of its direct emissions footprint – an amount roughly equal to the emissions of Portugal. The company currently only reports on directly owned facilities in Saudi Arabia, but runs joint operations across the world (many of which it is planning to expand). However, the firm has said it will start disclosing its full direct emissions from next year.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Heat is an increasingly pressing issue as the world continues to warm, but as always, not all are affected equally. Mother Jones dives deep into the huge divides between different areas in the hottest regions of the US, and finds massive differences in the impact of heat that largely run along racial and income lines. Many of these divides can be traced all the way back to racist redlining policies that segregated communities and denied funding and services to non-white communities. The legacy of those policies persists today, with the same communities more affected by climate impacts such as extreme heat, and with less support and funding for measures to mitigate those effects. Overt racism may start to decrease with a new president, but the US still has a lot of systemic inequality to unpick, and fast.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
Israeli firm StoreDot claims to have a production-ready lithium-ion battery that can be charged in just five minutes.
Boeing has committed to producing aircraft that can run on 100% ‘sustainable’ fuels by 2030.
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