FtF News #89 – 17th February 2021
A cleantech bubble, aviation improvements, and should we listen to Bill Gates on the climate?
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
It seems everywhere I’ve gone this week on the internet, I’ve been assailed by images of Bill Gates, who seems to be on a grand publicity binge for his new climate-focused book. I’m not totally against the man weighing in on climate, especially if it gets more folks interested in the climate crisis who weren’t as aware previously.
However, his take on the environment seems incredibly simplistic – just innovate our way out! It’s not that he’s wrong on the need for innovation, but he ignores so many other dimensions – the intersectional nature of the crisis, the role of politics and disinformation, to name a couple. Bill Gates has access to many of the smartest minds in the world, I wish he’d consulted a few more climate experts before broadcasting his views to the globe. Still, at least he’s not buying up billions in bitcoin (yet)...
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
The Lancet this week led with a report analysing the impact of the Trump administration’s policies on US deaths. The conclusions are pretty grim – some 22,000 deaths in 2019 could be attributed to environmental rollbacks, primarily cuts to air pollution enforcement. The journal has been increasingly opinionated in recent years, but this is also part of a wider trend towards the political from scientists. Science has often tried to avoid politics entirely, but in a world where politics has very much overwhelmed what should be a scientific matter (see Twitter’s declaration of climate change as a political issue), this attitude is starting to change.
Salmon farming is responsible for far more environmental impact than previously thought. The industry causes significant damage to ecosystems via pollution, parasites, and high fish deaths. This direct impact, estimated at $50bn between 2013-19, is in addition to the impact on wild fishing – around a fifth of the world’s wild fish catch goes towards fishmeal and fish oil, of which 70% goes to fish farms. Unfortunately, consumers are often both unaware of this impact, and unable to make informed choices due to poor origin labelling on fish in shops.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Fair winds
COVID has, as I’ve detailed before, impacted the aviation sector heavily. An interesting development has occurred this week as a result of that, on transatlantic routes. With lower traffic levels, air traffic control centres in the UK and Canada have agreed to trial letting pilots set their own routes, speeds and trajectories. Standardly, aircraft must stick to prearranged passages in the sky, keeping in place, but a series of software upgrades in ATC systems along with reduced traffic has meant the trial can go ahead. But why is this relevant to climate impact?
The new routing could reduce fuel burn (and thus emissions) massively – up to 16% on eastbound flights. This scale of fuel reductions would normally only be available to an airline by upgrading to the next generation of airliners, so airlines are leaping at the chance to save money at minimal extra cost. For now, the new rules only apply when traffic is at a sufficiently low level, but it could hopefully signal a route forward for gains on the routing side for aviation – something that has often lagged behind technological improvements due to the need for international cooperation and consensus.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
No more Big Oil, bring on… Big Energy?
Shell released their annual forecast, and for the first time it featured a plan to reach 1.5°C. Bad news: it’s just last year’s 2°C plan, with extra reforestation – enough to cover an area larger than Brazil. They do seem to want to change, but still can’t see a world where we aren’t still burning oil and gas in 2100. In general, it’s hard to tell if the current wave of ‘greener’ oil companies rebranding as ‘energy’ companies is truly a sea change, or just the latest iteration of a cyclical greenwashing campaign. None have really significantly shed fossil fuel assets on a big scale – for comparison see DONG Energy, or as you might know them, Ørsted. The company was formerly Danish Oil and Natural Gas, but sold off its fossil fuel assets entirely in 2017 and is now focused on offshore wind and other renewables. If other major oil companies are following this trajectory, they are a long way behind.
Another Cleantech Bubble?
One notable trend in 2020 has been the rise of cleantech giants, from the skyrocketing share price of Tesla to huge IPOs of numerous EV companies. However, few, if any are actually making any money. Whilst some of this is to be expected, with EVs and clean energy being massively capital-intensive industries, the sky-high valuations are concerning. There seems to be a vast amount of money chasing the next big thing, and though clean tech companies hopefully are on the rise, it still seems hard to justify the soaring valuations for firms that often are still finding their feet.
On a similar vein, the EU carbon price is racing upwards, prompting the EU to consider putting limits on the volumes of allowances that can be held by investors. Much of the price rise is due to hedge funds and others speculating on the carbon price, which has risen 70% over the past year. A higher price on carbon is generally good, but if the price gets too high too fast, then the system just prices entire industries out of the market, rather than encouraging decarbonisation.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
The IEA released its India Energy Outlook 2021 this week, and as always, Carbon Brief are right there with a thorough analysis of its contents. India holds a huge amount of power in determining how fast the world decarbonises, due to its rapid growth – over 60% of the country’s CO2 emissions in the late 2030s will come from infrastructure that is not yet built, offering a huge opportunity. The IEA offers a comparison between India’s stated policies and either an economic focus or an environmental one, and shows how the country could achieve the same economic growth as current policies, but alongside massive decarbonisation, making India a world leader in clean power.
There’s been a good deal of coverage this week of the challenges faced by the steel industry in its attempts to reduce its significant (7-9% of global emissions) environmental impact. Both Wired and the FT covered the opportunities and challenges that the massive industry faces in reinventing itself, from the technological to the geopolitical. Whilst an interesting read, I suspect the coverage is part of the wall of media coverage I mentioned relating to Bill Gates’ new climate book.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
South Korea has announced the world’s largest offshore wind farm – a massive 8.2GW – as part of its plan to boost renewable energy capacity.
Subway systems across the US have incredibly high levels of air pollution, with peaks of over 70x the safe level – equivalent to a wildfire or a building demolition.
Something a bit different – a look at Shenzhen, which electrified its entire bus and taxi fleet in just a couple of years.
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