FtF News #92 – 10th March 2021
The growth of green hydrogen, US drought, and hybrids are not living up to expectations
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Apparently, we’re already well into March, with this past week seeing the release of the UK’s latest budget. Carbon Brief took a deep look at the climate implications of what was announced, and let’s just say, for a country that leans hard on its green ambitions, it was a little lacklustre. It wasn’t so much the presence of anti-climate policies (bar the 11th straight year of frozen fuel duty, whilst public transport costs continue to rise), but more just a lack of significant new green measures and ambition. Mediocre!
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
The US can’t seem to catch a break at the moment, climate wise. Drought conditions that have persisted across much of California (and contributed to last year’s wildfires) are continuing, exacerbated by the current La Niña conditions. Drought in some form has been present for at least two decades, and is not likely to abate any time soon.
Speaking of wildfires, a new study looking at hospital admissions found that wildfire smoke could be up to 10 times more harmful to us than other air pollution such as car exhausts. Wildfire smoke is particularly insidious as there’s no real way to avoid it other than to stay inside, which isn’t an option for many, especially when fires rage for weeks on end.
A new report by Rainforest Foundation Norway says that two thirds of tropical old growth rainforest has been destroyed or degraded, mostly for agriculture. Unsurprisingly, over half the post-2002 destruction was in or around the Amazon, though southeast Asia and Central Africa also saw high levels of deforestation.
Another study looking at the effects of the warming world has found that much of the tropics are being pushed beyond the limits of human habitability. In a world that has warmed beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, much of the tropics (the study looked at up to 20° north and south of the equator) could hit wet bulb temperatures above 35°C – a threshold where the human body is unable to keep itself cool.
Finally, as a follow-up to mentions of the Gulf Stream weakening last week, I thought I’d link this NY Times article about the same study, which features some powerful visualisations of the world's currents. I do love a good climate visualisation!
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Hydrogen’s flame burns a little brighter
Ah, Hydrogen, that famed clean fuel of the future, promised for so long. However, it does seem like the momentum is really starting to build behind green hydrogen, with most of the world’s largest economies either having published green hydrogen strategies or planning to. Even Saudi Arabia is trying to get in the fun, proposing a $5bn green hydrogen plant powered by 4GW of wind and solar power as part of its madcap planned green megacity project, Neom.
Whilst Neom, like much of the kingdom’s green ambitions, may never see the light of day, the hydrogen plant has better odds, as it could offer a viable alternative export fuel as demand for its crude (hopefully) begins to fall in the coming years. Saudi Arabia has abundant potential for cheap renewable energy, meaning any green hydrogen produced is likely to be competitively priced on the world market.
John Kerry also hyped the value of green hydrogen in a speech this week in a bid to bring oil companies into a green energy transition in the US. Big Oil is certainly well placed in terms of infrastructure, but whether they can adapt to the challenges of a hydrogen-based economy remains to be seen.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Hybrids – the worst of both worlds?
A pair of UK studies released this week suggest that hybrid cars are actually more polluting than existing petrol and diesel vehicles. Hybrids have been touted by manufacturers as a halfway house between combustion engined vehicles and full battery electric, offering the additional range of an engine with the low emissions of EVs. This has led many governments to lump in hybrids with EVs when setting clean vehicle policies.
However, these recent studies, examining vehicles using real-world driving conditions, found that all fell short of manufacturer claims, with the worst being 72% less fuel efficient than claimed. The most popular plug-in hybrid in the UK, the Mitsubishi Outlander (an SUV, naturally) emitted more CO2 than 16 other popular petrol and diesel cars tested.
This week also saw Singapore announcing a ban on new diesel cars and cabs from 2025, with all new cars and taxis to be ‘cleaner-energy’ models by 2030. Whilst the definition of ‘cleaner-energy’ didn’t make it into the press release, I’d suspect it includes hybrids, as this is the case for similar measures in the UK, versus ‘zero-emission’ worded mandates in Norway and California.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
A month on from the landslide and flood that swept away several hundred people in Uttarakhand, Neelima Vallangi takes a look at the climate’s role in the disaster, and the complex interweaving of politics, development and climate that underlies many projects in the region. As with so many situations, climate is not the sole cause, but exacerbates many existing pressures and issues that stretch back long before this particular event.
Japan has promised significant cuts in emissions by 2030, but currently has no clear way to achieve those ambitions. One of the few viable options proposed is to open all of the remaining nuclear plants shuttered after the Fukushima disaster, but even that might not be enough. A large proportion of the public are heavily opposed to the technology, and would likely protest such a move, even if it weren’t complex and expensive. Even China, industrial powerhouse that it is, is struggling to meet its targets for nuclear expansion, with far less public opposition.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
Volvo has joined the recent spate of companies going electric, pledging to sell only EVs from 2030 onwards.
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Aviva are among the firms setting out new net zero targets in the finance world.
FedEx is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2040, though as yet it has no clear plan for dealing with the impact of its air fleet – the world’s largest cargo airline.
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