FtF News #93 – 17th March 2021
Baffling UK climate policy, VW’s battery ambitions and possible US-China cooperation on climate?
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
Even living here, it’s hard to know what to make of the UK’s climate strategy right now. The UK government is certainly talking the talk, but it feels like actual policy is a mess. This week saw another flip flop on the planned deep coal mine in Cumbria, which now is being reviewed by the Communities Secretary, just weeks after he refused to intervene. Air passenger duty is also being cut on UK domestic flights – another puzzling decision, potentially boosting domestic air travel at a time when train fares are being boosted ever higher, and fuel duty frozen. Boris Johnson certainly talks the talk, but it’d be good to see a little more consistent climate action, please.
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
Last year’s US wildfires caused North American air quality to worsen last year, the only world region to do so. Most parts of the globe enjoyed cleaner air in 2020 thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns shutting down many key sources of pollution, but 38% of US cities had PM2.5 levels above WHO quality standards, and in September, 77 of the 100 most polluted cities worldwide were in the US. Unfortunately, wildfires are only going to get worse, even in the best case climate scenarios. That’s not to say we shouldn’t act – warming temperatures are the key factor influencing increasing fire risk, and the warmer it gets, the larger and more likely those fires will become.
A new study has catalogued emissions for every stage of the food chain globally from 1990-2015, breaking down emissions by greenhouse gas, sector and country. The resulting dataset, known as EDGAR-FOOD, has an array of insights about the evolving nature of food emissions over time, as well as the differences between the developing and developed world. One surprising factoid – not only are emissions from food transport less than those from packaging, but 96% of those emissions are from local or regional food transport, suggesting that worry about food miles might be misplaced.
Beijing is currently swathed in orange gloom, as a seasonal sandstorm has brought the city’s worst air since 2017. Sandstorms often form in the north of the country, where they have been linked to deforestation and drought. The storms are one of the reasons that China has pushed into huge tree planting programs, including one that aims to plant 35m hectares of trees by 2050.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
Energising aspirations
Europe is pushing hard on clean energy at the moment. The biggest announcement came from VW, which is continuing on its monumental shift to a fully electric car company. They plan for six major battery cell plants totalling 240GWh across Europe by 2030, costing a cool $29bn. Combined with their significant (and expanding) investment in Northvolt, this gives them some serious battery clout, and looks like a move to take on Tesla, who are building their own vast battery and car facility in Berlin. The announcement also included major roll outs of charging stations across Europe, the US and China, and they plan to add bidirectional charging in the near future, potentially enabling vehicle-to-grid storage – exciting stuff!
GE is also planning a vast new blade factory in Teesside for its enormous Haliade-X turbines. This feels like a bid to onshore production of offshore wind – after all, despite the UK having the most offshore turbines of any country in the world, there’s little to no domestic production from the major manufacturers. As geopolitics evolves with the renewable energy transition, we’re likely to see more on-shoring of production as countries seek to avoid power concentrating with key players.
Competition… or Climate Cooperation?
A dominant theme on the world stage over the past couple of years has been the rising tension between the US and China, as the two jostle over trade agreements, human rights and more. However, the two might have found a common cause in the climate – both countries will co-chair a G-20 study group focused on climate change related financial risks. However, neither side is too keen to acknowledge the move just yet, so any thawing of relations is likely to be a slow process.
Speaking of China, there’s been a fair amount of coverage of China’s latest 5 year plan – the mechanism by which the country organises economic and development goals. This particular plan was highly anticipated, coming as it does soon after China’s announcement of a carbon neutrality target of 2060. A number of commentators were distinctly underwhelmed by the announcements, but Carbon Brief, as always, have dived deep on the full implications. There’s a lot going on, but the tl;dr is that Chinese planning doesn’t work in the same manner as that in the West, and whilst announcements so far are lacklustre, more are likely to follow that will likely crank up their ambition. That doesn’t mean China can’t do more, just that we need to judge its announcements in context.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
Always more to do
IRENA (the International Renewable Energy Agency) has said that whilst renewables are growing at an impressive rate, renewable electricity growth needs to increase 8-fold to limit global heating to reasonable levels. The scale of what they’re proposing is enormous, requiring a $131tn investment over the next 3 decades. Part of the reason for this huge scale is that as the globe electrifies, electricity will rise to over 50% of energy consumed by 2050 (compared to around 21% in 2018), even as overall energy demand grows. We’ve got some serious work to do…
One of the key elements in that is the recovery from COVID-19. Many analyses have shown the benefits that could be reaped from building back in a more sustainable fashion, boosting economies whilst accelerating the green transition. So far, around 0.2% of coronavirus stimulus has gone to green measures. That is to be expected – the initial phase of stimulus is about rescue and keeping everything afloat. However, the recovery phase is approaching, and that’s where governments need to really emphasise renewables to have a significant impact.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
There’s growing momentum behind the ‘30 by 30’ movement – a bid for a global agreement to protect 30% of the world’s oceans and land by 2030. However, indigenous peoples are not being invited to the negotiating table. Given their outsize role in protecting biodiversity, as well as the threats they routinely face, they need to be part of the conversation.
Russia is the only major geopolitical power not making major moves into renewable energy, staking its economy on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Not only could this be disastrous for the world, given the impacts of melting permafrost and increased LNG and mineral extraction, but Russia may be boxing itself into a corner as the world transitions to a new order.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
Deb Haaland has become as the US’ first Native American Cabinet Secretary, as she is confirmed to lead the Interior Department.
Lego is looking to remove plastic bags from its products by 2025 as part of a wider shift towards full sustainability.
A new technique has been developed that converts food waste into jet fuel, potentially cutting emissions significantly.
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