FtF News #96 – 7th April 2021
Cherry blossoms, a battery boom and how not to design your green infrastructure bill
Hello, and welcome to Forge the Future, your weekly rundown of the latest climate news.
After a chaotic week of trains, vans and moving hassle, I’m now installed in a new flat, just in time to put together another FtF! Hopefully things should be back to normal from now on. In the meantime, here’s a slightly hurried tour through this week’s climate news!
State of the world
Climate research and findings, weather events and studies
Drought is causing havoc across the globe at the moment. The US West continues to dry out, with 44% of the contiguous US now under drought conditions. These conditions are likely to exacerbate wildfires, such as the ones currently burning in South Dakota. Meanwhile, Taiwan is suffering its worst drought in decades, and is now cutting water supplies to semiconductor manufacturing hubs – another blow for a crucial global industry already under huge pressure.
Kyoto’s famous cherry blossoms have peaked this year at the earliest date since records began, around 1,200 years ago. This is not just an isolated occurrence – the record shows a marked trend towards earlier blooming since around 1800, after around 1,000 years of relative stability. Aside from signalling the warming of the planet, earlier blooming could also disrupt pollination of the trees, as insects potentially end up out of sync with the flowers, impacting the entire ecosystem.
Tropical forest acreage lost to deforestation accelerated again in 2020, with 12% more lost this year versus 2019. Much of the loss was in Brazil, although Cameroon and Colombia also saw significant deforestation. However, both Indonesia and Malaysia’s levels of deforestation declined – a rare win for tropical forests. A new study this week calculated the ‘deforestation footprint’ of developed countries, in a bid to link the deforestation in developing countries with the demand for goods from developed nations. Much of the impact of countries like the UK, France, Germany and others comes in the form of ‘imported’ deforestation, often of tropical forest. We may no longer log our own forests, but we still cause deforestation indirectly.
Planet positives
Moving towards a greener and more equitable world
A change of pace
This week saw President Biden unveil details of a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan to reinvigorate the US economy. The plan has a strong focus on equity and climate resilience, with massive funds promised to rebuilding and strengthening key infrastructure against worsening climate impacts, improved R&D, the removal of lead water pipes, support for EVs and much more. It feels like a major change of pace from the US, and if passed, would start to rectify a good chunk of the impact of the Trump administration. However, the proposed funding source for the bill is increased corporation taxes, particularly on multinationals booking profits overseas, which has immediately raised Republican opposition, so it is unlikely to pass as is.
Fuelling the electric dream
Europe is seeing a boom in battery storage, fuelled by the rapidly growing European EV market. Major manufacturers in the region are reluctant to cede the construction of a large proportion of their vehicles to foreign companies, so are pouring money into local firms. BritishVolt, Northvolt and Automotive Cells Co. are amongst the new companies scaling up, and BNEF estimates European battery market share could rise from 7% currently to 31% by 2030, with 27 battery plants planned across the region, producing over half a terawatt-hour of cells by the end of the decade.
Adverse circumstances
Events that move the needle in the wrong direction
How not to do it
As I mentioned last week, the UK axed its Green Homes grant scheme after only six months, due to a catalogue of failures. The scheme was one of the only significant pieces of green COVID recovery policy put in place by the UK government, but fell apart rapidly. Despite an excellent goal of improving insulation and green home technologies such as heat pumps, the scheme has now burned trust with both homeowners and installers, who will be extremely reluctant to trust any future schemes the government may propose.
Home insulation is a tricky issue to tackle – in any area with a large base of older housing, there’s no quick fix to improving the insulation of homes. Retrofitting existing homes is imperfect, slow and time-consuming. However, those qualities also make it well-suited as a part of a COVID recovery plan – such a scheme, if well executed, can provide a large number of jobs whilst simultaneously improving home energy efficiency. However, schemes need to be well financed, well executed and long-lasting, rather than showy affairs that crumble within months.
Long Reads
Interesting deep-dives into climate-related topics
Many climate predictions and models rely on comparisons between weather/climate now and in the distant past. To do that involves moving beyond directly recorded readings, and figuring out the state of the environment from so-called proxy data – the impacts of climate on everything from seashell growth to leaf wax. This process is far from simple, and Carbon Brief dives deep into the details of environmental proxy data.
Climate Matters explores the topic of wet versus dry bulb temperatures, and the key role humidity plays in the liveability of different locales. Whilst high dry heat can cause its own impacts, humidity can make temperatures as low as 20°C lethal without the right cooling in place.
Quick Headlines
Some quick climate news nuggets to sate your appetite
Bigger wind turbines don’t kill more wildlife than smaller ones, according to a new study.
Airlines for America, a trade group for leading US airlines, has committed its member airlines to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.