Hello, and welcome to the 9th edition of Forge the Future. I’d like to open with a piece from the NYT, comparing the push for the moon landings with tackling climate change. The comparison isn’t perfect, but as Dr Kate Marvel put it: “Just because a metaphor is not exact, doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”.
I’d also like to highlight the role that equality has to play in tackling climate change. It was a woman who first discovered the cause of global warming (though she was sidelined in favour of a man), and now more than ever we need to give everyone the power to effect change. There’s a reason why two of Drawdown’s top 10 climate solutions relate to empowering women and girls around the world.
State of the Climate
The CO2 levels this week are at 411.41 ppm (up from 408 ppm at the same time last year), and recent predictions reckon that July is going to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, breaking a record set only 2 years ago.
Visualisation of the Week
This plaque commemorates the former Ok glacier in Iceland, the first in the world that has shrunk so much that it is no longer officially a glacier. A sobering sign of the times to come.
Weather
I’d like to open with this interactive Vox article, showing the effects of global warming on various cities in the US by 2050. US farmers are already struggling, having first been hit by severe flooding then a heatwave, causing low crop yields, with much farmland not planted at all. Our current crops cannot survive extremes of weather, and some are returning to older styles of farming to cope. In Portugal, one farmer is converting his land back to montado, a form of silvopasture where animals graze under trees, and a wide variety of fruit and vegetables are grown together rather than monocropping. However, even this is struggling in the increasing temperatures, which hit 49°C this year.
Temperatures are continuing to spike worldwide, with Alert in Nunavut hitting a record 21°C (an average July high is 7°C!). New research estimates California’s wildfires are 500% larger due to climate change. At this rate, there won’t be any woodland left in the state by the end of the century.
Ecological impacts
New data shows that most of India’s deforestation is concentrated in its greenest region in the NE, with around 70% of the entire county’s tree loss coming from the area. A profile of Coyhaique in Chile, the most polluted city in the Americas, shows how hard it can be to change tradition, with most in the city still preferring to burn wood despite government attempts to reduce the enormous PM2.5 particulate levels.
Politics
EU
The EU has a new commissioner, who secured her role in part by committing to stronger climate reforms. The bloc is trying to secure an agreement to make the entire EU carbon-neutral by 2050, although Poland is trying to secure more funding to make the transition. This would be big news, as whilst a number of individual countries have pledged carbon neutrality, a commitment from the entire bloc would be a huge step forward.
The EU also managed to keep Brazil in the Paris Agreement by making it a condition of their new trade agreement with the Mercosur group of countries. Whilst Bolsonaro continues to let the Amazon be destroyed at an alarming rate, at least there’s some hope of limiting the damage.
France
Continuing the carbon-neutrality theme, France has moved a huge carbon-neutrality law past their senate, which would make the country carbon neutral by 2050. All coal will be shut down by 2022, and cut-backs to nuclear power will be delayed by a decade.
UK
The UK government is thinking of increasing the allowed ethanol content of British fuel, which would boost the biofuels market considerably. The UK is also helping to make a market for used cooking oil, which is being used in biodiesel. However, much of it is being imported from SE Asia, where it is helping to drive extensive deforestation. Fortunately, the government is also trying to support electrification of cars, with a proposal to ensure all new UK homes have a car charging port installed. It remains to be seen how the new UK Prime Minister will approach climate change, as much of the focus has been on Brexit, but Michael Gove, the outgoing Environment Minister admitted that the current government has not done enough.
USA
New York signed off its ‘Green New Deal’, announcing it alongside a huge 1.7GW wind power project. Whilst the White House seems to delight in denying climate change, these pushes by individual states are encouraging to see.
China
China is tightening up emissions regulations, toughening emissions rules for steel mills, as well as deploying a new monitoring network for CFCs, after a report tracked a worrying rise in the banned gases to a province in China.
Business
Around 70% of companies with significant impact on forests don’t disclose their impacts on deforestation. This is worrying - without knowing what’s driving demand, it’s harder to push for change. This highlights a problem with supply-chains everywhere - companies will not be able to continue blindly ignoring issues upstream.
Transport
Toyota seems to be finally shifting from its staunch support for fuel cells and hybrids, with the announcement of a partnership with BYD to develop EVs for the Chinese market. Especially with the plummeting price of battery cells, hydrogen fuel cells just do not make sense for cars. They may see a place in long haul trucks or ships, but cars are right at the sweet-spot of battery EV tech right now.
Denmark is looking to upgrade its surprisingly slow rail system, bringing all major cities within 1 hour travel of one another. Awkward geography and political wrangling has delayed this for some time, but it looks like it’s finally on the cards. The march of high-speed rail in Europe continues!
Fossil Fuels
Oh Chevron. A report has claimed the company ‘deliberately mismanaged’ the building of a carbon sequestration facility adjoining a new gas plant, with the licencing process only starting this year, despite the gas plant opening in 2016. Over $60 million of taxpayer funding went into the plant, which is also on a class A nature reserve, with dozens of species unique to the area.
Fossil fuels continue to become more unpopular, with the FT suggesting oil tankers could become ‘stranded assets’. Greece is trying to sell off its coal plants, but has attracted precisely zero bids. Meanwhile, the number of significant financial institutions with coal-exclusion policies is now at 113 and rising.
Energy
Renewable energy is a real game-changer in Africa. Not only is it perfect for microgrids, bringing power to those too far to have a full grid connection, but it is providing huge numbers of jobs in a time of rising unemployment. The industry employs 10,000 in Kenya, and another 4,000 in Nigeria, with the latter predicted to grow to over 50,000 in the next 4 years.
Kenya has also just launched Africa’s largest wind farm, some 310MW, in its bid to reach 100% renewable energy by 2020. Kenya is really showing up much of the Western world in its speed and scale of adoption of renewable energy, and no doubt the rest of the continent will swiftly follow. It will be interesting to see if power balances shift once Africa generates large amounts of wind and solar energy in the coming decades. This would place it far ahead of the US.
Meanwhile in Europe, battery manufacturing is growing at a huge pace, with an estimated 10-fold growth expected by 2023, to around 200GWh. Scotland is also pulling its weight in wind power, having already generated enough energy from January to June to power all of its homes twice over. The UK is superbly placed to benefit from wind power, so it’ll be interesting to see if Boris Johnson overturns the implicit ban on onshore wind that has stopped most projects in their tracks.
China has unveiled their yearly FIT (Feed-in Tariffs), with some 22.8GW of PV solar power to be installed and operational by the end of the year. Once again, China doesn’t pull its punches with renewables - the sheer scale and speed of their clean energy plans is breathtaking.
Research
This week is all about the ocean, with research suggesting we’re already accidentally geoengineering the seas, as levels of iron dumped in the sea is far higher than previously thought. Like many geoengineering ideas, iron fertilisation could bring benefits, but we know so little about the consequences. Elsewhere, a man-made snowstorm has been suggested as a geoengineering solution to rising sea levels, preventing catastrophic ice melting in the Antarctic.
More studies have been performed on the effect of plastics in the sea, and it’s been found that Prochlorococcus bacteria are heavily damaged by leachates that are, well, leached from plastics. These bacteria are responsible for absorbing CO2 from seawater, and generate around 20% of our oxygen. It’s not yet known if the current levels of plastic in the sea are at the damaging level, but it’s a source of serious concern.
Finally, a report from Sustainable Food Future highlights some of the key technologies that will help feed our growing world population as the climate changes, whilst reducing the carbon and land impact of agriculture. It’s a huge challenge, and one that feels massively under-addressed.
Recycling
Germany is a country proud of its high recycling rates, but investigations have shown that they are the 3rd biggest exporter of waste to SE Asia. Cambodia is now sending waste back to the US and Canada, part of a growing trend of SE Asian countries pushing back against the wall of waste that the West sends there. It’s all very well recycling, but we need to manage it properly, rather than export the problem elsewhere then blame them for plastic pollution. Recycling is hard, and expensive, and will likely need policy interventions as well as better technology to truly become scalable.
Activism
Extinction Rebellion are back and disrupting London again, and are promising much bigger protests in the Autumn. The Met Police are not happy, but as XR point out - if similar numbers turn out to last time, there’s not a lot they can do.
A group of French journalists were immediately arrested after trying to film anti-coal protests in Australia. It’s not clear whether they were actually trespassing, as was claimed, but either way this does not make the Australians look particularly great.
Construction
Canada is leading the world in mass timber, pushing the height limits. The material shows a lot of promise, though as I’ve covered before, the ecological impact is uncertain. It appears to have lower environmental impact than steel and concrete, but it very much depends on what kind of wood is used.
Endgame
That’s all for this time folks! If you got to the end, congratulations, and thanks for reading. As always, if you enjoyed it, please do recommend it to others, and (I feel like one of those corny YouTube outros) please do subscribe if you aren’t already.
See you next week,
Oli