Hello, and welcome back to Forge the Future. It’s been a chaotic week, from the continuing saga of the fires in the Amazon, to Trump repealing EPA methane regulations, to political chaos in the UK. This week’s newsletter is focusing on collective action - how we all need to work together to crack the Climate Crisis. One example of this is the Global Climate Strike, from 20-27th September, to raise awareness of climate issues across the globe. If you own or run a website, one way you can support this is via the Digital Climate Strike, which lets you add a banner to your website, and black it out on September 20th.
State of the Climate
The CO2 levels in the atmosphere this week were 408.24 ppm, as the CO2 levels head towards their lowest in the annual cycle, but still several ppm over the values for this time last year. As this graph shows, not only are CO2 levels still growing year on year, but the rate of growth is still increasing - this needs to stop ASAP.
The Great Barrier Reef’s official outlook has been downgraded from poor to very poor as the climate continues to worsen. It’s likely that most of the reef is doomed whatever we do - at 1.5°C of warming, 90% of coral reefs are at risk, and at 2°C that number rises to 98%. Given our current trajectory, coral reefs will soon be a feature of the history books alone.
The preliminary results of a new UN IPCC report have been released, this time focusing on the oceans and the cryosphere (the glaciers, lakes and permafrost of our planet). As always, it’s alarming reading - melting glaciers will first give us too much fresh water, then will cause shortages, and extensive permafrost melting could release billions of tons of extra CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The report also predicts up to a 1000-fold increase in flooding by 2100, causing anywhere from 50-250 million people to migrate as a result.
Nestlé are facing opposition after unveiling plans to take 1.1 million gallons of water a day from a natural spring in Florida for bottled water - over four times previous amounts taken from the struggling natural ecosystem, that is home to many unique species found nowhere else. In Colorado, elk are under threat from a rise in hiking, mountain biking and skiing, which has prevented the elk from breeding successfully, and reduced a 1000-strong herd to just 50.
Visualisation of the Week
This chart, by Our World in Data, shows the current pledges to the Green Climate Fund, which was formalised at the Paris Agreement to mobilize at least $100 bn from advanced economies by 2020. This week, the UK and France promised to double their existing pledges, but Trump has refused to hand over the US’s pledged money, so the fund is still drastically short of what was pledged.
Alone we wither, together we thrive
Tackling Climate Change seems sometimes to fall into two camps - bottom up approaches, where some individual or entity takes action, regardless of others, doing what they can - and collective action, where many entities band together. The former is far easier to perform, but it feels increasingly like collective action is the only approach that really makes a dent in a problem of this scale.
Right now it feels like our societies are firmly rooted in the individualist approach. See the dominance of business, and even the current rise of nationalism. See Trump in the US, pursuing a trade war against China, to make America great again, or Bolsonaro in Brazil, burning the Amazon for commercial gain. Brexit is another case - the UK government dead set on withdrawing from a wider collective community seemingly with no regard to the consequences, because we clearly will do better alone than together with others. Even in the approach of Silicon Valley, that renowned hotbed of innovation and disruption, pioneers of the individualist approach - fund a few key technologies and hope that one of them solves everything.
But if we look elsewhere, we can see examples of how a top-down, collective approach can work. Regardless of how China is viewed on other areas, it has shown huge leadership on climate matters, pushing the adoption of clean energy and electric vehicles on a scale unmatched by anywhere else in the world. They are the reason we have cheap batteries, electric cars and buses, and solar panels. They made a decision at the high levels of govt to take that direction, and focused a large proportion of their economy on that, and brokered no compromise. And it has worked.
The big problem with collective action is getting everyone in a room and agreeing to do something. This is starting to happen amongst the general public - see XR and the FridaysForFuture movements - but governmental action is still very limited. We don’t need universal consensus - but we do need a majority to act, and whilst everyone talks the talk, less are willing to walk the walk. It’s great to see VCs like Breakthrough Ventures funding more climate-focused companies, we need all of the VCs to be focusing on this. We need governments to commit to bold pledges for the Paris Agreement, and stick to them. Historically, we don’t have the best record of working together, but we should all hope that changes, and fast.
News Highlights
The EPA is eliminating federal requirements for oil and gas companies to inspect for and fix methane leaks from facilities. Interestingly, this rollback is actually opposed by a number of the largest oil firms, who have already invested in the tech to detect such leaks.
A number of prominent B-Corps have taken out an ad in the New York Times to encourage the largest US companies to put the planet ahead of profits.
Cuba has introduced sweeping reforms to its fishing laws, protecting reefs and fish, and reduce illegal fishing. The laws will require closer cooperation with the US, with which it shares waters, despite the latter’s frostiness on the international relations front.
KFC sold as much of an experimental plant-based chicken in 5 hours as it sells popcorn chicken in a week. Many other fast-food chains are also experimenting with meat-free additions to their menu as tastes change.
Greta Thunberg has arrived in New York after her voyage across the Atlantic in a solar-powered racing yacht. She has travelled in order to attend the UN summit on zero emissions at the end of September.
The EPA is eliminating federal requirements for oil and gas companies to inspect for and fix methane leaks from facilities. Interestingly, this rollback is actually opposed by a number of the largest oil firms, who have already invested in the tech to detect such leaks.
Indonesia is moving its administrative capital from Jakarta, which is rapidly sinking, to Borneo.
Marriott is eliminating small toiletries from its hotels, in a bid to reduce plastic waste. The move is expected to reduce its plastic waste by 30%.
Another coal plant bites the dust, this time in New York. It was originally planned to be converted to natural gas, but is likely instead to become a data centre.
Tesla are providing battery installations to Zimbabwe, to keep their telecoms network running. Much of the Zimbabwean economy relies on telecoms, and with diesel scarce, the current diesel generators often can’t be run when the power fails.
Climate Change has given rise to a new form of archaeology - glacial archaeology. It’s a race to catalogue finds uncovered by melting ice before rising temperatures destroy the previously hidden artifacts.
After a 1000% increase in downloads following the Amazon fires, the tree-planting search engine Ecosia has announced that it will plant an extra 2 million trees in Brazil.
EndGame
That’s all I have for you this week. If you got this far, thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed it, please do share with anyone you think would be interested! If you come across any interesting stories or visualisations you think I might be interested in, please do share them - I really appreciate it!
See you next week,
Oli