Hello, and welcome to another edition of Forge the Future. This week has seen the continuation of the XR protests in London (and around the world). The Met Police has now banned XR from protesting in London entirely, after 8 days of protests that have seen over 1400 arrested, including a 77 year old rabbi. XR have pledged to continue, seeing the step up by the police as a sign that they’re getting through.
State of the Climate
CO2 levels this week: 408.39 ppm
This time last year: 405.50 ppm
This week saw Typhoon Hagibis make landfall on Japan, dropping nearly 3 feet of rain in some places, triggering extensive floods and mudslides. Over 50 are reported to have died thus far, and that number is likely to climb, as the impact is still being estimated in the immediate aftermath. The Typhoon is the most powerful to hit Japan since 1958, and was immediately preceded by a substantial earthquake across Honshu island.
On the other side of the Pacific, California has been trying to make do as their largest utility shut down massive parts of their electricity grid to prevent ageing and poorly maintained infrastructure from causing more wildfires. Aside from thousands of homes without power, many intersections lacked traffic signals, causing accidents, and road tunnels were shut down due to lack of power to the pumps that extract traffic fumes. A number of science labs were also closed, leaving scientists scrambling to save frozen samples and expensive reagents as their freezers shut off. Much of Big Tech, despite being in the affected area, continued to have power, as their connections are generally higher voltage, and better maintained than the lower voltage home grids.
Elsewhere, a new study has shown that Peruvian glacier area has shrunk by nearly ⅓ between 2000 and 2016, with much of the loss occurring in the last three years. Research from the National Audubon Society has said that ⅔ of US birds face extinction unless the rate of climate change is slowed. Under the currently expected 3°C rise by 2080, 389 of 604 species will be looking at extinction, whereas if we slow that to 1.5°C, nearly 40% of those species will no longer be vulnerable.
National Geographic dove deep into fishing subsidies this week, highlighting the $22 billion spent on harmful fishing subsidies (those that promote overfishing and illegal fishing, that otherwise wouldn’t be profitable). This is 63% of that spent on the fishing industry as a whole, and comes despite nations promising to cut fishing funding. A third of commercial fish stocks are being harvested at biologically unsustainable levels, and 90% are fully exploited. Further complicating the matter is that nearly half the countries bound to report subsidies are not doing so, so the full picture is hard to grasp.
Visualisation of the Week
This week’s visualisation is a little different. In 1919, Walter Mittelholzer, a Swiss pilot and photographer, flew over Mont Blanc and photographed the area from his biplane. 100 years on, a team took a helicopter and painstakingly recreated the photos to highlight the change in the area. The photo above shows the Mer de Glace glacier, and you can see how massively it has shrunk.
Building a more equal world
One recurring theme I’ve seen again and again whilst editing this newsletter is the inequality of climate change. Whilst it’s true that it will impact us all, it’s invariably those who are already worst off who are hit hardest. You can see some of this in the difficulties that Saint Martin is having in recovering from Hurricane Irma - whilst the money is there, the residents hardest hit resist the authorities’ efforts to relocate them, suspecting they will sell their land to developers.
It comes up again when the topic of carbon taxes are raised. Experts generally agree that such a measure is one of the best policy measures to tackle climate change (an IMF report this week added to this support). However, where such measures have been introduced, they’ve largely failed - see France with the Gilets Jaunes, and riots in Ecuador, which I covered last week. Where did they fall down? They passed the buck from the corporations that caused the problem onto citizens, onto working class people who are often too busy making ends meet to even consider the climate crisis. When hit with a heavy tax that makes their lives harder, is it any wonder they fight back?
We see this again in the US, where analysis suggests California is no longer on track to meet its climate targets, despite largely hitting the economic tipping point for renewable energy. The cause? Cars - Californians are driving more cars further than ever before. Now electric vehicles will help, undoubtedly, but it’s also worth looking at why people are driving further. California, particularly in the major cities, has a dearth of housing, meaning those that can’t afford sky-high rents live further out, beyond the reach of the (limited and underfunded) public transport. The result? They drive. Added to this is the continued push by car manufacturers to sell more SUVs, which aside from polluting more, are less safe for both occupants and those outside the vehicle.
That’s one of the reasons I’m (cautiously) optimistic about the plans Senator Warren is putting forward for tackling climate change in the US. The plans she’s proposing actively acknowledge and aim to tackle environmental racism and inequality - they make manufacturing plans contingent on companies providing fair wages, family and medical leave, and collective bargaining rights. She proposes aggressively prosecuting corporate polluters, but investing in retraining for fossil fuel workers, so they don’t get left behind as the green transition happens. The plan is also notable for using traditional tribal knowledge for managing wildfires, and suggesting the return of indigenous lands wherever possible.
At the moment it is just proposals, but it’s a powerful view of how we can use climate change as a vehicle to transform our world for the better. We don’t simply have to rebuild the old order, but with less polluting bits. Indeed, it may well be an essential component of the fight to right the wrongs that have gone before, and build not only a cleaner, but a more equal world.
News Highlights
Trump vs the Climate
Trump and California are still at war, with the latest salvos fired over drilling rights. The Trump administration has opened up 720,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas development - the first such leasing in 5 years. In return, the California governor has barred California leasing authorities from allowing pipelines or other oil and gas infrastructure to be built on state property. Given most state property is adjacent to federal land, this restricts the scope of the new federal leases significantly.
This week it was also revealed that a coal lobbying firm was behind 6 state regulators’ appeal for the administration to intervene and save coal plants.
The Supreme Court has rejected another attempt to prevent ‘quick take’ - a right of eminent domain that allows gas pipeline developers to seize private property for development without paying. They also rejected a number of other environmental cases in the same pass.
Other News
The Guardian revealed that just 20 companies are behind a third of all emissions. All are fossil fuel companies in some form, although are state owned, such as the leader, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Saudi Aramco. The stock market-listed firms on the list collectively spend around $200 million/year lobbying to delay, control or block policies to tackle climate change.
Google, despite its climate-friendly stance, has donated extensively to anti-climate change coalitions and lobbying groups. It does so to maintain its ‘section 230’ legal immunity from content hosted on its services, but goes against much of its publicly facing position.
The C40 Cities group is trying to step up where nations will not, calling for a global Green New Deal. The group represents 94 megacities, including Paris, New York, San Francisco and Copenhagen, and has endorsed a commitment to reach peak emissions next year, and to cut global emissions by 50% by 2030, and to zero by 2050.
For the first time ever, the UK generated more power in the last quarter from renewables than from fossil fuels. Whilst power decarbonisation is going well, there is still a huge amount of progress needed on transportation and heating to bring the UK on track to meet its 2050 net zero carbon commitments.
India’s ambitious boom in renewables is fizzling out, with ratings agencies suggesting the country might miss its latest targets. Much of the problem reportedly lies with states, who have been trying to force rates down by not paying developers or lowering prices below economic viability, putting off bids for future developments.
The $155 million Mosaic Arctic expedition has launched. It will involve an icebreaker freezing itself into the Arctic sea ice near the North Pole for a year, with a rotating crew of scientists studying conditions in the region to understand how it is changing.
New research suggests the drug trade and efforts to stop it may be responsible for $200+ million in damage each year, including massive climate damage. Traffickers are cutting through forest to avoid detection, and forcing native populations off their lands. They also launder money through ranching, which has a heavy climate cost.
Long Reads
A tour of how Paris is evolving under mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is ambitiously transforming the city to prepare for the impacts of climate change.
An exploration of the climate impact of steel and cement - two massively polluting industries that currently lack obvious low-emission solutions.
One of the key missing pieces of clean energy is cheap, long-term storage. Here are some of the startups trying to tackle this area.
A tale of those creating more resilient strains of wheat to survive climate change, and the people embracing the changes required in bread-making.
End Times
That’s all for this week - if you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you’ve got any feedback for me (positive or negative), do let me know - it’s always good to hear what you think! See you next week,
Oli