Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Sweltering Earth
RECORD YEAR?: Global temperatures “breached the threshold of 1.5C for each of the past 12 months and seas reached their warmest for 15 months in a row”, the Financial Times reported, setting the scene for 2024 to be the hottest year on record. Reuters, also quoting the EU’s climate change monitoring service, said last month was the hottest June on record, the 13th month in a row to be the warmest recorded.
SCORCHING SUMMER: Japan issued a heat stroke alert for 26 of the country’s 47 prefectures, urging people to stay indoors, use air conditioners and drink lots of water, the Guardian reported. Covering Pakistan’s heatwave, the New York Times said “hundreds of patients suffering from heat-related illnesses pour into the hospitals every day, pushing them far past their capacity.” About 36 million people in the US are under excessive heat warnings, Reuters reported.
STORMY TIMES: Hurricane Beryl reached Texas after causing destruction in the Caribbean last week and knocked out power to nearly three million homes and businesses, the Associated Press reported. According to the Indian Express, record rains descended on Mumbai, leading to traffic chaos and train cancellations across the city. In Cape Town, South Africa, nearly 1,000 homes were destroyed by gale-force winds, the Associated Press reported.
Labour makes early moves
WIND POWER: Days after its historic election win, the new Labour government in the UK lifted a “de-facto ban” on building new onshore wind turbines in England, the Guardian reported. According to the Daily Mail, chancellor Rachel Reeves described the ban as “absurd” and said it would hold back progress towards Labour’s ambition to make the UK a “clean-energy superpower”.
GREEN INDUSTRY: Labour also announced that a new £7.3bn national wealth fund, aimed at cutting emissions from the UK’s heavy industry, will begin investing in areas such as green steel and gigafactories “immediately”, the Financial Times reported. Reeves said the funds are to be spent over five years and disbursed by the state-run UK Infrastructure Bank, the newspaper added. And Chris Stark was appointed to head a “Covid vaccine-style taskforce aimed at delivering clean and cheaper power by 2030”, said the Guardian.
FOSSIL BUSINESS: The new government said that a proposed coal mine in Cumbria had been approved unlawfully, reported the Guardian, as the carbon emissions of coal from the mine should have been taken into account in the planning decision. Meanwhile, a Daily Telegraph article on North Sea oil and gas licensing was described by the government as a “complete fabrication”, noted City AM.
Around the world
- NO TURNING BACK: The EU has resisted calls from industries and countries to delay its flagship deforestation law, which is set to take effect from 30 December, Reuters reported.
- MORE TREES: The amount of forest lost in Colombia fell by 36% between 2022 and 2023, its lowest level in 23 years, the Guardian reported.
- CLEAN POWER: South Africa’s new energy minister vowed to be “ultra-aggressive” on renewable energy as the country celebrated more than 100 days with no power cuts – a record following years of crippling blackouts, Reuters reported.
- ELECTION ANXIETY: Scientists in France said they were relieved that the right-wing party National Rally was defeated in the country’s parliamentary elections, over fears of budget cuts to research and the introduction of climate scepticism into government, Nature reported.
- END TIMES: Fossil-fuel company BP said oil demand is expected to peak in 2025 under current climate policies and fossil fuels will decline to about two-thirds of the global energy mix by 2050, as more renewable capacity is installed, said the Times.
- RECORD PENALTY: Petroleum company Marathon Oil must pay a record $64.5m penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, the Washington Post reported.
760,000
The number of hectares (1.8m acres) that have already burned across the Brazilian Pantanal – the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth – in 2024, reported the Guardian.
Latest climate research
- As the world reduces emissions and approaches net-zero, it will be “difficult” to identify specifically when warming has “stopped”, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, potentially creating confusion among policymakers and the general public.
- New research in Scientific Reports found that climate change-driven desertification in the Gobi Desert could threaten several species of dung beetle.
- Methane emissions from livestock in China are projected to rise 13% by 2030, but there is the “technical potential” to cut them by 36%, a new study in Nature Food suggested.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Clean energy generated a record-high 44% of China’s electricity in May 2024, pushing coal’s share down to a record low of 53%, despite continued growth in demand, according to new analysis published by Carbon Brief. Coal lost seven percentage points compared with May 2023, when it accounted for 60% of generation in China. Generation from clean energy sources grew by a record 78 terawatt hours (TWh), including a record rise from solar of 41TWh (78%), a recovery from earlier drought-driven lows for hydro of 34TWh (39%) and a modest rise for wind of 4TWh (5%). If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions, the analysis said.
Spotlight
Solutions to West Africa’s fishing crisis
Carbon Brief examines the link between climate change and the declining fortunes of fishing communities in West Africa.
In June, a new paper in Scientific Reports suggested that global warming was contributing to changes in the distribution of small pelagic (open ocean) fish species in a marine ecosystem that stretches from Morocco to Senegal.
“These changes serve as an early indicator of potential future challenges regarding availability, holding profound implications for the food security of millions of citizens across West Africa,” the authors wrote.
The study was one of the latest in an ongoing effort by scientists to improve the understanding of climate change’s impact on marine ecosystems in West Africa.
Nearly seven million people directly derive their livelihoods from small-scale fisheries in West Africa, but the fatal combination of overfishing and ocean warming has resulted in reduced productivity in marine resources, threatening to further impoverish coastal communities in the region.
For example, the coastal catch dropped by nearly 40% in Côte d’Ivoire between 2003 and 2020. And, in Ghana, annual landings of round sardinella, an economically important fish in the country, fell by 90% between 1992 and 2019.
Maximum catch potential is expected to continue to decline as ocean warming – which accounts for about 90% of global warming – accelerates, according to Robert Paarlberg, an emeritus professor at Wellesley College in Massachuchets, who has spent the past three decades researching food and agricultural policy in several African countries.
Coastal adaptation
In 2023, Paarlberg, a co-investigator at a Harvard research cluster focused on climate adaptation in the Gulf of Guinea, spent three weeks visiting coastal communities in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. He returned to Ghana in May 2024. His goal was to study adaptation strategies for fishing communities in the region.
“Finding alternative income for traditional fishing communities is essential, since the stocks of small pelagic fish will continue to decline, at least in the Gulf of Guinea where I have focused my research,” Paarlberg tells Carbon Brief.
In a recent article, Paarlberg advocated for conditional cash transfer policies at the national level to help fishing communities stay in school longer, arguing that more education could empower them to find non-fishing jobs.
But he believes the international community can also play a role. He tells Carbon Brief:
“US AID [Agency for International Development] has been scaling up a vocational training program for fishers in Ghana, to help them transition to alternative livelihoods, but the US AID budget is not big enough to scale up such programmes for all those in need. The UN Green Climate Fund has started to provide this kind of assistance in West Africa and, together with the World Bank, could be doing even more.”
One way to slow down the impact of climate change is to significantly curb the overfishing practices of local and foreign trawlers. According to Paarlberg, regional cooperation can help, due to the transnational nature of the coast:
“Countries such as Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have been imposing ‘closed seasons’ to combat overfishing in July and August. But if Togo does not follow suit too, many canoes will simply go down the coast and fish in Togolese waters.”
Watch, read, listen
FEEDING THE PLANET: For the first guest on her new podcast, Prof Sarah Bridle, interviewed Prof Rosie Green about plant-based alternative foods, their environmental impact and what to look for when choosing plant milk.
CLIMATE THEATRE: For Nature, Prof Peter Stott reviewed the premiere of a new UK play, Kyoto, which depicts the drama behind the scenes at the 1997 Kyoto Protocol negotiations.
ROAD TO COP29: In an opinion piece for African Arguments, chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) at the climate talks in Bonn in June 2024, Ali Mohamed, said a pan-African stance is the only path to climate justice.
Coming up
- 15 July: Rwandan general elections
- 15 July – 2 August: 2nd Part of the 29th Annual Session of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica
- 16–17 July: G7 Trade ministers’ meeting, Reggio Calabria, Italy
- 18 July: Meeting of the European Political Community, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK
Pick of the jobs
- The African Climate Foundation, programme manager, sustainable finance | Salary: Unknown. Location: Remote, preference will be given to candidates based in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa
- International Institute for Sustainable Development-Experimental Lakes Area, programme manager | Salary: CAD$80,000-CAD$100,000. Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba (hybrid)
- US South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, New Mexico tribal liaison | Salary: $48,000-$52,000. Location: Oklahoma
- The India Climate Collaborative, senior manager – capacity building | Salary: Unknown. Location: Mumbai (preferred) or remote
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 12 July 2024: 12 consecutive months above 1.5C; Labour sets UK climate agenda; West Africa’s fishing crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
The Farming Industry Has Embraced ‘Precision Agriculture’ and AI, but Critics Question Its Environmental Benefits
Why have tech heavyweights, including Google and Microsoft, become so deeply integrated in agriculture? And who benefits from their involvement?
Picture an American farm in your mind.
I fell flat on my backside one afternoon this January and, weirdly, it made me think of you. Okay, I know that takes a bit of unpacking—so let me go back and start at the beginning.
For the last six years, our family has joined with half a dozen others to spend a week or so up at Wangat Lodge, located on a 50-acre subtropical rainforest property around three hours north of Sydney. The accommodation is pretty basic, with no wifi coverage—so time in Wangat really revolves around the bush. You live by the rhythm of the sun and the rain, with the days punctuated by swimming in the river and walking through the forest.
An intrinsic part of Wangat is Dan, the owner and custodian of the place, and the guide on our walks. He talks about time, place, and care with great enthusiasm, but always tenderly and never with sanctimony. “There is no such thing as ‘the same walk’”, is one of Dan’s refrains, because the way he sees it “every day, there is change in the world around you” of plants, animals, water and weather. Dan speaks of Wangat with such evident love, but not covetousness; it is a lightness which includes gentle consciousness that his own obligations arise only because of the historic dispossession of others. He inspires because of how he is.
One of the highlights this year was a river walk with Dan, during which we paddled or waded through most of the route, with only occasional scrambles up the bank. Sometimes the only sensible option is to swim. Among the life around us, we notice large numbers of tadpoles in the water, which is clean enough to drink. Our own tadpoles, the kids in the group, delight in the expedition. I overhear one of the youngest children declaring that she’s having ‘one of the best days ever’. Dan looks content. Part of his mission is to reintroduce children to nature, so that the soles of their feet may learn from the uneven ground, and their muscles from the cool of the water.
These moments are for thankfulness in the life that lives.
It is at the very end of the walk when I overbalance and fall on my arse—and am reminded of the eternal truth that rocks are hard. As I gingerly get up, my youngest daughter looks at me, caught between amusement and concern, and asks me if I’m okay.
I have to think before answering, because yes, physically I’m fine. But I feel too, an underlying sense of discomfort; it is that omnipresent pressure of existential awareness about the scale of suffering and ecological damage now at large in the world, made so much more immediately acute after Bondi; the dissonance that such horrors can somehow exist simultaneously with this small group being alive and happy in this place, on this earth-kissed afternoon.
How is it okay, to be “okay”? What is it to live with conscience in Wangat? Those of us who still have access to time, space, safety and high levels of volition on this planet carry this duality all the time, as our gift and obligation. It is not an easy thing to make sense of; but for me, it speaks to the question of ‘why Greenpeace’? Because the moral and strategic mission-focus of campaigning provides a principled basis for how each of us can bridge that interminable gulf.
The essence of campaigning is to make the world’s state of crisis legible and actionable, by isolating systemic threats to which we can rise and respond credibly, with resources allocated to activity in accordance with strategy. To be part of Greenpeace, whether as an activist, volunteer supporter or staff member, is to find a home for your worries for the world in confidence and faith that together we have the power to do something about it. Together we meet the confusion of the moment with the light of shared purpose and the confidence of direction.
So, it was as I was getting back up again from my tumble and considering my daughter’s question that I thought of you—with gratitude, and with love–-because we cross this bridge all the time, together, everyday; to face the present and the future.
‘Yes, my love’, I say to my daughter, smiling as I get to my feet, “I’m okay”. And I close my eyes and think of a world in which the fires are out, and everywhere, all tadpoles have the conditions of flourishing to be able to grow peacefully into frogs.
Thank you for being a part of Greenpeace.
With love,
David
Climate Change
Without Weighing Costs to Public Health, EPA Rolls Back Air Pollution Standards for Coal Plants
The federal Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for coal and oil-fired power plants were strengthened during the Biden administration.
Last week, when the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its repeal of tightened 2024 air pollution standards for power plants, the agency claimed the rollback would save $670 million.
Without Weighing Costs to Public Health, EPA Rolls Back Air Pollution Standards for Coal Plants
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