Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Coral mass bleaching
FOURTH MASS BLEACHING: US government scientists confirmed that the world is facing its fourth mass coral bleaching event, which is on track to be the “most extensive on record”, the Guardian reported. Mass coral bleaching is a phenomenon of the climate change era, first occurring in 1998, the story said. It added that 54% of ocean waters with coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough for bleaching.
BARRIER BREACHED: The Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest coral reef – has been through its most acute and widespread heat stress event ever, Coral Reef Watch confirmed to the Guardian. Coral reef scientist Prof Terry Hughes told the New York Times that the “levels of heat stress measured in Florida, across the entire Caribbean, and now on the Great Barrier Reef are off the charts”.
THE BIG DRY: Meanwhile, scientists in the Conversation explained the causes of a mass vegetation “die-off” in Western Australia’s forests and shrublands in February 2024, as the region “sweltered” through its hottest summer on record. “Just like a coral bleaching event, plants are responding to the cumulative stress of the unusually long, hot and dry summer,” the authors wrote.
World Bank spring meetings
BETTER HAVE BILLIONS: All eyes were on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington DC this week. As civil society and economists said wealthy nations must pledge billions more in aid through the bank to tackle climate change, president Ajay Banga told journalists at the meeting “the climate crisis would be a priority” for the bank going forward, the Guardian reported. Experts quoted by the newspaper, however, questioned the bank’s willingness to reform “in a race against time”.
DEBT TRAP: While the “long-simmering theme” of who should pay for climate damages raised its head again, debt was at front and centre at the meetings, the Financial Times reported. A report quoted in a Climate Home News comment by Asian debt activist Lidy Nacpil warned that 47 developing countries could go bankrupt from climate spending, but cancelling fossil fuel debts could free up the money needed.
LUXURY LOANS: Elsewhere, a Climate Home News investigation found that the World Bank counted support for five-star luxury hotels in Senegal as climate finance. Fishermen told the publication that the hotels had “exacerbated erosion” in their area.
Dubai floods
DUBAI FLOODS: The UAE was hit by an intense storm, with almost a year and a half’s worth of rain pummeling the capital of Dubai on Tuesday, the Independent reported. The country experienced its heaviest rains in 75 years, said national meteorological authorities quoted in the Financial Times. The newspaper added that more than a dozen people were killed in neighbouring Oman. The rains were likely exacerbated by climate change, reported Reuters.
SEEDING DOUBT: While a Bloomberg article citing one person initially blamed “cloud-seeding” for the extreme rainfall, multiple meteorologists quoted in different outlets including the Guardian and the Associated Press debunked such claims. “You can’t create rain out of thin air per se and get six inches of water,” meteorologist Ryan Maue told AP.
DEJA VU DISASTER: Flash floods, lightning and heavy rain also claimed 63 lives in Pakistan, with the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recording the most fatalities, the Associated Press reported. In Baluchistan, authorities declared a state of emergency, with more rains expected amid rescue and relief operations.
Around the world
- INDIA VOTES: The first phase of voting in India’s general elections began today, as millions queued in scorching summer temperatures. Carbon Brief mapped where key national parties stood on climate change in their election manifestos.
- DEFORESTATION DROPS: Deforestation on Indigenous lands across the Amazon has declined by 42% since last year and dropped to a six-year record low, according to a report by Brazilian research institute Imazon cited by O Globo.
- ECUADOR ENERGY EMERGENCY: On Tuesday, Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa declared an “energy emergency”, after an El Niño-driven drought hit hydropower production and led to country-wide power cuts, Reuters reported.
- MORE FOOTWORK, MORE ENERGY: Scientist and Mexico’s election frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled a $13.6bn investment plan for solar, wind, hydro and gas projects, Reuters reported, calling it a “significant shift” from the current president’s oil-first priorities.
- SCOTLAND SETBACK: The first country in the world to declare a “climate emergency” is “ditching” its ambitious target of reducing emissions by 75% by 2030, BBC News reported, after failing to meet eight of its 12 last annual targets.
- SBTi CONTROVERSY: The Science Based Targets initiative, the leading arbiter of corporate climate targets, said there was “no change” to its standards, after an earlier suggestion that companies might be able to use carbon offsets to meet their goals led to a staff revolt, the Financial Times reported.
$38 trillion
The annual cost of rising temperatures, heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense extreme weather by 2049, under a medium emissions scenario, according to a new study by Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Latest climate research
- The Atlantic hurricane season could increase by well over a month (between 27 to 41 days) in the future because of the combined impact of climate change and natural climate variability, according to new research in Geophysical Research Letters.
- Marine animals seeking cooler temperatures as oceans warm could end up in areas where they will be exposed to deadly cold snaps, new research found. Carbon Brief had all the details.
- A new World Weather Attribution study found that El Niño was a “key driver” of a current severe drought in southern African countries, while climate change did not play as significant a role. A second WWA study found that an extreme heatwave striking the Sahel region between the end of March and the beginning of April would have been impossible without climate change.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
New documents obtained by Carbon Brief as part of a freedom-of-information (FOI) request revealed that the UK government reclassified nearly £500m in humanitarian aid meant for war-torn nations as climate finance, in a bid to help meet its pledges under the Paris Agreement. According to Carbon Brief analysis, the humanitarian projects in nations such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia being “double-counted” as climate finance have no explicit link to climate action. While the UK was previously viewed as setting higher standards than other countries on climate finance, experts told Carbon Brief that the government’s new approach of repackaging development and humanitarian aid instead of providing new money “risks breeding cynicism and mistrust”.
Spotlight
Elections in India’s coal and elephant country
On the eve of India’s general elections, Carbon Brief travels to the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh to speak to Indigenous communities protesting against coal mining in their sacred Hasdeo Arand forest.
On the winding hill road to the Hasdeo Arand forest, I was told by Indigenous activists to not get my hopes up for what I would – and would not – get to see. “Things are tense,” said an anxious Ramlal Kariyam on the phone to me. A thatched forest camp on the edge of the Parsa East Kete Basan (PEKB) coal mine was burned to the ground at 2am on 25 March, days before my visit. Police are still investigating the incident.
The camp was the epicentre of two-year-long relay protests to save one of India’s last contiguous tracts of dense sal forest from being clear-felled for coal. I had hoped to see the PEKB mine’s expansion and signs of rapid deforestation, but did not want to put villagers at risk. What I did not count on seeing through the sal trees on the side of the road was an elephant.
For years, India’s forest and state authorities ignored and concealed the presence of an elephant corridor in Hasdeo Arand, as they approved further fragmentation of what was once a “no-go” forest for coal mining. Even a spanner-like verdict in 2014 from India’s top environmental court acknowledging elephant presence and cancelling forest permits could not pause the excavators: its judgement remains stayed by India’s supreme court.
Mining in Hasdeo Arand began with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in power at the state level and the Congress party at the centre. But it gained pace after Modi assumed power at the national level in 2014. In 2018, voters in these districts gave Congress its most comprehensive victory in Chhattisgarh, after giving assurances that it would put Indigenous rights first. Instead, Congress greenlit the clearing of even more tracts of forest for coal and was voted out last December.
“There’s no relief for us in coal areas…In 2014, we passed resolutions in all our villages saying that there is very dense forest here that should never be bartered for coal, but the government has continued auctioning our lands based on falsified consent,” alleged Umeshwar Singh Armo, the 43-year-old chief of the village of Paturia, speaking to Carbon Brief in the spartan mud office of the Save Hasdeo Movement (pictured above). “We’ve tried every democratic, peaceful means to talk to the government, but nothing has happened.”
While mining was slow to first begin, its reserves have been exhausted faster than expected. “Brother, how much coal do you want? They’re mining with such speed that they can finish a place’s wealth in five years,” said Ramlal. “When I’m sitting alone, I often think to myself: Will we be able to save this place? When we’re displaced, what will happen to all the other creatures here? The state is extinguishing so many lives and species for just one man.”
The only thing that has been able to significantly stop more coal blocks from going under the hammer? Elephants.
In 2021, the state cabinet agreed to establish the stalled Lemru elephant reserve. In 2022, Chhattisgarh’s then-chief minister from the Congress party told the Modi government’s coal ministry that two coal blocks – including Gidhmuri-Paturia where Singh lives – should not be mined because they fall within the elephant reserve’s boundaries.
“Both [Congress and BJP] governments [state and national] work for the benefit of mining companies, but at least the Congress listens to democratic movements like ours that oppose mining,” said Singh. “The BJP, it doesn’t have that. If forests are finished, villages are finished, other species are finished, it makes no difference to them. The many laws that exist are all broken and made subservient to coal, they can magically turn dense forests into scrub forests when it suits them.”
As of last week, the movement has rebuilt its protest camp and is considering supporting Indigenous-led parties. Singh is defiant. He concluded:
“For the longest time, it’s just these two parties that called the shots, and yet both parties lost when they failed to keep our movements in mind. If you want to take our forest land from us, the very least you can do is to talk to us about it.”
Watch, read, listen
SWISS PRECEDENT: A podcast by the Guardian spoke to 76-year-old Elisabeth Stern, part of a 2,400-strong group of senior Swiss women who won a landmark climate case last week in the European court for human rights.
LOST SHEIN: A new longread in n+1 reviewed the strange, online universe of fast fashion’s “worst offender” Shein and the material costs of throwaway textile retail.
EV MYTHS BUSTED: Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans busted electric vehicle myths on the Canadian podcast Buzzkill.
Coming up
- 15-20 April: World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, Washington DC
- 19 April: First phase of voting in India’s general election begins
- 23 April: IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2024 report launch, Paris
- 23-29 April: Fourth session of intergovernmental negotiations to develop a binding plastics treaty, Ottawa, Canada
Pick of the jobs
- Nature Communications, associate or senior editor (physical oceanography and climate sciences) | Salary: $74,000 or $91,000. Location: Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, New York, Washington, Jersey City or Pune (hybrid)
- Mongabay, staff writer – west and central Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Must be based in any part of west or central Africa
- Loss and Damage Research Observatory, scholars for the Saleemul Huq Memorial Scholarship | Scholarship amount: $5,000, with an additional $1,000 towards travel and research expenses. Location: Hybrid, researchers and local organisations from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 19 April 2024: ‘Most extensive’ global coral bleaching; World Bank spring meetings; India’s election kicks off appeared first on Carbon Brief.
With the U.S. bombing Iran and the Strait of Hormuz closed, energy experts say countries transitioning to renewables will be more resilient in the “face of the shock.”
The United States’ war on Iran could fundamentally alter how countries consume and generate energy and hamper international progress in combating climate change, a panel of energy experts said today.
The Global Energy Supply in a Decade ‘Is Not a World We’re Going to Recognize’
One month into the US and Israel’s war on Iran, at least 60 countries have taken emergency measures in response to the subsequent global energy crisis, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
So far, these countries have announced nearly 200 policies to save fuel, support consumers and boost domestic energy supplies.
Carbon Brief has drawn on tracking by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other sources to assess the global policy response, just as a temporary ceasefire is declared.
Since the start of the war in late February, both sides have bombed vital energy infrastructure across the region as Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz – a key waterway through which around a fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) trade passes.
This has made it impossible to export the usual volumes of fossil fuels from the region and, as a result, sent prices soaring.
Around 30 nations, from Norway to Zambia, have cut fuel taxes to help people struggling with rising costs, making this by far the most common domestic policy response to the crisis.
Some countries have stressed the need to boost domestic renewable-energy construction, while others – including Japan, Italy and South Korea – have opted to lean more on coal, at least in the short term.
The most wide-ranging responses have been in Asia, where countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels from the Middle East have implemented driving bans, fuel rationing and school closures in order to reduce demand.
‘Largest disruption’
On 28 February, the US and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, triggering conflict across the Middle East and sending shockwaves around the world.
There have been numerous assaults on energy infrastructure, including an Iranian attack on the world’s largest LNG facility in Qatar and an Israeli bombing of Iran’s gas sites.
Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf, is causing what the IEA has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”.
A fifth of the world’s oil and LNG is normally shipped through this region, with 90% of those supplies going to destinations in Asia. Without these supplies, fuel prices have surged.
Governments around the world have taken emergency actions in response to this new energy crisis, shielding their citizens from price spikes, conserving energy where possible and considering longer-term energy policies.
Even with a two-week ceasefire announced, the energy crisis is expected to continue, given the extensive damage to infrastructure and continuing uncertainties.
Asian crunch
Carbon Brief has used tracking by the IEA, news reports, government announcements and internal monitoring by the thinktank E3G to assess the range of national responses to the energy crisis roughly one month into the Iran war.
In total, Carbon Brief has identified 185 relevant policies, announcements and campaigns from 60 national governments.
As the map below shows, these measures are concentrated in east and south Asia. These regions are facing the most extreme disruption, largely due to their reliance on oil and gas supplies from the Middle East.
Nations including Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and India are already spending billions of dollars on fuel subsidies to protect people from rising costs.
At least 16 Asian countries are also taking drastic measures to reduce fuel consumption. For example, the Philippines has declared a “state of national emergency”, which includes limiting air conditioning in public buildings and subsidising public transport.
Other examples from the region include the government in Bangladesh asking the public and businesses to avoid unnecessary lighting, Pakistan reducing the speed limit on highways and Laos encouraging people to work from home.
Europe – which was hit hard by the 2022 energy crisis due to its reliance on Russian gas – is less immediately exposed to the current crisis than Asia. However, many nations are still heavily reliant on gas, including supplies from Qatar.
The continent is already feeling the effects of higher global energy prices as countries compete for more limited resources.
At least 18 European nations have introduced measures to help people with rising costs. Spain, which is relatively insulated from the crisis due to the high share of renewables in its electricity supply, nevertheless announced a €5bn aid package, with at least six measures to support consumers.
Many African countries, while also less reliant on direct fossil-fuel supplies via the Strait of Hormuz than Asia, are still facing the strain of higher import bills. Some, including Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia, are also facing severe fuel shortages.
There have been fewer new policies across the Americas, which have been comparatively insulated from the energy crisis so far. One outlier is Chile, which is among the region’s biggest fuel importers and is, therefore, more exposed to global price increases.
Tax cuts
The most common types of policy response to the energy crisis so far have been efforts to protect people and businesses from the surge in fuel prices.
At least 28 nations, including Italy, Brazil and Australia, have introduced a total of 31 measures to cut taxes – and, therefore, prices – on fuel.
Even across Africa, where state revenues are already stretched, some nations – including Namibia and South Africa – are cutting fuel levies in a bid to stabilise prices.
Another 17 countries, including Mexico and Poland, have directly capped the price of fuel. Others, such as France and the UK, have opted for more targeted fuel subsidies, designed to support specific vulnerable groups and industries.
These measures are all shown in the dark blue “consumer support” bars in the chart below.
Such measures can directly help consumers, but some leaders, NGOs and financial experts have noted that there is also the risk of them driving inflation and reinforcing reliance on the existing fossil fuel-based system.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, spoke in favour of short-term measures to “smooth the shock”, but noted that “broad-based and open-ended measures may add excessively to demand”.
Measures to conserve energy, of the type that many developing countries in Asia have implemented extensively, have been described by the IEA as “more effective and fiscally sustainable than broad-based subsidies”.
So far, there have been at least 23 such measures introduced to limit the use of transport, particularly private cars.
These include Lithuania cutting train fares, two Australian states making public transport free and Myanmar and South Korea asking people to only drive their cars on certain days.
Clean vs coal
At least eight countries have announced plans to either increase their use of coal or review existing plans to transition away from coal, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis. These include Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Germany and Italy.
These measures broadly involve delaying coal-plant closure, as in Italy, or allowing older sites to operate at higher rates, as in Japan – rather than building more coal plants.
There has been extensive coverage of how the energy crisis is “driving Asia back to coal”. However, as Bloomberg columnist David Fickling has noted, this shift is relatively small and likely to be offset by a move to cheap solar power in the longer term.
Indeed, some countries have begun to consider changes to the way they use energy going forward, amid a crisis driven by the spiralling costs of fossil-fuel imports.
Leaders in India, Barbados and the UK have explicitly stressed the importance of a structural shift to using clean power. Governments in France and the Philippines are among those linking new renewable-energy announcements with the unfolding crisis.
New renewable-energy capacity will take time to come online, albeit substantially less time than developing new fossil-fuel generation. In the meantime, some nations are also taking short-term measures to make their road transport less reliant on fossil fuels.
For example, the Chilean government has enabled taxi drivers to access preferential credit for purchasing electric vehicles (EVs). Cambodia has cut import taxes on EVs and Laos has lowered excise taxes on them.
Finally, there have been some signs that countries are reconsidering their future exposure to imported fossil fuels, given the current economics of oil and gas.
The New Zealand government has indicated that a plan to build a new LNG terminal by 2027 now faces uncertainty. Reuters reported that Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup has told the government it wanted to abandon a plan to build a new LNG-fired power plant in Vietnam, in favour of renewables.
The post Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis
Seven Senate Democrats launched the probe over controversial tax credits to the country’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Seven Democratic U.S. senators have launched a probe into a $370 million “alternative fuel” payout to Cheniere Energy, made earlier this year by the IRS, that critics say the liquefied natural gas export company never should have received.
US Senators Investigate $370 Million IRS Payout to Cheniere Energy
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