Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Shifting political players
EU LEADERSHIP: Ursula von der Leyen has secured another five years as president of the European Commission following a vote yesterday in which she won the backing of 401 MEPs – 40 more than needed, reported Bloomberg. In her reelection bid, von der Leyen committed to EU climate goals including the still-pending 90% emissions reduction by 2040 target and a new Clean Industrial Deal, Euractiv reported. However, the publication noted that her comments on nature protection were limited to “positive rhetoric” only.
PARIS PM: Elsewhere in Europe, veteran climate negotiator Laurence Tubiana has been proposed as the next French prime minister, with backing from the Socialist, Green and Communist parties in the current hung parliament, reported Climate Home News. Tubiana, who is currently CEO at the European Climate Foundation [which funds Carbon Brief], was one of the “architects” of the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to Bloomberg.
VANCE’S STANCE: In the US, Donald Trump’s newly selected running mate JD Vance has come under scrutiny for his climate scepticism. The Republican vice presidential candidate is “a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry and an opponent of renewable energy”, according to the Independent, but has reportedly only held such views in recent years, a shift that coincides with his bid for Trump support. He also has investments in “green” technologies, reported E&E News, but the New York Times emphasised his public anti-climate sentiments and his sponsorship of green legislation repeals as a senator for Ohio.
AFRICAN COAL: In South Africa, a political ecologist wrote in the Conversation that the country’s newly appointed environment minister has shown support for continuing to use coal and said his government would not be “bullied” into transitioning away from fossil fuels too quickly. It comes as Agence France-Presse reported that the country’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has “reaffirmed the coal-dependent nation’s commitment to moving towards renewable energy, but insisted that communities and workers must not lose out”.
Labour must ‘make up lost ground’
KING’S SPEECH: The UK’s new Labour government has confirmed a legislative agenda with the environment “front and centre”, reported the Guardian. The king’s speech mentioned that the government will set up the publicly owned GB Energy to “own, manage and operate clean power projects” across the UK, reported BBC News. The company is set to be capitalised with an £8.3bn investment. Meanwhile, Politico reported that Labour is set to appoint a climate envoy, a role that has been empty for more than a year.
NEW ADVICE: The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the UK government on its climate policies, released its annual progress report on Thursday, urging Labour to “make up lost ground” after a lack of sufficient action under the last Conservative government. Carbon Brief covered the recommendations in detail (more on this below). Elsewhere, the Times reported that Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the industry group Energy UK, has been appointed “preferred candidate” for the next chief executive of the CCC.
Around the world
- ‘HELLISHLY HOT’: A heatwave across southern Europe and the Balkans has led governments to issue severe weather warnings, said France 24, with temperatures rising above 40C.
- CHINA ‘THIRD PLENUM’: A communique from China’s highly influential “third plenum” meeting called for a “coordinated approach to carbon cutting, pollution reduction, green development and economic growth”, as well as for the country to “actively respond to climate change”, according to state news agency Xinhua.
- CARIBBEAN VULNERABILITY: In the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, which killed at least a dozen people and destroyed infrastructure across the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported that officials are demanding more funding from “financial and development institutions” to rebuild and address climate change.
- PROTEST IN PERIL: Five UK climate activists from Just Stop Oil received record-length jail sentences of up to five years for a plan to block London’s M25 motorway, reported Reuters. Meanwhile, the right to peaceful protest in Australia is also “in peril”, the Guardian reported.
- GLOBAL FLOODS: Downpours and flooding have killed hundreds in South Asia, caused “emergency alerts” in China, left more than 50 people dead in Niger and caused damage in Toronto, Canada.
$8.4bn
The amount of debt eradicated through “debt-for-nature” swaps from 1987-2023.
$7.6tn
The total amount of debt service paid by low- and middle-income countries over the same timescale, illustrating how swap schemes are “far too small to have any impact”, experts told the Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- European “fire weather” – conditions favourable to the ignition and spread of wildfires – will become “more severe” due to climate change, showed a new study in Environmental Research Letters.
- Optimising the conversion of organic waste into biogas for energy has considerable decarbonisation potential in China, said new research in Nature Communications, which found that their proposed system could contribute 3.77% of the emissions reduction needed for the country’s 1.5C-aligned target.
- Nature-based solutions have “consistently proven to be a cost-effective approach” to address disaster risk, reported researchers in Science of the Total Environment.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK emissions have been falling steadily for years, largely driven by the phaseout of coal and the growth of renewable power. However, only one-third of the reductions required to achieve the UK’s goal under the Paris Agreement of cutting emissions 68% by 2030 are covered by plans the CCC deems to be “credible”, according to its latest progress report. There is an even larger credibility gap for the sixth carbon budget for 2033-2037, with only a quarter of the cuts needed covered by “credible” policies. This is illustrated in the chart above, which shows the emissions cuts needed to reach net-zero (red), compared to cuts expected from policies that the CCC deems “credible”.
Spotlight
The climate impact of generative AI
Carbon Brief investigates the climate implications of the accelerating use of generative AI tools.
Google’s latest environmental report indicated that its total emissions have increased by almost 50% since 2019 and 13% year-on-year – a change it puts down to the growth of its data centres and rising emissions in its supply chain.
The report added that rolling out artificial intelligence (AI) services might make it “challenging” to cut emissions due to the “increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute”.
Since March, Google has been integrating its generative AI tool Gemini into search functions, matching the exponential uptick in day-to-day AI use through Chat-GPT, Microsoft Copilot and other such tools. (“Generative AI” is AI that is capable of generating text, images, videos or other data from scratch in response to a prompt.)
But there’s a catch: when a query is sent to a generative AI model (a process known as inference), it uses a lot more energy than a traditional search, creating an expectation that the energy demand of data centres will shoot up as a result.
Soaring energy demand
A recent study, still awaiting peer review, found that a multipurpose AI system could use up to 33 times more energy than computers running task-specific software and that generating two images with AI uses as much energy as charging a smartphone.
Dr Sasha Luccioni, AI and climate lead at AI company Hugging Face and lead author of the study, explained to Carbon Brief that multipurpose models “tend to be larger in size” and are trained for several different outputs, “which makes them more computationally-intensive”.
Training AI models before they are available for use also takes large amounts of energy. OpenAI’s GPT-3 required 1,287MWh during training, enough electricity to power 120 average US households for one year.
Direct energy consumption is not the only factor to consider. Felippa Amanta, a PhD researcher of digital services at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, told Carbon Brief that “generative AI can have quite unpredictable indirect energy effects from how they’re being used by households”.
People are also using AI assistants for things they never needed it for before – a phenomenon Amanta explained as “induced demand”.
AI is changing our day-to-day behaviour, “from finding recipes, to writing emails, making CVs and the list goes on”, she said. It is this increase in user inference that can drive up data centre energy demands.
A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), released today, said that the rise of AI was putting an increased focus on the energy use of data centres. (AI currently accounts for around 10% of data-centre electricity use.)
It said that electricity consumption from data centres as a whole accounted for a “limited” 1-1.3% share of global electricity demand in 2022. This could rise to between 1.5% and 3% by 2026, according to its projections. (By contrast, electric vehicles are expected to account for between less than 1.5% and 2% by 2026.)
The agency noted that expectations of future data centre energy demand growth were highly uncertain, depending on the uptake of AI services and the efficiency of the chips used to run them. (It noted that chipmaker Nvidia recently unveiled a new chip that was 25 times more energy efficient than previous models.)
As with any electricity-intensive technology, the climate impact of surging AI use will be determined by the extent to which renewables can meet the demand. In April, the Financial Times reported that fossil-fuel companies are hoping that surging energy demand from AI use will “usher in a golden era” for gas production.
Efficiency and regulation
On the flip side, AI has the potential to be a tool for climate action, chiefly by increasing energy efficiency. For example, AI could be used to improve the efficiency of power grids or daily commutes.
But as generative AI tools become integrated into our lives, there is a risk of a rebound effect, where the ease and ubiquity of AI solutions make us use services more, countering any efficiency savings, Amanta said.
Another issue facing the rapidly changing AI environment is a lack of transparency.
The climate impacts of AI models can potentially be mitigated by increasing their computational efficiency, powering data centres with clean energy, or using more task-specific models – but a lack of transparent data is slowing the development of legislation to regulate this shift, Dr Luccioni told Carbon Brief:
“The fact that we can’t get an accurate estimate of the energy usage or emissions of the many AI-enabled tools used by millions of people daily is problematic.”
Without understanding the scope of the issue, it is difficult to regulate energy intensity or add constraints on companies, she added. The IEA’s report also called for more reliable data.
Amanta pointed to examples of policies being proposed in the US and Singapore that recognise the environmental impacts of AI’s growth and aim to regulate their efficiency and sources of energy. The EU’s AI Act, which came into force in June, includes environmental considerations.
Watch, read, listen
SEA LEVEL RISE: A coastal village in Myanmar is being eroded away due to rising sea levels and residents are struggling to access fresh groundwater, reported the Mekong Eye.
CLIMATE CONFLICT: Earthrise released a video exploring the intersectionality of climate change and conflict, speaking to Sudanese climate activist, Watan Mohamed.
FACTCHECKING TWISTERS: The new tornado disaster film gets a lot of things right about climate science, said experts in Nature.
Coming up
- 15 July-2 August: Second part of the 29th Session of the International Seabed Authority Assembly and Council, Kingston, Jamaica
- 22-26 July: 27th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry, Rome
- 25-26 July: G20 3rd Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, Rio de Janeiro
Pick of the jobs
- International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), senior communications officer, India energy programme | Salary: Unknown. Location: Delhi, India (remote)
- Environment America, climate solutions associate | Salary: $32,500. Location: Pennsylvania, US
- Climate Outreach, fundraising administrator | Salary: £23,000. Location: Oxford, UK (remote)
Climate Central, vice president for science | Salary: $140,000-$160,000. Location: Princeton, New Jersey, US (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 19 July 2024: New political players in EU and US; UK govt urged to make up ‘lost ground’ on targets; AI’s climate impact appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Mining companies are showcasing new technologies which they say could extract more lithium – a key ingredient for electric vehicle (EV) batteries – from South America’s vast, dry salt flats with lower environmental impacts.
But environmentalists question whether the expensive technology is ready to be rolled out at scale, while scientists warn it could worsen the depletion of scarce freshwater resources in the region and say more research is needed.
The “lithium triangle” – an area spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile – holds more than half of the world’s known lithium reserves. Here, lithium is found in salty brine beneath the region’s salt flats, which are among some of the driest places on Earth.
Lithium mining in the region has soared, driven by booming demand to manufacture batteries for EVs and large-scale energy storage.
Mining companies drill into the flats and pump the mineral-rich brine to the surface, where it is left under the sun in giant evaporation pools for 18 months until the lithium is concentrated enough to be extracted.
The technique is relatively cheap but requires vast amounts of land and water. More than 90% of the brine’s original water content is lost to evaporation and freshwater is needed at different stages of the process.
One study suggested that the Atacama Salt Flat in Chile is sinking by up to 2 centimetres a year because lithium-rich brine is being pumped at a faster rate than aquifers are being recharged.
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Colombia proposes expert group to advance talks on minerals agreement
A draft resolution aimed at advancing talks on a global minerals treaty will be discussed at a major UN environment meeting later this year -
Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process
Panama’s environment minister told Climate Home that decision-making rules at the UN climate talks should be reformed to deliver faster changes. -
Global renewables goal slips off course after Trump, China moves
The IEA downgrades its forecast for renewables growth due to the US cutting renewable tax credits and China’s electricity market reforms
Lithium extraction in the region has led to repeated conflicts with local communities, who fear the impact of the industry on local water supplies and the region’s fragile ecosystem.
The lithium industry’s answer is direct lithium extraction (DLE), a group of technologies that selectively extracts the silvery metal from brine without the need for vast open-air evaporation ponds. DLE, it argues, can reduce both land and water use.
Direct lithium extraction investment is growing
The technology is gaining considerable attention from mining companies, investors and governments as a way to reduce the industry’s environmental impacts while recovering more lithium from brine.
DLE investment is expected to grow at twice the pace of the lithium market at large, according to research firm IDTechX.
There are around a dozen DLE projects at different stages of development across South America. The Chilean government has made it a central pillar of its latest National Lithium Strategy, mandating its use in new mining projects.
Last year, French company Eramet opened Centenario Ratones in northern Argentina, the first plant in the world to attempt to extract lithium solely using DLE.
Eramet’s lithium extraction plant is widely seen as a major test of the technology. “Everyone is on the edge of their seats to see how this progresses,” said Federico Gay, a lithium analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “If they prove to be successful, I’m sure more capital will venture into the DLE space,” he said.
More than 70 different technologies are classified as DLE. Brine is still extracted from the salt flats but is separated from the lithium using chemical compounds or sieve-like membranes before being reinjected underground.
DLE techniques have been used commercially since 1996, but only as part of a hybrid model still involving evaporation pools. Of the four plants in production making partial use of DLE, one is in Argentina and three are in China.
Reduced environmental footprint
New-generation DLE technologies have been hailed as “potentially game-changing” for addressing some of the issues of traditional brine extraction.
“DLE could potentially have a transformative impact on lithium production,” the International Lithium Association found in a recent report on the technology.
Firstly, there is no need for evaporation pools – some of which cover an area equivalent to the size of 3,000 football pitches.
“The land impact is minimal, compared to evaporation where it’s huge,” said Gay.
The process is also significantly quicker and increases lithium recovery. Roughly half of the lithium is lost during evaporation, whereas DLE can recover more than 90% of the metal in the brine.
In addition, the brine can be reinjected into the salt flats, although this is a complicated process that needs to be carefully handled to avoid damaging their hydrological balance.
However, Gay said the commissioning of a DLE plant is currently several times more expensive than a traditional lithium brine extraction plant.
“In theory it works, but in practice we only have a few examples,” Gay said. “Most of these companies are promising to break the cost curve and ramp up indefinitely. I think in the next two years it’s time to actually fulfill some of those promises.”
Freshwater concerns
However, concerns over the use of freshwater persist.
Although DLE doesn’t require the evaporation of brine water, it often needs more freshwater to clean or cool equipment.
A 2023 study published in the journal Nature reviewed 57 articles on DLE that analysed freshwater consumption. A quarter of the articles reported significantly higher use of freshwater than conventional lithium brine mining – more than 10 times higher in some cases.
“These volumes of freshwater are not available in the vicinity of [salt flats] and would even pose problems around less-arid geothermal resources,” the study found.
The company tracking energy transition minerals back to the mines
Dan Corkran, a hydrologist at the University of Massachusetts, recently published research showing that the pumping of freshwater from the salt flats had a much higher impact on local wetland ecosystems than the pumping of salty brine. “The two cannot be considered equivalent in a water footprint calculation,” he said, explaining that doing so would “obscure the true impact” of lithium extraction.
Newer DLE processes are “claiming to require little-to-no freshwater”, he added, but the impact of these technologies is yet to be thoroughly analysed.
Dried-up rivers
Last week, Indigenous communities from across South America held a summit to discuss their concerns over ongoing lithium extraction.
The meeting, organised by the Andean Wetlands Alliance, coincided with the 14th International Lithium Seminar, which brought together industry players and politicians from Argentina and beyond.
Indigenous representatives visited the nearby Hombre Muerto Salt Flat, which has borne the brunt of nearly three decades of lithium extraction. Today, a lithium plant there uses a hybrid approach including DLE and evaporation pools.
Local people say the river “dried up” in the years after the mine opened. Corkran’s study linked a 90% reduction in wetland vegetation to the lithium’s plant freshwater extraction.
Pia Marchegiani, of Argentine environmental NGO FARN, said that while DLE is being promoted by companies as a “better” technique for extraction, freshwater use remained unclear. “There are many open questions,” she said.
AI and satellite data help researchers map world’s transition minerals rush
Stronger regulations
Analysts speaking to Climate Home News have also questioned the commercial readiness of the technology.
Eramet was forced to downgrade its production projections at its DLE plant earlier this year, blaming the late commissioning of a crucial component.
Climate Home News asked Eramet for the water footprint of its DLE plant and whether its calculations excluded brine, but it did not respond.
For Eduardo Gigante, an Argentina-based lithium consultant, DLE is a “very promising technology”. But beyond the hype, it is not yet ready for large-scale deployment, he said.
Strong regulations are needed to ensure that the environmental impact of the lithium rush is taken seriously, Gigante added.
In Argentina alone, there are currently 38 proposals for new lithium mines. At least two-thirds are expected to use DLE. “If you extract a lot of water without control, this is a problem,” said Gigante. “You need strong regulations, a strong government in order to control this.”
The post Efforts to green lithium extraction face scrutiny over water use appeared first on Climate Home News.
Efforts to green lithium extraction face scrutiny over water use
Climate Change
Maryland’s Conowingo Dam Settlement Reasserts State’s Clean Water Act Authority but Revives Dredging Debate
The new agreement commits $340 million in environmental investments tied to the Conowingo Dam’s long-term operation, setting an example of successful citizen advocacy.
Maryland this month finalized a $340 million deal with Constellation Energy to relicense the Conowingo Dam in Cecil County, ending years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty. The agreement restores the state’s authority to enforce water quality standards under the Clean Water Act and sets a possible precedent for dozens of hydroelectric relicensing cases nationwide expected in coming years.
Local officials see millions of dollars in tax revenue, but more than 950 residents who signed ballot petitions fear endless noise, pollution and higher electric rates.
This is the second of three articles about Michigan communities organizing to stop the construction of energy-intensive computing facilities.
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