Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
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This week
Extreme heat across the globe
SUPERLATIVE EXTREMES: Much of the world is experiencing extreme heat, with temperature records being broken on several continents but little western news coverage. Axios reported that temperatures in Japan are being “broken by rare margins”. The outlet added that Maximiliano Herrera, an independent climatologist who tracks weather records, “has been increasingly struggling to come up with new superlatives to describe” the extreme heat.
AFRICAN HEAT: Late last week, the Nigerian weather agency “predicted a prolonged heatwave across the country”, with temperatures forecast to rise above 40C, according to the Cable. In Kenya, the current “excess heat” could “persist till March”, the Standard reported. And “scorching” temperatures in parts of South Africa led to warnings for residents to stay indoors, the Witness said.
ASIAN EARLY BLOOMER: According to the Weather Channel, Japan’s iconic cherry blossoms are blooming early amid record heat there. The Thaiger reported that Thailand “is bracing for a severe heatwave”, while Cambodia’s meteorological ministry issued several advisories this week that maximum average temperatures could reach 37C, according to the Khmer Times.
AUSTRALIA ‘SWELTERING’: The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that “parts of Western Australia have sweltered through their hottest night on record” this week. “Extreme fire danger” led to school closures in the state, another article said.
Around the world
- US REGULATIONS: US president Joe Biden is reportedly planning to “slow” the roll-out of tailpipe-emissions regulations – one of his administration’s “most ambitious strategies to combat climate change”, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, US agencies are “scrambl[ing] to finish” environmental regulations “to ensure that a Republican Congress and White House can’t erase them next year”, Politico reported.
- CLIMATE COCKTAIL: A deadly cholera outbreak in southern Africa “was likely triggered by a cocktail of issues”, Al Jazeera wrote, including “more severe flooding linked to climate change”. Heavy rainfall in the Amazon also triggered an alert for oropouche fever in the Brazilian city of Manaus, according to Folha de S. Paolo.
- BACK-BURNER?: European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is pursuing a second term, Politico reported, with “little appetite for expanding the Green Deal” amid concerns over “competitiveness, migration and defence”. However, a later Politico story quoted the draft manifesto of her party saying: “We want to further develop the Green Deal.” The Financial Times quoted von der Leyen saying: “We must achieve the climate targets…with the people and with the business sector.”
- SOLAR SOARS: “‘World-leading’ electricity production” in China’s north-western deserts is being “fuelled by forces of nature”, with wind and solar making up more than half of the nearly 500 gigawatt capacity, according to the South China Morning Post.
- EXTREMES AND ADAPTATION: Bangladesh was hit by 185 extreme weather events between 2000-19, according to a report covered by DownToEarth, which added that “adaptation policies and local initiatives have saved many lives”.
- HIGH COURT CLAIMS: Three environmental groups are seeking legal action against the UK government over its decision to approve its “carbon budget delivery plan” in March 2023 without fully considering the risks, the Press Association wrote.
$281 billion
The profits of the “big five” oil majors – Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies – since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the campaign group Global Witness.
Latest climate research
- New research by World Weather Attribution, covered by Carbon Brief, found that climate change had no significant impact on Chile’s recent deadly wildfires.
- Climate change is affecting the feeding and migration patterns of bowhead whales, which could lead to more collisions with ships in the future, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters.
- A paper in Environmental Research Letters found that increasing population density could raise the carbon emissions from mangrove forest degradation by 50,000% by the end of the century.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
China will need ‘record drop’ in emissions to meet target
Amid rapid growth of electricity demand, China’s energy emissions will now need to fall by a record 4-6% by 2025 in order to meet the government’s “carbon intensity” target – its CO2 emissions per unit of economic output. New analysis for Carbon Brief found that China is “at risk of missing” its other key climate targets for next year, but most of these can still be achieved if the country returns to pre-2020 levels of energy demand growth while maintaining last year’s “acceleration of clean energy deployment”. The analysis was covered by publications including the Straits Times, the South China Morning Post, Reuters, the Guardian and Bloomberg.
Spotlight
Guest post: Why climate change matters for the pandemic treaty
In this spotlight, Dr Colin Carlson, a climate epidemiologist at Georgetown University, explains the connections between climate change and the proposed global pandemic treaty, as it enters the final stages of negotiations.
For more than a year, World Health Organization (WHO) member states have been working towards a new treaty that would formalise the lessons learned during the Covid-19 response.
On 19 February, delegates met at the WHO headquarters in Geneva to begin the eighth and penultimate session of negotiations. If countries can agree on final language, the Pandemic Agreement could then be adopted at the World Health Assembly in May.
The climate community has not paid much attention to these negotiations – nor has climate change featured heavily in the negotiations.
In the latest draft of the treaty, climate change is only mentioned once: the WHO and its member states are trying to move towards a “One Health” approach that protects human health, animal health and the environment, including “taking action on climate change”.
Scientists have demanded more of a focus on preventing disease emergence, but for the most part, other drivers – such as wildlife trade and deforestation – have upstaged climate.
But scientists are also starting to see connections between pandemics and climate change.
Animals are on the move, and bringing their viruses to new places. Rising temperatures make another pandemic of Zika virus or another mosquito-borne disease more likely – and next time, the risks to the US and Europe will be far greater. Hotter temperatures also mean more antibiotic resistant bacteria – which will make the next flu or coronavirus pandemic more deadly.
Investment and surveillance
In that light, climate change makes the Pandemic Agreement all the more urgent.
It could mean countries spend more on surveillance, helping scientists spot new diseases as they show up.
Investments in clean water, sanitation and primary healthcare would also reduce the burden of climate-sensitive diseases such as cholera and malaria, while more investments in veterinary workforce would help to protect animal health from emerging diseases such as avian influenza.
Most importantly, the proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System would create a new framework for scientists around the world to share pathogen genomic sequence data with each other.
Pharmaceutical companies that access those data to design vaccines and therapeutics would then have to share some percent of their vaccines to the WHO, ensuring that low- and middle-income countries will have access to life-saving medicines – a massive step towards solving vaccine inequity and reducing disease risk in regions that are projected to see the largest increases in exposure because of climate change.
But first, the treaty has to survive the next three months. Since negotiations started, the PABS System has been flagged as a potential deal-breaker for high-income countries.
If the treaty falls through, health could become a much bigger problem for climate policy than it already is – after four million climate change-related deaths and counting.
Watch, read, listen
DEEP-SEA SECRETS: The rediscovery of a 1970s-era deep-sea mining test site may shed light on the method’s lasting environmental impacts, the Post and Courier wrote.
ENERGY EQUITY: On the New Books Network podcast, two researchers discussed equitable clean energy and a just transition in north Africa and the Middle East.
MEKONG’S MANGROVES: The Mekong Eye explored how Vietnam’s mangrove forests have been felled in the name of economic growth – and how they might be saved.
Coming up
- 19 February to 1 March: Sixth UN environment assembly, Nairobi, Kenya
- 25 February: Belarus parliamentary elections
- 26 February: UN Plastics Treaty: Reuse – a climate and plastic solution, Nairobi, Kenya
- 27-28 February: G20 disaster risk reduction working group meeting, Vila Do Conde, Brazil
Pick of the jobs
- Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, strategic communications lead | Salary: Unknown. Location: remote, anywhere in the world
- Climate Risk Lab at the University of Cape Town, postdoctoral research fellow (four opportunities) | Salary: ZAR 410,000-475,000. Location: Cape Town, South Africa strongly preferred
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, country programme manager | Salary: £41,593-£44,651. Location: Monrovia, Liberia
- Stockholm Environment Institute, water programme research associate | Salary: unknown. Location: Bogotá, Colombia
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
The post DeBriefed 23 February 2024: Extreme heat from Asia to Africa; China risks missing 2025 CO2 targets; Why climate change matters for the pandemic treaty appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Jackie Chesnutt, who lives outside San Angelo, is tired of pollution from wells she says should have been plugged years ago. Experts say Texas rules allow companies to defer plugging wells for far too long.
Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Low-Producing Oil Wells in Texas Cause Headaches for Landowners
An interview with author Catherine Coleman Flowers.
The fourth installment in our special Earth Day series
When the sciences and the humanities; democracy and ecology, are all under common and increasing attack, the efforts of independent experts and researchers matter more than ever.
David Ritter
So often in life, our most authentic moments of joy are the result of years of shared effort, and the culmination of a kind of deep faith in what is possible.
A few weeks ago, I had the honour of being in Canberra, along with some fellow environmentalists and scientists, to witness the enactment of the High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 by our federal parliament.
This was the moment that the Global Ocean Treaty—one of the most significant environmental agreements of our time—was given force through a domestic Australian law.
If you are part of the great Greenpeace family, you will know exactly why this was such a huge deal. The high seas make up around 60 per cent of the Earth’s surface and for too long, they have been subjected to open plunder. Now, for the first time in human history, there is an international instrument that enables the creation of massive high seas sanctuaries within which the ocean can be protected. This is a monumental collective achievement by Greenpeace and all the other groups who have campaigned for high seas marine sanctuaries for many years.
But as momentous as the ratification was, the parliamentary proceedings were distinctly lacking in drama or fanfare–so much so, that Labor MP backbencher Renee Coffey felt the need to gesture to those of us in the gallery with a grin, to indicate that the process was over and done.
The modesty of the moment had me thinking about the decades of quiet dedication by many hands that are invariably required to achieve great social change. In particular, I found myself thinking about researchers. So much of the expert academic work that underpins achievements like the Global Ocean Treaty is slow, painstaking, solitary—and often out of sight.
I think of the persistence and tenacity of researchers as an expression of love, founded in an authentic sense of wonder and curiosity about the world—and frequently linked to a deep ethical desire to protect that source of wonderment.
In 2007, one of the very first things I was given to read after starting with Greenpeace as an oceans campaigner in London was a report entitled Roadmap to Recovery: A global network of marine reserves. Specific physical sensations can tend to stick in the mind from periods of personally significant transitions, and the tactile reminiscence of holding the thin cardboard of the modest grey cover of that report is deeply embedded in my memory. I suspect I still even have that original copy in a box somewhere.
Written by a team of scientists led by Professor Callum Roberts, a marine conservation biologist from the University of York, the Roadmap provided the first scientifically informed vision of a large-scale global network of high seas marine sanctuaries, protecting the world’s oceans at scale. Of course, twenty years ago, this idea felt more like utopian science fiction, because there was no Global Oceans Treaty. But what seemed fanciful at the start of this century is now possible-–and I have every confidence the creation of large scale high seas marine sanctuaries will now happen through the application of ongoing campaigning effort—but we would never have gotten this far without the dedication of researchers, driven by their love of the oceans. And now here we are, with the ability for humanity to legally protect the high seas for the first time.
Campaigning and research so often work hand in hand like this: the one identifying the need and the solutions; the other driving the change. Because in a world of powerful vested interests, good science alone doesn’t shift decision makers—that takes activism and campaigning—but equally, there must be a basis of evidence and reason on which to build our public advocacy.
So, I want to take a moment to think with love and appreciation for everyone who has contributed to making this possible. I’ve never met the team of scientists who authored the original Roadmap, so belatedly but sincerely, then, to Leanne Mason, Julie P. Hawkins, Elizabeth Masden, Gwilym Rowlands, Jenny Storey and Anna Swift—and to every other researcher and scientist who has been involved in demonstrating why the Global Oceans Treaty has been so badly needed over the years—thank you for your commitment and devotion.
And to everyone out there who continues to believe that evidence and truth matter, and that our magnificent, fragile world deserves our respectful curiosity and study as an expression of our awe and enchantment, thank you for your conscientiousness.
When the sciences and the humanities; democracy and ecology, are all under common and increasing attack, the efforts of independent experts and researchers matter more than ever. You have Greenpeace’s deepest gratitude. Every day, we build on the foundations of your work and dedication. Thank you.
Q & A
I have been asked several times in recent weeks what the ongoing war means for the renewable energy transition in Australia.
While some corners of the fossil fuel lobby and the politicians captured by these vested interests have been very quick to use this crisis to call for more oil exploration and gas pipelines, the reality is that the current energy crisis has revealed the commonsense case for renewable energy.
As many, including climate and energy minister Chris Bowen have noted, renewable energy is affordable, inexhaustible, and sovereign—its supply cannot be blocked by warmongers or conflict. People intuitively know this; it’s why sales of electric cars have climbed to an all-time high, it’s why interest in rooftop solar and batteries has skyrocketed in recent months.
The reality is that oil and gas are to blame for much of the cost-of-living pain we’re feeling right now; fossil fuels are the disease, not the cure. If Australia were further along in our renewable energy transition and EV uptake, we would be much better insulated from petrol and gas price shocks and supply chain disruptions.
Yes, we need short-term solutions to ease the very real cost-of-living pressures that Australian communities and workers are facing as a result of fuel shortages. While replacement supplies is no doubt a valid step for now—Greenpeace is also backing taxes on the war profits of gas corporations to fund relief measures for Australians—in the long term, we will only get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel dependency and price volatility if we break free from fossil fuels and accelerate progress towards an energy system built on 100% renewable energy, backed by storage.
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