Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Farewell to coal
142 YEARS: The UK’s “142-year history of coal-fired electricity” ended on Monday as the UK’s last coal power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, turned off its turbines for the final time, reported the Guardian. The UK is now the first major economy and the first country in the G7 to successfully phase out coal power, reported the Times.
10BN TONNES: From 1882 until Ratcliffe’s closure, the UK’s coal plants will have burned through 4.6bn tonnes of coal and emitted 10.4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – more than most countries have ever produced from all sources, according to a comprehensive timeline of the nation’s coal phase-out from Carbon Brief. Carbon Brief’s analysis was cited by publications globally, ranging from US radio station NPR to Indonesian newspaper Kompas.
PERMISSION REFUSED: In other coal news, the UK’s coal regulator the Coal Authority refused to grant licences for what would have been the country’s first new coal mine in 30 years, the Press Association reported. Also on Monday, Tata Steel, the UK’s biggest steelworks, shut down its last coal-powered furnace after more than 100 years, reported Sky News.
Global storms
HURRICANE HELENE: More than 200 people have been killed and at least one million are still without power after Hurricane Helene hit the US south-east and midwest last week, reported CNN. A preliminary study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that “climate change caused 50% more rainfall during the hurricane in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas”, the Guardian reported. Hurricane Helene is now the second deadliest to hit the US after Hurricane Katrina, reported the Times.
SWING STATES: Georgia and North Carolina are both key battlegrounds for presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, reported Reuters. Former president Donald Trump visited victims in Georgia on Monday evening, only to court oil executives during meetings held on Wednesday, reported the Guardian. Vice-president Kamala Harris visited Georgia on Wednesday calling the damage “extraordinary” and the loss of life “particularly devastating”, reported the Washington Post.
TYPHOON KRATHON: At least two people have been killed after Typhoon Krathon slammed into Taiwan, Al Jazeera reported. Typhoons often hit the east coast of the island, but Krathon directly hit the west coast, leading Taiwan’s media to label it a “weird” storm, the publication added. In Nepal, heavy flooding and rain killed 193 people in Kathmandu and the surrounding area, the Associated Press reported.
Around the world
- BLACK GOLD: Oil prices have breached $75 a barrel amid reports that Israel could strike Iranian oil facilities, fuelling fears of conflict escalation and resulting global energy supply disruption, reported the Times.
- DRAW DOWN: The UK government announced up to £21.7bn of support over 25 years for carbon capture and storage projects, the Financial Times reported. Meanwhile, a Carbon Brief exclusive reported that the nation will miss the deadline to submit a new nature pledge ahead of the COP16 biodiversity summit this month.
- FORESTS FEATURE: Environment ministers from the Group of 20 (G20) nations agreed on Thursday to increase funding for tropical forest conservation, the Associated Press reported. It comes as the EU moved to delay its anti-deforestation law for a year amid trade backlash, the Financial Times said.
- UNCHARTED TERRITORY: Melting glaciers fuelled by climate change have forced Italy and Switzerland to redraw a border in the Alps, the Daily Telegraph reported.
- EU TARIFFS: The European Commission is set “to adopt tariffs” of up to 45% on Chinese electric vehicles after saying it had received enough support from member states in a vote earlier today, Reuters reported.
106 million
The amount of CO2, in tonnes, released by Arctic wildfires this summer, roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Kuwait, reported the Times.
Latest climate research
- National rates of partner violence against women can be higher two years after some climate “shocks”, such as storms, landslides and floods, according to a study in PLOS Climate.
- A new study in Communications Earth and Environment found that the northern Amazon has seen a three-fold increase in the number of days with “extreme fire weather conditions” since 1971.
- Satellite images suggest that the Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing “an accelerated rate” of “greening” in response to recent warming, according to research published in Nature Geoscience.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Following a rapid withdrawal from nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, 10 of Japan’s 33 nuclear reactors are now back online. Nuclear was a key topic of debate in the country’s recent leadership race, touted by business leaders and the previous administration as a necessity for energy security and to meet decarbonisation goals. New leader Shigeru Ishiba (more below) entered the campaign with a platform of reducing nuclear power to “close to zero”. Just one day after taking office, however, he released a nuclear plan consistent with the previous administration, reported Reuters.
Spotlight
Japan’s new prime minister and climate change
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about where Japan’s new prime minister stands on climate change, nuclear and renewables.
Japan welcomed its 65th prime minister on Tuesday as Shigeru Ishiba won the closest leadership race in almost seven decades to become the next leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) party.
Ishiba is a former defence and agriculture minister who has sat in parliament for almost four decades.
Ishiba has previously demonstrated an impressive literacy on climate change, likely influenced by his childhood in the rural prefecture of Tottori, Tobias Harris, founder of Japan Foresight, a Japan-focused advisory firm in the US, told Carbon Brief:
“Judging by his August 2024 book Hoshu seijika [Conservative Politician], he is well informed of the science on climate change, citing IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports, noting the impacts ranging from wildfires, methane gas release in Siberia, sea level rise, and more severe storms, as well as the human impacts, including refugee flows, food and water shortages, and, interestingly, the possibility for ‘climate fascism’ – he actually uses the phrase.
“It’s hard to think of a Japanese politician of his stature who has used this kind of language to talk about climate change.”
As part of his platform, Ishiba proposed a new government agency for disaster management in response to extreme weather events in Japan.
As recently as August, Typhoon Shanshan caused widespread damage in Japan, killing seven and leaving at least 131 injured. A rapid attribution study by Imperial College London found Typhoon Shanshan was made 7.5% more intense and 26% more likely by climate change.
Renewables and nuclear
At the start of his campaign, Ishiba broke with mainstream LDP thought by advocating for maximising Japan’s renewable potential, while reducing reliance on nuclear power to “close to zero”.
Under the previous administration, Japan had sought to actively restart nuclear plants and develop new ones to meet energy security and climate goals. But nuclear remains a controversial subject in Japan following the Fukushima disaster in 2011, in which a tsunami claimed more than 2,000 lives and flooded a nuclear power plant in the prefecture.
Just a day into his premiership, however, Ishiba’s newly appointed minister of economy, trade and industry told a press conference that Japan would continue restarting nuclear plants under Ishiba’s government.
This “appears to be a continuation of previous administrations’ positions”, Yuri Okubo, a senior researcher at the Renewable Energy Institute in Japan, told Carbon Brief.
This policy change could have been influenced by pressure from business groups, Yuko Nakano, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the US, added to Carbon Brief:
“Comments from business leaders reflect the private sector’s caution towards the new prime minister’s [original] energy policy.”
With a snap election later this month, Ishiba will also be seeking to “heal party divisions and secure a national mandate”, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, the government is in the process of revising its strategic energy plan, which will set the course of Japan’s energy policies in the medium and long-term, Nakano told Carbon Brief. It is expected by March 2025.
Harris told Carbon Brief that “Ishiba’s shift” reveals “how the politics around nuclear energy have shifted in recent years” in Japan, adding:
“Whereas it was once primarily touted as a way to promote energy independence, it has increasingly been promoted as part of its decarbonisation efforts.”
Watch, read, listen
SOLAR BOOM: The DER Task Force podcast spoke to Jenny Chase of Bloomberg New Energy Finance about Pakistan’s distributed solar boom.
‘PEACEWASHING’: Ahead of COP29 next month, human rights professor Brian Brivati in the Conversation discussed Azerbaijan’s history, including “military aggression, human rights abuses and violations of international law”.
VAN GOGH PROTEST: Politico dived into the story of two climate activists who were imprisoned last week after throwing paint over a Van Gogh.
Coming up
- 9 October: Mozambique presidential and parliamentary elections
- 9 October: International Energy Agency (IEA) Renewables 2024 report launch
- 10-12 October: China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCIED) annual general meeting, Beijing
Pick of the jobs
- Duke University, assistant professor of climate policy (accenture chair) | Salary: Unknown. Location: Durham, North Carolina
- Royal Geographical Society, press and digital communications officer | Salary: £32,590 to £35,385. Location: London
- CPRE The Countryside Charity, media officer | Salary: £41,006. Location: London
- Environment Agency, carbon specialist | Salary: £39,635. Location: UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 4 October 2024: UK turns the lights out on coal; Hurricane Helene; Where does Japan’s new PM stand on climate? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes