The president of the Republic of Congo will today host the Summit of the Three Basins alongside leaders from the Amazon, Congo, and Borneo-Mekong river basins with the aim of drumming up global support to preserve their forests and ecosystems.
In recent weeks, record drought has pushed the Amazon river to its lowest level in over a century affecting nearly half a million people and causing severe damage to ecosystems including the death of more than 100 river dolphins from high water temperatures.
The big elephant in the room in is fossil fuels, the main driver of these climate impacts, which are responsible for over 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.
The expansion of fossil fuels also threatens millions of vulnerable people and tropical forests across the three basins.
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Data from Earth Insight says that planned oil and gas blocks overlap with roughly 65 million hectares in the Amazon – an area the size of France. In the Congo, the figure is even bigger, 72 million and in Southeast Asia its 35 million.
The combination of exploiting fossil fuels and other industry activities driving deforestation with rising global temperatures could cause these ecosystems in these basins to collapse.
Breaching these tipping points could see these lush ecosystems transition into dry and degraded savannas unable to support biodiversity and releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
But there is hope. Remarkably, Ecuador became the first country last August to hold a referendum where voters overwhelmingly backed limiting oil exploitation in the mega-diverse Yasuní National Park.
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Despite facing the brunt of the climate emergency and having less responsibility for causing it, countries in the Global South appear to be leading the charge to confront it.
The Colombian government, which has been pushing for an end to oil development in the Amazon, has announced that it would not approve new oil and gas exploration projects and joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, and the Powering Past Coal Alliance.
Antigua and Barbuda and Timor-Leste recently joined a growing number of governments, cities and other actors pushing for the negotiation of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This type of leadership required to end fossil fuel expansion, equitably phase out existing production and foster international cooperation to accelerate a transition is critical.
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Meanwhile, the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Norway are responsible for half of the planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050, despite their special responsibility and capacity to act given their historical contribution to global heating. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil have also recently scaled back their efforts to back renewable energy.
These developments ignore the warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists and the International Energy Agency, which say there can be no new oil and gas fields approved or new coal-fired power stations to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Rich countries and corporations need to lead the transition away from fossil fuel projects at home and work with countries in the Global South to equitably phase down fossil fuels and finance renewable energy alternatives.
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International cooperation is required to establish a moratorium on all industrial activity in primary and priority forests in these areas until 2050 to protect critical ecosystems and while setting up adequate financing mechanisms like debt relief, payments for environmental services and redirecting subsidies to support countries to shift away from extractive industries.
The Global North must support developing countries with the transition. In Colombia, if national policymakers do not respond proactively to the global energy transition, the country could face lost economic output of more than USD 88 billion (or 27% of 2019 GDP) between now and 2050 in a world that de-carbonises in line with the Paris Agreement.
This is not only about reducing emissions but also supporting countries in the Global South with a just and orderly energy transition and managing the fiscal risks and restructuring of economies dependent on fossil fuels.
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Led by the richest countries, public subsidies to fossil fuels, which reached a record of US$7 trillion last year, must be drastically reduced and redirected to supporting renewable energy, reducing deforestation and boosting climate resilience in poorer countries.
The former UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, is calling for a US$25 billion global windfall levy on fossil fuel profits paid by the richest petrostates including Norway and the Gulf states, a mere 3% of the export earnings of these major producers.
At the UN climate talks (COP28) next month in Dubai, all countries must support a global commitment and specific dates to phase-out fossil fuels.
Rich countries should honour their pledges in 2021 to end international public finance for fossil fuels which continues to run into the billions of dollars.
Equally, the world’s 60 largest banks, which have poured $5.5 trillion into the fossil fuel industry since 2015 must align their financing with the 1.5°C limit.
The Global North and its corporations need to step up. Crucially, there is a brighter future possible as staying below 1.5°C would save the global economy US$12 trillion by 2050 and would create double the amount of jobs as would be lost in the fossil fuel industry.
While unlikely leaders in the Global South are taking the baton, the Global North is dithering with dire consequences for us all.
Guy Edwards is a PhD student at Sussex University, a former senior consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank and co-author of A Fragmented Continent: Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change.
Peter Newell is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex, co-founder and research director of the Rapid Transition Alliance and author of Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions.
The post Saving the Three Basins means stopping fossil fuel expansion appeared first on Climate Home News.
Saving the Three Basins means stopping fossil fuel expansion
Climate Change
Fish Threatened By Farms and Mining Set to Be First Species Listed As Endangered in Second Trump Term
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed an Endangered Species Act listing for a rare chub whose habitat has been dried up by over-pumping of groundwater that would be further stressed by proposed lithium mines.
DYER, Nev.—A century ago, Fish Lake Valley looked much more like its name than it does today.
Global yields of wheat are around 10% lower now than they would have been without the influence of climate change, according to a new study.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at data on climate change and growing conditions for wheat and other major crops around the world over the past 50 years.
It comes as heat and drought have this year been putting wheat supplies at risk in key grain-producing regions, including parts of Europe, China and Russia.
The study finds that increasingly hot and dry conditions negatively impacted yields of three of the five key crops examined.
Overall, global grain yields soared during the study period due to technological advancements, improved seeds and access to synthetic fertilisers.
But these yield setbacks have “important ramifications for prices and food security”, the study authors write.
Grain impacts
Most parts of the world have experienced “significant” yield increases in staple crops since the mid-20th century.
The new study notes that, in the past 50 years, yields increased by 69-123% for the five staple crops included in the research – wheat, maize, barley, soya beans and rice.
But crop production is increasingly threatened by climate change and extreme weather. A 2021 study projected “major shifts” in global crop productivity due to climate change within the next two decades.
Earlier this year, Carbon Brief mapped out news stories of crops being destroyed around the world by heat, drought, floods and other weather extremes in 2023-24. Maize and wheat were the crops that appeared most frequently in these reports.
Hot and dry weather is currently threatening wheat crops in parts of China, the world’s largest wheat producer, Reuters reported this month.
In the UK, wheat crops are struggling amid the “driest start to spring in England for almost 70 years”, the Times recently reported. Farm groups say some crops are already failing, the Guardian said.
As a result, global wheat supplies are “tight”, according to Bloomberg, with price rises possible depending on weather conditions in parts of Europe, China and Russia.
Food security and prices
The study uses climate datasets, modelling and national crop statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to assess crop production and climate trends in key grain-producing countries over 1974-2023, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, Russia and the US.
The researchers assess climate observations and then use crop models to calculate what yields would have been with and without these climate changes.
For example, “if it has warmed 1C over 50 years and the model says that 1C leads to 5% yield loss, we’d calculate that the warming trend caused a loss of 5%”, Prof David Lobell, the lead study author and a professor at Stanford University, tells Carbon Brief.
The study looks at two reanalysis climate datasets that include information on temperature and rainfall over the past 50 years: TerraClimate (TC) and ERA5-Land. (Reanalysis data combines observations with a modern forecasting model.)
The researchers find that yields of three of the five crops are lower than they would have been without warmer temperatures and other climate impacts in the past 50 years.
Yields were lower than they otherwise would have been by 12-14% for barley, 8-12% for wheat and 4% for maize.
The impacts on soya beans were less clear as there were “significant differences” between data sources. But both datasets show a negative impact on yields, ranging from 2% to 8%.
The effects on rice yields were inconclusive, with one dataset showing a positive effect of around 1% while the other showed a negative effect of about 3%.
The chart below shows the estimated yield impacts for each crop based on the calculations from the two climate datasets.
Given soaring overall crop yields during this time, impacts of 4-13% “may seem trivial”, the researchers write. But, they say, it can have “important ramifications for prices and food security” given growing food demand, noting:
“The overall picture of the past half-century is that climate trends have led to a deterioration of growing conditions for many of the main grain-producing regions of the world.”
Water stress and heat
The study also assesses the impacts that warming and vapour pressure deficit – a key driver of plant water stress – have on crop yields.
Vapour pressure deficit is the difference between the amount of water vapour in the air and the point at which water vapour in the air becomes saturated. As air becomes warmer, it can hold more water vapour.
A high deficit can reduce plant growth and increase water stress. The models show that these effects may be the main driver of losses in grain yield, with heat having a more “indirect effect”, as higher temperatures drive water stress.
The study finds that vapour pressure deficit increased in most temperate regions in the past 50 years.
The researchers compare their data to climate modelling simulations covering the past 50 years. They find largely similar results, but notice a “significant underestimation” of vapour pressure deficit increases in temperate regions in most climate models.
Many maize-growing areas in the EU, China, Argentina and much of Africa have vapour deficit trends that “exceed even the highest trend in models”, they write.
The researchers also find that most regions experienced “rapid warming” during the study period, with the average crop-growing season now warmer than more than 80% of growing seasons 50 years ago.
The findings indicate that, in some areas, “even the coolest growing season in the present day is warmer than the warmest season that would have occurred 50 years ago”.
An exception to this is in the US and Canada, they find, with most maize and soya bean crop areas in the US experiencing lower levels of warming than other parts of the world and a “slight cooling” in wheat-growing areas of the northern Great Plains and central Canada.
(The central US has experienced a cooling trend in summer daytime temperatures since the middle of the 20th century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are many theories behind this “warming hole”, which has continued despite climate change.)
CO2 greening
Dr Corey Lesk, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College who studies the impacts of climate on crops, says these findings are in line with other recent estimates. He tells Carbon Brief:
“There are some uncertainties and sensitivity to model specification here – but it’s somewhat likely climate change has already reduced crop yields in the global mean.”
The study’s “main limitation” is that it is “behind” on including certain advances in understanding how soil moisture impacts crops, Lesk adds:
“Moisture changes and CO2 [carbon dioxide] effects are the largest present uncertainties in past and future crop impacts of climate change. This paper is somewhat limited in advancing understanding on those aspects, but it’s illuminating to pause and take stock.”
The research looks at whether the benefits of CO2 increases during the past 50 years exceed the negative effects of higher levels of the greenhouse gas.
Rising CO2 levels can boost plant growth in some areas in a process called “CO2 fertilisation”. However, a 2019 study found that this “global greening” could be stalled by growing water stress.
Yield losses for wheat, maize and barley “likely exceeded” any benefits of CO2 increases in the past 50 years, the study finds.
The opposite is true for soya beans and rice, they find, with a net-positive impact of more than 4% on yields.
Climate science has “done a remarkable job of anticipating global impacts on the main grains and we should continue to rely on this science to guide policy decisions”, Lobell, the lead study author, says in a press release.
He adds that there may be “blind spots” on specialised crops, such as coffee, cocoa, oranges and olives, which “don’t have as much modelling” as key commodity crops, noting:
“All these have been seeing supply challenges and price increases. These matter less for food security, but may be more eye-catching for consumers who might not otherwise care about climate change.”
The post Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change
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