2023-08-27 Highlights
A catalog of recent climate news that caught my eye
Greetings from Japan - I’ll be based out of Tokyo for the next several years. Drop a note if you’re in town.
The Interconnected, Compounding Nature of the Climate Crisis - Climate change is a deeply complex web of systems and we’re unfortunately getting more and more clarity on how they are interconnected as the impacts become more apparent. It is terribly visible in the Maui fire disaster. The “fire hurricane” was made all the more deadly by a confluence of forces - a nearby hurricane collided with a higher pressure local system strengthening winds that bolstered the fire, grounded helicopters, and caused power outages; drought made water more scarce and killed the non-native grasses, turning them to tinder; and the city’s urban footprint expanded into fire-prone areas. And the damages go way beyond what’s visible: the post-disaster water is so toxic that “residents are unable to treat the water in any way to make it safe”; experts are worried that the water and smoke contamination could limit future crop production; immigrants are put in tricky positions when asking for government assistance due to incinerated paperwork; and there is widespread worries of displacement due to lost assets, redevelopment costs, and gentrification (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). It’s all the worse that a close call in 2018 went unprioritized. (As a side note - Maui has an ongoing lawsuit against oil and gas companies on climate change, which takes on a different tone with the wildfire and the youth winning against the State of Montana for climate action due to their right to a healthy environment).
It should be clear now that when we see warning signs, like certain areas of the Amazon rainforest becoming a source of carbon or four out of five emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea losing their chicks, we should take decisive action because the impacts could spiral far beyond what we’ve modeled and what initially comes to mind. We’ve only been modeling the impacts conservatively, due to the consensus approach of the IPCC, the conservative nature of science, and the fact that we have an incomplete understanding of all of the infinite elements that affect and are affected by the climate. But this summer is previewing the true scale of the cost of inaction (a great chart on the size of Canada’s fires so far this year if you’re a visual person below), and it’s only going to get worse. We’re running out of time and every tenth of a degree counts.
With all this weighing on the mind, here’s a bunch of articles illuminating various intersections between climate and other sectors:
Health - Hundreds have died in this summer’s extreme weather. Time highlighted a surge in fatal kidney conditions due to heat stress. Researchers found another link between antibiotic resistance and air pollution. A SSIR post recommended some frameworks for how cities can tackle health and climate together.
Water - WRI’s updated Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas now finds that 25% of the world’s population experiences “extremely high” water stress, and 50% lives under “high” water stress for at least one month out of the year.
Food - Agriculture production and supply chains are increasingly disrupted, on land and in the sea (1, 2* - I didn’t know jellyfish might be a sustainably farmed food source of a warmer ocean future), straining our existing system due to multiple concurrent events. Humans are also part of the problem - sand mining (a hidden cost of cement and glass) on the Mekong river is destroying riverbanks, water quality, and food pathways (a heart wrenching short documentary here). We were in a period of time where the increased carbon in the air accelerated plant growth, but that’s now over due to the same weather disruptions. And scientists are worried the next pandemic will devastate our monocrop system.
Infrastructure - Foreign Policy notes how our infrastructure wasn’t designed to face climate extremes and it’s showing. The Panama Canal restricted traffic due to a water shortage. But in good news, researchers developed a framework to better understand the impact of climate change adaptation initiatives (the infographic is a doozy).
Inequality - A study estimated that hurricane deaths could be 13 times greater than official counts in the US, with much of the excess deaths occurring in the most vulnerable counties. An official Australian government intergenerational report found that just 2°C of warming would cost the economy of between $135-423 billion in today’s dollars. Another study found the wealthiest 10% of American households are responsible for 40% of US emissions: “We find significant and growing emissions inequality that cuts across economic and racial lines. In 2019, fully 40% of total U.S. emissions were associated with income flows to the highest earning 10% of households. Among the highest earning 1% of households (whose income is linked to 15–17% of national emissions) investment holdings account for 38–43% of their emissions.”
A side rant: A PwC survey finds that only half of US executives, many likely in the top 1%, think climate change is a business risk (and 19% think it’s a serious risk) while a separate study finds that if public companies had to pay for carbon pollution using a reasonable social cost of carbon, their average operating profits would fall by 44%. Can someone explain to me how CEOs look at the news this summer and don’t see the business risk? Maybe this survey skewed software (I haven’t dove into the methodology) but still…
*Fossil Fuel Industry Ranting Continued* - More articles on the fossil fuel industry. Two great lists were published in reaction to the recent investments in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) correctly identifying it as a lab project and not a climate solution (1, 2* - their nuclear take is missing some key nuance). A study in Pennsylvania found that children who live within a mile of an oil or gas well are five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma. Another found that after a Pittsburgh coal plant closed, average weekly visits to the local emergency departments for heart-related problems immediately decreased by 42% and other general population health improvements in a pattern akin to what’s observed when heavy smokers quit. Yet another one found that Applacia’s natural gas economy has has failed to increase jobs and income. The Washington Post found that it’s now always cheaper to drive an EV in the US and WSJ reports that Big Oil is struggling to recruit talent (obviously).
However the industry’s power is obnoxiously on full display: the International Monetary Fund found that the industry received $1.3 trillion in explicit subsidies, a value that balloons to over $7 trillion when factoring in implicit subsidies like environmental costs and the EPA just approved a new Chevron boat fuel ingredient with a cancer risk six times greater than a lifetime of smoking.
Ecuador proved that they aren’t unstoppable - with the general public voting 59-41% to protect the Yasuní UNESCO world biosphere reserve from oil drilling - but it’s wild that we have to fight this hard to place people and planet over profit for a few.
IRA’s Anniversary - The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) turned 1 and there’s been a lot of great coverage on its impact so far and what the future might hold. As far as I know, Canary Media has done the best job diving into all the various elements and nuances and S&P did a great deep dive on the tax credits.
The Kelp Business is Booming. Can Regulators Keep Up? (Grist) - Glad kelp is getting some serious attention and that this challenge is raised. Monoculture industrial agriculture killed our land ecosystems, we should ensure it doesn’t kill our seas. I’m grateful that folks like GreenWave and Native Conservancy are leaders in the kelp farming space with more regenerative and small-holder approaches. Oh, and a great read on how scientists are utilizing kelp to try to support struggling marine ecosystems in Australia. Go seaweeds!
Enviros Assail Forest Service Report, Saying it Could Promote Logging (Politico Pro) - Only in climate does the media say “enviros” and “activists” but then immediate quote professors. It’s ridiculous that it’s 2023 and the most trustworthy voices on climate aren’t identified as such to ensure ‘both sides’ reporting. But as for the content - the science is mixed because forests are complex and unique. Trees mature at different rates. Older trees in some forests are proven to accelerate the growth of surrounding trees and younger trees in others grow rapidly, outscaling the known benefits of older trees. We also aren’t exactly sure how harvesting affects carbon cycles yet (another paper complicating the story while noting that it didn’t take into account soil carbon changes because the science isn’t advanced enough for a global analysis like this one). So, what we know is that good forestry management requires nuance and local knowledge (highlighted by the Yale360 piece shared in a previous newsletter), proving why working with local communities is vital for any nature-based project. This is why I’m skeptical of any initiatives that are ‘by-tree’ (e.g., a carbon project selling credits based on the difference in individual trees and not trying to quantify the health of the ecosystem over time) and am excited by the potential of bamboo, a grass, for many current tree products, especially when grown on degraded land.
New Zealand, BlackRock Launch $1.2 Billion Climate Infrastructure Fund to Accelerate Energy Transition Goals (ESG Today) - We’ll see how this plays out but, on the surface, likely the first of many. Hopefully the teams do a great job so it can be a model for effective climate financing.
A Climate Solution in the Skies (NY Times) - Contrails are a third of aviation’s warming impact but over half of them can be avoided with better route planning. Also noted by another study - solar panels on top of warehouses could produce enough electricity to power the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. Efficient solutions like these are great low-hanging fruits.
New California Rule Will Cut Carbon From Baking Cheetos, Chips and More (Canary Media) - Electrify everything continues to be on a roll.
A Cocaine Warlord Is Saving the Amazon With His Campaign of Terror (Bloomberg) - I don’t know what to make of this one yet, but it’s a wild read.
Source: Reuters Sustainable Switch Newsletter