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Q&A: What does China’s ‘two sessions’ mean for climate policy in 2024?
China’s annual lianghui (两会) – also known as the “two sessions” – ended on 11 March, drawing the curtain on a key political event that saw limited climate targets set for 2024.
The “two sessions” political gathering, which usually takes place every March, gives an indication of China’s broad policy direction for the year, covering topics from the economy to industrial strategy to environmental protection.
In this article, Carbon Brief outlines the key signals from the 2024 “two sessions” on China’s plans for meeting climate targets, developing coal power, exporting clean-energy technology and more.
The article also assesses the impact of China’s goal of reducing energy intensity by 2.5% this year – described by analysts as “very soft-ball” – on its broader targets for reducing energy intensity and carbon intensity by 2025.
This is an update of Carbon Brief’s 7 March China Briefing newsletter, expanded with additional key points the government made about its approach to climate policy, as well as interpreting political signals sent throughout the “two sessions”.
- Why is the “two sessions” important?
- Does this year’s ‘government work report’ include hard climate targets?
- Is the report ambitious on climate?
- Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?
- How will China manage geopolitical tensions around climate?
- What were other high-ranking policymakers saying about climate and energy policy at the “two sessions”?
- What next?
The “two sessions” is the annual gathering of two bodies: China’s top legislative body, known as the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body similar to the House of Lords in the UK, but without any voting rights on legislation.
The gathering usually lasts for several days in Beijing and is attended by Chinese communist party members, as well as members of other political parties, academics, independent politicians and other prominent figures.
The “nearly 3,000” delegates represent the “democracy of China” and are given space to advance their own ideas. A select number of ministers are also given the opportunity to highlight their priorities in “minister’s corridor” press conferences.
Its centrepiece is the annual “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier, who is the second most powerful leader in China. This speech underscores successes from the previous year and outlines priorities for the year ahead. It is also traditionally when China’s GDP growth target for the year is announced.
Alongside the government work report, China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), also announces more detailed plans for meeting the coming year’s other development targets.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and Premier Li Qiang (right) during China’s annual ‘two sessions’ in Beijing, China. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo Does this year’s ‘government work report’ include hard climate targets?One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in this year’s government work report is to reduce energy intensity – its energy consumption per unit of GDP – by 2.5% over the coming year, a target that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that China would need to reduce its energy intensity by 6% per year to meet its 2025 target of a 13.5% drop, with energy demand needing to fall in absolute terms.
The NDRC report says that the 2.5% target was set “after considering energy consumption in economic development, renewable energy substitution, and the need to make a green and low-carbon transition”. It also said that the goal reflects the fact that energy consumption will increase this year.
It acknowledges shortcomings in efforts to meet energy and carbon intensity targets in 2023, adding that this was due to “rapid growth of industrial and civilian energy consumption”.
The NDRC also significantly altered the energy intensity target, which will now “exclud[e] non-fossil fuels and coal, petroleum and natural gas consumed as raw materials”.
This shift means the government has “redefined” the energy intensity target to mean “fossil fuel intensity”, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior research fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), tells Carbon Brief, making the 2025 target “very soft-ball”.
Li Qiang during the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock PhotoMyllyvirta states that the report does not address the bigger problem – accelerating growth in energy intensive sectors to support China’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This growth – particularly in the exports, heavy manufacturing and construction sectors – would need to be “reversed” to make gains in energy intensity, he says, “but that’s not what they’re talking about [in the report]”.
By his estimate, if China’s energy intensity – under the new calculation – does fall by 2.5%, this would translate to “at best” a 3% fall in carbon intensity – the emissions per unit of GDP. This would be “very far from the 7% [fall] they need”, per his recent Carbon Brief analysis, to meet the 2025 target of an 18% reduction in carbon intensity.
Is the report ambitious on climate?The government work report makes no significant changes to China’s direction of travel on climate and energy policy. Instead, the language around these policies continues to balance tensions inherent to China’s energy transition.
It signals that China will continue to manage the relative prioritisation of “both high-quality development and greater security”. It also asks policymakers to balance “actively” and “prudently” reach climate targets.
Efforts will be made to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as to develop large-scale wind and solar bases and distributed energy, the government work report says.
China will also develop methods to measure carbon emissions and a “carbon footprint management system”; push the “green transformation” of industry, energy, transport and construction; and expand the scope of the national emissions trading market.
But, at the same time, the report also doubles down on the commitment to fossil fuels. Coal will continue to play a “crucial role in ensuring energy supply”, it says, while China increases development of oil, gas and strategic minerals in the name of security.
“You could almost see the government struggling with the language”, Li Shuo, director of ASPI’s China climate hub, tells Carbon Brief. He adds that there “seems to be an increasing lack of consistency” both in the report and in other policy papers.
He attributes this to the increasingly challenging economic situation facing the government and competing interests within the political system.
In addition, the lack of targets around air pollution, forestry and other environmental issues, could be interpreted as a “deprioritisation” of climate issues, he adds, or “as a reflection that the government has been distracted by some of the other competing issues, in particular economic challenges”.
“We’re getting very concerned” about China’s ability to meet its wider climate goals, Li says. Based on the recent surge in energy consumption, “it is going to be very challenging for China to hit [its energy and carbon intensity] targets. They certainly will not be able to meet those targets if they stick to…2.5% [annual] energy intensity reduction.”
Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?The government work report trumpets China’s clean-energy development in 2023, including growing installations of renewable energy, its contributions to the global energy transition and the 30% growth in exports of the “new three” industries of lithium-ion batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs).
(Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that clean technologies – particularly the new three – were the top driver of China’s economic growth last year.)
Research and development of gas turbines and “generation IV” nuclear power units are also singled out as areas in which China has seen “substantial progress”.
Going forward, China will “consolidate and enhance [its] leading position” in industries such as electric vehicles and hydrogen, and “create new ways of storing energy”, the report says. This was the first time either energy storage or hydrogen have been mentioned in an annual government work report at the “two sessions”.
“I [can’t] think of a[nother] country where the economic agenda and the climate agenda are so aligned,” Li tells Carbon Brief. “The challenge for China is when and how and how fast will the positive[s]” lead to the “phasing down or the phasing out of the dirtier [aspects]”.
Press conference of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo How will China manage geopolitical tensions around climate?The greater emphasis placed on clean-tech exports comes as tensions with western countries grow around China’s dominance in solar and electric vehicle (EV) supply chains.
The European Commission recently required that imported China-made EVs register with customs, which could signal an intention to apply retroactive tariffs if they are believed to have received unfair subsidies.
The UK is planning a similar probe into Chinese EV subsidies. The US is deciding whether to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs, with commerce secretary Gina Raimondo arguing they could also pose data security risks.
More broadly, language in the government work report around foreign policy is notably assertive. It underscores that “protectionism and unilateralism were on the rise” in 2023, adding that these tensions “exerted a more adverse impact on China’s development”.
It also states that China will “oppos[e] all hegemonic, high-handed and bullying acts” in 2024 – words that did not appear in the government work report either last year or in 2022.
At the same time, China also pledges to continue to “implement…‘small and beautiful’ projects” in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries, the majority of which are located in the global south.
The Panda Paw Dragon Claw newsletter, says that the government work report “covered much of the language we would expect” in terms of the BRI. It adds, however, that “less prominent individuals in the [CPPCC] offered slightly more nuanced perspectives”.
What were other high-ranking policymakers saying about climate and energy policy at the “two sessions”?This year is the first time in decades that China cancelled its most-widely followed press conference at the “two sessions”, usually held by the premier and offering a rare opportunity for the media to interact directly with top leaders in China.
While the spotlight on 5 March was still on premier Li’s government work report, the domestic media gave more attention to the president, Xi Jinping.
One of the few meetings at the “two sessions” to be publicly announced was Xi’s meeting with the “group of environment and resources”, a new sub-group within the advisory CPPCC. It currently has 85 members, including party and government leaders, scientists, and industry leaders, according to analysis by China Energy Net.
Xi gave a speech at the meeting, in which he said group members “should make new contributions to strengthening ecological environmental protection, and support high-level protection alongside high-quality development”.
One member of the new group is Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) head Huang Runqiu, who gave a speech on behalf of the members on 9 March. Huang argued that the “construction of a ‘Beautiful China’ is a long-term task” and that the construction of a ‘Beautiful China’ zone, balancing high-level protection and high-quality development, is a priority piece of work.
Huang also participated in a “minister’s corridor” press conference, during which he said that China will “synergistically push forward carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion and growth”.
He added that focus areas for the MEE include: fighting “the battle against pollution”; promoting the construction of “Beautiful China” zones; encouraging green, low-carbon and high-quality development; and “supervising” ecosystem protection and restoration.
Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, during the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China. Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock PhotoMeanwhile, National Energy Administration (NEA) director Zhang Jianhua submitted a proposal at the “two sessions” on how to “improve” the way China communicates its position on climate change with the outside world.
His proposal argues that China needs to address “injustices in global carbon reduction [efforts]” and “promote global fair and just carbon reduction”, and better communicate the “effectiveness of China’s [energy] transformation”.
The proposal is notable because, traditionally, the MEE leads on climate diplomacy in conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), while the NEA focuses on domestic policy. Nevertheless, the NEA has commented in the past on geopolitics in relation to energy security concerns and participated in bilateral energy dialogues.
Zheng Shanjie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), also spoke at a press conference, choosing to highlight that “China’s ‘new three’ exports…[demonstrated] China’s strength in its manufacturing exports”.
However, China’s leadership also warned against “unfettered” industrial development at the “two sessions”, while top solar company Longi called on the government to “crack down on low prices and ensure panel quality”.
Xi said at the meeting with delegates from Jiangsu province that China “must prevent local rush and oppose irrational, blind investments that create bubbles”.
Xi did not link his comments to China’s clean energy industries explicitly but, as well as being politically important, Jiangsu province is “known for its exports, advanced manufacturing [and] clusters of new industries including solar and new energy vehicles”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post added.
What next?The government work report merely sets the framework for the year and functions as a signal for the general public, especially for industries, investors and corporations.
In the closely watched report, premier Li expressed concern that “achieving this year’s targets will not be easy, so we need to maintain policy focus, work harder, and mobilise the concerted efforts of all sides”.
An article in the Wall Street Journal said the speech “doesn’t show [a] clear path to recovery” and the Economist said China’s “confidence crisis goes unfixed”.
Following the central-level gathering, ministries and local governments must now develop concrete policies to meet its goals and encourage investors and industries to follow its lead.
Whether and how China progresses towards its “dual carbon” goals and other targets will depend on how this implementation proceeds.
Analysis: Record drop in China’s CO2 emissions needed to meet 2025 target
China energy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Pan Jiahua
China Policy
|The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Zou Ji
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Cropped 13 March 2024: Drought hits food supplies; ‘Mass bleaching’ of coral reefs; Industrialising African ag
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments Drought hits food suppliesBLOW TO AFRICA: “The driest February in decades” swept across a swathe of southern Africa, wiping out crops and jeopardising energy supplies, Bloomberg reported. It cited preliminary data suggesting that large parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had record-low February rainfall last month. The outlet noted that 45% of planted areas in Zambia “have been destroyed” and the president has declared a national disaster. The crop failures have “threatened to send already high food prices surging further”, Bloomberg wrote, noting that in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, prices have risen by about 75% compared to last February. In addition, “dangerously low” water levels in reservoirs in several countries could force the governments to ration power supplies.
‘DIRE NEED OF FOOD’: In the Federated States of Micronesia, in Oceania, thousands of people have been affected by drier-than-normal conditions recorded since December last year, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported. The news site interviewed Cromwell Bacareza, UNICEF’s Micronesia field office chief, who said that around 16,000 people – 40% of whom are children – “are in dire need of food”. Bacareza told the outlet: “It’s not an isolated incident, but rather a grim reminder for everyone of the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, particularly the small island states.” RNZ cited the US National Weather Service, which has projected that the current El Niño would continue to worsen weather conditions.
SICILY’S ‘SEVERE DROUGHT’: The southern Italian island of Sicily is also under a “severe drought” due to a lack of winter rains, which has forced dozens of towns to ration water for both agriculture and residential consumption, Reuters reported. The newswire added that the risk to agriculture in Sicily was considered a “particular concern” by the EU’s crop monitoring service. Meanwhile, in the Po valley in northern Italy, rice farmers are still dealing with the impacts of a persistent drought that began in 2022 and devastated 7,500 hectares of rice fields last year alone, according to the Guardian. The outlet noted that Italy accounts for about 50% of the rice produced in the EU, and most of it comes from the Po Valley, where arborio and carnaroli rice – used in risotto – is harvested. The Guardian added that farmers have sought to diversify their crops in response to climate change.
Indigenous peoples driving conservationINDIGENOUS VOICE: El Mostrador reported that the Chilean government has announced that it will involve Indigenous peoples in developing the country’s adaptation plan for its water sector. It added that “citizen participation” workshops will take place during March and April with the 11 Indigenous peoples legally recognised by Chile. El Mostrador quoted Cristian Núñez Riveros, the director general for water in Chile’s public-works ministry: “This will make it possible to recognise [Indigenous peoples’] interrelationship with water, considering their environment, ways of life and productive activities. It will shed light on the impacts of climate change from their voices, considering their practices and contributions to sustainable water management.”
LEADING CONSERVATION: Indigenous and coastal minority women are at the forefront of efforts to conserve Kenya’s “blue forests”, Inter Press Service reported. The women are restoring mangroves and fish ponds near Tsunza, a southern Kenyan coastal village, after fish disappeared from the area following several oil spills between 2003 and 2006, the newswire reported. Elsewhere, the Indigenous Achuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who fought for more than 40 years to stop oil development in the area, now have solar panels in 12 of their villages, the Washington Post reported. The community had previously had little electricity coverage, but a new project has brought solar electricity to schools and homes and even allowed a switch from petrol boats to solar-powered boats.
‘THE SOLUTION’: Nearly 200 representatives of peasant and Indigenous organisations met at the end of February in south-eastern Mexico to address issues that affect them, including climate change, violence and food sovereignty, EFE Verde reported. The meeting organisers told the news agency that the meeting sought to establish actions to defend their rights in the run-up to the Mexican general elections on 2 June. In an interview with the outlet, Jesús Andrade, a member of a group of farmers’ organisations, said “the solution is peasant agroecology, which can cool the planet”. EFE Verde added that activists, NGOs and communities condemned the murder, disappearance and forced displacement of Indigenous communities by organised crime groups.
Spotlight Dutch farm visitIn this spotlight, Carbon Brief speaks to John Arink, a Dutch organic farmer, on a media trip organised by Clean Energy Wire.
“When I look at the agricultural system at this moment, we have big problems. It is due to the system that the water is polluted…so we have to change the system.”
Amid ongoing farmer protests across the EU, one farmer in the Netherlands recently showcased the less-intensive future he wants for the agriculture sector.
John Arink, an organic farmer, spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde in the east of the Netherlands, around two hours from Amsterdam.
Arink and his family run a small organic farm, shop, hotel and restaurant. He is a small producer by Dutch standards – the average dairy farm in the country has more than 100 cows. Arink has 50, alongside three pigs and 100 chickens.
Walking around the farm, a rooster crowed in an outdoor enclosure with a solar-powered coop, horned cows looked out from their pen and a group of piglets huddled around their feed.
Arink started out as a more conventional, intensive farmer in the mid-1980s. Then he visited a smaller organic farm and saw how animals could be raised with limited use of chemical fertilisers and antibiotics. He said:
“On my way back home, I thought, well, that’s the direction I want to go with my farm. In the 30 years after that, that’s what we did here.”
The Netherlands – a country around one-third the size of England – is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, behind the US. Overall in the Netherlands, average farm sizes are getting bigger, but the number of farms is shrinking.
In recent years, the Dutch government had to develop plans to substantially reduce nitrogen emissions from, among other things, manure and chemical fertilisers on farms.
In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some areas by the end of this decade. A voluntary “buy out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to reach this goal.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the nitrogen crisis and demonstrations continued over the past few years.
On these protests and the wider farmer outcry across Europe this year, Arink believes that many farmers “cannot look over the hill” to a possible future producing less meat and more plants. He added:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy.
“Maybe from the financial point of view, it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient.”
Government formation talks remain ongoing in the Netherlands, months after the country’s general election last November. The next government will be tasked with enforcing the nitrogen reduction measures in the coming years. Arink said:
“That [nitrogen] problem is not to be solved only by farmers, but the whole society.”
News and viewsREEF RIFT: Coral reefs around the world are on the brink of a fourth mass bleaching event, which “could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die”, Reuters reported. This follows “months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Niño climate pattern”, the newswire added. Bleaching is triggered by heat stress and “can be devastating for the ocean ecosystem”, Reuters said. Dr Derek Manzello, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral reef monitoring authority, told the outlet: “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.” Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “lost nearly a third of its corals” during the last global bleaching between 2014 and 2017, the newswire noted.
RISK FACTOR: The EU is planning to delay its deforestation-risk rating system for countries, which was due to take effect at the end of this year, according to the Financial Times. The law aims to prevent the sale of products that have been produced on deforested land. The rules would categorise countries as posing either a low, standard or high risk for deforestation. Three EU officials told the FT that all countries will be listed as “standard risk, to give them more time to adapt”. The newspaper said that the change came after “several governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America complained that the rules would be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors”. The European Commission declined to comment, the FT said. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the law for more.)
NIGERIA’S ‘BLUE CARBON’: A mangrove-restoration carbon credit project received an early green light in an “oil-rich Nigerian state”, Bloomberg reported. A UK-based company, Serendib Capital, was granted the rights “to restore the mangroves and seagrass beds” on about 9% of land in Delta State, in southern Nigeria. The outlet said that the project developer claimed this “could potentially sequester, or store away, 5.32m tons of carbon each year”. Huge oil companies “have been blamed for much of the damage that’s historically destroyed the area’s wetlands and farms”, Bloomberg added, noting that “they, in turn, could now become some of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets”. Parts of the carbon offset market have “cooled recently amid increasingly sharp criticism from scientists and experts”, the outlet said.
FARMERS RALLY ON: “Thousands of angry farmers” threw smoke bombs and lit fires near parliament buildings in Warsaw as EU farmer protests continued, Al Jazeera said. Polish farmers demonstrated against EU rules and “cheap Ukraine imports”, according to the outlet, adding that there were also “tractor blockades on roads across the country”. The country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, “failed to reach an agreement with Polish farmers to end protests”, Euronews reported. Separately, ITV News said that farmers in Wales lined “thousands of wellies…on the steps of the Senedd [parliament] in protest against the Welsh government’s new farming plans”.
AFRICAN AGRI: A report from civil-society groups criticised a $61bn plan to “industrialise African food systems”, saying it would pose a “significant threat to small-scale farmers”, Mongabay reported. The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently released “agricultural development plans” for 40 African countries, aiming to improve food security and productivity. The groups said the initiative’s “emphasis on principal commodity crops, mechanised farming tools and standardised land tenure systems” push towards agro-industrialisation, Mongabay said. The outlet added that the groups believe this would “increase dependency on multinational corporations for seeds and agrochemicals, and lead to the loss of land and biodiversity”. The AfDB did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
COASTAL VILLAGE THREAT: Coastal villages in the east of India that were “hit hard by a super-cyclone” 25 years ago have since experienced “a rise in soil and water salinity and subsequent loss of agricultural land, livelihoods and marriage prospects”, according to the Migration Story. The outlet spoke to residents in the villages of Udaykani and Tandahar about the continuing impacts of the super-cyclone that “lashed” the state of Odisha in 1999, which was the “most intense ever recorded in the northern Indian Ocean”. One villager, Vaidehi Kardi, told the outlet: “When the soil turned salty, our crops shrivelled…Gradually, the water, too, turned salty and our lives withered.”
Watch, read, listenGREEN BURIALS: In a podcast, National Public Radio examined sustainable burials and how costly they can be for your wallet and the planet.
AN OPTION FOR BELIZE: Inside Climate News looked at a “fevered push” from conservationists to “save what’s left” of the tropical rainforest in Belize through carbon offsets.
‘ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES’: The Diplomat interviewed Prof John McManus, a professor at the University of Miami, to talk about environmental damage in the South China Sea.
‘GREEN GOLD’: In a Financial Times long read, the newspaper’s Brazil bureau chief Bryan Harris explored the agriculture and agribusiness “boomtowns” in the central-west parts of Brazil.
New scienceAustralia’s Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change
Science Advances
Climate change made low rainfall levels during an “extreme and impactful” drought in Australia from 2017-19 “around six times more likely”, compared to pre-industrial times, new research suggested. This drought “helped create favourable conditions for the most intense and widespread outbreak of forest fires ever recorded in south-east Australia”, the study said. The researchers looked at the characteristics and causes of the “tinderbox drought” in south-east Australia and used modelling to assess how unusual the drought was compared to “natural climate variability”. They found multiple ways in which human-caused climate change may have worsened the drought, but said that other aspects of the drought were “unexpected”.
Bornean tropical forests recovering from logging at risk of regeneration failure
Global Change Biology
When logged forests are restored, they have higher seedling mortality compared to unlogged forests, new research has found. Over a year and a half, researchers examined the diversity, survival and characteristics of more than 5,000 seedlings of 15 species in northern Borneo. Some of the seeds germinated in unlogged forests and some in forests that were logged 30-35 years ago and were subsequently restored either naturally or with restoration techniques such as tree planting. They found that both restoration types had lower species richness and evenness than unlogged forests five-to-six months after the trees began to produce stems.
Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates
Royal Society Open Science
A new study revealed that giant sequoias planted in the UK can absorb carbon between 2.5 and 20 times faster than other tree species commonly planted on plantations. The researchers used laser scanning to calculate the above-ground biomass and annual biomass accumulation rates of individual giant sequoia trees at three different sites. They found that the UK trees grew at similar rates as those in the US, “varying with climate, management and age”. The study said that giant sequoias are one of the country’s largest tree species and have “undoubted public appeal”. It added that they “represent a small but potentially important addition to the UK’s carbon sequestration efforts”.
In the diary- 15 March: Third meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
- 11-13 March: 11th annual World Ocean Summit and Expo | Lisbon
- 18-29 March: First part of the 29th session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
- 21 March: International Day of Forests
- 22 March: World Water Day
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
Cropped 28 February 2024: Chocolate crisis; Tree-planting scrutinised; EU restoration law
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|Cropped
|Cropped 31 January 2024: French farmers and the far right; Amazon affairs; EU offsetting ban
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|Cropped 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered
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UK’s carbon capture strategy based on outdated and unrealistic assumptions
Controversial Drax power plant emblematic of the risks of overreliance on unproven CCUS technology
London 14 March – The UK Government’s CCUS strategy is based on optimistic techno-economic assumptions that are now outdated and unrealistic, warns a report from the financial think tank Carbon Tracker released today. This strategy risks locking consumers into a high-cost, fossil-based future, despite cleaner and cheaper alternatives being available.
In December 2023 the UK outlined an ambitious CCUS strategy, aiming to capture 20-30 million tonnes of C02 per annum by 2030, backed by £20 billion in taxpayer funding. This strategy was based on the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, published in The Sixth Carbon Budget in December 2020.
However Carbon Tracker has found that, since then, cost estimates for deploying CCUS have more than doubled, while the need for carbon capture could be much smaller. For example it estimated that the need for gas plants with CCUS could be one-third of earlier estimates due to the growth of renewables, battery storage and flexible technologies.
The think tank found that the UK is targeting applications where CCUS could lock consumers into a high-cost and fossil-based future, despite the existence of cleaner and cheaper alternatives.
For example, it argued that plans to use CCUS to decarbonise steel production and gas-fired power plants should be abandoned, with both applications likely to be out-competed by cleaner alternatives. Tata Steel and British Steel are already moving away from plans to install CCUS at their UK facilities in favour of a move towards Electric Arc Furnaces, while hydrogen turbines are likely to be cheaper sources of flexible power generation than gas-CCS plants by 2030.
Similarly, it warned that the government’s plans to use CCUS to decarbonise biomass-based power generation face major risks of technical challenges, stranded assets and cost premiums. The UK’s BECCS strategy is heavily exposed to one single, very large and costly project – converting the giant Drax power station in North Yorkshire. Carbon Tracker cautioned that BECCS is unproven at this scale: the largest current project (a 50MW biomass power plant in Japan) is dwarfed by the 2,600 MW Drax plant.
The Drax conversion – the largest carbon capture project in the UK pipeline – would require a complex subsidy scheme together with a government-provided bridging mechanism that could lock taxpayers’ money into a long (15-25 years) and costly (£26-43 billion) contract, while the resulting electricity would be up to three times more expensive for consumers than offshore wind power.
Carbon Tracker Associate Analyst and report author Lorenzo Sani said:
“CCUS technology has proven to be much more complex and expensive than thought, while renewables cost reductions have dramatically changed the landscape. While the government is playing an important role in de-risking new projects it urgently needs to revisit its targets and focus its resources on high-value applications such as cement and hydrogen.”
The research also highlighted the importance of fixing the UK’s carbon market in order to make the CCUS sector profitable. It found that most applications require a stable carbon price of at least £100 per ton to compete with unabated technologies. By contrast the UK Emissions Trading Scheme has experienced severe volatility due to low liquidity and market saturation since decoupling from the European market and recently fell to a record low of £31 per ton in February.
“Fixing the UK’s carbon market – either by establishing a rising price floor or, preferably, linking it back to the EU scheme – is the single most important action needed to deliver the government’s vision of a self-sustaining and competitive CCUS sector”, Sani said.
ENDS
This story is embargoed for Wednesday 13 March, 00:01 GMT
Once the embargo lifts the report can be downloaded here: https://carbontracker.org/reports/curb-your-enthusiasm/
For more information and to arrange interviews please contact:
Conor Quinn conor.quinn@greenhouse.agency +44 7444 696 214
About Carbon Tracker
The Carbon Tracker Initiative is a not-for-profit financial think tank that seeks to promote a climate-secure global energy market by aligning capital markets with climate reality. Our research to date on the carbon bubble, unburnable carbon and stranded assets has begun a new debate on how to align the financial system with the energy transition to a low carbon future. www.carbontracker.org
UK government strategy on CCUS.
- The £20 billion funding was approved in the 2023 spring budget (here) and details can be found in the Powering Up Britain plan (here).
- The most recent collection of Government targets, ambition and strategy on CCUS is in the updated vision published in December (here)
- The CCC will release its advice for the 7th Carbon Budget in early 2025, and this will likely contain updated targets for CCUS.
The post UK’s carbon capture strategy based on outdated and unrealistic assumptions appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.
At a glance - The albedo effect and global warming
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "The albedo effect and global warming". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glanceWhat is albedo? It is an expression of how much sunshine is reflected by a surface. The word stems from the Latin for 'whiteness'. Albedo is expressed on a scale from 0 to 1, zero being a surface that absorbs everything and 1 being a surface that reflects everything. Most everyday surfaces lie somewhere in between.
An easy way to think about albedo is the difference between wearing a white or a black shirt on a cloudless summer's day. The white shirt makes you feel more comfortable, whereas in the black one you'll cook. That difference is because paler surfaces reflect more sunshine whereas darker ones absorb a lot of it, heating you up.
Solar energy reaching the top of our atmosphere hardly varies at all. How that energy interacts with the planet, though, does vary. This is because the reflectivity of surfaces can change.
Arctic sea-ice provides an example of albedo-change. A late spring snowstorm covers the ice with a sparkly carpet of new snow. That pristine snow can reflect up to 90% of inbound sunshine. But during the summer it warms up and the new snow melts away. The remaining sea-ice has a tired, mucky look to it and can only reflect some 50% of incoming sunshine. It absorbs the rest and that absorbed energy helps the sea-ice to melt even more. If it melts totally, you are left with the dark surface of the ocean. That can only reflect around 6% of the incoming sunshine.
That example shows that albedo-change is not a forcing. That's the first big mistake in this myth. Instead it is a very good example of a climate feedback process. It is occurring in response to an external climate forcing - the increased greenhouse effect caused by our carbon emissions. Due to that forcing, the Arctic is warming quickly and snow/ice coverage shows a long-term decrease. Less reflective surfaces become uncovered, leading to more absorption of sunshine and more energy goes into the system. It's a self-reinforcing process.
If you look at satellite images of the planet, you will notice the clouds in weather-systems appear bright. Cloud-tops have a high albedo but it varies depending on the type of cloud. Wispy high clouds do not reflect as much incoming sunshine as do dense low-level cloud-decks.
Since the early 2000s we have been able to measure the amount of energy reflected back to space through sophisticated instruments aboard satellites. Recently published data (2021) indicate planetary albedo, although highly variable, is showing an overall slow decrease. The main cause is thought to be warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean leading to less coverage of those reflective low-level cloud-decks, but it's early days yet.
Albedo is an important cog in the climate gearbox. It appears to be in a long-term slow decline but varies a lot over shorter periods. That 'noise' makes it unscientific to cite shorter observation-periods. Conclusive climatological trend-statements are generally based on at least 30 years of observations, not the last half-decade.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "At a glance" section. Read a more technical version below or dig deeper via the tabs above!
Click for Further detailsIn case you'd like to explore more of our recently updated rebuttals, here are the links to all of them:
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Loggers have ‘grabbed’ around 1m hectares of Indigenous land in DRC
Logging companies have “acquired” roughly 1m hectares of Indigenous peoples’ territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2000, according to a new study.
This is part of a wider trend in which companies and governments take advantage of weak or unclear land rights to lease out swathes of communal land in the global south.
Many of these deals involve foreign companies using the land for logging, intensive agriculture, fossil-fuel extraction and mining. Increasingly, firms are also seeking land that they can use to sell carbon offsets.
The research, published in Land Use Policy, identifies around 18m hectares of land in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC that have been acquired in large-scale deals.
Overall, around 6% of the acquired land overlaps with areas that are either legally recognised as belonging to local and Indigenous communities or, in the case of the DRC, are traditionally managed by Indigenous groups.
‘Vast land resources’Large swathes of land in the global south have traditionally been managed by local communities and Indigenous people. However, their claims to these areas – their land tenure rights – have long been under threat.
Between the 15th and 20th centuries, European powers seized territory from many Indigenous people across the global south. During decolonisation, many of these “land grabs” were never reversed and much of the formerly communal land passed straight into the hands of newly created countries, particularly in parts of Africa and Asia.
There has been growing recognition of traditional ownership in recent years. Over 2015-20, 103m hectares of communal lands in 73 countries were given legal status, according to analysis by the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global coalition of groups that advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
This brings the legal recognition of traditional ownership to around 1,265m hectares, or 19% of land in the countries assessed, as of 2020.
However, this legal recognition has frequently not stopped companies from entering these regions to harvest or extract a range of commodities, from palm oil and timber to copper and gold. The study authors say communal land is often viewed as an untapped resource, writing:
“The lack of private ownership and intensive production systems probably led to the notion that countries in the global south still harbour vast land resources suitable for commercial production.”
Officials in global-south nations lease out “vast tracts of land” to these companies – many of which are based overseas – without seeking communities’ consent or guaranteeing them benefits, the authors say. These rental agreements can last for several decades.
Study co-author Dr Christoph Kubitza, a research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, says that even in nations where communal lands are legally recognised, such claims are sometimes poorly enforced by central governments. He tells Carbon Brief:
“You have some element in [national] legislation that speaks to communal lands, but implementation just does not work.”
In order to understand the scale of conflict between communal land rights and the transfer of land to companies, Kubitza and his colleagues merged data on the location of “large-scale land acquisitions” from the Land Matrix monitoring initiative with maps of communal land ownership assembled by LandMark and Open Development Cambodia.
(The definition of “large-scale land acquisition” varies, but Land Matrix broadly defines it as an attempt to buy, lease or otherwise acquire an area of land that is 200 hectares or more in size.)
They used data covering the period 2000-22 from Colombia, Cambodia and the DRC – three rainforest nations where governments provide varying levels of protection for communal lands.
‘Alarming’The researchers identified 18.1m hectares of land that have been targeted for large-scale acquisitions in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC since 2000.
The vast majority of this land – 14.2m hectares – is in the DRC, amounting to roughly 6% of the nation’s surface area.
In Cambodia, 2.3m hectares – roughly 13% of its land – has been involved in these deals, whereas in Colombia the figure is around 1.6m hectares, which is around 1% of its area. In total, most of the acquisitions in these three nations were by international companies.
The researchers also found that the DRC has the largest amount of communal lands under threat.
Of the 14.2m hectares targeted for large land acquisitions in the DRC, they estimate that roughly 1m hectares – 7% of the total – is land managed by Indigenous groups in the north and west of the country. These lands have predominantly been infringed by logging companies, with around 75% of these deals being struck with international entities.
The blue areas in the map below indicate Indigenous peoples’ lands and the green areas show the locations of large-scale land acquisitions in the DRC. Red indicates the areas where there is a risk of overlap between the two.
Map of large-scale land acquisitions (green) and lands inhabited by Indigenous people (blue) in the DRC, with the overlapping areas shown in red. Source: Rincón Barajas et al. (2024)In Colombia and Cambodia, where there are more legal protections in place, the areas of communal land infringed upon are lower – 53,369 hectares and 43,150 hectares, respectively, the study says. This equates to 3% of the leased land in Colombia and 2% in Cambodia.
The authors highlight the situation in the DRC as particularly “alarming”.
However, they note that their finding of 1m hectares of overlap is only an estimate, based on the presence of Indigenous people in certain regions and extrapolations of total communal land use from detailed mapping in a smaller area. (For Colombia and Cambodia, the figures are based on legally defined communal lands.)
This is due to the lack of firm definitions of communal land in the DRC, as Kubitza explains:
“You don’t have exact numbers because if you don’t have any progressive legislation, you also don’t have a lot of mapping being done – so you have to rely on estimates.”
Dr Raymond Achu Samndong, a monitoring, evaluation and learning manager at the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the 1m hectare figure could be an underestimate, given the size of the country and the problems it faces.
“Land grabbing is a growing phenomenon in the DRC,” he says, pointing to communities with whom he has worked where the government has allocated large tracts of land for concessions and the affected communities were not informed.
He adds that that the country’s inaccessibility makes monitoring and enforcing land rights difficult:
“You have statutory and customary law that conflicts in some areas where the government has limited access and control.”
In areas where customary local chiefs are essentially the land owners, they have also been known to participate in and profit from “land grabbing”, Samndong says.
UnderestimatesThe study highlights how the recognition of collective land ownership can help to insulate communities from “land grabs”. However, the researchers also acknowledge the limitations of such recognition.
As in much of Latin America, Colombia has provided clear recognition of communal rights, with roughly one-third of the nation’s land falling under Indigenous and Afro-Colombian control. Yet estimates suggest that up to 9.43m hectares of the nation’s communal lands are still not legally recognised.
In Cambodia, too, the study authors accept that their assessments of communal lands being encroached upon by business interests are likely to be underestimates.
Logging road, Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. Credit: bokehcambodia / Alamy Stock PhotoA UN report in 2020 found that despite Cambodia being home to 455 Indigenous communities, only 30 Indigenous land titles had been handed out by the government.
Luciana Téllez Chávez, an environment researcher at Human Rights Watch who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that while the legislation exists to recognise communal ownership in Cambodia, “the implementation of that legislation is lagging and the process is onerous”. She adds:
“Any study that is only assessing overlap between formally recognised Indigenous territories and land acquisitions would be missing most of the picture, as most territories have not been formally recognised.”
The new paper notes this shortcoming. The researchers also use data on officially recognised Cambodian Indigenous groups and find that around one-third of them are based within the sites of large land acquisitions.
They note that while “more extensive and detailed data are missing”, the impact of land acquisitions on communal areas could be larger than their initial results suggest.
Kubitza and his colleagues highlight that frameworks for states and companies to guide their use of land already exist. They stress that global supply chain regulation – of the kind being rolled out for forest products in the EU – could help to protect communities from land grabs if properly enforced.
In the DRC, Samndong says there have been “baby steps” towards progress from the central government, with the development of a community forest law and a new land law in the works.
Carbon offsetsThe study also highlights the mounting pressure placed on communal lands by foreign governments and companies seeking to meet their climate goals by purchasing carbon offsets from overseas.
Carbon offsetting involves an entity paying for emissions to be reduced somewhere else, for example by preserving trees that can absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), while it continues to produce its own emissions.
The researchers point to specific carbon-offsetting projects in Cambodia and the DRC that have infringed on forest communities. These communities often have little understanding of the projects and derive few, if any, benefits, the researchers say.
Téllez Chávez, whose own work has identified human-rights violations at a forest offsetting project in Cambodia, says the research is “right to note carbon-offsetting projects as a potentially important driver of large-scale land acquisitions”. The Cambodian government plans to expand offsetting projects across much of the country’s protected areas.
Kubitza says this trend does not sit well with a vision of a global “just transition”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“It cannot be that people who conserve forests for centuries don’t receive anything and investors just come in and make money with these kinds of business models.”
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Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief
A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
This extra 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause global climate damages worth more than $900bn, based on the latest US government valuations.
For context, 4GtCO2e is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Put another way, the extra 4GtCO2e from a second Trump term would negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years.
If Trump secures a second term, the US would also very likely miss its global climate pledge by a wide margin, with emissions only falling to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. The US’s current target under the Paris Agreement is to achieve a 50-52% reduction by 2030.
Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on an aggregation of modelling by various US research groups. It highlights the significant impact of the Biden administration’s climate policies. This includes the Inflation Reduction Act – which Trump has pledged to reverse – along with several other policies.
The findings are subject to uncertainty around economic growth, fuel and technology prices, the market response to incentives and the extent to which Trump is able to roll back Biden’s policies.
The analysis might overstate the impact Trump could have on US emissions, if some of Biden’s policies prove hard to unpick – or if subnational climate action accelerates.
Equally, it might understate Trump’s impact. For example, his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” is not included within the analysis and would likely raise US and global emissions further through the increased extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal.
Also not included are the potential for Biden to add new climate policies if he wins a second term, nor the risk that some of his policies will be weakened, delayed or hit by legal challenges.
Regardless of the precise impact, a second Trump term that successfully dismantles Biden’s climate legacy would likely end any global hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
- The ‘Trump effect’ on US emissions
- How the Biden administration is tackling warming
- What a second-term Trump might do
- The global climate implications of the US election
- How the analysis was carried out
US greenhouse gas emissions have been falling steadily since 2005, due to a combination of economic shifts, greater efficiency, the growth of renewables and a shift from coal to gas power.
Since taking office in early 2021, Biden has pledged under the Paris Agreement to accelerate that trend by cutting US emissions to 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030 and to net-zero in 2050.
He has implemented a long list of policies – most notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – to keep those targets within reach. (See: How the Biden administration is tackling warming.)
In the “Biden” scenario in the figure below (blue line), all federal climate policies currently in place or in the process of being finalised are assumed to continue. The scenario does not include any new climate policies that might be adopted after November’s election.
The administration’s current climate policies are expected to cut US emissions significantly, bringing the country close to meeting its 2030 target range. Nevertheless, a gap remains between projected emissions and those needed to meet the 2030 and 2050 targets (green).
The “Trump” scenario (red line) assumes the IRA and other key Biden administration climate policies are rolled back. It does not include further measures that Trump could take to boost fossil fuels or undermine the progress of clean energy. (See: What a second-term Trump might do.)
For both projections, the shaded area shows the range of results from six different models, with varying assumptions on economic growth, fuel costs and the price of low-carbon technologies.
Black line: Historical US greenhouse gas emissions 1990-2022, billions of tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Red line and area: Projected emissions under the “Trump” scenario where Biden’s key climate policies are eliminated. Blue line and area: Projected emissions under the “Biden” scenario with the IRA and other key climate policies. Yellow: US climate target trajectory pledged by the Biden administration (50-52% by 2030). The range for each projection corresponds to results from six different models and uncertainty around economic growth, as well as the costs for low-carbon technologies and fossil fuels. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of modelling in Bistline et al. (2023) and Rhodium Group (Taking stock 2023). Chart by Carbon Brief.
In total, the analysis suggests that US greenhouse gas emissions would fall to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030 if Trump secures a second term and rolls back Biden’s policies – far short of the 50-52% target. If Biden is reelected, emissions would fall to around 43% below 2005 levels.
In the Trump scenario, annual US greenhouse gas emissions would be around 1GtCO2e higher in 2030 than under Biden, resulting in a cumulative addition of around 4GtCO2e by that year.
Based on the recently updated central estimate of the social cost of carbon from the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) – which stands at some $230 per tonne of CO2 in 2030 – those 4GtCO2e of extra emissions would cause global climate damages worth more $900bn.
To put the additional emissions in context, EU greenhouse gas emissions currently stand at around 3GtCO2e per year, while Japan’s are another 1GtCO2e. If the EU meets its climate goals, then its emissions would fall to 2GtCO2e in 2030 and to below 1GtCO2e in 2040.
Only eight of the world’s nearly 200 countries have emissions that exceed 1GtCO2e per year – and 4GtCO2e is more than the combined yearly total from the 140 lowest-emitting nations.
Expressed another way, the extra 4GtCO2e would be equivalent to double all of the emissions savings secured globally, over the past five years, by deploying wind, solar, electric vehicles, nuclear and heat pumps.
Carbon Brief’s analysis highlights several key points.
First, that Biden’s climate goals for the US in 2030 and 2050 will not be met, without further policy measures after the next election.
This could include additional state-level action, which could yield an additional 4 percentage points of emissions savings by 2030. Added to the “Biden” pathway, this would take US emissions to 47% below 2005 levels – closer to, but still not in line with the 2030 pledge.
Second, despite this policy gap, Biden’s current climate policies go a significant way towards meeting the 2030 target and could be added to in the future.
Third, if Trump is able to remove all of Biden’s key climate policies, then the US is all but guaranteed to miss its targets by a wide margin.
Given the scale of US emissions and its influence on the world, this makes the election crucial to hopes of limiting warming to 1.5C. (See: The global climate implications of the US election.)
Finally, there is policy uncertainty around which policies will be finalised, how strong any final rules will be, what legal challenges they may face and how easy they prove to roll back.
There is also uncertainty – illustrated by the ranges in the chart – around the impact of Biden’s policies, the response of households, business and industry to those measures, and the rate of economic growth, as well as over future prices for fossil fuels and low-carbon technologies.
These uncertainties are partly – but not entirely – captured by the six models underlying the analysis, which have different model structures and input assumptions.
How the Biden administration is tackling warmingIn 2015, the then-president Barack Obama pledged a 26-28% reduction in US emissions below 2005 levels by 2025 as an intended “nationally determined contribution” (iNDC) to the Paris Agreement.
On taking office in 2017, the climate-sceptic president Trump then pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, attracting global opprobrium. He then rolled back or replaced Obama-era climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan, while attempting – unsuccessfully – to prop up coal.
Trump’s successor as president, Joe Biden, campaigned in 2020 on a platform of a “clean energy revolution”. On gaining office in 2021, he immediately rejoined the Paris Agreement and then issued a more ambitious pledge to cut US emissions to 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Biden also pledged to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2035 and joined roughly 150 other countries in committing the US to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 – the global benchmark, if the world is to keep warming below 1.5C.
In order to keep these targets within reach, the Biden administration has ushered in a series of climate policies. Most notable is the 2022 IRA, unexpectedly passed by Congress after a 51-50 Senate vote, with the tie broken by the vice president Kamala Harris.
This has been called the largest package of domestic climate measures in US history. It offers incentives covering a broad swathe of the economy from low-carbon manufacturing to clean energy, electric vehicles, “climate-smart” agriculture and low-carbon hydrogen.
The IRA accounts for the most significant part of the emissions reductions expected as a result of Biden’s climate policies to date and shown by the blue line in the figure above.
It includes grants, loans and tax credits initially estimated to be worth $369bn. However, most of the tax credits are not capped, meaning the overall cost and impact on emissions is uncertain.
In general, cost estimates have risen since its passing, as investments triggered by the bill’s incentives have rolled in, with some now putting its ultimate cost above $1tn.
However, a recent analysis of progress since the bill passed in 2021 shows that while electric vehicle sales are running at the top end of what was expected in earlier modelling of the IRA’s impact, the deployment of clean electricity – in particular, wind power – is falling slightly behind.
(Another recent study looks at the behavioural challenges that could affect the success or failure of the IRA, including as a result of political polarisation. Separately, gas power expansion plans from several major US utilities also pose a challenge to the IRA.)
Other Biden administration initiatives with important implications for US emissions include the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, loans for nuclear power plants and new standards on appliance efficiency issued by the Department of Energy.
Meanwhile, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has finalised rules on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities. It has also proposed – but not yet finalised – rules on vehicle fuel standards, power plant greenhouse gas standards and power plant air pollution.
The administration is now rushing to finalise these rules within the next couple of months, so that they could not be overturned easily after the election using the Congressional Review Act.
The administration is reportedly planning to weaken its proposed vehicle fuel standards. The final version would retain the original aim of having two-thirds of new sales be all-electric by 2032, but would ease the trajectory to reaching that target, according to the New York Times. This would reduce the emissions-cutting impact, relative to what is assumed in the “Biden” scenario.
Separately, the administration is reported to be exempting existing gas-fired units from its proposed power plant emissions rules, focusing for now on existing coal and future gas-fired units. The New York Times quotes EPA administrator Michael Regan saying this will “achieve greater emissions reductions”, but the timescales could also affect the scenario projection.
Meanwhile, Biden has also overseen a rare Senate approval of an international climate treaty, when it ratified the Kigali Amendment on tackling climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons in 2022, with the US EPA issuing related rules the following year.
In addition, Biden’s time in office has seen further state-level action on emissions. This includes California’s clean car standards, as strengthened in 2022 and adopted by six other states.
What a second-term Trump might doFor his part, former president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to roll back his predecessor’s climate policies, just as he did during his first term.
For example, in 2018, the Trump administration lifted Obama-era rules on toxic air pollution from electricity generating and industrial sites – with Biden now moving to reverse the reversal.
Similarly, in 2020, his administration rolled back an Obama-era EPA rule on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The Biden administration’s methane rule could face a similar fate under a second Trump term.
Trump also has form when it comes to energy efficiency regulations, which he rolled back in 2020.
In November 2023, the Financial Times reported that Trump was “planning to gut” the IRA, increase investment in fossil fuels and roll back regulations to encourage electric vehicles. The newspaper added that Trump had called the IRA the “biggest tax hike in history”.
It quoted Carla Sands, an adviser to Trump, as saying:
“On the first day of a second Trump administration, the president has committed to rolling back every single one of Joe Biden’s job-killing, industry-killing regulations.”
Indeed, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have already made multiple attempts to repeal parts of the IRA. While some analysts think a full repeal of the act is unlikely, it is clear that a second-term Trump could – as Politico put it – ”hobble the climate law”.
A February 2024 commentary from investment firm Trium Capital argues that the impact on IRA will depend not only on whether Trump wins victory in November, but also on whether the Republicans retain control of the House and gain a Senate majority.
Even if the Republicans win all three races, the commentary suggests that some parts of IRA might survive beyond the election. It says that consumer incentives for electric vehicles and home heating are “most at risk”, whereas tax credits for clean energy might only be modified.
Equally, MIT Technology Review says that clean energy and EV tax credits both “appear especially vulnerable, climate policy experts say”. The publication adds:
“Moreover, Trump’s wide-ranging pledges to weaken international institutions, inflame global trade wars, and throw open the nation’s resources to fossil-fuel extraction could have compounding effects on any changes to the IRA, potentially undermining economic growth, the broader investment climate, and prospects for emerging green industries.”
Meanwhile, Trump has also criticised Biden’s infrastructure act and previously revoked California’s ability to set tougher car emissions standards, which are also adopted by other states.
In 2022, the California “waiver” was reinstated by Biden, who also opposed a 2023 Republican bill designed to remove California’s right to regulate. Yet the waiver is now embroiled in legal action brought by Republican states, expected to end up in the Supreme Court.
If he emerges victorious in November, Trump would also “plan to destroy the EPA”, according to a Guardian article published earlier this month. It reported:
“Donald Trump and his advisers have made campaign promises to toss crucial environmental regulations and boost the planet-heating fossil fuel sector. Those plans include systematically dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal body with the most power to take on the climate emergency and environmental justice, an array of Trump advisers and allies said.”
The paper cites Project 2025, described as “a presidential agenda put forth by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organisations”. It also quotes Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s EPA chief of staff and a contributor to the Project 2025 agenda.
After Trump was elected for the first time, many scientists, politicians and campaigners argued that his presidency would only have a relatively short-term effect on emissions and climate goals.
Many of his first-term efforts to rollback climate rules and boost fossil fuels ended in failure.
While some modelling suggested that his first presidency would delay hitting global emissions targets by a decade, Carbon Brief analysis found that US states and cities might be able to take sufficient steps to meet the country’s then-current climate goal without federal action.
However, another recent Guardian article says that a second-term Trump would be “even more extreme for the environment than his first, according to interviews with multiple Trump allies and advisers”. It adds:
“In contrast to a sometimes chaotic first White House term, they outlined a far more methodical second presidency: driving forward fossil fuel production, sidelining mainstream climate scientists and overturning rules that curb planet-heating emissions.”
Carbon Brief’s “Trump” scenario does not include additional fossil fuel emissions as a result of policies supporting coal, oil and gas production or use, as the success or otherwise of any such efforts are highly uncertain.
In addition, higher US fossil fuel production would not all be consumed domestically and would not increase global demand on a one-for-one basis.
While it would be likely to raise demand and emissions, both domestically and internationally, the precise impact would depend on the response of markets and overseas policymakers.
The global climate implications of the US electionIf Biden – or another Democrat – wins the election in November and if his party regains control over the House and Senate, then they could push to implement new climate policies in 2025.
There is a clear need for further policy, if US climate goals are to be met. Moreover, the expiration of a large number of tax cuts at the end of 2025 could present an opportunity to deploy carbon pricing in support of raising revenues – and cutting emissions – according to a recent study.
It suggests that a price on emissions, described as a “carbon fee”, could significantly boost US chances of hitting its 2030 target, even if paired with a partial repeal of the IRA.
(Note that the “Repeal IRA; no new emissions rules” scenario in this study is similar to the “Trump” scenario in Carbon Brief’s analysis. However, the model used in the study finds a relatively weak 2030 emissions impact of the IRA compared with most of the five others, with which it is aggregated by Carbon Brief.)
An additional point of leverage is the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which will put a carbon price on US exports unless they face an equivalent price domestically, according to Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse, speaking at a launch event for the study:
“The 2025 opportunity when the Trump tax cuts collapse [creates] huge room for negotiation. Then you’ve got the CBAM happening in Europe that puts enormous pressure to get a price of carbon, if you want to avoid being tariffed at the EU and UK level.”
Whether a second-term Biden administration would attempt to put a price on carbon or not, it would be likely to push forward new policies in pursuit of US climate targets.
In contrast, a victory for Donald Trump could be expected, at a minimum, to result in full or partial repeal of the IRA and rollbacks of Biden’s climate rules, including power plants, cars and methane.
This is reflected in Carbon Brief’s “Trump” scenario, which would add a cumulative 4GtCO2e to US emissions by 2030, as shown in the figure below.
Moreover, assuming no further policy changes, this cumulative total would continue to climb beyond 2030, reaching 15GtCO2e by 2040 and a huge 27GtCO2e by 2050.
Cumulative increase in US emissions, GtCO2e, under the “Trump” scenario relative to the “Biden” scenario, assuming no further policy changes beyond rolling back the IRA and key Biden administration climate rules. The range corresponds to results from six different models and uncertainty around economic growth, as well as the costs for low-carbon technologies and fossil fuels. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of modelling in Bistline et al. (2023) and Rhodium Group (Taking stock 2023). Chart by Carbon Brief.
The increases in cumulative emissions under the “Trump” scenario are so large that they would imperil not only the US climate targets, but also global climate goals. (Under the 22nd amendment of the US constitution, Trump would not be allowed to run for a third term.)
In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report (AR6) said that it would be “impossible” to stay below 1.5C without strengthening current pledges:
“[F]ollowing current NDCs until 2030…[would make] it impossible to limit warming to 1.5C with no or limited overshoot and strongly increas[e] the challenge to likely limit warming to 2C.”
The corollary of this is that if the US – the world’s second-largest emitter – misses its 2030 target by a wide margin, then it would be likely to end any hope of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
How the analysis was carried outThe two scenarios set out in this analysis are based on an aggregation of modelling published by Bistline et al. (2023) and the Rhodium Group (2023).
The first study was explained by the authors in a Carbon Brief guest post. It compares the impact of the IRA using results from 11 separate models, some of which only cover the power sector. Carbon Brief’s analysis uses results from the six models that cover the entire US economy.
The “Trump” scenario is based on the “reference” pathway in this study, corresponding to the average of the six models. The only modification is that the Trump scenario is set to match the Biden scenario below until 2024.
The “Biden” scenario is based on the average IRA pathway from this study, extended using modelling from the Rhodium Group to include the impact of further Biden administration policies.
Carbon Brief’s analysis uses the “mid-emissions” pathway from the Rhodium study’s “federal-only” scenario, which includes the impact of vehicle fuel standards, power plant greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions rules, and energy efficiency regulations.
This additional Rhodium Group modelling is based on draft rules which have not yet been finalised and are subject to change, as well as to potential legal challenge, as discussed above.
The uncertainty shown for the “Trump” and “Biden” scenarios corresponds to the range in the six economy-wide models from Bistline et al. (2023).
Carbon Brief’s analysis does not include any additional post-2025 climate policies that could be adopted by a second Biden administration. Nor does it include the potential impact of pro-fossil fuel policies that could be introduced by a second Trump administration.
Finally, it also does not include additional subnational climate policies that could be introduced, nor does it consider the risk that current or future state action could be hit by federal or legal challenge.
Historical US greenhouse gas emissions are taken from the US EPA inventory through to 2021. Figures for 2022 and 2023 are based on estimated annual changes from the Rhodium Group.
Analysis: UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 5.7% in 2023 to their lowest level since 1879, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The last time UK emissions were this low, Queen Victoria was on the throne, Benjamin Disraeli was prime minister, Mosley Street in Newcastle became the first road in the world with electric lighting and 59 people died in the Tay Bridge disaster in Dundee.
Carbon Brief’s analysis, based on preliminary government energy data, shows emissions fell to just 383m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023. This is the first time they have dropped below 400MtCO2e since Victorian times.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- The UK’s emissions are now 53% below 1990 levels, while GDP has grown by 82%.
- The drop in emissions in 2023 was largely due to an 11% fall in gas demand. This was due to higher electricity imports after the French nuclear fleet recovered, above-average temperatures and weak underlying demand driven by high prices.
- Gas demand would have fallen even faster, but for a 15% fall in UK nuclear output.
- Coal use fell by 23% in 2023 to its lowest level since the 1730s, as all but one of the UK’s remaining coal-fired power stations closed down.
- Transport was the single-largest sector in terms of emissions, followed by buildings industry, agriculture and electricity generation. The electricity sector likely dropped below agriculture for the first time.
While the 23MtCO2e reduction in 2023 was faster than the 14MtCO2e per year average needed to reach net-zero by 2050, it was mostly unrelated to deliberate climate action. The UK will need to address emissions from buildings, transport, industry and agriculture to reach its 2050 target.
The analysis is the latest in a long-running series of annual estimates from Carbon Brief, covering emissions during 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
Lowest since 1879The UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions – those that occur within the country’s borders – have now fallen in 25 of the 34 years since 1990.
(Consumption-based emissions, including CO2 embedded in imported goods and services, were increasing until 2007, but have since fallen at a similar rate to territorial emissions.)
Apart from brief rebounds after the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 lockdowns, UK emissions have fallen during every year for the past two decades.
The latest 23MtCO2e (5.7%) reduction in 2023 takes UK emissions down to 383MtCO2e, according to Carbon Brief’s new analysis.
This is the lowest since 1879 – outside the 1926 general strike – as shown in the figure below.
UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions, MtCO2e, 1850-2023. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926; the miner’s strike of 1984 had a smaller impact. Source: Jones et al. (2023) and Carbon Brief analysis of figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).Having dropped to a then-record low for the modern era of 404MtCO2e during the height of Covid in 2020, UK emissions bounced back in 2021 as the economy reopened.
While emissions declined in 2022, they remained above 2020 levels. In 2023, however, emissions fell below the lows seen during Covid lockdowns, to levels not seen since Victorian times.
Accidental actionThe biggest contributor to the drop in UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 was an 11% reduction in gas demand, which accounted for around two-thirds of last year’s overall decline. This took the UK’s gas demand to its lowest level since the 1980s.
However, the drop in 2023 was not primarily due to deliberate climate action.
The figure below shows the estimated actual drop in emissions in red, followed by contributions from a series of factors that decreased emissions, in blue, and other factors in grey.
The most significant factor was the UK returning to its long-term position as a net electricity importer in 2023, reducing demand for domestically generated power from gas by more than 20%.
This followed an anomalous year in 2022, when the UK was a net exporter for the first time ever, as a result of widespread outages in the French nuclear fleet.
Lower demand for gas power accounted for more than two-thirds of the fall in gas use overall.
Next, above-average temperatures reduced the need for heating, while continuing very high prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused weak underlying demand for gas.
Reflecting both of these factors, there was a 6% drop in domestic demand in 2023, accounting for a fifth of the overall decline in gas consumption. A similar 7% drop in commercial demand for gas accounted for another tenth of the total, with a 5% drop in industrial demand the remainder.
Finally, the figure shows that there was a small reduction in gas demand and associated CO2 emissions as a result of increased wind and solar generation.
The impact of rising wind and solar capacity in 2023 was muted by average windspeeds being below average and the average number of sun hours falling sharply compared with 2022.
Contributions to emissions changes in 2023, MtCO2e. Left to right: Actual emissions reduction in 2023; Reduction due to higher electricity imports; Reduction due to above-average temperatures; Reduction due to lower gas demand; Reduction due to growth in wind and solar; Reduction due to other factors. Source: Carbon Brief analysis.The UK’s emissions would have fallen even further in 2023 if not for a 15% decline in the output of the nation’s nuclear fleet. This followed the closure in 2022, of the Hunterston B station in Scotland and the Hinkley Point B plant in Somerset, as well as maintenance outages.
The decline in 2023 means UK nuclear output fell to the lowest level since the early 1980s. Following the site closures in 2022, the UK only has five operational nuclear power plants remaining, all but one of which – Sizewell B in Suffolk – are due to close this decade.
Out of coalAfter gas, the next-largest driver of falling UK emissions in 2023 was coal, accounting for around 14% of the overall drop in emissions.
The decline of coal use in the UK – for homes, railways, factories and power stations – is a major part of the long-term reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the past 30 years.
Factors in this long-term decline include controls on domestic coal burning to limit air pollution, the end of steam railways, the shift from coal-based “town gas” to “natural” gas from the North Sea, the deindustrialisation of the 1970s and the “dash for gas” of the 1990s.
More recently, coal demand has dropped precipitously as the rapid build-out of renewable sources of electricity has combined with falling demand and carbon pricing that favours gas.
The figure below shows how UK coal demand surged during the industrial revolution before levelling off through the 20th century, barring general strikes in 1921 and 1926.
Coal demand has been falling steadily since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1956, in response to London’s “great smog” of 1952. In 2023, UK coal demand fell by another 23% to the lowest level since the 1730s, when George II was on the throne and Robert Walpole was prime minister.
Annual demand for coal in the UK 1560-2022, millions of tonnes. Note the impact of general strikes in 1921 and 1926, as well as the miner’s strike of 1984. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of data from DESNZ and Paul Warde.The recent reduction of coal demand is largely down to the demise of coal power, which made up around 40% of the UK’s electricity generation as recently as 2012. Coal power output has fallen by 97% over the past decade, accounting for 87% of the fall in UK coal demand overall.
In 2023, only 1% of the UK’s electricity came from coal, with three coal-fired plants closing down: the coal units at Drax in Yorkshire; Kilroot in Northern Ireland; and West Burton A in Lincolnshire.
As of the start of October 2023, only one coal plant remains – the Ratcliffe-on-Soar site in Nottinghamshire. Operator Uniper plans to close Ratcliffe in September 2024, ahead of the government’s deadline to end coal power by October 2024.
Sectoral shiftsThe reductions in gas use for power and building heat, as well as the fall in coal use for power, further cemented the transport sector as the largest contributor to UK emissions in 2023.
This is shown in the figure below, which highlights how transport emissions have barely changed over the past several decades as more efficient cars have been offset by increased traffic.
The power sector was the largest contributor to the UK’s emissions until 2014. In 2023, it was likely only the fifth-largest below transport, buildings, industry and – for the first time – also agriculture.
Estimated UK territorial emissions by sector, MtCO2e, 1990-2023. Only the top five sectors are shown. The remaining sectors, making up a combined 45MtCO2e per year, are fuel production, waste and land use, land use change and forestry. Note that sectoral estimates for 2023 are based on limited information including the use of proxies such as fuel duty receipts. Where no relevant proxy information was available, such as for agriculture, emissions are assumed to remain at 2022 levels. As such, there is greater uncertainty attached to these figures than for the other estimates in this analysis. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from DESNZ and HMRC.As of 2023, transport emissions were only around 10% below 1990 levels and made up nearly a third of the UK’s overall total. There are now more than a million electric vehicles (EVs) on the UK’s road, which will have avoided around 2MtCO2e of annual emissions.
However, the government has also frozen or cut fuel duty every year since 2010, rather than increasing it in line with inflation, adding up to around 20MtCO2e to the UK’s total.
Emissions from buildings – chiefly for heating and cooling – are the second-largest contributor to the UK’s emissions, accounting for around a fifth of the total.
They were around one-third lower than 1990 levels in 2023, with improved insulation and boiler regulations making the UK’s buildings more efficient to heat.
Efficiency improvements dried up around a decade ago and the fall in building emissions since 2021 has been driven by high prices suppressing demand, rather than deliberate policy choices.
Industrial emissions made up an estimated tenth of the UK’s total in 2023, having fallen by two-thirds since 1990 and by a quarter in the past decade.
In common with many other developed economies, the UK shifted from heavy industry towards advanced manufacturing and services from the 1970s onwards. However, industrial energy efficiency improvements and a shift to lower-carbon fuels are also part of the picture.
Agricultural emissions have barely changed for decades, making up just over a tenth of the UK’s total in 2023 and having fallen just 12% since 1990 as livestock herds have shrunk.
There was a small decrease in farm emissions in 2022 as the energy crisis filtered through into surging prices for fertilisers. For the figure above, Carbon Brief assumes the reduced fertiliser use in 2022 continued in 2023, as fertiliser prices only eased in summer 2023.
Decoupling emissionsThe drop in UK emissions in 2023 came as the economy flatlined, growing by just 0.4% on 2022 levels. The UK’s emissions are now 53% below 1990 levels while the economy has grown 82%.
This “decoupling” of emissions from economic growth is shown in the figure below. As noted above, this analysis is based on territorial emissions within the UK’s borders.
Consumption-based emissions including imported goods and services were climbing in the early part of this century. However, emissions cuts over the past two decades have been very largely driven by sectors that cannot easily be “outsourced”, particularly power and building heat.
Change since 1990, %, in UK greenhouse gas emissions (red) and GDP adjusted for inflation (blue). Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from DESNZ, the Office for National Statistics and the World Bank.The UK is now in a mild recession and the economy is only expected to grow by around 1% in 2024. Recent trends in the “emissions intensity” of the UK economy – the emissions per unit of GDP – and weak economic growth suggests that emissions could continue to fall in 2024.
On the other hand, gas and oil prices are easing to pre-crisis levels, while above-average temperatures may not continue for another year. Petrol demand rose by nearly 5% in 2023 as traffic continued to rebound from the pandemic – and jet fuel use similarly climbed by 16%.
Moreover, the one-off impact of the UK returning to net electricity imports has now unwound. As such, further emissions cuts in 2024 are far from guaranteed.
Target practiseWhile the UK has made rapid progress in cutting its territorial emissions since 1990, it remains only around halfway to reaching its net-zero target for 2050, as the chart figure shows.
Emissions fell by 23MtCO2e in 2023, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis. This is faster than the 14MtCO2e reduction needed every year for the next quarter-century to reach net-zero by 2050.
Annual UK greenhouse gas emissions, MtCO2e, 1990-2050. Historical and estimated emissions are shown by the solid blue line and a steady path to net-zero in 2050 is shown by the red dashed line. Source: DESNZ and Carbon Brief analysis.However, with only one coal-fired power station remaining and the power sector overall now likely only the fifth-largest contributor to UK emissions, the country will need to start cutting into gas power and looking to other sectors, if it is to continue making progress towards its targets.
This will mean expanding wind and solar capacity to reduce gas use, while retaining gas-fired power stations for periods of low wind and starting to build low-carbon alternatives, such as gas with carbon capture and storage, long-term energy storage or hydrogen-fired turbines.
Emissions from road transport and buildings will be key areas if the UK is to progress, which is why changes to government plans around electric vehicles and heat pumps could be problematic.
Similarly, a government decision to “carry forward” the “surplus” emissions cuts from earlier years – largely due to external events such as Covid – would severely weaken UK targets at a time when continued ambition is needed, to stay on track for medium- and long-term climate goals.
MethodologyThe starting point for Carbon Brief’s analysis of UK greenhouse gas emissions is preliminary government estimates of energy use by fuel. These are published quarterly, with the final quarter of each year appearing in figures published at the end of the following February. The same approach has accurately estimated year-to-year changes in emissions in previous years (see table, below).
One large source of uncertainty is the provisional energy use data, which is revised at the end of March each year and often again later on. Emissions data is also subject to revision in light of improvements in data collection and the methodology used, with major revisions in 2021.
The table above applies Carbon Brief’s emissions calculations to the comparable energy use and emissions figures, which may differ from those published previously.
Another source of uncertainty is the fact that Carbon Brief’s approach to estimating the annual change in emissions differs from the methodology used for the government’s own provisional estimates. The government has access to more granular data not available for public use.
Carbon Brief’s analysis takes figures on the amount of energy sourced from coal, oil and gas reported in Energy Trends 1.2. These figures are combined with conversion factors for the CO2 emissions per unit of energy, published annually by the UK government. Conversion factors are available for each fuel type, for example, petrol, diesel, gas, coal for electricity generation.
For oil, the analysis also draws on Energy Trends 3.13, which further breaks down demand according to the subtype of oil, for example, petrol, jet fuel and so on. Similarly, for coal, the analysis draws on Energy Trends 2.6, which breaks down solid fuel use by subtype.
Emissions from each fuel are then estimated from the energy use multiplied by the conversion factor, weighted by the relative proportions for each fuel subtype.
For example, the UK uses roughly 50m tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in the form of oil products, around half of which is from road diesel. So half the total energy use from oil is combined with the conversion factor for road diesel, another one-fifth for petrol and so on.
Energy use from each fossil fuel subtype is mapped onto the appropriate emissions conversion factor. In some cases, there is no direct read-across, in which case the nearest appropriate substitute is used. For example, energy use listed as “bitumen” is mapped to “processed fuel oils – residual oil”. Similarly, solid fuel used by “other conversion industries” is mapped to “petroleum coke”, and “other” solid fuel use is mapped to “coal (domestic)”.
The energy use figures are calculated on an inland consumption basis, meaning they include bunkers consumed in the UK for international transport by air and sea. In contrast, national emissions inventories exclude international aviation and shipping.
The analysis, therefore, estimates and removes the part of oil use that is due to the UK’s share of international aviation. It draws on the UK’s final greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which breaks emissions down by sector and reports the total for domestic aviation.
This domestic emissions figure is compared with the estimated emissions due to jet fuel use overall, based on the appropriate conversion factor. The analysis assumes that domestic aviation’s share of emissions is equivalent to its share of jet fuel energy use.
In addition to estimating CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, Carbon Brief assumes that CO2 emissions from non-fuel sources, such as land-use change and forestry, are the same as a year earlier. Remaining greenhouse gas emissions are assumed to change in line with the latest government energy and emissions projections.
These assumptions are based on the UK government’s own methodology for preliminary greenhouse gas emissions estimates, published in 2019.
Note that the figures in this article are for emissions within the UK measured according to international guidelines. This means they exclude emissions associated with imported goods, including imported biomass, as well as the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published detailed comparisons between various different approaches to calculating UK emissions, on a territorial, consumption, environmental accounts or international accounting basis.
The UK’s consumption-based CO2 emissions increased between 1990 and 2007. Since then, however, they have fallen by a similar number of tonnes as emissions within the UK.
Bioenergy is a significant source of renewable energy in the UK and its climate benefits are disputed. Contrary to public perception, however, only around one quarter of bioenergy is imported.
International aviation is considered part of the UK’s carbon budgets and faces the prospect of tighter limits on its CO2 emissions. The international shipping sector has a target to at least halve its emissions by 2050, relative to 2008 levels.
Q&A: Why defining the ‘phaseout’ of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels is so important at COP28
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #10
Two stories on one topic inexorably lead to a third story.
Fury after Exxon chief says public to blame for climate failures in The Guardian provides straight journalistic coverage of Exxon CEO Darren Woods' remarkable implication that consumers are too stupid to understand or want sustainable energy supplies, and that anyway permanent, modernized energy is not profitable enough for Exxon or its shareholders. Backlash ensued. Bill McKibben's The most epic (and literal) gaslighting of all time is exemplary of critical analysis catalyzed by the Exxon top dog's clumsy speech, a surgical dissection of Woods' anachronistic and strikingly antisocial thinking and expression.
Where's this fracas going to end? Ultimately the whole travesty of industry procrastination, deceit and naked unheeding self-interest is headed to courts of law, of course— as always happens in cases of reckless endangerment. A tidal wave of accountability for fossil fuel industry intransigence is beginning to pile up in the shoaling waters of our and the fossil fuel industry's immediate future, as described in Grist and Big Oil faces a flood of climate lawsuits - and they`re moving closer to trial. Meanwhile, Darren Woods seems to be helping set the mood in the room when it comes to judgment of a track record of industry alienation from broader human society and its interests. It's a puzzling posture.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:Before March 3
- Planetary boundary pioneer Johan Rockstroem awarded 2024 Tyler Prize, Mongaby, Glenn Scherer. The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement will go to Johan Rockstroem who led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary boundary framework in 2009.
- Psychology month: moving past climate change disinformation, CPA Podcasts, Eric Bollman. A 45-minute podcast produced by the Canadian Psychological Association about climate science misinformation.
- How to Navigate the Complex World of Climate Disinformation, Climate Nexus, ClimeNexus Staff. Five Tips for Addressing Climate Disinformation
- This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you, Climate, Vox, Benji Jones. "The Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm right now. Here’s why scientists say that’s 'deeply troubling.' "
- Scientists Investigate Drying out the Stratosphere to Reduce Warming, AAAS News, Nailoa Husain.
- Brown University Study Documents Links Between National & Local Offshore Wind Opponents, CleanTechnica, Steve Hanley.
- TCB quick hit: Wildfire risk is increasing in a warming world, The Climate Brink, Andrew Dessler. Humanity is playing with fire
- He Wants Oil Money Off Campus. She’s Funded by Exxon. They’re Friends., New York Times, Hiroko Tabuchi. The two friends, both climate researchers, recently spent hours confronting the choices that will shape their careers, and the world. Their ideas are very different.
March 3
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #09, Skeptical Science, Baerbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom. Links to 34 articles shared during week 9 of 2024.
- How a warming climate is setting the stage for fast-spreading, destructive wildfires, Climate, CNN World, Laura Paddison.
- How can 0.04% carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have an effect on climate? This video explains how., Youtube, Science and Climate channel.
March 4
- How to normalize the climate conversation, Yale Climate Connections, SueEllen Campbell. It can be hard to talk to our loved ones about climate change and not ‘give a talk.’
- Fury after Exxon chief says public to blame for climate failures, The Guardian, Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman. Darren Woods tells Fortune consumers not willing to pay for clean-energy transition, prompting backlash from climate experts
- Interview with Foolproof author Dr Sander van der Linden, "Thinking is Power" on Youtube, Melanie Trecek-King. A one hour long interview by Melanie Trecek-King with Sander van der Linden about misinformation, debunking and inoculation
- The Geoengineering Question, The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather.
- New satellite will track elusive methane pollution from oil and gas industry globally, CBC Technology News, Jill English. MethaneSAT mission to fill 'critical data gap' for identifying potent greenhouse gas emissions, expert says
- Exclusive: EU wants fossil fuel sector to help pay to combat climate change, draft shows, Climate & Enegy, Reuters, Kate Abnett.
March 5
- The most epic (and literal) gaslighting of all time, The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben. Exxon--is it possible?--hits a new low
- Are We in the ‘Anthropocene,’ the Human Age? Nope, Scientists Say., Climate, New York Times, Raymond Zhong. A panel of experts voted down a proposal to officially declare the start of a new interval of geologic time, one defined by humanity’s changes to the planet.
- The worst wildfire in Texas' history has a complex link with climate change, BBC News, Lucy Sherriff. The worst wildfire in Texas' history is leaving wide scars on the landscape. Why is the blaze so extreme?
March 6
- At a glance - Human activity is driving retreat of arctic sea ice, Skeptical Science, John Mason. Rebuttal #55 to get a face lift and an at-a-glance section since we started the project in February 2023.
- The Maori climate activist breaking legal barriers to bring corporate giants to court, The Guardian, Eva Corlett. In a landmark case, Mike Smith has won the right to sue seven of the country’s biggest companies over their alleged contributions to climate change
- Analysis: Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030, Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff. A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
- Big Meat is lying about sustainability. These media outlets are helping., HEATED, Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson. Can newsrooms really expect people to trust their reporting if they fund it by spreading misinformation?
- More climate records fall in world's warmest February, Science, BBC News, Mark Poynting. Last month was the world's warmest February in modern times, the EU's climate service says, extending the run of monthly records to nine in a row.
- S.E.C. Approves New Climate Rules Far Weaker Than Originally Proposed, Climate, New York Times, Hiroko Tabuchi, Ephrat Livni & David Gelles. The rules, designed to inform investors of business risks from climate change, were rolled back amid opposition from the G.O.P., fossil fuel producers, farmers and others.
- Arctic sea could be `ice-free` by the 2030s, new study warns, TheHill, Lauren Irwin.
March 7
- I’m a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you’d be terrified too, CNN, Bill McGuire.
- AI likely to increase energy use and accelerate climate misinformation - report, The Guardian, Oliver Milman. Claims that artificial intelligence will help solve the climate crisis are misguided, warns a coalition of environmental groups
- How climate change primed Texas to burn, Grist, Naveena Sadasivam. The state's high plains get a month more fire weather now than they did in the 1970s.
- What Americans Need to Hear About Biden's Climate Record, Distilled, Michael Thomas. Biden has done more to fight climate change than any president. But most people don't know that.
- `No drilling! No drilling!`: climate choir sings truth to power in Palace of Westminster, The Guardian, Amelia Hill. ‘No drilling! No drilling!’: climate choir sings truth to power in Palace of Westminster
March 8
- Big Oil faces a flood of climate lawsuits - and they`re moving closer to trial, Grist, Kate Yoder. A quarter of Americans now live in cities and states taking companies to court over lying to the public.
- `Insure Our Future:` A Global Movement Says the Insurance Industry Could Be the Key to Ending Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Keerti Gopal. As insurers cancel policies in regions threatened by sea level rise and wildfires, activists around the world rallied for a week of actions pressuring the companies to drop oil, gas and coal projects driving climate disasters.
March 9
- Film studio from Oscar-winning director aims to stir up `populist anger` over climate crisis, The Guardian, Dharna Noor. Yellow Dot Studios produces short-form videos to inform with ‘genuine, righteous anger’ and ‘laugh-out-loud comedy’
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!
Is scientific reticence the new climate denialism?
Jonathon Porritt (technically, Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet, CBE) has an excellent piece out, called "Mainstream climate science: The new denialism?"
It really is worth the read. For people who have followed this blog, it won't be shockingly new, but in a forthright manner he questions the startling new reality we are facing, which we discussed in recent series for Pearls&Irritations:
- Humanity’s new era of “global boiling”: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
- Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
- Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast
Porritt focusses on the "deceit" of "mainstream scientists, NGOs and commentators" have been "holding back" because of the alleged need to "protect people from the truth of climate change", noting that this strategy has not worked "as a way of enlisting the huge numbers of people required to force our politicians to start getting serious".
And he concludes that "we have to see off this patronising, manipulative, self-serving deceit ONCE AND FOR ALL".
- The speed with which the climate is now changing is faster than (almost) all scientists thought possible.
- There is now zero prospect of holding the average temperature increase this century to below 1.5°C; even 2°C is beginning to slip out of reach. The vast majority of climate scientists know this, but rarely if ever give voice to this critically important reality.
- At the same time, the vast majority of people still haven’t a clue about what’s going on – and what this means for them and everything they hold dear.
- The current backlash against existing (already wholly inadequate) climate measures is also accelerating – and will cause considerable political damage in 2024. Those driving this backlash represent the same old climate denial that has been so damaging over so many years.
- The science-based institutions on which we depend to address this crisis have comprehensively failed us. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is incapable of telling the whole truth about accelerating climate change; the Conference of the Parties (under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been co-opted by the fossil fuel lobby to the point of total corruption.]
- By not calling out these incontrovertible realities, mainstream scientists are at risk of becoming the new climate deniers.
He then proceeds with this:
Hot off the press: we heard today (March 7th) that February was the hottest month ever, with an average temperature that was an astonishing 1.77°C above pre-industrial levels.
I don’t want to slow down the narrative here – so I’ve just given a flavour of some of that evidence about current extremes in the equivalent of an Appendix. And then further details about the speed with which certain “tipping points” are looming ever larger in a second Appendix. A quick glance is all you’ll need. But if you just can’t see why I’m getting so hot and bothered about all this, PLEASE check it out!
And there goes my reputation as a “glass half-full sort of a guy”! I will, from herein on, be badged as a full-on “doomist”, a “prophet of apocalyptic despair”, an anarchist/communist/subversive seeking “to bring down capitalism” by “existentializing” (I kid you not!) the “perfectly manageable threat of climate change”.
Guilty as charged.
It’s not just the right-wing crazies (of whom, more later) who follow that line. All sorts of serious commentators have subscribed (for years!) to the hypothesis that there’s only so much climate truth the little people can deal with. Here’s Pilita Clark writing in the Financial Times in August 2023:
“Doomist thinking is dangerous because it breeds paralysis and disengagement, which is precisely what the forces of climate inaction want.” “Doomism is ultimately a luxury that only a few can afford.”
Brilliant! So we’re the ones responsible for the lack of political traction, by virtue of a surfeit of hairshirt misery that only the middle class can afford!
These accusations of doomism are not new. Writing back in 2019, US author Jonathan Franzen put it like this:
“If you’re younger than 60, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilisation of life on Earth – massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under 30, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.
You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope today.”
I would be the first to acknowledge some kind of continuing denial sort-of makes sense. It can be very painful to have to properly embrace an understanding of what is actually happening in the climate today. And it can get even more disheartening when we take account of the constraints of human psychology and behaviour, let alone today’s political reality.
I get all that. But mainstream scientists, NGOs and commentators have been “holding back”, on those very grounds, for a long time. And it certainly hasn’t worked as a way of enlisting the huge numbers of people required to force our politicians to start getting serious.
Simple conclusion: we have to see off this patronising, manipulative, self-serving deceit (about needing to protect people from the truth of climate change) ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Particularly if you happen to be a climate scientist still playing the “we’ve got this covered” card.
The full article is here:
https://www.jonathonporritt.com/mainstream-climate-science-the-new-denialism/
A similar analysis, focusing on the underestimation of existential climate risks by mainstream science, and particular the IPCC, was published by Ian Dunlop and myself in 2018 under the title "What Lies Beneath", with a foreword by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber which amongst other things said that: It [What Lies Beneath] is the critical overview of well-informed intellectuals who sit outside the climate-science community, which has developed over the last fifty years. All such expert communities are prone to what the French call deformation professionelle and the German betriebsblindheit.
Expressed in plain English, experts tend to establish a peer world-view which becomes ever more rigid and focussed. Yet the crucial insights regarding the issue in question may lurk at the fringes, as this report suggests. This is particularly true when the issue is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of analysis may become useless.
David
DeBriefed 8 March 2024: Climate cost of a Trump victory calculated; ‘Weird’ winter heat; China’s pivotal ‘two sessions’ meeting; Young female activist interview
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week Long hot winter‘WORLD’S WARMEST’: Record heat has affected “everywhere from northern Siberia and central and north-west America to parts of South America, Africa and Australia” this winter, reported the Financial Times. BBC News reported that last month was the world’s warmest February “in modern times”, the ninth month in a row to be the hottest on record since June 2023. This puts the world temporarily above the 1.5C threshold, noted the Guardian.
‘WEIRD’ WINTER HEAT: The New York Times reported that the “fingerprints of climate change” were detectable on the “weird” winter heat, including in Iran’s capital city Tehran, which was 4.2C warmer than average during the winter months. Morocco experienced the hottest January since measurements began, the country’s meteorological department told Agence France-Presse, at 3.8C above normal.
SMOKEHOUSE SCAR: Record winter heat continued to fan the flames of the “largest wildfire on record” in Texas, reported Axios. It added the blazes had left “a burn scar so large it is clearly visible from space”. Known as the Smokehouse Creek fire, it has burned more than 1.2m acres and “killed two people and thousands of cattle”, reported BBC Future. The publication explained that the fire has a “complex link” with climate change.
China’s pivotal ‘two sessions’ meetingWHAT, WHEN, WHERE: China’s “two sessions” meeting, which sees the annual parliamentary gathering of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is currently underway in Beijing, Carbon Brief’s China Briefing newsletter reported. Its centrepiece is the “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier that outlines priorities for the year ahead.
CLIMATE TARGETS: One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in the report is to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2.5% over the coming year, a goal that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
FOSSIL FUELS REMAIN: The work report also restated a commitment to boosting fossil fuels in the name of “energy security”, Reuters reported. The newswire noted that China also aims to step up exploration of “strategic minerals”.
Around the world- SURPRISE SNOW: Pakistan experienced unusual snowfall and heavy rains, resulting in the death of at least 35 people, including 22 children, reported BBC News.
- CORAL BLEACH: The world is on the brink of a fourth global mass coral bleaching event, which could see many tropical reefs killed by extreme ocean temperatures, reported Reuters. The Guardian reported that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is facing its fifth mass coral bleaching event in eight years.
- FUNDING THREAT: Individuals from global south climate groups that depend on finance from the German government “feel unable to criticise Israel’s military action in Gaza” due to pressure from their German-funded employers, Climate Home News reported.
- MISSING MONEY: A UN official said that “Africa will be $2.5tn short of the finance it needs to cope with climate change by 2030”, noted Reuters, despite the continent producing the lowest emissions and experiencing the worst effects.
- NEW ZEALAND LAWSUIT: An elder of the Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu tribes “won the right to sue seven New Zealand-based corporate entities”, including fuel, coal and gas companies and dairy exporters, for their contribution to climate change, noted the Guardian.
- NOTHING TO SEE HERE: The UK’s spring budget announcement was one of the “least green budgets in recent years” experts told the Guardian, with disappointment around electric vehicles and North Sea oil and gas. Carbon Brief had all the details.
The amount of land in hectares that has been degraded by human activity over the past 500 years, reported Bloomberg.
Latest climate research- A Nature Climate Change study found that, while climate change drives population growth in lizards “when trees are present”, deforestation could reverse this effect and even exacerbate the negative impacts of climate change.
- Under an additional 1C of warming, around 800 million people in the tropics will live in areas where “heavy work should be limited for over half of the hours in the year” due to the heat, a One Earth review paper found.
- The severe “Tinderbox drought” in southeast Australia, which preceded the country’s largest wildfires on record from 2019-20, was intensified by human-caused climate change, according to a Science study.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedA victory for Donald Trump (red line) in November’s US presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared with Joe Biden’s plans (blue line), new Carbon Brief analysis revealed. It is based on an aggregation of modelling by various US research groups. For context, 4bn tonnes of greenhouse gases is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries. “Regardless of the precise impact, a second Trump term that successfully dismantles Biden’s climate legacy would likely end any global hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5C,” the analysis added.
Spotlight Female climate activist Angel AruturaOn International Women’s Day, Carbon Brief speaks to Angel Arutura, a social and climate justice activist in Northern Ireland passionate about “connecting people and the planet” through social media.
Carbon Brief: How long has environmental activism been part of your life?
Angel Arutura: I’ve always been interested in the world around me, but it goes back to school, where geography was a subject that grabbed me. My teacher made lessons engaging and I became interested in how different parts of the world are affected by issues. I think my mixed-race heritage also helped. I have a multifaceted identity so, naturally, it made sense for me to think about how actions from the global north affected communities in the global south. I’m half Irish, half Zimbabwean, so I’ve been able to see that not just from an academic standpoint, but an emotional standpoint. Since then, I’ve been committed to connecting people to our true nature of love and protection and harbouring that loving connection for the people and the world around us.
CB: How has your identity as a woman shaped your activism, particularly your identity as a Black woman?
AA: I really started being vocal with my activism around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, where the conversation was heavily on social justice. Growing up in a 98% White country, I experienced a lot of racism and my experience as a Black woman living in Ireland has been overwhelmingly negative. I rejected my Zimbabwean culture, my heritage, for so long. I went through a transformation at 17 where I started to connect with my heritage and it was through those years of self-reflection that I was able to speak at the protests. That’s when I found my voice. But, I thought to myself, hold on. Why are we just talking about social justice here? From then, I talked about the intersectionality of climate and social justice. As a Black woman, the driving power behind this was, in a weird way, finding that self-love.
CB: Why is it important to lift up the voices of women, particularly women of colour, when it comes to climate change?
AA: The majority of the time, when people talk about climate change and sustainability, they only talk about the exploitation of the planet. Think about fast fashion and women’s rights violations, and how those brands do sustainability initiatives and all this greenwashing. But how can you talk about the exploitation of the planet and not also the exploitation of women in the global south? The climate crisis, social justice, women’s rights, it’s all interconnected. An intersectional approach is the only one we need to take when it comes to climate change. It’s imperative if we want to create real, sustainable change. One of the best ways we can do this is through storytelling, in particular, elevating and uplifting the voices of the most vulnerable, especially those from the global south. And, unfortunately, that is women.
This interview was edited for length.
Watch, read, listenSOUND WAVES: A three-part Sky documentary narrated by David Attenborough, revealed – amid glunking elk, popping grouse and laughing insects – how harnessing the sound of fish could be a vital tool to help save coral reefs.
‘FOLKLORIST’: Grist spoke to a “folklorist” about how community, culture and tradition are vulnerable to, but may also hold solutions for, climate change.
REPORTING FOR DUTY: In the face of extreme heat, “chief heat officers” in Sierra Leone and Mexico explain what this rare role entails in BBC World Service’s The Climate Question podcast.
Coming up- 5-11 March: China’s “two sessions” meeting
- 10 March: Portugal general elections
- 11-12 March: G20 second research and innovation working group meeting, Brasília, Brazil
- The Gecko Project, investigations editor | Salary: £60,000. Location: Remote
- Small World Consulting, chief executive officer | Salary: £70,000-100,000. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Brighton and Hove Energy Services Co-operative, business development manager | Salary: £40,000-45,000. Location: Brighton, UK
- United Nations Environment Programme, associate public information officer | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bonn, Germany
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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Climate Impact Summit
7-8 May | London
The Climate Impact Summit will take place on the 7th and 8th of May in London. The agenda will feature new industry content on Decarbonisation, Energy, Alternative Materials, Cities, AI, Circularity, Food, Agriculture and other pressing climate topics.
More information to come soon!
The post Climate Impact Summit appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #10 2024
Projections of an ice-free Arctic Ocean, Jahn et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment:
Observed Arctic sea ice losses are a sentinel of anthropogenic climate change. These reductions are projected to continue with ongoing warming, ultimately leading to an ice-free Arctic (sea ice area 2). In this Review, we synthesize understanding of the timing and regional variability of such an ice-free Arctic. In the September monthly mean, the earliest ice-free conditions (the first single occurrence of an ice-free Arctic) could occur in 2020–2030s under all emission trajectories and are likely to occur by 2050. However, daily September ice-free conditions are expected approximately 4 years earlier on average, with the possibility of preceding monthly metrics by 10 years. Consistently ice-free September conditions (frequent occurrences of an ice-free Arctic) are anticipated by mid-century (by 2035–2067), with emission trajectories determining how often and for how long the Arctic could be ice free.
Sustained growth of sulfur hexafluoride emissions in China inferred from atmospheric observations, An et al., Nature Communications:
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a potent greenhouse gas. Here we use long-term atmospheric observations to determine SF6 emissions from China between 2011 and 2021, which are used to evaluate the Chinese national SF6 emission inventory and to better understand the global SF6 budget. SF6 emissions in China substantially increased from 2.6 (2.3-2.7, 68% uncertainty) Gg yr−1 in 2011 to 5.1 (4.8-5.4) Gg yr−1 in 2021. The increase from China is larger than the global total emissions rise, implying that it has offset falling emissions from other countries.
The rise, fall and rebirth of ocean carbon sequestration as a climate 'solution', De Pryck & Boettcher, Global Environmental Change:
Using an innovative quali-quantitative methodology which combines scientometrics with document analysis, observational fieldwork, and interviews, we outline three historical phases in the history of ocean carbon sequestration that follow recurring cycles of hype, controversy and disappointment. We argue that the most recent hype around ocean carbon sequestration was not triggered by a technological breakthrough or a reduction in scientific uncertainty, but by new socio-technical configurations and coalitions. We conclude by showing that how climate change solutions are put on the agenda and become legitimised is both a scientific and political process, linked to how science frames the climate crisis, and ultimately, its governance.
“In the end, the story of climate change was one of hope and redemption”: ChatGPT’s narrative on global warming, Sommer & von Querfurth, Ambio:
This paper examines the narrative of ChatGPT's stories on climate change. Our explorative analysis reveals that ChatGPT’s stories on climate change show a relatively uniform structure and similar content. Generally, the narrative is in line with scientific knowledge on climate change; the stories convey no significant misinformation. However, specific topics in current debates on global warming are conspicuously missing. According to the ChatGPT narrative, humans as a species are responsible for climate change and specific economic activities or actors associated with carbon emissions play no role. Analogously, the social structuration of vulnerability to climate impacts and issues of climate justice are hardly addressed. ChatGPT’s narrative consists of de-politicized stories that are highly optimistic about technological progress.
Increasing Flood Hazard Posed by Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensification in a Changing Climate, Lockwood et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Tropical cyclones (TCs) that rapidly intensify (RI) before hitting land are typically hard to predict and cause immense destruction. We used synthetic TCs downscaled from global climate models and physics-based hazard models to examine the dangers posed by these RI storms in historical and future climates. The TC simulation shows that, as the climate warms, the number of TCs undergoing rapid intensification could rise substantially in the North Atlantic region. Additionally, the likelihood of rapid intensification within 24 hr of landfall significantly increases. These TCs are much riskier, particularly in terms of heavy rainfall, even when compared to equally strong TCs that did not rapidly intensify. Consequently, 100-year rainfall and storm tide levels will greatly increase under climate change, largely due to the increase of RI events in the future.
Past and Projected Future Droughts in the Upper Colorado River Basin, McCabe et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
A long and severe drought has affected much of the western United States since about the year 2000 CE, including the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). Comparing this drought to past UCRB droughts (during 1 CE through 2021 CE), we find that the 2000–2021 drought is not the most severe UCRB drought. The results also suggest that natural variability combined with projected climate warming could result in UCRB drought events that are more severe than any drought since 1 CE.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Many newly labeled USDA climate-smart conservation practices lack climate benefits, Anne Schechinger, Environmental Working Group:
Newly designated U.S Department of Agriculture's climate-smart conservation practices likely do not reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Only practices that reduce emissions are eligible for $19.5 billion in 2022 Inflation Reduction Act funds. The new designations make it look, erroneously, like a lot of money is going to climate-smart agriculture. Against the backdrop of the deepening climate crisis, the Department of Agriculture recently added 15 Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, practices to its climate-smart conservation list – but many likely do little or nothing to help in the climate fight.
Rooftop solar on the rise. Small solar projects are delivering 10 times as much power as a decade ago, Dutzik et al, Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group:
Small-scale solar energy – of which rooftop solar is the largest component – is growing rapidly in the U.S., producing 10 times as much power in 2022 as a decade earlier. Small-scale solar generated enough electricity in 2022 to power 5.7 million typical American homes – more than all the homes in the state of Pennsylvania. The U.S. has only scratched the surface of rooftop solar’s potential. Rooftop solar has the technical potential to generate electricity equivalent to about 45% of all electricity sales in the U.S. at 2022 demand levels. In 2022, the U.S. only generated about 1.5% of all the electricity it used from rooftop solar.
150 articles in 74 journals by 907 contributing authorsPhysical science of climate change, effects
Decoding low-frequency climate variations: A case study on ENSO and ocean surface warming, Kallummal, Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2024.101453
Robust Polar Amplification in Ice-Free Climates Relies on Ocean Heat Transport and Cloud Radiative Effects, England & Feldl, Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0151.1
Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in global urban surface warming, Ge et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114081
Surface Albedo Feedback, Seasonal Heat Storage and Meridional Heat Transport Determine the Seasonality of Recent Warming in Antarctica, Dai, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd040000
Sustained intensification of the Aleutian Low induces weak tropical Pacific sea surface warming, Dow et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-5-357-2024
The Impact of Rotation on Tropical Climate, the Hydrologic Cycle, and Climate Sensitivity, Silvers et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105850
Observations of climate change, effects
Anthropogenic climate change has influenced global river flow seasonality, Wang et al., Science 10.1126/science.adi9501
Australia’s Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change, Devanand et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adj3460
Causes of the severe drought in Southwest China during the summer of 2022, Zhu et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107320
Fast Enhancement of the Stratification in the Indian Ocean over the Past 20 Years, Peng & Wang, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0255.1
Less concentrated precipitation and more extreme events over the three river headwaters region of the Tibetan Plateau in a warming climate, Du et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107311
Multi-Decadal Coastal Acidification in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Driven by Climate Change and Eutrophication, Jiang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106300
Northward Shift and Narrowing of the ITCZ in 20 Years of AIRS Data, Aumann et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd038723
Observational Evidence for a Regime Shift in Summer Antarctic Sea Ice, Hobbs et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0479.1
Seasonally dependent increases in subweekly temperature variability over Southern Hemisphere landmasses detected in multiple reanalyses, Martineau et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-5-1-2024
Summer Deep Depressions Increase Over the Eastern North Atlantic, D'Andrea et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl104435
Summer heatwaves trends and hotspots in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (1914–2020), Serra et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00704-024-04912-y
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
Climatological reference stations: Definitions and requirements, Merlone et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8406
Cooler Arctic surface temperatures simulated by climate models are closer to satellite-based data than the ERA5 reanalysis, Tian et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01276-z
Using machine learning to analyze the changes in extreme precipitation in Southern China, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107307
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
Aquaplanet simulations with winter and summer hemispheres: model setup and circulation response to warming, Schemm & Röthlisberger, Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/wcd-5-43-2024
Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Highland Areas in Kastamonu, Turkey, Gür et al., Anthropocene 10.1016/j.ancene.2024.100432
Emergent Constraint on Projection of the North Pacific Monsoon Trough and Its Implications for Typhoon Activity Using CMIP6 Models, Gou et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd040471
Emergent constraints on carbon budgets as a function of global warming, Cox et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-46137-7
Ensemble projections of climate and streamflow in a typical basin of semi-arid steppes in Mongolian Plateau of 2021?2100, PAN et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.02.004
Evaluating future urban temperature over smart cities of the Gangetic plains using statistically downscaled CMIP6 projections, Kumar et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-024-04896-9
Projected precipitation and temperature changes in the Middle East—West Asia using RegCM4.7 under SSP scenarios, Babaeian et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-024-04900-2
Projection of future precipitation, air temperature, and solar radiation changes in southeastern China, Disasa et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-024-04891-0
Regional climate projections of daily extreme temperatures in Argentina applying statistical downscaling to CMIP5 and CMIP6 models, Balmaceda-Huarte et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-024-07147-9
Replicating the Hadley cell edge and subtropical jet latitude disconnect in idealized atmospheric models, Menzel et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/wcd-5-251-2024
Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
From regional climate models to usable information, Jebeile, Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03693-7
Impact of precipitation mass sinks on midlatitude storms in idealized simulations across a wide range of climates, Abbott & O'Gorman, Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-5-17-2024
Model Mean State Sea Ice Thickness Reflects Dynamic Effect Biases: A Process Based Evaluation, Anheuser et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106963
Storylines for Future Projections of Precipitation Over New Zealand in CMIP6 Models, Gibson et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039664
The Impact of “Hot Models” on a CMIP6 Ensemble Used by Climate Service Providers in Canada: Do Global Constraints Lead to Appreciable Differences in Regional Projections?, Cannon, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0459.1
Cryosphere & climate change
Changes in glacier surface temperature across the Third Pole from 2000 to 2021, Ren et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114076
Emerging long-term trends and interdecadal cycles in Antarctic polynyas, Duffy et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2321595121
European summer weather linked to North Atlantic freshwater anomalies in preceding years, Oltmanns et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/wcd-5-109-2024
Observational Evidence for a Regime Shift in Summer Antarctic Sea Ice, Hobbs et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0479.1
Projections of an ice-free Arctic Ocean, Jahn et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43017-023-00515-9
The effect of landfast sea ice buttressing on ice dynamic speedup in the Larsen B embayment, Antarctica, Surawy-Stepney et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-977-2024
Why is Summertime Arctic Sea Ice Drift Speed Projected to Decrease?, Ward & Tandon Tandon, The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-995-2024
Sea level & climate change
Rising sea levels and the increase of shoreline wave energy at American Samoa, Barnes et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-024-55636-y
The Role of Anthropogenic Forcings on Historical Sea-Level Change in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool Region, Samanta et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef003684
Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Speed of thermal adaptation of terrestrial vegetation alters Earth’s long-term climate, Rogger et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adj4408
Younger Dryas and Early Holocene ice-margin dynamics in northwest Russia, Boyes et al., Boreas Open Access pdf 10.1111/bor.12653
Biology & climate change, related geochemistry
A species distribution model of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera: Worldwide changes and a focus on the Southeast Pacific, Gonzalez?Aragon et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.10901
Are fish immunocompetent enough to face climate change?, Franke et al., Biology Letters Open Access 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0346
Bellwethers of change: population modelling of North Pacific humpback whales from 2002 through 2021 reveals shift from recovery to climate response, Cheeseman et al., Royal Society Open Science Open Access pdf 10.1098/rsos.231462
Declining calcium concentration drives shifts toward smaller and less nutritious zooplankton in northern lakes, Bergström et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17220
Deforestation poses deleterious effects to tree-climbing species under climate change, Zlotnick et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-024-01939-x
Differential advances in budburst timing among black spruce, white spruce and balsam fir across Canada, Podadera et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109950
Drought influences habitat associations and abundances of birds in California's Central Valley, Goldstein et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access 10.1111/ddi.13827
Drought responses of Italian silver fir provenances in a climate change perspective, Oggioni et al., Dendrochronologia Open Access 10.1016/j.dendro.2024.126184
Flood-irrigated agriculture mediates climate-induced wetland scarcity for summering sandhill cranes in western North America, Donnelly et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.10998
Future climate-induced distribution shifts in a sexually dimorphic key predator of the Southern Ocean, Ouled?Cheikh et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17191
Global emergent responses of stream microbial metabolism to glacier shrinkage, Kohler et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-024-01393-6
Growth-climate relationships of four tree species in the subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests in Southwest China, Xu et al., Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2024.126186
Impacts of behaviour and acclimation of metabolic rate on energetics in sheltered ectotherms: a climate change perspective, Enriquez-Urzelai & Gvoždík, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rspb.2023.2152
Kilometre-scale simulations over Fennoscandia reveal a large loss of tundra due to climate warming, Lagergren et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-21-1093-2024
Lineage-level species distribution model to assess the impact of climate change on the habitat suitability of Boleophthalmus pectinirostris, Wu et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1364822
Plant invasion in Mediterranean Europe: current hotspots and future scenarios, Cao Pinna et al., Ecography Open Access pdf 10.1111/ecog.07085
Plant–soil interactions alter nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics in an advancing subarctic treeline, Fetzer et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17200
Protecting alpine biodiversity in the Middle East from climate change: Implications for high-elevation birds, Ahmadi et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.13826
Restoring spatiotemporal variability to enhance the capacity for dispersal-limited species to track climate change, Backus et al., Ecology Open Access pdf 10.1002/ecy.4257
Seafloor primary production in a changing Arctic Ocean, Attard et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2303366121
Temperature and CO2 interactively drive shifts in the compositional and functional structure of peatland protist communities, Kilner et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17203
Tree growth at the limits: the response of multiple conifers to opposing climatic constraints along an elevational gradient in the Alps, Obojes et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1332941
Widespread increase in plant transpiration driven by global greening, Chen et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104395
GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry
Deep learning applied to CO2 power plant emissions quantification using simulated satellite images, Dumont Le Brazidec et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-1995-2024
Estimation of Soil Moisture Thresholds for Aggravation of Global Terrestrial Carbon Uptake Losses, Yan et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd040392
Global-Scale Convergence Obscures Inconsistencies in Soil Carbon Change Predicted by Earth System Models, Shi et al., AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023av001068
Optimising urban measurement networks for CO2 flux estimation: a high-resolution observing system simulation experiment using GRAMM/GRAL, Vardag & Maiwald Maiwald, Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-1885-2024
Post-fire soil greenhouse gas fluxes in boreal Scots pine forests–Are they affected by surface fires with different severities?, Köster et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109954
Reconciling ice core CO2 and land-use change following New World-Old World contact, King et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45894-9
Spatial and temporal variations of gross primary production simulated by land surface model BCC&AVIM2.0, Li et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2023.02.001
Sustained growth of sulfur hexafluoride emissions in China inferred from atmospheric observations, An et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-46084-3
CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering
Bridging Quantitative and Qualitative Science for BECCS in Abandoned Croplands, Næss et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef003849
Delayed Onset of Indian Summer Monsoon in Response to CO2 Removal, Zhang et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef004039
Seaweeds for carbon dioxide removal (CDR)–Getting the science right, Troell et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000377
The rise, fall and rebirth of ocean carbon sequestration as a climate 'solution', De Pryck & Boettcher, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102820
Decarbonization
Beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit: Exploring new frontiers in solar energy harvest, Lee, Science 10.1126/science.ado4308
Bridging Quantitative and Qualitative Science for BECCS in Abandoned Croplands, Næss et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef003849
Comprehensive investigation of the durability and mechanical properties of eco-friendly geopolymer concrete (alkali-activated), Esparham & Rezaei, International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 10.1007/s13762-024-05499-7
Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell for Clean Electric Energy: Unravelling the Role of Electrode Materials for a Sustainable Future, Bishnoi et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research Open Access 10.1002/aesr.202300266
Identification of reliable locations for wind power generation through a global analysis of wind droughts, Antonini et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01260-7
Managing the low carbon transition pathways through solid waste electricity, Raza et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-024-56167-2
Geoengineering climate
Flawed Emergency Intervention: Slow Ocean Response to Abrupt Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, Pflüger et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106132
Aerosols
The direct and indirect radiative effects of sea salt aerosols over the western Pacific using an online-coupled regional chemistry-climate model with a developed sea salt emission scheme, Li et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107325
Climate change communications & cognition
Can “climate upheaval” be a more informative term than “climate change”?, Chen, Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103716
Combatting Climate Disinformation: Comparing the Effectiveness of Correction Placement and Type, Christner et al., Environmental Communication Open Access pdf 10.1080/17524032.2024.2316757
Cost sensitivity, partisan cues, and support for the Green New Deal, Benegal & Green Green, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13412-024-00897-2
The Brief Solastalgia Scale: A Psychometric Evaluation and Revision, Christensen et al., EcoHealth Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10393-024-01673-y
The newsworthiness of “climate change” in China over the last thirty years (1993–2022): a diachronic corpus-based news discourse analysis, Chen & Liu, Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-024-03703-8
Vulnerable voices: using topic modeling to analyze newspaper coverage of climate change in 26 non-Annex I countries (2010–2020), McAllister et al., Environmental Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1088/1748-9326/ad22b7
“In the end, the story of climate change was one of hope and redemption”: ChatGPT’s narrative on global warming, Sommer & von Querfurth, Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-024-01997-7
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
A potential of iron slag-based soil amendment as a suppressor of greenhouse gas (CH4 and N2O) emissions in rice paddy, Galgo et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1290969
A scrutiny of plasticity management in irrigated wheat systems under CMIP6 earth system models (case study: Golestan Province, Iran), Hosseinpour et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology Open Access 10.1007/s00704-024-04902-0
Climate change reduces agricultural total factor productivity in major agricultural production areas of China even with continuously increasing agricultural inputs, Zhou et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109953
Enhancing dietary diversity and food security through the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices in Nigeria: a micro level evidence, Omotoso & Omotayo, Environment, Development and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-024-04681-8
Harvest residues: A relevant term in the carbon balance of croplands?, Ingwersen et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109935
Long-term straw return to a wheat-maize system results in topsoil organic C saturation and increased yields while no stimulating or reducing yield-scaled N2O and NO emissions, Yao et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109937
Nighttime warming promotes copper translocation from root to shoot of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) through enlarging root systems, Qi et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1284198
Projecting contributions of marine protected areas to rebuild fish stocks under climate change, Cheung et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access 10.1038/s44183-024-00046-w
Significant accrual of soil organic carbon through long-term rice cultivation in paddy fields in China, Yang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17213
Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change
Anthropogenic climate change has influenced global river flow seasonality, Wang et al., Science 10.1126/science.adi9501
Beyond the ice: decoding Lake Mertzbakher’s response to global climate shifts, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1351872
Future water storage changes over the Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa in response to global warming and stratospheric aerosol intervention, Rezaei et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2023-1654
Increasing Flood Hazard Posed by Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensification in a Changing Climate, Lockwood et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105624
Less concentrated precipitation and more extreme events over the three river headwaters region of the Tibetan Plateau in a warming climate, Du et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107311
Long-term variability and trends of meteorological droughts in Ukraine, Semenova & Vicente?Serrano, International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.8416
Past and Projected Future Droughts in the Upper Colorado River Basin, McCabe et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107978
Regime Shifts in Arctic Terrestrial Hydrology Manifested From Impacts of Climate Warming, Rawlins & Karmalkar Karmalkar Karmalkar, The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-1033-2024
Sensitivity of Rainfall Extremes to Unprecedented Indian Ocean Dipole Events, MacLeod et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105258
Spatial and temporal variations of aridity-humidity indices in Montenegro, Lukovi? et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-024-04893-y
The changing nature of groundwater in the global water cycle, Kuang et al., Science 10.1126/science.adf0630
Updating catastrophe models to today’s climate – an application of a large ensemble approach to extreme rainfall, Lang & Poschlod, Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100594
Urbanization Further Intensifies Short-Duration Rainfall Extremes in a Warmer Climate, Yan et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2024gl108565
Using machine learning to analyze the changes in extreme precipitation in Southern China, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107307
Climate change economics
Decoupling of CO2 emissions and income in the U.S.: A new look from EKC, Wang & Kim, Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-024-03706-5
Climate change mitigation public policy research
A capability approach to analyse well-being impacts of wind energy infrastructure, Velasco-Herrejón et al., Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1088/2634-4505/ad269c
Citizen and specialist co-design of energy policy: The case of home energy decarbonization in the UK, Willis et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103706
Embodied GHG of missing middle: Residential building form and strategies for more efficient housing, Rankin et al., Journal of Industrial Ecology Open Access pdf 10.1111/jiec.13461
Equity assessment of global mitigation pathways in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Kanitkar et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2024.2319029
Gas power — How much is needed on the road to carbon neutrality?, Scharf & Möst, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114026
Industrial ripples: Automotive electrification sends through carbon emissions, Li & Song, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114045
Limited impact of hydrogen co-firing on prolonging fossil-based power generation under low emissions scenarios, Oshiro & Fujimori, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-46101-5
Locally-led governance of residential heat transitions: Emerging experience of and lessons from the Dutch approach, Devenish & Lockwood, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114027
Research on energy consumption evaluation and energy saving and carbon reduction measures for typical general hospitals in hot summer and warm winter regions, Wang et al., Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101381
The Critical Role of Customs and Trade Controls in Mitigating Climate Change, , Journal of Development and Social Sciences Open Access pdf 10.47205/jdss.2021(2-iv)74
The impact of Iran’s urban heritage on sustainability, climate change and carbon zero, Afsahhosseini, Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04434-z
The multiple benefits of current and potential energy efficiency policies: A Scottish islands case study, Matthew, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114032
Time of use pricing and likelihood of shifting energy activities, strategies, and timing, Muttaqee et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114019
Trees on smallholder farms and forest restoration are critical for Rwanda to achieve net zero emissions, Mugabowindekwe et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01278-x
What we talk about when we talk about electricity: A thematic analysis of recent political debates on Swedish electricity supply, Sonnsjö, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114053
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
Are cities ready for climate change? Exploring the spatial discrepancies between urban vulnerability and adaptation readiness, Yao et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1293651
Assessing leverage points for strengthening adaptive capacity in a Global South food system: A psychometric approach, Rosengren et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100592
Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Highland Areas in Kastamonu, Turkey, Gür et al., Anthropocene 10.1016/j.ancene.2024.100432
Climate threats to coastal infrastructure and sustainable development outcomes, Adshead et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-024-01950-2
Controlling the water: citizens’ place–related adaptation to landslides in mid-Norway, Heidenreich & Næss, Regional Environmental Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10113-024-02207-6
Explaining urban communities’ adaptation strategies for climate change risk: novel evidence from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Ahmed & Luqman , Natural Hazards Open Access 10.1007/s11069-024-06501-8
High resolution modelling of the urban heat island of 100 European cities, Lauwaet et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101850
Identifying constraints and limits to climate change adaptation in Austria under deep uncertainty, Schinko et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2024.1303767
Managing retreat? An empirical reflection on adopting relocation initiatives as adaptation policy in Louisiana, Birch et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2024.2312815
Resilience in the Anthropocene: discourses of development, climate change, and security in South Asia, Thakur & Jayaram, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 10.1016/j.cosust.2024.101425
Climate change impacts on human health
Beyond heatwaves: A nuanced view of temperature-related mortality, Bouchama et al., Temperature Open Access pdf 10.1080/23328940.2024.2310459
High-resolution projections of outdoor thermal stress in the twenty-first century: a Tasmanian case study, Weeding et al., International Journal of Biometeorology Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00484-024-02622-8
Impact of extreme weather events on healthcare utilization and mortality in the United States, Salas et al., Nature Medicine 10.1038/s41591-024-02833-x
Impacts of climate change on allergenic pollen production: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Mousavi et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109948
Impacts of climate change on human health in humanitarian settings: Evidence gaps and future research needs, McIver et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000243
Man, it's a hot one: Trends and extremes in Florida autumn heat stress, Ennis & Milrad, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8415
Climate change & geopolitics
The role of geostrategic interests in motivating public support for foreign climate aid, Bugden & Brazil , Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences Open Access 10.1007/s13412-024-00900-w
Other
An Unexpected Decline in Spring Atmospheric Humidity in the Interior Southwestern United States and Implications for Forest Fires, Jacobson et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-23-0121.1
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
Climate change mitigation and Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence and research gaps, Pathak et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000366
Opinion: Can uncertainty in climate sensitivity be narrowed further?, Sherwood & Forest Forest , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-24-2679-2024
Stop arguing and cut emissions, Morgan & Apt, Science Open Access pdf 10.1126/science.adn9176
Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate ChangeInvesting in Carbon Bombs. How Asset Managers are Using Your Savings to Finance Fossil Fuel Projects and Fuel the Climate Crisis, Waxman et al., Sierra Club
The authors highlight some of the worst new fossil fuel projects in the U.S. being undertaken right now that have been made possible by Wall Street financing, and will point out how some of the largest U.S. asset managers are using investor's savings and investments to fund the climate crisis by buying new bonds from fossil fuel companies behind these types of projects.Changing climates: the heat is (still) on. Hazard intensification set to compound economic losses, Banerjee et al., Swiss Re
Understanding how natural perils shape the risk landscape is critical to advancing our preparedness for climate change. Warming temperatures bring physical repercussions including more intense hazards, which, in turn, can compound loss outcomes. The authors combine their insurance knowledge of property damage resulting from natural disasters with new scientific evidence from the IPCC on the probability (low, medium, high) of more severe weather conditions. To date, the main drivers of rising losses have been economic growth and urbanization. Climate change plays a relatively small role today, but the authors expect associated losses to accumulate and contribute more in the future. The analysis covers 36 countries and focuses on four major weather perils: floods, tropical cyclones, winter storms in Europe and severe convective storms. These are the main loss-inducing perils for the insurance industry today and account for the largest share of economic losses from natural disasters globally. As of today, in terms of property impact, these perils cause expected economic losses of USD 200 billion annually. This is just the lower bound of all potential losses, as not all weather perils (e.g., heatwaves) are covered, and only property losses are accounted for. As changing climates fuel weather event intensity, loss potential will likely rise.Many newly labeled USDA climate-smart conservation practices lack climate benefits, Anne Schechinger, Environmental Working Group
Newly designated U.S Department of Agriculture's climate-smart conservation practices likely do not reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Only practices that reduce emissions are eligible for $19.5 billion in 2022 Inflation Reduction Act funds. The new designations make it look, erroneously, like a lot of money is going to climate-smart agriculture. Against the backdrop of the deepening climate crisis, the Department of Agriculture recently added 15 Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, practices to its climate-smart conservation list – but many likely do little or nothing to help in the climate fight.Rooftop solar on the rise. Small solar projects are delivering 10 times as much power as a decade ago, Dutzik et al, Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group
Small-scale solar energy – of which rooftop solar is the largest component – is growing rapidly in the U.S., producing 10 times as much power in 2022 as a decade earlier. Small-scale solar generated enough electricity in 2022 to power 5.7 million typical American homes – more than all the homes in the state of Pennsylvania. The U.S. has only scratched the surface of rooftop solar’s potential. Rooftop solar has the technical potential to generate electricity equivalent to about 45% of all electricity sales in the U.S. at 2022 demand levels. In 2022, the U.S. only generated about 1.5% of all the electricity it used from rooftop solar.Climate tax policy reform options in 2025, Bistline et al., Brookings
With the expiration of many tax cuts and unmet climate targets, 2025 could be a crucial year for climate policy in the United States. Using an integrated model of energy supply and demand, the authors assess climate policies that the U.S. government may consider in 2025 across a range of policy scenarios. First, the emissions reductions of the Inflation Reduction Act are significantly augmented under scenarios that add a modest carbon fee or, to a lesser extent, that implement a clean electricity standard in the power sector. Second, net fiscal costs can be substantially reduced in scenarios that include a carbon fee. Third, expanding the IRA tax credits yields modest additional emissions reductions with higher fiscal costs. Finally, although none of the policy combinations across these scenarios achieve the U.S. target of a 50-52% economy-wide emissions reduction by 2030 from 2005 levels, the carbon fee, and clean electricity standard scenarios achieve these levels between 2030 and 2035.People and planet : addressing the interlinked challenges of climate change, poverty and hunger in Asia and the Pacific, Sharpe et al., Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme
The effects of climate change, including slow and sudden onset weather events, are reducing the ability of countries to continue to advance SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger). The authors examine this issue at the regional and sub-regional level, identifying specific effects of climate change on agricultural and labor productivity as well as food supply chains and food security.Energy, Power and Transition. State of Power 2024, Buxton et al., Transnational Institute
The fossil fuel-based energy system has shaped capitalism and our geopolitical order. Our 12th State of Power report unveils the corporate and financial actors that underpin this order, the dangers of an unjust energy transition, lessons for movements of resistance, and the possibilities for transformative change.Measuring Economic Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Change, Joseph Matola, International Development Research Centre
Current climate finance levels are not only inadequate but also badly targeted to reach countries with the most urgent needs. To rectify these trends, it is important to establish the extent of climate change vulnerability and resilience of each country as a new basis for climate finance allocation. Two indices – the Climate Change and Economic Vulnerability Index and the Climate Change and Economic Resilience Index serve this function. These indices have been developed by using relevant economic, social, and climatological data to track the vulnerability and resilience of economies around the world. They show that low-income economies, many of them African, face the highest vulnerabilities and lowest resilience to climate change effects and therefore need more financing. A mapping of the 2021 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) financing disbursements for climate change adaptation against the two indices demonstrates their practical application in climate finance decision-making and allocations. The results show that there has indeed been some misalignment between the OECD’s allocation of adaptation financing and the vulnerability and resilience of different economies. Obtaining articles without journal subscriptionsWe know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article's relevance and importance.
- Here's an excellent collection of tips and techniques for obtaining articles, legally.
- Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50% success rate
- The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you're interested in an article title and it is not listed here as "open access," be sure to check the link anyway.
Most articles appearing here are found via RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance.
Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database.
The objective of New Research isn't to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers' impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:
- Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a "yes" to this automatically.
- Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week's 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.
A few journals offer public access to "preprint" versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. For some key journals this all the mention we'll see in RSS feeds, so we include such items in New Research. These are flagged as "preprint."
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China Briefing 7 March: ‘Two sessions’ readout; BYD’s EV megaships; Power upgrade
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.
China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments New plan to upgrade China’s power systemGRID IMPROVEMENTS: The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Energy Administration (NEA), China’s top economic planner and top energy regulator, respectively, released guidance on improving the grid’s ability to meet electricity demand as more renewable projects come online. The guidance outlines key tasks for local governments and grid companies to strengthen peaking capacity, increase energy storage capacity and develop smart grids, reported energy news outlet IN-EN.com.
PEAKING CAPACITY: In an interview with BJX News, a “responsible” official at the NDRC said that the key goals of the regulation included “commissioning more than 80 gigawatts (GW) of pumped storage power stations, seeing demand-side response capacity exceed 5% of the maximum load and reaching a proportion of more than 20% of new energy power generation in the national energy mix” by 2027. It also requires all coal-fired plants to be retrofitted to become more flexible, if it is possible for them to do so, the outlet added. As part of this, regions that have relatively high proportions of renewable energy, but insufficient peaking capacity, must ensure their coal-fired power plants can run at “below 30% of the[ir] rated load”, David Fishman, senior manager at the Lantau Group, said on Twitter. He added that regions that have reliable access to affordable sources of gas are also permitted to develop gas-fired peaking plants and that nuclear peaking should be explored.
ENERGY STORAGE: In comments attributed to an “official”, China Energy Net said that priorities in developing energy storage capacity included: developing pumped storage, constructing “new energy storage” – predominantly batteries – on the power supply side and developing storage on the user side; optimising the scale and layout of new energy storage for power transmission and distribution; and developing new technologies.
BYD car carriers arrive in EuropeARRIVAL: BYD’s first roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) ship arrived in Germany, bringing a challenge “directly to Europe’s auto-making powerhouse”, Agence France-Presse reported. German newspaper Die Welt also covered the news, saying that “around 3,000 [electric vehicles (EVs) were] brought ashore”, adding that the “200-metre-long ship had previously docked in…the Netherlands”.
PUSHING PRICES DOWN: A comment piece in the Daily Mail argued that the RoRo ship’s arrival heralded Europe being “deluged with Chinese EVs”, which will “act to depress inflation rates that are already falling” as China “export[s]” its own deflation to the rest of the world. Robinson Meyer, the executive editor of Heatmap, wrote in the New York Times: “Chinese carmakers are the first real competition that the global car industry has faced in decades, and American companies must be exposed to some of that threat, for their own good.” Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal reported that increasingly affordable BYD EVs will be a “nightmare for foreign competitors – not just for their EV businesses but their legacy gas-powered ones, too”.
UK INVESTIGATION?: According to Politico, the UK government is thinking about “whether to investigate Chinese state subsidies for EV makers”, although plans are currently “nascent”. The Daily Telegraph also said that the UK is considering placing tariffs on the “flood” of cheap Chinese EVs. Meanwhile, the US commerce department will “investigate potential data and cybersecurity risks posed by Chinese electric vehicles”, Bloomberg reported, with one official saying the Biden administration “isn’t yet calling for a ban of Chinese EVs but could impose some limitations on imports of the vehicles or parts”. The EU, meanwhile, has required China-made EVs to be “registered with customs authorities…as the bloc looks to apply retroactive tariffs” in the face of subsidies given to the industry, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
China issues ‘first’ climate change lawCLIMATE LAW: China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology (MEE) recently held a press briefing on new regulations governing the country’s national emissions trading scheme (ETS), which are effective from 1 May. The law will ensure “quality emission data” and will have “legal teeth to deter illegal activities” that will help impose a fine of not less than five times but not more than 10 times any illegal income, MEE vice minister Zhao Yingmin (who also led the China delegation to COP28) told the press conference, according to a transcript published by China Electric Power News. Once the regulation comes into force, no new local carbon markets will be established and industries that are currently participating in the national scheme will be prevented from joining local-level emission trading pilots, which will help avoid “duplication” of data, said BJX News. Meanwhile, Zhao also raised objections to the EU’s carbon border tax because it unilaterally imposes “additional costs” on poor countries, Bloomberg said, adding that he called collaborating on a global carbon market a “better option”.
CHINA’S FIRST: The carbon trading regulations are China’s “first dedicated legislation” to be issued to address climate change, according to the state-supporting newspaper Global Times. It said they are the first “administrative regulation” to outline the carbon emission trading system, providing a “legal basis for the operation and management of the national carbon market”. The regulation is a “landmark” decision that is of “great significance to the realisation of China’s dual carbon goals”, said Zhao in a recording broadcasted by state news agency Xinhua. Industry outlet China Energy Net reported that the emissions trading system was previously governed by a series of lower-tier “departmental regulations”. It quoted an academic at Renmin University of China saying that the new regulations lay out comparatively “clearer management requirements”.
Emissions targets for manufacturing and mining‘GREEN’ MANUFACTURING: In early March, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the “guiding opinions on accelerating green development of the manufacturing industry”, which plan, among other things, to increase the share of “green” factories in the manufacturing sector to 40% of the sector’s total output by 2030, reported Xinhua. The opinions also set a target that by 2030, the “green and low-carbon transformation” of the industry will “produce a marked effect”, and “the proportion of green and low-carbon energy use [in the sector] will be significantly increased”, while, by 2035, the industry’s “carbon emissions will decrease steadily after reaching the peak [in 2030]” and “green development will become the universal form of new industrialisation”, Jiemian reported. Xin Guobin, MIIT vice minister, said that “energy-saving supervision” of more than 4,300 industrial enterprises will be carried out and energy-saving diagnostic services will be provided to more than 1,800 enterprises to meet the target, reported China News.
EMISSIONS STRATEGY: The opinions aim to address “bottlenecks and shortcomings” that restrict decarbonisation of traditional as well as emerging industries, such as information technology, data centres, chips and other technology-related sectors, reported BJX News. China will develop a “market-oriented green and low-carbon computing power application system” to meet the 2030 green manufacturing target, it added. The aerospace sector will “actively develop” so-called “new energy” aircraft, such as electric aircraft, while the maritime industry will accelerate the development of ships powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, ammonia or batteries, and launch a pilot project for ship electrification, reported Jiemian.
INDUSTRY CATALOGUE: At the same time, China’s NDRC and other departments issued the 2024 edition of a catalogue defining industries that are considered to be part of China’s energy transition, reported IN-EN.com. The outlet noted that the category “clean and low-carbon transition of traditional energy [industries]” included “clean coal production”, “clean and highly-efficient use of coal” and extraction and use of coalbed methane. Another IN-EN.com article said that, in addition to energy production, services such as demand-side management and “green” power trading were also included in the catalogue.
Spotlight What does the 2024 government ‘work report’ say about climate and energy?In this issue, Carbon Brief analyses what the government “work report”, delivered at the “two sessions”, means for climate and energy policy in 2024.
Why is the lianghui important?The lianghui – widely known as the “two sessions” – is the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing, for several days of parliamentary meetings.
Its centrepiece is the “government work report”, a speech traditionally delivered by the premier that underscores successes from the previous year and outlines priorities for the year ahead.
It is also traditionally when China announces its GDP growth target. Alongside the work report, China also releases a report by its top economic planner, the NDRC, and its central and local budget report.
Does the work report include hard climate targets?One of the few quantitative climate targets China set in the report is to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2.5% over the coming year, a target that Bloomberg described as “modest”. The target was lower than analysts’ expectations of 4%, the outlet added.
Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that China would need to reduce its energy intensity by 6% per year to meet its 2025 target of a 13.5% drop in energy intensity, with energy demand falling in absolute terms.
However, the NDRC report said that the 2.5% target reflects the fact that energy consumption will increase this year. Instead, it said that the energy intensity target will now “exclud[e] non-fossil fuels and coal, petroleum and natural gas consumed as raw materials”.
This shift means the government has “redefined” the energy intensity target to mean “fossil fuel intensity”, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior research fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), told Carbon Brief, making the 2025 target “very soft-ball”.
Myllyvirta stated that the report does not address the bigger problem – accelerating growth in energy-intensive sectors to support China’s economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
By his estimate, if China’s energy intensity – under the new calculation – does fall by 2.5%, this would translate to “at best” a 3% fall in carbon intensity, which is “very far from the 7% [fall] they need”, per his recent Carbon Brief analysis, to meet the 2025 target of an 18% reduction in carbon intensity.
Is the report ambitious on climate?The work report makes no significant changes to China’s direction of travel on climate and energy policy. Instead, the language around these policies continued to balance tensions inherent to China’s energy transition.
The report signalled that China will continue to manage the relative prioritisation of “both high-quality development and greater security”. It also asked policymakers to “actively” and “prudently” make efforts to reach China’s dual carbon goals.
Efforts will be made to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as to develop large-scale wind and solar bases and distributed energy, it said. But, at the same time, the report also doubled down on the commitment to fossil fuels.
Coal will continue to play a “crucial role in ensuring energy supply”, it said, while China increases development of oil, gas and strategic minerals in the name of security.
“You could almost see the government struggling with the language,” Li Shuo, director of ASPI’s China climate hub, told Carbon Brief. He added that there “seems to be an increasing lack of consistency” both in the report and in other policy papers.
He attributed this to the increasingly challenging situation facing the government and competing interests within the political system.
“We’re getting very concerned” about China’s ability to meet its wider climate goals, Li said. Based on the recent surge in energy consumption, “it is going to be very challenging for China to hit [its energy and carbon intensity] targets. They certainly will not be able to meet those targets if they stick to…2.5% [annual] energy intensity reduction.”
Will China continue to boost ‘green’ innovation?The government work report trumpeted China’s clean-energy development in 2023, including growing installations of renewable energy, its contributions to the global energy transition and the 30% growth in exports of the “new three” industries.
(Previous analysis for Carbon Brief found that clean technologies – particularly the “new three” – were the top driver of China’s economic growth last year.)
Going forward, China will “consolidate and enhance [its] leading position” in industries such as electric vehicles and hydrogen, and “create new ways of storing energy”, the report said.
It also pledged to “implement…‘small and beautiful’ projects” in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries.
“I [can’t] think of a[nother] country where the economic agenda and the climate agenda are so aligned,” Li tells Carbon Brief. “The challenge for China is when and how and how fast will the positive[s]” lead to the “phasing down or the phasing out of the dirtier [aspects].”
What next?The government work report merely sets the framework for the year. Ministries and local governments must now develop concrete policies to meet its goals.
Whether and how China progresses towards its dual carbon goals depends on how they interpret and implement the report’s signals.
220The maximum amount of solar capacity, in gigawatts (GW), that China could add in 2024, according to a presentation by China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) honorary chairman Wang Bohua. (Total solar capacity in the EU stood at 200GW at the end of 2022.)
Watch, read, listenCRITICAL MINERALS: Trivium China analysed which critical minerals – important for the manufacturing of many clean-energy technologies – are at greater risk of having export controls placed on them by China.
EXIT INTERVIEW: Outgoing US climate envoy John Kerry told the New Yorker that “China is teeing up to be in a position to surprise the world” with its ability to meet its climate commitments.
ENVIRONMENTAL MULTILATERALISM: China Daily interviewed Gu Shuzhong, a senior research fellow from the Institute of Resource and Environmental Policy under the Chinese government thinktank the Development Research Center, about a new environmental policy group and US-China climate cooperation.
MEGABASES: On the Switched On podcast, BloombergNEF analysts Tianyi Zhao and Xiangyu Chen explained the role of renewable energy “megabases” in China’s clean energy transition.
New scienceScience of the Total Environment
New research found that “differences in thermal comfort, outdoor activity duration and social vulnerability” meant that women faced a higher heat risk than men in China between 1991 and 2020. This was less prevalent in southern regions than the “severe” disparity in northern regions, it said. The study added that male overheating risk was “mainly attributed to population clustering associated with prolonged outdoor activity time and skewed social resource allocation”, whereas female overheating risk was “primarily affected by social inequalities”.
No more coal abroad! Unpacking the drivers of China’s green shift in overseas energy finance
Energy Research and Social Science
Through a new analytical framework as well as elite interviews, policy documents and media reports, a study determined that the decision by China’s leadership to stop funding overseas coal power projects was due to “the combined outcome of three mechanisms: issue linkages in intergovernmental bargaining, lobbying of transnational alliances and influence of domestic interest groups seeking policy change”.
Using machine learning to analyse the changes in extreme precipitation in Southern China
Atmospheric Research
Researchers applied a “convolutional neural network” – a type of machine learning algorithm – to correctly identify 96% of extreme precipitation events in southern China. A certain circulation pattern identified by the algorithm to be an “extreme precipitation circulation pattern”, was found to be linked to extreme precipitation events, as a decline in the frequency of the circulation pattern indicated a decrease in extreme precipitation events.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
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All this climate data is wild
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Kristen Pope
An elephant seal dives deeper than 1,000 meters below Antarctic waters with a tiny tag affixed to its fur, helping scientists collect valuable data about climate change. In Mongolia, pigeons fly around the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, with sensors on their bodies that help gauge air pollution.
A recent Nature Climate Change article notes that more than 1,000 animal species have worn sensors to gather data in places where measurement has always been difficult. In this way, elephants, wildebeests, caribou, pigeons, seals, and other animals have helped fill gaps in knowledge of our changing climate.
Millions of observations have been collected using these methods, according to the paper by Diego Ellis-Soto, Ph.D. candidate at Yale University, and his co-authors. It’s a much-needed supplement to data collected from sensors connected to objects such as ocean buoys, Earth-orbiting satellites, and terrestrial weather stations. These sensors provide valuable data but there are too few of them to gather sufficient data points to reflect microclimates and short-term patterns associated with climate change. Meanwhile, satellites have limited resolution and can be thwarted by clouds.
“Animals overall can go to places that are very hard to reach, such as polar regions on the ocean, tropical rainforests, tops of mountains, remote Pacific islands,” Ellis-Soto says. “So they can fill important gaps in our meteorological weather forecasting system. For example, there are few weather stations at elevations above 2,000 meters, but mountains are some of the most complex regions for predicting weather and are experiencing rapid changes under climate change.”
Animals have collected millions of observations about everything from air and water temperature to wind speed and direction to sea salinity. They have helped scientists learn about turbulence, air pollution, species movement and locations, and more. Animals can also be present for extreme events like heat waves, which Ellis-Soto notes are difficult to design experiments around.
A white stork (Ciconia ciconia) fitted with a transmitter carrying piece of plastic. (Photo credit: Charles J. Sharp / CC BY-NC 4.0) Credit: Charles J Sharp.+44 7917562756.+
“A weather station may be 100 kilometers away, for example, from an animal and give us a very unrealistic representation of the environmental condition the animal is experiencing,” Ellis-Soto says. “For example, the bird was under shade in a tree during a heat wave but a weather station lies open on the grass.”
Whereas weather stations are generally lower than 2,000 meters in elevation, a number of birds fly well above that height. Rüppel’s Griffons, for instance, can reach 11,000 meters, cruising altitude for a commercial aircraft. Bar-headed geese can fly more than 7,000 meters high in the Himalayas. In the oceans, whales, seals, and other animals can gather crucial data on everything from mesoscale eddies to variations in water temperatures.
Migratory white storks have collected information including GPS tracking of their movements and acceleration. In Mongolia, sensors on urban pigeons monitor Ulaanbaatar’s air quality. Homing pigeons, which are trained to fly to areas and return, are a particularly helpful species, the authors noted. They gather data on everything from heat stress to air pollution, wind speed, and more.
Deep ocean discoveriesThe deep ocean is hostile to humans trying to collect data, but animals that dive deep into the ocean can gather information that can ultimately help protect their habitat. The recent Nature Climate Change article noted that one of the first uses of animal-borne sensors was a capillary depth gauge placed on a whale in 1940 to learn more about its physiology while diving.
Animal-borne sensors collect substantial volumes of ocean data to complement that gathered by Argo floats, ship measurements, and gliders. Seals have collected more than 500,000 oceanographic profiles.
Elephant seals have collected data used by researchers including Karen Heywood, professor of physical oceanography at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. She and other researchers on her team used more than 6,700 temperature and salinity profiles collected by seals in the Amundsen Sea to learn about the temperature and salinity of water layers in a trough. They reported their findings in a 2018 paper in Geophysical Research Letters, “Variation in the Distribution and Properties of Circumpolar Deep Water in the Eastern Amundsen Sea, on Seasonal Timescales, Using Seal-Borne Tags.”
“A huge benefit to us as physical ocean scientists is that the tags also help us to monitor climate as it changes and to understand the ocean processes such as currents or interaction between the ocean and the sea ice or ice shelves,” Heywood says.
The tags, which are glued to the seals’ fur, fall off during their annual molt. She says elephant seals can dive 1,000 meters or more “which gives us priceless data from the whole water column.” They learn about where the seals forage and see if they target areas with particular characteristics, such as temperature or salinity, sea ice, or other features.
(Photo credit: Pablo Fernicola / CC BY-NC 2.0) Credit: Pablo Fernicola
“The seals are now the major source of vertical profiles of ocean temperature in the polar regions — we get far more data from them than any other measuring methods, like ships,” Heywood says. “The seals mean we can get data in the winter in areas that are covered in sea ice. There are also places that are risky for ships to get to, like the fronts of ice shelves that are calving to form icebergs — sometimes the seals choose to go there where we wouldn’t want to send a ship.”
Scientists also appreciate that seals collect data year-round, whereas ships only collect data during the summer because they can’t reach the areas in the winter. Leaving instruments toward the top of the water column in the winter would leave those instruments vulnerable to being damaged or moved by icebergs.
“We need to get those critical winter measurements now so they are a baseline for the future,” Heywood says. “The winter measurements are also really useful for checking that the climate models that we use for predicting future climate and sea level rise are correctly representing the processes such as heat loss to the atmosphere, or sea ice formation and melting. It’s actually difficult for the climate modelers to make sure their models are working correctly for regions or times of year where there are just no observations to compare with.”
Using animal-borne sensors does have its challenges. An animal’s body heat affects measurements, and there are non-random movements, GPS errors, and other factors. But today’s sensors are small, light, and unobtrusive to animals. As sensors adapt further and become smaller and less expensive, they could be an even better tool to help with climate forecasting
“Obviously we have to ensure that installing and carrying the sensor has no impact on the animal’s life — for example their ability to feed or mate,” Heywood says. “Gaining climate data from a sensor on an animal should feed back some benefits to the species, making sure their habitat is properly managed and not over-exploited.”
UK spring budget 2024: Key climate and energy announcements
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt failed to mention the term “climate change” at all when setting out the government’s spring budget – the first since it was confirmed that 2023 was Earth’s hottest year on record.
As expected, Hunt used his budget speech to announce that the government is freezing fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
As of 2023, this policy had added up to 7% to UK emissions, according to previous Carbon Brief analysis.
The chancellor also announced a year-long extension to the windfall tax on oil-and-gas companies, but failed to commit to spending the money raised on new climate investments.
Hunt did not offer any new policies to help boost the rollout of key low-carbon technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps.
He also pledged no further changes to the government’s long-term regime of maximising oil and gas production.
Overall, despite some confirmation of further funding for supply chains, analysts described the budget as a “missed opportunity” for boosting low-carbon industries and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels in the UK.
Alongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
With a UK general election on the horizon – and Labour enjoying a substantial lead in the polls – this budget is likely to be Hunt’s last as chancellor.
Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key announcements.
Fuel dutyThe government has frozen fuel duty on petrol and diesel for the 14th year in a row.
This persistent policy amounts to a significant tax cut, as fuel duty has dropped considerably in real terms over the years rather than rising with inflation.
The freeze makes it cheaper to drive a car and reduces the incentive to use more fuel-efficient models. As of 2023, Carbon Brief calculated that fuel duty freezes had increased UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by up to 7%.
Hunt has also opted to retain an extra 5p cut in duty, which was first introduced in 2022 to address rising fuel costs. This reduced the rate on petrol and diesel from 57.95p per litre to 52.95p.
In the 2022 spring statement, it was described as a temporary measure. The government stated the 5p cut would end on 23 March 2024 “as part of the government’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and ensuring trust and confidence in our national finances”.
However, Hunt announced that it will remain in place for another year. This is despite fuel prices now being comfortably lower than they were during the energy crisis.
These two measures have been a major drain on public finances.
Together, they will cost the Treasury £3.1bn in 2024-25, with a cumulative cost of around £90bn since 2010, according to official figures released by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Analysis performed by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) in the run up to the spring budget places the cumulative figure far higher, at £130bn.
The thinktank adds that the cost of maintaining fuel duty freezes would rise to more than £200bn by 2030 – “enough to fund the entire NHS for a year”.
With the government under pressure from the right of the Conservative party and the right-leaning press to cut taxes, the fuel-duty freeze was trailed in the Times ahead of the budget as one of the “two main tax cuts” planned by the chancellor, along with a reduction in national insurance.
The Sun claimed responsibility for Hunt’s continued fuel duty freeze, due to the newspaper’s long-standing “Keep It Down” campaign, which it runs with the climate-sceptic lobbyist and Reform Party London mayoral candidate Howard Cox. A recent Sun editorial stated:
“Seven Tory chancellors have cursed us for it. To them it has ‘cost’ £90bn in tax they would love to have spent.”
Instead, the Sun points to the benefits for “British motorists”. Pro-motoring lobbyists have argued that a fuel-duty cut is a necessary bulwark against the “war on motorists” taking place in the UK. The government has absorbed this message, with prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing last year he was “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists”.
The government describes its fuel duty freeze as part of its efforts to “support people with the cost of living”.
The opposition Labour Party has also backed the fuel-duty freeze on these grounds. Last year, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves threw her weight behind it to help the “many families and businesses reliant on their cars”.
Yet analysis by the SMF shows that, despite rhetoric that emphasises benefits for ordinary, hard-working people, fuel-duty cuts disproportionately benefit wealthier people. This is because they are more likely to own cars and the cars they own are more likely to be less fuel-efficient models, such as SUVs.
As a result, the thinktank says maintaining the 2022 fuel-duty cut will save the UK’s richest people around three times as much money as the nation’s poorest.
Moreover, analysis by the RAC Foundation at the end of 2023 found that the government’s cuts to fuel prices had not all been passed onto consumers. Instead, it concluded that fossil-fuel retailers had kept savings from lower wholesale costs for themselves, leaving drivers “paying 10p [per litre] more than they should be”.
Meanwhile, the cost of bus and coach fares has risen far more than the cost of running a car, as rail fares in England and Wales increased by 5% this year.
The SMF has proposed that investment in public transport would be a more effective way to save households money.
Others have suggested that such investments could also be a major driver of economic growth. For example, government advisors at the National Infrastructure Commission argued last year that the UK should invest £22bn in mass transit schemes outside London in the coming years.
Instead, the most significant public-transport policy the government has introduced in recent months has been cancelling the northern leg of the HS2 train line.
Air passenger dutyHunt also announced an increase in air passenger duty on “non-economy” passengers as a revenue-raising measure to help pay for tax cuts elsewhere.
As a result, those flying business class, premium economy, first class or in private jets will pay a higher price for plane tickets.
This policy will raise between £110m and £140m annually from 2025 through to 2029, according to government figures.
The budget document explains that this is a measure to bring air passenger duty in line with high inflation and maintain its value in real terms.
Nevertheless, it emphasises that for the 70% of passengers flying economy, or on short-haul flights, “rates will remain frozen” in order to “keep the cost of flying down”.
In fact, in 2021 when Sunak was chancellor, the government cut air passenger duty in half for domestic flights, making air travel cheaper within the UK. Reversing this change would bring in an extra £69m to the Treasury, according to the Campaign for Better Transport.
Campaigners have proposed a more expansive “frequent flyer levy” in order to actively discourage flying and cut emissions from aviation, which accounts for around 3% of UK emissions.
According to New Economics Foundation modelling, this could have raised £4bn in revenues in 2022.
As it stands, the government has no explicit plans to reduce demand for air travel in the UK. This is despite such plans being flagged repeatedly by government climate advisors the Climate Change Committee (CCC) as a missing part of the UK’s strategy to reach net-zero.
Windfall taxHunt used his budget to extend the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies by another year, bringing its scheduled end date to March 2029.
This was despite opposition from Scottish Conservatives, according to BBC News – and the energy secretary Claire Coutinho, according to Politico.
He told parliament this extension would raise £1.5bn. However, he did not say what this additional money would be spent on.
He added that the “energy profits levy”, as the windfall tax is known, would be abolished “should market prices fall to their historic norm for a sustained period of time”.
In a statement, Kate Mulvany, principal consultant at consultancy Cornwall Insight, said that the move “could be seen as positive for decarbonisation if the resulting profits are used to deliver the UK’s net-zero plan”, but added:
“Yet, without a solid transition strategy away from the UK’s oil and gas dependence and no assurance that tax revenues will directly support decarbonisation initiatives, the potential upheaval in investment could outweigh the benefits.”
Ahead of the budget, both the Times and Bloomberg reported that the tax extension was being described as one of the measures that could help fund Hunt’s 2p cut in national insurance.
Labour has also proposed extending the tax by a year, if elected to power, Politico reported. Additionally, Labour intends to raise the levy on oil-and-gas company profits from 75% to 78%. It has pledged to spend the money raised on low-carbon investments.
Oil-and-gas trade group Offshore Energies UK has called the Labour proposal “alarming” and claimed that it could lead to job losses in the sector. (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck of misleading claims surrounding North Sea oil and gas.)
Elsewhere in his budget speech, Hunt did not commit to any other changes on fossil-fuel investment policies.
This was to the dismay of many environmental groups and energy experts, who had urged the chancellor to commit to new measures to end reliance on oil and gas. In a statement, Esin Serin, policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said:
“The chancellor should be making more of the tax system to drive the transition away from fossil fuels.”
Clean technologyHunt announced that the government is buying two nuclear sites from Hitachi for £160m, in a move reportedly aimed at quickly delivering nuclear expansion plans.
The sites are at Wylfa in Anglesey, Wales and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. The decision follows a period of uncertainty for Wylfa, after the closure of the previous nuclear power plant at the site in 2015.
Hitachi had planned to build a new 2.9 gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant on the site for a reported £20bn. However, the Japanese conglomerate announced it was shelving the plans in 2019.
Additionally, Hunt announced that the government has moved onto the next stage in its competition to build “small modular reactors” (SMRs). There are now six companies that have been invited to submit their initial tender responses by June.
The chancellor confirmed a £120m increase in funding for the “green industries growth accelerator” (GIGA), a fund designed to support the expansion of ”strong and sustainable clean energy supply chains” in the UK. The increase was announced earlier this week.
This will bring the total amount in the fund to £1.1bn, according to the budget documents, up from £960m announced in the autumn statement in November.
GIGA is designed to support carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS), engineered greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) and hydrogen, offshore wind and electricity networks, as well as civil nuclear power.
The fund will be split between these sectors, with around £390m earmarked for electricity networks and offshore wind supply chains, and around £390m earmarked for CCUS and hydrogen, the treasury’s note stated.
In January, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announced £300m will be used to fund the production of a type of nuclear fuel known as “high-assay low-enriched uranium” (HALEU). Currently, Russia is the only producer of HALEU, so the domestic production plan is designed to help end “Russia’s reign”, the government states, as well as to support the UK’s wider plans to deliver “up to” 24GW of nuclear power by 2050.
In a statement, trade association RenewableUK’s chief executive Dan McGrail said:
“The increase in GIGA funding to secure further private investment in green manufacturing jobs will enable us to supply more goods and services to projects here and abroad. It’s also good to see that nearly £400m of that funding will be used specifically to grow our offshore wind supply chain and electricity networks.”
Additionally, earlier this week the government trailed £360m for manufacturing projects and for research and development. This includes almost £73m in combined government and industry investment in the development of electric vehicle (EV) technology.
This will be supported by more than £36m of government funding awarded through the UK’s “advanced propulsion centre”, the Treasury notes, including four projects that are developing technologies for battery EVs.
Renewable auction budgetAlongside the budget, the government also confirmed key details of its sixth auction (AR6) round for new renewable energy projects, including a pot worth just over £1bn.
This follows last year’s fifth auction round, which failed to secure any new offshore wind projects for the first time.
The budget documents said the £1bn budget for AR6 is the “largest ever” and includes £800m specifically for offshore wind.
If winning projects bid at the maximum price for offshore wind announced last year of £73 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2012 prices, then the £800m budget would only be sufficient to secure just 3GW of new capacity, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
However, consultancy LCP Delta said it could be sufficient to secure 4-6GW of new capacity, implying that it assumes winning projects will bid at prices around £50-60/MWh. In a statement, it added:
“This is certainly a welcome development given last year’s failed auction. However, it may not be enough to get the UK back on track with time running out to build the additional 23GW needed [to meet its 50GW target] by 2030.”
Similarly, trade association Energy UK says the auction pot could secure 3-5GW of new offshore wind, depending where project bid prices sit in a range of £55-£70/MWh.
The government has a target of building 50GW of offshore wind by 2030. There is currently around 15GW in operation and another 14GW either under construction, awarded a contract or having already taken a final investment decision, notes Energy UK.
This means another 21GW of new capacity would be needed to hit the 50GW by 2030 target, implying a need for at least 10GW in each of the next two auction rounds, according to the industry body.
New analysis produced by the body following the budget suggests that the AR6 parameters make it unlikely the auction will hit the level of capacity required, leaving a shortfall of at least 16GW, which would be “extremely difficult” to fill in AR7 alone.
In addition to the £800m pot for offshore wind, the government has confirmed the upcoming auction will include up to £105m for “pot two” technologies including onshore wind, solar, energy from waste with combined heat and power and others, as well as £120m for “pot three” technologies including floating offshore wind, geothermal, tidal stream, wave and others.
Within the CfD announcement and the spring budget, the government notes that it is “making progress” on the network reforms announced at last year’s autumn statement.
This includes publishing a consultation on a new accelerated planning service for commercial grid applications, which has come as a result of a previous consultation on operational reforms to the nationally significant infrastructure project regime. The government has also updated its national networks national policy statement.
Additionally, since the autumn statement last November, over 40GW of energy projects have been offered earlier grid connection dates, the budget states. This accelerates up to £40bn in investment.
To further aid grid connections, National Grid Electricity System Operator is inserting delivery milestones into over 1,000 connection contracts, in an effort to remove stalled projects from the grid connection queue from this coming autumn, the budget notes.
Susanna Elks, E3G senior policy Advisor for the UK electricity transition at thinktank E3G said the reforms to electricity networks and “beefed-up budget” for the CfD suggests the Conservatives “can’t ignore that low-cost renewables are the growth engine of the future”. She adds:
“While today’s announcement is welcome, the UK still lacks an overarching plan to create a clean low-cost electricity system– with a failure to provide support for hydrogen-to-power, long-term storage and demand side flexibility. These are key technologies which could help end our addiction to expensive polluting gas, while reducing bills for consumers.”
Electric carsAhead of the budget, an open letter by the motoring lobby group FairCharge called on the chancellor to end the higher rates of VAT on public electric car charging, when compared to home charging.
People who charge their EVs at home only pay 5% VAT on their bills, but the 38% of the population without driveways who would have to use public chargers pay the full VAT rate of 20%, presenting a “charging injustice”, the group told the Daily Mirror.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders also called for VAT on public EV charging points to be cut, to be in line with the VAT on home charging points.
Speaking to the Times, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the group, said that high VAT rates on public charging points were part of a “triple tax barrier” to more private ownership of EVs.
He also urged the chancellor to reverse proposed excise duty changes that treat upmarket electric cars as luxuries rather than essentials, increasing car taxes by up to £2,000, and to cut the 20% VAT that new car buyers have to pay on new EVs.
However, during the budget, Hunt did not mention any new measures to boost EVs.
Analysis: UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879
Coal
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At a glance - Human activity is driving retreat of arctic sea ice
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "Human activity is driving retreat of Arctic sea ice". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glanceThe Northwest Passage is the sea route around the waters off northern Canada and Alaska. Its discovery and eventual navigation involves a fascinating tale of endeavour, adventure and tragedy, too, for some expeditions ended in disaster.
Of the many mishaps, by far the worst was that which befell Sir John Franklin and the 128-strong crews of his two ships: they were last heard of in 1845. It took many expeditions and almost ten years before their fate was finally pieced together. One thing became clear by then: the Northwest Passage does not take prisoners. Yet at the same time, those searches for Franklin and his crew generated lots of new chart cover of the waters between the islands making up the Canadian Archipelago.
Complete navigation of the Northwest Passage was finally accomplished by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen between 1903 and 1906. Amundsen's boat was relatively small at 47 tons and 70 feet long but usefully it had a very shallow draft. That meant it was able to pass through areas where a bigger boat would have fouled the bottom, thus offering a wider choice of courses to take. Amundsen's route was criticised in some circles because of that factor - what was the point of making the crossing if bigger freight ships could not? But Amundsen was motivated not by money but by science.
With his experienced crew of six, they spent two winters off the eastern side of King William Island, about halfway through the archipelago, collecting data on Earth's magnetic pole and local meteorology, traded with the Inuit and developed hunting and fishing skills. Leaving there in August 1905, they reached Nome, Alaska twelve months later. The ice had pinned them in for a third winter. There was not to be a single-season crossing for another 38 years, when Sergeant Henry Larsen of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police managed it in a schooner.
So yes, while the Northwest Passage was successfully navigated before 2007, the current state of the sea ice means that the picture is now quite different. Part of the reason for that is down to the age of much of the Arctic sea ice today. Sea ice that has yet to experience a summer melting season is known as first-year ice. It's relatively thin, fragile and more vulnerable to melting compared to the ice that has withstood one or more melting-seasons, known as multiyear ice. Multiyear ice can even give a good ice-breaker a run for its money. But now there's a lot less of it.
During many recent summers the Northwest Passage has become open: freight ships and even cruise liners have steamed through. That doesn't mean it's risk-free of course - there are still icebergs to watch out for. Nevertheless, it's getting to the point where there are various concerns being voiced about the number of ships passing through the area, on both ecological and political grounds. For the Northwest Passage, global warming really is a mixed blessing.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "At a glance" section. Read a more technical version below or dig deeper via the tabs above!
Click for Further detailsIn case you'd like to explore more of our recently updated rebuttals, here are the links to all of them:
Myths with link to rebuttal Short URLs Ice age predicted in the 1970s sks.to/1970s It hasn't warmed since 1998 sks.to/1998 Antarctica is gaining ice sks.to/antarctica CRU emails suggest conspiracy sks.to/climategate What evidence is there for the hockey stick sks.to/hockey CO2 lags temperature sks.to/lag Climate's changed before sks.to/past It's the sun sks.to/sun Temperature records are unreliable sks.to/temp The greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics sks.to/thermo We're heading into an ice age sks.to/iceage Positives and negatives of global warming sks.to/impacts The 97% consensus on global warming sks.to/consensus Global cooling - Is global warming still happening? sks.to/cooling How reliable are climate models? sks.to/model Can animals and plants adapt to global warming? sks.to/species What's the link between cosmic rays and climate change? sks.to/cosmic Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth accurate? sks.to/gore Are glaciers growing or retreating? sks.to/glacier Ocean acidification: global warming's evil twin sks.to/acid The human fingerprint in global warming sks.to/agw Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming sks.to/evidence How do we know more CO2 is causing warming? sks.to/greenhouse Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works sks.to/vapor The tricks employed by the flawed OISM Petition Project to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change sks.to/OISM Is extreme weather caused by global warming? sks.to/extreme How substances in trace amounts can cause large effects sks.to/trace How much is sea level rising? sks.to/sealevel Is CO2 a pollutant? sks.to/pollutant Does cold weather disprove global warming? sks.to/cold Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans? sks.to/volcano How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions? sks.to/co2 Climate scientists could make more money in other careers sks.to/money How reliable are CO2 measurements? sks.to/co2data Do high levels of CO2 in the past contradict the warming effect of CO2? sks.to/pastco2 What is the net feedback of clouds? sks.to/cloud Global warming vs climate change sks.to/name Is Mars warming? sks.to/mars How the IPCC is more likely to underestimate the climate response sks.to/underestimat How sensitive is our climate? sks.to/sensitivity Evidence for global warming sks.to/warming Has the greenhouse effect been falsified? sks.to/falsify Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere? sks.to/breath What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2? sks.to/CO2increase What is methane's contribution to global warming? sks.to/methane Plants cannot live on CO2 alone sks.to/plant Is the CO2 effect saturated? sks.to/saturate Greenhouse warming 100 times greater than waste heat sks.to/waste How will global warming affect polar bears? sks.to/bear The runaway greenhouse effect on Venus sks.to/venus What climate change is happening to other planets in the solar system? sks.to/planets Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal? sks.to/arctic Was Greenland really green in the past? sks.to/green Is Greenland gaining or losing ice? sks.to/greenland Human activity is driving retreat of Arctic sea ice sks.to/arcticcycle
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Great Lakes ice coverage hits a record low
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Ice extent on the Great Lakes hit a record low February 8 and has remained at record low levels as of February 16 as a result of the warmest winter on record over much of the region. For the U.S. portion of the Great Lakes region, the November 30-February 14 period was mostly between the first- and third-warmest on record (Figure 1). The Canadian portion of the Great Lakes was also record-warm to near record-warm. In Chicago, 87% of the days from December 1-February 14 had average- to above-average temperatures.
Figure 1. Ranking of Midwest U.S. average temperatures for November 30, 2023-February 14, 2024, for the period beginning in 1893. The region surrounding the Great Lakes was mostly between the first- and third-warmest on record. (Image credit: Iowa Environmental Mesonet)
A 10-day cold snap in mid-January in the region was not intense enough to allow much ice to grow on the Great Lakes, and January ice extent was just 6% of the lake surface, compared to the 50-year average of 18%. This was the ninth-lowest January ice level on record. If the peak ice coverage of 18% on January 22 winds up being the winter maximum, 2024 will end up with the fourth-lowest maximum extent on record, behind 2002 (12%), 2012 (13%), and 1998 (14%).
As of February 15, the Great Lakes Ice Tracker reported that ice coverage on the lakes was just 4% — about 10 times lower than average. The barest ice cupboard was being kept in Lake Erie, which had zero ice cover, compared to the average of over 65% expected for the date. With the forecast for the remainder of February calling for mostly above-average temperatures, ice cover on the Great Lakes is likely to be at record- to near-record low levels for the rest of the ice season.
Figure 2. Ice cover on the five Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) during 2024 (black line) compared to average (red line). Thin blue lines show the ice coverage for every year from 1973-2023. Ice cover has been at a record low since February 8. (Image credit: NOAA/GLERL)
How global warming affects the Great LakesSince 1973, ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined by about 25%, and the length of ice season (5% ice coverage or higher) has declined by 27 days, according to Climate Central. So far in 2024, the Great Lakes have had only 26 days with ice coverage exceeding 5%, and the record for fewest days with 5% ice coverage — 45, set in 2012 — appears likely to be broken.
Less ice cover is a problem because it allows increased shoreline erosion: Wave action along the coast occurs for longer periods during the season with some of the most powerful storms. The decrease in ice also enables higher evaporation rates, leading to more lake effect snow and lower lake water levels. On the positive side, less ice allows for a longer shipping season — though increased dredging is required to keep ports open since the lack of ice allows more sediment transport by currents and waves.
The Great Lakes are among the fastest-warming lakes in the world, and water temperatures in all five Great Lakes have been record-warm or near record-warm for all of February 2024, according to NOAA. Over the past 50 years, summertime water temperatures have warmed by about five degrees Fahrenheit (3°C) in Lake Superior and Lake Huron, and by about three degrees Fahrenheit (1.7°C) in Lake Michigan and Lake Erie (Figure 3). Lake Ontario summer lake surface temperatures increased by an average of 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit between 1968 and 2002 and have increased more since then. The rapid warming has hurt fish populations and caused an increase in harmful algal blooms, according to the 2023 National Climate Assessment.
Figure 3. Summer water temperatures on four of the Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie have increased by about 3-5°F since 1980. (Image credit: 2023 National Climate Assessment)
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #09
This week's big news is close to home for Skeptical Science and comes via UNICEF: Seriously Cranky: the uncle we all have helps build the skills we all need to resist misinformation (pdf). It's a story spanning an arc of progress beginning with fundamental research by Skeptical Science founder John Cook and ending with operational application of findings from that investigation-- now in multiple arenas including and beyond Skeptical Science's core mission of promoting accurate understanding of the science of climate change.
We're speaking of Cranky Uncle, a game built on scientifically tested and verified methods of improving critical thinking skills, first deployed to help people avoid being mentally infected with climate bunk transmitted by a veritable zoo of grifters attached to the fossil fuel industry. The same techniques and delivery framework for boosting cognitive competency have now successfully been adopted and adapted for combating vaccination hesitancy and reluctance, by UNICEF and with the assistance of John Cook and Skeptical Science.
Conceptualization, exploration and funding for creating Cranky Uncle came thanks to and via Skeptical Science's own internal and external contributors. Without Skeptical Science in the picture UNICEF's successful project to help save lives wouldn't have been possible. All who assisted may share pleasure plus at least a little pride in this outcome. Our ripples of progress travel far. It's a great true story!
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:Before February 25
- Designing Impactful Climate Literacy Education for Emergency Management-and Beyond, State of the Planet, Olga Rukovets. Emergency managers are tasked with preparation, response, mitigation and recovery from natural hazards leading to disasters and other emergencies—a responsibility that has grown increasingly challenging as climate impacts become more frequent and less predictable.
- Does the 'drug dealer defence' still hold up in climate law cases?, Latest business news, Jo Lauder. The Australian federal government is using a ''drug dealer's defence'' and a ''drop in the ocean'' argument in its assessment of two coal mine expansions.
- CCS Redux: Capturing CO2 From Exhaust Pipes Is A Bad Idea That Won`t Die, CleanTechnica, Michael Barnard. So here’s an idea. A lot of CO2 comes from cars and light trucks, right? So why don’t we just capture it in the car itself?
- 'Climate contrarianism' is down but not out, expert says, Phys.org, Clay Bonnyman Evans, University of Colorado at Boulder. Researcher Max Boycoff finds climate science being added to a stew of reactionary causes.
- Climate books for Black History Month, Yale Climate Connections, Michael Svoboda. 'In this very political year, the fight for a sustainable future is also a fight for a fair and equitable society.''
- Thrown to the wind' — are wind farms really killing whales?, potholer54 on Youtube, Peter Hadfield. A video rebuttal to Michael Shellenberger's video 'Thrown to the Wind'. It looks at the issue of whether wind farms are killing whales, as the title suggests.
- ‘Blue’ Hydrogen Could Produce 50% More Warming than Burning Fossil Fuels, The Energy Mix, Mitchell Beer.
- Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row, The Observer, Graham Readfearn. The extent of ice floating around the continent has contracted to below 2m sq km for three years in a row, indicating an ‘abrupt critical transition’
- Are food influencers wrong about climate change?, ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy. ClimateAdam talks about the connections between food and climate change in his latest video.
February 25
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #08, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler. Last week's compilation of articles we found relevant
- Climate change is throwing the water cycle into chaos across the U.S., NBC News, Denise Chow and Evan Bush. As the planet continues to warm, this cycle is expected to be increasingly stretched, warped and broken.
- One of the world’s biggest cities may be just months away from running out of water, World/Climate, CNN, Laura Paddison, Jack Guy & Fidel Gutiérrez.
February 26
- UN member states are meeting to plan how to tackle the world’s environmental crises, Climate, AP News , Carlos Mureithi.
- The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is rapidly melting. Scientists now have evidence for when it started and why, Climate/World, CNN, Laura Paddison.
- All this climate data is wild, Yale Climate Connections, Kristen Pope. Animals wearing sensors gather tremendous amounts of data from forbidding regions such as high altitudes, ocean depths, and frozen areas near the poles.
- `A Trojan horse of legitimacy`: Shell launches a `climate tech` startup advertising jobs in oil and gas, The Guardian, Molly Taft. Onward touts a vision of a ‘clean energy future’, but experts say ventures like this are part of fossil fuel firms’ greenwashing plan
February 27
- At a glance - Is Greenland gaining or losing ice?, Skeptical Science, John Mason. Highlighting our 54th updated rebuttal since we started the project about a year ago!
- How to recycle the giant magnets inside wind turbines? These scientists have a few ideas., Grist, Maddie Stone. Many turbines rely on high-demand rare-earth minerals. A new Department of Energy program aims to keep them out of landfills.
- How psychology can help people live more climate-friendly lives – lessons from around the world, The Conversation Europe, Chiara Longoni & Kimberly Doell. Different climate policies will work in different places, communities and contexts, so new research that highlights the nuances could be a vital tool.
- Trump's Green-Bashing and Europe's Right Put Climate Goals at Risk, Bloomberg Green, Laura Millan, Zahra Hirji, Olivia Rudgard, & Jonathan Gilbert. "Climate policy has become a political flash point in the US and Europe, risking to slow down the energy transition when it needs to speed up."
February 28
- Explained: Carbon credits, MIT News, David L. Chandler. Can carbon trading systems reduce global emissions, or are they little more than greenwashing? Clear, enforceable standards may make the difference.
- Climate change could cause 'generational trauma' in great apes, CBC Technology News, Anand Ram. They’re just like us — and wildfires, floods and droughts could drive them to extinction
- Michael Mann beat his defamers. But climate scientists are still under attack., Yale Climate Connections, Lauren Kurtz. Climate scientists report that death threats and online harassment are causing anxiety, sleeping problems, and loss of productivity .
- Exxon CEO blames public for failure to fix climate change, TheHill, Saul Elbein.
- Anti-Renewable Group Says It Met Privately with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, DeSmog, Geoff Dembicki. Wind Concerns founder has called CO2 the ‘gas of life’ and praised the province’s ban on new wind and solar projects.
- Q&A: What does the EU `nature restoration` law mean for climate and biodiversity?, Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff. The EU’s law to restore nature was given the green light by the European parliament this week.
February 29
- The human cost of climate-related disasters is acutely undercounted, new study says, NPR, Alejandra Borunda.
- Has Antarctic sea ice shifted into a new state?, Dr. Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert. Ella Gilbert gives a brief summary about the state of the Antarctic sea ice.
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack. Our weekly easy-access listing of the latest in climate research
- Seriously Cranky: the uncle we all have helps build the skills we all need to resist misinformation, Unicef, Unicef Press Center. Cranky Uncle Vaccine leverages cutting-edge science to protect against misinformation, with promising results.
- Climate deniers don't deny climate change any more, YouTube, Simon Clark.
March 1
- `Two worlds colliding`: Berlin transport workers and climate activists unite over rights, The Guardian, Kate Connolly. Two groups are striking for better working conditions and investment in Germany’s underfunded public transport
- Zombie climate myths that refuse to die (feat. Bob Henson), Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team. Meteorologist Alexandra Steele breaks down the undead myths about climate change — so you can recognize them when they come for you.
- Clean energy is growing, but so is planet-heating pollution, The Verge, Justine Calma. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions hit a new high in 2023.
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!
DeBriefed 1 March 2024: EU’s ‘flagship’ nature law approved; Glaciers losing their climate ‘memory’; UN environment assembly resolutions
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
This week EU passes nature lawNATURE LAW: On Tuesday, the European parliament approved its “flagship” law to restore nature, reported Reuters, despite a backlash “ignited” by protests from farmers across Europe in recent weeks. The long-awaited “nature restoration” law commits countries to restoring nature on a fifth of their land and sea by 2030, the newswire said, and it includes specific targets such as restoring peatlands “so they can absorb CO2 emissions”. Carbon Brief published a Q&A unpacking the law and the challenges it has faced.
‘POPULISM AND FEAR-MONGERING’: The vote was subject to a “last-ditch attempt from rightwing parties” that “threatened to sink the deal”, reported the Guardian. The law – which now needs final approval from the EU council – was adopted with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions, reported Deutsche Welle.
‘MANURE, BURNING TYRES AND TEARGAS’: The vote came amid a backdrop of continuing demonstrations by farmers across Europe, protesting against “the EU’s green policies, price pressures and import competition”, reported Politico. On Monday, farmers “locked down” the European quarter in Brussels and were “assaulting police barricades”, the outlet said. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that farmers “blocked a border crossing between Poland and Germany”.
UN environment assembly resolutionsTRANSITIONAL METALS: At the UN environment assembly in Nairobi, which comes to a close today, African leaders called for better controls on demands for the minerals and metals needed for a clean energy transition, the Guardian reported. A resolution supported by mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad would “promote equitable benefit-sharing” and attempt to avoid the “injustices” associated with fossil fuel extraction, the outlet explained. A UN press release confirmed that the resolution text was adopted.
SRM NO-GO: Also at the meeting, governments failed to agree on a resolution led by Switzerland to set up a UN expert panel on solar geoengineering, reported Climate Home News. After going through six revisions over the two-week meeting, the resolution was withdrawn on Thursday, said Reuters. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported earlier in the week that the resolution “was moving from the realm of the achievable”.
‘BALANCE’ WITH NATURE: At an event during the assembly, leading Islamic scholars published a “groundbreaking” document described as a “Muslim sibling” to Pope Francis’ 2015 Papal Encyclical, reported EarthBeat. The text, titled “Al-Mizan: a covenant for the Earth”, urges Islamic countries and corporations “to transition swiftly from fossil fuels” toward renewable energy in response to climate change, the outlet said.
Around the world- WINTER WORRY: A “historic” winter heatwave across the central US “demolished” temperature records and contributed to “massive wildfires” in Texas, the Washington Post reported. One of the fires is now the second-largest wildfire in US history, noted BBC News.
- ‘SERIOUS CONCERNS’: The UK’s aid spending watchdog has warned that the government will struggle to meet its commitment to spend £11.6bn over five years up to 2025-26 helping poorer countries deal with climate change, according to the Press Association.
- INDIAN INSTALLATIONS: India’s solar and wind deployment is set to increase by more than 30% in 2024, reported Bloomberg, but this pace is “still not fast enough to meet its clean energy goal of 500 gigawatts by the end of this decade”.
- US ENERGY ACCESS: The US government announced a $366m plan to fund 17 projects to expand access to renewable energy on Native American reservations and in other rural areas, said the Associated Press.
- ‘SUSPECTED SABOTAGE’: Denmark is closing its inquiry into the blasts that “tore apart” two Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in 2022, BBC News reported. The investigation concluded that the pipelines had been “sabotaged”, but there was “no basis for pursuing a criminal case”.
The amount of wood from old-growth forests in Canada burned by North Yorkshire’s Drax power station in 2023, according to a BBC News Panorama investigation. Drax responded by denying it takes wood from primary forests.
Latest climate research- A four-year farm trial has shown how using “enhanced weathering” in the corn belt of the US could draw down carbon dioxide and raise crop yields, reported a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- A Plos Climate study of apes across 363 sites in Africa warned that they “are and will be increasingly exposed to climate change impacts”.
- A Journal of Climate study identified a “remarkable” increase over six decades in Europe’s summer wet-bulb temperature – a “useful indicator” for heat stress.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
CapturedThis week, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – the UK’s official advisor – issued “unequivocal” advice to the government that the “surplus” from previous carbon budgets should not be carried forward, reported Carbon Brief. The UK overachieved on its carbon budget for 2018-22, leaving it with an emissions “surplus” – but this was largely down to external factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic rather than policies, the CCC said. It warned that carrying the emissions surplus over could allow the UK’s emissions to rise by 15% (red line on the chart) during the fourth carbon budget period of 2023-27.
Spotlight Guest post: The climate ‘memory loss’ of melting glaciersDr Andrea Spolaor from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, explains how rapidly melting glaciers are washing away crucial evidence of the world’s past climates.
Ice cores, extracted from glaciers and polar ice sheets, hold vital clues to Earth’s climate history.
These cylindrical samples provide a timeline of past temperatures and ancient atmospheres. Analysing the chemical composition, gas concentrations and other markers within the ice layers enables scientists to uncover how Earth and its climate has changed over millions of years.
As a result, ice cores are essential for understanding natural climate variability and human-induced changes, as well as helping predict future trends. They contribute crucial data to climate models and efforts to address climate change.
However, as the world warms, glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented pace, leading to the loss of the crucial information they hold.
In a recent study, published in the Cryosphere, my colleagues and I found that this memory loss extends to the glaciers of the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Circle.
Our study investigated the impact of rising temperatures on the “signal” of a changing climate contained within the glaciers of the Holtedahlfonna ice field.
The direct consequence of warming has been an increase in summer melt and more meltwater percolating through the ice. This meltwater can wash chemical constituents throughout the layers of ice, potentially disrupting the climate signal they preserve. Eventually, this can compromise the complete preservation of climatic information within the ice cores.
Our study revealed a worrying trend – the climate signal stored in the ice had deteriorated. In just seven years, the markers that allowed us to separate out the different seasons in a core extracted in 2012 had completely vanished in a core from 2019.
Despite the loss of the seasonal signal, the overall imprint of atmospheric warming still persists in the ice. This suggests that the site remains suitable for reconstructing past climates over an extended period. However, with the current pace of warming in the Svalbard archipelago, Holtedahlfonna and other ice fields at similar altitudes may not provide reliable records of past climatic conditions for much longer.
The Svalbard archipelago is particularly sensitive to climate changes due to the relatively low altitude of its main ice caps and the rapid warming of the Arctic region. Nonetheless, similar losses have also been observed in other parts of the world.
To preserve these archives, researchers involved in the Ice Memory and Sentinel projects concluded a complex ice drilling campaign in 2023 on the Holthedalfonna glacier, successfully extracting three deep ice cores. We hope that these samples still contain climatic information representative of the region.
Our research has emphasised the need to preserve these glacial archives and the crucial climatic insights they contain.
Watch, read, listenENVOYS WILL BE ENVOYS: The Diplomat profiled the new climate envoys for the US and China and what the reshuffle means for climate engagement between the two countries.
CLEANEST, CHEAPEST OR FAIREST?: Climate Home News explored the tricky question of “who should get to drill, pump and sell” the world’s final supplies of oil and gas.
‘THE OTHER IRA’: A BBC Radio 4 programme looked at how the US Inflation Reduction Act will impact global trade and the economy – and the prospects for a similar bill in the UK.
Coming up- 1 March: Parliamentary and assembly of experts elections in Iran
- 4-5 March: 1st G20 global mobilization against climate change task force meeting, Vila Do Conde, Brazil
- 6 March: UK 2024 spring budget, London, UK
- UN Environment Programme, regional sub-programme coordinator (climate action) | Salary: Unknown. Location: Nairobi, Kenya
- ODI, research officer and senior research officer (climate and sustainability) | Salary: £31,000-39,000 and £37,000-47,000, respectively. Location: London (hybrid)
- Climate & Development Knowledge Network, gender and social inclusion lead | Salary: Unknown. Location: Cape Town, South Africa
- Church of England, net-zero carbon programme officer | Salary: £46,577. Location: Home-based (with regular meetings in London)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org
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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9 2024
Open access notables
Rockfall from an increasingly unstable mountain slope driven by climate warming, Stoffel et al., Nature Geoscience:
Rockfall in high-mountain regions is thought to be changing due to accelerating climate warming and permafrost degradation, possibly resulting in enhanced activity and larger volumes involved in individual falls. Yet the systematic lack of long-term observations of rockfall largely hampers an in-depth assessment of how activity may have been altered by a warming climate. Here we compile a continuous time series from 1920 to 2020 of periglacial rockfall activity using growth-ring records from 375 trees damaged by past rockfall at Täschgufer (Swiss Alps). We show that the ongoing warming favours the release of rockfall and that changes in activity correlate significantly with summer air temperatures at interannual and decadal timescales. An initial increase in rockfall occurred in the late 1940s to early 1950s following early twentieth century warming. From the mid-1980s, activity reached new and hitherto unprecedented levels.
Side Effects of Sulfur-Based Geoengineering Due To Absorptivity of Sulfate Aerosols, Wunderlin et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Sulfur-based stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) can cool the climate, but also heats the tropical lower stratosphere if done with injections at low latitudes. We explore the role of this heating in the climate response to SAI, by using mechanistic experiments that remove the effects of longwave absorption of sulfate aerosols above the tropopause. If longwave absorption by stratospheric aerosols is disabled, the heating of the tropical tropopause and most of the related side effects are strongly alleviated and the cooling per Tg-S injected is 40% bigger. Such side-effects include the poleward expansion of eddy-driven jets, acceleration of the stratospheric residual circulation, and delay of Antarctic ozone recovery. Our results add to other recent findings on SAI side effects and demonstrate that SAI scenarios with low-latitude injections of absorptive materials may result in atmospheric effects and regional climate changes that are comparable to those produced by the CO2 warming signal.
Academic capture in the Anthropocene: a framework to assess climate action in higher education, Lachapelle et al., Climatic Change:
Higher education institutions have a mandate to serve the public good, yet in many cases fail to adequately respond to the global climate crisis. The inability of academic institutions to commit to purposeful climate action through targeted research, education, outreach, and policy is due in large part to “capture” by special interests. Capture involves powerful minority interests that exert influence and derive benefits at the expense of a larger group or purpose. This paper makes a conceptual contribution to advance a framework of “academic capture” applied to the climate crisis in higher education institutions. Academic capture is the result of the three contributing factors of increasing financialization issues, influence of the fossil fuel industry, and reticence of university employees to challenge the status quo.
The animal agriculture industry, US universities, and the obstruction of climate understanding and policy, Morris & Jacquet, Climatic Change:
In the USA, one of the largest consumers and producers of meat and dairy products, livestock greenhouse gas emissions remain effectively unregulated. What might explain this? Similar to fossil fuel companies, US animal agriculture companies responded to evidence that their products cause climate change by minimizing their role in the climate crisis and shaping policymaking in their favor. Here, we show that the industry has done so with the help of university experts. The beef industry awarded funding to Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California, Davis, to assess “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” and his work was used to claim that cows should not be blamed for climate change. The animal agriculture industry is now involved in multiple multi-million-dollar efforts with universities to obstruct unfavorable policies as well as influence climate change policy and discourse. Here, we traced how these efforts have downplayed the livestock sector’s contributions to the climate crisis, minimized the need for emission regulations and other policies aimed at internalizing the costs of the industry’s emissions, and promoted industry-led climate “solutions” that maintain production.
Biochar carbon markets:A mitigation deterrence threat, Price et al., Environmental Science & Policy:
We draw from original data collected in 2022 from 33 semi-structured interviews with mostly UK based experts who have an interest or potential interest in biochar, supplemented with a document analysis. Conceptual approaches from the social studies of finance have guided the analysis, an approach that enables systematic investigation of experts’ understandings of the biochar carbon market landscape in the UK. Although biochar proponents forwarded narratives – or fictional expectations – about how the future trading of carbon credits in carbon markets could lower the cost of producing biochar on a large scale, other experts doubted the credibility of these narratives. Whilst the construction and sustainable functioning of a UK-based biochar carbon market remains a speculative, rather than credible proposition, it nevertheless constitutes a threat of mitigation deterrence because of the assumption that a UK biochar carbon market will become a reality. There is the promise of future removals even if this is only imagined.
Insurance retreat in residential properties from future sea level rise in Aotearoa New Zealand, Storey et al., Climatic Change:
How will the increased frequency of coastal inundation events induced by sea level rise impact residential insurance premiums, and when would insurance contracts be withdrawn? We model the contribution of localised sea level rise to the increased frequency of coastal inundation events. Examining four Aotearoa New Zealand cities, we combine historical tide-gauge extremes with geo-located property data to estimate the annual expected loss from this hazard, for each property, in order to establish when insurance retreat is likely to occur. We find that as sea level rise changes the frequency of inundation events, 99% of properties currently within 1% AEP coastal inundation zones can expect at least partial insurance retreat within a decade (with less than 10 cm of sea level rise). Our modelling predicts that full insurance retreat is likely within 20–25 years, with timing dependent on the property’s elevation and distance from the coast, and less intuitively, on the tidal range in each location.
A bibliometric and topic analysis of climate justice: Mapping trends, voices, and the way forward, Parsons et al., Climate Risk Management:
Our results show that the field of climate justice has grown exponentially from less than 5 papers annually between 1997 and 2005, to around 200 papers annually in recent years. This growth has seen a diversification of research themes with an increase in papers around the topics of health, vulnerability and adaptation, and policy and activism. There has been a consistent backdrop of publications around the topics of sustainable development and policy, and international relations and carbon emissions. Other prominent topics in the literature include education and food security, and human rights and Indigenous people. The field has moved from theoretical research to examining actual examples of climate injustices, with an increased diversification of topics.
From this week's government/NGO section:
The next frontier for climate change science. Insights from the authors of the IPCC 6th assessment report on knowledge gaps and priorities for research, Bednar-Friedl et al., Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission) (pdf)
As climate change impacts intensify globally in both frequency and magnitude and with scientific consensus on what is yet to come if the world fails to act, the imperative to step up our collective response has never been more pressing. By providing the knowledge necessary to formulate effective mitigation and adaptation strategies, climate science serves as a critical enabler of climate action and a vital input to evidence-based policymaking. Bridging the knowledge gaps in climate change research is crucial for guiding the transition toward a low-carbon climate-resilient future, fostering consensus and alliances, empowering global cooperation, and mobilizing stakeholders across society. The authors draw attention to where additional research is required to effectively and adequately address climate change, aiming to inform future calls under the EU Horizon Europe R&I Programme and beyond.Climate Transition Mismatch. Thought Leadership, Greenwashing, Transparency & Traceability, Ion Visinovschi and John Willis, Planet Tracker (pdf)
Company membership in trade associations has emerged as a critical area of concern, particularly when corporate management teams claim to be supportive of lowering their carbon footprint but are members of associations that appear to be at odds with the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. The authors urge corporations to reassess their affiliations with industry associations that diverge from their stated environmental objectives. 153 articles in 72 journals by 955 contributing authorsPhysical science of climate change, effects
Contrasting Responses of Land Surface Temperature and Soil Temperature to Forest Expansion During the Dormant Season on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Qu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd039595
European Summer Wet-Bulb Temperature: Spatiotemporal Variations and Potential Drivers, Ma et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0420.1
Even cooler insights: On the power of forests to (water the Earth and) cool the planet, Ellison et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17195
Intensification of daily tropical precipitation extremes from more organized convection, Bao et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adj6801
Roles of Thermal Forced and Eddy-Driven Effects in the Northward Shifting of the Subtropical Westerly Jet Under Recent Climate Change, Sheng et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039937
Observations of climate change, effects
20th Century Warming in the Western Florida Keys Was Dominated by Increasing Winter Temperatures, Flannery et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2023pa004748
Detecting the human fingerprint in the summer 2022 western–central European soil drought, Schumacher et al., Earth System Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/esd-15-131-2024
Enhanced North Pacific Victoria mode in a warming climate, Ji et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41612-024-00599-0
Long-Term Trends in Ice Fog Occurrence in the Fairbanks, Alaska, Region Based on Airport Observations, Hartl et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1175/jamc-d-22-0190.1
Rockfall from an increasingly unstable mountain slope driven by climate warming, Stoffel et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-024-01390-9
Summer heatwaves on the Baltic Sea seabed contribute to oxygen deficiency in shallow areas, Safonova et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01268-z
Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects
Airborne lidar measurements of atmospheric CO2 column concentrations to cloud tops made during the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE campaign, Mao et al., Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Open Access 10.5194/amt-17-1061-2024
Analysing direct air capture for enabling negative emissions in Germany: an assessment of the resource requirements and costs of a potential rollout in 2045, Block et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1353939
Development of the tangent linear and adjoint models of the global online chemical transport model MPAS-CO2 v7.3, Zheng et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-1543-2024
Evaluation of atmospheric indicators in the Adriatic coastal areas: a multi-hazards approach for a better awareness of the current and future climate, Fedele et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1330299
The GERB Obs4MIPs Radiative Flux Dataset: A new tool for climate model evaluation, Russell et al., Open Access 10.5194/essd-2024-4
Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects
Analyzing future marine cold spells in the tropical Indian Ocean: Insights from a regional Earth system model, Dinesh et al., Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 10.1002/qj.4664
Geographic range of plants drives long-term climate change, Gurung et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-46105-1
Interannual variability of diurnal temperature range in CMIP6 projections and the connection with large-scale circulation, Wang et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-024-07107-3
No Emergence of Deep Convection in the Arctic Ocean Across CMIP6 Models, Heuzé & Liu Liu, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106499
Tropical Cyclone Changes in Convection-Permitting Regional Climate Projections: A Study Over the Shanghai Region, Buonomo et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd038508
Uncertainty assessment of future climate change using bias-corrected high-resolution multi-regional climate model datasets over East Asia, Park et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07006-z
Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection
A Perspective on the Future of CMIP, Stevens, AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023av001086
Climate change projections for building energy simulation studies: a CORDEX-based methodological approach to manage uncertainties, Coronato et al., Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-024-03710-9
Comparison of conventional and machine learning methods for bias correcting CMIP6 rainfall and temperature in Nigeria, Tanimu et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-024-04888-9
Developing intelligent Earth System Models: An AI framework for replacing sub-modules based on incremental learning and its application, Mu et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107306
Dynamical Downscaling of Climate Simulations in the Tropics, Liu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105733
On the impact of net-zero forcing Q-flux change, Eiselt & Graversen Graversen, Climate Dynamics Open Access 10.1007/s00382-024-07117-1
On the sensitivity of fire-weather climate projections to empirical fire models, Tory et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109928
Projections of the North Atlantic warming hole can be constrained using ocean surface density as an emergent constraint, Park & Yeh, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01269-y
The Physics behind Precipitation Onset Bias in CMIP6 Models: The Pseudo-Entrainment Diagnostic and Trade-Offs between Lapse Rate and Humidity, Emmenegger et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0227.1
Towards an advanced representation of precipitation over Morocco in a global climate model with resolution enhancement and empirical run-time bias corrections, Balhane et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.8405
Cryosphere & climate change
An Analytical Model of Active Layer Depth Under Changing Ground Heat Flux, Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039453
Antarctic-wide ice-shelf firn emulation reveals robust future firn air depletion signal for the Antarctic Peninsula, Dunmire et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01255-4
Large-scale drivers of the exceptionally low winter Antarctic sea ice extent in 2023, Ionita, Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2024.1333706
Modeling a Century of Change: Kangerlussuaq Glacier's Mass Loss From 1933 to 2021, Lippert et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106286
Permafrost Carbon: Progress on Understanding Stocks and Fluxes Across Northern Terrestrial Ecosystems, Treat et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jg007638
Subsurface warming in the Antarctica’s Weddell Sea can be avoided by reaching the 2?C warming target, Teske et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01238-5
The linkage between autumn Barents-Kara sea ice and European cold winter extremes, Cai et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2142748/v1
Sea level & climate change
Compounding effects of changing sea level and rainfall regimes on pluvial flooding in New York City, Ghanbari et al., Natural Hazards Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-024-06466-8
Reconstruction of hourly coastal water levels and counterfactuals without sea level rise for impact attribution, Treu et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-16-1121-2024
Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Global and regional temperature change over the past 4.5 million years, Clark et al., Science 10.1126/science.adi1908
Southern Ocean Biological Pump Role in Driving Holocene Atmospheric CO2: Reappraisal, Riechelson et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl105569
Biology & climate change, related geochemistry
Arctic sea ice retreat fuels boreal forest advance, Dial et al., Science 10.1126/science.adh2339
Climate-driven differences in flow regimes alter tropical freshwater ecosystems with consequences for an endemic shrimp, Tingley et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1182021
Climate-limited vegetation change in the conterminous United States of America, Parra & Greenberg, Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17204
Early warning indicators capture catastrophic transitions driven by explicit rates of environmental change, Arumugam et al., Ecology Open Access pdf 10.1002/ecy.4240
Exposure of African ape sites to climate change impacts, Kiribou et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000345
Feedbacks Between Estuarine Metabolism and Anthropogenic CO2 Accelerate Local Rates of Ocean Acidification and Hasten Threshold Exceedances, Pacella et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 10.1029/2023jc020313
Flexible foraging behaviour increases predator vulnerability to climate change, Gauzens et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-024-01946-y
Genomic architecture controls multivariate adaptation to climate change, Terasaki Hart & Wang, Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17179
Global change progressively increases foliar nitrogen–phosphorus ratios in China's subtropical forests, Lai et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17201
Global Vegetation-Temperature Sensitivity and Its Driving Forces in the 21st Century, Yuxi et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2022ef003395
Helminth ecological requirements shape the impact of climate change on the hazard of infection, Vanalli et al., Open Access pdf 10.1101/2023.09.11.557173
Increased leaf area index and efficiency drive enhanced production under elevated atmospheric [CO2] in a pine-dominated stand showing no progressive nitrogen limitation, Palmroth et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17190
Lawns and meadows in urban green space – A comparison from greenhouse gas, drought resilience and biodiversity perspectives, Trémeau et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-2023-107
Long-term drought promotes invasive species by reducing wildfire severity, Kimball et al., Ecology Open Access 10.1002/ecy.4265
Marine protected areas promote stability of reef fish communities under climate warming, Benedetti-Cecchi et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-44976-y
Plant canopies promote climatic disequilibrium in Mediterranean recruit communities, Perez?Navarro et al., Ecology Letters Open Access 10.1111/ele.14391
Relationship between extreme climate and vegetation in arid and semi-arid mountains in China: A case study of the Qilian Mountains, Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109938
Rising minimum temperatures contribute to 50 years of occupancy decline among cold-adapted Arctic and boreal butterflies in North America, Shirey et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17205
Simulated Future Shifts in Wildfire Regimes in Moist Forests of Pacific Northwest, USA, Dye et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 10.1029/2023jg007722
Soil warming increases the number of growing bacterial taxa but not their growth rates, Metze et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adk6295
Spatio-temporal integrated Bayesian species distribution models reveal lack of broad relationships between traits and range shifts, Wiethase et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access pdf 10.1111/geb.13819
Stream Nitrogen Concentrations Across Arctic Vegetation Gradients, Holmboe et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2023gb007840
The interacting effect of climate change and herbivory can trigger large-scale transformations of European temperate forests, Dobor et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.17194
The thermal breadth of temperate and tropical freshwater insects supports the climate variability hypothesis, Dewenter et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.10937
The tolerance of two marine diatoms to diurnal pH fluctuation under dynamic light condition and ocean acidification scenario, Shang et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2024.106425
Unraveling the multifaceted effects of climatic factors on mountain pine beetle and its interaction with fungal symbionts, Zaman et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17207
GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry
A novel ensemble approach for road traffic carbon emission prediction: a case in Canada, Liu et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04561-1
Atmospheric CO2 exchanges measured by eddy covariance over a temperate salt marsh and influence of environmental controlling factors, Mayen et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-21-993-2024
Carbon Emissions From Chinese Inland Waters: Current Progress and Future Challenges, Yang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2023jg007675
Characterization of carbon fluxes, stock and nutrients in the sacred forest groves and invasive vegetation stands within the human dominated landscapes of a tropical semi-arid region, Akil Prasath et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-55294-0
Constraining biospheric carbon dioxide fluxes by combined top-down and bottom-up approaches, Upton et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-24-2555-2024
Environmental and Management Drivers of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions From Actively-Extracted Peatlands in Alberta, Canada, Hunter et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jg007738
Field experiments show no consistent reductions in soil microbial carbon in response to warming, Yue et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45508-4
Human population density and blue carbon stocks in mangroves soils, Chien et al., Environmental Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1088/1748-9326/ad13b6
Machine learning reveals regime shifts in future ocean carbon dioxide fluxes inter-annual variability, Couespel et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01257-2
Peatlands Versus Permafrost: Landscape Features as Drivers of Dissolved Organic Matter Composition in West Siberian Rivers, Starr et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 10.1029/2023jg007797
Quantification of the Airborne Fraction of Atmospheric CO2 Reveals Stability in Global Carbon Sinks Over the Past Six Decades, Bennett et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jg007760
Quantifying mangrove carbon assimilation rates using UAV imagery, Blanco-Sacristán et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-024-55090-w
Spatial and temporal variations of gross primary production simulated by land surface model BCC&AVIM2.0, Li et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2023.02.001
The Greenhouse Gas Budget of Terrestrial Ecosystems in East Asia Since 2000, Wang et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2023gb007865
The Impact of Recent Climate Change on the Global Ocean Carbon Sink, Bunsen et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107030
CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering
A case for promoting negative emission technologies: learning from renewable energy support, Meissner, Carbon Management Open Access pdf 10.1080/17583004.2024.2319787
Assessing the Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Reaction Performance Requires More Than Reporting Coulombic Efficiency, Izadi et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research 10.1002/aesr.202400031
Enhanced weathering in the US Corn Belt delivers carbon removal with agronomic benefits, Beerling et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2319436121
Grappling with a sea change: Tensions in expert imaginaries of marine carbon dioxide removal, Nawaz & Lezaun, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102806
Paulownia trees as a sustainable solution for CO2 mitigation: assessing progress toward 2050 climate goals, Ghazzawy et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1307840
Decarbonization
Integrating variable renewable energy and diverse flexibilities: Supplying carbon-free energy from a wind turbine to a data center, Kontani & Tanaka, Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101843
Is small or big solar better for the environment? Comparative life cycle assessment of solar photovoltaic rooftop vs. ground-mounted systems, , A Mathematical Introduction to Wavelets Open Access 10.1017/cbo9780511623790.002
Geoengineering climate
Side Effects of Sulfur-Based Geoengineering Due To Absorptivity of Sulfate Aerosols, Wunderlin et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl107285
Aerosols
Anthropogenic aerosols mask increases in US rainfall by greenhouse gases, Risser et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45504-8
Climate change communications & cognition
Academic capture in the Anthropocene: a framework to assess climate action in higher education, Lachapelle et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03696-4
Active, dutiful and pragmatic: practicing green citizenship in urban China, Zhan, Environmental Politics Open Access 10.1080/09644016.2024.2319520
Three Key Dimensions of Climate Change from Opinion News in a Malaysian Newspaper, Mohd Nor et al., Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2024.2319804
Visualization of global research trends and future research directions of greenwashing by using bibliometric analysis, Gupta & Singh, Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04548-y
Visualizing Hope: Investigating the Effect of Public Art on Risk Perception and Awareness of Climate Adaptation, Mah et al., Weather, Climate, and Society 10.1175/wcas-d-23-0081.1
Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change
A systematic review of recent estimations of climate change impact on agriculture and adaptation strategies perspectives in Africa, Kone et al., Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10.1007/s11027-024-10115-7
Adaptation technologies for climate-smart agriculture: a patent network analysis, Tey et al., Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10.1007/s11027-024-10111-x
Carbon stocks and effluxes in mangroves converted into aquaculture: a case study from Banten province, Indonesia, Royna et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1340531
Continental lowlands face rising crop vulnerability: structural change in regional climate sensitivity of crop yields, Hungary (Central and Eastern Europe), 1921–2010, Pinke et al., Regional Environmental Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10113-024-02192-w
Coping or adapting strategies? The importance of distinguishing between climatic shift and drought events for proper management of the pastoral systems in Northern Patagonia, Anderson, Nature Open Access 10.1038/350290a0
Enhanced weathering in the US Corn Belt delivers carbon removal with agronomic benefits, Beerling et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2319436121
Exploring differences of farmers’ intention to adopt agricultural low-carbon technologies: an application of TPB and VBN combination, Yang et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04342-2
Farmers’ adoption of multiple climate-smart agricultural technologies in Ghana: determinants and impacts on maize yields and net farm income, Asante et al., Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11027-024-10114-8
Flood risk assessment and adaptation under changing climate for the agricultural system in the Ghanaian White Volta Basin, Smits et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03694-6
From climate perceptions to actions: A case study on coffee farms in Ethiopia, Gomm et al., Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-024-01990-0
Maize yield under a changing climate in Uganda: long-term impacts for climate smart agriculture, Zizinga et al., Regional Environmental Change 10.1007/s10113-024-02186-8
The animal agriculture industry, US universities, and the obstruction of climate understanding and policy, Morris & Jacquet, Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03690-w
Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change
Anthropogenic Influence on 2022 June Extreme Rainfall over the Pearl River Basin, Liu et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0132.1
Anthropogenic Influences on Extremely Persistent Seasonal Precipitation in Southern China during May–June 2022, Sheng et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0137.1
Assessment of mean precipitation and precipitation extremes in Iran as simulated by dynamically downscaled RegCM4, Zarrin & Dadashi-Roudbari, Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2024.101452
Distinctive changes of Asian–African summer monsoon in interglacial epochs and global warming scenario, Wang et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07013-0
Distribution characteristics of drought and flood hazards in northern China against the background of climate warming, Wang & Zhang, Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-024-06468-6
Flood risk assessment and adaptation under changing climate for the agricultural system in the Ghanaian White Volta Basin, Smits et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03694-6
Future risk of decadal megadrought events over eastern China based on IPO-constrained precipitation, Qin et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07018-9
Historical climate impact attribution of changes in river flow and sediment loads at selected gauging stations in the Nile basin, Nkwasa et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03702-9
Spatial-temporal patterns of land surface evapotranspiration from global products, Tang et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114066
Climate change economics
Although feasible, falling renewables costs might not benefit Bangladesh's energy sector's decarbonisation: Is this another ‘debt-fossil fuel production trap’?, Debnath & Mourshed, Energy for Sustainable Development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101416
An outlook at the switch to renewable energy in emerging economies: The beneficial effect of technological innovation and green finance, Sampene et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114025
Does trade openness increase CO2 emissions in Africa? A revaluation using the composite index of Squalli and Wilson, Mignamissi et al., Environment Systems and Decisions Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10669-023-09962-7
Green finance, new infrastructure, and carbon emission performance in Chinese cities, Li et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1352869
The effects of energy consumption of alumina production in the environmental impacts using life cycle assessment, Sáez-Guinoa et al., The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11367-023-02257-8
Climate change mitigation public policy research
Actors, agency, and institutional contexts: Transition intermediation for low-carbon mobility transition, Nordt et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103707
Biochar carbon markets:A mitigation deterrence threat, Price et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103704
Defining national net zero goals is critical for food and land use policy, Bishop et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01275-0
Energy intensity, renewable energy, and air quality: fresh evidence from BIMSTEC countries through method of moments quantile model, Bilgili et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04490-z
Estimating scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions through the shareholder network of publicly traded firms, Mejia & Kajikawa, Sustainability Science Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11625-023-01460-8
Impact of government subsidies on total factor productivity of energy storage enterprises under dual-carbon targets, Lin & Zhang, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114046
Research status and trend prospects of the carbon cap-and-trade mechanism, Zhang et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04607-4
Resolving energy policy failure: Introducing energy justice as the solution to achieve a just transition, Heffron & Soko?owski, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114042
The impact of technological progress and industrial structure optimization on manufacturing carbon emissions: a new perspective based on interaction, You et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04531-7
Transition to sustainable hydrogen energy in Oman: implication for future socio-economic transformation and environmental well-being, Amoatey et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04657-8
Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research
Assessment of the tropical cyclone-induced risk on offshore wind turbines under climate change, Wen et al., Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-023-06390-3
Incorporating indigenous knowledge systems-based climate services in anticipatory action in Zimbabwe: an ex-ante assessment, Dube et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1301908
Insights intended to improve adaptation planning and reduce vulnerability at the local scale, Cáceres et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1345921
Insurance retreat in residential properties from future sea level rise in Aotearoa New Zealand, Storey et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03699-1
Municipal perspectives on managed retreat and flood mitigation: A case analysis of Merritt, Canada after the 2021 British Columbia flood disaster, Cottar & Wandel, Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-024-03707-4
Re-thinking new possibilities for urban climate resilience planning in Bangkok: Introducing adaptation pathways through a multidisciplinary design workshop, Nilubon & Laeni, Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103711
Research progress and prospects of urban resilience in the perspective of climate change, Wang et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2024.1247360
Roles and activities of local stakeholders facing Alpine permafrost warming: A comparative exploratory analysis of three contexts and networks of actors, Weissbrodt et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100591
The emerging “evident” role of climatic risk on migration: a study of four U.S. metropolitans, Hao & Wang, Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-024-03687-5
Tropical cyclone risk assessment reflecting the climate change trend: the case of South Korea, Jung et al., Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-024-06428-0
Visiting urban green space as a climate-change adaptation strategy: Exploring push factors in a push–pull framework, Wong et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100589
Vulnerability locked in. On the need to engage the outside of the adaptation box, Teebken, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102807
Climate change impacts on human health
Characterizing the effects of extreme heat events on all-cause mortality: A case study in Ahmedabad city of India, 2002–2018, Sharma et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101832
Impact of population aging on future temperature-related mortality at different global warming levels, Chen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45901-z
Projected population exposure to heatwaves in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China, Dong et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-54885-1
Would future climate warming cause zoonotic diseases to spread over long distances?, Bu et al., PeerJ Open Access 10.7717/peerj.16811
Climate change & geopolitics
Conflict considerations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s National Adaptation Plans, Remling & Meijer , Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2024.2321156
The interaction of public–private partnership investment in energy and geopolitical risk in influencing carbon dioxide emissions in E7 countries, Chu et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04590-w
Climate change impacts on human culture
Sustainability of international research: evidence from an H2020 European project, Fabiani et al., Sustainability Science Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11625-023-01421-1
Other
A bibliometric and topic analysis of climate justice: Mapping trends, voices, and the way forward, Parsons et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100593
Anthropogenic carbon pathways towards the North Atlantic interior revealed by Argo-O2, neural networks and back-calculations, Asselot et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-46074-5
Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
A Perspective on the Future of CMIP, Stevens, AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023av001086
Editorial: The ecology, diversity and migration pattern of aquatic organisms in a changing climate, Habib et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1351858
Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate ChangeBuilding Stronger Community Engagement in Hydrogen Hubs, Schomburg et al., EFI Foundation
The authors highlight the perspectives of individuals and groups affiliated with disadvantaged communities, tribes, labor, and environmental justice groups on hydrogen hubs. It reflects their preferred modes of engagement, attitudes toward hydrogen hubs, and perceptions of the Department of Energy’s community engagement processes. Communities generally agree on the preferred forms of engagement on Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs development and on perceptions of hydrogen, including viewing hydrogen as a climate change solution. These data also underscore the importance of two-way communication. In an evolving industry such as hydrogen, a lack of communication, information, trust, or mutual understanding can hinder engagement.Clean Investment in 2023: Assessing Progress in Electricity and Transport, Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
The Clean Investment Monitor tracks public and private investments in manufacturing and deployment of climate technologies in the United States. Through these data and analysis, the CIM provides insights into investment trends, the effects of federal and state policies, and on-the-ground progress in the U.S. towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.The Socioeconomic Impact of Climate Change in Developing Countries in the Next Decades, Philip Kofi Adom, Center for Global Development
The author provides a discussion of future trends as established in the literature on the interaction between socioeconomic indicators and projected future climate change scenarios. It enhances an understanding of future predicted patterns of climate change effects in the coming decades and the need for climate-resilient interventions. There is a significant body of literature on climate impacts on GDP per capita and crop yield in developing countries. However, effects on farmland value, water resources, and energy security have received much less attention. Across sectors, countries, and regions, the most vulnerable groups were found to be disproportionately affected, and the impact is predicted to be larger in the long term than in the medium term. There are feasible adaptation and mitigation options, but these need to be developed and designed to reflect local peculiarities or contexts. The author there is a need for urgent actions to be undertaken, especially in the most vulnerable countries, if people are to stand a chance of averting or minimizing the menace of climate change in the future.Taming wildfires in the context of climate change: The case of the United States, Orzechowski et al., Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The frequency and severity of extreme wildfires are on the rise in the United States, causing unprecedented disruption and increasingly challenging the country’s capacity to contain losses and damages. These challenges are set to keep growing in the context of climate change, highlighting the need to scale up wildfire prevention and climate change adaptation. The authors provide an overview of the United States’ wildfire policies and practices and assesses the extent to which wildfire management in the country is evolving to adapt to growing wildfire risk under climate change.Options to Enhance the Resilience of Federally Funded Flood Risk Management Infrastructure, Alfredo Gómez et al., Government Accountability Office
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) is responsible for planning, designing, and constructing much of the nation’s federally funded flood risk management infrastructure—for example, levees, dams, floodwalls, floodgates, and hurricane barriers—that help protect communities from coastal storms and floods. Corps’ flood risk management infrastructure, such as levees, can be breached by flooding exacerbated by changes in the climate. The Corps has taken, and plans to take, actions to enhance the climate resilience of federally funded flood risk management infrastructure. The Corps has also taken steps to develop climate policies and plans, conduct research, and provide climate-related information and guidance for planning flood risk management infrastructure projects. Based on a review of relevant literature and interviews with knowledgeable stakeholders and Corps officials, GAO identified 14 options to further enhance the climate resilience of federally funded flood risk management infrastructure.The next frontier for climate change science. Insights from the authors of the IPCC 6th assessment report on knowledge gaps and priorities for research, Bednar-Friedl et al., Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission)
As climate change impacts intensify globally in both frequency and magnitude and with scientific consensus on what is yet to come if the world fails to act, the imperative to step up our collective response has never been more pressing. By providing the knowledge necessary to formulate effective mitigation and adaptation strategies, climate science serves as a critical enabler of climate action and a vital input to evidence-based policymaking. Bridging the knowledge gaps in climate change research is crucial for guiding the transition toward a low-carbon climate-resilient future, fostering consensus and alliances, empowering global cooperation, and mobilizing stakeholders across society. The authors draw attention to where additional research is required to effectively and adequately address climate change, aiming to inform future calls under the EU Horizon Europe R&I Programme and beyond.Generator Interconnection Scorecard. Ranking Interconnection Outcomes and Processes of the Seven U.S. Regional Transmission System Operators, Wilson et al., Advanced Energy United
Currently, over one million megawatts of generator and storage projects are actively seeking to connect to the U.S. transmission grid. The various grid interconnection processes across the nation have been slow and received criticism from a wide range of stakeholders for being dysfunctional. The 2024 Advanced Energy United Generator Interconnection Scorecard evaluates the outcomes and processes of the generator interconnection process across the seven U.S. regional grid operators (the RTOs/ISOs), finding some bright spots and room for significant improvement. The scorecard measures each RTO/ISO generator interconnection process using both qualitative and quantitative data. The analysis leverages interviews with interconnection customers and data furnished by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The authors measured each Region’s interconnection process on six dimensions: 1) Interconnection Process Results, 2) Pre-Queue Information, 3) Interconnection Process Design, 4) Assumptions, Criteria, and Replicability, 5) Availability of Interconnection Alternatives, and 6) Regional Transmission Planning.Promoting Peace through Climate-resilient Food Security Initiatives, Simone Bunse and Caroline Delgado, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
The authors examine the interconnectedness of food insecurity, climate and environmental pressures, and violent conflict, proposing strategies to enhance peacebuilding within integrated climate-resilient food security interventions. They assert that collaborative, multisectoral programming among humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding stakeholders is essential to disrupt vicious circles of food insecurity, climate challenges, and conflict. Such programming should not only incorporate activities from the food security, climate adaptation, and peacebuilding fields but also seize opportunities to bolster the sustainability of food systems.The Climate Costs and Economic Benefits of LNG Export, Minhong Xu and Max Sarinsky, Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law
The authors provide an analysis to support the Department of Energy's (DOE) recent pause on discretionary export approvals so that DOE can update the underlying analyses for authorizations to facilitate a proper balancing of environmental and economic impacts. Using DOE’s own published studies, the authors compare the climate cost per unit of LNG export to the economic benefit measured using consumer welfare. They found that climate costs likely exceed economic benefits. While the precise difference depends on several factors— including the share of gas production that merely displaces fossil-fuel production from other sources, the economic value assigned to climate damages, and the adoption of carbon capture technology—gross climate damages greatly exceed economic benefits under all scenarios evaluatedClimate Transition Mismatch. Thought Leadership, Greenwashing, Transparency & Traceability, Ion Visinovschi and John Willis, Planet Tracker
Company membership in trade associations has emerged as a critical area of concern, particularly when corporate management teams claim to be supportive of lowering their carbon footprint but are members of associations that appear to be at odds with the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. The authors urge corporations to reassess their affiliations with industry associations that diverge from their stated environmental objectives. Obtaining articles without journal subscriptionsWe know it's frustrating that many articles we cite here are not free to read. One-off paid access fees are generally astronomically priced, suitable for such as "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" but not as a gamble on unknowns. With a median world income of US$ 9,373, for most of us US$ 42 is significant money to wager on an article's relevance and importance.
- Here's an excellent collection of tips and techniques for obtaining articles, legally.
- Unpaywall offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically indicates when an article is freely accessible and provides immediate access without further trouble. Unpaywall is also unscammy, works well, is itself offered free to use. The organizers (a legitimate nonprofit) report about a 50% success rate
- The weekly New Research catch is checked against the Unpaywall database with accessible items being flagged. Especially for just-published articles this mechansim may fail. If you're interested in an article title and it is not listed here as "open access," be sure to check the link anyway.
Most articles appearing here are found via RSS feeds from journal publishers, filtered by search terms to produce raw output for assessment of relevance.
Relevant articles are then queried against the Unpaywall database, to identify open access articles and expose useful metadata for articles appearing in the database.
The objective of New Research isn't to cast a tinge on scientific results, to color readers' impressions. Hence candidate articles are assessed via two metrics only:
- Was an article deemed of sufficient merit by a team of journal editors and peer reviewers? The fact of journal RSS output assigns a "yes" to this automatically.
- Is an article relevant to the topic of anthropogenic climate change? Due to filter overlap with other publication topics of inquiry, of a typical week's 550 or so input articles about 1/4 of RSS output makes the cut.
A few journals offer public access to "preprint" versions of articles for which the review process is not yet complete. For some key journals this all the mention we'll see in RSS feeds, so we include such items in New Research. These are flagged as "preprint."
The section "Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives" includes some items that are not scientific research per se but fall instead into the category of "perspectives," observations of implications of research findings, areas needing attention, etc.
SuggestionsPlease let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.
Journals coveredA list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.
Previous editionThe previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.
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