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At a glance - Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal?

Skeptical Science - Tue, 02/13/2024 - 07:40

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 "Has Arctic sea ice returned to normal?". 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 glance

One of the great metrics of climate change, because it is easy to visualise, is sea-ice in the Arctic. Every year, the ice margins retreat in the northern summer, reaching a minimum extent some time in September. It then refreezes through the long, dark cold winter months, until its maximum extent is reached in March.

Arctic sea-ice has a seasonal component - so-called 'first year ice' - and the more perennial 'multi-year ice'. First-year ice is relatively thin - 30-40 centimetres is typical. Multi-year stuff is thicker - 2-4 metres and much of it is situated between the north coast of Greenland and the North Pole.

Most of the annual, seasonal decline in ice extent, observed by satellites for more than 40 years, is due to first-year ice melting: the more robust multi-year ice takes more energy to remove, but nevertheless it is in decline, too. Calculations of sea-ice volume reveal that trend.

How does sea-ice form? We all know the freezing temperature of saltwater is lower than that of freshwater, hence the spreading of rock salt on the roads on frosty winter nights. Similarly, the ocean temperature needs to fall below -1.8°C (28.8°F) for sea-ice to form. In the freezing season it starts freezing over once the upper 150 metres or so of the ocean are close to that temperature.

Melt varies a lot from one year to another. This should come as no surprise: sea-ice, being on an ocean, moves about a fair amount. Variations in ocean-currents are particularly important since if sea-ice can be 'exported' out of the Arctic, it enters what is basically a hostile environment, where it melts away to nothing. Incidentally, such floes are a lot smaller than icebergs like the one that famously destroyed the Titanic in April 1912. Such ice behemoths originate where glaciers 'calve' upon reaching the sea.

Weather is a highly variable driver of sea-ice melt. Prolonged strong winds from the right direction can cause mass-export of ice into warmer waters. Then again, winds from the south transport warm air over the Arctic Ocean, causing the melting to intensify. But they may also bring in extensive cloud-decks, blocking a lot of incoming Solar energy. No surprise then that melt seasons vary a lot from one season to another.

As in most things related to climate change, it's the multidecadal trend that is key and that is unequivocally downwards, both in terms of extent and volume. Sudden spurts of growth are interesting, as are record meltdowns such as that in 2012. But that's it. Trend is the critical bit. The data clearly show that since 2010, when the statement in the box above originated, eight out of the ten lowest Arctic sea-ice minima have occurred. The only two melt-seasons outside of that time-frame were in 2007 and 2008. For the big picture regarding Arctic sea-ice, ignore the noise from one year to the next and look at all the data. It's heading one way - down.

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 details

In 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

 

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Categories: I. Climate Science

After years of stability, Antarctica is losing ice

Skeptical Science - Mon, 02/12/2024 - 11:54

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by SueEllen Campbell

Until recently, Antarctica’s ice has seemed surprisingly stable. In contrast to the far north, the southern continent’s massive ice sheets, glaciers, ice shelves (ice that floats on the ocean), and seasonal ice appeared to be reliably frozen: Enough snow fell in the high interior to compensate for what melted around the edges. 

But the situation has changed. On balance, Antarctica is now losing ice. And more and more, scientists are concerned about that melting and its potential impacts — from sea level rise to changed ocean and air circulation to stress on wildlife — both local and global. Knowing that there is still much to learn, they are stepping up their research, despite the massive challenges in learning anything in such extreme conditions.

Winter 2023: record-low sea ice

“Where did all the Antarctic sea ice go?” “Full Story” podcast, The Guardian. This excellent 19-minute interview by Laura Murphy-Oates with Graham Readfearn (The Guardian’s Australia environment writer) and oceanographer Will Hobbs clearly explains both the anomalous loss of southern sea ice last winter and its larger possible ramifications. 

For a print account of the same situation, see “Dark waters as Antarctic researchers dive into grim climate picture.” Matthew Ward Agius, Cosmos. 

Thwaites Glacier, the widest glacier on Earth:

“The Race to Understand Antarctica’s Most Terrifying Glacier.” Jon Gertner, Wired. An interesting portrait of one scientist and the massive research project he is now part of, the ITGC. Though this article dates from before COVID-19 put the project on hold, it has lost none of its relevance.

The extensive website of this joint U.S.-U.K. effort includes a short video with clear graphics, an impressive list of participants, and an article about the goals of the current season, now underway. 

“Warming seas are carving into glacier that could trigger sea level rise.” Chris Mooney, Washington Post. An intriguing account of some research from the ’22-’23 season involving a robot exploring channels being cut into the bottom of the ice shelf by warmer water. 

“Antarctica’s Upside Down World.” Douglas Fox, BioGraphic. Studying the behavior of ice is leading to some other unexpected discoveries. One, the subject of this surprising piece, is a world of living creatures — such as sea anemones — attached to the bottom of the Thwaites Ice Shelf, far from any sources of light or food. Another story by Fox tells of under-ice rivers, some moving as quickly as a white-water river, and a cavern nearly tall enough to hold the Empire State Building: “A natural ‘cathedral’ lurks deep under Antarctic ice.” Science News Explores.

Beyond Thwaites:

“New research sparks concerns that ocean circulation will collapse.” Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360. An influential new analysis, one “being hailed as a sea change in scientific understanding,” predicts that ice melt in the Southern Ocean, not the North Atlantic, may well slow or even shut down the global conveyor belt of heat — and perhaps within a few decades.  

 

Categories: I. Climate Science

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #06

Skeptical Science - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 07:13
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, Feb 04, 2024 thru Sat, Feb 10, 2024. Story of the week

This past week Professor Michael Mann successfully concluded his lawsuit against fossil fuel industry proxies Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, who dragged Mann's reputation through the mud with false information while working to deceive the public about the threat of climate change. After hearing testimony about the disgusting tactics employed by the defendants, the jury swiftly returned their judgement: the accused are indeed guilty of smearing Mann's character and owe him $1M in damages. No surprise, this all-too-rare example of reckless accusations being assigned a fair price tag is our story of the week. Our colleagues at DeSmog have done the best job of covering the entire affair. See Michael Mann Wins $1 Million Verdict In Defamation Trial for excellent coverage of the trial's conclusion and background. For our part we'll observe that Prof. Mann has a long memory and attention span. Meanwhile, prolonging justice delivered only hurt the defendants; Simberg and Steyn would have been smarter by settling years ago. 

Stories we thought important

Published before February 4

Published February 4

Published February 5

Published February 6

Published February 7

Published February 8

  • Climate scientist Michael Mann wins defamation case against conservative writers  Mann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, had sued Rand Simberg, a policy analyst, and Mark Steyn, a right-wing author, for online posts published over a decade ago, respectively, by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review. by Julia Simon, NPR, Feb 8, 2024
  • Canada’s Carbon Emissions Cover-Up  Canada’s carbon footprint is not just a step but a giant leap beyond what’s been claimed. A six-year study pulls back the curtain on the environmental debacle, revealing emissions rates that dwarf industry figures. by Jeremy Appel, Jacobin, Feb 8, 2024

Published February 9

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 for possible inclusion on our social media channels. Thanks!

Categories: I. Climate Science

DeBriefed 9 February 2024: EU told to cut emissions 90% by 2040; Labour’s £28bn in context; Can Northern Ireland ‘catch up’ on climate?

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 02/09/2024 - 05:19

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 2040 aims

ROAD TO 2040: The European Commission has called for a 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040, Carbon Brief reported. The recommendation is designed to bridge the gap between the bloc’s existing short- and long-term emission-cutting goals. EU politicians and institutions will grapple over the details of the proposal before it is put into law.

RENEWABLE RIVALRY: The EU also finalised its “green tech bill”, which is intended to help the bloc “withstand mounting competition from the US and China”, according to Politico. The Net-Zero Industry Act aims to “manufacture 40% of the bloc’s clean-tech needs within the EU”, Bloomberg said. The plan was developed in “direct response to the US Inflation Reduction Act”, the outlet added. 

TO THE STREETS: Meanwhile, amid ongoing farmer protests across Europe, Carbon Brief analysed whether their concerns were related to climate issues. In response to the protests, the European Commission “removed” a reference to non-CO2 agricultural emissions falling by 30%, which had been in a draft of its 2040 plan, Al Jazeera said. The commission also shelved plans to halve pesticide use by the end of this decade, the Guardian reported. 

Chile and California extremes

CHILE FIRES: More than 131 people died after forest fires broke out in Valparaiso, Chile earlier this month, the country’s La Tercera newspaper said. Almost 15,000 homes were damaged and hundreds of people remain missing, BBC News said. The event was Chile’s “worst tragedy” since an earthquake killed hundreds in 2010, El País said. 

INTENSE RAIN: In the US, southern California experienced “record-breaking rainfall” in recent days, leading to flooding and mudslides, NBC News reported. The New York Times looked at the extreme weather in both Chile and California, noting that the “far apart” disasters show the impact of “two powerful forces: Climate change…and the natural weather phenomenon known as El Niño”. 

1.5C ‘breach’

12-MONTH BREACH: New data suggested that global warming exceeded 1.5C across an entire 12-month period “for the first time” from February 2023 to January 2024, according to BBC News. The article noted that this year-long “breach” of 1.5C, as recorded by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, does not break the Paris Agreement 1.5C limit – as that refers to warming over longer time scales – but it “does bring the world closer to doing so”. (See Carbon Brief’s 2017 guest post on how to interpret the 1.5C limit for more.)

AUSSIE HEAT: In Australia, long-term temperature records show that the country’s climate has warmed by 1.5C since 1910, the Guardian said. The figures were released in the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement, which noted that 2023 was the country’s joint-eighth warmest year on record. Dr Andrew King, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, told the newspaper that “we know Australia is already warming above the global average”. 

1.5C SCIENCE: Separately, a study based on a new climate “proxy” dataset claimed ​​that the planet has already exceeded 1.5C of warming, Carbon Brief reported, but a number of scientists challenged this conclusion. The researchers used sea sponge data to create a record of ocean temperatures since 1700, which suggested that global warming is “0.5C higher” than current estimates. This “does not mean that impacts of climate change will occur earlier than expected”, said Prof Richard Betts, a Met Office climate scientist, who was not involved in the study.

Around the world
  • AMAZON DRILLING: Activists in Ecuador have warned that the country’s newly elected president could be trying to “wriggle out” of a landmark referendum decision to stop oil drilling in a part of the Amazon, according to Climate Home News.
  • AT THE COALFACE: The “vast majority” of the world’s new coal power plants were developed in China last year, Bloomberg reported. This is despite the country’s record action on clean energy. 
  • LNG PAUSE: A top US energy department official defended president Joe Biden’s pause on approving liquified natural gas (LNG) exports at a senate hearing on the decision, Reuters reported. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on how the pause could impact global emissions.)  
  • OIL PROTESTERS: A group of 11 Ugandan climate activists face up to a year in jail after protesting against a $5bn oil pipeline project, the Guardian said. 
  • SCIENTIST ‘VICTORY’: US climate scientist Prof Michael Mann won a long-standing defamation lawsuit against two right-wing bloggers who made derogatory comments about him and his work, the New York Times reported. Mann described it as a “victory for science [and] scientists”. 
$2.4 trillion

The amount of funds needed each year by 2030 to keep global climate goals “within reach”, according to Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, Reuters reported.

Latest climate research
  • Research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences called for a sixth category to be added to a hurricane wind scale to communicate that climate change has intensified tropical storm winds. 
  • Methane emissions have a smaller impact on the ability of mangroves to sequester carbon than previously thought, a study in Nature Climate Change found. 
  • A study in Nature Sustainability assessed the climate, energy, air quality and health impacts of focusing on more compact urban development in China by 2050. Researchers found that this policy would have “considerable environmental and economic benefits”.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Many UK newspaper frontpages on Friday morning reported that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has announced that he is scrapping his flagship policy to invest £28bn a year in climate action, if elected to power. It comes after months of uncertainty over the pledge. Writing in the Guardian, Starmer, along with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, blamed “damage” caused by the Conservatives “crashing the economy” for the policy change. The move sparked a wave of newspaper editorials, with the Guardian describing it as “wrong, wrong, wrong” and the Daily Mail calling Starmer “Sir Flip flop”. To add context to the £28bn figure, Carbon Brief’s deputy editor Dr Simon Evans noted on Twitter that the UK spent £265bn on energy in 2022. This included more than £100bn on imported oil and gas. 

Spotlight Northern Ireland’s climate ‘catch-up’ 

This week, Carbon Brief explores how a new government in Northern Ireland might approach tackling climate change.

A new power-sharing government was set up in Northern Ireland last weekend, after the region was effectively run by civil servants for the past two years. 

In a “historic” move, Michelle O’Neill was appointed as Northern Ireland’s first nationalist (pro-Irish unification) first minister, BBC News reported.

Andrew Muir is the new minister for agriculture, environment and rural affairs. The interim chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), Piers Forster, said the CCC “look[s] forward to working with [Muir] on delivery of NI’s ambitious climate targets”.

Although Northern Ireland has a Climate Change Act, including a net-zero target, it has a lot of climate policy to “catch up on” after two years of stagnation, Dr Viviane Gravey, a senior politics lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, told Carbon Brief. She said: 

“We don’t have our climate plan that was supposed to be published in 2023, we don’t have our environmental strategy that was supposed to be published in July. We don’t even have our statement on environmental principles.” 

These were not able to be put in place “because ministers were not there and civil servants could not just produce policies that have such a big impact”, she added. 

Without these “central pillars”, Gravey said that Northern Ireland is “really not in a position right now to actually deliver on any of [its] targets – because we don’t even know what the targets really are”. 

She added that Muir seemed to be a “very different minister” who “made very clear in a statement that he is really interested in his whole portfolio”. 

In this statement, the minister said he intended to put in place plans that “benefit our climate and environment, while supporting our economically and socially significant agriculture, food and fisheries sectors alongside our important rural communities”. 

The former environment minister, Edwin Poots, who is now the speaker of the Northern Ireland assembly, got into hot water after downplaying climate change in 2020.

Future action

Campaigners and experts recently described Northern Ireland as the “dirty corner of Europe” that may suffer “grave environmental damage because of governance failures”, the Guardian reported. 

Gravey said there is a “glimmer of hope” that the new minister will tackle climate and environmental issues, but “whether he is going to manage to actually deliver on that, who knows”. 

Without action on climate change in Northern Ireland, there is a risk that the region could “hold the UK back” when it comes to meeting its target of net-zero emissions by 2050, she added. 

But the return of power-sharing means there is at least “some chance of getting something done”, she said, adding:  

“The last time we had a government from 2020 [until 2022] was a moment of hope and, finally, we had action on climate change in Northern Ireland. And now the question is: Will we be able to get that energy back?”

Watch, read, listen

EV METALS: Climate Home News reported on how Indonesia’s rapidly growing nickel sector is “infringing the rights of Indigenous peoples”. 

SHIFT KEY: A new podcast on key climate news and the shift away from fossil fuels was launched by Heatmap News executive editor, Robinson Meyer, and energy systems expert Jesse Jenkins. 

SOLAR POWER: Capital & Main, a US news nonprofit, investigated the possibilities and tradeoffs of Hawaii’s renewable energy “revolution”. 

Coming up Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org

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DeBriefed 19 January 2024: John Kerry retires; Uncertainty over UK Labour’s pledge; China’s new climate envoy profiled 

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Categories: I. Climate Science

Vacancy: Team Coordinator

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 02/09/2024 - 05:02

Carbon Brief is looking for someone special to help support our busy and growing team.

  • Do you have administration experience and good interpersonal skills?
  • Are you organised and clear-thinking, with the ability to multitask? 
  • Do you have meticulous attention to detail?
Job description

Working closely with our journalists, editors, multimedia producers and digital content executives, you’ll play a key role in supporting the whole Carbon Brief team in producing world-class journalism and in ensuring a happy, efficient and inclusive workplace.

Reporting to the Office Manager, this role would suit a motivated and organised individual looking for a hybrid position with a variety of PA and admin duties. These will include office administration, travel and meeting coordination, and supporting HR processes as core tasks, but you may have other responsibilities that grow and change as the role develops. 

You’ll have exceptional organisational skills and an ability to prioritise tasks efficiently and effectively. You will be comfortable working on your own initiative, yet able to build strong working relationships. With a flexible attitude and constructive outlook, you’ll enjoy the prospect of making sure our in-house processes work efficiently and contribute new ideas for supporting our team and the work we do.

Please note that this particular role is not a route into journalism. A different role within Carbon Brief would be better suited to anyone with aspirations to write.

Responsibilities  
  • Being a contact point: Liaise with building management, update the team about notices/events and ensure the correct processes are followed. 
  • Inbox management: Review, respond to and flag emails that come into Carbon Brief’s general inbox – e.g. media requests, feedback and general enquiries.
  • Meetings and events: Coordinate availability, schedule meetings, check facilities, liaise with venues, make bookings and organise materials/provisions.
  • Coordinating travel: Process team travel requests; organise itineraries and make bookings; prepare travel guidance and check health and visa requirements.
  • Supporting HR: Book line-management meetings, monitor annual leave, assist with recruitment, process expenses and keep accurate records via our Sage HR platform.
  • Office/team equipment: Order IT and other office equipment, as required, and maintain an up-to-date inventory of IT assets.
  • Administrative support: Ad-hoc support for the Office Manager and wider Carbon Brief team, including marking team social events and milestones.
Experience Essential
  • One year’s previous experience in a similar role. 
  • Excellent organisational and planning skills.
  • Proven collaboration and team-working skills.
  • Meticulous attention to detail and a commitment to accuracy.
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
  • Discretion and an understanding of confidentiality issues.
  • Proficient in Microsoft Office and Google Docs.
Desirable
  • Experience of using the Sage HR platform. 
  • An interest in climate change, the environment and/or journalism.
  • An awareness of Carbon Brief and the kind of organisation we are.

Location: Carbon Brief’s office is in central London. For this particular role, we would prefer the successful candidate to be based in the UK and able to come into the office 2-3 days per week.

Hours/Duration: Regular office hours of 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday. This is a full-time permanent (non-sponsored) position.

Salary:  £30,000 per year, dependent on experience. Generous benefits, including pension and group protection insurance.

How to apply 

To apply, please send:

  • Your CV.
  • A cover letter explaining why you would be a good fit for the role and the organisation. 

To: jobs@carbonbrief.org

Please start “Team Coordinator application – Carbon Brief” in the email subject line.

Applications must be submitted by 9AM GMT on Monday 11 March. First interviews will be held on Monday 18 March and Thursday 21 March. Shortlisted candidates will be invited back for a second interview on Tuesday 26 March, with a view to making a decision by the end of the week.

Carbon Brief is committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce. Our aim is to be truly representative of all sections of society and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. We strongly encourage applications from those who feel underrepresented in climate journalism, including ethnic and social minorities.

About Carbon Brief 

Carbon Brief specialises in clear, evidence-based articles and data visualisations to help improve the understanding of climate change, both in terms of the science and the policy response. We publish a wide range of content, including Q&As, in-depth analysis, interviews, newsletters, interactives, infographics and maps. Our audience is global and diverse, but particularly serves policymakers, journalists, NGOs and academics. We are proud of the reach and engagement we have with our audiences, who value our rigorous and authoritative brand of ‘explainer journalism’.

The post Vacancy: Team Coordinator appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Categories: I. Climate Science

Ny-Ålesund: How UK scientists are studying climate change in the Arctic

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 02/09/2024 - 02:39

The northernmost town in the world, Ny-Ålesund, has for more than 30 years hosted the UK’s Arctic Research Station – the nation’s only permanent infrastructure at the Earth’s northern pole.

Located on the Norwegian island of Svalbard – one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth – the station acts as a base for UK scientists studying the Arctic’s ice, ecosystems and atmosphere.

On 7 February, Carbon Brief was invited to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the UK’s national polar research institute in Cambridge, to hear more about what life is like for UK scientists living in the Arctic Circle.

BAS’s Arctic Day also offered a chance to hear about how researchers are working to understand the complex impacts of climate change on the land’s most northern edge.

UK Arctic base

Formerly a mining town, Ny-Ålesund now hosts Arctic research stations for a range of countries including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK.

It is accessible via a flight on a 14-seater plane that leaves four times a week from Longyearbyen, the largest town in Svalbard.

Speaking at BAS’s Arctic Day, the institute’s Arctic operations manager Iain Rudkin explained that the town is famous for being the starting point for a number of “crazy” Arctic expeditions. 

This includes the expeditions of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who was the first man to successfully navigate the treacherous Northwest Passage through the Arctic to North America by boat in 1905.

The town of Ny-Ålesund, featuring the UK’s Arctic Research Station. Credit: British Antarctic Survey

The UK’s Arctic Research Station was built in 1991. It consists of seven bedrooms, three laboratories, a sitting room, an office and storage space. The station can be explored room by room using this 3D virtual tour tool.

According to station lab manager Guy Hillyard, the labs consist of a general space, a microscopic lab and a wet lab suitable for processing dirty soils and sediments.

The station also has an annex for drying mosses and soils, freezers at temperatures from -18 to -25C for storing ice cores and separate freezers for storing frozen sediment, he added.

The UK’s Arctic Research Station in Ny-Ålesund viewed in summer. Credit: British Antarctic Survey

Until recently, Ny-Ålesund was a town of “radio silence”, meaning there was no wifi, bluetooth or other kinds of internet access. However, last year, a decision was made to install a 4G mast.

Although many living at Ny-Ålesund appreciated the radio silence, the decision was made to make it easier for people out in the field to call for help if in danger and to allow scientists to use scientific equipment that communicates via the internet, Rudkin said.

Algae, AI and invisible ecosystems

BAS’s Arctic Day saw a number of UK-based scientists briefly explain the purposes of their research at Ny-Ålesund in the past and coming few months.

Dr Jaz Millar, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, travelled to Ny-Ålesund in July 2023 as part of their research into how climate change could be affecting algal blooms on glaciers, which are vast rivers of frozen ice.

The algae that Millar studies is dark purple, meaning it lowers the “albedo” on the surface of glaciers. Albedo is a term for describing the proportion of sunlight that is reflected away from a surface, with bright white having a high albedo and dark colours having a low albedo.

When the albedo on the glacier’s surface is lowered, it absorbs more sunlight. This causes it to melt faster.

It is possible that presence of meltwater induces the growth of more algae – potentially representing a self-reinforcing “worrying positive feedback loop”, Millar explained.

Around Ny-Ålesund, Millar’s team visited three glaciers. They studied algal growth with a range of techniques, including bringing microscopes directly into their field sites and taking ice samples. 

Millar’s research has not yet been published, but the results suggest that the relationship between glacier melt and algal bloom growth may be more complex than just a linear positive feedback loop.

Elsewhere, Prof Kate Hendry, a chemical oceanographer at BAS, explained more about her research into how the melting of glaciers could be altering the flow of key nutrients into coastal waters – eventually impacting marine ecosystems.

She explained that glacier meltwater typically contains nutrients that are needed by diatoms – single-cell algae that act as food for tiny marine creatures called zooplankton – which in turn support a wide range of fish, bird and mammal species, including whales. These nutrients include iron nitrate and silicic acid.

Humpback whale, Svalbard, Norway. Credit: Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo

As glaciers melt at an increasingly rapid rate because of climate change, this may impact the growth of diatoms – in turn affecting species higher up the food chain, she said.

To study this, Hendry’s team visited Ny-Ålesund in 2023 to collect more than 1,000 samples from glaciers, the ocean and sediments. Her team will return this year to look further at how the availability of iron and silicon in fjord environments could be affected by climate change.

At the sidelines of the presentations, Carbon Brief spoke to Martin Rogers, a machine-learning scientist at BAS, about his research using AI to map changes to Arctic sea ice in higher resolution than is currently available.

The AI tool can search through different types of satellite imagery, offering scientists the highest-resolution image available when considering factors such as cloud cover, which can obscure views of the sea ice, he explained.

In the future, this tool could be used to help scientists understand in greater detail the extent to which sea ice is declining because of climate change, he added:

“The big question is about the decline in sea ice extent. With this product, you can get the sea ice extent in high fidelity. Then you’ve got more precise information about how the sea ice extent is changing between years.”

Finally, the conference heard from Laura Molares Moncayo, a PhD student at the Natural History Museum and Queen Mary University of London.

Her research is centred around the question of whether the Arctic’s atmosphere could be supporting an ecosystem that is invisible to the human eye.

For decades, researchers assumed that glaciers were devoid of complex lifeforms, she explained. However, research has revealed that they actually support a vast array of microorganisms, which are well adapted for harsh, frozen environments.

How did these microorganisms find their way into glaciers? 

Glaciers grow by receiving rain and snow from the atmosphere. In fact, glaciers could be considered a “condensed version of the atmosphere”, Molares Moncayo explained.

It is possible, she continued, that the microorganisms found in glaciers may have fallen from the atmosphere. Such microorganisms would, in theory, already possess the adaptations required to survive the tough conditions of the Arctic air.

PhD student Laura Molares Moncayo shows the locations of her field research around Ny-Ålesund. Credit: Daisy Dunne

In a week’s time, she will travel to Ny-Ålesund to try to establish whether the Arctic atmosphere is home to an invisible ecosystem of microorganisms. 

To do this, she will use a range of equipment, including dry air samplers, which collect any solid particles present in air into a filter.

She will then use DNA sequencing techniques to identify which microorganisms are present in her air samples. She will also study the microorganisms’ functional genes, which will offer clues into whether the microorganisms are interacting with each other when still in the air.

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Categories: I. Climate Science

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #6 2024

Skeptical Science - Thu, 02/08/2024 - 14:23
Open access notables

300 years of sclerosponge thermometry shows global warming has exceeded 1.5 °C, McCulloch et al., Nature Climate Change: 

Using 300 years of ocean mixed-layer temperature records preserved in sclerosponge carbonate skeletons, we demonstrate that industrial-era warming began in the mid-1860s, more than 80 years earlier than instrumental sea surface temperature records. The Sr/Ca palaeothermometer was calibrated against ‘modern’ (post-1963) highly correlated (R2 = 0.91) instrumental records of global sea surface temperatures, with the pre-industrial defined by nearly constant (<±0.1 °C) temperatures from 1700 to the early 1860s. Increasing ocean and land-air temperatures overlap until the late twentieth century, when the land began warming at nearly twice the rate of the surface oceans. Hotter land temperatures, together with the earlier onset of industrial-era warming, indicate that global warming was already 1.7 ± 0.1 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2020. Our result is 0.5 °C higher than IPCC estimates, with 2 °C global warming projected by the late 2020s, nearly two decades earlier than expected.

Record High 2022 September-Mean Temperature in Western North America, Xie et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:

Human-induced warming is estimated to have increased occurrence probability (magnitude) of the record-breaking September 2022 heat event in western North America by 6–67 times (0.6–1 K) by E3SMv2 and even higher by coupled regional refined model (RRM) simulations.

Spectrally refined unbiased Monte Carlo estimate of the Earth’s global radiative cooling, Nyffenegger-Péré et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

The Earth’s radiative cooling is a key driver of climate. Determining how it is affected by greenhouse gas concentration is a core question in climate-change sciences. Due to the complexity of radiative transfer processes, current practices to estimate this cooling require the development and use of a suite of radiative transfer models whose accuracy diminishes as we move from local, instantaneous estimates to global estimates over the whole globe and over long periods of time (decades). Here, we show that recent advances in nonlinear Monte Carlo methods allow a paradigm shift: a completely unbiased estimate of the Earth’s infrared cooling to space can be produced using a single model, integrating the most refined spectroscopic models of molecular gas energy transitions over a global scale and over years, all at a very low computational cost (a few seconds).

Which energy labels should we use to expedite the transition to electric vehicles?, Scarlat et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science:

Efforts to promote electric vehicle adoption through policy measures fall short due to underestimated cognitive biases and consumer behavior impacts. We contribute to the literature by bridging the gap between human behavioral studies and environmental policy. We incorporate choice architecture into energy labels to determine which information architecture regarding energy costs is an effective nudge in increasing electric vehicle purchase intentions. Our experiment finds that labels framing energy costs as ‘expenditure,’ rather than ‘savings,’ are more effective in increasing the intent to purchase an electric vehicle. Additionally, we find that a graphical display of expenditure was not effective in influencing purchase intentions. Policymakers can use similar choice architecture tools to encourage electric vehicle adoption, expediting the transition to electric vehicles and achieving national environmental goals.

Absurd geographies of resilience and justice, Grove et al., Climate and Development:

Critical and applied scholarship tends to dismiss resilience as a neoliberal barrier to justice, or assume it necessarily advances justice outcomes. Instead, drawing on collaborative fieldwork with Miami-based social and climate justice organizers, we explore how resilience is mobilized in contextually-specific struggles against racialized vulnerability and insecurity. Reading across literatures in political geography, cultural geography, and Black geographies, we highlight absurd and inconsistent expressions of resilience in our collaborators’ justice advocacy work. A focus on the absurd directs attention to the way diverse practices of resilience emerge from ‘spaces out of joint,’ where modernity’s universalizing promises of betterment run aground against long histories of racial violence that secure White futurity. Our community collaborators ironically mobilize and reject resilience in strategic ways that reflect their struggles to create and defend place against the racialized extraction of value, disinvestment, and displacement.

A Realist Approach to Hydrogen, Robin Gaster, e Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (via this week's government/NGO section):

Clean hydrogen is expensive to produce, difficult to transport, and a second- or third-best clean energy solution in almost all proposed markets. To help drive the global green transition, a realist approach to hydrogen policy must address all these practical challenges. Blue hydrogen investments should be minimized. Blue hydrogen is not a global solution for greenhouse gas emissions even in targeted industries, as it will never reach price/performance parity (P3) with gray hydrogen, and may not effectively address greenhouse gases either. Green hydrogen is different. It could reach P3, for some applications, in some regions. But that depends almost entirely on lower costs for the renewable energy it requires, the key input. Economies of scale, e.g., for electrolyzes, will not transform the economics of green hydrogen. Most proposed markets for hydrogen reflect magical thinking. They are nowhere near competitive with fossil fuels and often are not competitive with electrification using renewable energy. Accelerating research, design and development around green hydrogen is critical, emphasizing the competitive pathway to scaleup for a few key potential markets, such as long-duration energy storage. Policymakers should favor projects that co-locate green hydrogen production, energy sources, and end users, avoiding projects that require electricity from the grid or extensive transportation infrastructure. 

246 articles in 79 journals by 1791 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Arctic Sea Ice Loss, Long-Term Trends in Extratropical Wave Forcing, and the Observed Strengthening of the QBO-MJO Connection, Hood & Hoopes, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd039501

Comparison of the opposite behaviours of Korean heatwaves with extreme hot sea surface temperatures in August 2016 and 2022, Choi & Lee, International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.8247

Examining cloud vertical structure and radiative effects from satellite retrievals and evaluation of CMIP6 scenarios, Luo et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-8169-2023

High-Resolution Lead–Lag Relations Between Barents Sea Temperatures, the AMOC and the AMO During 1971–2018, Seip & Wang, Atmosphere Open Access 10.1080/07055900.2023.2251426

Process-evaluation of forest aerosol-cloud-climate feedback shows clear evidence from observations and large uncertainty in models, Blichner et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45001-y

Processes Contributing to Bering Sea Temperature Variability in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century, Hayden & O’Neill, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0331.1

Spectrally refined unbiased Monte Carlo estimate of the Earth’s global radiative cooling, Nyffenegger-Péré et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2315492121

Spontaneous Activation of the Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulation (PMOC) in Long-Term Ocean Response to Greenhouse Forcing, Curtis & Fedorov, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0393.1

The Influence of Increased CO2 Concentrations on AMOC Interdecadal Variability Under the LGM Background, Gao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd039976

The Southern Ocean Freshwater Input from Antarctica (SOFIA) Initiative: scientific objectives and experimental design, Swart et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-16-7289-2023

Unique ocean circulation pathways reshape the Indian Ocean oxygen minimum zone with warming, Ditkovsky et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-4711-2023

Warming Climate-Induced Changes in Cloud Vertical Distribution Possibly Exacerbate Intra-Atmospheric Heating Over the Tibetan Plateau, Zhao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107713

Observations of climate change, effects

300 years of sclerosponge thermometry shows global warming has exceeded 1.5 °C, McCulloch et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-023-01919-7

Contribution of Anthropogenic Activities to the Intensification of Heat Index-Based Spatiotemporally Contiguous Heatwave Events in China, Kong et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd040004

Detection and attribution of changes in streamflow and snowpack in Arctic river basins, Nasonova et al., Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-023-03626-w

Evaluation of snow cover properties in ERA5 and ERA5-Land with several satellite-based datasets in the Northern Hemisphere in spring 1982–2018, Kouki et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-5007-2023

Global trends of fronts and chlorophyll in a warming ocean, Yang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-023-01160-2

Long-term monthly 0.05° terrestrial evapotranspiration dataset (1982–2018) for the Tibetan Plateau, Yuan et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-16-775-2024

Marine heatwave events strengthen the intensity of tropical cyclones, Choi et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01239-4

Quantifying the association between Arctic Sea ice extent and Indian precipitation, Kulkarni & Agarwal, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8337

Record High 2022 September-Mean Temperature in Western North America, Xie et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0148.1

Start&2023&4, Ivanov et al., Open Access pdf 10.3897/bdj.11.e100521.figure4

Summer Russian Heat Waves Linked to Arctic Sea Ice Anomalies in 2010 and 2016, Zhang et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0087.1

Trends in Atmospheric Heat Transport Since 1980, Cox et al., Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0385.1

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A Global Forest Burn Severity Dataset from Landsat Imagery (2003–2016), He et al., Open Access 10.5194/essd-2023-446

An analysis of winter rain-on-snow climatology in Svalbard, Vickers et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2024.1342731

Changes in United States Summer Temperatures Revealed by Explainable Neural Networks, Labe et al., Earth's Future Open Access 10.1029/2023ef003981

ESD Ideas: Translating historical extreme weather events into a warmer world, Hawkins et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2023-665

Parameterization of downward long-wave radiation based on long-term baseline surface radiation measurements in China, Yang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-4419-2023

Radiative sensitivity quantified by a new set of radiation flux kernels based on the ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5), Huang & Huang, Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-15-3001-2023

Results of a long-term international comparison of greenhouse gas and isotope measurements at the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Observatory in Alert, Nunavut, Canada, Worthy et al., Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Open Access 10.5194/amt-16-5909-2023

The prototype NOAA Aerosol Reanalysis version 1.0: description of the modeling system and its evaluation, Wei et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-795-2024

The suitability of atmospheric oxygen measurements to constrain western European fossil-fuel CO2 emissions and their trends, Rödenbeck et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-15767-2023

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

A Global Assessment of Heatwaves Since 1850 in Different Observational and Model Data Sets, Lipfert et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106212

Atmosphere and ocean energy transport in extreme warming scenarios, Poletti et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000343

Buoyancy forcing: a key driver of northern North Atlantic sea surface temperature variability across multiple timescales, Risebrobakken et al., Climate of the Past Open Access 10.5194/cp-19-1101-2023

Cloud properties and their projected changes in CMIP models with low to high climate sensitivity, Bock & Lauer, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-1587-2024

Constraining Projected Changes in Rare Intense Precipitation Events Across Global Land Regions, Li et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105605

Convection-permitting regional climate simulation on soil moisture-heatwaves relationship over eastern China, Xu et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107285

Drivers of Caribbean precipitation change due to global warming: analyses and emergent constraint of CMIP6 simulations, Brotons et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07072-3

Effect of droughts and climate change on future soil weathering rates in Sweden, Kronnäs et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1879-2023

Effects of CO $$&2$$ vegetation forcing on precipitation and heat extremes in China, Chen et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07046-5

Future Changes in Global Atmospheric Rivers Projected by CMIP6 Models, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039359

Global and Regional Climate Feedbacks in Response to Uniform Warming and Cooling, Ringer et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2023jd038861

Impact of ITCZ width on global climate: ITCZ-MIP, Pendergrass et al., Open Access 10.5194/gmd-2024-17

Influence of Weather and Climate on Multidecadal Trends in Atlantic Hurricane Genesis and Tracks, Kortum et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0088.1

The influence of future changes in springtime Arctic ozone on stratospheric and surface climate, Chiodo et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-10451-2023

The Projected Poleward Shift of Tropical Cyclogenesis at a Global Scale Under Climate Change in MRI-AGCM3.2H, Cao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107189

Understanding aerosol–climate–ecosystem interactions and the implications for terrestrial carbon sink using the Community Earth System Model, Zhang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109625

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Better-constrained climate sensitivity when accounting for dataset dependency on pattern effect estimates, Modak & Mauritsen, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-7535-2023

Climate-invariant machine learning, Beucler et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adj7250

Dansgaard–Oeschger events in climate models: review and baseline Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) protocol, Malmierca-Vallet et al., Climate of the Past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-19-915-2023

Historical meteorological droughts over the CORDEX-CAM (Central America, Caribbean and Mexico) domain: Evaluating the simulation of dry hot spots with RegCM4, Andrade?Gómez & Cavazos, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8374

Long-Term Experimental Evaluation of a High-Resolution Atmospheric General Circulation Model From a Hydrological Perspective, Miura & Nakaegawa, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd038786

Mechanisms of Added Value of a Coupled Global Ocean-Regional Atmosphere Climate Model Over Central Equatorial Africa, Tamoffo et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039385

Optimal parameters for the ocean's nutrient, carbon, and oxygen cycles compensate for circulation biases but replumb the biological pump, Pasquier et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-2985-2023

Reduced Deep Convection and Bottom Water Formation Due To Antarctic Meltwater in a Multi-Model Ensemble, Chen et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl106492

Reliability ensemble averaging reduces surface wind speed projection uncertainties in the 21st Century over China, Zheng-Tai & Chang-Ai, Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.01.011

The abrupt rise of midsummer high-temperature days and surface air temperature in Southern China around the early 2000s and it’s influences on climate forecasts, Jia et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-023-07087-w

Towards an ensemble-based evaluation of land surface models in light of uncertain forcings and observations, Arora et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1313-2023

Understanding the Diversity of CMIP6 Models in the Projection of Precipitation Over Tibetan Plateau, Qiu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106553

Validation of key Arctic energy and water budget components in CMIP6, Winkelbauer et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-024-07105-5

What Aspect of Model Performance is the Most Relevant to Skillful Future Projection on a Regional Scale?, Li et al., Open Access pdf 10.1002/essoar.10512734.1

Cryosphere & climate change

Arctic Sea Ice Loss Modulates the Surface Impact of Autumn Stratospheric Polar Vortex Stretching Events, Zou & Zhang, Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2023gl107221

Atmospheric drivers of melt-related ice speed-up events on the Russell Glacier in Southwest Greenland, Schmid et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-3933-2023

AutoTerm: an automated pipeline for glacier terminus extraction using machine learning and a “big data” repository of Greenland glacier termini, Zhang et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-3485-2023

Bedfast and floating-ice dynamics of thermokarst lakes using a temporal deep-learning mapping approach: case study of the Old Crow Flats, Yukon, Canada, Shaposhnikova et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-1697-2023

Brief communication: The Glacier Loss Day as an indicator of a record-breaking negative glacier mass balance in 2022, Voordendag et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-3661-2023

Cast shadows reveal changes in glacier surface elevation, Pfau et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-3535-2023

Climatic Drivers of Ice Slabs and Firn Aquifers in Greenland, Brils et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106613

Combined GNSS reflectometry–refractometry for automated and continuous in situ surface mass balance estimation on an Antarctic ice shelf, Steiner et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-4903-2023

Firn on ice sheets, Shang et al., Remote Sensing Open Access pdf 10.3390/rs14092134

Late Holocene glacier and climate fluctuations in the Mackenzie and Selwyn mountain ranges, northwestern Canada, Hawkins et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-4381-2023

Mass changes of the northern Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet derived from repeat bi-static synthetic aperture radar acquisitions for the period 2013–2017, Seehaus et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-4629-2023

Modeling seasonal-to-decadal ocean–cryosphere interactions along the Sabrina Coast, East Antarctica, Kusahara et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-43-2024

On the drivers of regime shifts in the Antarctic marginal seas, exemplified by the Weddell Sea, Haid et al., Ocean Science Open Access 10.5194/os-19-1529-2023

Statistically parameterizing and evaluating a positive degree-day model to estimate surface melt in Antarctica from 1979 to 2022, Zheng et al., The Cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-17-3667-2023

Sea level & climate change

Higher quantiles of sea levels rise faster in Baltic Sea Climate projections, Dieterich & Radtke Radtke, Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07094-x

Missing sea level rise in southeastern Greenland during and since the Little Ice Age, Woodroffe et al., Climate of the Past Open Access 10.5194/cp-19-1585-2023

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Climate Variability Leads to Multiple Oxygenation Episodes Across the Great Oxidation Event, Ruiz et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106694

Deglacial and Holocene sea-ice and climate dynamics in the Bransfield Strait, northern Antarctic Peninsula, Vorrath et al., Climate of the Past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-19-1061-2023

East Antarctic warming forced by ice loss during the Last Interglacial, Hutchinson et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45501-x

Quantifying effects of Earth orbital parameters and greenhouse gases on mid-Holocene climate, Kang & Yang Yang, Climate of the Past Open Access 10.5194/cp-19-2013-2023

Uncertainties originating from GCM downscaling and bias correction with application to the MIS-11c Greenland Ice Sheet, Crow et al., Climate of the Past Open Access 10.5194/cp-20-281-2024

Widespread cooling over West Antarctica and adjacent seas over the past millennium, Lyu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2023.104237

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

A global assessment of environmental and climate influences on wetland macroinvertebrate community structure and function, Epele et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17173

A model of the within-population variability of budburst in forest trees, Lin et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2023-1075

A standard approach for including climate change responses in IUCN Red List assessments, Mancini et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.14227

Adaptation of sea turtles to climate warming: Will phenological responses be sufficient to counteract changes in reproductive output?, Fuentes et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.16991

Calcification response of planktic foraminifera to environmental change in the western Mediterranean Sea during the industrial era, Béjard et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1505-2023

China's subtropical deciduous plants are more sensitive to climate change than evergreen plants by flowering phenology, Li et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17168

Climate change and the biodiversity of alpine ponds: Challenges and perspectives, Lamouille?Hébert et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.10883

Dakota skipper distribution model for North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota aids conservation planning under changing climate scenarios, Barnes et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1304748

Drainage divide migration and implications for climate and biodiversity, He et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 10.1038/s43017-023-00511-z

Effects of dispersal and temperature variability on phytoplankton realized temperature niches, Smith & Barton, Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.10882

Endocrine flexibility can facilitate or constrain the ability to cope with global change, Taff et al., Open Access pdf 10.32942/x2dc7s

Environmental generalism, holobiont interactions, and Pocilloporid corals in the warming oceans of the eastern coast of Australia, Bergman et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2023.1190455

High resolution simulations reveal a large loss of Fennoscandian tundra due to climate change, Lagergren et al., Open Access 10.5194/bg-2023-148

Impact of deoxygenation and warming on global marine species in the 21st century, Morée et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-20-2425-2023

Impacts and uncertainties of climate-induced changes in watershed inputs on estuarine hypoxia, Hinson et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1937-2023

Integrating learning into animal range dynamics under rapid human-induced environmental change, Aben et al., Ecology Letters 10.1111/ele.14367

Marine heatwaves modulate the genotypic and physiological responses of reef-building corals to subsequent heat stress, Brown et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.10798

Mean reef fish body size decreases towards warmer waters, Coghlan et al., Ecology Letters Open Access pdf 10.1111/ele.14375

Microbiome ecological memory and responses to repeated marine heatwaves clarify variation in coral bleaching and mortality, Vompe et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.17088

Ocean climate and hydrodynamics drive decadal shifts in Northeast Atlantic dinoflagellates, Kléparski et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17163

Physiological and microbiome adaptation of coral Turbinaria peltata in response to marine heatwaves, Zhai et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.10869

Plant diversity and functional identity drive grassland rhizobacterial community responses after 15 years of CO2 and nitrogen enrichment, Revillini et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access pdf 10.1111/1365-2745.14271

Potential impact of climatic factors on the distribution of Graphium sarpedon in China, Liao et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.10858

Primary succession and its driving variables – a sphere-spanning approach applied in proglacial areas in the upper Martell Valley (Eastern Italian Alps), Ramskogler et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-2919-2023

Projected climate oligotrophication of the Adriatic marine ecosystems, Mentaschi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1338374

Revisiting and attributing the global controls over terrestrial ecosystem functions of climate and plant traits at FLUXNET sites via causal graphical models, Shi et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-2727-2023

Shifts in the trends of vegetation greenness and photosynthesis in different parts of Tibetan Plateau over the past two decades, Anniwaer et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109851

Sublethal heat reduces overall reproductive investment and male allocation in a simultaneously hermaphroditic snail species, van Dijk et al., Open Access pdf 10.1101/2023.03.15.532738

Thermophilisation of Afromontane forest stands demonstrated in an elevation gradient experiment, Ntirugulirwa et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-5125-2023

Trophic niches of macrobenthos: Latitudinal variation indicates climate change impact on ecosystem functioning, Silberberger et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.17100

Wing lengths of three Arctic butterfly species decrease as summers warm in Alaska, Daly et al., Ecography Open Access pdf 10.1111/ecog.07075

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A new global oceanic multi-model net primary productivity data product, Ryan-Keogh et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-15-4829-2023

AgriCarbon-EO v1.0.1: large-scale and high-resolution simulation of carbon fluxes by assimilation of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 reflectances using a Bayesian approach, Wijmer et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-997-2024

Anthropogenic CO2 emission estimates in the Tokyo metropolitan area from ground-based CO2 column observations, Ohyama et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-15097-2023

Carbon mapping in pine-oak stands under timber management in southern Mexico, Ambrosio-Lazo et al., PeerJ Open Access 10.7717/peerj.16431

Central Arctic Ocean surface–atmosphere exchange of CO2 and CH4 constrained by direct measurements, Prytherch et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-21-671-2024

Changing sources and burial of organic carbon in the Chukchi Sea sediments with retreating sea ice over recent centuries, Su et al., Climate of the Past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-19-1305-2023

Decreasing seasonal cycle amplitude of methane in the northern high latitudes being driven by lower-latitude changes in emissions and transport, Dowd et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-23-7363-2023

Direct biological fixation provides a freshwater sink for N2O, Si et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-023-42481-2

Environmental controls of winter soil carbon dioxide fluxes in boreal and tundra environments, Mavrovic et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-5087-2023

Ground solar absorption observations of total column CO, CO2, CH4, and aerosol optical depth from California's Sequoia Lightning Complex Fire: emission factors and modified combustion efficiency at regional scales, Frausto-Vicencio et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-4521-2023

How well does ramped thermal oxidation quantify the age distribution of soil carbon? Assessing thermal stability of physically and chemically fractionated soil organic matter, Stoner et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-20-3151-2023

How well does ramped thermal oxidation quantify the age distribution of soil carbon? Assessing thermal stability of physically and chemically fractionated soil organic matter, Stoner et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-20-3151-2023

Hydrology Controls Dissolved Organic Carbon and Nitrogen Export and Post-Storm Recovery in Two Arctic Headwaters, Shogren et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jg007583

Identifying landscape hot and cold spots of soil greenhouse gas fluxes by combining field measurements and remote sensing data, Gachibu Wangari et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-5029-2023

Partitioning of carbon export in the euphotic zone of the oligotrophic South China Sea, Ma et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-2013-2023

Quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from wood fuel use by households, Flammini et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-15-2179-2023

Reviews and syntheses: Recent advances in microwave remote sensing in support of terrestrial carbon cycle science in Arctic–boreal regions, Mavrovic et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-2941-2023

Shallow and deep groundwater moderate methane dynamics in a high Arctic glacial catchment, Kleber et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2024.1340399

Source apportionment of methane emissions from the Upper Silesian Coal Basin using isotopic signatures, Fiehn et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-15749-2023

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

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the increase in ocean acidity extremes in the northeastern Pacific, Desmet et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-5151-2023

Temporally dynamic carbon dioxide and methane emission factors for rewetted peatlands, Kalhori et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01226-9

The Problem of Tree Senescence in the Role of Elevated CO2 and the Carbon Cycle, McMahon, AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023av001103

Two years of satellite-based carbon dioxide emission quantification at the world's largest coal-fired power plants, Cusworth et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-14577-2023

Upscaling Soil Organic Carbon Measurements at the Continental Scale Using Multivariate Clustering Analysis and Machine Learning, Wang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2023jg007702

Using machine learning to construct TOMCAT model and occultation measurement-based stratospheric methane (TCOM-CH4) and nitrous oxide (TCOM-N2O) profile data sets, Dhomse & Chipperfield Chipperfield Chipperfield, Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-15-5105-2023

Warming accelerates belowground litter turnover in salt marshes – insights from a Tea Bag Index study, Tang et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1925-2023

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

A comparison of the climate and carbon cycle effects of carbon removal by Afforestation and an equivalent reduction in Fossil fuel emissions, Jayakrishnan & Bala Bala Bala, Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1863-2023

Biochar ageing effects on soil respiration, biochar wettability and gaseous CO2 adsorption, Ojeda et al., Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10.1007/s11027-024-10107-7

Considerations for hypothetical carbon dioxide removal via alkalinity addition in the Amazon River watershed, Mu et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1963-2023

Enhancement effects of mangrove restoration on blue carbon storage in Qinzhou Bay, Song et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1328783

Long-term CO2 sequestration mechanisms and influence of injection mode in Zhujiang Formation of Pearl River Mouth Basin, Xuan et al., Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.2261

Quantifying land carbon cycle feedbacks under negative CO2 emissions, Chimuka et al., Open Access 10.5194/bg-2022-168

Site-specific additionality in aboveground carbon sequestration in set-aside forests in Flanders (northern Belgium), Vanhellemont et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1236203

Sustainability limits needed for CO2 removal, Deprez et al., Science Open Access 10.1126/science.adj6171

Toward quantification of the feasible potential of land-based carbon dioxide removal, Perkins et al., One Earth Open Access 10.1016/j.oneear.2023.11.011

Decarbonization

A climatology of weather-driven anomalies in European photovoltaic and wind power production, Ho-Tran & Fiedler, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01224-x

Advancing biomass pyrolysis: a bibliometric analysis of global research trends (2002–2022), Amusa et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04292-9

Computational sizing of solar powered peanut oil extraction in Senegal using a synthetic load profile, Bonzi et al., Energy for Sustainable Development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101391

Development of a portable off-grid solar water heater for apartment residents toward a decarbonized society, Terashima, Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101407

Geographic source of bats killed at wind-energy facilities in the eastern United States, Wieringa et al., PeerJ Open Access 10.7717/peerj.16796

Governing experimentation to decarbonise the electricity sector, Owens, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114011

How to recycle an EV battery, Xie et al., Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Informatics (AMEII 2016) Open Access pdf 10.2991/ameii-16.2016.291

Recent Advances and Challenges of Hydrogen Production Technologies via Renewable Energy Sources, Worku et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research Open Access pdf 10.1002/aesr.202300273

Sensitivities of atmospheric composition and climate to altitude and latitude of hypersonic aircraft emissions, Pletzer & Grewe Grewe, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-1743-2024

The effects of hydrogen research and innovation on international hydrogen trade, Asna Ashari & Blind, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113974

The Impact of Semi-Transparent Solar Panels on Tomato and Broccoli Growth, Lopez?Zaplana et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research Open Access pdf 10.1002/aesr.202300175

Black carbon

Black carbon concentrations and modeled smoke deposition fluxes to the bare-ice dark zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet, Khan et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-2909-2023

Black carbon scavenging by low-level Arctic clouds, Zieger et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-023-41221-w

Aerosols

Contribution of anthropogenic aerosols to persistent La Niña-like conditions in the early 21st century, Hwang et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2315124121

The prototype NOAA Aerosol Reanalysis version 1.0: description of the modeling system and its evaluation, Wei et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-795-2024

Climate change communications & cognition

A representative survey experiment of motivated climate change denial, Stoetzer & Zimmermann, Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-023-01910-2

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries, Vlasceanu et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adj5778

Climate action in the United States, McCormick et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000175

Climate change awareness and themes of support to decarbonize the economy among students in Iran, Khorasgani & Tavakoli, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 10.1007/s13412-024-00892-7

Do fossil fuel firms reframe online climate and sustainability communication? A data-driven analysis, Debnath et al., npj Climate Action Open Access 10.1038/s44168-023-00086-x

Mental health in polar scientists: Navigating the emotional landscape of climate change, Lewis & Broadwell, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000359

Social Constructions of Climate Futures: Reframing Science’s Harmful Impact Frame Across News Media, Social Movements, and Local Communities, Guenther et al., Environmental Communication Open Access pdf 10.1080/17524032.2024.2305827

Systematic mapping of climate and environmental framing experiments and re-analysis with computational methods points to omitted interaction bias, Fesenfeld et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000297

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A stakeholder-guided marine heatwave hazard index for fisheries and aquaculture, Kajtar et al., Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03684-8

Analysis of spatially distributed enteric methane emissions from cattle across the geo-climatic regions of Mexico and uncertainty assessment, Angeles-Hernández et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120389

Balancing Non-CO2 GHG Emissions and Soil Carbon Change in U.S. Rice Paddies: A Retrospective Meta-Analysis and Agricultural Modeling Study, Zhang et al., AGU Advances 10.1029/2023av001052

Biochar-plant interactions enhance nonbiochar carbon sequestration in a rice paddy soil, Liu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-023-01155-z

Compound Dry and Wet Extremes Lead to an Increased Risk of Rice Yield Loss, Chen & Wang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl105817

Editorial: Agricultural production in a warmer world: challenges and sustainable development strategies, Xiao et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2024.1368149

Medium-term projections of vehicle ownership, energy demand and vehicular emissions from private road transport in India, Krishna, Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04473-0

Navigating food security in India: unravelling the interplay of climatic and non-climatic factors, Mahali et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04486-9

Production vulnerability to wheat blast disease under climate change, Pequeno et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-023-01902-2

Seed quality under elevated CO2 differs in soybean cultivars with contrasting yield responses, Digrado et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.17170

Spawner weight and ocean temperature drive Allee effect dynamics in Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua: inherent and emergent density regulation, Winter et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-3683-2023

The statistical emulators of GGCMI phase 2: responses of year-to-year variation of crop yield to CO2, temperature, water, and nitrogen perturbations, Liu et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-16-7203-2023

Unequal impact of climate warming on meat yields of global cattle farming, Liu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01232-x

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Amplification effect of intra-seasonal variability of soil moisture on heat extremes over Eurasia, Wang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.01.008

Divergent path: isolating land use and climate change impact on river runoff, Mahmood et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1338512

Drainage divide migration and implications for climate and biodiversity, He et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 10.1038/s43017-023-00511-z

Drivers of Caribbean precipitation change due to global warming: analyses and emergent constraint of CMIP6 simulations, Brotons et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07072-3

Emergent climate change patterns originating from deep ocean warming in climate mitigation scenarios, Oh et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-024-01928-0

Evaluation of climate change impact on plants and hydrology, Shah et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1328808

Intensification in the Wettest Days to 50 Percent of Annual Precipitation (WD50) Across Europe, Goffin et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107403

MOPREDAS&century database and precipitation trends in mainland Spain, 1916–2020, Gonzalez?Hidalgo et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.8060

Severe droughts in North Africa: A review of drivers, impacts and management, Tanarhte et al., Earth 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104701

Spatiotemporal variability and trend detection of hydrological and climatic variables of Modjo catchment, central Ethiopia, Besha et al., Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-023-04769-7

Streamflow abrupt change and the driving factors in glacierized basins of Tarim Basin, Northwest China, Yang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.01.009

Terrestrial Evapotranspiration Over China From 1982 to 2020: Consistency of Multiple Data Sets and Impact of Input Data, Mao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 10.1029/2023jd039387

The enhanced future Flows and Groundwater dataset: development and evaluation of nationally consistent hydrological projections based on UKCP18, Hannaford et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-15-2391-2023

Winter snow deficit was a harbinger of summer 2022 socio-hydrologic drought in the Po Basin, Italy, Avanzi et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01222-z

Climate change economics

A global analysis of bioeconomy visions in governmental bioeconomy strategies, Proestou et al., Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-023-01958-6

Assessment of climate damage in China based on integrated assessment framework, Liu et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.01.012

Breaking the unsustainable paradigm: exploring the relationship between energy consumption, economic development and carbon dioxide emissions in Ecuador, Borja-Patiño et al., Sustainability Science Open Access 10.1007/s11625-023-01425-x

Economic modelling fit for the demands of energy decision makers, Barbrook-Johnson et al., Nature Energy Open Access 10.1038/s41560-024-01452-7

Escaping Damocles’ Sword: Endogenous Climate Shocks in a Growing Economy, Brausmann & Bretschger Vinogradova, Environmental and Resource Economics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640-023-00835-w

Four-quadrant modelling of carbon inequality in international trade and accounting for carbon compensation, Chen et al., Carbon Management Open Access pdf 10.1080/17583004.2024.2311655

Navigating sustainable development: exploring the environmental Kuznets curve in the SAARC region with global stochastic trends, Awan et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04505-9

The climate-sovereign debt doom loop: what does the literature suggest?, Zenios, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Open Access 10.1016/j.cosust.2024.101414

The semi-periphery and ecologically unequal exchange: carbon emissions and recursive exploitation, El Tinay, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2024.2309407

Walking a thin line: a reputational account of green central banking, Van Doorslaer et al., Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2024.2305106

Climate change mitigation public policy research

A hybrid approach to a more complete emissions inventory: a case study of Aarhus University, Stridsland et al., Carbon Management Open Access 10.1080/17583004.2023.2275579

Approaching national climate targets in China considering the challenge of regional inequality, Yu et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-023-44122-0

Assessing regional progress toward the sustainable development goals (SDGs): Whither the Caribbean?, Russell et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04492-x

Avoiding ecosystem and social impacts of hydropower, wind, and solar in Southern Africa’s low-carbon electricity system, Wu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45313-z

Can official development assistance promote renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa countries? A matter of institutional transparency of recipient countries, Guo et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.113999

Convergence of clubs between per capita carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement production, Rodríguez-Benavides et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114007

Determinants of successful mitigation in coupled social-climate dynamics, Shu & Fu Feng Fu, Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences Open Access 10.1098/rspa.2023.0679

Development of AIM (Asia–Pacific Integrated Model) and its contribution to policy-making for the realization of decarbonized societies in Asia, Hibino & Masui, Sustainability Science 10.1007/s11625-023-01393-2

Efficient data-driven prediction of household carbon footprint in China with limited features, An et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113926

Facilitating entry to land sector carbon abatement projects: the LOOC-C tool, Stitzlein et al., Carbon Management Open Access 10.1080/17583004.2023.2265156

Governing experimentation to decarbonise the electricity sector, Owens, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114011

How connected is withholding capacity to electricity, fossil fuel and carbon markets? Perspectives from a high renewable energy consumption economy, Liu et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113937

Impact of household population ageing on carbon emissions: micro-scale evidence from China, Chai et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1324771

Impact on green finance and environmental regulation on carbon emissions: evidence from China, Guo et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1307313

Revisiting the role of disasters in climate policy-making, Nohrstedt & Parker, Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2024.2301781

Role of negative emission technologies in South Africa's pathway to net zero emissions by 2050, Afrane et al., Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101401

Satellite observations reveal a decreasing albedo trend of global cities over the past 35 years, Wu et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114003

Sustainable energy adoption in poor rural areas: A comparative case perspective from the Philippines, Quirapas Franco & Taeihagh, Energy for Sustainable Development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101389

Sustainable lifestyle: Quantification and determining factors analysis of household carbon footprints in Japan, Huang et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114016

The impact of environmental policies on renewable energy investment decisions in the power supply chain, Ji et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.113987

The impact of industry-favoring land allocation strategy on urban carbon emissions: a city-level empirical study in China, Qi et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-024-04550-4

What future for marine renewable energy in Portugal and Spain up to 2030? Forecasting plausible scenarios using general morphological analysis and clustering techniques, Vieira et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113859

Which energy labels should we use to expedite the transition to electric vehicles?, Scarlat et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1354677

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A system for the management of sandy shorelines under climate change: United States Virgin Islands (USVI), Chalazas et al., Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-023-01946-w

Absurd geographies of resilience and justice, Grove et al., Climate and Development Open Access 10.1080/17565529.2023.2255566

Centring localised indigenous concepts of wellbeing in urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation: case-studies from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands, Mihaere et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1278235

Harnessing economic tools for Indigenous climate resilience: Insights from Arctic marine resources, Kourantidou, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000342

Humanitarian aid and the everyday invisibility of climate-related migration from Central America, Doering-White et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2024.2312829

Increasing multi-hazard climate risk and financial and health impacts on northern homeowners, Schwoerer et al., Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-023-01951-z

Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method, SMG Kibria et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100587

Nature-based solutions on the coast in face of climate change: The case of Benidorm (Spain), Toledo et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101816

Participating under constraints: roles and limitations of rural women’s involvement in climate change adaptation planning and implementation in Ghana, Koomson, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2023.2236587

Role of adaptation measures in addressing heatwave exposure in China, Han et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.02.001

Staying put in an era of climate change: The geographies, legalities, and public health implications of immobility, Robins et al., WIREs Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.879

Toward a transformative climate change adaptation from local to global perspective—A transdisciplinary challenge by Kyoto Climate Change Adaptation Center, Ichihara et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2023.1304989

Climate change impacts on human health

Bias-adjusted and downscaled humidex projections for heat preparedness and adaptation in Canada, Chow et al., Geoscience Data Journal Open Access pdf 10.1002/gdj3.241

Climate projections of human thermal comfort for indoor workplaces, Sulzer & Christen, Climatic Change Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10584-024-03685-7

Exceptional heat island intensities also occur in medium-sized cities, Amorim et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101821

Individual heat adaptation: Analyzing risk communication, warnings, heat risk perception, and protective behavior in three German cities, Heidenreich & Thieken, Risk Analysis Open Access pdf 10.1111/risa.14278

Staying put in an era of climate change: The geographies, legalities, and public health implications of immobility, Robins et al., WIREs Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1002/wcc.879

Other

Future tropospheric ozone budget and distribution over east Asia under a net-zero scenario, Hou et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-23-15395-2023

The Iceland–Faroe warm-water flow towards the Arctic estimated from satellite altimetry and in situ observations, Hansen et al., Ocean Science Open Access 10.5194/os-19-1225-2023

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Adapting to climate change: promises and pitfalls in the diffusion of solutions, Schulze et al., Regional Environmental Change Open Access 10.1007/s10113-023-02165-5

Blue carbon, red states, and Paris Agreement Article 6, Orford, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1355224

Editorial: Achieving sustainable development goal 13: resilience and adaptive capacity of temperate and boreal forests under climate change, Zhang et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1356686

Editorial: Geophysical, climatological and anthropogenic hazards and disaster: vulnerability, risk assessment, and sustainability, Chatterjee et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1370984

Governing experimentation to decarbonise the electricity sector, Owens, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114011

Ideas and perspectives: Alleviation of functional limitations by soil organisms is key to climate feedbacks from arctic soils, Blume-Werry et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-20-1979-2023

Open science and the climate crisis, Fell et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000336

Stepping-up climate action and climate justice: Chile's path towards a new model of climate governance, Rojas & Billi, Environmental Research Letters Open Access 10.1088/1748-9326/ace4de

The planetary commons: A new paradigm for safeguarding Earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene, Rockström et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2301531121

 

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

U.S. Health Care Workers Want Their Employers to Address Climate Change, Arnav Shah and Lovisa Gustafsson, The Commonwealth Fund

The authors present the findings from a national survey of 1,001 U.S. clinicians about their views of what health systems can do to address climate change. All those surveyed worked at a hospital or at a health system comprising more than one hospital; some had leadership responsibilities within their organization. About four in five clinicians surveyed believe that it is important for their hospital to address climate change and that doing so is aligned with their organization’s mission. Three in four surveyed clinicians feel it is important that they themselves work to reduce their environmental impact, both at work and at home. Respondents working in leadership positions reported that most hospitals are increasingly undertaking climate mitigation initiatives, such as reducing energy consumption (69%) and waste (76%) or setting emissions targets (35%). About six in 10 clinicians indicated a prospective employer’s policies and actions on climate change would impact their decision to apply for a job.

The 50 States of Solar Decommissioning: 2023 Snapshot,, North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center North Carolina Clean Energy Industries Association (SEIA)

The authors provide readers with information on the types of policy models states are using to guide solar decommissioning; provides updates on legislation that has passed or is still being considered as of the end of 2023 related to solar decommissioning; gives a brief analysis of current state by state policy – specifically those offering state-based rules and statutes; and ends with a summary of notable trends and concluding thoughts.

Palestinian Women Facing Climate Change in Marginalized Areas: A Spatial Analysis of Environmental Awareness, Khalil Abu Allan, Wilson Center

The marginalized Palestinian areas in the West Bank are considered among the global places that are most affected by climate change. The impacts in this region vary across regions, generations, age, classes, income groups, and gender. Palestinian women often find themselves at the center of the fallout from these climate crises. They play a central role in awareness of the problem, rationalization of consumption, environmental protection, and resource management within their society—and they are expected to change the behavior of their families in order to preserve natural resources in the face of climate impacts. Yet, environmental awareness among women in the West Bank is dangerously low as a result of social factors such as early marriage, weak political and security stability in the region, as well as economic factors such as unemployment. Within this context, it is crucial to determine pathways to achieving fairness and equity in access to resources and enhancing the role of women in climate action.

The Cradle of Civilization in Peril: A Closer Look at the Impact of Climate Change in Iraq, Abdullah J. Alfayadh, Wilson Center

The severity of climate impacts in Iraq—the cradle of civilization, the land between the two rivers—is not a crisis of the future. It is a crisis of today. The UN has named Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change by the United Nations, and this nation’s climate challenge is a key part of the larger problems faced by the wider MENA region. Through an assessment of published literature and traditional and social media in Iraq—as well as dialogue with local and international experts—this paper reveals the interaction of climate vulnerability and communal cohesion, especially in communities coping with ruptured social ties due to cycles of conflict past and present. Looking at how these challenges play out in the Diyala governorate reveals how issues of competition over natural resources, migration, strained public services, and intra-state water allocation drive climate vulnerability and instability in Iraq. Indeed, there is an increasing consensus that climate change acts as a “threat multiplier” to exacerbate conflict and fragility— both in Diyala and elsewhere in Iraq.

Localizing Climate Action: The Best Path Forward for Low and Middle- Income Countries in the MENA Region, Josiane Atallah, Wilson Center

Recent destructive floods, earthquakes, forest fires and disease outbreaks demonstrate that disasters have become increasingly complex phenomena. Effective response, reconstruction, and recovery require resource mobilization and sustained collaboration from stakeholders. Low- and Middle-Income (LMI) countries in MENA in particular often lack the financial and technical resources to do so without extensive external support. This leaves crisis- and disaster-affected communities vulnerable to adverse external factors that may delay, limit, or prohibit such support. Given these challenges, the need for localization of climate action in LMI in MENA—i.e. building capacity and allocating resources at the local level—is increasingly clear.

Enabling Sustainable Energy Security in Syria, Nour Barakeh, Wilson Center

The conflict in Syria has imposed severe challenges on the country’s energy sector, impacting daily life, livelihoods, the economy, and humanitarian aid operations. The scarcity of oil and natural gas has made it harder to meet electricity demand, and while solar panels have emerged as an alternative, their high costs render them inaccessible to those with limited income amid economic challenges. Imbalanced power dynamics in trade are further exacerbating the situation. Against this backdrop, one avenue for much-needed renewable energy development is to mobilize the humanitarian sector in the short run to support the manufacture of solar panels in Syria. Such an intervention would provide immediate relief for individual households and create job opportunities while addressing long-term socio-economic and migratory challenges in the region.

Climate Finance and Gender Inequality in Egypt, Eslam Hassanein, Wilson Center

Climate change has become a cross-cutting concern, affecting millions worldwide; however, these ramifications differ profoundly by gender. Women’s socioeconomic status and unequal access to resources and decision-making processes, as well as gender-blind adaptation and mitigation actions, means they are hit especially hard. Although incorporating gender considerations into climate finance schemes is gaining momentum as a way to tackle inequalities and climate action simultaneously, gender and environmental issues are still often addressed separately. Egypt—which is among the countries most vulnerable to climate hazards—has developed a climate-coherent policy agenda that surpasses most of its MENA peers, but it still lacks a comprehensive framework to analyze the gender differential impacts of climate change and integrate women into climate finance. Facilitating women’s integration into Egyptian climate financing is essential not only to addressing gendered climate impacts but also addressing gender inequality more broadly.

Managing Scarcity in the Euphrates-Tigris River Basin in the Age of Climate Change, Gokce Sencan, Wilson Center

As the Eastern Mediterranean emerges as a climate change hotspot, the Euphrates-Tigris Basin is being fundamentally altered. Basin countries urgently need to prepare for and adapt to these changes, but the region has long been consumed by disputes between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey on how to share its water resources. The status quo favors Turkey as the upstream hegemon, yet a lack of rules around river flows will have ramifications for all countries—amplifying the risk of diplomatic conflict, instability, and humanitarian crises. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the countries of the region should establish a trilateral institution and a basin-wide management framework.

Green Entrepreneurship: A Pathway to Sustainable Development and Peace in MENA, Hamza Saidi, Wilson Center

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is grappling with the confluence of environmental vulnerabilities and geopolitical complexities as rising temperatures and conflicts intensify. Amidst these challenges, green entrepreneurship has the potential to provide a dual solution—addressing climate issues and fostering sustainable development and peace. Green entrepreneurship recognizes the region’s vulnerability to climate change, and offers a multifaceted response that can provide economic opportunities and bridge political divides. The transformative power of aligning environmental goals with economic benefits is demonstrated by projects like the Israel-Jordan-UAE energy and water cooperation. The time is now to propose comprehensive strategies, emphasize policy frameworks and incentives, and empower green entrepreneurs to drive positive change in the MENA region.

Public Perceptions on Climate Change in Qatar, Neeshad Shafi, Wilson Center

Climate change is a complex, multifaceted problem involving various interacting systems and actors. It can only be tackled with public support for sustainable policies. Thus, public attitudes towards climate change matter. Over decades of climate change opinion research by various researchers and institutions have provided us with a wealth of information for policymakers. This public survey synthesizes the findings and highlights the different geographies with their perspective and understandings that emerge within this study. Given the increased importance of social media, news networks of climate change skepticism are increasingly being identified. This survey covered a wide range of topics, from climate change to government policies to sources of information. However, this paper will only examine two aspects of the survey result. The survey study provides surprising findings on several issues that will help develop policy interventions that could accelerate the transition to a climate-conscious community and society in Qatar.

Climate change, not El Niño, main driver of exceptional drought in highly vulnerable Amazon River Basin, Clarke et al., World Weather Attribution

Scientists from Brazil, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States assessed whether and to what extent the Amazon river basin drought has been influenced by climate change as well as the occurrence of El Niño, which is known to be associated with drought in the Amazon. While the drought started earlier in the west of the basin, the whole basin has been in severe or exceptional drought for the second half of 2023. The 2023 Amazon drought is frequently cited as the most extreme on the historical record. It occurs at a time when communities across the region face distinct and intersecting challenges related to historical drought, recent climate and extreme weather events intensified by the La Niña climate patterns, governance and development challenges, as well as fragility, conflict and violence. The vulnerability and exposure context of the drought highlights the ways in which climate change can exacerbate underlying local, national, and regional challenges resulting in similar vulnerability and exposure outcomes even across seemingly dissimilar contexts.

A Realist Approach to Hydrogen, Robin Gaster, e Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Clean hydrogen is expensive to produce, difficult to transport, and a second- or third-best clean energy solution in almost all proposed markets. To help drive the global green transition, a realist approach to hydrogen policy must address all these practical challenges. Blue hydrogen investments should be minimized. Blue hydrogen is not a global solution for greenhouse gas emissions even in targeted industries, as it will never reach price/performance parity (P3) with gray hydrogen, and may not effectively address greenhouse gases either. Green hydrogen is different. It could reach P3, for some applications, in some regions. But that depends almost entirely on lower costs for the renewable energy it requires, the key input. Economies of scale, e.g., for electrolyzes, will not transform the economics of green hydrogen. Most proposed markets for hydrogen reflect magical thinking. They are nowhere near competitive with fossil fuels and often are not competitive with electrification using renewable energy. Accelerating research, design and development around green hydrogen is critical, emphasizing the competitive pathway to scaleup for a few key potential markets, such as long-duration energy storage. Policymakers should favor projects that co-locate green hydrogen production, energy sources, and end users, avoiding projects that require electricity from the grid or extensive transportation infrastructure.

Mission Analysis for Marine Renewable Energy To Provide Power for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal, Niffenegger et al., National Renewable Energy Laboratory

The authors provide a preliminary feasibility assessment of powering different marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR), marine carbon capture (mCC), and marine carbon sequestration (mCS) strategies with marine energy. In this report, carbon capture (CC) refers to methods that can separate or capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air or ocean; carbon sequestration (CS) refers to methods that store CO2 obtained by capture methods out of the atmosphere for long periods; and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) refers to methods that do both. The authors found that mCDR powered by marine energy and offshore wind energy available in the United States could meet global CDR scales needed by 2040 and 2050 to limit warming to 1.5°C by 2100. Note that this preliminary estimate assumes that it is possible to harvest all the marine and offshore wind resources available in the United States with existing tec needs are not yet well defined and require further research. Additionally, these CDR scales will still require emissions reductions. Obtaining articles without journal subscriptions

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Categories: I. Climate Science

China Briefing 8 February: Xi’s ‘green’ call; Renewables to top coal; No new EU solar support

The Carbon Brief - Thu, 02/08/2024 - 07:00

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

Carbon Brief handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.

Key developments No new EU support for local solar manufacturers

AFFORDABILITY VS SECURITY: Despite calls from the EU solar industry to instigate “emergency measures to combat a surge in cheap imports from China”, the European Commission said that the use of trade measures must be “weighed against” the bloc’s need for affordable solar panels to achieve its low-carbon transition, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness “offered no new support”, Reuters reported, instead pointing to existing EU measures and the newly-agreed Net Zero Industry Act, which “aims to fast-track permits for local manufacturing and to give products made in the EU, such as panels, an advantage in future clean tech tenders”. 

CONFLICTING VIEWS: Reuters also underscored that that industry voices were “divided over the solution” – while solar manufacturers “crushed by cheaper imports and oversupply” were calling for more protection, other “green energy” industry representatives “noted that solar panel prices have climbed in the US” in response to duties on solar panels from south-east Asian nations, creating an “inflationary impact”. In its reporting, Politico added that “at a December meeting of EU ministers on solar manufacturing, five out of seven countries appeared resistant to any trade defence measures”, adding that the opinion was not universal, according to an anonymous source.

CHINA’S CRITICISM: Articles and commentaries criticising western reactions to China’s solar exports and extolling the benefits of China’s clean-energy exports have recently appeared in Chinese media. One China Daily article said that Chinese EVs are “popular in overseas markets”, while an editorial in the state-run newspaper argued that “emergency support measures” for Europe’s solar panel manufacturing industry would “create a ‘lose-lose situation’ and…leave the realisation of the bloc’s climate goals in question”. China Energy News reported that “European manufacturers do not have a clear technological advantage [over China]”, making Chinese manufacturing important to maintaining supply. 

Renewables energy capacity could surpass coal in 2024

SET TO OVERTAKE: According to a forecast by the China Electricity Council, China’s installed wind and solar capacity will “overtake” coal for the first time this year, making up around 40% of installed power generation capacity against 37% of coal, Reuters reported. By 2024, China will build about 1,300 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity, exceeding its official target of 1,200GW by 2030, it added. The body “did not give a forecasted breakdown for actual power generation, which is still dominated by coal [at] nearly 60% of electricity consumed last year”, the outlet noted.

SOLAR STAR: China installed 217GW of new solar capacity in 2023, the country’s national energy administration (NEA) announced, “blowing away” the previous record of 88GW in 2022 and exceeding – in one year – the total amount of solar capacity built in any other nation, Bloomberg reported. According to the NEA, China also “almost quadrupled” its new energy storage capacity such as batteries to 31GW, SCMP reported. The paper – citing an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air’s Lauri Myllyvirta for Carbon Brief – said the “boom” in storage came as China made a “major pivot” in its macroeconomic strategy, with the country’s previous key economic drivers, such as the real estate sector, losing steam. 

FOSSIL FALL: Profits fell 25% year-on-year in China’s coal mining sector, driven by falling coal prices, but climbed 72% for power firms, reported China Energy Net. Meanwhile, China discovered 107m tonnes of crude oil in Henan province, “equivalent” to more than half of the nation’s production in 2023, which comes at a time when authorities are making efforts to “enhance energy security and rely less on oil imports”, SCMP reported. China Electricity News published a comment by Li Chuangjun, director of the new energy and renewable energy department of the NEA. Li wrote that, in the year ahead, renewable energy will “continue to develop at a high speed”, although this would be in accordance with “promoting stability alongside progress and establishing before breaking”. 

Xi urges greater ‘green’ growth

GREEN UNDERTONES: In a meeting of China’s central committee – consisting of the country’s most senior officials – at the end of January, President Xi Jinping called for continued emphasis on “green” development, saying that “green” is the “underlying colour of high-quality development”, BJX News reported. China must “unswervingly take the road of prioritising the environment”, the energy news outlet quoted him as saying. Shanghai-based newspaper the Paper added that Xi also called for China to “accelerate green science and technology innovation…strengthen the green manufacturing industry, develop the green services industry, grow the [new] energy industry [and] develop green and low-carbon industries”.

EYES ON SHENZHEN: China’s state news agency Xinhua News recently published a special feature naming Xi as a “leader in cultural heritage and innovation”, adding that “under his leadership, China’s ecological environmental protection has undergone historic, transformative and comprehensive changes, with bluer skies, greener mountains and clearer water”. Examples of Xi’s leadership mentioned in the article included innovations in the city of Shenzhen – “from electric cars to new drones, from low-carbon pilots to smart cities”. Shenzhen, for its part, has recently announced that it will “double down on efforts to shore up” its advanced manufacturing industry, planning to see industrial output exceed 1.5tn yuan ($209bn) in new [low-carbon] energy and other strategic emerging industries in 2024, according to SCMP.

Carbon emissions trading regulations published

FULL TEXT: China has released the full text of new regulations to govern its mandatory national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), China Daily announced. The regulations “focus on the allocation of responsibilities, designating the state council’s ecological and environmental department to oversee and manage carbon emissions trading” and “specify details including the products eligible for trading, trading methods and the distribution of carbon emissions quotas”, the state-run newspaper explained.

INSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEE: Securities Times said that the new regulations grant the ministry of ecology and environment (MEE) “greater authority to regulate non-compliance in activities such as carbon market compliance, data reporting and verification”. An article by Zhu Xue, professor at Renmin University, and posted on the official MEE website, argued that the law “ensures that carbon emission trading activities have a legal basis” and “also provides an important institutional guarantee [from the Chinese government]…to actively and steadily progress towards carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”.

GREEN CERTIFICATES: China also issued a directive to strengthen the integration of “green electricity certificates (GECs) and energy-saving and carbon reduction policies” to “vigorously promote” the consumption of non-fossil energy, reported BJX News. The policy proposes “incorporating…traded volumes of GECs into evaluation of provincial governments’ energy-saving targets”, it said. Securities Times said that China will define “functional boundaries and articulation between the GECs, the ETS and the voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction mechanism [CCERs]”. In a LinkedIn article, Shanghai-based David Fishman, senior manager at consultancy the Lantau Group, said that the directive could lead to China “making renewable energy consumption [or purchase of equivalent GECs] mandatory” for energy-intensive companies for the first time. To date, only grid firms and power retailers have had mandatory quotas – effectively renewable portfolio standards – he said.

Spotlight  China’s environment minister outlines goals for 2024

On 23 January, China’s ecology and environment minister Huang Runqiu outlined his department’s achievements in 2023 and priorities for 2024, in a 20,000 character-long (or approximately 14,000 word-long) speech. In this issue, Carbon Brief translates some of his key talking points.

The speech was delivered at the ministry of ecology and environment (MEE) annual “work conference” – a meeting that looks at progress to date and priorities for the year ahead.

Huang’s speech reflects on remarks made by President Xi Jinping at a major conference in July 2023, where he underscored the importance of “building a beautiful China”. It also outlines eight priorities that Huang’s department will pursue this year.

China’s approach to environmental protection in 2024

On building an ‘ecological civilisation’: “2023 was…a milestone year in the field of ecological environment…[President Xi Jinping] delivered an important speech…which provides an action plan and scientific guidance for us to continue to promote the construction of ecological civilisation in a new era.”  

On challenges to China’s emissions-cutting efforts: “China’s industrial structure is still characterised by high energy consumption and high carbon emissions, coal consumption remains high, freight remains mainly powered by heavy goods vehicles [and] this year the economy will continue to rebound. Therefore, the pressure on emissions reduction efforts is not insignificant.” 

On loss of ecosystems and pollution incidents: “The overall quality of the ecosystem remains low and important ecological spaces continue to be crowded out. Prolonged periods of heavily-polluted weather occur occasionally, and ecological and environmental incidents are still frequent and high-risk. There are nearly 10,000 tailing ponds across the country, and historical stockpiles of solid waste total tens of billions of tonnes.” 

On the need for more regulation: “There are shortcomings in ecological and environmental science and technology support, insufficient use of market-oriented methods of environmental management [and] lags in construction of ecological and environmental infrastructure…In some places, ecological and environmental supervision is either superficial or has not been established.” 

On timelines for near-term progress: “By 2027, green and low-carbon development will be promoted in depth, total emissions of major pollutants will be continuously reduced, the quality of the ecological environment will be increased…and China’s ecological security will be effectively guaranteed.” [The 2027 deadline is also a key target in recent opinions issued by China’s leadership to meet environmental protection goals under the ‘beautiful China initiative’.]

On developing ‘green’ steel: “[In 2023] a total of 420m tonnes of crude steel production capacity saw a whole-process ultra-low emission transformation.”

On China’s national carbon market: “The MEE promoted the successful conclusion of the second compliance cycle of the national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), which included 2,257 key emissions units in the power industry, covering more than 5bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually.”

On ‘politicisation’ of climate cooperation: “Global ecological and environmental issues are increasingly politicised, with some western countries playing the climate card to introduce carbon tariffs and other policies.” 

Key tasks for 2024

On promoting pilot zones for a ‘beautiful China’: “China will implement the opinions on comprehensively promoting the construction of a beautiful China…and construct beautiful China pioneer [pilot] zones.” 

On maintaining the fight against pollution: “The MEE will implement the action plan for continuous improvement of air quality…and promote the ultra-low emission transformation of the iron and steel, cement and coking industries.”

On promoting ‘green, low-carbon and high-quality’ development: “The MEE will…support high-quality development policies and measures for economic recovery and strengthen the environmental assessment services for major investment projects…prepare guidance on strengthening construction of the ETS, gradually expanding the coverage of industries…finalise a national greenhouse gas emissions factor database…study the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism…[and] promote implementation of the methane emission control action plan.”

On increasing supervision of ecological protection and restoration: “China will fully implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework [and] further promote China’s biodiversity conservation strategy and action plan (2023-30).”

On ensuring nuclear and radiation safety: “The MEE will continue to improve nuclear safety supervision systems and…strengthen capacity for forward-looking research and judgement.”

On strengthening ecological environment inspection, law enforcement and risk prevention: “The MEE will implement the third round of central ecological environmental protection inspections.”

On promoting ecological environment innovation: “The MEE will issue guidance on strengthening scientific and technological innovation in the field of ecology and environment to promote the construction of a beautiful China.”

On environmental governance and COP29: “The MEE will continue deepening reform of vertical [policy] management systems…and accelerate construction of a credit system to supervise environmental protection…[The MEE will] cooperate on environment and climate change with key countries…to promote positive outcomes at COP29.”  

Watch, read, listen

GREEN INDUSTRY: The Institute for Global Decarbonisation Progress published an analysis of recently published “steady growth action plans” that outline China’s aims for developing 10 key sectors, identifying the “green and low-carbon initiatives” in each of them.

SOLAR HISTORY: BJX News summarised the history of China’s supportive subsidies for the solar industry, tracking government policy from 2008 to the present day.

COLLATERAL: In an article for the Conversation, Oxford University’s Prof Nikita Sud said China’s investment in clean-energy in Indonesia is “reinforcing entrenched inequalities and hierarchies”, as development of a new solar panel factory could displace the location’s 7,500 residents.

GRASSROOTS ADAPTATION: China Dialogue covered a study which found that “climate change risks are being…adapted to at the grassroots level in southern China” and urges policymakers to “identify vulnerable populations” and understand their needs.

New science

Increasing occurrence of sudden turns from drought to flood over China
Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres

The number of “sudden turn from drought to flood” (STDF) events in China increased by 2.8 events per decade over 1961-2020, according to new research. The authors investigated the long-term trends and variability of STDFs in China over 1961-2020. They found that STDFs are prevalent in north and north-east China and the Yangtze River delta. “The probability of a drought being followed by a severe flood is approaching 35% in northern and north-eastern China,” they added. The increase has mainly occurred in late spring and early summer, and is mainly due to “increasing flood frequency and volatility of precipitation”, the paper found.

Faking for fortune: Emissions trading schemes and corporate greenwashing in China
Energy Economics

A new study has found that China’s national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) currently acts as a “catalyst for corporate greenwashing” because it intensifies financial pressures on said companies. The study also found that “greenwashing behaviour” induced by the ETS is more apparent where “market competition is higher, firms are smaller, R&D investment is lower or intensity of environmental regulation is lower”. 

Does China’s outward foreign direct investment alleviate energy poverty in host countries? Evidence from countries along the belt and road initiative
Renewable Energy

Researchers looked at 80 countries involved in China’s “belt and road initiative” (BRI) between 2006 and 2018 to evaluate their changing trends of energy poverty. The study found that although countries in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and west Asia still face severe energy poverty, it has nevertheless steadily declined during this period. China’s foreign direct investment – and its wider effects – can “alleviate local energy poverty by enhancing energy accessibility, improving energy infrastructure and increasing energy supply levels”, the authors said.

China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org

China Briefing 25 January: Clean energy drives growth; ‘Beautiful China’ instructions; Interview with EFC’s Prof Zou Ji 

China Briefing

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25.01.24

China Briefing 11 January: Expectations for 2024; Top climate negotiator interviewed; NDRC promotes ‘green’ industry

China Briefing

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11.01.24

China Briefing 14 December: COP28 special edition

China Briefing

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14.12.23

China Briefing 30 November: China at COP28; Xi’s ‘unwavering’ climate commitment; Voluntary carbon market restart

China Briefing

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30.11.23

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Categories: I. Climate Science

Q&A: European Commission calls for 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040

The Carbon Brief - Wed, 02/07/2024 - 08:34

The EU should cut its emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040, according to a new roadmap released by the European Commission.

This will require an expanded and emissions-free power system within 16 years and an 80% reduction in the use of fossil fuels for energy, the new guidance states.

The goal is designed to bridge the gap between bloc’s existing short- and long-term emissions reduction targets. 

It kicks off a lengthy process in which EU politicians and institutions will grapple over the details of the proposal before it is cemented into law. 

The bloc is about to enter a major period of transition as a new European Parliament is due to be elected in June, followed by a new commission, the EU’s executive arm. The result of this could be a surge in opposition towards climate policy as EU politics swings to the right.

The recommendations come as farmers have been taking to the streets across Europe to voice their anger about environmental policies and other matters.

Meanwhile, business leaders are worried about EU industries maintaining their competitiveness against the likes of China and the US as they decarbonise.

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines how the commission has tried to deal with these concerns, while also setting out an ambitious strategy that aligns with the EU’s domestic and international climate obligations.

What has the commission proposed?

The European Commission recommends that the EU should cut its “net” emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040.

To meet the goal, emissions would need to fall to “less than” 850m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), while “up to” 400MtCO2e would be removed from the atmosphere using both carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and “land-based” solutions such as tree planting.

Taken together, this would reduce net emissions to 450MtCO2e in 2040, which would be 90% below 1990 levels and 86% below the figure seen in 2022.

The proposal is required under the European climate law. It is an interim target on the way to the EU’s wider goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. 

It follows the EU’s existing target of cutting emissions by “at least 55%” by 2030. As it stands, the EU is not on track to achieve this target. 

Current projections suggest that, even if all planned climate policies are implemented, the bloc’s emissions are set to fall 48% by 2030, rather than 55%. Member states are due to submit updated plans in June that could close this shortfall.

As the chart below shows, adding a new 90% reduction target for 2040 would require even more stringent climate policies, to drive a steeper decline in emissions. Emissions are currently projected to fall 60% by 2040 and 64% by 2050. 

EU emissions, including historical emissions (1990-2022) and projected emissions (2023-2050) according to member states’ emissions projections submitted in March 2023 under the EU’s governance regulation, based on both existing and “additional” climate policies. The red dots show the targets and proposed targets for emissions cuts under the European climate law. The 2035 nationally determined contribution (NDC) “target” has not been officially proposed, but is inferred from the European Commission’s recommendation for a 2040 target. Emissions include shares of international aviation, as well as land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). Source: Eurostat, Carbon Brief analysis.

In its assessment, the commission details what kind of “enabling policy conditions” would be “necessary” to close the gap to the 90% goal, if it gets formally adopted.

The power sector should approach “full decarbonisation in the second half of the 2030s”, and reach it by 2040, according to the commission. Renewables “complemented by nuclear energy” should generate over 90% of the EU’s electricity by this date, it adds.

With low-carbon electrification driving economy-wide decarbonisation, the share of electricity in the EU’s final energy consumption would double from 25% to 50%, it continues.

The commission says “all zero and low-carbon energy solutions” will be required – including CCS and nuclear – while “solar and wind will make up the vast majority of renewable energy solutions”.

(An earlier leaked draft placed even more emphasis on renewables, stating that “renewables such as solar and wind will make up the vast majority of solutions”.)

The commission impact assessment suggests a very small amount of abated fossil fuels would continue to be used in the power sector in 2040, with gas-fired CCS plants making up 3% of electricity generation – down from the 36% share of fossil-fueled power in 2021.

This inclusion of CCS in the power sector has drawn criticism from some groups. In its assessment of the proposal, Climate Action Tracker stated it was “absolutely not needed in the power sector”.

According to the commission, the rollout of low-carbon electricity would be accompanied by an 80% reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels for energy, including a phase-out of coal and an effective phase-out of unabated gas power, by 2040.

Meanwhile, the use of gas and oil for heat, transport and industry use “should decrease over time in a way that guarantees the EU’s security of supply”.

The commission says that implementing existing measures “will allow emissions to decrease by close to 80% in 2040 relative to 2015” in the transport sector. 

A key focus of the recommendations is an “industry decarbonisation deal”. The commission calls for a “firmer and renewed European agenda for sustainable industry and competitiveness” that builds on the Green Deal industrial plan, released last year.

Prominent references to cutting emissions from agriculture – included in leaked draft proposals – have been removed from the commission’s final recommendations. 

An earlier draft stated that livestock and fertiliser use would be “core areas” for emissions cuts by 2040, adding that “it should be possible” to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions by “at least” 30% by 2040. The final version includes a vaguer reference to “agricultural activities play[ing] an important role” in achieving the 2040 target.

This change was reportedly a response to recent protests from European farmers that have targeted EU environmental policies, among a long list of concerns.

The decision came under fire from NGOs, with the European Environmental Bureau referring to it as “shortsighted” in light of the sector’s slow progress in cutting emissions.

Other recommendations included an extra 1.5% of GDP being invested annually in the low-carbon transition, compared to 2011-2020. The commission emphasises the need to move subsidies away from fossil fuels and lean on the private sector to “mobilise” funding.

The overarching recommendation from the commission is based on an assessment of three options for the 2040 target – an “up to” 80% emissions reduction, an 85-90% reduction and a 90-95% reduction. 

The commission says only aiming for the 90-95% goal would align with official scientific advice, signal a “clear transition path away from fossil fuels as called for by COP28” and avoid “put[ting] at risk the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement”. (See: Where did the target come from?)

However, the commission only recommends the lower bound of this 90-95% target. Unlike the 2030 goal, it does not say the EU should be aiming for “at least” a 90% emissions cut.

While all three targets require “similar levels of investment”, the commission says the 90-95% option relies more on “novel low-carbon technologies”, such as CCS. It also requires more raw materials and brings more investment forward to the 2030s, the document notes.

The commission proposals will be subject to approval and negotiation with EU member states and the European Parliament. (See: What comes next?)

Back to top

What does it mean for the EU’s next Paris pledge?

The 2040 target will also guide the EU’s next international climate pledge under the Paris Agreement, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC).

Parties to the international climate regime are obliged to come forward with more ambitious targets every five years. The deadline for the next round of NDCs is ahead of the COP30 summit at the end of 2025.

This process is supposed to close the gap between existing pledges to cut emissions and the ambition required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal.

The EU’s current NDC pledges to cut net emissions to “at least” 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. This aligns with the at least 55% emissions reduction target of the European climate law.

In their next round of NDCs, parties are expected to submit emissions-cutting goals for 2035. 

However, the European Commission proposals do not recommend a specific 2035 target. According to the impact statement, only Denmark advocated for an “additional interim target for 2035”.

Instead, the commission says that a new “greenhouse gas figure for the EU in 2035” will be “derived once the 2040 target is agreed”. 

In practice, experts tell Carbon Brief, this means drawing a straight line from the 2030 target to the 2040 target and using the middle value as the NDC goal for 2035. (This would amount to roughly a 73% emissions cut by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.)

Ignacio Arróniz Velasco, a senior policy adviser with the thinktank E3G, tells Carbon Brief that the commission sees this as preferable to opening up extra negotiations around an additional climate target for 2035:

“The commission is being careful of this because if they recognise it as an additional target then you can actually have a political conversation about where you put it…It risks becoming the classic thing in which European leaders would probably go head to head and we may lose a lot of political capital discussing that.”

Rather than following a linear emissions path from 2030 to 2040, EU scientific advisers suggested the bloc could front-load its climate ambitions. This would mean faster emissions cuts in the short term, in order to achieve a fairer international transition. (See: Where did the target come from?)

In a press briefing ahead of the target’s launch, Linda Kalcher from thinktank Strategic Perspectives said the EU should be setting an ambitious 2035 target as early as possible, in order to show leadership and encourage other countries to do the same. She stated:

“While the politics of that might be difficult…It’s really important that the Europeans are advancing on it. It might be that we have [US president Donald] Trump again so it would be an even stronger approach by the Europeans to respond to that.”

Another issue is the timeline for the EU’s new climate targets. 

The global stocktake text agreed at COP28 calls on all parties to submit their new NDCs “at least nine to 12 months in advance” of COP30. This would mean around the first quarter of 2025, months before the new 2040 target is likely to be legislated (see: What comes next?)

However, according to Kalcher, if EU member state leaders agree on a new target at the European Council meeting in June, then the new NDC could be submitted on that basis. (The last NDC was submitted in a similar way, when the European Council approved the at least 55% target following a European Commission proposal.)

“The EU can move very fast, if it needs to, on issues that seem to inevitably take a long time. If it’s necessary, those processes can be accelerated,” Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), tells Carbon Brief.

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What does it mean for energy, the economy and industry?

Reducing emissions in line with the proposed 2040 target would entail investments of €1.5tn a year in the energy and transport sectors, according to the commission.

Overall, it says this would have a minimal impact on EU GDP by mid-century, despite implying “transformations in production and consumption patterns” across the economy. The recommendations notes:

“Growing the economy on the basis of fossil fuels and resource wastage is not sustainable. The EU has shown that climate action and sustaining economic growth go hand in hand by decoupling growth from greenhouse gas emissions.”

In addition, it says investment to meet the 2040 target would avoid €2.4tn in climate-related economic losses during 2031-2050 and cut net costs for fossil fuel imports by €2.8tn over the same period.

Investment in the energy system would need to be close to €660bn (or 3.2% of GDP) per year over the period 2031-2050, while yearly spending on transport would need to be about €870 (or 4.3% of GDP), it states.

This investment would allow energy emissions to reach near-zero by 2040 and transport emissions to drop by 69-78% compared to 2015, shown by the orange and dark grey wedges in the chart below, respectively.

Meanwhile the proposals would see agricultural emissions fall by 30% (yellow), residential and service emissions by 77-85% (light grey) and emissions from industry by 56-84% (blue).

Increasing carbon removals from land-based (green) and industrial sources (red) would bring net emissions down further (dashed black line) and enable net-zero emissions to be reached in 2050, despite ongoing residual emissions in some sectors – notably agriculture.

Caption: Greenhouse gas emissions in tons of CO2 equivalent, per sector including industrial removals, land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), waste, agriculture, buildings, transport, industry, energy supply, and net greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: European Commission.

For the energy sector, the European Commission has called on member states to increase the level of ambition in their national energy and climate plan updates, which are due in June 2024. 

For its own part, the commission says it will pursue policies to ensure a fast deployment of renewable energy, as well as zero and low-carbon solutions, and to further development of energy efficiency. It points to initiatives such as the EU Solar PV Alliance and Wind Charter as existing examples of this. 

Higher renewable shares will require “substantial” investments in the expansion of the EU’s electricity networks, as well as in upgrading to smarter and more flexible grids, the commission notes. 

The recent EU grid action plan is a “first step” in this direction, it continues, the experience from which will allow a “comprehensive masterplan for accelerating the development of the European integrated energy infrastructure”. 

By 2040, coal should have been phased out in the energy sector and oil in transport is expected to represent about 60% of the remaining energy uses of fossil fuels. The rest would be gas, used in industry, buildings and the power sector. 

As seen in the chart below, final energy consumption from coal (brown) drops to virtually nothing across all three of the scenarios outlined by the European Commission, as well as its LIFE scenario which looks at societal changes to a more sustainable lifestyle. 

(The “S1”, “S2” and “S3” scenarios refer to the three different 2040 target ranges considered by the commission. The recommended 90% goal corresponds to S3.)

Overall, fossil fuel consumption falls by 80% in 2040 under the S3 scenario, with oil (red) and gas (yellow) continuing to play a minor role in the energy mix. By 2050, this declines further, with just oil forming part of the mix.

Electricity (blue) grows to dominate the energy mix, with direct use of energy from renewables (green), district heating (orange), hydrogen (pale blue) and “synthetic fuels” (grey), making up the rest of the total.

Caption: Changes in final energy consumption from 2015-2050 across the European Commission’s S1, S2 and S3 scenarios, as well as its LIFE scenario. Energy mix consists of synthetic fuels (grey), coal (brown), hydrogen (pale blue), district heating (orange), renewables (green), electricity (blue), gas (yellow) and oil (red). Credit: European Commission.

The gas market structure would have to change significantly, according to the commission, to reflect the increasing role for low-carbon and renewable liquid fuels and gases.

Additionally, gas infrastructure would need to adapt to decentralised production, as some of it is repurposed for “e-fuels”, advanced biofuels and hydrogen

Ultimately, the transition away from fossil fuels will see power prices fall, but investments will be needed to avoid obstacles in some areas having knock-on effects on wider decarbonisation as the economy is electrified, the report continues. It is critical to ensure financing tools are available to support these investments, the commission notes. 

The commission emphasises the need for a “just transition that leaves no one behind”. It references the need for measures to support those who are “dependent on carbon-intensive activities”, and says policies could be used to ensure lower-income and middle-income households are protected from steep increases in energy prices in the interim. 

In order to ensure the Green Deal “delivers for people”, the commission’s recommendations include investing in reskilling and upskilling of the workforce, support for labour market transitions and targeted income support measures. 

The impact of the net-zero transition on employment will vary by sector and region, it says, with those that depend on fossil fuels undergoing a “fundamental transformation”. 

EU cohesion policy – an instrument designed to support the “economic diversification and reconversion of impacted territories and communities – will play an essential role in supporting regions most affected by the transition, it notes. 

Energy-intensive industry should also be supported, the commission says, allowing it to bridge the transition period when it faces the “dual challenge of investing in clean production methods when available, and coping with high energy prices”. 

Concern over the “deindustrialisation” of Europe was raised in the run up to the proposed 2040 climate target. 

In January, Euractiv quoted European steel association Eurofer, which stated the 90% target is “possible only if there is the certainty of having access to competitive clean energy in unprecedented quantities, while levelling the playing field with other regions of the world that do not share the same climate ambition”.

At the time, EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told the Financial Times that the bloc must not be “lured” into a “false narrative” that climate action would undermine the competitiveness of business.

He added that despite “significant worries” from industry, he was “absolutely convinced” the EU could continue to have a “world class, second to none, business environment”.

The commission’s recommendations emphasise that a “firmer and renewed European agenda for sustainability industry and competitiveness” would enable a successful transition over the next decade. 

It says it will target a conducive regulatory and financing environment to attract investment and production to Europe. The Critical Raw Materials Act, and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will be key instruments to deliver an “open strategic autonomy”, it adds. 

Additionally, the commission says the Net Zero Industry Act – a provision deal on which was also agreed by Council and the European Parliament on 6 February – is a “concrete step”, which covers faster permitting, focused R&D investments and changes to public procurement. 

Public investment through both the Recovery and Resilience Facility and InvestEU is expected to mobilise “well-targeted” support for industry, it continues. 

The recommendations recognise the global competition that the EU faces, highlighting China’s supply-chain dominance and the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. Europe must remain a “sovereign and resilient economy” throughout the net-zero transition, it notes.  

In a statement, Marco Mensink, director general of the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) says industry investments will need to be a factor of six higher than today: 

“This enormous challenge comes just as industry faces the most severe economic downturn in a decade, demand is falling, and investments move to other regions. With [the] US economy closing its borders, Chinese overcapacity and exports will target Europe even more. Our companies fight against this challenge every day. Sites are being closed, production halted, people let go. Europe needs a business case, urgently”.

One key sector is agriculture. The commission highlights its decision to set up a strategic dialogue on the future of the agriculture sector in order to “jointly shape the transition”. 

It is designed to address issues such as viable livelihoods, reducing burdens and ensuring competitive and sustainable food production.

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Who is supporting or opposing the target?

Ahead of the European Commission’s new emissions target, numerous countries expressed their support for “ambitious global climate action” in a joint letter from a coalition of countries.

Although it does not specify a percentage reduction, the letter can be interpreted as support for the 90% target, according to Politico. 

The letter expresses support for the conclusions of the global stocktake at COP28, stating that it is “crucial” that the EU translates this into “concrete ambitious action to send a strong political signal that the EU will lead by example”. 

However, the letter recognises that setting an ambitious target will be a “considerable task” and that there is a need to ensure climate action is an “opportunity for all”. 

The letter was signed by Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal. 

The recently-elected Polish government has also hinted at support for a 90% goal. In January, Poland’s deputy climate minister Urszula Zielińska, announced that the country would be stepping up its efforts to fight climate change. 

She said the EU “absolutely needs to embrace ambitious targets, and we need to embrace the 90% emission reduction target”, Politico reported. She later clarified that this was not Poland’s official position.

Nonetheless, Zielińska’s statement illustrates a major shift for Poland, which has traditionally pushed back against EU climate action. It comes as the country looks to drop lawsuits brought by Poland’s previous governments against EU climate policies, according to Reuters.

Few countries have publicly opposed the 90% proposal. At a meeting of the EU commissioner’s chiefs of staff on 5 February, only the cabinet of Hungarian commissioner Olivér Várhelyi opposed the target, according to Politico.

Strategic Perspectives’ Kalcher tells Carbon Brief that discussions on the matter had been “much more constructive than usual”. While countries did have concerns, “nobody was outright dismissive”. She adds: 

“Even the fact that they considered [the 90% target] means that now it’s on the table domestically, and it can’t be dismissed. If you would have asked me two years ago, if people would consider a 90% target, I would have said no.”

In the impact assessment, published alongside the release of the proposed 90% target, the commission notes that most public authorities welcomed the process behind the proposals. 

The Danish ministry of climate, energy and utilities firms, the Bavarian state parliament and the UN, among others, all called for an acceleration of the transition. 

However, the Polish ministry of climate and environment and the government of Flanders both expressed the view that setting the 2040 target should be postponed, the document notes. (Consultation on the 2040 goal was held last year, before the Polish elections.)

They stated that it was still too uncertain to predict the impact of an EU-wide climate target for 2040, and that the implementation of measures to reach the 2030 target should remain the priority. 

While there has been limited pushback from EU member state governments, some political groups within the bloc have taken a more cautious approach to the 90% proposal.

Peter Liese, the chief environmental spokesperson for the centre-right European People’s Party – the largest grouping in the European Parliament – said on 5 February that the group will “consider” the 90% reduction in exchange for other concessions, including dropping a ban on “PFAS forever chemicals”. 

In the run up to the release of the commission’s target, there has also been opposition to climate action by far-right and nationalist parties, Irish website the Journal reported. (See: What comes next?). 

In addition, farmers have been protesting across Europe about competition from cheaper imports, rising energy costs and environmental rules. (See Carbon Brief’s recent analysis on how these protests relate to climate change.) 

A reference to the agricultural sector cutting its emissions by 30% between 2015 and 2040, as part of the 90% goal, was dropped from an earlier draft of the commission’s proposal, according to Politico– reportedly in response to farmers’ protests. (See: What does it mean for energy, the economy and industry?)

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Where did the target come from?

The proposed new 2040 climate target is informed by advice from the commission’s official scientific advisers.

Under the 2021 European climate law, a group of scientific advisers known as the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC) was established to bring independent research-based analysis to EU policymakers.

In June 2023, the ESABCC released its scientific advice for setting a 2040 climate target, along with a greenhouse gas “budget” for 2030-2050. (The budget is an estimate of how much the bloc can emit over the 20-year period while still being in line with the global ambition to keep warming to 1.5C).

It said that the EU should aim to cut its emissions by a net 90-95% by 2040, compared to 1990 levels. This level of emissions reductions would keep the bloc within a proposed budget of 11-14bn tonnes of CO2e from 2030-2050, as set out in the scientific advice.

To come up with this figure, the ESABCC considered more than 1,000 different pathways for how the EU can reach its longer-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and keep in line with the 1.5C temperature aspiration.

The ESABCC noted there are different pathways that the EU can take to reach its emissions targets. However, these pathways have “common features”, including:

  • A phase-out of coal power by 2030.
  • A phase-out of “unabated” gas power by 2040.
  • A “large-scale deployment” of wind, solar and hydro energy.
  • A “substantial decrease” in fossil fuel imports.
  • A “considerable decrease” in final energy consumption by 2040, particularly driven by a switch to electric vehicles.
  • A “rapid scale-up” of carbon removal techniques.

In addition to assessing how the EU can get to net-zero, the ESABCC also examined how the EU can make a fair contribution to global efforts to reduce emissions, by considering various “equity principles“. Its advice says:

“Under some of these principles, the EU has already exhausted its fair share of the global emissions budget.” 

Because “none of the assessed pathways towards climate neutrality fully align with the fair share estimates”, the ESABCC recommended taking “additional measures to account for this shortfall”.

These measures include pursuing the upper range of the 90-95% emissions reduction target for 2040, as well as helping non-EU countries reduce their emissions.

The ESABCC added that the EU could “increase fairness” further by increasing the ambition of its “fit for 55%” pledge, a target to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030. The ESABCC said the EU could aim to cut emissions “up to 70% or more by 2030”.

In its analysis of the ESABCC’s advice, the climate thinktank E3G said it represented the “first stress test” for whether the European Commission would fully integrate scientific advice into its policymaking.

In its coverage of the 2040 proposals, Ireland’s the Journal noted that the commission opted for the “lower end of the recommended range” from the ESABCC, by choosing the 90% emissions reduction target.

In a statement, the independent scientific research group Climate Action Tracker said it was “disappointing” that the commission opted for the lower end of what was recommended by its advisers. Mia Moisio, who leads Climate Action Tracker, said:

“[The commission] should increase its 2040 target to at least the recommended 95% reduction.”

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What does the industrial carbon management strategy say?

As well as setting out plans for reducing emissions by 90% on 1990 levels by 2040, the European Commission has also released a first-of-its-kind blueprint for how removing CO2 from the atmosphere can help the bloc reach its climate targets.

The commission’s 27-page industrial carbon management communication describes techniques to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as an “an essential complement” to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.

Such techniques will be needed to account for sectors where “emissions are particularly difficult or costly to reduce”, the commission says. This includes certain industrial processes that play a large role in the EU’s economy, such as cement production.

The world’s authority in climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in its most recent assessment of solutions that using CO2 removal in difficult-to-abate sectors is now “unavoidable”, if the world is to meet its climate goals.

However, the failure of CO2 removal technologies to contribute meaningfully to climate action to date and the widespread touting of such techniques by fossil-fuel companies leaves many NGOs wary.

In a statement issued before the industrial carbon management communication was released, 140 NGOs described it as a “smokescreen for continued use of fossil fuels”.

In the Net-zero Industry Act released in 2023, the commission proposed that the EU develop means to remove at least 50MtCO2 per year by 2030.

In the new communication, it says that the EU should capture 280MtCO2 per year by 2040 and 450MtCO2 by 2050. (These figures come from modelling for the impact assessment report for the EU’s 2040 climate target. They represent an average of the “S2” and “S3” scenarios included in this report, representing 2040 targets of 85-90% and 90-95%, respectively.)

The communication notes that “the scale of this endeavour is large”. The target for 2030 would involve removing around the same as the annual emissions of Sweden, it says. The target for 2050 involves removing the equivalent of Italy or France’s annual emissions.

The top chart below, taken from the new communication, shows how the scale of carbon capture should increase from 2030 to 2050, according to the projections.

Dark blue indicates projected CO2 removal from “carbon capture and storage”, a technology where CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored underground or in the sea. Light blue, meanwhile, indicates projected CO2 removal from “carbon capture and utilisation”, where captured CO2 is used to produce synthetic products, such as fuels and chemicals.

Top: Projected removals from carbon capture and storage (dark blue) and carbon capture and utilisation (light blue) in the EU from 2030-2050. Bottom: Projections of where CO2 will be captured from, including process emissions (orange), fossil fuel emissions (grey), biogenic emissions (green) and direct air capture (blue). Credit: EU commission (2024)

The bottom chart shows projections of where CO2 will be captured from, including industrial process emissions (orange), fossil fuel emissions (grey), biogenic emissions (green) and direct air capture (blue).

The communication says that, until 2030, “the main focus will be on capturing CO2 from process emissions as well as some emissions from fossil and biogenic CO2 sources”. 

Process emissions originate from industrial processes involving raw materials, while biogenic emissions result from changes to the natural carbon cycle or from burning biomass.

In a still-emergent technique called “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS), biomass is burned with the resultant emissions captured, in theory leading to the net removal of CO2.

Most scenarios for how developed nations can reach their climate goals use large amounts of BECCS. However there are concerns that growing the biomass required would take up large amounts of land that might be needed for nature restoration or food production. 

The communication adds that, by 2040, “close to half of the CO2 that is captured annually would have to come from biogenic sources or directly from the atmosphere [through direct air capture]”. 

“Direct air capture” is a technology that uses chemical reactions to remove CO2 from the air, as opposed to at the point of emissions. The technology is still in its infancy. Globally, direct air capture currently captures just 0.01MtCO2 per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A major barrier to its development is that the technology currently requires very large amounts of energy to run.

The communication notes that rolling out direct air capture will “require significant additional energy to power this energy-intensive process”. It also notes that removing CO2 from biogenic sources (mostly BECCS) will require “the sustainable sourcing of biomass”.

In its reaction to the communication, the climate NGO Carbon Gap “welcomes” the new projections and says they provide “much-needed visibility and predictability on the role of CO2 removal in achieving the EU’s climate goals”.

However, by focusing only on emissions from industrial and biogenic sources or direct air capture, the projections are “missing a whole suite of promising high-durability CO2 removal methods”, it adds. This includes enhanced rock weathering, a technique involving sprinkling rock dust on crop fields in a bid to speed up the natural weathering process, which captures CO2.

From 2030 to 2050, some carbon capture will be used for fossil-fuel emissions, according to the communication’s projections.

The communication says that, despite fossil fuels being rapidly phased out in the EU under the proposals, there will still be some use in the “form of oil in the transport sector and some gas for heating and industrial purposes”.

The wording on fossil fuels differs from an earlier leaked draft of the communication, which said that the power sector is projected to capture 100MtCO2 from fossil fuels and biogenic sources by 2050. 

The 100MtCO2 figure was criticised by various groups. This includes the climate and energy NGO Bellona, which said using carbon capture for fossil-fuelled power generation “is both expensive and inefficient, given the breadth of alternative sources of clean electricity”. 

Kalcher, from the thinktank Strategic Perspective, also told Carbon Brief she found the 100MtCO2 figure “very worrying”.

To achieve the transformation set out in its projections, the communication says that a “common approach and vision are needed to establish a single market for industrial carbon management solutions”.

It notes there are already policies in place to support development of carbon capture.

This includes the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the bloc’s “cap and trade” scheme for putting a price on CO2 emissions. The communication says the ETS has “incentivised the capture of CO2 for permanent storage in the EU and the European Economic Area”.

It also includes the Net-zero Industry Act, which “recognises carbon capture and

storage as strategic net-zero technologies and supports project deployment with regulatory

measures, including accelerated permitting procedures”, according to the communication.

But, achieving the EU’s carbon capture goals will require “more ambitious and well-coordinated policies at national level, as well as strategic infrastructure planning at EU level”, the communication says. It adds:

“Achieving this vision of a well-functioning and competitive market for captured CO2 requires partnership with industry and member states, and resources to develop a coherent policy framework that provides regulatory certainty and incentives for investments in carbon capture, storage, use and carbon removals.”

Reacting to the communication, Julia Michalak, EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), said she “welcomes the acknowledgement of carbon trading as a major instrument to deliver net-zero cost-efficiently”, but added:

“However, carbon markets must change to deliver net-zero as the mechanism as we know it will not take us there. It is crucial that the right policy incentives are introduced with greater urgency for removals technologies to develop at scale. This includes the recognition of industrial carbon removals that can be measured with a high level of accuracy under the EU ETS.”

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What comes next?

The EU has a complex political timetable this year, which will likely have a significant impact on how smoothly the 2040 target can be adopted.

The European Commission has now issued its initial “communication” with recommendations for the new goal. This launches a process of high-level negotiations among European leaders to reach a final decision on what form the 2040 goal will take.

This will be followed by a period of debate between member states and the European Parliament, which could result in the target being adopted into law towards the end of 2025.

Climate ministers from EU member states will initially be tasked with considering the target and the wider package of climate measures, starting at the next Council of the EU environment meeting on 25 March and followed by another on 17 June.  

These discussions will cover not only the headline 2040 target, but also highly political details such as sectoral targets and how to finance the transition.

The council, which represents member state governments, must endorse the new target for it to proceed. The council’s rotating presidency is currently held by Belgium, but Hungary – a nation that has pushed against climate action – is set to take over at the start of July.

Following these ministerial discussions, there is an expectation that a final target will be agreed by member state heads of government – possibly when they meet at the next European Council summit on 27-28 June, observers tell Carbon Brief.

At that summit, leaders will also be discussing the most pressing issues facing the bloc as part of its five-year “strategic agenda”. This does not specifically include climate targets, but covers relevant topics, such as energy and “resilience and competitiveness”.

It would “make a lot of sense” for the European Council to wave the 2040 target through alongside the strategic agenda, Manon Dufour, executive director of E3G Brussels, tells Carbon Brief. 

Kalcher, from Strategic Perspectives, agreed, telling a press briefing that this would “inform the work of the next European Commission, and it would be a very good signal to the international level”. However, such a decision would require consensus between leaders and, as Politico noted, “Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán holds veto power”.

Meanwhile, the bloc will also be gearing up for the European Parliament elections, which will be held between 6-9 June. 

This will be followed by the election of the new European Commission president and commissioners, which will depend on the make-up of the new parliament. Therefore, the commission charged with putting the proposed target into law could be very different to the one that proposed it.

Discussions around the new target will be taking place at a time of great flux. This may affect member states’ willingness to push ahead with decisions.

Ahead of the European Council summit at the end of June, questions over which coalitions hold the balance of power within the new European Parliament, who the new commission president is and who their commissioners are, will remain open.

It could be that the new commission remains roughly the same as the one that proposed the 2040 target in February, led by Von der Leyen. 

However, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has forecast a “populist right coalition”, consisting of conservatives, Christian democrats and representatives of the “radical right” taking over from the “super grand coalition” of centrist groups that currently dominates parliament. Such a “sharp right turn” could threaten the future of climate policy and the EU “green deal” in general, the ECFR concludes

(According to Politico, even Von der Leyen and climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, both from the centre-right European People’s Party that currently dominates EU politics, have recently faced “rebellion” from within their party over the 2040 target.)

Amid such political uncertainty, the European Council’s approval of the 2040 target could be delayed until the next summit at the end of October, or even the one after that in mid-December. If the latter, it would push the decision past the COP29 climate summit, which could affect the EU’s standing there and its ability to pressure other nations into setting stronger climate targets of their own.

Other external events, including G7 and G20 meetings, and the upcoming US presidential election, could also affect EU leaders’ momentum in setting an ambitious target.

With the approval of member states, the new commission will make an official “legislative proposal” to amend the existing climate law by adding in a 2040 target. (Under the 2021 EU climate legislation, this was meant to happen “within six months” of last year’s COP28 summit, but it is expected to be delayed due to the European Parliament elections.)

This will be followed by a “co-legislation” process where the European Parliament and Council of the EU must agree on the new legislation. This could take several months, meaning the final outcome might emerge close to COP30 at the end of 2025.

Key dates for EU climate politics in 2024 can be seen in the calendar below.

6 FebruaryEuropean Commission releases its 2040 climate “communication” 21-22 MarchEuropean Council summit 25 MarchEnvironment Council of the EU Council meeting 26 March“Climate high level” meeting between EU climate ministers 19-21 MayG7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan 6-9 JuneEuropean Parliament elections 17 JuneEnvironment Council of the EU Council meeting 27-28 JuneEuropean Council summit June-JulyEuropean Council proposes the next European Commission president candidate 1 JulyHungary takes over the EU Council presidency from Belgium Mid-JulyElection of new European Commission president in the European Parliament SeptemberHearings of new commissioners in European Parliament committees NovemberNew European Commission is confirmed and starts its term in office 5 November US presidential election 11-24 November COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan 18-19 November G20 summit, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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The post Q&A: European Commission calls for 90% cut in EU emissions by 2040 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Categories: I. Climate Science

Climate Adam: Eco-Emotions: How we deal with climate fears

Skeptical Science - Wed, 02/07/2024 - 07:04

This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).

Understanding climate change and how we're unravelling our world is gruelling. And to work as a climate scientist and communicator means you're constantly juggling emotions - from hope to climate anxiety. So where do we find our hope and our courage to continue? And how can we manage our feelings so that working on global warming is not only bearable, but brilliant!

Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam

Check out Ella: @DrGilbz

And check out the videos we mentioned!

On Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC):

On the West Antarctic

Categories: I. Climate Science

At a glance - What climate change is happening to other planets in the solar system?

Skeptical Science - Tue, 02/06/2024 - 07:35

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 "What climate change is happening to other planets in the solar system?". 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 glance

Experienced students of climate science denial will be familiar with many of the arguments that contrarians use. But every now and then you come across a document so crammed with such talking points that they're like raisins in a Christmas pudding. So it is with the 8-page offering containing the above quote, dating from June 2009.

But 2009 is a long time ago now. So much so that one of the big statements in that document:

"With the Sun now entering a ‘quiet’ phase, it is anticipated that this cooling trend is likely to continue until Sun activity increases."

is self-evidently a complete fail, given that according to NOAA, all of the ten warmest years in a data record stretching back to the late 19th century have been since 2010.

That the document is a complete fail, as evidenced by the above quote, is one thing. But how about the claim that the other planets are warming? This is a weird one, given the impossible expectations demanded of those tasked with recording temperatures here on Earth. Accusations of badly-sited weather stations, data manipulation and similar conspiracy-theories abound out there in various dimly-lit corners of cyberspace. But then you get a document from the same stable that claims Pluto is warming up. What's that based on?

Pluto takes 248 years to complete a single orbit around the Sun. Since the body was discovered in 1930, a simple calculation shows we've had the chance to point our telescopes at it for 37.5% of a Plutonian year, so if the place had four seasons then we've not yet seen half of them.

Apart from remote observations made in 1988 and 2002, we did send the New Horizons NASA spacecraft out there in 2006, to make a flyby of the dwarf planet in 2015. It collected lots of useful data in the process, but three sets of observations over 27 years means just what?

Twenty-seven years is just one ninth of a single year on Pluto. On Earth that would be 40 days. What could you say about the climate from that? Wild and unsubstantiated claims, based on very little data, might fool some people but the advantage these days is that they can be fact-checked and quickly. Nonsensical statements thereby reveal themselves to be just that.

Finally, in the 2009 document, all talking-points converge on a single hypothesis - that the Sun is responsible for the current global warming. Only one problem with that, but it's a huge one. Solar energy output is expressed as 'total Solar irradiance' (TSI) and is easily measured by satellites. Since 1980, TSI and global temperatures have diverged. TSI has decreased by a measurable amount, while the global temperature has continued on its erratic but upwards pathway.

It's not the Sun - it's our cranking out of greenhouse gases in their tens of billions of tonnes every year, on and on and on.

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!

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In 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

 

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Categories: I. Climate Science

City and Financial: Climate Transition Plans for financial institutions and listed companies in 2024

Carbon Tracker Initiative - Tue, 02/06/2024 - 05:08

20 February | London

As the focus shifts from design to implementation of the TPT Framework and sector guidance, City & Financial Global’s 2nd Annual Summit on Transition Plans for Financial Institutions and Listed Companies on the 20 February will provide practical, detailed guidance about the steps that financial firms and companies need to be taking now in order to ensure that they are prepared to meet regulatory expectations and produce transition plans of the required standard.

This important event will gather some of the most senior leaders and experts in this field to share their knowledge, experience and expertise on the steps the companies should be taking now to develop a transition plan within the prescribed time limit.

Key topics to be discussed at the summit-

  • Transition Plans as a key element of the Government’s Green Strategy
  • Transition plans as a supervisory tool
  • Moving from design to implementation of the TPT Framework and Sector Guidance
  • The TPT Framework in the context of other relevant international initiatives, such as the ISSB Standards, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, TCFD and GFANZ guidance
  • Integrating transition finance into transition plans
  • How to minimise the potential litigation and activism risks associated with publishing transition plans
  • How investors and other stakeholders will use transition plans

A full list of issues on the agenda and speakers can be found here.

Sepi Roshan, will be participating in the session, How investors and other stakeholders will use transition plans’. 

The post City and Financial: Climate Transition Plans for financial institutions and listed companies in 2024 appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Categories: I. Climate Science

Looking to take advantage of IRA rebates? Depending on your state, you might have to wait.

Skeptical Science - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 10:39

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington

If you’re planning to make your home more climate-friendly, new rebates could soon help you save thousands of dollars on those improvements. But first, your state or territory must design a rebate program. And the timeline for getting those programs up and running is still murky.  

The rebate program will be funded under provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, landmark legislation that Democrats passed in 2022 to address climate change. It incentivizes Americans to cut pollution by adopting cleaner electric appliances and making their homes more energy efficient. Under the law, federal tax credits and point-of-sale rebates will make those improvements cheaper. Low-income households, for example, may qualify for an $8,000 rebate on heat pumps, though final rebate amounts will be determined by the states. The rebates will be available at the point of purchase, meaning that customers won’t need to wait until tax season to reap the cost savings. 

Tax credits for solar panels, electric appliances, EVs, home energy audits, and more went into effect in 2023. But rebates programs are taking longer because each state or territory must design and run its own program.

So where are the rebates, and when might you expect to be able to claim them?

When will clean energy rebates be available to consumers?

Each state is responsible for distributing rebates and deciding which technologies qualify. To do so, some states need to build energy offices from scratch. Sara Baldwin, senior director of electrification at Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank, said that she expects to see rebates at very different times in different states. 

“Some states are just kind of lagging in general with respect to their state energy offices and staff,” Baldwin said. “I’ve heard a handful of examples of states that did not even have a functioning state energy office.”

The first states to get rebate programs up and running are expected to be California, New York, and others that have been leaders in climate and energy policy. Greg Siedschlag, the Department of Energy’s chief communications strategist for the home energy rebates, said the hope is to have the first rebate programs go live in the spring of 2024, with the majority of states and territories issuing rebates by the end of 2024.

What’s the holdup?

To get rebate funding, states must submit applications to the Department of Energy. They are allowed to apply for partial funding to help them begin to develop their programs and hire staff. 

Twenty-three states and territories have been approved for partial funding, and 14 applications were waiting to be reviewed as of Jan. 18, 2024, according to the Department of Energy. Is your state on the list? Check here. 

The next step is for states to apply for rebate money from the Home Electrification Appliance Rebates fund and the Home Efficiency Rebates fund. The Department of Energy has received four applications (from California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and New York) for the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebate funds. 

Key dates

Aug. 16, 2022 | President Biden signed The Inflation Reduction Act into law.

July 27, 2023 | The Department of Energy released guidance on the rebates program.

Aug. 16, 2024 | States must tell the DOE that they plan to apply or their money will be reallocated to other states.

Jan. 31, 2025 | Rebates applications are due.

What you can do in the meantime

Baldwin said if you’re a consumer waiting on these rebates, or if you are worried your state won’t apply for the money, you should reach out to your state energy office. “Pick up the phone and call and ask,” she said. “State energy offices are civil servants, they work for the state, they work under taxpayer dollars, so they’re there to serve the people. So if you haven’t heard anything, check in.”

Additionally, now is a good time to start thinking about what exactly you’re hoping to use rebates to purchase. There’s a chance, Baldwin said, that some states’ programs will run out of money quickly. The earlier you can take advantage of rebates when they’re made available, the more likely you’ll see savings. 

And if you don’t want to wait until rebates go into effect, you can still save money in the form of federal tax credits.

State & territory energy office phone numbers

Alabama: (334) 242-5100
Alaska: (907) 771-3000

American Samoa: (684) 699-1101

Arizona: (602) 542- 4331
Arkansas: (501) 682-0744
California: (800) 555-7794

Colorado: (303) 866-2100
Connecticut: (888) 855-0282
Delaware: (302) 739-9000
District of Columbia: (202) 535-2600
Florida: (850) 617-7470
Georgia: (404) 584-1000

Guam: (671) 646-4361
Hawaii: (808) 587-3807
Idaho: (208) 332-1660
Illinois: (217) 782-3397
Indiana: (317) 954-2501
Iowa: (515) 348-6220
Kansas: (785) 271-3352
Kentucky: (502) 564-7192
Louisiana: (225) 342-0510
Maine: (207) 624-7449
Maryland: (410) 537-4000
Massachusetts: (617) 626-7300
Michigan: (800) 662-9278

Minnesota: (651) 539-1500

Mississippi: (601) 359-3449
Missouri: (573) 751-3443
Montana: (406) 444-0281
Nebraska: (402) 471-2186
Nevada: (775) 687-7189
New Hampshire: (603) 271-3670
New Jersey: (800) 624-0241
New Mexico: No phone number available but try jeremy.lewis@emnrd.nm.gov

New York: 518-862-1090
North Carolina: 919.733.2230
North Dakota: (701) 328-5392

Northern Mariana Islands: (670) 237-2200
Ohio: (800) 848-1300
Oklahoma: 405-522-7099
Oregon: 503-378-4040
Pennsylvania

Puerto Rico: (787) 523-6262

Rhode Island: (401) 574-9117
South Carolina: 1-800-922-1531
South Dakota: 605-773-5559
Tennessee: (888) 891-TDEC (8332)
Texas: 512-463-1931
Utah: 801-538-8732
Vermont: 802-461-6352

Virgin Islands: (340) 714-8436
Virginia: (804) 692-3200
Washington: 360-725-4000
West Virginia: 800-982-3386
Wisconsin: (608) 266-5481
Wyoming: 307-635-3573

Categories: I. Climate Science

Analysis: How do the EU farmer protests relate to climate change? 

The Carbon Brief - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 08:36

From Berlin and Paris, to Brussels and Bucharest, European farmers have driven their tractors to the streets in protest over recent weeks. 

According to reports, these agricultural protesters from across the European Union have a series of concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, rising costs of energy and fertiliser, and environmental rules. 

Farmers’ groups in countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Romania have all been protesting over the past couple of months. 

The UK’s Sunday Telegraph has tried to frame the protests as a “net-zero revolt” with several other media outlets saying the farmers have been rallying against climate or “green” rules. 

Carbon Brief has analysed the key demands from farmer groups in seven countries to determine how they are related to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, biodiversity or conservation. 

The findings show that many of the issues farmers are raising are directly and indirectly related to these issues. But some are not related at all. Several are based on policy measures that have not yet taken effect, such as the EU’s nature restoration law and a South American trade agreement. 

Why farmers are protesting

The issues EU farmers are raising centre around “falling sale prices, rising costs, heavy regulation, powerful and domineering retailers, debt, climate change and cheap foreign imports”, the Guardian reported. 

Carbon Brief has gathered a range of specific concerns based on media reports and farmer union statements across seven EU countries.

Each one is classified around whether the concern is related to climate change and/or greenhouse gas emissions (green), biodiversity and/or conservation (yellow), or not related to either set of issues (red). 

Note, this table is not exhaustive. 

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These issues relate to climate change and biodiversity in different ways. 

In some countries, protesters are calling for more action on climate adaptation, particularly in Greece where farmers are asking for measures to prevent farmland being damaged by flooding and other extreme weather. 

In other cases, farmers are calling for fuel subsidies to continue and for fertiliser and pesticide restrictions to be reconsidered. 

The EU’s “farm to fork” strategy – the bloc’s broad sustainable food initiative –  focuses on cutting both pesticides and fertilisers in the years ahead to optimise their use and reduce harm (read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on fertilisers and climate change). 

Last November, politicians voted against the EU’s proposed pesticide regulation which aimed to halve the use and risk of chemical pesticides by the end of this decade. This “buried the bill for good”, the Associated Press noted. Any new proposal “would need to start from scratch” after the European parliament elections in June.  

The EU said these rules would have “translate[d] our commitment to halt biodiversity loss in Europe into action”, highlighting the health risks and water quality issues associated with pesticide use. 

European legislators are working to finalise a number of other climate and biodiversity rules this year ahead of the June elections.

How the protests have developed

In December, the German government announced plans to reduce subsidies and spending in an effort to fill a €17bn gap in the country’s 2024 budget. 

The measures included cutting some agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, leading to an outburst of farmer protests (as covered in Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter). 

In the weeks since then, other farmer groups across the EU have been taking to the streets with their own concerns. 

Germany

The German government eased its budget cut plans in January by “giving up a proposal to scrap a car tax exemption for farming vehicles” and phasing-out agricultural diesel subsidies instead of outright removing them, the Associated Press reported. 

German farmers continued to protest, calling for the subsidies to remain fully in place. The Financial Times said the subsidy issues were the “immediate trigger” for the protests, but German farmer Frank Schmidt told the outlet that he and others were already “at the end of our tether”. 

Farmers with tractors protested at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany on 16 January 2024. Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

The protests “tapped into wider discontent with Germany’s government”, the Associated Press said, with farmers raising similar concerns around requirements and cheap imported food. 

Around 30,000 protestors and thousands of tractors brought Berlin’s city centre “to a standstill” in mid-January as the demonstrations continued, the Guardian said. 

France

The protests in France also began partly over plans to reduce agricultural fuel subsidies, which the government rolled back at the end of January (but not before farmers in Dijon sprayed manure on a local government building).

Protests escalated last week as hundreds of tractors blocked off major roads into the country’s capital in what was called the “siege of Paris” by many media outlets, including BBC News. 

President Emmanuel Macron was “scrambling to end an escalating political and social crisis”, the Times said. (Read last week’s edition of Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter for more details on the French protests.) 

Protesting farmers blocked the A10 motorway with tractors during a protest near Longvilliers, south of Paris, France on 29 January 2024. Credit: Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo

On 1 February, the country’s main farmer unions called for an end to the protests after “securing promises of government assistance” on issues around finance and regulations, according to Al Jazeera. 

These included a government decision to suspend efforts to halve the use of pesticides by the end of this decade, the Daily Telegraph reported, which environmentalists described as a “major step backwards”. The newspaper said: 

“‌Studies indicate the population of farmland birds has fallen by 30% in France over the past 30 years, with pesticides blamed as the primary cause for their demise.‌”

Belgium

Belgian farmers blocked roads in and out of Brussels last week, the Brussels Times reported, before the city was taken over by a wider protest on 1 February. Hundreds of “angry farmers” gathered outside the European parliament building, starting fires and throwing eggs in protest against “taxes, rising costs and cheap imports”, Sky News said. 

Farmers protested outside the European parliament building in Brussels, Belgium on 1 February 2024. Credit: ANP / Alamy Stock Photo

EU farmers “won their first concession from Brussels” last week, the Guardian reported, after the commission proposed to delay rules for farmers to “set aside land to encourage biodiversity and soil health”. 

This will offer “additional flexibility to farmers at a time when they are dealing with multiple challenges”, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

Farmers in Belgium and France are also concerned about competition from trade deals between the EU and other countries. 

This includes the EU-Mercosur trade deal, which intends to boost trade between the EU and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Many EU farmers believe that it will lead to unfair competition.

Most negotiations were finalised for the deal in 2019, but the final talks were paused “due to the positions of [former] Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on deforestation”, Euractiv reported. (An edition of Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter covered this in more detail last year.)

Since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took over office last year, the deal has gotten closer to completion despite continued opposition from countries including France and Ireland. 

Talks are ongoing and the EU “continues to fulfil its objective of achieving an agreement that respects our sustainability goals and respects our sensitivities, particularly in agriculture”, a European commission spokesperson told Reuters last week.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (right) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Moncloa palace in Madrid, Spain on 26 April 2023. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo Greece

At the ongoing protests in Greece, farmers raised concerns about accessing more reimbursement for lost crops due to “natural disasters and disease”, eKathimerini reported. Greece was badly impacted by wildfires last summer.

The government has said it will help farmers with energy costs and promised a “one-year extension of a tax rebate for agricultural diesel”, Reuters reported. 

Romania

Romanian farmers and truck drivers cited a number of different concerns, many of which related to climate change or biodiversity in different ways. 

A major issue for Romanian farmers and other eastern European countries is controlling Ukrainian grain imports. Farmers in countries surrounding Ukraine have been arguing for months that they “can’t compete” with the price of these imports. 

Some in Romania also took issue with “disruptions caused by Ukrainian grain imports”, Politico said, noting that “Russia's blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports has made Romania a key transit hub for Ukrainian grain.”

In response to the protests, the Romanian government announced extra farmer funding and fuel subsidies on 26 January, according to Radio Romania International. 

Romanian farmers and transporters protested in Ilfov, Romania on 15 January 2024. Credit: MARIUS BURCEA / Alamy Stock Photo

Last week, the European Commission proposed extending its free trade deal with Ukraine until June 2025, but with a new measure to prevent too many Ukrainian agricultural products being sold in EU states, Euronews reported. 

Other EU countries

Farmer protests remain ongoing in Lithuania and Poland over similar concerns, many of which are outlined in the above interactive table. 

In Ireland, protests began on 1 February in “solidarity” with other farmers, RTÉ reported. The president of the Irish Farmers Association, Francie Gorman, said there is “mounting frustration about the impact of EU policy”.

Elsewhere, France24 reported that more than 300 vehicles gathered in protest near Milan, Italy last week. Meanwhile, a small group of farmers protested in Portugal on 1 February, Reuters reported. 

Farmers in Spain are preparing to take to the streets later this month. Similar plans are underway in Slovakia, where separate protests are ongoing against plans to close the country’s special prosecutor’s office.

Far right taking note

This year will see major elections across the globe. 

EU citizens will elect new members of the European parliament in June and recent polling has suggested that there could be a “sharp turn to the right” in the results, Deutsche Welle reported. 

As these protests continue, Politico said that right-wing parties in several European countries – such as France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany – are “piggybacking on farmers’ noisy outrage”. 

Farmers protested outside the European parliament building in Brussels, Belgium on 1 February. Credit: ANP / Alamy Stock Photo

Dr Gilles Ivaldi, a politics researcher at Sciences Po who has examined the far right in Europe, says that right-wing groups may use the farmer protests to “boost their electoral support”. He tells Carbon Brief: 

“What we see, particularly in France, is that the far right is seeking to capitalise on public discontent with the impact of the green transition, not only among farmers but also in social groups affected most by the economic cost of environmental policies.”

He says that in France’s case, the far right is “clearly trying to instrumentalise” the farmer protests to “mobilise against the government and the EU”. Sky News reported that the protests “are being seized upon by various groups”, including Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National party. 

But Ivaldi notes that the far right’s EU election focus will mostly remain on topics such as immigration, the economy, the future of the EU and the bloc’s Green Deal. The “main factors” behind a potential right-wing surge will not come from agriculture alone. He adds: 

“Far-right parties are currently capitalising on the economic crisis and rise in prices, on the immigration issue, particularly growing concerns about the massive influx of refugees in Germany and, more broadly, the many anxieties caused by the war in Ukraine and geopolitical instability.”

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The post Analysis: How do the EU farmer protests relate to climate change?  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Categories: I. Climate Science

Scientists challenge ‘flawed communication’ of study claiming 1.5C warming breach

The Carbon Brief - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 08:00

Scientists have challenged the conclusions of a new study suggesting that the planet has already exceeded the 1.5C warming threshold set under the Paris Agreement.

Climate change is typically measured as the average global temperature increase relative to a “pre-industrial baseline”. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, uses the average temperature over 1850-1900 as their historical baseline. The planet has already warmed by around 1.2C compared to this period.

The new study, published in Nature Climate Change, uses proxy data from sea sponges in the Caribbean Sea to create a record of ocean temperatures from 1700 to the present day. This data suggests that warming started 40 years before the IPCC’s pre-industrial baseline period began.

Based on this new record, the authors say “warming is 0.5C higher than IPCC estimates”. 

This means that “the global warming clock for emission reductions to minimise the risk of dangerous climate change has been brought forward by at least a decade”, the lead author told a press briefing.

However, many experts have warned that the framing of the study is misleading, arguing that the finding has no bearing on the Paris Agreement 1.5C limit, because it specifically “describes temperature rise relative to the late 19th century”.

Prof Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that, crucially, the study “does not mean that impacts of climate change will occur earlier than expected”.

Other experts raised doubts that the 0.5C warming in the 1800s is human-caused, while many cautioned that proxy data from a single location should not be used to make assumptions about the entire planet.

The University of Oxford’s Prof Yadvinder Malhi, who was also not involved in the study, cautions that “the way these findings have been communicated is flawed, and has the potential to add unnecessary confusion to public debate on climate change”.

Shifting baselines

Humans have been releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for centuries, causing global temperatures to rise.

In IPCC reports – considered the most authoritative summaries on climate science – scientists use a combination of land surface air temperatures and sea surface temperatures to assess changes in global mean surface temperatures (GMST).

The UN body reports global warming against a “pre-industrial baseline” of 1850-1900. It describes this baseline as “a pragmatic choice based upon data availability considerations” – in part because much of the observed climate data they use is only available from 1850.

For example, the Met Office’s HadSST4 dataset – one of the three datasets used in IPCC estimates of sea surface temperatures – goes back as far as 1850.

The IPCC also recognises that “both anthropogenic and natural changes to the climate occurred” before the 1850-1900 baseline. For example, in its 2021 report on climate science, the IPCC estimates that between 1750 and 1850-1900, GMST increased by around 0.1C. Of this, human activity was responsible for 0.0-0.2C, it says.

Nonetheless, researchers have typically followed suit in using the 1850-1900 average as their “pre-industrial baseline” to measure global warming.

In 2015, countries agreed under the Paris Agreement to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5C. “Pre-industrial” was not clearly defined in the agreement, but it has generally been taken to mean the average temperature over 1850-1900.

However, some scientists argue that the “pre-industrial baseline” period should begin before 1850.

The new study uses proxy data taken from sea sponges from the Caribbean sea, to present a timeseries of regional ocean temperatures from 1700 to the present day. Scientists collected sclerosponges from the ocean mixed layer – a region of ocean where heat is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean interior.

Between 1700-90 and 1840-60, the proxy data shows ocean warming of around 0.9C, according to the study. In the intervening time, there was some cooling, largely caused by volcanic eruptions, the authors say.

The plot below shows the proxy data (blue) from the year 1770, alongside the HadSST4 observed temperature record (purple), which begins in 1850, relative to a 1961-90 reference period. The authors have applied a 0.9C “offset” to their proxy data to account for pre-industrial temperature increase.

Temperature anomalies compared to the 1961-90 average, according to the HadSST4 observed temperature record (purple) since 1850 and the proxy sponge data (blue) since 1700 to the present day. The authors have applied a 0.9C “offset” to their proxy data to account for pre-industrial temperature increase. Source: McCulloch et al (2024).

By comparing their proxy data against existing records of global temperature changes, the authors find “strong empirical evidence that the Caribbean ocean mixed layer has warmed proportionately to the average global increase in sea surface temperature, over the last ~50 years”.

The authors assume that the 0.9C offset “can be applied to land-air as well as the ocean mixed layer anomalies”, therefore concluding that GMST increased by 0.9C between 1700-1860 and 1961-90. 

Meanwhile, global ocean temperatures measured using HadSST4 show only 0.4C of warming relative to the IPCC’s 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.

As such, the authors suggest that human-caused warming to date is actually 0.5C higher than IPCC estimates.

Dr Malcolm McCulloch – an emeritus professor at the University of Western Australia and lead author on the study – told a press briefing that, according to his study, the 1.5C Paris temperature threshold has already been crossed in around 2010-12.

He continued:

“It means that now, temperatures are at least 1.7C above the pre-industrial level. It also means that the 2C target will be passed in late 2020 unless there are major reductions in emissions…

“The big picture is that the global warming clock for emission reductions to minimise the risk of dangerous climate change has been brought forward by at least a decade”.

However, many scientists are concerned about this framing of the study.

Warming limits

Dr Friederike Otto, who was not involved in the study, is a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute. She says the paper “does not tell us anything about whether we have exceeded the 1.5C temperature limit set in the Paris Agreement”.

She continues:

“That limit was established as the threshold of unacceptably dangerous warming and describes temperature rise relative to the late 19th century. If this study has indeed identified warming from before the mid-1800s, that doesn’t mean the planet is any closer to breaking the 1.5C limit as it is widely understood.”

(The IPCC best estimate – in all but the highest emission scenario – is that global warming will pass 1.5C in the first half of the 2030s.)

Mahli adds:

“Our models of climate warming impacts are based on warming relative to 1850-1900 and moving the baseline definition of pre-industrial does not make these expected impacts worse…

“It is the date of the reference period that matters rather than whether it is labelled pre-industrial or not. The period 1850-1900 is a period of relatively reliable global data when industrial era human-caused climate change was likely negligible.”

Dr Andrew King is a senior lecturer in climate science at the University of Melbourne and was not involved in the study. He tells Carbon Brief that the findings of the study do not have any implications for the Paris Agreement warming limits, because these were “written in 2015 with a view to limiting further global warming from that point onwards”.

He adds:

“While the lack of clarity on what pre-industrial means was problematic, it doesn’t really affect that goal or any of the analyses on climate impacts at global warming levels that have been performed.”

King also tells Carbon Brief that the authors have not demonstrated that pre-1850s warming is due to human activity. 

Malhi agrees that “this early industrial-era warming, if real, is almost certainly not human-caused”. He notes that human-caused emissions over 1750-1900 account for only 2.5% of total emissions to date, and says they are “unlikely to have caused substantial warming compared to the 1.4C of warming caused by the remaining 97.5% of cumulative emissions”. 

Dr Duo Chan, a lecturer in climate sciences at the University of Southampton, also advises “caution” when interpreting the results, noting that “this new warming estimate does not align” with historical estimates of the different factors that affect the climate.

He notes that, according to ​​Berkeley Earth temperature estimates, the land warmed by around 0.05C per decade over 1850-1900. The new proxy data from the sponges suggests that the ocean warmed almost twice as quickly as the land over this time – a “puzzling observation given the ocean warms more slowly than land”, he says.

Dr Zeke Hausfather, Carbon Brief’s contributing science writer, adds that the study authors are “conflating ocean mixed layer temperature with sea surface temperature in a way that is confusing”. He adds that “their reconstruction also seems a bit at odds with other palaeoclimate reconstructions – such as PAGES2k – that do not see large differences in pre-1900 temperatures”.

The sclerosponge record

Coralline sclerosponges are an ancient type of calcifying sea sponge which can live for hundreds of years. As they grow, chemicals called strontium and calcium build up in their skeletons. The ratio of strontium to calcium in their skeletons is higher during warm periods and lower during cool periods.

Scientists collected live specimens of sclerosponge from the Caribbean sea and analysed the ratios of strontium to calcium in their skeletons to reproduce a timeseries of ocean temperatures in the region from the year 1700 to the present day.

A slice of sclerosponge skeleton. Source: Deng et al (2024)

Dr Amos Winter is a professor of Earth and environmental systems at Indiana State University and author on the study. He told the press briefing that there is no such thing as a “perfect proxy”, but said the sclerosponge record is “as good as possible – the holy grail of reconstruction”.

He explained that the Caribbean is “the ideal location to measure global trends”. According to the paper, the region is “ideally positioned” to have a “minimal” impact from the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, while “still registering the broader effects” of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate phenomenon.

He adds that the sclerosponge temperature reconstruction is “very robust” when compared to other assessments of temperature trends.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says that the new data is a “useful addition to the database” of palaeoclimate proxies. However, he adds:

“Estimates of the global mean temperatures before 1850 require multiple proxies from as wide a regional variation as possible, thus claims that records from a single record can confidently define the global mean warming since the pre-industrial are probably overreaching.”

Prof Gabi Hegerl, a professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh, says that the paper presents a “nice new record” of ocean temperatures, but says that “the interpretation in terms of global warming goals overstretches it”. 

She warns that “a single location cannot substitute global data, as climate varies across the globe, which is why the only way to measure global temperature is to get data from across the globe”.

Similarly, Hausfather calls the finding “interesting”, but says it “should be combined with other proxy records in a larger synthesis before it will change our prevailing views here”.

Guest post: Why ocean depth is key for how warming will affect marine life

Guest posts

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30.09.22

Marine heatwaves can be predicted ‘up to a year ahead’

Extreme weather

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03.05.22

Last refuges for coral reefs to disappear above 1.5C of global warming, study finds

Nature

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01.02.22

Guest post: Why oceans could face more extremes like the Pacific ‘Blob’

Guest posts

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24.01.22

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Categories: I. Climate Science

EU Grids: Out of Gas?

Carbon Tracker Initiative - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 04:53

21 February | Online

The energy transition is rendering future cash flows from gas transport and distribution increasingly uncertain. This experience will be very different depending on activity, transport or distribution, and geography & regulation, Italy, Spain or the UK. In view of such uncertainties, decarbonisation at Snam, Italgas and Enagas will be increasingly key to equity & debt investor returns.

Chris Moore, our European Power & Utilities Analyst, will look at how far gas network operators are Paris aligned; how realistic is decarbonisation with hydrogen; whether asset lives are appropriate with lower gas demand and net zero; whether regulators are sufficiently focused on decarbonisation. Above all, we assess the future of gas networks in a world increasingly dominated by renewables & electrification. Management from Snam will join us on the call.

The post EU Grids: Out of Gas? appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Categories: I. Climate Science

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #05

Skeptical Science - Sun, 02/04/2024 - 07:25
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, Jan 28, 2024 thru Sat, Feb 03, 2024. Story of the week

When we started our rebuttals update project at Skeptical Science last year, we didn't really know, how it would pan out and for how long we could keep the refurbishing line in our little virtual factory going. Now, almost a year after we published the first batch of 10 updated rebuttals we hit highlighted rebuttal #50 this week, so our effort thus far has proven to be sustainable. In addition, we are happy to report that we have about 25 more rebuttals in various draft stages awaiting their turn to be highlighted. Our factory will therefore not be running out of material any time soon! 

Stories we thought important

Published before January 28

Published January 28

Published January 29

  • Why 2023 was an exceptional year for Antarctic sea ice   by Dr Ella Gilbert, Guest Posts, Carbon Brief, Jan 29, 2024
  • Spencer`s Shenanigans  A recent sensible-sounding piece by Roy Spencer for the Heritage foundation is full of misrepresentations. Let’s play spot the fallacy. by Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate, Jan 29, 2024
  • The Arctic sea ice shell game  Summer sea ice is where all the action is, and skeptics highlighting year-to-year variations in winter sea ice are just playing a shell game. by Zeke Hausfather, The Climate Brink, Jan 29, 2024
  • Global science and media organizations to sign pledge prioritizing science-based climate change communications  U.S. and international scientific associations will join with high-profile media outlets to sign a pledge of cooperation aimed at ensuring climate change-related communications are scientifically accurate, accessible, and actionable. by American Meteorological Society, Phys.org, Jan 29, 2024
  • Electric vehicles use half the energy of gas-powered vehicles  EVs require much less energy to operate than gasoline-burning vehicles. In fact, with the nation’s current electricity blend, an EV requires only about half the energy needed for a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. by Karin Kirk, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 29, 2024
  • Education and information can increase the acceptance of climate policies  An important question for policymakers worldwide is how to make climate and environmental policies acceptable among the populations. A new study published in Climate Policy sheds light on the preferences in five East African countries. The study shows, among other things, that education and information about how revenues from carbon taxes are used are important factors. by University of Gothenburg, ScienceDaily, Jan 29, 2024

Published January 30

Published January 31

Published February 01

Published February 02

  • El Niño and climate change are supercharging incoming storm, SoCal's biggest this winter  The powerful atmospheric river — worrisome enough on its own — is being supercharged by climate change and El Niño, which together are warming ocean waters, upping the odds of significant downpours and offering a preview of the state’s future in a warming world, experts say. by Hayley Smith, Grace Toohey, Climate , Feb 02, 2024
  • Oh, there’s a hole in my bucket  John Kennedy explains why buckets play an important role in sea-surface-temperature measurements. by John Kennedy, Diagram Monkey, Feb 2, 2024

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 for possible inclusion on our social media channels. Thanks!

Categories: I. Climate Science

DeBriefed 2 February: UK’s ‘slowing’ climate ambition; New top US climate diplomat; Surging methane from wetlands

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 02/02/2024 - 06:35

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 UK’s ‘slowing’ climate ambition

MIXED SIGNALS: The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has warned the perception of the UK’s climate ambition has “suffered from mixed messages” following “new fossil-fuel developments and the prime minister’s speech to soften some net-zero policies”, reported the Press Association. In a report on progress made at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year, the advisory body said “decisions to approve a new coal mine and licence new oil and gas production” have contributed to “a perception of slowing UK climate ambition by members of the international community”, the outlet noted.

‘GROSSLY IRRESPONSIBLE’: It comes as the UK this week allocated another 24 licences to major oil companies for the right to drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea, the Guardian reported. According to the North Sea Transition Authority, oil and gas could be produced within the decade under the licences, the outlet noted. The move “angered MPs and environmental campaigners”, who called the move “grossly irresponsible”, it added.

IMF WARNING: Meanwhile, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, has “warned UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt against cutting taxes, arguing the country needs to curb public borrowing and prioritise spending in areas such as health, education and tackling climate change”, reported the Financial Times. 

Around the world
  • ENVOY IN EMPLOY: US president Joe Biden has appointed his clean energy adviser John Podesta to succeed John Kerry as the nation’s top climate diplomat, reported the Financial Times. Podesta will take on the role in addition to his current White House job overseeing $370bn in spending on clean energy under the Inflation Reduction Act, noted the New York Times.
  • SOLAR SUCCESS: China’s installed wind and solar capacity is set to overtake coal for the first time this year, according to Reuters. Bloomberg reported that China installed more solar panels in 2023 than any other nation has built in total.
  • ITALY-AFRICA SUMMIT: At a summit of African leaders in Rome, Italy unveiled a plan to use its climate fund to transform into “an energy hub” that creates “a bridge between Europe and Africa”, reported Climate Home News. Observers warned that the plan presents “enormous ambiguities” that leave the door open to fossil-fuel investment.
  • TRACTOR TUMULT: Farmers protesting across Europe have “won their first concession”, reported the Guardian, with the EU announcing a delay in rules for setting aside land for nature. Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter has more on how far-right political groups are aiming to capitalise on the outrage.
  • PAKISTAN ELECTION: Ahead of Pakistan’s general election on 8 February, two major political parties have “prominently highlighted the importance of dealing with climate change-related issues in their manifestos”, reported the Press Trust of India.
  • FIGHTING FIRES: More than a hundred firefighters battled a forest fire in the Los Alerces national park in northern Patagonia, reported BBC News. La Nación noted that an “unusual heatwave” has brought temperatures of up to 40C to the region.
2.47 million square kilometres

The “missing” area of Antarctic sea ice in July 2023, relative to the long-term average, according to a Carbon Brief guest post. This is larger than the area of Algeria, the 10th largest country in the world.

Latest climate research
  • Melting of a glacier in Switzerland over just two years has left it “irrevocably lost” as a record of past air pollution from ice cores, a Nature Geoscience study reported. 
  • Economic recovery spending in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic “missed many opportunities to advance climate adaptation and resilience” (A&R), according to a Nature Sustainability study. Analysis of around 8,000 government policies across 88 countries found that just 10-11% had “direct A&R benefits”.
  • A study in Earth’s Future warns that extreme heat and thawing permafrost will pose “severe threats” to global rail and road infrastructure as the climate warms.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The US is already the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) and has more additional capacity “proposed” (dark blue on the chart) than any other nation, according to a new Q&A by Carbon Brief. The article unpacked the implications of the surprise move, made late last week by US president Joe Biden, for a “temporary pause” on the expansion of LNG export terminals.

Spotlight Surging methane from the world’s wetlands

This week, to mark UN World Wetlands Day, Carbon Brief speaks to a scientist helping uncover how methane emissions from wetlands are rising in a changing climate.  

In 2020 and 2021, the rate at which methane levels in the atmosphere increased hit record highs. 

The rise between 2019 and 2020 was “roughly a doubling” of the annual growth rate, Dr Benjamin Poulter, a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explained to Carbon Brief. This was “unexpected and caught the scientific community by surprise”.

In December 2022, a Nature study by Poulter and colleagues found that “wetlands appear to have played a key role, explaining around 50% of the jump from 2019 to 2020”, he said. Further work – currently undergoing peer-review – has suggested that the world’s wetlands were the main driver behind the growth between 2020 and 2021 as well.

Wetlands are areas of land that are either permanently or seasonally inundated with water. They are found across the world, but predominantly in lush landscapes in the tropics and frozen “permafrost” expanses in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere.

The near-constant saturation means that decomposing organic matter in the soil releases methane instead of CO2. This methane can diffuse from the water into the atmosphere, be emitted through grass-like plants or abruptly as bubbles. Research has also shown that trees can transport methane from the soil to the atmosphere – or potentially even produce it within their stems.

La Niña’s influence

There appears to be two main reasons why wetlands produced more methane over 2020-22, Poulter explained – a combination of a La Niña event “causing wetlands to expand in the tropics” and climate change “causing warming in all parts of the world, and especially in the high latitudes”.

La Niña is the cold-water counterpart to the natural El Niño climate phenomenon. They are known collectively as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In general, an El Niño event “causes wetland methane emissions to decrease in tropical regions due to drying”, said Poulter, while La Niña causes emissions “to increase as wetlands expand”. There are regional variations that complicate things a little, he added.

In the high latitudes, “ENSO has less of an impact”, explained Poulter, but rapid warming in this region “is likely driving increasing trends in wetland methane emissions” – as well as “changing the seasonal onset of wetland methane production as the permafrost thaws earlier, deeper and freezes later in the year”.

Methane feedback

The overall increase in wetland methane emissions in recent years is “expected from wetland model projections”, noted Poulter. He published a study last year that indicated the rise may be part of an extended climate-wetland methane “feedback” where global warming drives greater wetland methane emissions, which – in turn – drives further warming.

For 2023 and 2024, the methane growth rate is likely to be influenced by “the El Niño phase of ENSO and the record-breaking global air temperatures”, Poulter said. Last year, for example, “droughts in Central America and Amazonia disrupted shipping and livelihoods, and likely led to decreased tropical wetland methane emissions”.

The US Global Monitoring Laboratory is due to release its final atmospheric concentration data for 2023 in April. This will help confirm understanding of wetland methane emissions, Poulter said, and “whether the El Niño-induced drought impacts on tropical wetlands caused the atmospheric growth rate of methane to decrease” last year.

Watch, read, listen

OVERSTATE: In this interactive, a group of Bloomberg journalists investigated how “dozens” of UK wind farms have routinely overestimated how much power they can produce.

BIG OIL: DeSmog uncovered evidence that fossil-fuel companies funded climate research as far back as 1954, further suggesting their long-standing knowledge of global warming.

‘IMPORTANT QUESTIONS’: In a Nature news feature, journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan looked at the “agonising choices” over how the UN loss-and-damage fund will be allocated.

Coming up Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org

DeBriefed 26 January 2024: EU eyes ‘ambitious’ 2040 target; IPCC decides on new climate reports; Gender inequality at COPs

DeBriefed

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26.01.24

DeBriefed 19 January 2024: John Kerry retires; Uncertainty over UK Labour’s pledge; China’s new climate envoy profiled 

DeBriefed

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19.01.24

DeBriefed 12 January: 2023 ‘smashes’ global heat record; UK MP quits over oil and gas; Studying Antarctica’s mammoth icebergs

DeBriefed

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12.01.24

DeBriefed 5 January 2024: US offshore wind; UK’s second warmest year; Carbon Brief’s top articles of 2023

DeBriefed

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05.01.24

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Categories: I. Climate Science

Guest post: Heavy use of CO2 removal would trigger high sustainability risks

The Carbon Brief - Fri, 02/02/2024 - 04:41

Many pathways to staying below 1.5C delay deep cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and rely instead on huge amounts of CO2 removal (CDR) later this century.

Land-based CDR is used extensively in the 1.5C pathways presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also features heavily in the climate plans of many governments and businesses.

Yet the large-scale deployment of land-based CDR could come with major challenges. These include significant ecological and societal risks – particularly to biodiversity loss, food security, freshwater use and human rights, among others – which have not been comprehensively assessed.

In our new paper, published in Science, we assess the level of sustainability risks that could be triggered by the use of various different land-based CDR techniques, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation and reforestation (A/R).

We show that risks are triggered at much lower levels of deployment than previously thought. Moreover, many of the “Paris aligned” 1.5C pathways presented by the IPCC would exceed the CDR sustainability limits defined by our evaluation.

CDR deployment in mitigation pathways 

Many mitigation pathways assessed by the IPCC envisage large deployments of CDR throughout the 21st century. 

This is significant because, although the IPCC is not “policy prescriptive”, these pathways – and the policy options within them – strongly shape the “solution space” as seen by policymakers when considering how to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

The use of CDR is particularly widespread in the pathways labelled by the IPCC as “1.5C with high overshoot”. In these pathways, emissions cuts are not fast enough to avoid breaching the carbon budget for 1.5C and global temperatures temporarily overshoot the 1.5C limit, before extensive use of CDR brings temperatures down later this century.

Within these pathways, CDR is deployed up to 2050 to help compensate for a slower transition away from fossil fuels, to reduce net emissions. When emissions reach net-zero, CDR is being used to counterbalance large remaining residual emissions. Beyond this point, it is used to draw-down global temperature after exceeding 1.5C. 

This type of pathway is typified by the IPCC’s “Neg” illustrative mitigation pathway. Here, – some 5.1bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) is taken out of the atmosphere using CDR in 2050 and 15.1GtCO2 in 2100. 

In this pathway, one of five outlined in the IPPC’s sixth assessment report (AR6), primary energy from fossil fuel drops only 36% below 2020 levels by 2050 and 73% by 2100, relative to 2020. 

This CDR and emissions profile is in sharp contrast to the IPCC’s “Ren” pathway – which relies on rapid scale-up of renewable energy – primary energy from fossil fuel falls 85% by 2050 and 95% by 2100, relative to 2020. (IMP-Ren) 

This means that this renewable energy pathway has much lower reliance on CDR, which is only used to take 2.6GtCO2 out of the atmosphere in 2050 and 3GtCO2 in 2100.

Sustainability limits 

The large amounts of land-based CDR in many of the pathways assessed by the IPCC come with significant implications in terms of sustainability, with the potential for serious impacts on human livelihoods and food security.

Yet the IPCC report does not comprehensively assess the environmental feasibility of the scenarios, nor their associated sustainability risks. Nor does it put a figure on the scale of CDR that could be deployed without triggering major impacts.

To address this gap, we quantified the sustainability limits to the widespread deployment of BECCS, A/R and “nature-based” CDR, which includes limited reforestation, forest restoration, reduced forest harvest and agroforestry.

To do so, we draw from recent studies that give greater attention to the ecological, biological and societal impacts of land-based CDR.

Based on these studies, we calculated the levels of CDR deployment that would trigger “low”, “medium”, “high” and “very high” risks for sustainability. These risk levels are colour-coded from green through to dark red, for each type of land-based CDR in the figure below.

Reading from left to right, the figure shows increasing levels of CDR deployment in terms of GtCO2 removed per year. The grey bar shows the range of “technical mitigation potential” for each technique, as currently assessed by the IPCC. The upper end of this is the largest amount that could theoretically be deployed, if barriers to rapid scale-up, constraints on feasibility and sustainability risks are not taken into account.

The figure shows that sustainability risks start well below the technical mitigation potential.

The technical mitigation potential (grey) of BECCS and A/R as assessed by the IPCC, in comparison to the low risk (green), medium risk (yellow), high risk (red) and very high risk (dark red) sustainability limits. Credit: adapted from Deprez et al.

For BECCS, the IPCC reports an average technical potential of 5.9GtCO2 per year. Yet we find that deploying more than 1.2GtCO2 of BECCS per year would tip over from “low risk” into “medium” or higher risk levels.

(This figure is based on BECCS plants capturing a “medium” share of their associated CO2 emissions, below 70%. For a “low” capture rate below 50%, the low-risk threshold drops to just 0.7GtCO2 per year.)

Correspondingly, BECCS would cross the high sustainability risk threshold (shown in red) if used to remove 1.3GtCO2 with a low capture rate – or 2.8GtCO2 with a medium rate.

Even these limited levels of BECCS assume significant bioenergy policy reforms that governments have not yet addressed. These include addressing gaps in emissions accounting and ensuring bioenergy is not causing deforestation, either directly or indirectly.  

For A/R, the IPCC average technical potential is 3.9GtCO2 a year. Our research shows that associated sustainability risks remain low or medium below 3.8GtCO2 per year, with high risks beyond that point. 

We find that nature-based CDR (which includes limited reforestation) carries the lowest sustainability risks. Deployment would trigger high risks beyond 5.1GtCO2 a year (including 3.8GtCO2 per year of non-monoculture reforestation).

Having defined risk levels for each type of CDR, we then mapped those indicators onto the amount of CDR deployed in each of the IPCC’s five “illustrative mitigation pathways” (IMPs).
(These pathways are: gradual strengthening of climate policy, GS; widespread use of CDR, Neg; low energy demand, LD; shifting pathways towards sustainable development, SP; and heavy use of renewables, Ren.)

Our results, illustrated in the table below, show that the three pathways that limit warming to 1.5C with limited to no overshoot are able to do so without greatly overstepping our sustainability risk thresholds.

In contrast, Neg limits warming in 2100 to 1.5C with high temperature overshoot, but exceeds high and even very high sustainability risk thresholds. The GS pathway only limits warming to 2C and still carries significant levels of sustainability risks.

Reading the table from top to bottom, the first set of rows list the change in CO2 emissions, energy demand and fossil fuel use in 2050 and 2100.

The second set of rows show the amount of each type of CDR deployed in 2050 and 2100, colour-coded according to our sustainability risk levels.

The third set of rows show the amount of land needed for CDR deployment – the land footprint. Again, these are colour-coded according to our sustainability risk levels.

CO2 emissions and energy, as well as CDR from sequestration and the land footprint of CDR use across IPCC’s five illustrative mitigation pathways, IMP-GS, IMP-Neg, IMP-LD, IMP-SP and IMP-Ren. Credit: Deprez et al.

Notably, our findings show that the amount of land needed for CDR in the Neg pathway could reach 7.2m square kilometres in 2050 and 13.3m square kilometres in 2100. For comparison, the land area of the US is just 9.1m square kilometres.

Risk assessment

Our findings suggest there is an urgent need to consider sustainability risks when choosing between different mitigation pathways.

One way to do this would be to define a “sustainable CDR budget”, as the amount of CDR that could be deployed sustainably across all CDR methods.

While our research only considered land-based CDR, alternative CDR options are also likely to come with sustainability and deployment risks, which could limit their potential. These include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) or ocean-based CDR.

Another option would be for scientists to identify Paris-aligned scenarios that do not overstep sustainability limits. Our research suggests that this could be a key priority for the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle, as well as integrating environmental risks and feasibility throughout the IPCC’s work.

Moreover, our findings suggest that delaying fossil fuel cuts, in the hope that emissions can be drawn down later this century using CDR, would come with high sustainability risks.

If, on the other hand, countries wish to account for biodiversity considerations alongside climate goals, while still limiting temperatures to 1.5C, then they would need to follow a mitigation pathway with more rapid cuts in fossil fuel use, our research suggests.

Many of these pathways include behaviour changes and reductions in energy demand.

Countries could take up our findings in their next nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, due in 2025. For example, they could address sustainability risks by setting separate, transparent targets for CDR, in addition to headline emissions goals.

They could also aim to limit their reliance on CDR – and its corresponding land footprint – in order to avoid climate actions that have negative consequences for their national biodiversity plans under the global biodiversity framework (NBSAPs).

Q&A: What does Biden’s LNG ‘pause’ mean for global emissions?

Energy

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30.01.24

Wind and solar capacity in south-east Asia climbs 20% in just one year, report finds

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17.01.24

Analysis: Surge in heat pumps and solar drives record for UK homes in 2023

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12.01.24

Analysis: World will add enough renewables in five years to power US and Canada

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12.01.24

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Categories: I. Climate Science

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #5 2024

Skeptical Science - Thu, 02/01/2024 - 13:24
Open access notables

The Weather–Climate Schism, Randall & Emanuel, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (perspective):

The atmospheric science community includes both weather and climate scientists. These two groups interact much less than they should, particularly in the United States. The schism is widespread and has persisted for 50 years or more. It is found in academic departments, laboratories, professional societies, and even funding agencies. Mending the schism would promote better, fasTter science. We sketch the history of the schism and suggest ways to make our community whole.

Bayesian Estimation of Advanced Warning Time of Precipitation Emergence, Lickley & Fletcher, Earth's Future:

Our approach uses individual model projections that show change before averaging across models to calculate ToE. It then applies a Bayesian method to constrain uncertainty from climate model ensembles using a perfect model approach. Results demonstrate the potential for widespread and decades-earlier precipitation emergence, with potential for end-of-century emergence to occur across 99% of the Earth compared to 60% in previous estimates. Our method reduces uncertainty in the direction of change across 8% of the globe. We find positive estimates of AWT across most of the Earth; however, in 34% of regions there is potential for no advanced warning before new precipitation regimes emerge. These estimates can guide adaptation planning, reducing the risk that policymakers are unprepared for precipitation changes that occur earlier than expected.

How Economics Can Tackle the ‘Wicked Problem’ of Climate Change, Stiglitz et al., School of International and Public Affairs/Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University (from this week's government/NGO section):

Addressing the harmful effects of climate change requires an understanding of economic tradeoffs, the politics of policymaking, and the strategy of diplomacy. While early prescriptions for climate solutions focused on idealistic “optimal” policies and all-encompassing global treaties, a more nuanced and realistic vision for climate progress has emerged. As befits a “wicked problem,” a wide range of policies and insights from across scientific disciplines are needed to promote collective action, reduce emissions, and help the world achieve a more sustainable future.

The Russia-Ukraine war decreases food affordability but could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, van Meijl et al., Communications Earth & Environment:

The scenarios assess the possible consequences of macro-economic and agricultural production impacts in Ukraine, trade sanctions against Russia, and conflict-related energy price developments for global trade, food security, and greenhouse gas emissions. From a food security perspective, we conclude that there is enough food on the global level, but higher food and energy prices cause problems for low-income populations, spending a large part of their income on staple foods. Agricultural production and area expansion in parts of the world other than Ukraine and Russia could pose a risk to biodiversity and lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions related to land. However, total greenhouse gas emissions might decrease as lower emissions from less use of fossil energy due to higher energy and fertilizer prices in the whole economy dominate additional emissions resulting from land use change.

High-altitude glacier archives lost due to climate change-related melting, Huber et al., Nature Geoscience 

Global warming has caused widespread surface lowering of mountain glaciers. By comparing two firn cores collected in 2018 and 2020 from Corbassière glacier in Switzerland, we demonstrate how vulnerable these precious archives of past environmental conditions have become. Within two years, the soluble impurity records were destroyed by melting. The glacier is now irrevocably lost as an archive for reconstructing major atmospheric aerosol components.

Searching for the Most Extreme Temperature Events in Recent History, Cattiaux et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:

Here we present an original method that objectively selects, defines, and compares extreme events that have occurred worldwide in the recent years. Building on previous work, the event definition consists of automatically selecting the spatiotemporal scale that maximizes the event rarity, accounting for the nonstationary context of climate change. We then explore all years, seasons, and regions and search for the most extreme events. We demonstrate how our searching procedure can be both useful for climate monitoring over a given territory, and resolve the geographical selection bias of attribution studies. Ultimately, we provide a selection of the most exceptional hot and cold events in the recent past, among which are iconic heatwaves such as those seen in 2021 in Canada and in 2003 in Europe.

134 articles in 59 journals by 833 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Hurricane track trends and environmental flow patterns under surface temperature changes and roughness length variations, Romdhani et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100645

Influence of boreal summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillations on the occurrences of Marine Heatwave events over the North Bay of Bengal, Mandal et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-023-06945-x

Radiative effect of thin cirrus clouds in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere and tropopause region, Spang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-1213-2024

The Respective Roles of Ocean Heat Transport and Surface Heat Fluxes in Driving Arctic Ocean Warming and Sea Ice Decline, Oldenburg et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0399.1

Observations of climate change, effects

A decade of marine inorganic carbon chemistry observations in the northern Gulf of Alaska – Insights to an environment in transition, Monacci et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-16-647-2024

Anthropogenic Contribution to the Unprecedented 2022 Midsummer Extreme High-Temperature Event in Southern China, Cao et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0199.1

Changes in regional daily precipitation intensity and spatial structure from global reanalyses, Lussana et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.8375

High-altitude glacier archives lost due to climate change-related melting, Huber et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-023-01366-1

Late-Winter and Springtime Temperature Variations throughout New Jersey in a Warming Climate, Garner & Duran, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-23-0152.1

Pacific tropical instability waves have intensified since the 1990s, , Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-023-01916-w

Temporal characteristics of cold waves hazard frequency in northwest of Iran and Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation impacts, Ghavidel & Motalebizad, Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-023-06391-2

Uneven evolution of regional European summer heatwaves under climate change, Khodayar Pardo & Paredes-Fortuny Paredes-Fortuny, Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100648

Warming of the Kuroshio Current Over the Last Four Decades has Intensified the Meiyu-Baiu Rainband, Qiao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107021

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

Analysis of climatic extremes in the Parnaíba River Basin, Northeast Brazil, using GPM IMERG-V6 products., Batista et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100646

Evaluating the h-index as a climate metric for the Arabian Peninsula, Alghamdi & Harrington Jr, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8378

Evaluation of the highest temperature WMO region VI Europe (continental): 48.8°C, Siracusa Sicilia, Italy on August 11, 2021, Merlone et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.8361

Monitoring Earth’s climate variables with satellite laser altimetry, Magruder et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 10.1038/s43017-023-00508-8

Searching for the Most Extreme Temperature Events in Recent History, Cattiaux et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0095.1

Uncertainty of Atmospheric Winds in Three Widely Used Global Reanalysis Datasets, Wu et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-22-0198.1

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

A CMIP6 Analysis of Past and Future Arctic Winter Stratospheric Temperature Trends, Bloxam & Huang, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039866

A computationally efficient statistically downscaled 100 m resolution Greenland product from the regional climate model MAR, Tedesco et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-17-5061-2023

Climate Change in the Thermosphere and Ionosphere From the Early Twentieth Century to Early Twenty-First Century Simulated by the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model—eXtended, McInerney et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jd039397

Effects of CO $$&2$$ vegetation forcing on precipitation and heat extremes in China, Chen et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07046-5

Enhanced future vegetation growth with elevated carbon dioxide concentrations could increase fire activity, Allen et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01228-7

Future trends in the vertical structure of Arctic warming and moistening in different emission scenarios, Nie et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107271

Historical and future maximum sea surface temperatures, Cael et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adj5569

Hurricane track trends and environmental flow patterns under surface temperature changes and roughness length variations, Romdhani et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100645

Increasing risks of extreme salt intrusion events across European estuaries in a warming climate, Lee et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01225-w

Larger Cloud Liquid Water Enhances Both Aerosol Indirect Forcing and Cloud Radiative Feedback in Two Earth System Models, Zhao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105529

On the heat waves over India and their future projections under different SSP scenarios from CMIP6 models, Norgate et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.8367

Projected amplification of summer marine heatwaves in a warming Northeast Pacific Ocean, Athanase et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01212-1

Projections of winter polynyas and their biophysical impacts in the Ross Sea Antarctica, DuVivier et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-06951-z

Statistical downscaling of maximum temperature under CMIP6 global climate models and evaluation of heat wave events using deep learning methods for Indo-Gangetic Plain, Chaturvedi et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8366

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Advancing South American Water and Climate Science through Multidecadal Convection-Permitting Modeling, Dominguez et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-22-0226.1

Air-sea coupling influence on projected changes in major Atlantic hurricane events, Danso et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100649

Bayesian Estimation of Advanced Warning Time of Precipitation Emergence, Lickley & Fletcher, Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef004079

Dynamical downscaling of CMIP6 scenarios with ENEA-REG: an impact-oriented application for the Med-CORDEX region, Anav et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07064-3

Evaluating skill in predicting the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation in initialized decadal climate prediction hindcasts in E3SMv1 and CESM1 using two different initialization methods and a small set of start years, Meehl et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-06970-w

Identification of Shortcomings in Simulating the Subseasonal Reversal of the Warm Arctic–Cold Eurasia Pattern, Xu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl105430

Impact of acidity and surface-modulated acid dissociation on cloud response to organic aerosol, Sengupta et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-24-1467-2024

Machine Learning for Online Sea Ice Bias Correction Within Global Ice-Ocean Simulations, Gregory et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106776

Robustness of climate indices relevant for agriculture in Africa deduced from GCMs and RCMs against reanalysis and gridded observations, Abel et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-06956-8

Skillful multiyear prediction of marine habitat shifts jointly constrained by ocean temperature and dissolved oxygen, Chen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45016-5

Cryosphere & climate change

High-altitude glacier archives lost due to climate change-related melting, Huber et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-023-01366-1

Large mercury release from the Greenland Ice Sheet invalidated, Jørgensen et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adi7760

The evolution of Arctic permafrost over the last 3 centuries from ensemble simulations with the CryoGridLite permafrost model, Langer et al., The Cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-363-2024

The Response of Surface Temperature Persistence to Arctic Sea-Ice Loss, Lewis et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106863

Sea level & climate change

Influence of Deep-Ocean Warming on Coastal Sea-Level Decadal Trends in the Gulf of Mexico, Steinberg et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jc019681

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

A High Arctic inner shelf–fjord system from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present: Bessel Fjord and southwest Dove Bugt, northeastern Greenland, Zoller et al., Climate of the Past Open Access pdf 10.5194/cp-19-1321-2023

Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE, Zonneveld et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adk1033

High-altitude glacier archives lost due to climate change-related melting, Huber et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-023-01366-1

Proto-monsoon rainfall and greening in Central Asia due to extreme early Eocene warmth, Meijer et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-023-01371-4

The southward migration of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current enhanced oceanic degassing of carbon dioxide during the last two deglaciations, Ai et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01216-x

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Climate anomalies and neighbourhood crowding interact in shaping tree growth in old-growth and selectively logged tropical forests, Nemetschek et al., Journal of Ecology 10.1111/1365-2745.14256

Effects of climate, land use, and human population change on human–elephant conflict risk in Africa and Asia, Guarnieri et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2312569121

Mosquito thermal tolerance is remarkably constrained across a large climatic range, Couper et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rspb.2023.2457

Remote sensing monitoring of the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban forest phenology and its response to climate and urbanization, Hu et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101810

Skillful multiyear prediction of marine habitat shifts jointly constrained by ocean temperature and dissolved oxygen, Chen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45016-5

Sparse modeling for climate variable selection across trophic levels, Grames & Forister, Ecology 10.1002/ecy.4231

Spring protistan communities in response to warming in the northeastern East China sea, Seo et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2024.106376

Temperature seasonality drives taxonomic and functional homogenization of tropical butterflies, Hulshof et al., Diversity and Distributions 10.1111/ddi.13814

The biodiversity adaptation gap: Management actions for marine protected areas in the face of climate change, Corelli et al., Conservation Letters Open Access pdf 10.1111/conl.13003

The eco-evolutionary risks of not changing seed provenancing practices in changing environments, Jordan et al., Ecology Letters Open Access pdf 10.1111/ele.14348

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Country-level estimates of gross and net carbon fluxes from land use, land-use change and forestry, Obermeier et al., Earth System Science Data Open Access 10.5194/essd-16-605-2024

Cross-Shelf Carbon Transport in the East China Sea and Its Future Trend Under Global Warming, Hao et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 10.1029/2022jc019403

Global cropland nitrous oxide emissions in fallow period are comparable to growing-season emissions, Shang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17165

Investigating the differences in calculating global mean surface CO2 abundance: the impact of analysis methodologies and site selection, Wu et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-1249-2024

Revealing the hidden carbon in forested wetland soils, Stewart et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-44888-x

Soil organic matter on arid saline-alkali land drives greenhouse gas emissions from artificial and natural grasslands in different directions, Wei et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1338180

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

Spatial variations in heterotrophic respiration from oil palm plantations on tropical peat soils, Manning et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2023.1236566

Temperature sensitivity of organic carbon decomposition in lake sediments is mediated by chemodiversity, Wen et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17158

The global-scale impacts of metallic nanoparticles on soil carbon dioxide emissions, He et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17164

The Influence of Air-Sea CO2 Disequilibrium on Carbon Sequestration by the Ocean's Biological Pump, Nowicki et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gb007880

Total organic carbon measurements reveal major gaps in petrochemical emissions reporting, He et al., Science Open Access pdf 10.1126/science.adj6233

Decarbonization

A rechargeable Ca/Cl2 battery, Geng et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-024-45347-3

Agri-PV in Portugal: How to combine agriculture and photovoltaic production, Ferreira et al., Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101408

All-Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells: Modification Strategies and Challenges, Li et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research Open Access pdf 10.1002/aesr.202300263

Assessment the long-term performance ratio maps of three grid-connected photovoltaic systems in the Moroccan climate, Aarich et al., Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101388

Optimal energy system configuration for zero energy buildings using hybrid thermal-photovoltaic solar collector, Babaelahi & Kazemi, Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04344-0

Redox mediator-stabilized wide-bandgap perovskites for monolithic perovskite-organic tandem solar cells, Wu et al., Nature Energy 10.1038/s41560-024-01451-8

Climate change communications & cognition

Conversational AI and equity through assessing GPT-3’s communication with diverse social groups on contentious topics, Chen et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-024-51969-w

Influence of climate change beliefs on adolescent food saving behavior: mechanisms mediating environmental concerns, Zong et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability Open Access 10.1007/s10668-023-04454-9

Pro-Environmental Nationalism is Still Nationalism: How Political Identity and Prior Attitudes Affect Nationalist Framing Effects on Support for Climate Action, Bogado, Environmental Communication Open Access pdf 10.1080/17524032.2024.2310625

The where, how, and who of mitigating climate change: A targeted research agenda for psychology, Gurtner & Moser, Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102250

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A restatement of the natural science evidence base concerning grassland management, grazing livestock and soil carbon storage, Jordon et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rspb.2023.2669

Agri-PV in Portugal: How to combine agriculture and photovoltaic production, Ferreira et al., Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2024.101408

Climate smart agriculture? Adaptation strategies of traditional agriculture to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, Okoronkwo et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2024.1272320

Coping with climate change: an analysis of farmers’ adoption behavior and its impact on production efficiency, Zhu et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04445-w

Crop index insurance as a tool for climate resilience: lessons from smallholder farmers in Nigeria, Aina et al., Natural Hazards Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-023-06388-x

Exploration and countermeasures for the development of low-carbon agriculture: a study from Chongming District, Shanghai, Song & Dou, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2024.1345230

Global cropland nitrous oxide emissions in fallow period are comparable to growing-season emissions, Shang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.17165

Transition to cellular agriculture reduces agriculture land use and greenhouse gas emissions but increases demand for critical materials, El Wali et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01227-8

Working for the environment: farmer attitudes towards sustainable farming actions in rural Wales, UK, Follett et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-024-04459-y

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Bayesian Estimation of Advanced Warning Time of Precipitation Emergence, Lickley & Fletcher, Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef004079

Changes in regional daily precipitation intensity and spatial structure from global reanalyses, Lussana et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.8375

Drought projections for the NW Iberian Peninsula under climate change, Alvarez et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-07084-z

Enhanced Impacts of ENSO on the Southeast Asian Summer Monsoon Under Global Warming and Associated Mechanisms, Lin et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106437

Exposure of Global Rail and Road Infrastructures in Future Record-Breaking Climate Extremes, Wang et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef003632

Frequency Rather Than Intensity Drives Projected Changes of Rainfall Events in Brazil, Ballarin et al., Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef004053

Global extreme precipitation characteristics: the perspective of climate and large river basins, Zhao et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-023-06961-x

Improving Boreal Summer Precipitation Predictions From the Global NMME Through Res34-Unet, Tong et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl106391

Increasing risks of extreme salt intrusion events across European estuaries in a warming climate, Lee et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01225-w

Integrating Climatological-Hydrodynamic Modeling and Paleohurricane Records to Assess Storm Surge Risk, Begmohammadi et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023jc020354

Projections patterns of precipitation concentration under climate change scenarios, Ashrafi et al., Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-024-06403-9

Rising rainfall intensity induces spatially divergent hydrological changes within a large river basin, Wu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-023-44562-8

Spatiotemporal variability and trends of droughts in the Mediterranean coastal region of Türkiye, Kesgin et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8370

The intensification of flash droughts across China from 1981 to 2021, Zhang et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-023-06980-8

The Nature-Based Solutions and climate change scenarios toward flood risk management in the greater Athens area—Greece, Theochari & Baltas, Natural Hazards Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-024-06409-3

The recent trends in the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, Konwar et al., Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2012gl052018

Warming of the Kuroshio Current Over the Last Four Decades has Intensified the Meiyu-Baiu Rainband, Qiao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023gl107021

Climate change economics

Discounting the Future: On Climate Change, Ambiguity Aversion and Epstein–Zin Preferences, Olijslagers & van Wijnbergen van Wijnbergen, Environmental and Resource Economics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640-023-00832-z

Economic performance and carbon emissions: revisiting the role of tourism and energy efficiency for BRICS economies, Alfaisal et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-023-04394-4

Insurance and climate change, Adams & Dixon, Monash Business Review Open Access pdf 10.2104/mbr07031

The Macroeconomic Impact of Global and Country-Specific Climate Risk, Byrne & Vitenu-Sackey, Environmental and Resource Economics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640-023-00831-0

Climate change and the circular economy

Sustainable green circular economic model with controllable waste and emission in healthcare system, Suthagar & Mishra, Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04254-1

Climate change mitigation public policy research

A multi-framework analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions in developing a localized blue carbon ecosystems strategy in Eastern Samar, Philippines, Quevedo et al., Ambio 10.1007/s13280-023-01972-8

Assessing energy, economic, environmental and social impacts of fostering energy efficiency technologies: a Portuguese case study, Tenente et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10668-023-04416-1

Climate-biodiversity nexus in transnational climate governance: variation across net zero initiatives, Sun & Page, Carbon Management Open Access pdf 10.1080/17583004.2024.2306895

Collective action lessons for the energy transition: learning from social movements of the past, Djinlev & Pearce, Sustainability Science Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11625-023-01455-5

Coordinated development of rural ecological construction and carbon neutrality: a deep learning approach for enhanced sustainability, Li & Feng, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2023.1267259

Does agriculture, forests, and energy consumption foster the carbon emissions and ecological footprint? fresh evidence from BRICS economies, Yasin et al., Environment, Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-023-04456-7

Green with Envy? Hydrogen production in a carbon-constrained world, Droessler & Leach Droessler, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.113982

Promoting pro-environmental choices while addressing energy poverty, Della Valle et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113967

Regulatory disparities disadvantage remote Australian communities in energy transition, White et al., Nature Energy Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41560-023-01433-2

Regulatory Stringency and Emission Leakage Mitigation, Antoniou et al., Environmental and Resource Economics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s10640-023-00837-8

Sensitivity of air quality model responses to emission changes: comparison of results based on four EU inventories through FAIRMODE benchmarking methodology, de Meij et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-17-587-2024

Shipping in the EU emissions trading system: implications for mitigation, costs and modal split, Flodén et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2024.2309167

The effect of transferable tax benefits on consumer intent to purchase an electric vehicle, Stekelberg & Vance, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113936

The impact of occupied buildings, Tregnago, Nature Energy 10.1038/s41560-024-01454-5

Urban spatial structure and commuting-related carbon emissions in China: Do monocentric cities emit more?, Zhang et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.113990

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Bayesian Estimation of Advanced Warning Time of Precipitation Emergence, Lickley & Fletcher, Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef004079

Community-based early warning systems in a changing climate: an empirical evaluation from coastal central Vietnam, Pham et al., Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2024.2307398

Spatial distribution of wildfire threat in the far north: exposure assessment in boreal communities, Schmidt et al., Natural Hazards Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-023-06365-4

What factors drive municipal climate adaptation policy? The role of risk management capacity and transnational municipal networks, dos Santos & Puppim de Oliveira, Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101809

Climate change impacts on human health

Waterborne Virus Transport and Risk Assessment in Lake Geneva Under Climate Change, Li & Kohn, Earth's Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2023ef003831

Climate change & geopolitics

Beyond AOSIS: small island states’ presence and participation at COP27, Klöck et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2023.2298780

The Russia-Ukraine war decreases food affordability but could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, van Meijl et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-024-01208-x

Other

Attribution of Global Warming Potential impacts in a multifunctional metals industry system using different system expansion and allocation methodologies, Fernandez et al., The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11367-023-02274-7

Linking the future likelihood of large fires to occur on mountain slopes with fuel connectivity and topography, Conedera et al., Natural Hazards Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11069-023-06395-y

Simulating AMOC tipping driven by internal climate variability with a rare event algorithm, Cini et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41612-024-00568-7

The meteorology and impacts of the September 2020 western United States extreme weather event, Russell et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100647

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Editorial: Exploring new development patterns for climate change resilience and mitigation, Nuta et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1376012

Philippines must commit to carbon mitigation, Migo-Sumagang et al., Science 10.1126/science.adn5441

The Weather–Climate Schism, Randall & Emanuel, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-23-0124.1

Wilder rangelands as a natural climate opportunity: Linking climate action to biodiversity conservation and social transformation, Simba et al., Ambio Open Access pdf 10.1007/s13280-023-01976-4

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

A Race to the Top, Southeast Asia, Smith et al., Global Energy Monitor

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have over 28 GW of operating utility-scale solar and wind capacity and a 20% increase in operating capacity since January 2023 and make up 9% of ASEAN countries’ total electrical capacity. Vietnam has the largest share of operating utility-scale solar and wind capacity in the region (19 GW). Thailand and the Philippines follow, each with 3 GW of operating utility-scale solar and wind capacity. The Philippines and Vietnam are emerging leaders globally. With 99 GW and 86 GW respectively for prospective utility-scale solar and wind, they have the 8th and 9th largest prospective capacity worldwide. The ASEAN countries have almost five times more prospective offshore wind power than prospective onshore wind in the region, while prospective offshore capacity in the region (124 GW) is nearly twice that of the current global offshore operating capacity (69 GW). In order for ASEAN countries to meet their goal of 35% installed renewable energy capacity by 2025, 17 GW of additional utility-scale solar and wind capacity needs to become operational among ASEAN members in the next two years, yet only 3% (6 GW) of its 220 GW of prospective utility-scale solar and wind is currently in construction.

Destination Zero, A deep dive into the global state of corporate climate action, Kähkönen et al., South Pole, The Climate Company

The authors report that the overwhelming majority of climate-conscious companies say they have set a net zero target and report that this target is vital to their commercial success. Customer demand is the leading driver of climate action. Among this group, net zero seems to be standard practice and is considered business-critical. Based on these results, one would expect such companies to be proudly communicating their climate action. However, when digging deeper into the findings, the authors see a critical contradiction that has the potential to severely delay our collective efforts on net zero. The survey shows that a majority of surveyed companies are actively decreasing their climate communications. The collected data offers a rare glimpse into this tension, which sits at the heart of corporate climate action today. It reveals that regulation, industry requirements on reporting on climate goals and heightened scrutiny from various stakeholders are the core reasons for companies keeping quiet about their climate goals and progress.

The Great Reallocation. Capital expenditure on energy production, Bond et al., RMI

The authors show that contrary to popular belief, the buildout of renewable energy supply does not require a surge in capital expenditure (capex). As fossil fuel capex falls, the net growth in capex is only 2 percent per year, in line with the past seven years, and much lower than in the decade after 2000. Financing the energy transition is a story of capital reallocation. Over the next seven years, renewable capex will roughly double and fossil fuel capex will roughly halve under core International Energy Agency scenarios. Falling fossil fuel capex will therefore provide half of the growth in renewable capex. This capital reallocation is very achievable. The required growth in energy supply capex of 2 percent is lower than the expected global GDP growth of 3 percent and lower than the annual increase in energy supply capex from 2000–2010 of 9 percent. Given that the capital formation in 2022 was $27 trillion, the additional capex on energy supply would constitute only 1 percent of global capex. Achieving the achievable still requires work. The key now is to ensure that capex moves from generation to grids, and from developed markets to emerging markets. The primary impediments to change are policy and expertise rather than the volume or availability of capital.

DRAFT: State of California Sea Level Rise Guidance: 2024 Science and Policy Update, California Sea Level Rise Science Task Force, California Ocean Protection Council, California Ocean Science Trust

Failure to adequately prepare now will have significant cost implications in the future and consequences to public health and safety, wildlife and habitats, private property, and infrastructure necessary to maintain daily living in California. It will also have impacts on communities burdened by social and environmental injustice who are already disproportionately impacted by climate change, industrialization, and pollution. To build resilience for coastal communities and ecosystems, thoughtful science-based planning and adaptation actions need to happen now. This updated State of California Sea Level Rise Guidance provides the best available science and policy recommendations from which to make these decisions. California’s enduring connection to the coast demands that we acknowledge the threats on the horizon and innovate to adapt to the changes ahead.

Health Effects of Climate Change (HECC) in the UK. State of the evidence 2023, Gillingham et al., UK Health Security Agency

To secure health there is a need to understand both the impacts of climate change on health but also, importantly, effective interventions to protect health. The authors bring together up-to-date evidence to inform policies and actions to secure health. The authors provide an authoritative summary of the scientific evidence on the health effects of climate change, potential implications for public health, and gaps in evidence. The report is primarily a scientific and technical document that collates up-to-date knowledge to inform policy and action in the United Kingdom. The report also acts as a resource for public health and other professional bodies and groups, government departments and authorities, science-facing civil society organizations, and interested stakeholders and partners with a role in securing health from the effects of climate change.

SubjectToClimate Climate Education Essentials Courses, SubjectToClimate

This is a series of free, online courses developed by SubjectToClimate to help teachers teach about climate change. Level 0 is about climate change basics. It includes five modules, including the history of climate science, climate science basics, and climate solutions. Level 0 takes approximately 4 hours to complete. Level 1 is about teaching climate change. It includes nine modules, including reasons for teaching about climate change, how to incorporate climate change into the curriculum, and ways to address misinformation. Level 1 takes approximately 6 hours to complete. Level 2 guides teachers in developing K-12 inquiry-based climate lesson plans for all subjects. It includes ten modules, including how to effectively choose resources, how to align the lesson plan to standards, and how to create accompanying materials. Level 2 takes approximately 4 hours to complete.

How Economics Can Tackle the ‘Wicked Problem’ of Climate Change, Stiglitz et al., School of International and Public Affairs/Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University

Addressing the harmful effects of climate change requires an understanding of economic tradeoffs, the politics of policymaking, and the strategy of diplomacy. While early prescriptions for climate solutions focused on idealistic “optimal” policies and all-encompassing global treaties, a more nuanced and realistic vision for climate progress has emerged. As befits a “wicked problem,” a wide range of policies and insights from across scientific disciplines are needed to promote collective action, reduce emissions, and help the world achieve a more sustainable future. Obtaining articles without journal subscriptions

We 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. 

  • 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. 
How is New Research assembled?

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.

Suggestions

Please 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 covered

A list of journals we cover may be found here. We welcome pointers to omissions, new journals etc.

Previous edition

The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.

Categories: I. Climate Science

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