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climate week
Look Up: The Scariest Part When We See the Big, Big, Big Picture
As a new study once more makes clear, raising the temperature is by far the biggest thing humans have ever done; our effort to limit that rise must be just as large.
Oct 23, 2024
This is “Climate week” in New York City, and my inbox has been awash recently in the latest press releases about start-ups and noble initiatives and venal greenwashing. Much of it’s important, and I’ll get to some of it later, but there’s a big new study that came out last week in Science that sets our crucial moment in true perspective. Let’s step back for a moment.
This new study—a decade in the making and involving, in the words of veteran climate scientist Gavin Schmidt “biological proxies from extinct species, plate tectonic movement, disappearance in subduction zones of vast amounts of ocean sediment, and interpolating sparse data in space and time”—offers at its end the most detailed timeline yet of the earth’s climate history over the last half-billion years. That’s the period scientists call the Phanerozoic—the latest of the earth’s four geological eons (we’re still in it), and the one marked by the true profusion of plant and animal life. It’s a lovely piece of science, and it’s lovely too because it reminds us of all we’re heir to in this tiny brief moment that marks the human time on earth. So staggeringly much—strange and extreme and fecund—has come before us.
But it’s also scary as can be, for two big reasons.
The first is that it shows the earth has gotten very very warm in the past. As the Washington Post explained in an excellent analysis yesterday, “the study suggests that at its hottest the Earth’s average temperature reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius).” Our current average temperature—already elevated by global warming to the highest value ever recorded—is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, or 15 degrees Celsius. For most of the 500 million years the study covers, the earth has been in a hothouse state, with an average temperature of 71.6 Fahrenheit, or 22 Celsius, much higher than now. Only about an eighth of the time has the earth been in its current “coldhouse” state—but of course that includes all the time that humans have been around. It is the world we know and we’re adapted to.
In every era, it’s increases in carbon dioxide that drive the increases and decreases in temperature. “Carbon dioxide is really that master dial,” Jess Tierney, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study, said. And so the study makes clear that the mercury could go very high indeed as humans pour carbon into the sky. We won’t burn enough coal and oil and gas to reach the very highest temperatures seen in the geological record—that required periods of incredible volcanism—but we may well double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and this study implies that the fast and slow feedbacks from that could eventually drive temperatures as much as eight degrees Celsius higher, which is more than most current estimates. Over shorter time frames the numbers are just as dramatic
Without rapid action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say, global temperatures could reach nearly 62.6 F (17 C) by the end of the century — a level not seen in the timeline since the Miocene epoch, more than 5 million years ago.
Now, you could look at those numbers and say: well, the earth has been hotter before, so life won’t be wiped out. And that’s true—there’s probably no way to wipe out life, though on a planet with huge numbers of nuclear weapons who knows. But these temperatures are much higher than anything humans have experienced, and they guarantee a world with radically different regimes of drought and deluge, radically different ocean levels and fire seasons. They imply a world fundamentally strange to us, with entirely different seasons and moods—and if that doesn’t challenge bare survival, it certainly challenges the survival of our civilizations. Unlike all the species that came before us, we have built a physical shell for that civilization, a geography of cities and ports and farms that we can’t easily move as the temperature rises. And of course the poorest people, who have done the least to cause the trouble, will suffer out of all proportion as that shift starts to happen.
But that’s not the really scary part. The really scary part is how fast it’s moving.
In fact, nowhere in that long record have the scientists been able to find a time when it’s warming as fast as it is right now. “We’re changing Earth’s temperature at a rate that exceeds anything we know about,” Tierney said.
Much much much faster than, say, during the worst extinction event we know about, at the end of the Permian about 250 million years ago, when the endless eruption of the so-called Siberian traps drove the temperature 10 Celsius higher and killed off 95 percent of the species on the planet. But that catastrophe took fifty thousand years—our three degree Celsius increase—driven by the collective volcano of our powerplants, factories, furnaces and Fords—will be measured in decades.
Our only hope of avoiding utter ruin—our only hope that our western world, in the blink of an eye, won’t produce catastrophe on this geologic scale—is to turn off those volcanoes immediately. And that, of course, requires replacing coal and gas and oil with something else. The only something else on offer right now, scalable in the few years we still have to work with, is the rays of the sun, and the wind that sun produces, and the batteries that can store its power for use at night.
Another new analysis this week, this one from the energy thinktank Ember, shows that 2024 is seeing another year of surging solar installations—when the year ends there will be 30% more solar power on this planet than when it began. Numbers like that, if we can keep that acceleration going for a few more years, give us a fighting chance.
That’s what all those seminars and cocktail parties and protests in New York over this week will ultimately be about—the desperate attempt to keep this rift in our geological history from getting any bigger than it must. As this new study once more makes clear, raising the temperature is by far the biggest thing humans have ever done; our effort to limit that rise must be just as large.
We need to stand in awe for a moment before the scope of earth’s long history. And then we need to get the hell to work.
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3 Climate Priorities World Leaders Must Champion at the UN and Beyond
Will politicians seize this narrowing window of opportunity to do what is both daunting and necessary for safeguarding the future of people around the world especially our children?
Sep 25, 2024
This week, New York City is hosting the United Nations General Assembly meetings and the annual Climate Week events. With the continued trend of extreme climate-fueled disasters around the world—including deadly and damaging heatwaves, floods, fires, and storms—the urgency of solutions for the climate crisis couldn’t be clearer.
What we hear from world leaders this week will give us an indication of their seriousness in helping to secure an ambitious outcome at the annual U.N. climate talks, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan in November. Civil society groups will also be at Climate Week to demand action and remind world leaders of their responsibilities. And business leaders will have the opportunity to show whether they truly want to be part of the solution—or are just engaged in greenwashing while seeking short-term profits from carbon-intensive activities.
Here are three key international climate priorities that I will be paying close attention to this year.
1: Raising the Ambition of National Emissions Reduction Commitments, aka Nationally Determined Contributions
The latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the E.U.’s Copernicus climate service show that the 2024 January-August period is the hottest ever by far, putting this year well on track to be the warmest ever on record. Meanwhile, the global emissions trajectory is dangerously off track from where it needs to be to meet global climate goals, with heat-trapping emissions continuing to rise.
When countries signed on to the 2015 Paris agreement, they made initial voluntary commitments (the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) to reduce their heat-trapping emissions, and agreed to revisit them every five years to reflect the “highest possible ambition.” (see Articles 4.2 and 4.3 of the Paris agreement). By February 2025, the next round of NDCs is due and it’s clear that all countries—especially richer nations like the United States—will need to step up significantly if we are to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris agreement.
In its last NDC, back in 2021, the U.S. committed to cutting its emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. A range of state and federal policies—including the Inflation Reduction Act—currently puts it on track to cut emissions about 32-43% below 2005 levels by 2030. That means we’ll need to quickly add additional clean energy policies and policies to phase out fossil fuels just to meet our 2030 goals.
To meet global climate goals, all nations must increase their emissions reduction commitments and enact the enabling policies to meet them—especially richer nations and major emitting countries.
For the next round of NDCs, the U.S. should commit to cutting its heat-trapping emissions at least 70% below 2005 levels by 2035, a level that UCS modeling shows is possible, but that will require political will and significant new policies to achieve. In this context, the potential increase in energy demand to meet the emerging needs of AI data centers is worrisome and threatens to erode progress unless proactive measures are taken to manage possible impacts on the energy system in line with the pace of the clean energy transition. The next U.S. NDC should also be explicit about commitments to phase out fossil fuels in a fast and fair way and set ambitious sectoral targets for a clean energy transition, while addressing the need to invest in climate resilience as well.
A comprehensive suite of policies is needed to deliver on our NDC goals. For the decade ahead and beyond, we’ve got to think boldly and deploy policies and investments that help cut overall energy demand and enable a thriving lower-carbon economy and healthier lifestyles—including through better land use planning and development; more public transit; and more livable, walkable neighborhoods.
To meet global climate goals, all nations must increase their emissions reduction commitments and enact the enabling policies to meet them—especially richer nations and major emitting countries. In addition to the U.S., that includes the E.U. countries, Canada, Australia, Japan, Russia, China, and India. But we’re not going to get anywhere if each nation tries to dodge its responsibilities and points at the inaction of others. Rather, fostering cooperation and a shared commitment to increased ambition are the needs of the hour as we confront this collective action problem.
2. Increasing International Climate Finance
This year, at COP29, nations will also have to agree on the quantum of international climate finance that richer nations will provide post-2025 to help lower-income nations cut their heat-trapping emissions and adapt to climate change. These outcomes are being determined through multi-year negotiations on the “New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance” leading up to COP29, which is being billed as the climate finance COP.
Climate action will require considerable resources that low-income nations are unlikely to be able to marshal on their own. Furthermore, countries that have contributed the least to climate-warming emissions are now facing a disproportionate brunt of climate impacts stemming from the failure of richer nations to cut their outsize emissions. Article 2.1(c) of the Paris agreement calls for “Making finance flows consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.” The latest IPCC report also underscores how crucial this finance is to meet climate goals.
Back in 2009, richer nations committed to a goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, a goal that was reaffirmed in Paris in 2015. That goal was finally met in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The U.S. and other richer nations should agree to collectively marshaling climate finance on the order of $1 trillion per year, starting in 2025.
The NCQG negotiations are aimed at delivering the next tranche of finance commitments. This time around, it’s clear that much more finance is necessary to meet the moment: funding to dramatically accelerate the clean energy transition and fossil fuel phaseout in lower-income nations, funding to help them adapt to the relentless impacts of climate change, and funding to help address extreme climate loss and damage. Failing to provide this finance not only risks the world’s ability to cut emissions sharply and quickly, it is also imposing an increasingly unjust toll on the least developed nations. A recent report from the World Meteorological Organization shows that, “On average, African countries are losing 2-5%of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many are diverting up to 9% of their budgets responding to climate extremes.”
The U.S. and other richer nations should agree to collectively marshaling climate finance on the order of $1 trillion per year, starting in 2025. And additional countries in a position to do so should also step up to contribute funding on a voluntary basis. Most of this funding should be grant-based or grant-equivalent to avoid trapping low-income nations in a worsening spiral of indebtedness as is the case currently. Innovative sources of funding—such as pollution taxes and wealth taxes—should be part of the discussion. Reforming international multilateral lending architecture to be fairer and more aligned with climate and sustainable development objectives is also critical.
U.S. contributions to international climate finance have repeatedly fallen short of what’s necessary. Congress, too, must step up since it holds the power of the purse. The United States must also help lead the ongoing negotiations at the OECD to restrict export credit support for all unabated fossil fuel projects, as it committed to do at COP26 in Glasgow, and as we have called for in a recent joint letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen and U.S. Export-Import Bank Chair Lewis.
3. Defending Against Bad-Faith Actions From Fossil Fuel Interests
Fossil fuel interests are a perennial threat to climate progress, at home and abroad. Their presence at the annual climate talks has been increasing alarmingly. Unfortunately, at COP29 in Baku we are likely to see them out in full force again, trying to undermine and dilute global climate agreements. The crucial question is: Will policymakers stand up to that pressure from polluters and deliver what people need?
Last year at COP28, nations were finally able reach an agreement calling for a phase down of fossil fuels—the first time the root cause of climate change was addressed in a global climate agreement. The follow-through has been pretty mixed globally thus far. The U.S., for example, is still enabling surging levels of production of oil and gas. We need domestic policies that explicitly ensure that fossil fuels are being phased down, alongside ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Litigation efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for damage caused by their products and for deceiving consumers and investors are gaining ground in domestic and international courts. These additional avenues to secure climate progress are likely to increase in importance, especially if policymakers’ efforts to curtail heat-trapping emissions and stand up to the fossil fuel lobby continue to fall short.
What Does Climate Ambition Mean in 2024?
Around the world, wars and extreme disasters are exacting a punishing toll on people and require urgent action from political leaders to seek solutions that bring peace and safety. The climate crisis, too, requires urgent attention. These intersecting crises must be dealt with at the same time and should not be cynically traded off against each other in competing for political attention or funding.
This year has been extraordinarily volatile politically, with “change” elections around the world inserting uncertainty in the future direction of climate policy. One thing we cannot lose sight of is that the measure of climate ambition is not set by politics but by what science shows is necessary to help limit the worst impacts of climate change. Ambition should also encompass justice, to help ensure that the climate outcomes we strive to secure meet the needs of those with the fewest resources on the frontlines of a crisis that is not of their making. Equally, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels must be accompanied by just transition policies and investments for affected communities.
Here in the United States, regardless of the forthcoming election outcomes, we know the climate crisis is set to worsen and that without robust action, people and our economy will suffer as a result. That’s why we must push for policy solutions that increase the pace and magnitude of cuts in U.S. heat-trapping emissions, ramp up investments in climate resilience, and significantly increase our commitments toward international climate finance.
This will likely be the hottest year to date, and maybe one of the coolest in the years to come. Will politicians seize this narrowing window of opportunity to do what is both daunting and necessary for safeguarding the future of people around the world especially our children? Right now, the signs are not encouraging. We must demand much more of our leaders.
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100+ Global Lawmakers Urge Biden to Reject New LNG Exports
"Every dollar invested in unnecessary, harmful, and expensive LNG infrastructure costs us double—first, by our failure to invest instead in secure, abundant, and cheap renewable energies, and second, by locking in higher greenhouse gas emissions."
Sep 23, 2024
With Climate Week underway in New York City, 106 lawmakers from the United States and around the world on Monday urged the Biden administration to reject new liquefied natural gas export permits, stressing that they "are not in the U.S. public interest or necessary for the national or energy security of our allies."
Rejecting new permits, they wrote, "will help protect communities from the environmental harm that fossil gas causes; promote global energy security and encourage investment and trade in clean energy technologies; and help our nations satisfy both national and global climate commitments, including those made at the 2023 U.N. climate change conference COP28 in Dubai."
The letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was led by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Congresswoman Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), and Lisa Badum, a Greens member of Germany's Bundestag. Along with other American and German lawmakers, it's signed by members of the European Parliament and legislatures in over a dozen other countries.
"Curtailing U.S. LNG export activity will send a strong global signal in favor of new investments in renewable energy."
They explained that in January, the Biden administration paused new export authorizations for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that don't have free trade agreements with the United States, and although a recent federal court ruling blocked the policy, "that misguided decision does not force any immediate export project approvals, prevent the Department of Energy (DOE) from updating its environmental and economic analyses, or impact the factors that DOE already considers in its application review process."
"Far from being a clean 'bridge' fuel, LNG causes significant environmental harm," the lawmakers declared, highlighting the impacts of gas on not only the global climate but also the health of people exposed to nearby hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations and infrastructure such as processing plants, import facilities, export terminals, and pipelines.
"In addition to the environmental and health benefits, limiting U.S. LNG exports will actually support global energy security, not jeopardize it," they wrote. "Curtailing U.S. LNG export activity will send a strong global signal in favor of new investments in renewable energy, discouraging overinvestment in a volatile and high-priced fossil fuel."
The letter notes that the United States is "the world's largest exporter of LNG" and warns that such exports "affect the world's regions in various ways, but uniformly, they are negative," with sections on Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
"Every dollar invested in unnecessary, harmful, and expensive LNG infrastructure costs us double—first, by our failure to invest instead in secure, abundant, and cheap renewable energies, and second, by locking in higher greenhouse gas emissions, with attendant future climate damage," the letter emphasizes. "Continued reliance on LNG means more harm to frontline communities and the environment from extracting, transporting, and shipping fossil gas around the world."
The lawmakers' letter follows one that a coalition of more than 250 climate, environmental, and frontline groups sent to Biden and Granholm earlier this month—during the warmest summer on record and what is on track to be the hottest year on record.
"We are on the verge of seeing global average temperatures exceed 1.5°C warming above preindustrial temperatures, failing the internationally agreed upon goal of the Paris agreement and crossing the threshold upon which ever more catastrophic effects of climate change begin," the green groups wrote. "The only way world leaders can avoid this moral and political failure is to work together to end fossil fuel production."
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