Climate Change News & Discussions

[firestar464]

The US's presence depends on whether Trump is reelected or not (signs point to him being reelected)

[caltrek]

Technology Not Growing Fast Enough to Decarbonize Steel and Cement Industries by 2050
December 11, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Steel and cement are two materials that no society can do without. Their production comes with a significant carbon footprint, however. To meet zero-emission targets under the Paris Agreement, countries, cities, and industries are depending on new large-scale infrastructure for CO2 transport and storage, renewable electricity and green hydrogen. A new study by researchers at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan, and the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, shows that the current rate of deployment of this infrastructure is insufficient. The study argues that changes in how steel- and cement-based materials are used or consumed must also be considered for the Paris targets to be met.

The study, led by Dr. Takuma Watari, unveils a significant gap between anticipated and actual infrastructure deployment. For instance, scenarios made by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2010 estimated that nearly 200 million metric tons of CO2 from the steel and cement industries would be captured and stored by 2021. However, Watari and his colleagues found that this number was woefully off; in reality, the amount was only 1 million metric tons, which questions the 2000 million metric tons expected by the IEA to be captured and stored by 2050.

"We are not saying that the existing scenarios are physically or economically unrealistic. But simply waiting for new infrastructure to emerge and solve all our problems away is a very risky way of tackling the problem, given the scale of the challenges and the limited timeframe," said Watari.

Assuming infrastructure deployment based on historical trends and current construction plans, the study goes on to further show that the supply of steel and cement in line with carbon budgets based on the Paris Agreement will not meet demand.

"We need to be well prepared for a future shortfall between feasible supply and expected demand," noted Watari. "The construction and manufacturing industries will have to provide the same level of services with less material by changing the way products are designed, used, and disposed of."

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1010323

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New study sheds light on how much methane is produced from Arctic lakes and wetlands
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-methane-a ... lands.html
by Brown University

When it comes to greenhouse gases, methane is one the biggest contributors. Not only is it massively abundant—it's about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

That makes tracking methane emissions critically important, and nowhere more so than in the Arctic, which is now the fastest warming part of the globe.

A new study conducted at Brown University helps shed light on the actual atmospheric methane emissions from Arctic lakes and wetlands, which are major producers of the gas but remain largely unmapped. The findings have been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Using unprecedented high-resolution satellite and airborne imagery from NASA—harnessing the technology to overcome barriers posed by the region's sheer size and numerous natural land formations that are major methane producers—a pair of researchers produced new estimates and found that these unmapped lakes are not the great methane emitters that previous research has made them out to be.

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Good Cop, Bad Cop: What the Cop28 Agreement Says and What It Means
December 13, 2023

Introduction:

(The Guardian) The decision text from Cop28 has been greeted as “historic”, for being the first ever call by nations for a “transition away” from fossil fuels, and as “weak and ineffectual” and containing a “litany of loopholes” for the fossil fuel industry. An examination of the text helps to explain this contradiction.

Reducing fossil fuel use

The text states the huge challenge with crystal clarity:

Limiting global warming to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels] with no or limited overshoot requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. [Countries] further recognise the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5C pathways.

The problem is that carbon emissions are not plunging as required – they are still rising. So the text on action is vital. The previous draft suggested measures that countries “could” take. The final agreement is somewhat stronger and “calls on” countries to do the following:

The Guardian article cited above goes on to cites some of the actual text quoted below and then includes commentary.

Read more of the Guardian article here: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files ... _adv.pdf

From the Decision Text:

(United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)… calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches:

(a) Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030;

(b) Accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power;

(c) Accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century;

(d) Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science;

(e) Accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilization and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production;

(f) Accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030;

(g) Accelerating the reduction of emissions from road transport on a range of pathways, including through development of infrastructure and rapid deployment of zero and low-emission vehicles;

(h) Phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible;

Read more of the Guardian article here: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files ... _adv.pdf

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

November 2023

The November global surface temperature was 1.44°C (2.59°F) above the 20th-century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F), making it the warmest November on record. This was 0.38°C (0.68°F) above the previous record from November 2015. November 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive November and the 537th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.


Seasonal Temperature: September–November 2023

The September–November 2023 global surface temperature was 1.41°C (2.54°F) above the 20th-century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). This ranks as the warmest September–November period in the 174-year record, and a substantial leap (+0.39°C or +0.70°F) above the previous record from 2015. The past ten September–November periods have been the ten warmest such periods on record. The September–November 2023 global surface temperature departure from average also marks the largest positive seasonal temperature anomaly on record.

Year-to-date Temperature: January–November 2023

The January–November global surface temperature ranked highest in the 174-year record at 1.15°C (2.07°F) above the 1901–2000 average of 14.0°C (57.2°F). This surpassed the previous record from January–November 2016 by 0.11°C (0.20°F). According to NCEI's statistical analysis and data through November, there is a greater than 99% chance that 2023 will rank as the warmest year on record.


https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monito ... bal/202311

[weatheriscool]

144 for Nov which is the hottest for November in recorded history based on nasa dataset
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabl ... s+dSST.txt

[caltrek]

What Can We Do with a Sentence?
by Bill McKibben
December 13, 2023

Introduction:

(Bill McKibben via Substack) As North America slept, delegates from around the world concluded the global climate conference in Dubai, when the chair—local oilman Sultan al-Jaber—quick-gavelled through an agreement that included a sentence calling for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."

That may not seem like much—it is, after all, the single most obvious thing one could possibly say about climate change, akin to “in an effort to reduce my headache, I am transitioning away from hitting myself in the forehead with a hammer.”

And by itself it will accomplish nothing. As Samoa, speaking on behalf of the Small Island Nations, said a few minutes later, “we have come to the conclusion that the course correction that is needed has not been secured."

But it is—and this is important—a tool for activists to use henceforth. The world’s nations have now publicly agreed that they need to transition off fossil fuels, and that sentence will hang over every discussion from now on—especially the discussions about any further expansion of the fossil fuel energy. There may be barriers to shutting down operations (what the text of the agreement obliquely refers to as “national circumstances, pathways and approaches.”) But surely, if the language means anything at all, it means no opening no more new oil fields, no more new pipeline. No more new LNG export terminals.

In fact, that last point—LNG export terminals—will almost certainly be the first real test of whether this agreement means anything. The American envoy John Kerry, who celebrated his 80th birthday during the talks, could be forgiven for thinking of it as a crowning achievement. Though he acknowledged stronger language would have been nice, he said “I think everybody here should be pleased that in a world of Ukraine and the Middle East war and all the other challenges of a planet that is foundering, this is a moment where multilateralism has actually come together and people have taken individual interests and attempted to define the common good,” Kerry said. “That is hard. That is the hardest thing in diplomacy, the hardest thing in politics.”

Read more here: https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/wh ... m=email

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[caltrek]

The Climate Villain You’ve Probably Never Thought About
by Fred Pearce
December 16, 2023

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) The elephants are gone. The trees are logged out. The Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary in central Cambodia is largely destroyed, after being handed over by the government to a politically well-connected local plantation company to grow rubber.

In West Africa, the Luxembourg-based plantations giant Socfin has been accused in recent weeks of deforestation and displacing Indigenous people around its rubber plantations in Nigeria and Ghana.

Meanwhile, on the heavily deforested Indonesian island of Sumatra, tire multinational Michelin and a local forestry company raised $95 million worth of green investment bonds on the promise that they would reforest bare land with rubber trees. But the NGO Mighty Earth has found that much of the plantation went ahead on land from which natural forest had been removed as recently as a few months before by a subsidiary of the local company.

These are just three examples among hundreds of one of the biggest, but least discussed, causes of tropical deforestation. The spread of rubber plantations is driven primarily by our demand for more than 2 billion new tires each year. The full devastating impact of this has been exposed by a new analysis of high-resolution satellite images that can, for the first time, distinguish rubber plantations from natural forests.

But even as the true environmental cost of the ubiquitous rubber tire is being exposed, the damage could be about to escalate sharply. The new culprit is electric vehicles. Being substantially heavier than conventional vehicles, they reduce the life of a tire by up to 30 percent, and so could raise demand for rubber by the same amount.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/environmen ... al-forest/


caltrek’s comment: Yet another reason to be skeptical of the trillion tree initiative. Do new rubber trees count toward that total?

If so, then you may be creating a deforestation incentive with net undesirable effects on climate change.

[weatheriscool]

CPC weekly update of 12/18/23 has Niño 3.4 up to +2.0C.

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ ... ts-web.pdf

[weatheriscool]

Ecosystem benefits to humanity expected to decline by 9% by 2100
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-ecosystem ... cline.html
by UC Davis

As climate change redistributes terrestrial ecosystems across the globe, the world's natural capital is expected to decrease, causing a 9% loss of ecosystem services by 2100. That's according to a study of natural capital published in the journal Nature led by scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Breathable air, clean water, healthy forests and biodiversity all contribute to people's well-being in ways that can be very difficult to quantify. "Natural capital" is the concept scientists, economists and policymakers use to represent the current and future flow of benefits the world's natural resources bring to people.

"The big question is what do we lose when we lose an ecosystem?" said lead author Bernardo Bastien-Olvera, a doctoral student at UC Davis when the study was conducted and currently a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps. "Flipping the question: What do we gain if we are able to limit climate change and avoid some of its impacts on natural systems? This study helps us better consider damages not usually accounted for. It also reveals an overlooked, yet startling dimension of climate change effects on natural systems—its capacity to exacerbate global economic inequality."

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[caltrek]

Paying People to Replant Tropical Forests − and Letting Them Harvest the Timber − Can Pay Off for Climate, Justice and Environment
by Jefferson S. Hall , Katherine Sinacore, and Michiel van Breugel
December 15, 2023

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Tropical forest landscapes are home to millions of Indigenous peoples and small-scale farmers. Just about every square meter of land is spoken for, even if claims are not formally recognized by governments.

These local landholders hold the key to a valuable solution as the world tries to slow climate change – restoring deforested tropical landscapes for a healthier future.

Tropical forests are vital to Earth’s climate and biodiversity, but a soccer field-size area of mature tropical forest is burned or cut down about every 5 seconds to clear space for crops and cattle today.

While those trees may be lost, the land still has potential. Tropical forests’ combination of year-round sunshine and high rainfall can lead to high growth rates, suggesting that areas where tropical forests once grew could be valuable sites for reforestation. In fact, a host of international agreements and declarations envision just this.

For reforestation projects to make a dent in climate change, however, they have to work with and for the people who live there.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/paying-pe ... nt-219894

caltrek’s comment: Again, any program undertaken in line with what is described above needs to be done in a way that does not provide incentives to cut down existing forests.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

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