Some locations are at extreme temperatures worldwide

From an Article by Fiona Harvey in UK, Ashifa Kassam in Madrid, Nina Lakhani in Phoenix, and Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi, The Guardian UK, June 18, 2022

In March, the north and south poles had record temperatures. In May in Delhi, it hit 49C (120F). Last week in Madrid, 40C (104F). Experts say the worst effects of the climate emergency cannot be avoided if emissions continue to rise.

When the temperature readings started to come through from Antarctic weather stations in early March, scientists at first thought there might have been some mistake. Temperatures, which should have been cooling rapidly as the south pole’s brief summer faded, were soaring – at the Vostok station, about 800 miles from the geographic south pole, thermometers recorded a massive 15C hotter than the previous all-time record, while at Terra Nova coastal base the water hovered above freezing, unheard of for the time of year.

“Wow. I have never seen anything like this,” ice scientist Ted Scambos, of the University of Colorado, told the Associated Press.

But that was not all. At the north pole, similarly unusual temperatures were also being recorded, astonishing for the time of year when the Arctic should be slowly emerging from its winter deep freeze. The region was more than 3C warmer than its long-term average, researchers said.
To induce a heatwave at one pole may be regarded as a warning; heatwaves at both poles at once start to look a lot like climate catastrophe.

Since then, weather stations around the world have seen their mercury rising like a global Mexican wave.

A heatwave struck India and Pakistan in March, bringing the highest temperatures in that month since records began 122 years ago. Scorching weather has continued across the subcontinent, wreaking disaster for millions. Spring was more like midsummer in the US, with soaring temperatures across the country in May. Spain saw the mercury hit 40C in early June as a heatwave swept across Europe, hitting the UK last week.

Scientists have been able quickly to prove that these record-breaking temperatures are no natural occurrence. A study published last month showed that the south Asian heatwave was made 30 times more likely to happen by human influence on the climate.

Vikki Thompson, climate scientist at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute, explained: “Climate change is making heatwaves hotter and last longer around the world. Scientists have shown that many specific heatwaves are more intense because of human-induced climate change. The climate change signal is even detectable in the number of deaths attributed to heatwaves.”

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said heatwaves in Europe alone had increased in frequency by a factor of 100 or more, caused by human actions in pouring greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. “Climate change is a real game changer when it comes to heatwaves: they have increased in frequency, intensity and duration across the world,” she said.

This type of heat poses a serious threat to human health, directly as it puts stress on our bodies, and indirectly as it damages crops, causes wildfires and even harms our built environment, such as roads and buildings. Poor people suffer most, as they are the ones out in fields or in factories, or on the street without shelter in the midst of the heat, and they lack the luxury of air-conditioning when they get home.

Air-conditioning itself is a further facet of the problem: its growing use and massive energy consumption threatens to accelerate greenhouse gas emissions, just as we need urgently to bring them down. Radhika Khosla, associate professor at the Smith School at the University of Oxford, said: “The global community must commit to sustainable cooling, or risk locking the world into a deadly feedback loop, where demand for cooling energy drives further greenhouse gas emissions and results in even more global warming.”

There are ways to reduce the impacts for individuals, and to adapt our cities. Painting roofs white in hot countries to reflect the sun’s rays, growing ivy on walls in more temperate regions, planting trees for shade, fountains and more green areas in cities can all help. More heavy-duty adaptation measures include changing the materials we use for buildings, transport networks and other vital infrastructure, to stop windows falling out of their frames, roads from melting in the heat and rails from buckling.

But these measures can only ever be a sticking plaster – only drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will prevent climate chaos. The current heatwaves are happening as the earth has warmed by about 1.2C above pre-industrial levels – nations agreed, at the Cop26 UN climate summit last November, to try not to let them rise by more than 1.5C. Beyond that, the changes to the climate will be too great to overcome with shady trees or white roofs, and at 2C an estimated 1 billion people will suffer extreme heat. “We cannot adapt our way out of the climate crisis,” Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, told the Observer. “If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t.”

Katharine Hayhoe, Barack Obama and Leona Di Caprio discuss climate change

From an Article by Madeleine Cuff, i-News (Environment), UK, October 25, 2021

Backbench MPs in England are railing against the government’s plan to cut UK emissions to net zero by 2050, warning the policy will leave British citizens “poorer and colder”.

Most insist they do not deny the science of climate change and are merely questioning the policy costs and wisdom of targeting ‘net zero’ in the UK. But renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe suspects otherwise.

Professor Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist, professor of political science at Texas Tech University, and chief scientist at the US Nature Conservancy. She is also one of the world’s leading communicators of climate science and has experienced her fair share of climate sceptics.

In her eyes, there are five clear stages of climate denial: arguing (1) that climate change is not real, (2) that humans are not to blame, (3) that climate change will be a positive force, (4) that it will be too expensive to fix, and (5) arguing it will be too late to tackle it.

“What do all these stages have in common?” Prof Hayhoe asked. “They all accomplish the same goal. The goal is the important thing – it doesn’t matter what you say, it is the goal that matters. And what is their goal? No climate action.”

“We often see politicians cycling through these stages,” she told i-News. As the climate science has become ever more robust, those arguing against action have had to adapt, she argued. “No wonder the sceptics have shifted,” she said. “They are very clever. They have their eyes fixed on their goal.”

“[Yet] the reality is, what is at stake is civilization as we know it,” she stressed. “What’s at risk is so large that the question is not ‘how can we afford action’, the question is ‘how can we not afford to act’.”

To counter these arguments there needs to be a more honest and open dialogue among the public about what climate action looks like, Professor Hayhoe said. “Why those arguments are so successful is because the rest of us remain paralysed,” she argued.

“We don’t know what to do. And it’s easier, if someone is arguing for inaction and we don’t know what to do, to say ‘maybe let’s wait and study some more’. We don’t have time for that. We need to act as soon as possible.”

The right conversation can go a long way towards spurring action, Prof. Hayhoe insisted. “The secret is begin the conversation with something you agree with the other person on, not disagree,” she said. “That establishes common ground and mutual respect.”

“Then – and this addresses the fear – always bring up a positive, constructive solution to the problem in hand,” Professor Hayhoe said. For example, if the conversation is about cars the solution could be talking about how many people are already switching to EVs. “The solution can be at any level, but it has to be something that person can get on board with,” Professor Hayhoe said.

She hopes the COP26 climate summit, which starts next week in Glasgow (31 Oct. to 12 Nov.), will spark more conversations about climate change across the UK. “It gives us a great opportunity to start a discussion,” she said.

NEW BOOK ~ ‘Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World’ by Katharine Hayhoe, Simon and Schuster UK, £20

Burbo Bank wind farm off the UK Liverpool coast

From an Essay by Rebecca Long-Bailey, The Guardian, Dec. 11, 2017

The climate crisis is the most significant issue facing humanity. Natural disasters are already displacing entire communities. More intense droughts are leading to unprecedented levels of food insecurity and hunger across the globe. This summer saw hurricanes, floods and fires affect hundreds of millions of people from India to Niger, Haiti to Houston. The UK is also vulnerable to climate impacts, with more destructive storms, prolonged floods, and heatwaves becoming the norm.

Our climate reality is increasingly unpredictable and daunting. However, it is also opening the space to collectively reimagine a different future for the UK. Fossil fuels helped ignite the first industrial revolution, but we now know that their continued use will threaten our very existence. Within the UK we have the skills, ingenuity and people to drive the next energy revolution, powered by renewables. For us to make this change a success, our politics must have environmental sustainability and social justice at its core.

This is why climate change is at the heart of Labour’s industrial strategy. At the last election, Labour pledged that 60% of the UK’s energy will come from low carbon or renewable sources by 2030 to help us meet the challenge of tackling climate change. Labour plans to achieve this mission by transforming our energy system by taking parts back into public control and exploring how we can ensure greater local control of energy generation and supply. We want to cultivate strengths in growing markets for green tech, invest in renewable energy infrastructure, reduce demand for heat, and maintain Britain’s climate commitments.

Two years ago, representatives from 196 countries met in Paris and committed to limiting global temperature rises to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, with the aspirational target below 1.5C. The UK ratified the landmark Paris agreement the following year, promising to “continue our leadership on climate action”.

Despite its green rhetoric, the government’s record is not good. Its Clean Growth Strategy even admitted that the measures it recommended would not fulfil either the fourth or fifth carbon budgets. These budgets are restrictions on the total amount of greenhouse gases than can be emitted in a five-year period by the UK and are legally binding; for example the fourth carbon budget covers the period 2023-27, and the fifth covers 2028-2032.

We should be over-performing on our carbon budgets, not underperforming. The most recent autumn budget even threatened the future of new renewable generation by not admitting any more new low carbon electricity levies until 2025, on current forecasts, while at the same time giving tax breaks to oil and gas firms. The implications of the new levy regime could be catastrophic. Without alternative funding, it may spell the end of much low carbon development in the UK. With the success offshore, this is the moment to be seizing the opportunity to develop other forms of renewable energy. The Tories continue to push fracking despite its unpopularity across the country. The result of Tory policy not only undermines our climate change obligations but means many suffer from the effects of air pollution and fuel poverty.

I’m joining 100 other MPs, across parties, to call on our pension fund to remove its investments in fossil fuels.

That’s why I’m joining 100 other MPs, across parties, to call on our pension fund to remove its investments in fossil fuels. Our words in Paris must be matched by our actions in parliament – our constituents expect nothing less. This starts, but by no means finishes, with where we invest millions of pounds through our pensions. But we need to open up this conversation beyond parliament to ensure a just transition to a green economy.

This campaign is the fastest growing divestment movement of all time, which has seen more than $5tn of assets divested across more than 800 institutions. Campaigning for our universities, workplaces, unions, and pension funds to divest is one important way we can help to build a more sustainable society. Parliament must play its part.

>>> Rebecca Long-Bailey is shadow secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy and MP for Salford and Eccles

We need to make the transition now to sustainable systems

From an Article by the University of Sussex (UK), Science Daily, 9/21/17

Rapid changes in electricity, heat, buildings, industry and mobility are needed!

Changes in electricity, heat, buildings, industry and transport are needed rapidly and must happen all together, according to researchers at the universities of Sussex, Manchester and Oxford in a new study published in the journal Science. (See reference).

To provide a reasonable (66%) chance of limiting global temperature increases to below 2 Centigrade degrees the International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency suggest that global energy-related carbon emissions must peak by 2020 and fall by more than 70% in the next 35 years. This implies a tripling of the annual rate of energy efficiency improvement, retrofitting the entire building stock, generating 95% of electricity from low-carbon sources by 2050 and shifting almost entirely towards electric cars.

This elemental challenge necessitates “deep decarbonisation” of electricity, transport, heat, industrial, forestry and agricultural systems across the world. But despite the recent rapid growth in renewable electricity generation, the rate of progress towards this wider goal remains slow.

Moreover, many energy and climate researchers remain wedded to disciplinary approaches that focus on a single piece of the low-carbon transition puzzle. A case in point is a recent Science Policy Forum proposing a ‘carbon law’ that will guarantee that zero-emissions are reached. This model-based prescription emphasizes a single policy instrument, but neglects the wider political, cultural, business, and social drivers of low carbon transitions.

A new, interdisciplinary study published in Science presents a ‘sociotechnical’ framework that explains how these different drivers can interlink and mutually reinforce one another and how the pace of the low carbon transition can be accelerated.

Professor Frank Geels from the University of Manchester, lead author of the study, explains: “Our ‘big picture’ socio-technical framework shows how interactions between various social groups can increase the momentum of low-carbon transitions.”

Professor Nick Eyre from the University of Oxford, End Use Energy Demand Champion for the UK Research Councils’ Energy Programme, adds: “Accelerating transitions is critical if we are to achieve the goals of decarbonizing and saving energy faster, further, and more flexibly. This international quality study shows the importance of whole systems thinking in energy demand research.”

Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool from the University of Sussex, a co-author on the study, says: “Current rates of change are simply not enough. We need to accelerate transitions, deepen their speed and broaden their reach. Otherwise there can be no hope of reaching a 2 degree target, let alone 1.5 degrees. This piece reveals that the acceleration of transitions across the sociotechnical systems of electricity, heat, buildings, manufacturing, and transport requires new conceptual approaches, analytical foci, and research methods.”

The Policy Forum provides four key lessons for how to accelerate sustainability transitions.

Lesson 1: Focus on socio-technical systems rather than individual elements

Rapid and deep decarbonization requires a transformation of ‘sociotechnical systems’ — the interlinked mix of technologies, infrastructures, organizations, markets, regulations and user practices that together deliver societal functions such as personal mobility. Previous systems have developed over many decades, and the alignment and co-evolution of their elements makes them resistant to change.

Accelerated low-carbon transitions therefore depend on both techno-economic improvements, and social, political and cultural processes, including the development of positive or negative discourses. Professor Steve Sorrell from the University of Sussex, a coauthor of the study, states: “In this policy forum we describe how transformational changes in energy and transport systems occur, and how they may be accelerated. Traditional policy approaches emphasizing a single technology will not be enough.”

Lesson 2: Align multiple innovations and systems

Socio-technical transitions gain momentum when multiple innovations are linked together, improving the functionality of each and acting in combination to reconfigure systems. The shale gas revolution, for instance, accelerated when seismic imaging, horizontal drilling, and hydraulic fracturing were combined. Likewise, accelerated low-carbon transitions in electricity depend not only on the momentum of renewable energy innovations like wind, solar-PV and bio-energy, but also on complementary innovations including energy storage and demand response. These need aligned and then linked so that innovations are harmonized.

Prof. Paul Ekins, Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London, and project leader to the EU INNOPATHS consortium researching low-carbon transitions for Europe, comments: “One of the great strengths of this study is the equal emphasis it accords to technological, social, business and policy innovation, in all of which governments as well as the private sector have a key role to play.

“European countries will become low-carbon societies not only when the required low-carbon technologies have been developed but when new business models and more sustainable consumer aspirations are driving their deployment at scale. Public policy has an enormous role to play at every step in the creation of these changed conditions.”

Lesson 3: Offer societal and business support

Public support is crucial for effective transition policies. Low-carbon transitions in mobility, agro-food, heat and buildings will also involve millions of citizens who need to modify their purchase decisions, user practices, beliefs, cultural conventions and skills. To motivate citizens, financial incentives and information about climate change threats need to be complemented by positive discourses about the economic, social and cultural benefits of low-carbon innovations.

Furthermore, business support is essential because the development and deployment of low-carbon innovations depends upon the technical skills, organizational capabilities and financial resources of the private sector. Green industries and supply chains can solidify political coalitions supporting ambitious climate policies and provide a counterweight to incumbents. Technological progress can drive climate policy by providing solutions or altering economic interests. Shale gas and solar-PV developments, for instance, altered the US and Chinese positions in the international climate negotiations.

Lesson 4: Phase out existing systems

Socio-technical transitions can be accelerated by actively phasing out existing technologies, supply chains, and systems that lock-in emissions for decades. Professor Sovacool comments that: “All too often, analysists and even policymakers focus on new incentives, on the phasing in of low-carbon technologies. This study reminds us that phasing out existing systems can be just as important as stimulating novel innovations.”

For instance, the UK transition to smokeless solid fuels and gas was accelerated by the 1956 Clean Air Act, which allowed cities to create smokeless zones where coal use was banned. Another example is the 2009 European Commission decision to phase-out incandescent light bulbs, which accelerated the shift to compact fluorescents and LEDs. French and UK governments have announced plans to phase-out petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Moreover, the UK intends to phase out unabated coal-fired power generation by 2025 (if feasible alternatives are available).

Phasing out existing systems accelerates transitions by creating space for niche-innovations and removing barriers to their diffusion. The phase-out of carbon-intensive systems is also essential to prevent the bulk of fossil fuel reserves from being burned, which would obliterate the 2oC target. This phase-out will be challenging since it threatens the largest and most powerful global industries (e.g. oil, automobiles, electric utilities, agro-food, steel), which will fight to protect their vested economic and political interests.

Conclusion

Deep decarbonization requires complementing model-based analysis with socio-technical research. While the former analyzes technically feasible least-cost pathways, the latter addresses innovation processes, business strategies, social acceptance, cultural discourses and political struggles, which are difficult to model but crucial in real-world transitions. As Professor Geels notes, an enduring lesson is that “to accelerate low-carbon transitions, policymakers should not only stimulate techno-economic developments, but also build political coalitions, enhance business involvement, and engage civil society.”

Additionally, the research underscores the non-technical, or social, elements of transitions. Dr. Tim Schwanen from the University of Oxford, a coauthor, states that “the approach described in this Policy Forum demonstrates the importance of heeding insights from across the social sciences in thinking about low-carbon transitions.”

While full integration of both approaches is not possible, productive bridging strategies may enable policy strategies that are both cost-effective and socio-politically feasible.

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References:

1. Frank W. Geels, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Tim Schwanen, Steve Sorrell. Sociotechnical transitions for deep decarbonization. Science, 2017; 357 (6357).

2. If the world is to eradicate poverty, address climate change and build peaceful, inclusive societies for all by 2030, greater efforts are needed to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a United Nations report presented today by Secretary-General António Guterres. July 17, 2017

IEA Future Coal Scenarios

“Fossil industry faces a perfect political and technological storm”

Reported by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

This is the title of an article in The Telegraph, the greatly esteemed United Kingdom newspaper. The first four paragraphs follow:

“The political noose is tightening on the global fossil fuel industry. It is a fair bet that world leaders will agree this year to impose a draconian “tax” on carbon emissions that entirely changes the financial calculus for coal, oil, and gas, and may ultimately devalue much of their asset base to zero.

“The International Monetary Fund has let off the first thunder-clap. An astonishing report – blandly titled “How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies” – alleges that the fossil nexus enjoys hidden support worth 6.5% of world GDP.

“This will amount to $5.7 trillion in 2015, mostly due to environmental costs and damage to health, and mostly stemming from coal. The World Health Organisation – also on cue – has sharply revised up its estimates of early deaths from fine particulates and sulphur dioxide from coal plants.

“The killer point is that this architecture of subsidy is a “drag on economic growth” as well as being a transfer from poor to rich. It pushes up tax rates and crowds out more productive investment. The world would be richer – and more dynamic – if the burning of fossils was priced properly.”

The annual subsidy for renewables, which the fossil fuel industry likes to cry about, is only $77 billion – so fossil fuels get 66 times as much. Coal is by far the most subsidized, then oil, and natural gas is least. Coal plants are closing all over the world, even China. The IMF follows the analysis of Arthur Pigou, who advocated taxes to stop investors from keeping all the profits while dumping costs on the rest of society.

The climate deal between the U. S. and China marks a turning point, the beginning of the end for fossil fuel dominance. The chief U. S. climate negotiator, Todd Stern, claims that States representing 60% of the carbon dioxide are already on board for a deal which will limit the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million.

In China, the Communist Party expects protests if it does not slow the increasing smog, so the hope is that the maximum fossil fuel use will be next year, followed by decline.

The International Energy Agency says that two-thirds of all fossil fuel reserves booked by global companies can never be burned if the world reaches a 2 degree Centigrade (3.6 degrees F) accord in Paris. Two thirds of the assets of fossil fuel companies must be left in the ground and will be worthless. Deep sea drilling projects would be particularly hard hit. The Arctic cannot be developed. And, 95% of the coal reserves of the U. S. and Russia must stay in the ground without carbon capture and storage, which are technologies that are still very far way from being economically feasible.

“The Bank of England has launched an enquiry to determine how much of the $5.5 trillion invested in fossil fuel exploration and development over the last six years is really viable, and whether it could become the new ‘subprime’ for the global financial system. This probe has now spread to the whole G20.

“Carbon Tracker estimates that $1.1 trillion of investment has gone on ventures that will require oil prices above $95 a barrel over the next decade to break even.” Big producers are in a state of denial, of course.

“The advances in the cost and efficiency solar power are by now well-known. The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says the average prices of photovoltaic modules dropped from $8 a watt in 2007 to $2.70 last year. The new generation of cells cost around $0.80 a watt. First Solar is already producing modules for $0.40. Its commercial technology can capture 21.5% of the sun’s energy.

“In China, Wuxi Suntech Power claims the ‘levelized’ cost of electricity from solar modules will match the country’s coal-powered stations as soon as next year.”

Utility-scale solar is being built all over the world. Companies in the United Arab Emirates have contracts to deliver solar power for as little as $59 per megawatt hour, as cheap as hydroelectricity. Battery storage cost is falling fast. The IEA estimates that the cost of a lithium-ion battery for grid-scale storage has fallen by more than three-quarters since 2008. The batteries last over three times as long. Research continues. At Harvard a project promised to cut costs two-thirds in three years and avoid use of rare earth minerals, a huge operational improvement.

To read the whole article go here, an article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of May 27, 2015.

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Shell C.E.O. Peter Voser Warns Europe to ‘Stay Competitive’

From Report by John Moylan, UK – BBC, June 6, 2013

The head of oil giant Shell has told the BBC that Europe faces a growing struggle to compete with the US economy. Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive Peter Voser told the BBC’s John Moylan that the challenge in Europe was “to stay competitive”.

Cheap energy released by the process of fracking has revolutionised the US energy market. Gas and oil discoveries in shale rock have led to a boom in gas and oil production in recent years dramatically reducing gas prices.

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UK Shale Gas Bonanza ‘Not Assured’

From Article By Roger Harrabin, UK – BBC, April 26, 2013

Shale gas possibility: Will the UK’s energy strategy follow the US?

Shale gas in the UK could help secure domestic energy supplies but may not bring down prices, Members of Parliament (MPs) report.

The US boom in shale gas has brought energy prices tumbling and revitalised heavy industry, but the Energy and Climate Change Committee warns conditions are different in Britain.

The MPs say the UK’s shale gas developers will face technological uncertainties with different geology. And public opinion may also be more sceptical, they add. The UK is a more densely populated landscape, and shale gas operations will be closer to settlements as a consequence.

What is more, the extent of recoverable resources in the UK is also unknown, so the report concludes that it is too soon to say whether shale gas will achieve US-style levels of success.

Tony Bosworth, from Friends of the Earth, responded: “This does little to back the case for a UK shale gas revolution.”Fracking is dirty and unnecessary – it’s little wonder so many communities are in opposition. We should be building an affordable power system based on our abundant clean energy from the wind, waves and sun.”