Climate

Study shows extreme rainfall made twice as likely by planet-heating pollution as EU promises €10bn in aid

• Global heating ‘doubled’ chance of heavy rain in Europe in September

Jarmila Šišmová did not know what to expect when rain began to pound the small town of Litovel in the Czech Republic, and she was not prepared for the nightmare that would await her once it stopped.

The authorities told Šišmová to leave her home, so she took her children to their grandmother to wait out the storm. As the water level rose, a neighbour – one of the few on her street who stayed behind – checked the front of the house and saw the sandbags holding firm. But from the back, Šišmová would soon find out, the flood had burst into the building, drenching her belongings in dirty brown water.

Continue reading...

Narrative that transition has stalled ‘demonstrably not true’, researcher says, but investment and construction must accelerate

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Large-scale renewable energy investment and construction in Australia is rebounding this year after a slump, but will need to accelerate to reach the pace needed to meet the Albanese government’s goal for 2030.

The country could add more than 7 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, up from 5.3 GW last year, according to data released by the Clean Energy Regulator.

Continue reading...

At an event in New York, the president said federal investments in climate action would be at risk if former President Donald J. Trump retook the White House.

What should The Times ask change experts, world leaders and policymakers at its Climate Forward conference on Sept. 25?

António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said the world was “edging towards the unimaginable” amid deepening challenges of war and climate change.

California could become the first state to tackle the fast fashion waste overwhelming consumers and landfills

Let’s say you bought a new pair of jeans and wore them for a few years before deciding it was time to part ways. You could throw them away, or, if you wanted a more environmentally friendly option, you might try to sell or swap them or donate them to a local thrift store.

Either way, the onus is on you to pass those jeans on, and hope for the best. But a new California bill that tackles the growing problem of fashion and textile waste could change the way we get rid of our clothes, putting the burden on clothing producers to implement a system for recycling the wares that they sell.

Continue reading...

Seven states received almost half of funds for clean energy manufacturing, though there is little evidence it will deliver electorally for Democrats

The seven swing states that will decide the upcoming US election have received nearly half of the torrent of clean energy manufacturing dollars unleashed by a landmark 2022 climate bill, a new analysis shows, amid stuttering Democratic efforts to translate new factory jobs into political support.

Since the passage of clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a bill called the “most significant climate law in the history of mankind” by Joe Biden, nearly $150bn has been announced for a flurry of new American facilities producing electric cars, batteries and components for renewable energy.

Continue reading...

The PM will today deliver his leader’s speech to Labour conference. This is what he should say instead

Conference, I stand here ready to bury Britain’s age of decline and usher in the age of ambition. For years, politicians have offered this nation a daily diet of pessimism, demanding ever greater sacrifice from those with nothing left to give. And they have delivered on that pessimism – from stagnant growth to falling wages, from crumbling infrastructure to disintegrating public services, from our declining town centres to a mounting housing emergency.

But that ambition begins with some humility. Our nation expected change, and so far it has seen yet more politicians on the take while imposing hardship on the already struggling. It is far better to change course than double down on mistakes. Our democracy has long been corrupted by those with bottomless pockets, and let’s be candid: they’re not splashing their cash out of generosity. That ends here. If you’re a wealthy individual or private company, invest your money elsewhere, because all such donations to political parties and politicians will now be banned. No more hospitality or freebies: and yes, I will pay for my own Arsenal tickets.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

Norwegians are putting their natural environment (and weekend activities) ahead of tourism’s economic benefits

In Norway, nature is something of a national obsession. Norwegian children are taught that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”, and Norwegian babies are packed into thermals and overalls and taken on day trips to the woods. Cross-country skiing, hunting for wild mushrooms or cloudberries, or huffing and puffing up a mountain are standard weekend activities.

The recent decision to scrap a campaign that aimed to attract more foreign tourists to the country’s rural landscapes was a stark reminder of this: rather than encouraging tourists and the income they provide, many Norwegians would prefer to protect their natural environment.

Continue reading...

Simple measures could raise five times more money than poorer countries are asking for, research claims

Rich countries could raise five times the money that poor countries are demanding in climate finance, through windfall taxes on fossil fuels, ending harmful subsidies and a wealth tax on billionaires, research has shown.

Developing nations are asking for at least $1tn (£750bn) a year of public funds to help them cut greenhouse gases and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.

Continue reading...

UN general assembly to hold special session this week as experts say rises already locked in by climate change mean disappearance of many atolls

The Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil.

“Our waters have been infected,” climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. “Those who are affected, they now can’t survive with the water that changed after sea level rise.”

Continue reading...

Former secretary of state accuses oil and gas companies of ‘business as usual’ at major climate summit in New York

Countries are ignoring commitments they made less than a year ago to shift away from fossil fuels and to provide aid to those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a host of leading figures have admitted during a gloomy start to a major climate summit in New York.

Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, have led the condemnation of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, led by China and the US, for failing to follow a UN pact signed in Dubai by nearly 200 countries in December to “transition away” from oil, coal and gas.

Continue reading...

Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero brace for impact as ‘life-threatening’ category 2 storm to make landfall Tuesday

Mexico’s southern coast was bracing for flash floods and storm surges as Hurricane John quickly intensified into a category 2 storm on Monday afternoon.

Originally forecast as a tropical storm, Hurricane John “rapidly strengthened” into a category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100mph (160kmh), according to the US National Hurricane Center, which warned of “damaging hurricane-force winds, life-threatening storm surge and flash flooding”.

Continue reading...

The lawsuit, seeking ‘multiple billions of dollars,’ opens a new front in the legal battles with oil and gas companies over climate and environmental issues.

This week, New York City is hosting the UN 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 UN 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 (NDCs).

The latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EU’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.

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 US 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 EU 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 towards 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 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 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many are diverting up to 9 percent 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 one 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 US Treasury Secretary Yellen and US 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 US, 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.

The cutting edge of American battery technology is rusty.

Last week, we received our voter information guides in the mailbox. Before I had a chance to even take a look, I found my fifth-grader reading through the guide with a checklist. Looking over her shoulder, I saw her list of the proposition numbers – most with question marks next to them – but one with a big, bold check mark: Proposition 4.

Even though I hadn’t said a word, she gets it. In her short life, she has been through three wildfire evacuations, she has been told not to drink the toxic drinking water in our friend’s neighborhood in Merced County, and she has been kept inside for days and weeks on end due to dangerous, orange, smoky skies. I don’t have to explain why investing in climate resilience is about the best financial decision California could make right now for her future. The kids get it.

But don’t just take it from them, take it from the esteemed climate scientists who I work with at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who have been analyzing how climate change is impacting the Golden State in a myriad of ways:

• From more dangerous and destructive wildfires: The Fossil Fuels Behind Forest Fires
  
• To melting summers and prolonged extreme heat: Too Hot to Work: Assessing the Threats Climate Change Poses to Outdoor Workers
  
• To more intense droughts and floods, drying up crops and contaminating drinking water: Troubled Waters: Preparing for Climate Threats to California’s Water System
  
• To higher seas, threatening communities and critical infrastructure: Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience: Rising Seas, Disruptive Tides, and Risks to Coastal Infrastructure
  

I probably don’t need to tell you any of this, because you are living it. We know the facts: recent wildfires have burned millions of acres of forest and cost taxpayers billions of dollars; more than a million Californians don’t have access to clean drinking water; and our state’s precious farmland and wildlife are at risk from the impacts of a changing climate.

Proposition 4 invests in a more resilient future by providing much needed funding to address these threats, particularly in the most vulnerable and low-income communities where the needs are greatest. It will invest almost $4 billion in safe drinking water, drought, flood, and water resilience, $1.5 billion in wildfire and forest resilience, $1.2 billion in sea level rise and coastal resilience, and about a half billion in extreme heat mitigation. As a water scientist, it’s particularly important to me that the bond prioritizes storing water underground, refilling our depleted groundwater aquifers. Groundwater storage, unlike surface water storage (or dams) will continue to work even as it gets hotter and drier.

Some people say it’s too expensive and we should have made these investments earlier. (Ironically, these are many of the same people who also argued that climate change wasn’t “real” just a few short years ago.) In fact, there couldn’t be a better time to borrow money as interest rates have plummeted over the last few months to the lowest point in many years. At the same time, the costs of inaction are rising. Fire suppression costs, alone, more than doubled from below a half billion in 2020 to over $1.2 billion in 2022.

Climate change is here and it’s costly. Wildfire risks are already driving up insurance and utility bills. Proposition 4 marks an historic shift from simply throwing money at disaster response to proactive investing in disaster prevention, saving billions of dollars in future costs from devastating fires, water shortages, and other climate hazards. The only question is whether we do the right thing now or let the problem get bigger and more expensive for our kids to deal with later.

The science and the kids are clear: Proposition 4 is the right thing to do—we should listen.

Ocean acidification close to critical threshold, say scientists, posing threat to marine ecosystems and global liveability

Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems.

“Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold”, particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. “The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems.”

Continue reading...

A transformed China, conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere, and intractable clashes over money have pushed the prospects of progress to a new low.

From Covid to dengue, viral outbreaks seemed to be popping up all over. But maybe Americans are just more attuned to threats now.