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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 08.07.2019
‘Biggest compliment yet’: Greta Thunberg welcomes oil chief’s ‘greatest threat’ label

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News.

'Biggest compliment yet': Greta Thunberg welcomes oil chief's 'greatest threat' label
The Guardian Read Article

Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry, reports the Guardian. Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of Opec, said “civil society is being misled to believe oil is the cause of climate change”, which is “beginning to…dictate policies and corporate decisions, including investment in the industry”. Even the children of Opec officials “are asking us about their future because…they see their peers on the streets campaigning against this industry”, said Barkindo. Thunberg, the figurehead of the “School Strike 4 Climate” movement, described the comments as their “biggest compliment yet”, reports the Independent. In his regular Daily Telegraph column, Andy Critchlow writes that “Opec would be wise to avoid picking a fight with Greta Thunberg”, because “branding her populist methods an enemy could make big oil an easier target for protesters to aim at”.

Elsewhere, the Sunday Times reports that Oil and Gas UK chief executive has said that North Sea energy firms are “not the enemy” amid growing pressure on politicians to adopt tough measures in the fight against climate change. Deirdre Michie said members of the industry are not the “baddies” and could play a leading role in delivery of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the UK and 2045 in Scotland.

Alaska heatwave: Anchorage hits record temperature
BBC News Read Article

Anchorage – the largest city in the US state of Alaska – hit a new temperature record of 32.22C (90F) last Thursday afternoon, reports BBC News. The state, part of which lies inside the Arctic Circle, “is sweltering under a heatwave, with record temperatures recorded in several areas”, says the article. The previous record was 85F. Meteorologists say the unusual weather has been caused by a “heat dome” over the southern part of the state, with the high-pressure system expected to move north next week. Three other Alaska locations – Kenai, Palmer and King Salmon – set or tied high temperature records, notes the Independent. Anchorage’s average high temperature for US Independence Day is around 24C (75F), it adds. Alaska is the fastest-warming US state, says the New York Times, with temperatures rising at twice the rate of the global average. The Hill also has the story.

One climate crisis disaster happening every week, UN warns
The Guardian Read Article

The United Nations has warned that climate-related disasters are happening at a rate of one per week, reports the Guardian, though most draw little international attention. Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction, said that in addition to events such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India, large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted. This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said: “This is not a lot of money [in the context of infrastructure spending], but investors have not been doing enough. Resilience needs to become a commodity that people will pay for.”

Saudi row over 1.5C science raises frustration with UN consensus model
Climate Home News Read Article

Climate Home News reports on the fallout from the exclusion of a key IPCC report from formal negotiation in UN Climate Change’s science stream. “Diplomats privately express growing frustration at tactics used by Saudi Arabia, after the petrostate refused to engage in substantive debate on how best to use” the IPCC report on 1.5C of warming, the article says. One European diplomat described “a toxic political atmosphere” during technical climate talks in Bonn last week (summarised in detail by Carbon Brief), when the row occurred. “We need to be smart about how we use the UN space for political gains to drive ambition,” said the official, who was not authorised to speak on the record, “and note that [a] lack of consensus halts the whole system”. Yvo de Boer, former head of UN Climate Change between 2006 and 2010, tells Climate Home News that groups of countries should be given the space to discuss topics of common interest “without having everybody in the room”. “Not all consensus needs unanimity. When there is a clear consensus on something, it sometimes seems a bit over the top to achieve unanimity,” he says.

CO2 challenge that towers over tall buildings
The Times Read Article

Six of Britain’s best-known skyscrapers produce more than 12,000 tonnes of CO2 every year, equal to the annual emissions of about 3,000 cars, analysis by the Times has found. Their “use of cement and steel means that they emit thousands of tonnes of carbon during construction — and once built, they and their occupants consume large amounts of energy, presenting a new set of challenges for their landlords”, the article says. Analysing energy performance certificates, the Times found that the Shard, next to London Bridge railway station, emitted the most CO2, at 4,780 tonnes a year. This was followed by the “Cheesegrater” (2,016 tonnes) and the “Gherkin” (1,640 tonnes).

Fossil fuel exports make Australia one of the worst contributors to climate crisis
The Guardian Read Article

New research suggests that Australia is responsible for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and could be contributing as much as 17% by 2030 if its proposed fossil fuel developments went ahead, reports the Guardian. Under climate accounting rules that record CO2 released within a country, Australia is responsible for about 1.4% of global emissions. But the analysis by science and policy institute Climate Analytics found more than twice that – another 3.6% – are a result of Australia’s coal, oil and gas exports. “Australia is now the number one exporter of both coal and gas and we are scheduled to push that off the charts in the next 10 years. We are looking to become an emissions super-power,” says Gavan McFadzean from Australian Conservation Foundation, who commissioned the research. “We are fortunate to have many of our emissions counted elsewhere but that doesn’t mean we’re not responsible for them,“ he adds.

Comment.

The Guardian view on the climate emergency: forests can help to save us
Editorial, The Guardian Read Article

While it is “vital” to plant vast numbers of trees to help tackle climate change, such measures “will be wholly inadequate without a corresponding effort to stop the production of more greenhouse gases”, says a Guardian editorial. Commenting on new research published on Science last week that showed “there is far more land in the world on which trees can be planted than anyone had supposed”, the Guardian says “planting trees is by far the least expensive and most practicable way” to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere. However, the “most obvious obstacle is the raging pace of deforestation in the world today, especially in the tropics”. Investing in reforestation and the preservation would “not just remove CO2 from the atmosphere,” the article concludes: “[Trees] seem to suck some of the darkness and self-obsession out of the humans in their shade.”

Rethinking Energy
Financial Times Read Article

The Financial Times has published a special report on “rethinking energy”. In 16 separate articles, the FT tackles topics such as China’s “no waste” energy drive, energy producers’ quest for “cleaner barrels”, the mismatch between green intentions and consumer reality, how smart grids can work in extreme weather, and how the “internet of things sparks race to replace the battery”. FT energy commentator Nick Butler has a piece on how a “coalition of the willing” is needed on carbon as part of the report, while his weekly column looks at the weak position of the Opec+ coalition between the 10 members of the oil cartel and the 14 non-Opec oil-producing nations.

Global warming led to scorching heat in Europe. Leaders must take it seriously.
Editorial, The Washington Post Read Article

“When the Red Sox and Yankees faced off in London Stadium this past Saturday, the players no doubt expected something different. Instead of a typically dreary and cool British summer day, they got a 93-degree scorcher.” So begins an editorial in the Washington Post on the record-breaking heatwave in Europe last week. “What is already clear, however, is the heatwave’s potential connections to human-caused global warming,” says the Post: “We do not say this simply because climate change makes heatwaves in general more likely, though that is true. It is also because an international consortium of scientists released on Tuesday a report seeking to quantify how global warming may have played into last week’s highs in particular.” The research – reported in an exclusive by Carbon Brief – “found that the probability of a heat wave with the features of last week’s has increased substantially — by at least a factor of five”, says the Post. “Global warming is not just some theory scrawled on a professor’s chalkboard somewhere,” the editorial concludes: “It is a reality that will burden human civilisation for generations to come.”

Congo, child labour and your electric car
Henry Sanderson, Financial Times Read Article

In a “Big Read” article, Financial Times commodities and mining correspondent Henry Sanderson investigates mining of cobalt – a crucial metal for batteries in electric vehicles – in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The majority of Congo’s cobalt comes from large mining sites where rock is dug up by trucks from the bottom of deep pits”, Sanderson says, but “a growing proportion is coming from an estimated 150,000 “artisanal” or informal miners who dig by hand”. “The unregulated practice is increasingly drawing in children,” he adds. “Congo’s dominance presents a growing dilemma for carmakers,” Sanderson writes. “While manufacturers cannot afford to ignore Congo they must also know that untraceable metal — from these informal miners — leaks into the global supply chain via refineries in China, ending up in batteries, cars and smartphones sold in the west.” Last year, Carbon Brief published an explainer on six metals that are key to a low-carbon future – which included cobalt.

To ensure a green future the UK cannot rely on free markets alone
Richard Partington, The Guardian Read Article

“Only government has the weapons powerful enough” to tackle climate change, writes Guardian economics correspondent Richard Partington. While Theresa May’s Conservative government has introduced a net-zero goal for the UK, “her party is hard-wired to fail”, says Partington: “Clinging to a belief in the power of free markets, it neglects the fact that to decarbonise the economy greater investment from the state is required.” Partington argues that “doubling the UK’s investment rate – with the bulk coming from the state – in green infrastructure, technologies and industry should create millions of good jobs and build low-carbon wealth”. For Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, “rather than entering into a bidding war on tax breaks for the rich, the next prime minister should commit more money instead to a real response to the climate crisis”, he concludes: “The scale of the emergency requires it.”

Science.

Shift in seasonal climate patterns likely to impact residential energy consumption in the United States
Environmental Research Letters Read Article

Severe climate change is likely drive up electricity demand in the US – but natural gas demand could fall as cold seasons become milder, a study finds. The research combines climate model simulations with “empirical relationships between weather and household energy consumption” to investigate how energy demand is likely to change in a future with very high greenhouse gas emissions (RCP8.5). “ The environmental conditions that favour more cooling degree days in summer and reduced heating degree days in winter are driven by changes in daily maximum temperatures and daily minimum temperatures in the respective seasons,” the authors say.

Future ocean climate homogenises communities across habitats through diversity loss and rise of generalist species
Global Change Biology Read Article

The combined impact of ocean warming and acidification could cause marine habitats to become less diverse, a new study finds. For the study, the researchers created large underwater experimental sites and explored how increasing ocean temperature and pH impacted marine communities. “Under present-day conditions metacommunities were structured by habitat type, but under future conditions they showed an unstructured random pattern with fast-growing generalist species dominating the communities of all habitats,” the authors say. “Homogenisation was likely driven by local species extinctions, reducing interspecific competition that otherwise could have prevented single species from dominating multiple niches.”

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