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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 13.09.2018
Extreme flooding from Florence likely & EU climate law could cause ‘catastrophic’ deforestation

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News.

Extreme Flooding from Florence Likely, Due to Convergence of Threats
Scientific American Read Article

There is extensive media coverage, particularly in the US, of Hurricane Florence’s approach towards the Carolinas. With a mandatory evacuation order issued across the threatened region, Scientific American says that Florence “could inundate the coast with up to 13 feet of surging ocean water and more than two feet of rain”. But many publications focus on global warming’s fuelling of the hurricane. Vox explains “why hurricanes are expected to dump more rain in a warming world”. Analysis in New Scientist says “global warming is amplifying Hurricane Florence’s destructive power”. Andrew Freedman in Axiosexplains the “ties between Hurricane Florence and climate change” but adds that “firm conclusions about the extent to which human-induced climate change may have amplified it will not be available until months after the event”. Writing in the Washington Post, Eric Holthaus says: “In my two decades as a meteorologist, I can’t recall a single storm that threatened new all-time records in all three of these, simultaneously, anywhere in the world. Despite what some of my more hesitant colleagues might say, you can connect individual weather events to climate change in this day and age. Quite simply, Hurricane Florence is a storm made worse by climate change.” ThinkProgress has an article by Joe Romm titled: “Global warming ‘double whammy’ may be steering Florence into the Carolinas, says researcher.” CNN‘s Eric Levenson explains “how coastal development and climate change are making hurricanes more costly”. An editorial in the Baltimore Sun says: “Hurricane Florence may reshape the climate change debate…It is safe to say that climate change is a major reason why Florence may be bigger and stronger and why there are likely to be more such monster storms in our future. Meanwhile, it’s also quite safe to say that President Donald Trump and his current set of minions, anonymous or on the record, are exceedingly disinterested in lifting a finger to do something about global warming.” The New York Times “answers your forecasting and climate questions” about Hurricane Florence”. MailOnline has published a satellite image showing “nine potentially deadly storms currently girdling the globe”. Bloomberg says “Hurricane Florence’s brutal winds will test the Carolinas solar boom”. The Financial Times says: “Oil prices near four-year high as hurricane bears down on US.

EU climate law could cause 'catastrophic' deforestation
The Guardian Read Article

New research published in the journal Nature Communications says that the EU’s renewable energy directive could, reports the Guardian, “suck in as much imported wood as Europe harvests each year because it will count energy created from the burning of whole trees as ‘carbon neutral'”. Prof Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, one of the authors, says the risk of the directive encouraging tree clearances and the “destruction” of global carbon sinks was now “extremely high”. He tells the Guardian: “This amounts to sawing off the branch on which humanity sits.” The Times says: “The EU recently revised its energy policy in an effort to double the use of renewable sources by 2030. Against the advice of hundreds of scientists who said that the move would accelerate climate change, they created new incentives to view wood as a low-carbon fuel.” The use of wood to fuel power plants could cause EU energy emissions to rise by 10% or more by 2050, cancelling out declines achieved with solar or wind power, the study says. The Independent also carries the story. Last December, Carbon Brief published a guest post on this topic by Prof Sir John B

Global investors launch campaign to tackle climate change
Daily Telegraph Read Article

The Daily Telegraph reports that “some of the world’s biggest investment houses controlling $30tn (£23tn) worth of funds have agreed to join forces to put pressure on governments to tackle climate change”. It adds: “Investors such as Aviva, Schroders and Legal & General Investment Management will lobby governments around the world to adhere to the promises they made to tackle pollution in the Paris Agreement on climate change. UK pension funds representing organisations and companies such as the BBC, HSBC, Transport for London, Bedford Borough Council and the Environmental Agency, are also taking part in the campaign.” The campaign is part of the Global Climate Action Summit taking place in San Francisco this week.

Disappearing Swiss snow likely linked to global warming: study
Xinhua Read Article

Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reports that scientists at the University of Geneva have used a new tool known as the “Swiss Data Cube” to show that Switzerland’s disappearing snow is “probably linked to global warming”. The report says: “The study found that between 1995 and 2005 areas with little or no snow with between 0 and 20% probability of snowfall covered 36% of the territory, and this spread to 44% between 2005 and 2017. That was an increase of 5,200km2, which the report said is well beyond any margin of error.” MailOnline also covers the story.

Comment.

Even without the Trump administration, the US is upholding its commitment to the Paris climate agreement
Jerry Brown & Michael Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times Read Article

Jerry Brown, the governor of California, and Michael Bloomberg, the UN’s special envoy for climate action, are two of the six co-chairs of the Global Climate Action Summit taking place in San Francisco this week. In a joint op-ed in the LA Times, they write: “What happens in Washington still matters, of course, and we need to vote out of office those who refuse to recognise reality. But the American people are not waiting on Washington to take action because the benefits are clear: Businesses are saving money by investing in clean energy and efficiency upgrades. Technology companies are making money by driving down the cost of wind and solar. And cities and states are improving public health by cleaning their air and strengthening their economies by modernising their infrastructure.” Separately, the Guardian covers a report released at the summit which “sets out a roadmap that could quicken that pace and cut carbon emissions to 24% below 2005 levels by 2025 in the absence of federal leadership”.

Can we still justify the environmental cost of air travel?
Michael Skapinker, Financial Times Read Article

Michael Skapinker, the FT columnist on “business and society”, says it “wouldn’t be right to continue this journey [writing about business travel] without addressing the environmental cost of all this flying around”. But he is somewhat defeatist about the chances of addressing the problem: “Air travel is an inescapable part of the global economy that has provided so many with a better standard of living than their forebears could have dreamt of. There are some problems without an obvious solution. When it comes to air travel’s environmental impact, we may have to focus on incremental improvement.” Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reports on new research that shows that “British Airways is the least fuel-efficient transatlantic airline – and Norwegian the most”.

The Guardian view on electric cars: stopped by industry inaction
Editorial, The Guardian Read Article

An editorial in the Guardian is headlined in the print edition: “The internal combustion engine is dead. Carmakers need to go electric now.” It continues: “No one but the motor industry thinks this dirty technology ought to survive. The refusal to accept reality is exacting a high price: Britain will miss its legally binding carbon emissions targets because transport, unlike all other parts of the economy, is not doing enough to curb the growth in emissions…The failure by industry to embrace electric cars ought to underline the fact the state cannot assume the animal spirits of business exist. It must help create them.”

Science.

Future response of global coastal wetlands to sea-level rise
Nature Read Article

Sea level rise may not lead to the widescale loss of coastal wetlands, new research suggests. Contrary to previous studies, the research finds that wetland losses as a result of sea level rise could be limited to 0-30% by the end of the century. “Our simulations suggest that the resilience of global wetlands is primarily driven by the availability of accommodation space, which is strongly influenced by the building of anthropogenic infrastructure in the coastal zone,” the authors say. “Rather than being an inevitable consequence of global sea-levelrise, our findings indicate that large-scale loss of coastal wetlands might be avoidable.”

The climate effects of increasing ocean albedo: an idealised representation of solar geoengineering
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Read Article

Cooling the Earth using marine cloud brightening – a form of solar geoengineering whereby salt water spray would be used to increase the reflectiveness of marine clouds – could cause global rainfall to become more variable, a study finds. The researchers used a set of global climate models to simulate the technique, which currently remains hypothetical. It finds that using marine cloud brightening to counter increases in atmospheric CO2 would particularly affect tropical rainfall.

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