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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 18.03.2019
School students around the world protest climate inaction

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News.

School students around the world protest climate inaction

There is extensive global coverage of the hundreds of climate school “strikes” that took place around the world on Friday. CNN has published a live-blog of the strikes, as has the Guardian. It is estimated that around one million students took part in total in more than 2,000 protests in 125 countries. The Guardian says: “The student movement was inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now nominated for a Nobel Prize, who kicked off a global movement after she sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday beginning last August. Many students expressed anger, fear and disappointment that adults have not acted.” The Guardian has published a picture gallery of the “best placards”, as has the New York TimesBuzzFeed says that “thousands of young British students protesting for a more radical government approach to climate change held up drivers in central London after the march which began at Parliament Square splintered into a sit-in at the roundabout near Trafalgar Square”. BBC Newsreports that “India, South Korea, Australia and the US are among the countries where teenagers are already on strike…The globally co-ordinated children’s protests – promoted through posts on Twitter and other social media – have been going on for several months.” A separate BBC News article looks at the parallel movement for towns in the UK to “declare climate emergencies”. The Times says that UK government cabinet members Michael Gove and Damian Hinds – the former and current education ministers, respectively – are “at odds” over the protests. Gove, the current environment secretary, is among a group of Conservative party members who openly backed the strikers, report EurActiv. It adds: “A poll published by the Conservative Environment Network (CER) on the day of a global climate strike found 53% of British adults support the young strikers, with only 15% opposed to the actions. That figure is even higher among young people, with 60% of 18-34 year olds backing the movement…Such enthusiasm has prompted members of the British government to come out in support of the movement, despite Theresa May’s initial reserve…In contrast, a crop of Conservative lawmakers including environment secretary Michael Gove MP, clean growth minister Claire Perry and former minister Richard Benyon issued a video praising the ‘inspirational’ climate school strikers.”

US and Saudi Arabia blocking regulation of geoengineering, sources say
The Guardian Read Article

The Guardian reports that, according to multiple sources at the UN Environment assembly taking place in Nairobi, the US and Saudi Arabia have “hamstrung global efforts” to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries. The newspaper adds: “The world’s two biggest oil producers reportedly led opposition against plans to examine the risks of climate-manipulating technology such as sucking carbon out of the air, reflective mirrors in space, seeding the oceans and injecting particulates into the atmosphere. Deeper analysis of the risks had been proposed by Switzerland and 12 other countries as a first step towards stronger oversight of potentially world-altering experiments that would have implications for food supply, biodiversity, global inequality and security. Some have been tried, but as yet none deployed at a scale that would affect the climate…But sources involved with the talks said the initiative was blocked, initially by the US and Saudi Arabia, then by Japan and other countries. Once dismissed as reckless science fiction, geoengineering has risen up the political agenda of some nations as the climate crisis has become more apparent.” E&E News, via Scientific American, also reports that the US and Saudi Arabia have tried to block the proposal, adding that Brazil has supported them.

Germany ready to join global coal phase-out alliance: environment minister
Climate Home News Read Article

Climate Home News reports that Germany’s environment minister Svenja Schulze has told national newspaper Taz that the government is ready to join an international alliance committed to phasing out coal use. Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel formed a “climate cabinet” from different ministries to steer a framework climate law through parliament. According to Schulze, these domestic steps put Germany, one of the heaviest coal users in Europe, in a position to share its commitment with the world. “We can now finally join the international alliance of coal-exit countries and the Powering Past Coal Alliance,” she said in an interview with Taz, Die Tageszeitung’s weekend edition. “I will get this on it its way.” In January, Carbon Brief published analysis showing that the recommendation by Germany’s coal commission for the nation to end its use of the fossil fuel in power stations by 2038 could mean it breaches a Paris Agreement-compatible pathway by more than a billion tonnes of CO2.

Meanwhile, EurActiv reports that last Thursday members of the European Parliament voted in favour of increasing the EU’s 2030 emission cuts target to 55% and a net-zero mid-century target, “bringing an end to weeks of infighting”. It adds: “The main highlights included a call to increase the bloc’s overall emission cuts target for 2030 from the current 40% to a beefed-up 55%. MEPs have gradually come around to an increase to the benchmark since a landmark United Nations report was published last October.”

Energy analysts forecast 'the end of coal' in Asia as Japanese investors back renewables
The Guardian Read Article

Guardian Australia reports that “major Japanese investors, including those most indebted to coal, are seeking to back large-scale renewables projects across Asia, marking a ‘monumental’ shift that energy market analysts say is ‘the start of the end for thermal coal’”. It adds: “At the same time, Japanese banks and trading houses are walking away from coal investments, selling out of Australian mines and scrapping plans to build coal-fired power. Japan is Australia’s largest export customer for thermal coal.”

Comment.

It’s shameful that children need to take the lead
Editorial, The Observer Read Article

There are many dozens of opinion articles across the global media reacting to the school strikes. The Observer’s editorial says: “The decision by children round the planet to vent their anger and to stage an international campaign of protests and school walkouts last week is to be welcomed. It was a just response to a global injustice. Without a voice in a political debate in which their future is being threatened by the political inability of their elders, young people have had little choice. Teachers may complain that the disruption caused by last week’s protests only increases their workload and wastes lesson times, but it is clear the campaign is being driven by genuine outrage, a grievance that also explains the considerable breadth of these protests.” The Guardian has a special section of its website guest edited by school climate strikers. It includes opinion pieces by UN secretary general António Guterres, Amnesty International’s Kumi Naidoo, among many others. Writing in the Independent, Janet Street-Porter says: “The young can’t trust adults to clear up the mess they have made. It’s the next generation who are going to suffer, not today’s adults who fail to act, continue to bicker and rail against radical action.” The Guardian US also explains why it devoted its entire frontpage to the strikes. However, there is plenty of criticism, especially in right-leaning publications. In the Daily Mail, climate sceptic Dominic Lawson writes: “This makes me wonder what has been told to the schoolchildren who have deserted their classrooms — with the encouragement of their teachers — to protest about alleged government inaction ‘against climate change’.” Sean O’Grady, the associate editor of the Independent, says: “The current fashion – for that is surely what it amounts to – for children going on strike is one of those things that everyone thinks is terribly sweet and harmless, but which is in fact a deeply pernicious phenomenon that one day we might deeply regret.” And the Daily Telegraph’s assistant comment editor Madeline Grant, who until recently worked for controversial thinktank Institute of Economic Affairs, asks: “Can we please stop garlanding children for being wrong?”

Have we hit ‘peak beef’?
Tim Lewis, The Observer Read Article

The Observer’s Food Monthly supplement has a lengthy feature on beef and examines why “meat production is central to the debate on climate change and ethical food”. It notes: “Chicken might be the world’s most popular meat – 65bn birds are consumed each year – but beef is by some margin the hardest to defend. Raising livestock is notoriously inefficient: last year an article in the journal Science found that meat and dairy provides just 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein while taking up 83% of farmland. Cattle are responsible for an unholy proportion of agriculture’s greenhouse-gas emissions. The controversial “planetary health diet” published in the Lancet in January – a three-year project compiled by 37 scientists in 16 countries – advised that global consumption of red meat needs to reduce by half. The recommended changes would be particularly severe in Europe and the US: Europeans should eat 77% less red meat and 15 times more nuts and seeds to meet the guidelines, while Americans should cut back on red meat by 84%.” Another feature in the Observer looks at “how diet became the latest front in the culture wars”.

Science.

Tropical cyclone heat potential and the rapid intensification of Hurricane Harvey in the Texas Bight
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Read Article

A new study investigates how and why Hurricane Harvey intensified from a category three storm into a category four as it approached Texas in August 2017. Typically, hurricanes are not expected to intensify over shallow water, the researchers say, because there is not as much water to store heat. Using buoy, float, and satellite data, the researchers study the conditions of the Texas Bight that contributed to Harvey’s rapid intensification. The findings suggest that, at the time of landfall, “the ocean was very warm from the surface to the seabed”. The authors conclude: “Therefore, when Harvey mixed the ocean very little cold water was brought up from below and the surface remained warm which allowed Harvey to continue to strengthen”.

Natural climate oscillations may counteract Red Sea warming over the coming decades
Geophysical Research Letters Read Article

Natural fluctuations in the climate may help offset human-caused warming in the Red Sea in the near future, a new study suggests. Using a variety of sea surface temperature (SST) datasets, the researchers show that the long‐term variation of the SST over the Red Sea is influenced by a natural oscillation related to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The findings suggest that recent high warming rates appear to be a combined effect of global warming and a positive phase of the AMO. As the AMO shifts from positive to negative phase, “the SST trend in the Red Sea purely related to global warming is expected to be counteracted by the cooling AMO phase”, the authors conclude.

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