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6 months after the climate summit, where to find progress on climate change in a more dangerous and divided world

September 5, 2022 Creative Commons

Six months ago, negotiators at the United Nations’ Glasgow climate summit celebrated a series of new commitments to lower global greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Analysts concluded that the new promises, including phasing out coal, would bend the global warming trajectory, though still fall short of the Paris climate agreement.

Today, the world looks ever more complex. Russia is waging a war on European soil, with global implications for energy and food supplies. Some leaders who a few months ago were vowing to phase out fossil fuels are now encouraging fossil fuel companies to ramp up production.

In the U.S., the Biden administration has struggled to get its promised actions through Congress. Last-ditch efforts have been underway to salvage some kind of climate and energy bill from the abandoned Build Back Better plan. Without it, U.S. commitments to reduce emissions by over 50% by 2030 look fanciful, and the rest of the world knows it – adding another blow to U.S. credibility overseas.

Meanwhile, severe famines have hit Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Extreme heat has been threatening lives across India and Pakistan. Australia faced historic flooding, and the Southwestern U.S. can’t keep up with the wildfires.

As a former senior U.N. official, I’ve been involved in international climate negotiations for several years. At the halfway point of this year’s climate negotiations, with the next U.N. climate conference in November 2022, here are three areas to watch for progress and cooperation in a world full of danger and division.

Crisis response with long-term benefits

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to a triple whammy of food price, fuel price and inflationary spikes in a global economy still struggling to emerge from the pandemic.

But Russia’s aggression has also forced Europe and others to move away from dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal. The G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. – pledged on May 8, 2022, to phase out or ban Russian oil and accelerate their shifts to clean energy.

In the short term, Europe’s pivot means much more energy efficiency – the International Energy Agency estimates that the European Union can save 15%-20% of energy demand with efficiency measures. It also means importing oil and gas from elsewhere.

In the medium term, the answer lies in ramping up renewable energy.

There are issues to solve. As Europe buys up gas from other places, it risks reducing gas supplies relied on by other countries, and forcing some of those countries to return to coal, a more carbon-intense fuel that destroys air quality. Some countries will need help expanding renewable energy and stabilizing energy prices to avoid a backlash to pro-climate policies.

As the West races to renewables, it will also need to secure a supply chain for critical minerals and metals necessary for batteries and renewable energy technology, including replacing an overdependence on China with multiple supply sources.

Ensuring integrity in corporate commitments

Finance leaders and other private sector coalitions made headline-grabbing commitments at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021. They promised to accelerate their transitions to net-zero emissions by 2050, and some firms and financiers were specific about ending financing for coal plants that don’t capture and store their carbon, cutting methane emissions and supporting ending deforestation.

Their promises faced cries of “greenwash” from many climate advocacy groups. Some efforts are now underway to hold companies, as well as countries, to their commitments.

A U.N. group chaired by former Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is now working on a framework to hold companies, cities, states and banks to account when they claim to have “net-zero” emissions. This is designed to ensure that companies that pledged last year to meet net-zero now say how, and on what scientific basis.

For many companies, especially those with large emissions footprints, part of their commitment to get to net-zero includes buying carbon offsets – often investments in nature – to balance the ledger. This summer, two efforts to put guardrails around voluntary carbon markets are expected to issue their first sets of guidance for issuers of carbon credits and for firms that want to use voluntary carbon markets to fulfill their net-zero claims. The goal is to ensure carbon markets reduce emissions and provide a steady stream of revenue for parts of the world that need finance for their green growth.

Climate change influencing elections

Climate change is now an increasingly important factor in elections.

French President Emmanuel Macron, trying to woo supporters of a candidate to his left and energize young voters, made more dramatic climate pledges, vowing to be “the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal.”

With Chile’s swing to the left, the country’s redrafted constitution will incorporate climate stewardship.

In Australia, Scott Morrison’s government – which supported opening one of the world’s largest coal mines at the same time the Australian private sector is focusing on renewable energy – faces an election on May 21, 2022, with heatwaves and extreme flooding fresh in voters’ minds. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro faces opponents in October who are talking about protecting the climate.

Elections are fought and won on pocketbook issues, and energy prices are high and inflation is taking hold. But voters around the world are also experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand and are increasingly concerned.

The next climate conference

Countries will be facing a different set of economic and security challenges when the next round of U.N. talks begins in November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, compared to the challenges they faced in Glasgow. They will be expected to show progress on their commitments while struggling for bandwidth, dealing with the climate emergency as an integral part of security, economic recovery and global health.

There is no time to push climate action out into the future. Every decimal point of warming avoided is an opportunity for better health, more prosperity and better security.

Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics, Science

‘Our House Is Truly on Fire’: Earth Now Has 50% Chance of Hitting 1.5°C of Warming by 2026

June 30, 2022 Creative Commons

“The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic,” said the head of the World Meteorological Organization. “It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”

The World Meteorological Organization warned Monday that the planet now faces a 50% chance of temporarily hitting 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels over the next five years, another signal that political leaders—particularly those of the rich nations most responsible for carbon emissions—are failing to rein in fossil fuel use.

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise.”

In 2015, by comparison, the likelihood of briefly reaching or exceeding 1.5°C of global warming over the ensuing five-year period was estimated to be “close to zero,” the WMO noted in a new climate update. The report was published amid a deadly heatwave on the Indian subcontinent that scientists say is a glimpse of what’s to come if runaway carbon emissions aren’t halted. Thus far, the heatwave has killed dozens in India and Pakistan.

Signatories to the Paris climate accord have agreed to act to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C—preferably to 1.5°C—by the end of the century. Climate advocates have deemed the 1.5°C target “on life support” following world leaders’ refusal to commit to more ambitious action at the COP26 summit in Glasgow late last year.

“We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement,” Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the WMO, said in a statement Monday. “The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise,” Taalas added. “And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and, our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us.”

BREAKING from the World Meteorological Organization @WMO: There is now a 50% probability that at least one of the next 5 years will temporarily reach the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5°C. In 2015 this chance was estimated to be zero.Our house is truly on fire. #ClimateEmergency https://t.co/u5sTx63weR
— Scientist Rebellion (@ScientistRebel1) May 10, 2022

Dr. Leon Hermanson, a climate expert at the U.K. Met Office who led the WMO report, stressed that a short-lived breach of the 1.5°C threshold would not mean that the world is guaranteed to fall short of the Paris accord’s most ambitious warming target, which climate experts and campaigners have long decried as inadequate.

Such a breach, however, would “reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period,” said Hermanson.

The WMO’s latest research also estimates that there is a 93% chance that at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will be the warmest on record. Currently, 2016 and 2020 are tied for the top spot.

Even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C by 2100, countless people across the globe will still face devastating heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather, with the poor facing the worst consequences.

Meanwhile, key ecosystems could be damaged beyond repair in a 1.5°C hotter world. One recent study found that 99% of the world’s coral reefs would experience heatwaves that are “too frequent for them to recover” if the planet gets 1.5°C warmer compared to pre-industrial levels.

Scientists behind the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report cautioned last month that if there’s to be any hope of keeping warming to 1.5°C or below by 2100, “it’s now or never.”

“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible,” said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Rising authoritarianism and worsening climate change share a fossil-fueled secret

April 29, 2022 Creative Commons

Around the world, many countries are becoming less democratic. This backsliding on democracy and “creeping authoritarianism,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change.

In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy.

It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate.

Corporate capture of environmental politics

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.

Today, it’s easy to find political leaders – on both the political right and left – working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These multinational companies help fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office.

In the U.S., this relationship was cemented by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United. The decision allowed almost unlimited spending by corporations and wealthy donors to support the political candidates who best serve their interests. Data shows that candidates with the most outside funding usually win. This has led to increasing corporate influence on politicians and party policies.

When it comes to the political parties, it’s easy to find examples of campaign finance fueling political agendas.

In 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen testified before a U.S. Senate committee about the greenhouse effect, both the Republican and Democratic parties took climate change seriously. But this attitude quickly diverged. Since the 1990s, the energy sector has heavily financed conservative candidates who have pushed its interests and helped to reduce regulations on the fossil fuel industry. This has enabled the expansion of fossil fuel production and escalated CO2 emissions to dangerous levels.

The industry’s power in shaping policy plays out in examples like the coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general and coal companies suing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

At the same time that the energy sector has sought to influence policies on climate change, it has also worked to undermine the public’s understanding of climate science. For instance, records show ExxonMobil participated in a widespread climate-science denial campaign for years, spending more than US$30 million on lobbyists, think tanks and researchers to promote climate-science skepticism. These efforts continue today. A 2019 report found the five largest oil companies had spent over $1 billion on misleading climate-related lobbying and branding campaigns over the previous three years.

The energy industry has in effect captured the democratic political process and prevented enactment of effective climate policies.

Corporate interests have also fueled a surge in well-financed antidemocratic leaders who are willing to stall and even dismantle existing climate policies and regulations. These political leaders’ tactics have escalated public health crises, and in some cases, human rights abuses.

Brazil, Australia and the US

Many deeply antidemocratic governments are tied to oil, gas and other extractive industries that are driving climate change, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and China.

In “Global Burning,” I explore how three leaders of traditionally democratic countries – Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Scott Morrison of Australia and Donald Trump in the U.S. – came to power on anti-environment and nationalist platforms appealing to an extreme-right populist base and extractive corporations that are driving climate change. While the political landscape of each country is different, the three leaders have important commonalities.

Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump all depend on extractive corporations to fund electoral campaigns and keep them in office or, in the case of Trump, get reelected.

For instance, Bolsonaro’s power depends on support from a powerful right-wing association of landowners and farmers called the União Democrática Ruralista, or UDR. This association reflects the interests of foreign investors and specifically the multibillion-dollar mining and agribusiness sectors. Bolsonaro promised that if elected in 2019, he would dismantle environmental protections and open, in the name of economic progress, industrial-scale soybean production and cattle grazing in the Amazon rainforest. Both contribute to climate change and deforestation in a fragile region considered crucial for keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.

Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump are all openly skeptical of climate science. Not surprisingly, all have ignored, weakened or dismantled environmental protection regulations. In Brazil, that led to accelerated deforestation and large swaths of Amazon rainforest burning.

In Australia, Morrison’s government ignored widespread public and scientific opposition and opened the controversial Adani Carmichael mine, one of the largest coal mines in the world. The mine will impact public health and the climate and threatens the Great Barrier Reef as temperatures rise and ports are expanded along the coast.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement – a move opposed by a majority of Americans – rolled back over 100 laws meant to protect the environment and opened national parks to fossil fuel drilling and mining.

Notably, all three leaders have worked, sometimes together, against international efforts to stop climate change. At the United Nations climate talks in Spain in 2019, Costa Rica’s minister for environment and energy at the time, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, blamed Brazil, Australia and the U.S. for blocking efforts to tackle climate injustice linked to global warming.

Brazil, Australia and the U.S. are not unique in these responses to climate change. Around the world, there have been similar convergences of antidemocratic leaders who are financed by extractive corporations and who implement anti-environment laws and policies that defend corporate profits. New to the current moment is that these leaders openly use state power against their own citizens to secure corporate land grabs to build dams, lay pipelines, dig mines and log forests.

For example, Trump supported the deployment of the National Guard to disperse Native Americans and environmental activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that he had personally been invested in. His administration also proposed harsher penalties for pipeline protesters that echoed legislation promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose members include lawmakers and lobbyists for the oil industry. Several Republican-led states enacted similar anti-protest laws.

Under Bolsonaro, Brazil has changed laws in ways that embolden land grabbers to push small farmers and Indigenous people off their land in the rainforest.

What can people do about it?

Fortunately, there is a lot that people can do to protect democracy and the climate.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and reducing the destruction of forests can cut greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production.

The path forward, as I see it, involves voters pushing back on the global trend toward authoritarianism, as Slovenia did in April 2022, and pushing forward on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. People can reclaim their democratic rights and vote out anti-environment governments whose power depends on prioritizing extractive capitalism over the best interests of their citizens and our collective humanity.

Eve Darian-Smith, Professor of Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

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Books, Climate Solutions

Climate Change Books: Why 04-22-22 will mark the Beginning of a New Era in Human History

April 21, 2022 Madison Santel

photo bookshop / Ingram / Lynxotic collage

For 50 years warnings have been ignored: now it will be actions and solutions that matter

As a child I was fascinated with the Geodesic Dome and other inventions, such as the Dymaxion Car by R. Buckminster Fuller. I devoured his books but one stood out in particular. ‘Utopia or Oblivion‘, an obscure title that was difficult to read due to the pregnant prose and the seemingly overwrought message ( and title), the text shocked my young mind.

Originally published in 1963, decades before my birth, is is now nearly 60 years since it came out. What was shocking to me, at the time I first read it, was that the warnings in the book, made abundantly and overtly clear in the title and body, were not heeded, and that basically after decades passed the issue of fossil fuels being a non-sustainable resource was virtually ignored, with prejudice.

In 1963 the ozone layer was for all practical purposes still intact. Climate change, and / or global warming, caused by massive carbon emissions and the whole nasty, familiar story of today, was not even a consideration.

It was enough to know, unequivocally, that oil and other fossil fuels were a finite resource, and therefore will one day run out, that made it imperative, according to Fuller, to begin the necessary journey to building a world without them.

A book written by a genius, scientist, innovator and sage

This book ‘did the math’ and the science and concluded that humankind (still called mankind in those days) would have two fates possible in the next century (our century, f.y.i.): Utopia or Oblivion. To understand why this is absolutely right, in my opinion, I recommend reading the 448 pages of the book, 8 times, as I have.

In the many years since I first read this, now 59 year old book, the only thing that has changed is that his predictions of a world where humanity would face extinction (or be rescued by the realization that utopia is possible once we, as a species, make it possible) are now more definitely certain than ever.

Elon Musk, someone who would likely agree with much of the science in the book, is trying to get the “light of human consciousness‘ to Mars, since Earth’s survival hangs in the balance.

In the years since the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) was released, scores of scientists and world leaders have repeatedly warned of the increasing dangers, with actual occurrences and measurements producing evidence, mountains of evidence month by month. It has reached a point where, even in the USA which has the highest percentage of climate change skeptics, over 70% of the population, nevertheless, believes the threat is serious, important, and real.

Finally, nearly 60 years after R. Buckminster Fuller’s seminal work, there is a consensus in the world that this is a problem that must be solved.

Not something to debate or consider. Nothing to prove or produce evidence of in order to justify acting on, we all believe (as a majority) that the solutions must be found and the actions needed to implement those chances must be started immediately.

Some of us, for example anyone who read ‘Utopia or Oblivion’ during the last 59 years, or anyone who ‘did the math’ and understood that oil and fossil fuels are not, and never were, meant to be a permeant source of energy for humanity, are ready to act.

Therefore, this article, and many more you will have the opportunity to read in celebration of Earth Day 2022, is designed to invite you to act now, if only by reading and learning about the challenges we face.

And then, armed with knowledge and understanding, to begin today, on 04-22-2022, the first day of a new era in human history, the beginning of transition to the sustainable, clean energy era. Utopia, then must be achieved, in order to prevent Oblivion.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW‘S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTA major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half-billion years, there have been Five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind’s most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER – In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical–and accessible–plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet’s slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations.

Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions–suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.
As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability–at the level of literature, history, and politics–to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.
The extreme nature of today’s climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres.

In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements. Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost. The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence–a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer’s summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.

No Planet B: A Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis

An urgent call for climate justice from Teen Vogue, one of this generation’s leading voices, using an intersectional lens – with critical feminist, indigenous, antiracist and internationalist perspectives. As the political classes watch our world burn, a new movement of young people is rising to meet the challenge of climate catastrophe. This book is a guide, a toolkit, a warning and a cause for hope.

I hope that this book embodies Teen Vogue’s motto of making young people feel seen and heard all over the world. I hope that it forces their parents, communities, loved ones, friends, and–most importantly–those in power to see that the health of our planet depends on how quickly and drastically we change our behaviors. I hope it forces them all to respond. –From the foreword by Teen Vogue editor-in-chief, Lindsay Peoples Wagner

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”–Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

With a new afterwordIt is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible–food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (TheGuardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it–the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation–today’s. Praise for The Uninhabitable Earth“The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”–Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

No Planet B: A Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

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Climate Solutions, News

These energy innovations could transform how we mitigate climate change, and save money in the process – 5 essential reads

April 21, 2022 Madison Santel

Building solar panels over water sources is one way to both provide power and reduce evaporation in drought-troubled regions. Robin Raj, Citizen Group & Solar Aquagrid

Stacy Morford, The Conversation

To most people, a solar farm or a geothermal plant is an important source of clean energy. Scientists and engineers see that plus far more potential.

They envision offshore wind turbines capturing and storing carbon beneath the sea, and geothermal plants producing essential metals for powering electric vehicles. Electric vehicle batteries, too, can be transformed to power homes, saving their owners money and also reducing transportation emissions.

With scientists worldwide sounding the alarm about the increasing dangers and costs of climate change, let’s explore some cutting-edge ideas that could transform how today’s technologies reduce the effects of global warming, from five recent articles in The Conversation.

1. Solar canals: Power + water protection

What if solar panels did double duty, protecting water supplies while producing more power?

California is developing the United States’ first solar canals, with solar panels built atop some of the state’s water distribution canals. These canals run for thousands of miles through arid environments, where the dry air boosts evaporation in a state frequently troubled by water shortages.

“In a 2021 study, we showed that covering all 4,000 miles of California’s canals with solar panels would save more than 65 billion gallons of water annually by reducing evaporation. That’s enough to irrigate 50,000 acres of farmland or meet the residential water needs of more than 2 million people,” writes engineering professor Roger Bales of the University of California, Merced. They would also expand renewable energy without taking up farmable land.

Research shows that human activities, particularly using fossil fuels for energy and transportation, are unequivocally warming the planet and increasing extreme weather. Increasing renewable energy, currently about 20% of U.S. utility-scale electricity generation, can reduce fossil fuel demand.

Putting solar panels over shaded water can also improve their power output. The cooler water lowers the temperature of the panels by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 Celsius), boosting their efficiency, Bales writes.

2. Geothermal power could boost battery supplies

For renewable energy to slash global greenhouse gas emissions, buildings and vehicles have to be able to use it. Batteries are essential, but the industry has a supply chain problem.

Most batteries used in electric vehicles and utility-scale energy storage are lithium-ion batteries, and most lithium used in the U.S. comes from Argentina, Chile, China and Russia. China is the leader in lithium processing.

Geologist and engineers are working on an innovative method that could boost the U.S. lithium supply at home by extracting lithium from geothermal brines in California’s Salton Sea region.

Brines are the liquid leftover in a geothermal plant after heat and steam are used to produce power. That liquid contains lithium and other metals such as manganese, zinc and boron. Normally, it is pumped back underground, but the metals can also be filtered out. https://www.youtube.com/embed/oYtyEVPGEU8?wmode=transparent&start=0 How lithium is extracted during geothermal energy production. Courtesy of Controlled Thermal Resources.

“If test projects now underway prove that battery-grade lithium can be extracted from these brines cost effectively, 11 existing geothermal plants along the Salton Sea alone could have the potential to produce enough lithium metal to provide about 10 times the current U.S. demand,” write geologist Michael McKibben of the University of California, Riverside, and energy policy scholar Bryant Jones of Boise State University.

President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on March 31, 2022, to provide incentives for U.S. companies to mine and process more critical minerals for batteries.

3. Green hydrogen and other storage ideas

Scientists are working on other ways to boost batteries’ mineral supply chain, too, including recycling lithium and cobalt from old batteries. They’re also developing designs with other materials, explained Kerry Rippy, a researcher with the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Concentrated solar power, for example, stores energy from the sun by heating molten salt and using it to produce steam to drive electric generators, similar to how a coal power plant would generate electricity. It’s expensive, though, and the salts currently used aren’t stable at higher temperature, Rippy writes. The Department of Energy is funding a similar project that is experimenting with heated sand. https://www.youtube.com/embed/fkX-H24Chfw?wmode=transparent&start=0 Hydrogen’s challenges, including its fossil fuel history.

Renewable fuels, such as green hydrogen and ammonia, provide a different type of storage. Since they store energy as liquid, they can be transported and used for shipping or rocket fuel.

Hydrogen gets a lot of attention, but not all hydrogen is green. Most hydrogen used today is actually produced with natural gas – a fossil fuel. Green hydrogen, in contrast, could be produced using renewable energy to power electrolysis, which splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, but again, it’s expensive.

“The key challenge is optimizing the process to make it efficient and economical,” Rippy writes. “The potential payoff is enormous: inexhaustible, completely renewable energy.”

4. Using your EV to power your home

Batteries could also soon turn your electric vehicle into a giant, mobile battery capable of powering your home.

Only a few vehicles are currently designed for vehicle-to-home charging, or V2H, but that’s changing, writes energy economist Seth Blumsack of Penn State University. Ford, for example, says its new F-150 Lightning pickup truck will be able to power an average house for three days on a single charge.

How bidirectional charging allows EVs to power homes.

Blumsack explores the technical challenges as V2H grows and its potential to change how people manage energy use and how utilities store power.

For example, he writes, “some homeowners might hope to use their vehicle for what utility planners call ‘peak shaving’ – drawing household power from their EV during the day instead of relying on the grid, thus reducing their electricity purchases during peak demand hours.”

5. Capturing carbon from air and locking it away

Another emerging technology is more controversial.

Humans have put so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past two centuries that just stopping fossil fuel use won’t be enough to quickly stabilize the climate. Most scenarios, including in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, show the world will have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well.

The technology to capture carbon dioxide from the air exists – it’s called direct air capture – but it’s expensive.

Engineers and geophysicists like David Goldberg of Columbia University are exploring ways to cut those costs by combining direct air capture technology with renewable energy production and carbon storage, like offshore wind turbines built above undersea rock formations where captured carbon could be locked away.

The world’s largest direct air capture plant, launched in 2021 in Iceland, uses geothermal energy to power its equipment. The captured carbon dioxide is mixed with water and pumped into volcanic basalt formations underground. Chemical reactions with the basalt turn it into a hard carbonate.

Goldberg, who helped developed the mineralization process used in Iceland, sees similar potential for future U.S. offshore wind farms. Wind turbines often produce more energy than their customers need at any given time, making excess energy available.

“Built together, these technologies could reduce the energy costs of carbon capture and minimize the need for onshore pipelines, reducing impacts on the environment,” Goldberg writes.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Stacy Morford, Environment + Climate Editor, The Conversation

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Sustainable Energy

Electrifying homes to slow climate change: 4 essential reads

April 21, 2022 Creative Commons

The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that to avoid massive losses and damage from global warming, nations must act quickly to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that experts believe it’s possible to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 through steps such as using energy more efficiently, slowing deforestation and speeding up the adoption of renewable energy.

Many of those strategies require new laws, regulations or funding to move forward at the speed and scale that’s needed. But one strategy that’s increasingly feasible for many consumers is powering their homes and devices with electricity from clean sources. These four articles from our archives explain why electrifying homes is an important climate strategy and how consumers can get started.

1. Why go electric?

As of 2020, home energy use accounted for about one-sixth of total U.S. energy consumption. Nearly half (47%) of this energy came from electricity, followed by natural gas (42%), oil (8%) and renewable energy (7%). By far the largest home energy use is for heating and air conditioning, followed by lighting, refrigerators and other appliances.

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from home energy consumption is to substitute electricity generated from low- and zero-carbon sources for oil and natural gas. And the power sector is rapidly moving that way: As a 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed, power producers have reduced their carbon emissions by 50% from what energy experts predicted in 2005.

“This drop happened thanks to policy, market and technology drivers,” a team of Lawrence Berkeley lab analysts concluded. Wind and solar power have scaled up and cut their costs, so utilities are using more of them. Cheap natural gas has replaced generation from dirtier coal. And public policies have encouraged the use of energy-efficient technologies like LED light bulbs. These converging trends make electric power an increasingly climate-friendly energy choice.

The U.S. is using much more low-carbon and carbon-free electricity today than projected in 2005. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CC BY-ND

2. Heat pumps for cold and hot days

Since heating and cooling use so much energy, switching from an oil- or gas-powered furnace to a heat pump can greatly reduce a home’s carbon footprint. As University of Dayton sustainability expert Robert Brecha explains, heat pumps work by moving heat in and out of buildings, not by burning fossil fuel.

“Extremely cold fluid circulates through coils of tubing in the heat pump’s outdoor unit,” Brecha writes. “That fluid absorbs energy in the form of heat from the surrounding air, which is warmer than the fluid. The fluid vaporizes and then circulates into a compressor. Compressing any gas heats it up, so this process generates heat. Then the vapor moves through coils of tubing in the indoor unit of the heat pump, heating the building.”

In summer, the process reverses: Heat pumps take energy from indoors and move that heat outdoors, just as a refrigerator removes heat from the chamber where it stores food and expels it into the air in the room where it sits.

Another option is a geothermal heat pump, which collects warmth from the earth and uses the same process as air source heat pumps to move it into buildings. These systems cost more, since installing them involves excavation to bury tubing below ground, but they also reduce electricity use.

3. Cooking without gas – or heat

For people who like to cook, the biggest sticking point of going electric is the prospect of using an electric stove. Many home chefs see gas flames as more responsive and precise than electric burners.

But magnetic induction, which cooks food by generating a magnetic field under the pot, eliminates the need to fire up a burner altogether.

“Instead of conventional burners, the cooking spots on induction cooktops are called hobs, and consist of wire coils embedded in the cooktop’s surface,” writes Binghamton University electrical engineering professor Kenneth McLeod.

Moving an electric charge through those wires creates a magnetic field, which in turn creates an electric field in the bottom of the cookware. “Because of resistance, the pan will heat up, even though the hob does not,” McLeod explains.

Induction cooktops warm up and cool down very quickly and offer highly accurate temperature control. They also are easy to clean, since they are made of glass, and safer than electric stoves since the hobs don’t stay hot when pans are lifted off them. Many utilities are offering rebates to cover the higher cost of induction cooktops.

4. Electric cars as backup power sources

Electrifying systems like home heating and cooking made residents even more vulnerable to power outages. Soon, however, a new backup system could become available: powering your home from your electric vehicle.

With interest in electric cars and light trucks rising in the U.S., auto makers are introducing many new EV models and designs. Some of these new rides will offer bidirectional charging – the ability to charge a car battery at home, then move that power back into the house, and eventually, into the grid.

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Only a few models offer this capacity now, and it requires special equipment that can add several thousand dollars to the price of an EV. But Penn State energy expert Seth Blumsack sees value in this emerging technology.

“Enabling homeowners to use their vehicles as backup when the power goes down would reduce the social impacts of large-scale blackouts. It also would give utilities more time to restore service – especially when there is substantial damage to power poles and wires,” Blumsack explains. “Bidirectional charging is also an integral part of a broader vision for a next-generation electric grid in which millions of EVs are constantly taking power from the grid and giving it back – a key element of an electrified future.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jennifer Weeks, Senior Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

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Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, University of Michigan

How fast can we stop Earth from warming?

April 21, 2022 Eric Cho

The ocean retains heat for much longer than land does. photo / adobe stock / lynxotic

Global warming doesn’t stop on a dime. If people everywhere stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, stored heat would still continue to warm the atmosphere.

Picture how a radiator heats a home. Water is heated by a boiler, and the hot water circulates through pipes and radiators in the house. The radiators warm up and heat the air in the room. Even after the boiler is turned off, the already heated water is still circulating through the system, heating the house. The radiators are, in fact, cooling down, but their stored heat is still warming the air in the room.

This is known as committed warming. Earth similarly has ways of storing and releasing heat.

Emerging research is refining scientists’ understanding of how Earth’s committed warming will affect the climate. Where we once thought it would take 40 years or longer for global surface air temperature to peak once humans stopped heating up the planet, research now suggests temperature could peak in closer to 10 years.

But that doesn’t mean the planet returns to its preindustrial climate or that we avoid disruptive effects such as sea level rise.

I am a professor of climate science, and my research and teaching focus on the usability of climate knowledge by practitioners such as urban planners, public health professionals and policymakers. Let’s take a look at the bigger picture.

How understanding of peak warming has changed

Historically, the first climate models represented only the atmosphere and were greatly simplified. Over the years, scientists added oceans, land, ice sheets, chemistry and biology.

Today’s models can more explicitly represent the behavior of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. That allows scientists to better separate heating due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the role of heat stored in the ocean. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_WUNMzC98jI?wmode=transparent&start=0 Why global warming is ocean warming.

Thinking about our radiator analogy, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere keep the boiler on – holding energy near the surface and raising the temperature. Heat accumulates and is stored, mostly in the oceans, which take on the role of the radiators. The heat is distributed around the world through weather and oceanic currents.

The current understanding is that if all of the additional heating to the planet caused by humans was eliminated, a plausible outcome is that Earth would reach a global surface air temperature peak in closer to 10 years than 40. The previous estimate of 40 or more years has been widely used over the years, including by me.

It is important to note that this is only the peak, when the temperature starts to stabilize – not the onset of rapid cooling or a reversal of climate change.

I believe there is enough uncertainty to justify caution about exaggerating the significance of the new research’s results. The authors applied the concept of peak warming to global surface air temperature. Global surface air temperature is, metaphorically, the temperature in the “room,” and is not the best measure of climate change. The concept of instantly cutting off human-caused heating is also idealized and entirely unrealistic – doing that would involve much more than just ending fossil fuel use, including widespread changes to agriculture – and it only helps illustrate how parts of the climate might behave.

Even if the air temperature were to peak and stabilize, “committed ice melting,” “committed sea level rise” and numerous other land and biological trends would continue to evolve from the accumulated heat. Some of these could, in fact, cause a release of carbon dioxide and methane, especially from the Arctic and other high-latitude reservoirs that are currently frozen.

For these reasons and others, it is important to consider the how far into the future studies like this one look.

Oceans in the future

Oceans will continue to store heat and exchange it with the atmosphere. Even if emissions stopped, the excess heat that has been accumulating in the ocean since preindustrial times would influence the climate for another 100 years or more.

Because the ocean is dynamic, it has currents, and it will not simply diffuse its excess heat back into the atmosphere. There will be ups and downs as the temperature adjusts.

The oceans also influence the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is both absorbed and emitted by the oceans. Paleoclimate studies show large changes in carbon dioxide and temperature in the past, with the oceans playing an important role.

The chart shows how excess heat – thermal energy – has built up in ocean, land, ice and atmosphere since 1960 and moved to greater ocean depths with time. TOA CERES refers to the top of the atmosphere. Karina von Schuckman, LiJing Cheng, Matthew D. Palmer, James Hansen, Caterina Tassone, et al., CC BY-SA

Countries aren’t close to ending fossil fuel use

The possibility that a policy intervention might have measurable impacts in 10 years rather than several decades could motivate more aggressive efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It would be very satisfying to see policy interventions having present rather than notional future benefits.

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However, today, countries aren’t anywhere close to ending their fossil fuel use. Instead, all of the evidence points to humanity experiencing rapid global warming in the coming decades.

Our most robust finding is that the less carbon dioxide humans release, the better off humanity will be. Committed warming and human behavior point to a need to accelerate efforts both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to this warming planet now, rather than simply talking about how much needs to happen in the future.

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan

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On top of drastic emissions cuts, IPCC finds large-scale CO₂ removal from air will be “essential” to meeting targets

April 6, 2022 Creative Commons

Sam Wenger, University of Sydney and Deanna D’Alessandro, University of Sydney

Large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods is now “unavoidable” if the world is to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to this week’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report, released on Monday, finds that in addition to rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse emissions, CO₂ removal is “an essential element of scenarios that limit warming to 1.5℃ or likely below 2℃ by 2100”.

CDR refers to a suite of activities that lower the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere. This is done by removing CO₂ molecules and storing the carbon in plants, trees, soil, geological reservoirs, ocean reservoirs or products derived from CO₂.

As the IPCC notes, each mechanism is complex, and has advantages and pitfalls. Much work is needed to ensure CDR projects are rolled out responsibly.

How does CDR work?

CDR is distinct from “carbon capture”, which involves catching CO₂ at the source, such as a coal-fired power plant or steel mill, before it reaches the atmosphere.

There are several ways to remove CO₂ from the air. They include:

terrestrial solutions, such as planting trees and adopting regenerative soil practices, such as low or no-till agriculture and cover cropping, which limit soil disturbances that can oxidise soil carbon and release CO₂.
geochemical approaches that store CO₂ as a solid mineral carbonate in rocks. In a process known as “enhanced mineral weathering”, rocks such as limestone and olivine can be finely ground to increase their surface area and enhance a naturally occurring process whereby minerals rich in calcium and magnesium react with CO₂ to form a stable mineral carbonate.
chemical solutions such as direct air capture that use engineered filters to remove CO₂ molecules from air. The captured CO₂ can then be injected deep underground into saline aquifers and basaltic rock formations for durable sequestration.
ocean-based solutions, such as enhanced alkalinity. This involves directly adding alkaline materials to the environment, or electrochemically processing seawater. But these methods need to be further researched before being deployed.

Where is it being used right now?

To date, US-based company Charm Industrial has delivered 5,000 tonnes of CDR, which is the the largest volume thus far. This is equivalent to the emissions produced by about 1,000 cars in a year.

There are also several plans for larger-scale direct air capture facilities. In September, 2021, Climeworks opened a facility in Iceland with a 4,000 tonne per annum capacity for CO₂ removal. And in the US, the Biden Administration has allocated US$3.5 billion to build four separate direct air capture hubs, each with the capacity to remove at least one million tonnes of CO₂ per year.

However, a previous IPCC report estimated that to limit global warming to 1.5℃, between 100 billion and one trillion tonnes of CO₂ must be removed from the atmosphere this century. So while these projects represent a massive scale-up, they are still a drop in the ocean compared with what is required.

In Australia, Southern Green Gas and Corporate Carbon are developing one of the country’s first direct air capture projects. This is being done in conjunction with University of Sydney researchers, ourselves included.

In this system, fans push atmospheric air over finely tuned filters made from molecular adsorbents, which can remove CO₂ molecules from the air. The captured CO₂ can then be injected deep underground, where it can remain for thousands of years.

Opportunities

It is important to stress CDR is not a replacement for emissions reductions. However, it can supplement these efforts. The IPCC has outlined three ways this might be done.

In the short term, CDR could help reduce net CO₂ emissions. This is crucial if we are to limit warming below critical temperature thresholds.

In the medium term, it could help balance out emissions from sectors such as agriculture, aviation, shipping and industrial manufacturing, where straightforward zero-emission alternatives don’t yet exist.

In the long term, CDR could potentially remove large amounts of historical emissions, stabilising atmospheric CO₂ and eventually bringing it back down to pre-industrial levels.

The IPCC’s latest report has estimated the technological readiness levels, costs, scale-up potential, risk and impacts, co-benefits and trade-offs for 12 different forms of CDR. This provides an updated perspective on several forms of CDR that were lesser explored in previous reports.

It estimates each tonne of CO₂ retrieved through direct air capture will cost US$84–386, and that there is the feasible potential to remove between 5 billion and 40 billion tonnes annually.

Concerns and challenges

Each CDR method is complex and unique, and no solution is perfect. As deployment grows, a number of concerns must be addressed.

First, the IPCC notes scaling up CDR must not detract from efforts to dramatically reduce emissions. They write that “CDR cannot serve as a substitute for deep emissions reductions but can fulfil multiple complementary roles”.

If not done properly, CDR projects could potentially compete with agriculture for land or introduce non-native plants and trees. As the IPCC notes, care must be taken to ensure the technology does not negatively affect biodiversity, land-use or food security.

The IPCC also notes some CDR methods are energy-intensive, or could consume renewable energy needed to decarbonise other activities.

It expressed concern CDR might also exacerbate water scarcity and make Earth reflect less sunlight, such as in cases of large-scale reforestation.

Given the portfolio of required solutions, each form of CDR might work best in different locations. So being thoughtful about placement can ensure crops and trees are planted where they won’t dramatically alter the Earth’s reflectivity, or use too much water.

Direct air capture systems can be placed in remote locations that have easy access to off-grid renewable energy, and where they won’t compete with agriculture or forests.

Finally, deploying long-duration CDR solutions can be quite expensive – far more so than short-duration solutions such as planting trees and altering soil. This has hampered CDR’s commercial viability thus far.

But costs are likely to decline, as they have for many other technologies including solar, wind and lithium-ion batteries. The trajectory at which CDR costs decline will vary between the technologies.

Future efforts

Looking forward, the IPCC recommends accelerated research, development and demonstration, and targeted incentives to increase the scale of CDR projects. It also emphasises the need for improved measurement, reporting and verification methods for carbon storage.

More work is needed to ensure CDR projects are deployed responsibly. CDR deployment must involve communities, policymakers, scientists and entrepreneurs to ensure it’s done in an environmentally, ethically and socially responsible way.

Sam Wenger, PhD Student, University of Sydney and Deanna D’Alessandro, Professor & ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney

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These energy innovations could transform how we mitigate climate change, and save money in the process – 5 essential reads

April 4, 2022 Creative Commons

To most people, a solar farm or a geothermal plant is simply a power producer. Scientists and engineers see far more potential.

1. Solar canals: Power + water protection

What if solar panels did double duty, protecting water supplies while producing more power?

2. Geothermal power could boost battery supplies

For renewable energy to slash global greenhouse gas emissions, buildings and vehicles have to be able to use it. Batteries are essential, but the industry has a supply chain problem.

Geologist and engineers are working on an innovative method that could boost the U.S. lithium supply at home by extracting lithium from geothermal brines in California’s Salton Sea region.

President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on March 31, 2022, to provide incentives for U.S. companies to mine and process more critical minerals for batteries.

3. Green hydrogen and other storage ideas

Renewable fuels, such as green hydrogen and ammonia, provide a different type of storage. Since they store energy as liquid, they can be transported and used for shipping or rocket fuel.

“The key challenge is optimizing the process to make it efficient and economical,” Rippy writes. “The potential payoff is enormous: inexhaustible, completely renewable energy.”

4. Using your EV to power your home

Batteries could also soon turn your electric vehicle into a giant, mobile battery capable of powering your home.

Blumsack explores the technical challenges as V2H grows and its potential to change how people manage energy use and how utilities store power.

5. Capturing carbon from air and locking it away

Another emerging technology is more controversial.

The technology to capture carbon dioxide from the air exists – it’s called direct air capture – but it’s expensive.

“Built together, these technologies could reduce the energy costs of carbon capture and minimize the need for onshore pipelines, reducing impacts on the environment,” Goldberg writes.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Stacy Morford, Environment + Climate Editor, The Conversation

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‘Unthinkable’: Scientists Shocked as Polar Temperatures Soar 50 to 90 Degrees Above Normal

March 21, 2022 Creative Commons

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

“With everything going on in the world right now, the dual polar climate disasters of 2022 should be the top story”

Scientists expressed shock and alarm this weekend amid extreme high temperatures near both of the Earth’s poles—the latest signs of the accelerating planetary climate emergency.

“This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system.”

Temperatures in parts of Antarctica were 50°F-90°F above normal in recent days, while earlier this week the mercury soared to over 50°F higher than average—close to the freezing mark—in areas of the Arctic.

Stefano Di Battista, an Antarctic climatologist, tweeted that such record-shattering heat near the South Pole was“unthinkable” and “impossible.”

“Antarctic climatology has been rewritten,” di Battista wrote.

The joint French-Italian Concordia research station in eastern Antarctica recorded an all-time high of 10°F on Friday. In contrast, high temperatures at the station this time in March average below -50°F.

Record heat in the Arctic is driving an early melt season and crushing 2022 sea-ice extent: current rank now #4. The Antarctic is even worse.

With everything going on in the world right now, the dual polar climate disasters of 2022 should be the top story. pic.twitter.com/qsi4OAob6L
— Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) March 17, 2022

Jonathan Wille, a researcher studying polar meteorology at Université Grenoble Alpes in France, told The Washington Post that “this event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system.”

“This is when temperatures should be rapidly falling since the summer solstice in December,” Wille tweeted. “This is a Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave kind of event,” he added, referring to the record-breaking event in which parts of Canada topped 120°F for the first time in recorded history. “Never supposed to happen.”

Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, toldUSA Today that “you don’t see the North and the South [poles] both melting at the same time” because “they are opposite seasons.”

“It’s definitely an unusual occurrence,” he added.

50 degrees above normal in the North Pole this week, and 50 to 90 degrees above normal in Antarctica. Good lord. https://t.co/bSrodCJdei
— Brooke Jarvis (@brookejarvis) March 18, 2022

As Common Dreams has reported, the Arctic has been warming three times faster than the world as a whole, accelerating polar ice melt, ocean warming, and other manifestations of the climate emergency.

“Looking back over the last few decades, we can clearly see a trend in warming, particularly in the ‘cold season’ in the Arctic,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute, told the Post. “It’s not surprising that warm air is busting through into the Arctic this year. In general, we expect to see more and more of these events in the future.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by BRETT WILKINS and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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‘Addiction to Fossil Fuels Is Mutually Assured Destruction,’ Warns UN Chief

March 21, 2022 Creative Commons

“Instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy” amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, “now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

“The 1.5-degree goal is on life support. It is in intensive care.”

So said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, as he stressed that a swift and just transition to clean energy is necessary to meet the Paris agreement’s objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—and warned against using Russia’s deadly assault on Ukraine as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuel production worldwide.

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

“The science is clear. So is the math,” the U.N. leader said during a speech delivered at a Sustainability Summit hosted by The Economist. “Keeping 1.5 alive requires a 45% reduction in global emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by mid-century.” And yet, “according to present national commitments, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14% in the 2020s.”

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe,” Guterres continued. “Our planet has already warmed by as much as 1.2 degrees—and we see the devastating consequences everywhere. In 2020, climate disasters forced 30 million people to flee their homes—three times more than those displaced by war and violence.”

Just this past weekend, scientists conveyed shock and alarm in response to reports that temperatures at both of Earth’s poles reached more than 50°F above average last week. Peer-reviewed research published on Friday foundthat increasingly frequent and intense wildfires around the globe are exacerbating Arctic warming, which is worsening the conditions that make future blazes more likely.

“Two weeks ago,” said Guterres, citing part two of the U.N.’s landmark climate assessment, “the IPCC confirmed that half of humanity is already living in the danger zone. Small island nations, least developed countries, and poor and vulnerable people everywhere are one climate shock away from doomsday. In our globally connected world, no country and no corporation can insulate itself from these levels of chaos.”

“If we continue with more of the same, we can kiss 1.5 goodbye,” he added. “Even 2 degrees may be out of reach. And that would be catastrophe.”

Making matters worse, said Guterres, “the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine risks upending global food and energy markets—with major implications for the global climate agenda.”

“As major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence.”

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have moved to restrict imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow’s military offensive. Although progressives have emphasized that the ongoing invasion should lead to an intensification of efforts to move awayfrom dirty energy, profit-hungry proponents of oil, gas, and coal have seized on surging prices to push for boosting extraction and exports.

Guterres warned that “as major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence and close the window to 1.5 degrees.”

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” he said. “This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.”

“As current events make all too clear, our continued reliance on fossil fuels puts the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises,” added Guterres. “We need to fix the broken global energy mix.”

Noting that “the timeline to cut emissions by 45% is extremely tight,” the U.N. leader stressed that “instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future.”

His remarks came just hours before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) kicked off a two-week meeting to validate part three of its report, which focuses on the need to drastically slash carbon pollution to avoid the most disastrous outcomes.

Guterres argued that cooperation between the developed and emerging economies of the G20—responsible for 80% of global emissions—is essential to addressing the planetary emergency.

“Accelerating the phase-out of coal and all fossil fuels and implementing a rapid, just, and sustainable energy transition,” he said, is “the only true pathway to energy security.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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Climate Crisis Has Made Western US Megadrought Worst in 1,200 Years

February 17, 2022 Creative Commons

“Climate change is here and now,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “If a 1,200 year mega-drought isn’t enough to make people realize that, I don’t know what is.”

The megadrought which has gripped western U.S. states including California and Arizona over the past two decades has been made substantially worse by the human-caused climate crisis, new research shows, resulting in the region’s driest period in about 1,200 years.

Scientists at University of California-Los Angeles, NASA, and Columbia University found that extreme heat and dryness in the West over the past two years have pushed the drought that began in 2000 past the conditions seen during a megadrought in the late 1500s.

“We’re sort of shifting into basically unprecedented times relative to anything we’ve seen in the last several hundred years.”

The authors of the new study, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, followed up on research they had conducted in 2020, when they found the current drought was the second-worst on record in the region after the one that lasted for several years in the 16th century.

Since that study was published, the American West has seen a heatwave so extreme it sparked dozens of wildfires and killed hundreds of people and droughtconditions which affected more than 90% of the area as of last summer, pushing the region’s conditions past “that extreme mark,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The scientists examined wood cores extracted from thousands of trees at about 1,600 sites across the West, using the data from growth rings in ancient trees to determine soil moisture levels going back to the 800s.

They then compared current conditions to seven other megadroughts—which are defined as droughts that are both severe and generally last a number of decades—that happened between the 800s and 1500s.

The researchers estimated that the extreme dry conditions facing tens of millions of people across the western U.S. have been made about 42% more severe by the climate crisis being driven by fossil fuel extraction and emissions.

“The results are really concerning, because it’s showing that the drought conditions we are facing now are substantially worse because of climate change,” Park Williams, a climate scientist at UCLA and the study’s lead author, told the Los Angeles Times.

In the region Williams and his colleagues examined, the average temperature since the drought began in 2000 was 1.6° Fahrenheit warmer than the average in the previous 50 years. Without the climate crisis driving global temperatures up, the West would still have faced drought conditions, but based on climate models studied by the researchers, there would have been a reprieve from the drought in 2005 and 2006.

“Without climate change, the past 22 years would have probably still been the driest period in 300 years,” Williams said in a statement. “But it wouldn’t be holding a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s, or 1100s.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said the new research must push the U.S. Congress to take far-reaching action to mitigate the climate crisis, as legislation containing measures to shift away from fossil fuel extraction and toward renewable energy is stalled largely due to objections from Republicans and right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

“It’s time for Congress to act by making meaningful investments into climate action—before it’s too late,” she said.

Climate change is here and now.

If a 1,200 year mega-drought isn't enough to make people realize that, I don't know what is. It's time for Congress to act by making meaningful investments into climate action — before it's too late.https://t.co/jExzMKUXxr
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) February 14, 2022

The drought has had a variety of effects on the West, including declining water supplies in the largest reservoirs of the Colorado River—Lake Mead and Lake Powell— as well as reservoirs across California and the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 96% of the Western U.S. is now “abnormally dry” and 88% of the region is in a drought.

“We’re experiencing this variability now within this long-term aridification due to anthropogenic climate change, which is going to make the events more severe,” Isla Simpson, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who was not involved in the study released Monday, told the Los Angeles Times.

The researchers also created simulations of other droughts they examined between 800 and 1500, superimposing the same amount of drying driven by climate change. In 94% of the simulations, the drought persisted for at least 23 years, and in 75% of the simulations, it lasted for at least three decades—suggesting that the current drought will continue for a number of years.

Williams said it is “extremely unlikely that this drought can be ended in one wet year.”

“We’re sort of shifting into basically unprecedented times relative to anything we’ve seen in the last several hundred years,” Samantha Stevenson, a climate modeler at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was not involved in the study, told the New York Times.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license

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Business, Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

Study Exposes How World’s Biggest Corporations Embellish Climate Progress

Video February 12, 2022 Creative Commons

Without more regulation, this will continue,” said one critic. “We need governments and regulatory bodies to step up and put an end to this greenwashing trend.”

A new study out Monday evaluates the public climate pledges made by 25 of the world’s biggest corporations and concludes they “cannot be taken at face value” because the vast majority of firms analyzed are exaggerating the nature of and progress toward their goals—a greenwashing trend that critics say will continue in the absence of stronger regulation.

“Setting vague targets will get us nowhere without real action, and can be worse than doing nothing if it misleads the public.”

Providing further evidence of the fallacies of “net-zero,”the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022 finds that net-zero pledges made by several of the world’s largest companies aim to reduce aggregate greenhouse gas emissions across their full value chains by only 40%, at most, from 2019 levels—a far cry from the 100% implied when they claim to be pursuing “carbon neutrality.”

According to the assessment conducted by NewClimate Insitute in collaboration with Carbon Market Watch, just one company’s net-zero pledge was determined to have “reasonable integrity.” Three were deemed to have “moderate integrity,” 10 “low integrity,” and the remaining 11 “very low integrity.”

“We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies’ claims,” lead author Thomas Day of NewClimate Institute said in a statement.

click to watch

“As pressure on companies to act on climate change rises, their ambitious-sounding headline claims all too often lack real substance, which can mislead both consumers and the regulators that are core to guiding their strategic direction,” said Day. “Even companies that are doing relatively well exaggerate their actions.”

The analysis turned up zero pledges with “high integrity.” Maersk came out on top, with “reasonable integrity,” followed by Apple, Sony, and Vodafone with “moderate integrity.”

Meanwhile, the headline pledges of Amazon, Deutsche Telekom, Enel, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Hitachi, IKEA, Vale, Volkswagen, and Walmart were rated as having “low integrity.” Those of Accenture, BMW Group, Carrefour, CVS Health, Deutsche Post DHL, E.ON SE, JBS, Nestlé, Novartis, Saint-Gobain, and Unilever were considered to have “very low integrity.”

Although all 25 companies examined in the report establish “some form of zero-emission, net-zero, or carbon-neutral target,” the authors note, just three companies—Maersk, Vodafone, and Deutsche Telekom—make clear commitments to decarbonizing 90% of their entire value chains.

By contrast, at least five companies would effectively decrease their emissions by less than 15%, often by excluding “upstream or downstream emissions”—pollution generated by activities indirectly linked to a company.

Day told The Guardian that “it’s short-term action that’s the most important thing, in the climate crisis.”

Nevertheless, noted the British newspaper, “the report show[s] that the companies surveyed would only cut their emissions by about 23% on average by 2030, falling far short of the figure of nearly halving in the next decade that scientists say is needed to limit global heating to 1.5ºC.”

Despite the damning findings, some companies doubled down on their claims of progress. In a statement shared with BBC, Amazon said: “We set these ambitious targets because we know that climate change is a serious problem, and action is needed now more than ever. As part of our goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, Amazon is on a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.”

However, Amazon is one of several companies that have donated to right-wing Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.), who teamed up with the GOP to torpedo the Build Back Better Act—a piece of legislation that, among other things, would have accelerated the clean energy transition.

According to climate justice advocates, net-zero pledges are inadequate because they are “premised on the notion of canceling out emissions in the atmosphere rather than eliminating their causes.” Because the practice enables powerful entities to continue with business as usual in some places as long as they fund projects that purportedly slash pollution in other places, there is little to no evidence that overall emissions will be sufficiently reduced.

The new study shows how several corporations are inflating the extent of their ambition and progress by taking advantage of ambiguous terms like net-zero and carbon-neutral and by disregarding upstream or downstream emissions.

“Many company pledges are undermined by contentious plans to reduce emissions elsewhere, hidden critical information, and accounting tricks,” states a summary of the report. It continues:

The exclusion of emission sources or market segments is a common issue that reduces the meaning of targets. Eight companies exclude upstream or downstream emissions in their value chain, which usually account for over 90% of the emissions under their control. E.ON may exclude market segments that account for more than 40% of its energy sales; Carrefour appears to exclude locations that account for over 80% of Carrefour branded stores.
24 of 25 companies will likely rely on offsetting credits, of varying quality. At least two-thirds of the companies rely on removals from forests and other biological activities, which can easily be reversed by, for example, a forest fire. Nestlé and Unilever distance themselves from the practice of offsetting at the level of the parent company, but allow and encourage their individual brands to pursue offsetting to sell carbon-neutral labeled products.
Some apparently ambitious targets may lead to very little short-term action. It may be possible for CVS Health to achieve their 2030 emission reduction target with limited additional action, since the target is compared to a base year with extraordinarily high emissions. GlaxoSmithKline may delay the implementation of key emission reduction measures until 2028/2029, ahead of its 2030 target.

As The Guardian reported, “Day said using offsetting tended to obscure whether companies were making genuine progress on cutting their own emissions, or hiding behind offsets to achieve a notional net-zero.”

“It’s better practice not to offset—it’s more transparent and constructive,” said the researcher. “Companies should not be claiming they are net-zero by 2030 unless they are reducing their emissions by 90% by then.”

The failure of so-called “corporate social responsibility” initiatives to deliver on promises to improve the well-being of workers and ecosystems is a longstanding pattern, which is why many progressive critics have called them public relations gimmicks.

According to the new report: “The rapid acceleration of corporate climate pledges, combined with the fragmentation of approaches means that it is more difficult than ever to distinguish between real climate leadership and unsubstantiated greenwashing. This is compounded by a general lack of regulatory oversight at national and sectoral levels. Identifying and promoting real climate leadership is a key challenge that, where addressed, has the potential to unlock greater global climate change mitigation.”

Gilles Dufrasne from Carbon Market Watch said that “misleading advertisements by companies have real impacts on consumers and policymakers.”

“We’re fooled into believing that these companies are taking sufficient action, when the reality is far from it,” said Dufrasne. “Without more regulation, this will continue. We need governments and regulatory bodies to step up and put an end to this greenwashing trend.”

“Companies must face the reality of a changing planet,” he added. “What seemed acceptable a decade ago is no longer enough. Setting vague targets will get us nowhere without real action, and can be worse than doing nothing if it misleads the public.”

In a Monday op-ed, Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann and Climate Communication director Susan Joy Hassol drew attention to the devastation wrought by corporations that have denied facts to delay necessary political-economic transformations—pointing specifically to a 40-year-long disinformation campaign bankrolled by fossil fuel interests.

Much of the damage caused by extreme weather disasters “could have been avoided had we acted decades ago when the scientific community—and indeed fossil fuel industry’s own scientists—recognized we had a problem,” the pair wrote in The Hill. “While the best time to act boldly to prevent climate catastrophe was decades ago, the second-best time is now.”

Given that the 25 firms analyzed account for roughly 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, researchers stressed how important it is for them to quickly adopt and scale up best practices.

“If we are to meet this monumental challenge, we will need to use all the arrows in the quiver,” wrote Mann and Hassol. “We must incentivize the energy industry to move aggressively toward clean, renewable energy.”

They concluded, “There is no time left to waste, and failure is not an option.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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It Is ‘Strange,’ Says Greta Thunberg, That Biden Is Seen as a Climate Leader

Video January 18, 2022 Creative Commons

Greta Thunberg’s passions erupt at cop26’s global greenwashing Fest

“The U.S. is actually expanding fossil fuel infrastructure,” the 18-year-old Swedish climate activist said in a new interview.

In an interview published in The Washington Post Magazine on Monday, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said it is “strange” that some consider U.S. President Joe Biden a climate leader even as his administration fails to take the ambitious steps necessary to tackle the intensifying planetary crisis.

When asked whether she is “inspired” by Biden or other world leaders, Thunberg pointed out that “the U.S. is actually expanding fossil fuel infrastructure” under the current administration.

“I’ve met so many people who give me very much hope and just the possibility that we can actually change things.”

“Why is the U.S. doing that?” she asked. “It should not fall on us activists and teenagers who just want to go to school to raise this awareness and to inform people that we are actually facing an emergency.”

“People ask us, ‘What do you want?’ ‘What do you want politicians to do?'” added Thunberg, who helped spark a global, youth-led climate protest movement with a solo strike outside of the Swedish Parliament building in 2018. “And we say, first of all, we have to actually understand what is the emergency.”

“We are trying to find a solution of a crisis that we don’t understand,” she continued. “For example, in Sweden, we ignore—we don’t even count or include more than two-thirds of our actual emissions. How can we solve a crisis if we ignore more than two-thirds of it? So it’s all about the narrative.”

While Biden has touted his decision to bring the U.S. back into the Paris agreement, his pledge to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, and other initiatives as a show of leadership in the face of an existential threat to humanity, his administration has also approved oil and gas drilling permits at a faster rate than former President Donald Trump’s did.

During Biden’s presidency, according to a report released earlier this month by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has approved an average of 333 oil and gas drilling permits per month this year alone—40% more than it did over the first three years of Trump’s White House tenure.

“When it comes to climate change policy, President Biden is saying the right things. But we need more than just promises,” Alan Zibel, the lead author of the report, said in a statement. “The reality is that in the battle between the oil industry and Biden, the industry is winning. Despite Biden’s campaign commitments to stop drilling on public lands and waters, the industry still has the upper hand. Without aggressive government action, the fossil fuel industry will continue creating enormous amounts of climate-destroying pollution exploiting lands owned by the public.”

Thunberg’s interview with the Post came at the end of a year that saw planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions quickly rebound to pre-pandemic levels as the U.S. and other major nations continued to burn fossil fuels at an alarming and unsustainable rate.

As Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate Research noted Tuesday, “2021 saw the second-biggest absolute increase in fossil CO2 emissions ever recorded.”

Despite the failure of world leaders to act with sufficient urgency as the climate crisis fuels devastating extreme weather events across the globe, Thunberg said she is “more hopeful now” than she was when she kicked off her lonely school strike in 2018.

“In one sense, we’re in a much worse place than we were then because the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are higher and the global emissions are still rising at almost record speed. And we have wasted several years of blah, blah, blah,” said Thunberg. “But then, on another note, we have seen what people can do when we actually come together.”

“I’ve met so many people who give me very much hope and just the possibility that we can actually change things,” she added. “That we can treat a crisis like a crisis.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under a Creative Commons license(CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Business, Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

“They’re Lying”: Lots of Climate Misinformation Detected During Testimony of Big Oil CEOs

Video November 20, 2021 Creative Commons

“There is no longer any question: These companies knew and lied about their product’s role in the climate crisis, they continue to deceive, and they must be held accountable.”

Fossil fuel executives who testified Thursday at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing focused on decades of coordinated industry misinformation refused to pledge that their companies will stop lobbying against efforts to combat the climate emergency driven largely by their businesses.

That joint refusal came in response to a challenge from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform—who at the end of the hearing announced subpoenas for documents the fossil fuel companies have failed to provide.

Earlier in the hearing, Maloney had asked if the Big Oil CEOs would affirm that their organizations “will no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change.”

Big Oil CEOs unanimously refuse to pledge to Congress to "no longer spend any money directly or indirectly to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change".

What happened to being "committed to being part of the solution"? (Exxon CEO, 10 mins prior) #SlipperySix pic.twitter.com/nKBZNnnl1E
— Geoffrey Supran (@GeoffreySupran) October 28, 2021

Advocates for climate action pointed to the moment as yet another example of major polluters impeding planet-saving policy.

“The silence, non-answers, and repeated deflections from Big Oil’s Slippery Six exposed once and for all that the fossil fuel industry won’t back off its commitment to spreading climate disinformation and lobbying against climate action in order to protect their bottom line,” Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement.

Responding to @RepMaloney, none of today's witnesses unequivocally pledge to stop spending money, directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce global warming emissions #SlipperySix #ClimateDisinformation https://t.co/qeWMur9Xm3
— Kathy Mulvey (@kathy_mulvey) October 28, 2021

“For the first time ever, fossil fuel executives were confronted under oath with the evidence of their industry’s decadeslong efforts to deceive the American people about climate change,” Wiles continued. “They not only refused to accept responsibility for lying about the catastrophic effects of their fossil fuels—they refused to stop funding efforts to spread disinformation and oppose climate action.”

“There is no longer any question: These companies knew and lied about their product’s role in the climate crisis, they continue to deceive, and they must be held accountable,” he added. “Today’s hearing and the committee’s ongoing investigation are important steps in those efforts.”

The only real backdrop to today's hearing with Big Oil CEOS is:
These companies knew all about climate change in the 1980s and chose to lie about it systematically for decades, which is why we're in our current hideous political fix.
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) October 28, 2021

Maloney and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who chairs the panel’s Subcommittee on the Environment, had threatened to subpoena the industry leaders—collectively dubbed the #SlipperySix—if they declined to join the hearing, entitled, “Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action.”

The historic event included testimony from four industry executives—ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, Shell Oil president Gretchen Watkins—and leaders from industry trade groups: American Petroleum Institute (API) president Mike Sommers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clark.

Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, warned that “lawmakers should be wary of testimony from executives who have consistently put their industry’s bottom line over the health of the climate and the American people, no matter their rhetoric.”

Yep. We are seeing the fossil fuel savior framework all over the place. We need them, we have always needed them, and we will always need them. https://t.co/SltC52FPoy
— NaomiOreskes (@NaomiOreskes) October 28, 2021

Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, a pair of climate misinformation scholars at Harvard University, have warned of a “fossil fuel savior frame” that “downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change, normalizes fossil fuel lock-in, and individualizes responsibility.”

Both Oreskes and Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn observed the presence of such framing during the hearing. Henn said that “it’s striking how much all these Big Oil execs come across as hostage-takers: ‘You need us. You can’t live without us. You’ll never escape.”

It’s striking how much all these Big Oil execs come across as hostage takers: “You need us. You can’t live without us. You’ll never escape.” #SlipperySix pic.twitter.com/mT8bPZJu8j
— Jamie Henn (@jamieclimate) October 28, 2021

The fossil fuel witnesses’ initial remarks and responses to lawmakers’ questions were full of industry talking points. They advocated for “market-based solutions” like carbon taxes while failing to offer specifics. They also highlighted carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology and hydrogen—both of which progressive green groups have denounced as “false solutions”—as key to reaching a “lower-carbon future.”

FACT CHECK: Exxon's CEO just said the International Energy Agency says the world will continue relying on fossil fuels.

That is false.

Earlier this year, the IEA said: "There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway."
— Clean Creatives (@cleancreatives) October 28, 2021

While suggesting a long-term need for oil and gas, the executives claimed to believe in anthropogenic climate change and said fossil fuel emissions “contribute” to global heating. Some critics called them out for using that term, rather than “cause” or “drive.”

First misleading ExxonMobil statement: GHG "can contribute to climate change." No, not "can contribute." They DRIVE climate change, and they come primarily from @exxonmobil 's primary product: oil and gas.https://t.co/BO6oAofbeA
— NaomiOreskes (@NaomiOreskes) October 28, 2021

Using the the word “contribute” rather than cause, saidHuffPost environment reporter Chris D’Angelo, “downplays/dismisses the science, which shows they are the primary driver… Frankly, it’s climate denial—the very topic of this hearing.”

After inquiring about how long all four executives had been in their current roles, the panel’s ranking member, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), asked whether they had ever signed off on a climate disinformation campaign. They all said no—which experts and activists promptly disputed.

There it is. https://t.co/dgvKk1W63b
— Geoffrey Supran (@GeoffreySupran) October 28, 2021

While progressives on the panel grilled the executives, Republicans repeatedly apologized to the CEOs for Democrats’ supposed “intimidation” efforts. Blasting the GOP lawmakers’ actions as “pathetic,” Henn said that “they really do see themselves as servants to Big Oil.”

.@RepGarretGraves (R-$759,995 oil and gas)
literally explains that his state of Louisiana is completely screwed by fossil-fueled global warming but he can't and won't do anything about it because oil & gas is so profitable. "Why would we stop?"#SlipperySix pic.twitter.com/uXzf23E3a9
— Brad Johnson SUBSCRIBE TO HILLHEAT.NEWS (@climatebrad) October 28, 2021

The panel’s GOP members also tried to redirect attention to planet-heating activities of other countries, particularly China, and complained about President Joe Biden’s move to block the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, even inviting Neal Crabtree, a welder who lost his job when the project was canceled, to testify.

Republicans trotting out as a political prop a witness who supposedly lost his job due to climate policy, as if they or Big Oil ever cared about workers.
Meanwhile real labor voices are speaking the truth, thank you @steelworkers: https://t.co/Fz0pk6q3wr
— Zorka Milin (@ZorkaMilin) October 28, 2021

“The GOP’s strategy at this hearing is clear: It will not attempt to claim Big Oil *didn’t* mislead on climate,” tweeted climate reporter Emily Atkin of the HEATED newsletter. “Instead, the GOP is claiming Democrats are wasting time by focusing on climate change, and that it isn’t important to ‘everyday Americans.'”

Thanking Atkin for spotlighting the Republicans’ strategy, ClimateVoice noted that new polling shows the U.S. public does care about the issue. According to survey results released this week, a majority of Americans see climate as a problem of high importance to them and support Congress passing legislation to increase reliance on clean electricity sources.

Maloney, in her closing remarks Thursday, lamented that the hearing featured “much of the denial and deflection” seen in recent decades. She also called out the companies for not turning over requested documents, refusing to “take responsibility” for their contributions to the climate crisis, and continuing to fund groups like API. The chair vowed that her committee will continue its investigation.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0