CLIMATE CHANGE CORNER

How the rich are driving climate change

BBC
27 October 2021

(Image credit: Getty Images)

In 2018, Stefan Gössling and his team spent months scouring the social media profiles of some of the richest celebrities, from Paris Hilton to Oprah Winfrey. The tourism professor from Linnaeus University in Sweden was looking for evidence of how much they were flying. 

The answer was a lot. Bill Gates, one of the world's most high-profile environmental advocates, took 59 flights in 2017, according to Gössling's calculations, covering a distance of around 343,500km (213,000 miles) – more than eight times around the world – generating more than 1,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases (that's equivalent to the average yearly emissions of 105 Americans). 

Gössling's aim was to try to uncover the individual consumption levels of the mega rich, whose lifestyles are often shrouded in secrecy. His research coincided with a growing environmental movement, spearheaded by Greta Thunberg, which put a spotlight on personal accountability. Flying, one of the most carbon-intensive forms of consumption, became a symbol of this new accountability. 

"The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty," Thunberg wrote in the Guardian in 2019. 

The last few decades have shone a spotlight on global inequality. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the pandemic and the increasingly severe impacts of climate change – disruptive events tend to hit the poorest first and hardest.

But in debates about how to solve inequality, over-consumption is often overlooked. "Each unit you overshoot means someone has to give [something] up," says Lewis Akenji, managing director of Hot or Cool Institute, a Berlin-based think tank. As a result, the outsized carbon footprints of society's richest entrench inequality and threaten the world's ability to stave off catastrophic climate change. Read the whole story here.

Physics Nobel rewards work on complex systems, like climate

Loop Cayman
5 October 2021

Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Goran Hansson, center, flanked at left by member of the Nobel Committee for Physics Thors Hans Hansson, left, and member of the Nobel Committee for Physics John Wettlaufer, right, announces the winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Tuesday, October 5, 2021. (Pontus Lundahl/TT via AP)

Three scientists won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.

Syukuro Manabe, originally from Japan, and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany were cited for their work in "the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming."

The second half of the prize was awarded to Giorgio Parisi of Italy for "the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales."

All three work on what are known as "complex systems," of which climate is just one example.

The prize goes to two distinct types of physics that are opposite in many ways but share the goal of making sense of what seems random and chaotic in such a way that it can be predicted. Parisi's work centres around subatomic particles and is somewhat esoteric and academic, while the work by Manabe and Hasselmann is about large-scale global forces that shape our daily lives.

The judges said Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, "laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth's climate and how human actions influence it. Read the whole story here.

A low-carbon economy is cheaper than the costs of climate change, a report says.

The New York Times
22 September 2021

People evacuating a Greek island in August as a wildfire raged. The European Central Bank said climate change was “a major source of systemic risk” for banks in southern Europe. (Nicolas Economou/Reuters)

After a summer of extreme heat, wildfires and floods in Europe, the costs of climate change — human and financial — have become increasingly stark. And a new report by the European Central Bank has reaffirmed the severe consequences of delays or inaction on climate change.

Banks and companies in the eurozone risk economic loss and financial instability, the central bank said Wednesday as it published the results of its first economywide climate stress test, part of a major effort by policymakers to support the transition to a net-zero carbon world.

By the end of the century, more frequent and severe natural disasters could shrink the region’s economy by 10 percent if no new policies to mitigate climate change are introduced, the report said. By comparison, the costs of transition would be no more than 2 percent of gross domestic product.

“The short-term costs of transition pale in comparison with the costs of unfettered climate change in the medium to long term,” the report published on Wednesday said. Read the whole story here.

Climate change: Fossil fuels must stay underground, scientists say

BBC News
7 September 2021

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire is one of Britain's two remaining coal-fired power stations (Getty Images)

Almost 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of coal must remain in the ground to keep global warming below 1.5C, scientists say.

The forecast is based on close analysis of global energy supply and demand.

It is a "bleak" but realistic assessment of "what the science tells us is needed", the researchers say.

And they have "painted a scenario of the future" that leaves much less room for fossil fuels to be extracted than previously estimated.

'Bouncing back'

Scientists say that limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C should help the world avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.

Globally, the researchers calculated, production of fossil fuels needed to have peaked in 2020 and be on a steady decline of 3% every year until 2050.

"Through the Covid pandemic, we have seen a large decline in production - but that is bouncing back," UCL associate professor of energy systems Dr Steve Pye told BBC News.

The research focuses on how much energy is required and what the limit must be on carbon emissions. Read the whole story here.

Climate change is making people think twice about having children

CNBC
12 August 2021

ChristinLola | iStock | Getty Images

A growing number of people are reluctant to bring a child into a world that’s set to be ravaged by climate change in the coming decades.
This week, the United Nations issued a “code red for humanity” as the world’s leading climate scientists delivered their starkest warning yet about the deepening climate emergency. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on Monday said global temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades, exceeding a key target of the Paris Agreement — a landmark accord considered critically important to reduce the risk of a climate catastrophe.

Scientists’ increasingly bleak outlook for the future of the planet is putting more and more people off having children.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note to investors last month that the “movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline.”

To support their argument, they pointed to surveys, academic research and Google data that shows climate change is directly and indirectly accelerating the decline in fertility rates. UCLA researchers showed that the number of births in the U.S. fell in the nine months after an extreme heat event while a study of 18,000 couples in China last year showed that climate change, and particulate pollution in particular, was associated with a 20% increased likelihood of infertility. Read the whole story here.

Climate Change Is the Biggest Threat We're Facing—Period. | Opinion

Newsweek
3 August 2021

There is extensive science that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are completely unprecedented. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have not been this high in over 800,000 years. Modern humans have been around for a little bit less than half that. If you look at the last 10,000 years, at the evolution of agriculture, at the entire development of civilization, that has all taken place in a time of remarkable climate stability. It's that stability that has made it possible for civilization and the societies we know to develop.

The fact that we are now so far outside the bounds of anything that we've seen in the course of human evolution is an emergency. It's a cause for huge concern.

Carbon dioxide has always been in the atmosphere and it's an incredibly important part of our planet that we have had this warming layer. What's really critical here is to realize is that you can cherry-pick specific statistics to support an argument, but there is no scientific debate about the fact that the buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is causing dangerous climate change.

So you have to really stop and ask a deep question: What would drive some people to deny an overwhelming body of science that tells us we are headed in a really dangerous direction? Read the whole story here.

NASA says 'moon wobble' and climate change could cause record-smashing floods on both coasts

The Hill
15 July 2021

Photo credit: France24

Coastal cities around the U.S. will experience increasing high-tide flooding in the 2030s thanks to a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit coupled with rising sea levels caused by climate change, according to NASA. 

A study from NASA and the University of Hawaii published this month in the journal Nature Climate Change details how a regular wobble in the Moon’s orbit that takes 18.6 years to complete could lead to record flooding in the next decade as sea levels continue to rise. 

“In half of the Moon’s 18.6-year cycle, Earth’s regular daily tides are suppressed: High tides are lower than normal, and low tides are higher than normal,” NASA said. 

“In the other half of the cycle, tides are amplified: High tides get higher, and low tides get lower. Global sea level rise pushes high tides in only one direction – higher. So half of the 18.6-year lunar cycle counteracts the effect of sea level rise on high tides, and the other half increases the effect,” the space agency said. Read the whole story and see the video here.

The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled in just 15 years, study shows

CNN
18 June 2021

Earth is trapping double the amount of heat now as it did in 2005, researchers say, leading to further increase in global temperature, more snow and sea ice melting and higher sea levels.

The planet is trapping roughly double the amount of heat in the atmosphere than it did nearly 15 years ago, according to an alarming new analysis from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Researchers say it's a "remarkable" amount of energy that is already having far-reaching consequences.

"It's excess energy that's being taken up by the planet," said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, "so it's going to mean further increases in temperatures and more melting of snow and sea ice, which will cause sea level rise — all things that society really cares about."

The study, published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that what's known as the Earth's energy imbalance — the difference between how much of the sun's energy the planet absorbs and how much energy is radiated back into space — approximately doubled from 2005 to 2019. The result was "striking," the research team wrote.

Life on Earth couldn't exist without the sun's energy, but it matters how much of that energy is radiated back into space. It's a delicate balance that determines the planet's climate.

In addition to higher global temperatures, the most obvious effect of a positive imbalance, Loeb told CNN "we're going to be seeing shifts in atmospheric circulations including more extreme events like droughts." Read the whole story here.

How Businesses Can Help Address Climate Change

Forbes
by Dr Somdutta Singh
17 June 2021

Image: businesswest.co.uk

In 1969, Apollo 11 was propelled into space and history when it gave us images of our magnificent planet seemingly suspended in mid-air. Our awareness of the Earth’s biosphere changed forever. Since then, we have come a long way, particularly when it comes to comprehending and unraveling issues such as climate change.

Cut to 2021: There have been multiple reports released on how climate change is having radical effects on healthcare and human lives, and a global pandemic has disrupted the world. The yesteryear images from Apollo 11 suddenly start to fade, don't they?

As humankind's activities alter Earth’s climate, physical, biological and ecological systems are being severely disrupted. As a result, I believe it's important for business leaders to think about the steps they can take to help.

Why is addressing climate change important?

Climate change could cause more than 130 million people to enter poverty by 2030, a report by World Bank said. Furthermore, the warming of the atmosphere by even a few degrees could lead to severe heat waves, water scarcity, higher sea levels, lower crop yields, disappearing coral reefs and even malaria transmission. Read the whole story here.

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