In 2023, the figure reached 26.4 million worldwide as a result of floods, storms, wildfires and other disasters, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Climate change is not solely responsible, but the frequency and intensity of extreme weather is increasing as global temperatures continue to rise. As a result we can expect that more and more people will face losing their homes and their livelihoods.

It is commonplace to see people boarding up their homes and literally battening down the hatches before a major hurricane is predicted to make landfall. For those facing extreme weather, this mentality is no longer confined to one-off events, but a regular mindset as the climate crisis continues to bite. Many communities around the world know that building resilience against intense storms, floods and heat waves is now essential to daily life.

“No country is immune to disaster displacement,” Alexandra Bilak, IDMC’s director, said in a recent press statement. “But we can see a difference in how displacement affects people in countries that prepare and plan for its impacts and those that don’t. Those that look at the data and make prevention, response and long-term development plans that consider displacement fare far better.”

This kind of planning is happening in countries on the front line of the climate crisis. Some small island nations, for example – many of them low-lying – are seeing their homes permanently washed into the Pacific Ocean.

Paradise lost

According to Fiji’s government, disaster events in the Pacific island state over the past 40 years have led to annual economic damages of around US$16 million, with 40,000 people impacted each year. This is due to increase to an average of US$85 million per year in losses, as a result of cyclones and earthquakes. These figures are high for a country with a population of under 1 million people.

Many of the people most impacted by climate disasters live in informal urban settlements. Their homes are extremely vulnerable to the regular cyclones that hit the island nation, especially as they are often located near riverbanks or around the coast.

The subtle art of scaling up climate adaptation

A recent Adaptation Fund project in Fiji was designed to build resilience against regular extreme weather events and “climate proof” housing for the foreseeable future. The project, implemented by UN-Habitat, looked at ways to protect thousands of homes when storm surges overwhelm local water and sanitation infrastructure. The settlements were located across four main urban areas on the island: Lautoka, Sigatoka, Nadi and Lami.

Low-cost, high-impact

Constructing cyclone-resilient buildings was an essential component of the work.

Moving new homes away from vulnerable hot spots, such as foreshores, floodplains and riverbanks, was a first step. As many settlements are self-built, training local people in new construction methods ensures future homes can be built with extreme weather in mind. An innovative element from the project was so-called ‘stilted safe rooms’ – low-cost and simple raised structures intended to provide refuge during periods of intense flooding.

Flood control is a key component of climate-proofing infrastructure. In Fiji, priorities included building upgraded site drainage to reduce runoff; upgrading water sources and storage; and improving access ways, to ensure people can respond when cyclones put pressure on local infrastructure.

School’s out

In Haiti, a very poor and conflict-torn country beset with repeated natural disasters, climate-proofing infrastructure is still at an early stage. The country’s education sector, for example, has been repeatedly hit by extreme weather, including in 2016 when Hurricane Matthew damaged a quarter of its schools. Rebuilding after such frequent turmoil now requires new ways of thinking.

With the help of around US$10 million of funding from the Adaptation Fund, UNESCO is currently supporting the restoration of 620 schools across the country. Their work has included raising awareness of disaster risk reduction, improving knowledge of safety levels, and retrofitting existing buildings.

As climate disasters grow, early warning systems become essential

Panaroty Ferdinand Prophete, UNESCO’s national coordinator, told Climate Home that “nearly 200 technicians, students and experts received training on new construction techniques, an early warning system and the management of temporary shelters.” This training included working directly with the Ministry of Education to develop new construction standards for schools.

Over 150,000 students have so far benefited from the project, a success Prophete attributes to “very good synergy” between the different stakeholders. “This makes it easy to put in place a community emergency plan as well as the execution of the national action plan for resilient school infrastructure,” he added.

Best defence

Experts agree that we need to change the way we live in response to climate disasters. Moving settlements away from major water sources is, if possible, a simple solution. More projects supported by the Adaptation Fund – from Indonesia to Antigua and Barbuda – are focusing on blocking, redirecting or draining excess water as it comes in, to keep homes intact and habitable. These responses will remain some of our best defence against more unpredictable and extreme weather.

“A key sector for the Adaptation Fund is averting and reducing loss and damage through disaster risk reduction and early warning systems, which account for about 16% of the Fund’s current portfolio. Many additional multi-sector projects also include elements that are building resilience to disasters,” said Mikko Ollikainen, head of the Adaptation Fund.

“From climate-proofing homes and community centres to making informal settlements resilient to floods, it’s a vital aspect of the Fund’s work. Many of the projects are replicable and scalable so we hope they will also serve as models to create a larger positive impact on additional vulnerable communities beyond those served by the projects,” he added.

There is only so much adaptation can achieve if the flood waters get too high, or if cyclones increase in intensity and destructive force. But there are many cost-effective solutions to offer people a better chance of keeping their homes intact when extreme weather hits.

These investments can’t come soon enough for communities living in climate hot-spots and can serve to tackle long standing poverty issues at the same time. Fast-tracking these solutions will become ever more important if we want to reduce the millions of newly displaced people each year.

Sponsored by the Adaptation Fund. See our supporters page for what this means.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

The post Climate disasters challenge right to safe and adequate housing appeared first on Climate Home News.

Achieving this aim would mean tens of billions more dollars flowing into adaptation projects. This huge – but achievable – feat would be immensely beneficial for communities around the world suffering from regular extreme weather events.

Alongside his call for greater adaptation finance, Guterres outlined five priorities for the sector, one of which was making it easier to access funding, especially for the vulnerable.

If billions are going to be spent on helping countries adapt to climate change, we need to make sure the money is reaching the people who need it the most. This is where the concept of locally led adaptation (LLA) comes in. The term refers to the central importance of providing frontline communities with the power and resources to respond to the climate crisis.

The Adaptation Fund was among the first group of international organisations to endorse a set of principles on locally led adaptation during COP25 in 2019. These principles cover everything from devolving decision-making to addressing inequalities, from providing predictable funding to ensuring the whole process is open and transparent. The principles have since been endorsed by over 100 organisations, including government ministries, global charities and development agencies.

This new model sets the scene for how current and future climate adaptation should be implemented. The focus is on an inclusive approach which puts communities most affected by climate change at the heart of how decisions are made.

Putting words into practice

The Adaptation Fund has been applying the principles of locally led adaptation for over a decade. The fund’s direct access scheme allows national organisations based in the countries they serve to manage all elements of a project, from design to monitoring.

The fund pioneered its first enhanced direct access (EDA) projects in 2014, taking direct access a step further in empowering national institutions to identify and fund local adaptation projects. This led the fund to establish an EDA funding window in 2021, and in April 2024, it went one step further by creating dedicated finance streams to support locally led adaptation.

The fund believes this new approach makes it “the first multilateral climate fund that has fully operationalised the global LLA principles,” it said in a press statement.

“The Adaptation Fund has a rich history of innovating and evolving to respond to countries’ urgent adaptation needs. Over several years, the fund has continued to offer more opportunities to vulnerable countries through diverse funding windows beyond its regular projects,” Mikko Ollikainen, who heads up the organisation, told Climate Home.

“Creating these dedicated funding windows to support locally led adaptation will open even more opportunities for vulnerable countries to enhance capacity building by offering local governments, NGOs, community organisations, indigenous groups, young entrepreneurs and a broad range of local actors the opportunity to develop and implement sustainable adaptation actions directly,” he added.

Tailored solutions

One of the pioneering locally led adaptation projects the fund supported took place in South Africa from 2015 to 2020. On opposite ends of the country, two districts – Namakwa in the Northern Cape and Mopani in Limpopo – are subject to the same extreme weather: hotter temperatures with more intense dry and wet spells. These more uncertain, dangerous conditions put ever greater pressure on fragile local communities.

The pilot project was implemented by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). It was intended to strengthen local institutions to adapt to these new climate realities, and provided funding to 12 ‘small grant recipients’ – groups based in the region and with an intimate understanding of how the communities work.

Investments were made after vulnerability studies were conducted and tailored solutions created to meet local needs. The ambition of these groups was simple – to ensure resources went to people most vulnerable to climate change. A raft of innovative solutions were then implemented, from rainwater harvesting and solar pumps, to cooling sheds and bio-gas digesters.

‘Considerable impact’

“The reach and positive impact on people’s livelihoods and adaptive capacity through assets, learning and networks was considerable,” the project’s evaluation report concludes, adding that the focus on careful, appropriate investment “has significantly improved the lives of those directly, and indirectly connected with the projects.”

Mandy Barnett, SANBI’s chief director for adaptation policy, told Climate Home that one lesson from the project was a need to develop trust and effective relationships with people on the ground.

“We learned what we should do and what we shouldn’t do in terms of getting climate finance to the right people,” she added, noting that communicating expectations, from the funder downward, was key.

“A wider challenge is the need to translate climate science into local concerns. We want to empower people to make informed decisions, and to do this requires you to invest time and resources into capacity building,” she added.

New opportunities

The South African project helped pave the way for the many LLA schemes the fund is now supporting around the world. Fast forward to 2024 and a range of new proposals have just been approved which puts decision-making powers into the hands of local institutions.

They include a Peruvian project to support water, agriculture and food security; a Rwandan project to build climate resilience in rural areas; and in Belize, a plan to restore ecosystems and livelihoods battered by climate-related disasters. What these projects have in common is not only a plan to fight climate change, but one where the tools and resources are under local control.

“These new LLA windows take a significant step forward in providing an opportunity to directly lead and develop adaptation projects on the ground and accelerate effective, scalable actions worldwide in the process,” said Ollikainen.

The way forward

On World Environment Day this June, the UN Secretary-General took the opportunity to speak up about adaptation finance again. He highlighted how the last 12 months have been the hottest on record. “For every dollar needed to adapt to extreme weather, only about 5 cents is available,” he said.

The most recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that, in 2022, $115.9 billion was raised for climate finance, the first time this target has been achieved. Adaptation finance made up $32.4 billion of the total, a way off the 50% goal endorsed by the UN head, but still three times higher than what it was in 2016.

Where this money is spent will determine how vulnerable regions can survive the impacts of climate change in the coming years. But as more locally led adaptation projects are rolled out, affected communities will finally have a direct say in how that happens.

Sponsored by the Adaptation Fund. See our supporters page for what this means.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

The post Finance flowing for locally led climate adaptation appeared first on Climate Home News.

In partnership with Future Climate for Africa, we are supporting original reporting that explores why climate science and information matters to people in African countries. This covers competitive rates and reasonable travel expenses, to be negotiated in advance.

The ideal story for us will capture the attention of our international audience with a combination of reportage from affected communities, scientific evidence, innovative solutions and political tension or controversy. For more on our editorial values and process, watch this 14-minute video presentation.

If you are a journalist with at least three years’ experience, based in and holding a passport from an African country, please send us your pitches.

Your pitch should explain the top line of the story and essential context in no more than 150 words. If we like the idea, we will ask for more detail. Briefly explain what sources you would interview and any travel required. Our focus is on written articles but we are also open to multimedia projects.

When pitching for the first time, tell us a bit about your journalism experience and background. Include links to one or two recent stories you are proud of.

You must have fluent spoken and written English. It helps if you have worked with international media before and have some awareness of climate change themes.

Email Mat Hope with your story ideas and any questions: mat@desmog.uk

This opportunity is open from July 2019 to March 2020.

The post Climate Home News launches African reporting programme appeared first on Climate Home News.

The tech billionaire, owner of aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and CEO of electric car and battery company Tesla tweeted that he had a solution for getting the trapped boys out: a miniature submarine.

Ultimately the sub, which had been developed by engineers from two of his companies, was unnecessary and all 13 made it out of the cave unharmed.

But for Musk it was a low-cost coup. His tweet has been liked more than 200,000 times and captured newspaper headlines in major and minor outlets across the world.

It was only when Musk inexplicably and without evidence called rescuer Vern Unsworth a paedophile on Twitter that his involvement turned sour.

Musk had been responding to Unsworth’s take that Musk’s submarine offer was a “PR stunt” that “had absolutely no chance of working”.

I suspect that the Thai govt has this under control, but I’m happy to help if there is a way to do so

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2018

It was an unseemly, ultimately disastrous public meltdown from Musk, whose investors called on him to retract his statement. (He eventually did).

But the out-of-the-blue insertion of a Musk company into a moment of intense media and public anxiety is a familiar play Musk has turned to his advantage again and again.

It’s a strategy he has developed by taking on the biggest crisis of them all: climate change. Not only are his companies – Tesla, Solarcity, SpaceX (which is trying to build the hyperloop) – promoted as answers to the problem of carbon emissions. He has also made a habit of following severe weather events with offers of free, cheap or rapidly deployed tech.

I would be happy to talk. Hopefully, Tesla can be helpful.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017

Following the devastation of October 2017’s Hurricane Maria, Musk responded by sending Tesla power battery packs to help resolve national power outages across Puerto Rico.

Tesla Powerwall batteries are rechargeable lithium-ion battery energy storage devices that can store solar energy – helpful where the grid has been destroyed. Children’s Hospital del Nino in San Juan was just one of the “11,000 projects underway” in the country (according to Musk) helped by Tesla in restoring power.

He helped restore power in Alabama, USA in 2010 after Hurricane Katrina by donating a 25-kilowatt solar power system to the relief efforts, and similarly in Fukushima, Japan a year later following the tsunami.

Perhaps his boldest and most audacious crisis intervention came after power was knocked out by a storm across the entire state of South Australia in 2016. As Australia’s right-wing commentariat blamed the government’s pro-renewable stance for the blackouts, Musk threw himself into the political fight, tweeting that Tesla would build the world’s biggest battery in 100 days “or it is free”.

Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2017

South Australia’s government took the bet and Musk came through. Tesla’s 100MW battery system brought power to more than 30,000 homes and has kept the South Australian power grid online when coal stations have crashed.

These high tech airdrops demonstrate the success of renewable power technology in crisis relief efforts. They also place Musk companies on the ground in moments where his competitors have been disrupted.

Musk’s companies create things that offer genuine hope for solving both immediate local problems and big global ones. He has a record of making a difference to intractable problems with engineering, technology and bold ideas.

He also has displayed a knack for turning those offers of help into PR bonanzas. Where that goes right, it goes really, really right. Among his fans, Musk’s reputation is that of a ubiquitous global saviour. His offers of help (see above) are often prompted by admirers on social media calling on him to turn his hand to the crisis of the day.

But Unsworth’s comments, which named up the more self-serving aspects of Musk’s Thai offer, evidently stung the billionaire. His mixture of business strategy, viral marketing and idealism is a high wire act. When it goes wrong, it can look cynical and the social media tools Musk uses to such advantage can quickly turn against him.

If you like what we do, support us

Become a CHN patron for as little as $5 per month to help us keep bringing you the most in-depth coverage of climate politics and underreported stories from around the world.

We have set up a Patreon account. It’s a simple, safe and easy way for you to become part of a community that will secure and guide our future.

Thank you!

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The post Elon Musk’s disaster capitalism appeared first on Climate Home News.

Working from our office in Covent Garden, you will bolster CHN’s coverage of the global politics and impacts of climate change. This is a full-time role, reporting to the editor-in-chief.

Climate Home News is an award-winning specialist news site with a mission to bring important climate stories to as large an audience as possible. We are fiercely independent and seek to hold powerful actors to account, while also tracking the politics and actions that will decide the future of our climate. Our coverage of UN climate negotiations is unrivalled.

As a small news website, we prize original reporting above all, constantly looking to break news and cover stories others miss. We are seeking a versatile journalist with the ability to write news, features and analysis and source scoops.

As well as keeping our small newsroom ticking with regular, punchy news articles, you will be expected to help break more detailed stories of political intrigue – like our recent exposé of the story behind the removal of a leading Fijian diplomat – or corporate activity – like the documents we sourced on BP’s plan to drill for oil in Australia.

You should be able to demonstrate a flair for enterprise reporting and building investigations into stories. Data skills and experience using FOI are also advantageous.

Other desirable attributes:

• Knowledge of climate change, international climate politics and diplomacy
• Strong contacts in government, industry or finance in the climate space
• Experience reporting at UN climate conferences
• Languages other than English
• Ability to think creatively about story delivery, visualisation and use of social media to reach our audience

We specialise in reporting climate diplomacy, particularly the UN process. But we do much more than that. Our outlook is internationalist and the successful reporter will demonstrate an ability to source stories from around the world, for a global audience. The job will involve travel to report from climate summits and the frontlines of climate change.

Salary: DOE

All applications are to be completed and submitted by 5pm GMT, Monday, August 6, 2018.

All candidates interested in applying should send a resume, clips and cover letter as one document to CHN’s editor Karl Mathiesen (km@climatehomenews.org). You cover letter should be no longer than two pages. All candidates must have the right to work and live in the UK. You should be located, or prepared to relocate to London, although we are prepared to consider special cases.

Climate Home News is owned and operated by Climate Change News Ltd. We are an equal employment opportunity employer, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, disability, national origin or citizenship.

The post Climate Home News is seeking a full-time reporter appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate Home News is seeking two outstanding journalists to report deeply on the development impacts, challenges and opportunities of climate change in Africa.

We want to explore how climate knowledge, from adequate modelling to early warning systems, can be used to speed the development of African countries. Where does the science fall short? And why?

Fellows will be provided training and support in climate change reporting from CHN’s editorial team. They will also receive training in the scientific and technical challenges the continent faces from our project partners Future Climate for Africa.

Climate Home News is seeking mid-career journalists who want to expand their knowledge of climate change reporting. We encourage staff writers for African or overseas publications to apply and will support co-publishing arrangements with your employer.

Successful candidates will have at least five years of reporting experience. Background in climate change or environment reporting is not a prerequisite. A strong track record in original coverage of African politics and development will be seen as a positive.

Fluent spoken and written English is essential.

Other desirable selection criteria include:

• History of reporting from the field across Africa
• Ability to file clean copy on time
• Ability to tackle complex technical and political stories
• Excellent teamwork skills
• Ability to take editorial direction and write to a brief

Eligible candidates will be based in, and hold a passport for, one of the following countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Each fellow is expected to produce four major stories between now and May 2019, receiving a fee of £3,000 for their work. There will be some budget for travel.

To apply, please send a CV describing your work history, a one-page cover letter, examples of four published stories and references to CHN editor Karl Mathiesen: km@climatehomenews.org.

Deadline for applications 29 June, 2018.

Please include an idea for a compelling and original story where scientific knowledge regarding climate change could be used to solve an African development problem. Your pitch should identify the place, the problem, the solution and sources you would use to report the story.

Climate Home News is an independent news website devoted to reporting the story of climate change from every corner of the world.

Future Climate for Africa is working to reduce the impacts of climate change in Africa by significantly improving scientific understanding of climate variability and change across Africa and improving the planning and decisions that will impact the continent’s development. Funding for this fellowship has been provided by Future Climate for Africa.

The post Climate Home News is offering two African reporting fellowships appeared first on Climate Home News.

Also nominated were comparably massive sites like Pink News, BBC East of England, the Belfast Telegraph and the Trinity Mirror. But a heavyweight panel of judges rewarded CHN’s keen global reportage and mission to spread it around the world.

“Quality journalism is needed now more than ever online and the winners tonight are some of the best internationally,” said editor of the year Steven McCaffery from The Detail, which was also nominated in our category.

There are a lot of people to thank for Climate Home News’ success. Our deputy editor Megan (who is definitely one of them) has done that here. I second every one of the people she mentions.

But I wanted to single out you, our readers, for a special mention. Climate change is an issue that affects and interests everyone. But there is a special, diverse community out there who care enough to follow it closely.

We are here to serve you and we are looking for better ways to do that. It’s tacky (and irresistible) to use an award as a platform to call for financial help. But we hope our new Patreon account will be much more than that. The link is here.

Members who sign up – for a small fee – will gain access to a forum we want to use to help us find new ways to respond to the needs of this community and help those who care about climate change to connect with each other.

It’s fantastic to have the work of the past years recognised. We think there is a lot more we can do and we’d like your guidance.

The post Climate Home News wins online media award appeared first on Climate Home News.

Time Magazine has said it. The BBC has said it. The Guardian, too.

All agree that US President Donald Trump has pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement – the 2015 deal under the United Nations climate convention in which every nation vowed to constrain its greenhouse gas emissions and thus hold climate change within bounds that many regard as ‘safe’.

So it must be true, right?

Well; I’ve thought for a while (and written before) that it ain’t necessarily so. The US clearly hasn’t withdrawn, despite the newsprint; and my personal conclusion is that it probably won’t.

Remember that there are basically two ways for the US to withdraw. One is to abide by the terms of the Agreement – which means it can’t submit formal notice to withdraw until November 2019, which then takes a further year to take effect. The withdrawal date turns out to be the day after the next US Presidential election. When Mr Trump spoke with so much fanfare about pulling out back in June, in the White House Rose Garden, he implied that he was taking this formal course; and this was confirmed in a diplomatic cable leaked to Reuters last week.

The second course is just to walk away – what I described earlier as the ‘Cartman solution’. But there’s no sign of that happening.

So, by my reckoning the US is in for the duration. Last week I decided to put my money where my gob is, and offer a bet on it. Follow my Twitter stream and there’s a bottle of brandy up for grabs for anyone who thinks the US is seriously on the way out.

I will bet bottle of brandy that US won’t leave #ParisAgreement. Needs to be time-limited so… still in on Christmas Day 2020. Any takers? https://t.co/YmGqFnfvqC

— Richard Black (@_richardblack) August 9, 2017

Richard Black is director of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. He is a former BBC science and environment correspondent. This blog was originally posted on the ECIU website. 

The post A bottle of brandy that Trump won’t leave the Paris deal. Any takers? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The anxiety before this last swim, along the edge of the Arctic sea ice, was the worst I’ve ever experienced.

The training leading up to it was not what I’d wanted. Even though my preparation went well, and I was fit and strong – probably in the best pre-swim condition ever – there was just not enough cold water training.

When I arrived in Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen for the final acclimatisation, the water was 10C (50F) – and this was just 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole! Yet another example of the runaway climate change we are witnessing in the Arctic.

When I did my North Pole swim in 2007, there were a number of leaders denying what was happening in the Arctic. Today there is just one.

This swim returned us to the high Arctic ten years later to show the world the speed at which things are changing, and remind our leaders that what happens here affects all of us.

There were some added pressures on this swim. For one, we had a Sky News team on the expedition filming a documentary – the first time we’d had a TV crew on board.

Report: Arctic sea ice melt “like a train wreck” says US scientist

This would be my fifteenth long distance swim in very cold water. People assume that it gets easier over time. It doesn’t. It gets harder, because you know the place you’re going to; you know the pain you’re in for. Once you experience such extreme cold, you never really thaw out. Plus I’m not getting any younger.

Before I set out on this expedition I wrote the names of every person who has helped me prepare for this swim. There were 67 names in all, starting with Professor Tim Noakes who pioneered the science behind my cold-water swimming. Now I had one of the most competent safety officers a swimmer could wish for in Karin Strand, I had photographer Kelvin Trautman close by, and safety paddler Kyle Friedenstein alongside.

The setting was perfect; a brilliant sunny day and a clean edge of Arctic sea ice at 80° North, along which to mark our kilometre. When the team measured the water temperature, it was minus 0.5C (31F). They told me it was 2C (37F). In retrospect, I’m glad they kept the truth from.

I've received lots of questions about how I’m able to swim in the Arctic. Read this thread > pic.twitter.com/rsop2Iqyov

— Lewis Pugh (@LewisPugh) August 1, 2017

The moment I dived in I knew I had a problem. The sun never sets this far north in July, and at this latitude it angled straight into my eyes. I couldn’t see Kyle’s signals, and I couldn’t hear him shouting directions. I had to rely on counting strokes to measure my distance.

My cadence was off from the start. Perhaps it was the shock of sub-zero water, but whereas I usually count 100 strokes for 100 metres, it took me 130 strokes to reach that same distance. At 650 metres I was struggling to coordinate my kick, and my hands were frozen so they couldn’t grip the water. I stopped and shouted to Kyle, ‘I think I’m finished. Let’s get out!’

But at that moment, the support boat, which had been filling with water, had to peel away in a wide circle to clear the sluices. It was easier to swim on than to tread water in the freezing sea. I decided to try and squeeze out another 50 metres.

“I don’t remember ever having been so cold”
(Photo: Kelvin Trautman)

Earlier in the day, I’d given a talk on board the expedition vessel about my North Pole swim. I spoke about how frightened I was diving into the unknown, how breaking that swim into manageable chunks had helped me get though it, and how quitting can very easily become a habit.

Having relived that day, 10 years ago to the day, how could I give up now? I decided to press on to 750m. Once I got there, I reached for 800m. At 900m my body was shutting down, and I hardly remember the rest of the swim. But somehow I crawled to the end.

At 22 minutes in the water, it was my longest sub-zero swim, and it took its toll. I don’t remember ever having been so cold. Getting into the support boat was an ordeal. Kelvin Trautman had to stop taking photos to help me. But my hands were so frozen that I could not hold onto him. In the drama that ensued the only way I could hold onto him was by biting his arm, and holding on tight. Luckily he was wearing a dry suit. My body is now bruised all over. When I get back on shore I’ll be examined by my medical team to find out exactly why.

The Sky News team will air their documentary later this year; we’ll advertise the date, but issue a warning. I’ve watched the footage and it does not make for comfortable viewing. It is as raw as it gets.

Anyone who tells you they enjoy swimming in freezing water is either mad, or has never done it. I certainly don’t enjoy it. I am doing it to carry a message about the health of our oceans. We are in a very, very dangerous situation, and the world needs to know about it, and take immediate action.

Will I still be doing this in 10 years time? After this swim, I’m not so sure; but be assured that my commitment to being on the frontline of this battle to protect our oceans will go beyond the next decade.

Lewis Pugh is an endurance swimmer and the UN Patron of the Oceans. This article was orignally published on his blog.

The post One kilometre along the Arctic sea ice – my hardest ever swim appeared first on Climate Home News.

He will speak in the Rose Garden at the White House. Just seven months ago, Barack Obama stood in the same place and hailed an “historic” day as the Paris agreement entered into legal force.

Trump is heavily tipped to take the US out of the international climate accord – including by sources Climate Home’s Zack Colman spoke to in Washington on Wednesday.

Report: Trump told Pruitt to make plan to leave Paris deal, stay in UNFCCC

One source told Colman the president had told his environment chief Scott Pruitt begin preparing a plan that involved the US staying within the overarching UN climate treaty, but pulling out of the Paris deal. That’s significant for future reentry.

But the machinations of the White House and its rival factions have continued to the last, with secretary of state Rex Tillerson meeting Trump on Wednesday afternoon. Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil chief executive, has argued that the US would be better to push its reinvigorated pro-fossil fuel agenda from within the agreement.

Follow: @ClimateHome, @climatemegan , @zcolman , @KarlMathiesen

Don’t expect today to be the end of speculation. The permutations of how Trump could manage the withdrawal are many. As are the differing stresses on the agreement if the US does remain a party.

Whatever Trump announces will answer one question, but likely throw up many more – this president is not in the certainty business.

Join our live blog, with Zack Colman stateside and myself in London, from around 2pm ET (7pm BST) for quick analysis and decoding of what is likely to be a cryptic speech.

The post Trump schedules Paris announcement for 3pm Thursday appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the local creole, Bislama, the phrase for the boxes of plastic water bottles we are buying is ‘Carton big fella plastic!’. We buy boxes and boxes of the bigger bottles with the blue caps because our host tells us that the tap water is ‘not good to drink’: the surrounding coral reefs leave high levels of calcium carbonate that can cause kidney stones and bacteria in the water could make us sick if we were to drink it –  like the locals do, I presume, but we need water, so there is no option but to buy plastic.

This seemingly innocuous exchange, between researchers and the kindest of hosts about plastic water bottles epitomises the many challenges that threaten Tanna and its environment. We are here to work with four remote villages on Tanna to address the existing impacts of climate change and to develop adaptation projects. We are here to help, but our presence is also symptomatic of the march of the modern to Tanna.

I am part of a research team consisting of a forest ecologist and climate change science expert, two oceanographers, a sustainable tourism doctoral candidate, a coastal geographer and myself, an environmental communication scholar.

Tanna is becoming enveloped in ways of life that will shake its capacity to retain traditional culture, their way of life

Mine is an internal conflict. These people are not the Anthropos of ‘anthropogenic climate change’. I am. And I arrive with my plastic bottles, my muesli bars and my toiletry bag fall of chemicals and more plastic crap. On radio, television, on my phone, I bring the modern world – or, ‘modernity’ to the Tannese. I am not the only one, of course. A development corporation is building sealed roads on Tanna and there are rumours of increased tourist traffic and more direct flights from China.

When I go snorkelling early the next morning, I see one of the water bottle caps in the water and I reach to pick it up. But it’s a brilliant blue fish. My ‘tsk!’ turns to laughter and excitement. There are ‘bottle caps’ everywhere! It’s a strange relief.

‘Climate change’ fails to encapsulate what is happening on Tanna. True, the villages I visit communicate changes to local weather patterns and the consequences for their crop yield, but their challenges include and are much more than those identified by weather patterns and science.

In the haze of volcanic ash from Mt Yasur, villagers repeat the negative effects of recent population growth. Part of the explanation is the breakdown of the traditional custom of arranged marriages that means young women are getting pregnant earlier. The formula is simple: more babies, and thus more people, which has consequences for local food and resources.

On Tanna, population increase and associated breakdowns of traditional culture converge with climate change, which leads to compounding threats to resource security and ecologies. The local people look outwards for a response to climate change threats and to projects to remedy new challenges. And while our responses are mostly ‘environmental’, I am struck by the environmental impacts of social and cultural change.

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Evidence abounds that Tanna is becoming enveloped in ways of life that will shake its capacity to retain traditional culture, their way of life. For example, the film, ‘Tanna’ was nominated for Best Foreign Film category at the 2016 Academy Awards, attracting more international attention. 

Women tell us that the film has received a mixed response, with some angry about exposing Tanna to the world. Others are happy that it empowers Tannese women, to make their own marriage and other choices, perhaps one of the more welcome impacts of modernity. Science, technology, markets, tourism, wealth – and global communication and media – descend on Tanna bringing both risk and reward, opportunity and challenge.

On Tanna, land has been customarily owned forever, with a sense of ecological stewardship that is, or should be, the envy of those pursuing climate change action. Before I left for Tanna, I had read Australian indigenous elder and philosopher, Aunty Mary Graham – a Kombumerri person and also affiliated with the Waka Waka group through her mother – who described two basic premises of an aboriginal world view. These are:

• The Land is Law
• You are not alone in the world. 

As a majority indigenous population and with a still strong commitment to custom, Tannese people seemingly share this perspective.

So when I arrive with my learned insights and a genuine desire to help adapt to climate change, there is voice within me – a critical voice – that will not be silenced.  We go there to listen and our responses seek to remedy declining food and water quality, and to provide early warnings of impending natural disasters. It is life-saving, critical work with real impacts for these beautiful people and their magnificent island.

But what have we heard?  What could the Tannese tell us about our relation with the land and each other? And we, with all our hindsight and foresight about the impacts of modernity, what could we tell the Tannese about the direction they are headed?

I know that my research colleagues are mindful of the challenges of this intercultural exchange. What to do? My best is to offer this ongoing and often uncomfortable examination of myself, and how this may impact my engagement with local people, my teaching and research. And honestly, I make mistakes as I navigate the complex terrain that is meaningful, thoughtful and respectful climate change communication.   

But they are mistakes worth making.

Dr Kerrie Foxwell-Norton is a senior lecturer in climate change communication at Griffith University, Australia

The post To save communities from rising seas, we must open our ears appeared first on Climate Home News.

When the leader of the free world surrounds himself with oil men and appears ambivalent at best about greening the US economy, what gives you hope?

We asked email subscribers. Your answers suggest a response rooted in local action, while staying connected to like-minded people.

Julia Christian takes heart from a state that is going beyond federal targets. “California’s climate policy (biggest economy in the US, biggest population, and responsible for much of its energy consumption) make me feel less depressed! Energy policy is mostly done at the state level anyway, and California has been & will continue to be at the forefront of renewable energy transition in the US,” she writes.

Jürg Staudenmann isn’t a fan of Trump’s politics, but sees a silver lining in his protectionist stance: “If indeed (who knows) he will close borders and thus weakens US-global trade relations, less shipping and flying around of resources, half-goods and products may result in less carbon emissions from the globalized transport sector.

“Weren’t we as climate activists always against unnecessary ‘globalization’, i.e. that the various steps in manufacturing for one product are more and more scattered around the globe due to low-wage and other ‘economic reasons’? I put this in quotation marks, since a true economic approach would count in external costs as well, but they are usually not internalised in global trade-deals, as we all know.”

#Trump is the only one that COULD convince Republican sceptics about #climatechange, IF he chose to do so (e.g. for good business reasons?) https://t.co/relMAanzTG

— Jürg Staudenman #Peace #PlanetaryJustice (@staudenmann) January 20, 2017

Bernard Perkins draws inspiration from the Transition Network and Post Carbon Institute, which both champion community-led clean energy and resilience initiatives.

“Trump and Brexit are good reminders that we shouldn’t only rely on governments too much to solve climate change because governments change. As the economics of low carbon solutions improve and the externalities become more obvious, these projects will make sense to do in their own right.”

Kerry Willis points to a handbook by the Australian Psychological Society for taking care of your sanity amid warnings of a warming world. Advice includes breaking the silence around climate change and reaching out to people based on shared values.

Carolin Schellhorn echoes that with a short and sweet comment: “Continue reading your messages. Staying connected with others who try to make progress with addressing the climate challenge.”

What do you think? Is localism the way forward, or should climate advocates defend globalisation? How do you stay positive and take action? Add your comments below the line, on Facebook or twitter.

This morning on Millennium Bridge in London. #BridgesNotWalls pic.twitter.com/SruWoqkdpb

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 20, 2017

The post Your views: climate hope in the Trump era appeared first on Climate Home News.

Here, Climate Home celebrates just a few of the many people we met, spoke to, read and wrote about in 2016 who impressed us by refusing to accept defeat.

21 US kids

In November, a group of 21 US youths won the right to have a lawsuit heard in the federal court that will test whether their government can be compelled to act on climate change.

In response to a government motion to dismiss the case, district judge Ann Aiken said: “I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”

The ruling could set a precedent for a major weapon in fighting new president Donald Trump’s administration if he seeks to strip away regulations that are intended to clean up the US energy sector.

Climate Home’s Megan Darby spoke to 19-year-old Kelsey Juliana in March.

“Who do you serve, government: the interests of the youth, or the interests of the industry?” she said.

Tzeporah Berman

The Canadian environmentalist is a long time adversary of the tar sands companies that have held successive Canadian governments in thrall. In July she spoke to Climate Home’s Ed King about negotiations with those companies that lead to a cap on what she calls the “single largest and most destructive project on earth”.

Ed Hawkins

Hawkins’ graphical representation of a climate spinning out of control grabbed the public imagination. His original tweet has been shared more than 15,000 times and spawned dozens of news articles reaching parts of the internet where the global rise in temperature is often ignored or misrepresented.

Spiralling global temperatures from 1850-2016 (full animation) https://t.co/YETC5HkmTr pic.twitter.com/Ypci717AHq

— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) May 9, 2016

“As scientists I think we need to communicate, and try different things,” Hawkins told the Washington Post. Climate Home’s Megan Darby reported on the many copycat approaches it spawned as other scientists rebooted their own findings as spirals.

(Kudos to Ed King and Megan for “It’s the GIF that keeps on giving” and “the spiral that went viral”.)

Daphin Juma

A newly graduated solar engineer from Kenya who runs her own solar installation business. Juma spoke to Climate Home’s Africa reporter Lou Del Bello about her career ambitions and her wish to ensure that everyone in her community had “at least some lighting at home”.

Juma was trained by the Women in Sustainable Energy and Entrepreneurship (WISEE). She is one of thousands of women entering the workforce around the world as solar technicians.

Mark Carney

The Bank of England governor has done more than any other in the financial world to raise the risks and opportunities of climate change, says Ed King.

In what may become one of the most influential climate reports of all time, Carney helped to produce a document that called on corporations to get real about the risk climate change poses to their business models. The report was backed by some of the world’s biggest investors and financial institutions, giving it serious clout.

Tokata Iron Eyes

In the late days of 2016, a coalition of Indian tribes and environmentalists triumphantly celebrated the announcement that the North Dakota Access Pipeline had failed to get permission to cross the Missouri River. 13-year-old Iron Eyes, a member of the Sioux tribe that owns the downriver Standing Rock reservation, was part of a local youth movement involved in organising the protests long before they became global news.

Her chat with activist Naomi Klein, posted on the latter’s Facebook page on the day the pipeline was redirected, is anti-venom for the poisonous US debate that lies ahead. “I feel like I got my future back,” she said, causing Klein to 100% lose it.

Women at the top of the UNFCCC

In 2016, the top six UN climate diplomats were all women. UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa, French environment minister Ségolène Royal, her Moroccan counterpart Hakima El Haite and Paris agreement architect Laurence Tubiana lead negotiations in the lead up to the Marrakech talks. Saudi Arabian diplomat Sarah Baashan and New Zealand’s former climate ambassador Jo Tyndall joined them as co-chairs of the UN talks.

Further down the UNFCCC foodchain, there remains work to be done to bolster gender equality on national delegations. But the sight of so many women – representing the gender that will suffer more from climate change – at the top is heartening.

Richard Betts

In an interview with Ed King, Betts called on climate scientists to face up to the complexity of their subject when engaging in public debate. In the face of an ever-growing demand for news and views to come in discrete and definitive packages, Betts has fought the urge to dumb things down.

The post Our climate heroes of 2016 appeared first on Climate Home News.

It doesn’t mean they don’t still want to build one of the world’s biggest coal mines, but the Aussie’s didn’t turn up to the party completely empty handed. After a tricky political year back home in which the committee that ratifies treaties was shut down for months by the federal election, Australia’s parliament formally endorsed the Paris agreement on Thursday.

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday: “We look forward to actively and fully implementing our obligations and commitments under the agreement… The agreement was a watershed, a turning point. And the adoption of a comprehensive strategy has galvanised the international community and spurred on global action… As you know, we are playing our part with ambitious targets.”

Dogs barking & then phone buzzing woke me from deep but troubled sleep. Outstanding. Respect. Churlish not to recognise significance https://t.co/VqD5QSJO2b

— John Connor (@jconnoroz) November 10, 2016

If only that last bit were true, said Dr Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong.

“Australia’s commitment to cut emissions by 26-28% by 2030 will not be enough to meet the 2 degree target. I encourage our leaders to plan and implement deeper cuts, the sooner the better — the climate system waits for no politician.”

2. Forests have their day in the sun

Indonesia’s government extended its forest protections by declaring a moratorium on clearing super-high-carbon intact peatland. That adds to the number of concessions that are covered by the existing moratorium.

At the same time, Colombia announced a plan to link forest protections to its peace process. The announcement included a plan to recognise indigenous claims to huge areas of rainforest. Recognition of native land tenure protects forest from illegal loggers and gives huge boosts to carbon storage.

The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso said it had a plan to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 90% by 2030 all while increasing agricultural production.

3. Paris pledges on course for 2.8C of warming

Climate Action Tracker (CAT) released their updated prediction of where the sum total of countries’ climate pledges will take us. The answer? The same as last year: to a 2.8C warmer than the pre-industrial normal. Actually, it’s not quite the same. Last year they predicted 2.7C, but some updated numbers from historical emissions meant the destination was tweaked slightly.

Current policies will warm the world 3.6C – the same as last year. The reason there has been no change is because since Paris, no-one has really done much. As we reported last week, apart from a few backsliders 2016 has been a year of inaction.

Major challenge for Paris Agreement to meet 1.5degC warming limit. CAT update, Marrakech #cop22 #unfccc https://t.co/A0XaCW5UbR pic.twitter.com/wE6tczJ737

— ClimateActionTracker (@climateactiontr) November 10, 2016

CAT’s Bill Hare says that’s because policies take a long time to formulate. But that there are “strong tailwinds for climate action we see today in many parts of the world, with the incredibly rapid growth of renewable technologies worldwide, the rapid acceleration of the markets for electric vehicles and plummeting battery storage costs, fundamentally change the geopolitical forces working on climate policy.”

Sigmar Gabriel. Photo: Arne Müseler

4. Germany delays releasing its 2050 climate plan because of pro-coal lobbying

German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel (who has had a big fortnight for blocking carbon-reducing initiatives) vetoed the release of Germany’s 2050 emissions reduction target on Wednesday. Reuters reported that appeals by industry and union bodies convinced Gabriel to block the draft plan.

Germany is moving towards one of its most divisive elections in years and aggravating the unions is the last thing Gabriel wants to do. But he’s also under pressure to defend Germany’s role as a climate leader. The US, Canada and Mexico are all likely to release mid-century targets next week.

“Germany is already struggling to meet its 2020 climate targets and is under additional pressure after Chancellor Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year,” report Clean Energy Wire.

5. Public health threats are now high on the climate agenda

The Moroccan Health Minister, El Houssaine Louardi, highlighted the connection between climate change and air pollution in affecting Moroccan citizens’ health. He said public health should be put at the heart of COP22 negotiations. While vector borne diseases are on the rise in Morocco as a result of a warmer climate, “less than 1.5% of international finance for climate change adaptation is currently allocated to health projects”, Louardi said.

Far from affecting just the COP’s host country, the burden of climate change-related diseases is getting worse all over the world. Yves Souteyrand, representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Morocco, warned that about 12.5 million people globally die each year as a result of environmental factors linked to climate change.

Representatives of a dozen member countries got together to discuss and coordinate cross-border health response as part of the Nairobi Work programme, which facilitates knowledge building and sharing on adaptation related issues.

The group released a statement highlighting that: “Climate change will have a significant impact on human health by expanding the geographic range of many diseases. In addition, the impact of extreme events, both fast and slow-onset, affect human health and health infrastructure in numerous ways and on different levels.”

African governments and businesses are seizing the opportunity to be at the forefront of the climate debate this year, with Morocco taking up the role of African climate champion.

Yesterday it was the turn of the Africa Renewable Energy initiative, which was presented to a large audience of businesspeople, activists and researchers from the continent and beyond. The initiative aims at mobilising as much money as possible by 2020, to fund a massive boost in large scale renewable energy projects. The target is an additional 10GW of clean energy capacity deployed by 2020.

But the money to change the face of Africa with solar power and lift its people out of poverty at the same time is not there. To turn big ideas into reality, the energy sector will need an investment of about US$20bn before 2020. A figure that looks increasingly unrealistic as the Republicans now in charge in the US (a major contributor to the Green Climate Fund) have promised to slash climate aid.

7. Wednesday was Water Action Day

The event that ran throughout the day was promoted by two of the most prominent figures of this year’s COP, Moroccan and French Climate Champions Hakima El Haite and Laurence Tubiana.

More than 80% of national climate plans have identified water as a key area for adaption, but according to El Haite there’s still need for greater awareness on the subject. On Wednesday, the Moroccan Government introduced the “Blue Book on Water and Climate”, which collates recommendations on how to turns promises in water-focused policies, and policies into solutions that work on the ground.

The post 7 things you missed at COP22 while Trump hogged the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Arctic is one of the most spectacular and pristine places on earth, and it’s no wonder people want to see it for themselves.

Yesterday, the luxury cruise ship Crystal Serenity left port with 1,725 passengers and crew on board for a 32-day voyage through the Northwest Passage.

She’ll journey from Seward, Alaska, to New York City, stopping at several communities along the way—many of which have far fewer inhabitants than the Serenity has passengers.

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While a smattering of yachts and smaller passenger ships have plied these Arctic waters over the years, never before has such a large ship set sail on such an ambitious, and risky, voyage through the Northwest Passage.

The Serenity’s hull is not strengthened against sea ice, and a conventional icebreaker won’t escort her; instead, she’ll be accompanied by the RRS Shackleton, a British logistics vessel typically used to support Antarctic researchers.

Perhaps that’s why each passenger is required to carry $50,000 in evacuation insurance in addition to the $20,000 to $120,000 they paid for their ticket.

However unprecedented, the Serenity’s voyage is a sign of things to come. This may be the beginning of a boom in Arctic vessel activity.

Crystal Serenity can sail through Northwest Passage: Canadian Coast Guard https://t.co/zgIcbhifPf pic.twitter.com/TYzRxbR6gI

— Nunatsiaq News (@NunatsiaqNews) August 18, 2016

And while Arctic shipping may bring economic benefits to both local communities, in the form of increased trade and tourism revenue, and to the global economy, through the ability to ship goods via shorter routes, the environmental risks are undeniable.

One concern is how to deal with the waste products of what is basically a floating city. Based on the EPA’s estimates of per capita sewage and graywater generation aboard cruise ships, we estimate that each day the Serenity will generate about 15,000 gallons of human sewage and another 116,000 gallons of graywater.

Crystal Cruises, which operates the Serenity, says it will “voluntarily” discharge this waste at least 12 nautical miles from shore — which is, by surprising coincidence, the minimum distance from shore the ship can legally discharge sewage without treating it first.

Of course, mistakes do happen. Another Crystal cruise ship, the Harmony, has been banned from visiting Monterey Bay California, for releasing effluent too close to the Monterey marine sanctuary.

Offshore carbon: why a climate deal for shipping is sinking

But the real risks aren’t posed by negligence or misbehavior but by the harsh, violent sea environment of the Arctic itself, and the bigger concern isn’t wastewater, it’s oil spills.

Most ships operating in the Arctic will burn heavy fuel oil (HFO), the residual leftovers of the crude oil distillation process. While HFO is dirty and viscous, it’s cheap and widely available, making it the preferred fuel for ships.

The Arctic Council has recently identified HFO as “the most significant threat from ships to the Arctic marine environment.” Due to its viscosity and chemical properties, HFO is inherently difficult to clean up, not to mention highly toxic.

A release of HFO in the Arctic could have devastating effects on this profoundly important and fragile ecosystem.

Meanwhile, in the Arctic, sea ice volume is at a record low for the time of year according to PIOMAS. pic.twitter.com/ig2X5MXcCg

— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) July 4, 2016

Using HFO to power ships not only increases the risk of spills and illegal discharges of oil in the Arctic, it also produces harmful air and climate pollutants, including black carbon.

Black carbon – a small, dark, airborne particle – is the second largest contributor to human-induced climate warming, after carbon dioxide.

Black carbon is particularly detrimental to the Arctic environment, as its dark particles settle on ice and snow, setting into motion a vicious cycle of more melt, less ice, and more warming.

Despite the risks posed by the use of HFO, marine vessels in the Arctic are not encouraged to use cleaner fuels, unlike ships in other areas of the world.

Within Emission Control Areas (ECAs), ships are required to reduce their air pollutant emissions by either burning cleaner distillate fuels or by using scrubbers.

All the coasts of the U.S. and Canada are covered by an ECA, with one notable exception: their Arctic coasts. In fact, despite its sensitive ecosystem, no part of the global Arctic is covered by an ECA, an omission we’ll discuss in an upcoming blog.

Arctic shipping poses significant threats to the climate and to the Arctic environment—not unique to the Arctic, but uniquely serious there.

There are policy measures we could take to mitigate the risks. As the Serenity makes her way through the Northwest Passage over the next month, we’ll highlight the risks and policy opportunities associated with Arctic shipping.

Bryan Comer and Naya Olmer are policy analysts with the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). Follow their blog series here.

The post Arctic faces ‘boom’ in shipping as ice melts appeared first on Climate Home News.

In an essay on Whitehall’s future low-carbon policies, Stephen Heidari-Robinson argues Europe’s influence on the green sector has been minimal, even negative.

Released from restrictive policies like the 2020 renewables target, which he argues does not address the real climate killer – coal – the country’s emission-busting aims can fly.

A high domestic carbon price (relative to the EU) and fast growing offshore wind and solar sectors are reason to be confident he says, while adding new nuclear is essential to meet post-2030 climate goals (note: the UK’s nuclear plans are in chaos).

Nor does he see a conflict between leaving the EU and deepening clean energy supplies through interconnecting power lines: these are essentially bilateral deals.

Still, this is optimism laced with realism: prime minister Theresa May’s chief advisor hates the climate change act and much public debate is backed by “factless assertions” that distort government thinking and its efforts to develop policies.

It’s well worth a read in full. Below is the Brexit section:

“Despite many claims to the contrary, the EU is not the driving force for climate change action in the UK: our commitment is home grown, rooted in the Climate Change Act, and monitored by an independent British Climate Change Committee.

“As is well known, carbon pricing in the European Trading Scheme (ETS) is too low to make much difference to the problem.  The UK’s own Carbon Price Floor, which more than quadruples the ETS price to £18 ($24), has had the positive effect of disadvantaging coal versus gas, and is a nice earner for the Treasury, but otherwise has limited impact.

“Once coal is out of the way, or if coal can be restricted and phased out through other means, the carbon price should be reduced, as it adds unnecessary costs of consumers and business.  By contrast, the way in which we have delivered the UK’s impressive decarbonization performance in electricity generation is not by dis-incentivizing other energy sources through taxes, but by paying renewables technologies the higher prices they needed (“contracts for difference”).  This has provided a much surer funding model, given the glut of hydrocarbons and collapse in their prices.

“The EU’s 2020 renewables targets – which only focus on one aspect of decarbonization and ignore ending coal, building nuclear and overall efficiency – have been generally unhelpful, allowing EU countries to build out renewables while carbon emissions fail to fall.  For example, between 2010 and 2015, Germany has increased the proportion of renewables by 17% to 33% but but its carbon emissions today are the same as they were five years ago, due to the phasing out of nuclear power and an increase in coal and lignite burning.

“Brexit provides an opportunity to strip away these unhelpful EU renewables targets, together with the absurd system whereby the UK’s performance in decarbonizing electricity generation and industry is reported as a calculated share of the EU’s, making us look like we are doing worse than we are.  What really matters is that less actual carbon goes into the atmosphere.  This is, of course, not an argument for isolationism.  Climate change is a global problem, the UK only accounts for only about 1% of global emissions, and we will only be able to solve the problem by working in concert with others.

“Of course, potential investor uncertainty following Brexit is a challenge that needs to be addressed here as elsewhere.  Foreign investors in nuclear and offshore wind will need to balance lower revenues from a weaker pound, on the one hand, against more investment bang for their buck and lower local input costs, on the other.  This is a good reason to localize more of the supply chain in the UK than has historically been the case – creating jobs in the regions, for example at the Siemens factory in Hull.

“With interconnectors (big wires connecting European countries which help manage the challenges of intermittent renewables by spreading capacity across countries), regulatory deals will need to be struck with individual EU countries.  But there are several reasons to be optimistic: all previous interconnectors have been one-off country-to-country deals; the issue is more technical than political; non-EU countries are also involved (Iceland, Norway); and the UK has been leading on energy market reform in the EU anyway.  More challenging is securing export markets for the UK’s low emissions vehicles (we currently manufacture a quarter of the total in Europe).  This should be one (among many other) objectives in the trade negotiations.

“Finally, Brexit has of course led to a wholesale change in government personnel and a merger of the old Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) into the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.  The selection of ministers for the key posts provides reason to be confident that the UK’s successful decarbonization strategy will continue: Philip Hammond as Chancellor, Greg Clark as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Nick Hurd as the Climate Change Minister have all made public commitments to combatting climate change.

“Furthermore, after Brexit and before changing roles, Amber Rudd, the former Secretary of State for DECC and now Home Secretary (Interior Minister), ensured that the government committed itself to the challenging targets of Carbon Budget 5, entailing a 57% reduction in UK greenhouse emissions versus 1990 by 2030.  On the other hand, the new PM’s chief of staff, Nick Timothy, has called the UK’s climate change act “a unilateral and monstrous act of self-harm… inflicted upon industrial Britain.”

“As highlighted throughout this article, there are areas where the structure of the act, and the actions taken as a result of it, could be improved.  However, let’s hope that we can convince Nick and others that, if done the right way, decarbonization can be an opportunity for UK industry not a burden.”

The post Why post-Brexit UK can be a climate champion appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last October, I predicted that 2016 would be a record warm year, in a global temperature record going back to 1850, based on the observation that the natural El Nino warming effect often straddles two years, in this case from 2015-2016.

El Nino is a natural, cyclical weather phenomenon. The present cycle peaked in November last year, but its effects have lingered. As well as contibuting to regional weather effects, it is associated with higher global average temperatures.

(Graph: GWG Energy)

The chart below takes the latest global temperature data to June 2016, from Britain’s Hadley Centre/ Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

Using a technique advised by CRU climate scientists, I have switched the data from a 1961-1990 baseline to an 1850-1900 baseline, so that we can see the warming effect compared with “pre-industrial” levels.

That pre-industrial reference is relevant, given that scientists measure climate threats in terms of global average warming above pre-industrial levels, with 2 degrees Celsius warming often discussed as a safety “guardrail” which we should not exceed.

Similarly, world leaders recently agreed targets to limit climate change, in terms of warming limits compared with pre-industrial levels, targeting warming “well below 2C” as a long-term goal, and to pursue efforts to go further and hold warming to 1.5C.

(Graph: GWG Energy) Global average warming 1850-2016 (YTD), compared with 1850-1900 baseline

The chart shows that, so far, 2016 has seen an average 1.21C warming above 1850-1900 levels, a big increase on the 1.06C warming last year, in turn a big increase on 0.88C warming the year before.

El Nino contributed to a record warm month in March 2016, compared with the 1850-1900 baseline, at 1.46C above pre-industrial levels.

Since March, global average temperatures have fallen, but monthly averages have remained more than 1C above the 1850-1900 baseline through the first six months of the year.

What the chart shows is a rather vicious, warming trend, which has progressed in almost a straight line since the mid-1970s, after removing annual variation due to natural events such as El Nino.

Scientists: 1.5C Paris climate goal needs more research

It shows the continued warming impact of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, and the impact of adding record amounts of additional carbon dioxide and other GHGs to the atmosphere each year.

It puts into perspective recently stalled growth in annual emissions – a great achievement in itself, but only a first step in addressing the climate change problem.

And it calls into question the judgement of climate sceptics – such as Britain’s former finance minister Nigel Lawson – who claimed that global warming had stopped, in the years following the last major El Nino in 1998.

Gerard Wynn is an energy and climate concultant. This article first appeared on Energy & Carbon. Follow him on twitter @gerardfwynn

The post Global warming hit 1.46C in March as records fall appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate scientist Ed Hawkins broke the internet in May with a gif that showed global temperatures spiralling since pre-industrial times.

On Facebook, it got 3 million views just through the page “I fucking love science”. Hawkins’ own blog Climate Lab Book temporarily crashed under the weight of hits, which totalled around 100,000.

He’s no Kim Kardashian, but as sci comms goes, this was a runaway success.

It has inspired scientists from Potsdam, Germany and Melbourne, Australia to animate the inexorable rise of carbon dioxide concentrations in the air…

…and how the growing pace of greenhouse gas emissions is eating up the carbon budget to hold global warming below 2C or 1.5C.

Put together with the temperature spiral, they paint a pretty compelling picture.

The genius of the original was to show how the long term warming trend stood out from the noise of natural variation.

Sceptics might put the recent string of 14 record hot months down to El Nino. That weather phenomenon was certainly a factor, but doesn’t explain why the previous decade was so clearly warmer than in the 1850s.

When it comes to carbon dioxide in the air, the increase is more linear, with some seasonal fluctuation as vegetation levels vary.

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Finally, the carbon budget graphic joins the dots with human behaviour. It shows how smoke from factories and car exhaust pipes is building up.

In Paris last December, 195 countries agreed to try and limit temperature rise from pre-industrial levels “well below” 2C and to 1.5C if possible.

That implies a ceiling on the volume of greenhouse gases that can be pumped into the air – the “carbon budget”.

There is some uncertainty about how sensitive the climate is to emissions; the budgets shown give a two thirds chance of staying within the threshold.

It may already be too late for 1.5C, as there is a time lag between emissions and their effect on the climate – and coal plants built today have decades to run.

Still, it remains an important marker for communities on the front line of sea level rise and extreme weather.

The more we can eke out the carbon budget, the better their odds become.

The post Spiral-tastic: Climate change in three animations appeared first on Climate Home News.

Regarding coal, one source for projected cost of new coal-fired power generation comes from the International Energy Agency.

In its latest World Energy Outlook (WEO), the IEA estimated a cost range for coal-fired power of $0.05-0.06/ kWh, in 2020, reflecting a price range for imported coal of $60-85 per tonne (see the chart below from the IEA’s WEO 2015).

As you can see below, the IEA sees LNG gas-fired power generation ranging from $0.06 t0 $0.1 per kWh, in 2020.

Regarding solar PV, bid prices have been falling quite sharply, in recent reverse auctions run by India’s state-owned utility, NTPC, for attractive, low-risk, plug and play solar parks, where land and transmission facilities are provided.

NTPC achieved a record low tariff in January 2016 of Rupees 4.34/ kWh ($0.07). That represented a steady reduction from above 5 Rupees in the second half of last year.

Supporting continued solar cost reductions, India has an ambitious target to increase installed solar capacity by around 20-fold by 2022, to 100 gigawatts, from just under 6 GW as of the beginning of March.

And the country faces environmental pressures and energy security pressures which both add to motives to diversify away from the current reliance on coal.

Report: Solar is now cheaper than coal, says India energy minister

But we have to watch this space; these recent cost reductions were achieved in solar parks with a reliable state-owned off-taker.

Now we have to wait and see whether these projects are actually delivered on time, at such low prices, and what the price trend is going forwards.

Further expansion of renewables faces some of the same infrastructural difficulties as coal, including land clearances required to boost transmission through “green energy corridors”.

And India has a higher cost local manufacturing of solar and wind power equipment, compared with China, for example.

Gerard Wynn is an energy writer and consultant. This article first appeared on his blog. Follow him @gerardfwynn

The post India’s energy revolution accelerates, as solar costs near coal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Well, it was ten years ago on Wednesday and WWF – the NGO that arranged his trip – isn’t about to let him forget it.

Since 2006, it has served as a stick for greens to beat the UK prime minister with; a symbol of how far he fell short of his promise to lead “the greenest government ever”.

WWF-UK head of climate Emma Pinchbeck hasn’t given up hope. In a statement released to coincide with the anniversary, she said: “David Cameron can still show he meant it in 2006.

“Last year, the UK helped broker a strong climate agreement in Paris. In 2016 a bold plan of action from the UK on carbon reduction will send a strong signal to the markets, the public and the body politic that ‘going green’ is not a slogan, but an economic necessity.”

Analysis: Why did PM promise to lead the ‘greenest government ever’?

The wildlife charity listed ten things that had happened in the Arctic over the past decade, none of them good. These included plummeting caribou and polar bear populations, record high temperatures and the first commercial oil drilling.

Meanwhile, the UK government has cut nearly every climate policy going. Energy minister Amber Rudd is due to announce new measures by the end of the year.

If Cameron wants to salvage a green legacy, that would be a good place to start.

The post Still time to salvage husky-hugging legacy, Cameron told appeared first on Climate Home News.

Yet the 368-page Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, was an unusually compelling approach to climate policy that won widespread admiration.

David MacKay, the book’s author, died on Thursday from cancer, aged 48. Friends have left tributes to his generosity and intelligence on twitter.

Others can talk and write more authoritatively about the legacy of MacKay, a Cambridge professor and former chief scientific advisor to the UK climate and energy department.

But in a polarised, emotional and frequently irrational debate over climate and energy policy, his desire that “numbers, not adjectives” determine solutions was a rare beacon of sense.

“I’m concerned about cutting UK emissions of twaddle – twaddle about sustainable energy,” he writes in the introduction to the book.

“Everyone says getting off fossil fuels is important, and we’re all encouraged to ‘make a difference’, but many of the things that allegedly make a difference don’t add up.”

He adds a few paragraphs later: “Numbers are chosen to impress, to score points in arguments, rather than to inform… we are inundated with a flood of crazy innumerate codswallop.”

Stephen Tindale: climate campaigners should learn to be more pragmatic

Few escaped his cold analysis. BP’s assertion that painting its ships with go-faster paint saved emissions is demolished. “Does anyone fall for this?” he asked.

Newspaper columnist Dominic Lawson is eviscerated for his loose understanding of carbon dioxide flows, picked up for writing fossil fuels emit seven gigatonnes of CO2 as opposed to 26 (in 2009).

“Irresponsible journalism like Dominic Lawson’s deserves a good flushing,” he mused.

Uncertainties in climate science are acknowledged, as are limitations in cleaner energy technologies.

But the greatest legacy of this book – which should be mandatory reading – is that it allows readers to make their own minds up.

To that end, it challenges frequently cited assumptions over the capacity of UK renewables to meet future energy demand, underlining the need for a range of solutions from efficiency to EU energy links.

There is no simple answer: “I don’t want to feed you my own conclusions. Convictions are stronger if they are self-generated, rather than taught. Understanding is a creative process.”

Below are my favourite factoids and quotes I found most intriguing from MacKay’s book. It’s a long read so many of you are likely to have other – better – ones. Please tweet us with your own or add them below the line.

Our estimate of a typical affluent person’s consumption has reached 195 kWh per day… the average American consumes about 250 kWh per day. But “the green stack” adds up to about 180 kWh/d/p, which includes tidal, wind, biomass and solar power (but not nuclear). [p.103]

“Yes, technically Britain has ‘huge’ renewables. But realistically I don’t think Britain can live on its own renewables – at least not the way we currently live… People love renewable energy unless it is bigger than a fig leaf. If the British are good at saying one thing, it’s ‘no’.” [p.108]

About 80 terra watt hours per year of energy go into defence: making bullets, bombs, making nuclear weapons, making devices for delivering bullets, bombs and nuclear weapons, and roaring around keeping in trim for the next game of good-against-evil. [p.100]

“If we covered the windiest 10% of the UK with windmills (delivering 2 W/m2) we would be able to generate 20kWh/d per person, which is half the power used by driving an average fossil-fuel car 50km per day.” [p. 33]

Drinking five cans of coke a day will rot your teeth, and wastes energy at a rate of 3 kWh per day. Making a personal computer costs 1800 kHh of energy; using it every day for two years corresponds to power consumption of 2.5kWh/d [p.89]. The energy embodied in a daily newspaper is about 2kWh per day [p.90]

“British nuclear waste, per person, per year, has a volume just a little larger than one wine bottle” [p.170]

“Our power engineers already cope, every day, with slew [variation] rates bigger than 4 GW on the national grid. An extra occasional slew of 4 GW per hour induced by sudden wind variations is no reasonable cause for ditching the idea of country-sized wind farms.” [p.189]

“If 30 million electric cars were willing, in times of national energy shortage, to run their chargers in reverse and put power back into the grid, then, at 2kW per vehicle, we’d have a potential source of 60 GW, similar to the capacity of all the power stations in the country.” [p.198]

What should I do: Put on a woolly jumper and turn down your heating’s thermostat to 15-17C [20 kWh/d]; stop flying [35 kWh/d]; drive less or more slowly, cycle, walk, use trains [20 kWh/d]; keep using old gadgets [4 kWh/d]; don’t buy clutter [20 kWh/d]; eat veggie six days out of seven [10 kWh/d] [p.215]

Mythconceptions: The plane was going anyway, so my flying was energy-neutral. “This is false for two reasons. First your extra weight on the plane requires extra energy to be consumed in keeping you up. Second, airlines respond to demand by flying more planes.”

The post David MacKay: ‘If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall have got engaged (Pics: Wikimedia Commons/David Shankbone, Hohum)

By Megan Darby

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch makes no secret of his disdain for climate science. He’s about to marry a green activist.

Murdoch and Jerry Hall announced their engagement in the Times on Monday, part of his empire along with Sky, the Australian and the Wall Street Journal.

Hall, a former model, actor and mother of four children with Mick Jagger, joined protests against a third runway at Heathrow Airport in 2009.

“Climate change is the biggest threat the world has ever known and it is happening right in front of our eyes,” she told journalists at the time.

“All the experts say governments need to act now if we’re going to have any chance of saving our children from catastrophe.”

She even wrote an article for the Daily Mail, citing climatologist James Hansen and urging mothers to make a stand on global warming.

Her husband-to-be, on the other hand, describes himself as a climate change sceptic. In September, as world leaders met for the UN general assembly in New York, he hit out at “alarmist nonsense”.

A climate change skeptic not a denier. Sept UN meets in NY with endless alarmist nonsense from u know whom! Pessimists always seen as sages

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 27, 2015

Hall is evidently more tolerant than film star Leonardo di Caprio, who last week told Germany’s TV Movie magazine: “I could never be with someone who doesn’t believe in climate change.”

The post Murdoch and Hall overcome climate differences to marry appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: UNFCCC/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn in Paris

High-carbon companies may lose the support of major, long-term investors, if they push back against growing pressures to disclose their carbon emissions, and to change their boards and corporate direction.

To date, the most visible investor impact of climate change has been a fossil fuel divestment movement, targeting coal stocks. But a bigger, quieter shift may have started, away from less engaged polluters, towards lower carbon, and more “climate aware” higher carbon, companies.

The question is how quick the shift is.

Businesses, investors and regulators are gathered in Paris on the side lines of a UN conference, where countries are meant to reach a new global climate agreement this week.

Investors meeting in Paris claim that their attitude to climate risk is changing. They point to the following pressures.

IN DEPTH: Breaking energy and carbon analysis

In a worst-case scenario, the most polluting companies might see a vicious cycle of exiting responsible investors, leading to higher costs and lower returns, with the opposite trend in green technologies.

What is causing the change?

First, there is growing pressure for both companies and investors to measure their carbon footprints. Notably, the global Financial Stability Board (FSB) last week said it would standardise rules for companies to report their carbon emissions and climate exposure. While the FSB code would be voluntary, it would be effectively mandatory if widely adopted.

Regulators are motivated to head off a climate crisis, and avoid the kind of mispricing of mortgage assets that led to the global financial crisis.

The FSB follows France, which earlier this year passing an “Energy Transition Law” rule, requiring companies, their lenders and investors, to disclose climate risks. Sweden’s minister for financial markets said in Paris last week his country would legislate, too, if the private sector failed to regulate itself.

Second, there are new tools in the market for investors to re-allocate capital, where the classic example are green bonds. These are a pin-prick in the global bond market to date, with $66-532 billion of issued green bonds outstanding, depending on how these are defined, compared with a global bond market worth tens of trillions. Nevertheless, the green bond market is growing rapidly.

Third, investors are increasingly sharing best practice, through groups such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and Ceres.

It seems that, when it comes to climate change, investors are motivated by a combination of profit maximisation and fear.

Regarding profit maximisation, a low-carbon transition and declining cost curve for renewables may imply a sweeping reallocation of resources and technological revolution, with all the opportunities that may bring. Regarding fear, if one day polluting companies are held liable for contributing to climate change, so might their investors. The New York Attorney-General’s investigation of whether Exxon misled investors shows why considering climate risk will become a part of standard fiduciary responsibility.

So much for the drivers. What are investors doing?

First there is a divestment movement which this year drew two of the world’s biggest asset owners. In May, the French insurance firm, AXA, which has 1.3 trillion euros of assets, decided to divest from 500 million euros worth of coal-related assets. And in June, Norway’s parliament agree that the country’s $900 billion sovereign wealth fund should divest from coal.

Divestment got a further push in September this year when the state of California passed its “Investing with Values and Responsibility” ruling, requiring state public pension funds to sell coal miners.

Second, investors are pressuring company boards. Two of the biggest U.S. pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, have coordinated a campaign to request “proxy access” rights to nominate board members.

Measurable impacts

The idea is either for shareholders to nominate their own executives, to secure more “climate confident boards” in the words of CalSTRS CEO Jack Ehnes in Paris last week, or more likely, exert greater influence on a company’s own nominations.

And third, by measuring the carbon emissions of their portfolios, they are increasingly equipped to act, by exiting the worst performers.

An example of the trend is the growing list of investors signed up to the “Montreal Pledge”, to measure and disclose annually their portfolio carbon footprint, and the related Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition, which aims to eliminate carbon emission from a select portion of managed assets.

For sure, there are limits to the impacts of these new trends.

In particular, institutional investors tend to focus on liquid assets such as bonds and equities, rather than infrastructure. But many low-carbon projects, in efficiency and renewable energy, are capital-intensive infrastructure projects which need upfront cash.

Securing all of the trillions need to finance a low-carbon transition may require greater political focus, abandonment of fossil fuel subsidies and the introduction of carbon prices, as well as an ambitious Paris deal – a big ask for governments this week.

The post In Paris, polluters in focus as investors shun climate risk appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Moyan Brenn/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn in Paris

The Paris conference has convened about 40,000 members of governments, NGOs, the media and so on. Representatives from just about every country on Earth are here.

The idea is to reach a new global agreement on climate change. But what does that mean?

Let’s canter through the kind of agreement we can expect at the end of the conference, on December 11.

We already know the broad outlines. Countries have offered voluntary national emissions targets, to slow global growth in greenhouse gases, by 2025 or 2030.

To make these voluntary targets more accountable, the deal will add a framework, including a legally binding commitment to agree new climate action every five years, towards a long-term target of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century.

Here are some issues for the real world.

1. A financial system for meeting a 2 degrees Celsius (2C) target.

Implementing the voluntary climate pledges made in Paris will need near $1 trillion investment annually in low-carbon energy technologies, according to the International Energy Agency. That is more than double annual investment now. Paris is focused on adding about $100 billion annual climate finance in 2020 and after, i.e. a long way short.

2. What sectors, products and technologies can benefit from Paris?

Many of the national Paris climate pledges support renewable energy. But cutting emissions will require many more ways of changing business, such as driving down consumption dramatically, and shifting the business models of energy companies.

It is sometimes unclear how Paris will help. But what Paris will see by the end of these two weeks is a long list of investment announcements: after all, why waste a great PR opportunity? These press releases may show which sectors are the flavour of the month.

3. What does Paris mean for a global carbon price?

Investors often say that the only way really to shift trillions of dollars is with a global carbon price. In theory, a carbon price can cut across the economy, making it more expensive to pollute.

In that way, it could engage investors and corporate boards alike. The trouble is, a global carbon price is nowhere in sight, and it is unlikely that Paris will change that.

4. Funding innovation could help.

While carbon pricing does not have much traction yet in Paris, the conference kicked off with a big commitment to double annual R&D by a clutch of major economies.

And that was supported by enterpreneurs like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg. Could innovation drive a low-carbon shift, without the need for big, set-piece policies like carbon pricing?

5. Emissions measurement is key.

The VW scandal showed it’s easy to lie about emissions. Imagine how much easier it is to get them wrong by mistake! The Paris targets are based on emissions data which have been unreliable in the past, to put it mildly.

While there will be much fuss in Paris about reporting emissions, to make pledges more accountable, what if the measurement is wrong?

Monitoring is also increasingly important at the corporate level, as investors put polluters under pressure to report their CO2. What are the business opportunities, and the risks of getting it wrong?

6. Can land use emissions un-do the Paris commitments?

In a related point, there are opportunities for loopholes too. For example, the Eurpoean Union does not include emissions from burning biomass pellets imported from the United States.

But the United States does count the negative emissions of its forests. In other words, there is scope for double-counting, which matters for the credibility both of a Paris agreement, and in this case biomass energy.

The post COP21: What sectors and products will benefit from a climate deal? appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: NASA/Flickr)

By Megan Darby

Emissions data, temperature data, fossil fuel extraction data: the climate debate is awash with numbers.

Which numbers are important depends on where you’re sitting.

Animal rights campaigner? Find out the carbon footprint of meat-eating. Live on the coast? You’ll want to know about sea level rise. Negotiating for Bangladesh? Remind rich countries of their historic emissions.

But it can be hard to find answers in the mass of information. Here are seven tools that can help. Add your recommendations below the line.

1. CAIT Climate Data Explorer – WRI

Perhaps the most comprehensive offering comes from the World Resources Institute.

Maps show what countries have pledged to do by 2020 and their post-2020 contributions to a prospective Paris climate deal.

Another tool gives various options to assess equity – what’s fair? Check out how different countries compare on historic emissions, projected future emissions, wealth, vulnerability to climate impacts or ability to respond.

You can also explore CAIT data using Google.

2. Climate time machine – NASA

For any lingering doubters that the planet is indeed warming – and carbon dioxide might have something to do with it – this visual couldn’t be clearer.

By dragging a slider across the screen, see how global temperatures, Arctic sea ice cover and CO2 concentrations have changed over time.

You can also see which coastal regions will go under water at different rates of sea level rise.

3. Global calculator – UK government

Backed by the UK and with inputs from several research organisations, this calculator lets you play God with the world’s future.

See what impact various technology, lifestyle and land use choices have on the warming trajectory of the plant, or toggle different scenarios for population growth.

What would it take to limit warming to 1.5C? What if everyone says no to windfarms or takes lots of foreign holidays? Find out here.

4. Climate Change Calculator – Financial Times

Of course, nobody actually has the power to make sweeping policy shifts worldwide. Under the UN climate process, it falls to national governments to determine their countries’ emissions targets.

This recent offering from the Financial Times, in partnership with Climate-KIC, allows you to adjust ambition levels for different countries. The parameters are set as “no change” and cuts consistent with holding temperature rise to 2C, with the way that is shared out not made explicit.

It shows that under the national climate pledges for Paris, the world’s nine biggest emitters (counting the EU as one) take up the entire 2C carbon budget in 2030.

5. Energy Innovation

This US-based simulator lets you pick from a policy menu and see the impact on emissions.

Set a carbon tax, plant acres of forest and roll out electric cars, for example, and a chart will show how close it gets you to the US 2025 target.

President Barack Obama’s clean power plan doesn’t do all the work, this model shows.

6. Fossil fuel ticker – The Guardian

Ok, so this one isn’t interactive, but it does work with relevant data.

As part of its ‘Keep it in the ground’ campaign, the Guardian made this graphic to show just how fast fossil fuels are being churned out. The idea is to highlight that coal, oil and gas company business models are incompatible with the 2C warming limit.

In phase two of the newspaper campaign, it is shifting attention to the positive stories. Perhaps we’ll learn how many football pitches can be covered by solar panels.

7. US opinion map – Yale

And finally, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has impressively granular data on how the subject polarises America.

Break the polls down to state, district or county level and see who is embracing the scientific consensus and who has doubts.

The post 7 climate change data tools and what they tell you appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Ed King

Today you may notice RTCC has changed. We are now called Climate Home, with a new logo, website and updated mobile platforms.

Since launching in November 2011, our audience has grown fast, drawing in readers from the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Little wonder. Climate change and efforts to address it is one of the world’s most compelling stories, yet one that many larger media groups have ignored.

As the planet prepares for its hottest year on record, and the prospect of a new UN agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, we felt it was time to reflect on our own development.

Based on helpful feedback from our partners and many of our readers we felt a change of name would be a positive first step to boosting the site’s profile.

In a sector bedevilled by complex acronyms, having one as your name always seemed an unnecessary complication – hence the change to Climate Home.

We’re the home of global climate politics coverage, and we now have a name to mirror that ambition.

You’ll also notice the front page has changed. Many readers said they felt the old one was too cluttered and messy.

The new one offers a clearer sense of the top breaking news stories, while allowing us to focus on specific sectors of interest such as the UN climate talks or the stranded assets debate further down the page.

In time we’ll also improve our Climate Change TV site, to allow better access to the vast amount of rich content we have filmed in the past four years.

New dawn

While this year’s Paris climate summit may seem to some like the end of the journey – in reality it’s just the start of a global push to move away from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy.

Moving forward we will continually seek to improve our news coverage, drawing on the team in London and a skilled set of reporters in Delhi, Islamabad, Moscow and beyond.

If you haven’t followed Olga Dobrovidova’s permafrost diaries from the heart of Siberia I’d urge you to take a look.

We are also trialling newer elements, such as Sunday’s Climate Crib Notes and the fortnightly Emissions Factor Podcast.

As ever I’d welcome your feedback on our new look, together with any other suggestions on how we can improve. Email me at ek@rtcc.org or send me a tweet @edking_CH.

Finally – some praise is due for our web developer Thet Htoo Aung, who has worked day and night to get us up to speed (go to bed now Thet).

Thanks should also go to our sponsors and partners who keep us in business. Your support is – as ever – hugely appreciated.

The post Climate Home: welcome to our new look appeared first on Climate Home News.

The scenic wastes between Dudinka and Norilsk

By Olga Dobrovidova in Igarka

A week ago, I did not know what permafrost looked like or whether one can get lost in the tundra.

As of today, I have fallen into a tundra river (twice) and looked inside the permafrost–ready basement of a house through a giant crack stretching across the house. I don’t know about you, but I call that progress.

RTCC’s permafrost division now even farther north, in Dudinka and Norilsk

[pic 2. This house in Igarka used to be twice as long, but they had to demolish the other half because it was starting to fall apart — you can still see its basement]

The lab has two sites some six or seven kilometres from the town, in the forest-tundra and tundra (it’s okay if you don’t really know the difference — forest-tundra is basically tundra peppered with some very sad patches of trees. It’s a border zone between the two more obvious ecosystems.)

They have boreholes about five meters deep and are monitoring temperatures down there as well as something called active layer thickness — how much permafrost thaws for the summer.

The tundra is really rich and colorful even though it’s now that weird time between its two best seasons. Fall, that is

Translated literally from Russian as blueberry,  I think the correct English would be bog bilberry or perhaps bog blueberry. Very tasty

I am now doing fine with just a little cold, but it was still my personal open water swimming record of sorts. I am pretty sure I caught it on video before the first fall, so it should show up later in my final story.

The next day was First Snow Day. September 12th is probably the earliest I’ve ever seen snow in my life, so I was understandably excited, and even more so about the fact that it hadn’t snowed the day before when I enjoyed meeting Gravel River.

Winter is coming. First snow of the season in Igarka

And then it was boat time. My next destination: Dudinka, a major river and sea port some 270 km downstream from Igarka.

It takes a large passenger ship 11 hours to get there, and while it must be absolutely marvellous in the summer, by September it’s cold enough to spend all your time inside drinking tea and only occasionally dare to go to the upper deck to try and not get blown off the ship while taking photos.

The original name of the Yenisey river, the heart and soul of my home region, meant “big water”. It is pretty big

…and very beautiful

It’s a busy port and the main transport hub for Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium.

Dudinka was also in that fateful paragraph that sent me on my journey of tundra river swimming and cracked houses. According to the same Roshydromet report, 55% of buildings and structures are damaged due to permafrost degradation.

By the looks of it, that figure might be accurate. A lot of buildings in Dudinka have really scary cracks like this one:

That is actually pretty common in Dudinka

Some of them are clearly treated as a cosmetic problem but others can be very serious. I’ll delve deeper into the issue of permafrost damage triage later on.

Dudinka is, as they say in Russia, a town of contrasts

These appear to be the same kind of small lakes I saw before from the helicopter. Also more on them later

In Norilsk, and let’s just say that’s not a sunset haze in the photo. #thefrostroads #airpollution #coughcough pic.twitter.com/b1x8xjNz64

— Olga Dobrovidova (@thegreendrafts) September 15, 2015

In the next couple of days I’m going to check out Norilsk’s infrastructure and in particular some of the sites that have reported major incidents just this year. An entrance to a blood transfusion centre suddenly collapsed this June, injuring a donor.

I’ll also look into the dark history of building Norilsk and some environmental issues that are directly connected to the state of permafrost and the changing climate.

More tales to come from the land of thin ice, metaphorically and sometimes literally

Olga Dobrovidova’s trip is being funded by a grant from the Earth Journalism Network.

All photos by Olga Dobrovidova

The post Permafrost diaries: Heading deeper into Siberia appeared first on Climate Home News.

Film poster

By Alex Pashley

How To Change The World is the untold tale of how a motley crew of 70s hippies sparked a global phenomenon.

The original activists, the documentary unfolds from a volunteer navy that sails into a nuclear test zone, capturing the public imagination, to the growing pains of a burgeoning movement.

The idea was to create “mindbombs” – the equivalent of today’s viral stories – to spur people into action.

Russian whalers mercilessly harpooning in the north Pacific wasn’t news. But a band of hirsute hipsters armed with cameras on the high seas bearing witness to the bloodletting was.

Campaigns to stop whaling (one such financed by a Joni Mitchell concert) and the clubbing of baby seals for their white fur won the media scrutiny to effect change.

“We were part of a reflex summoned to action,” recounts one member, as rich archive footage is mixed with retrospective interviews.

But celebrity brought challenges. As ego and power swelled, so the group became divided. Founding members departed.

While the Vancouver-based group inspired others to start chapters at home and abroad, it was riven with internal troubles as competing visions clashed.

Layering the reams of unreleased footage left in its Amsterdam HQ with the Gonzo-style writings of reporter-turned-ringleader Bob Hunter, director Jerry Rothwell and producer Al Morrow have achieved a nuanced result.

“This isn’t a campaigning film, but a film about campaigning,” the director assured viewers at the premiere’s Q&A session in a packed arthouse cinema in London on Wednesday.

An uplifting 110 minutes, the film strays into making Hunter, who died in 2005, a mythical figure on occasion.

Rothwell also deftly handles Greenpeace defector Patrick Moore. Having left the organisation in the 1980s, Moore still trades on his experience, branding himself the “sensible environmentalist”.

Greenpeace has firmly disowned Moore, who has become known for denying humankind’s influence on the climate.

But in the film, he gives honest accounts of the group’s salad days before he is unmasked as a “PR specialist, selling his Greenpeace affiliations to corporate buyers”.

With Greenpeace a driving force behind environmental protection measures, from a bans on international whaling to Brazilian exports of hard woods, recognition is deserved.

Yet the group has made enemies and clashed with the law over its controversial methods.

In one shocking incident 30 years ago, the French government bombed the famous activist ship Rainbow Warrior, to halt its protests against nuclear testing in the Pacific.

This week, a former French spy apologised for his part in the operation, which killed a crew member.

Panel for #howtochangetheworld about to begin. Vivienne Westwood in attendance at picture house central pic.twitter.com/iDlHrhB6Ae

— Alex Pashley (@RTCC_Alex) September 9, 2015

After the show, a panel of designer and donor Vivienne Westwood, Hunter’s daughter Emily and a Greenpeace director discussed the legacy of those early activists.

How could the movement make the leap from saving whales to the all-encompassing challenge of tackling global warming?

Westwood struck a dramatic tone among mentions of Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, and James Lovelace of plummeting populations and planetary disaster. “It’s our last chance or we’re finished.”

It’s Emily Hunter, a Greenpeace activist following in her father’s footsteps, that sought to move past the polarised rhetoric around climate change.

“We’re unfortunately kind of limited by our nature, and as much as we have these great ideas and great campaigns and we maybe we get ships or marches, there are still those human dynamics,” she said.

“How we’re going to get out of this rut is how we work together. We need to get past this divisionary politics, that’s how we’re going to build movements.”

She may have been preaching to the converted – no eco-dissenters made the journey to Soho’s Picturehouse Central  – but with a key climate summit three months away and countries well off slowing warming, it was timely.

How To Change The World is in cinemas from September 11

The post Review: A Greenpeace biopic of movements and mindbombs appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Policy Exchange/Flickr)

By Ed King

British politics lacks fresh voices on climate change and the environment. Instead the public is stuck with green lobby groups and a stale left versus right debate.

The stasis is placing the country at risk from future disasters, leading to the slow erosion of soil health and distorting the public’s view of what nature is and how they relate to it.

That’s the analysis of Steve Hilton, head of strategy to UK PM David Cameron from 2010-2012 and now a visiting professor at Stanford University, California.

His views are outlined in his book, More Human, published in June and heavily covered by the media for its critique of how the UK’s democracy is controlled by “vested interests… money and influence”.

But Hilton’s remarks on climate change are equally intriguing; this from a man who was in a close circle of David Cameron’s advisors before and after he assumed power.

Taste, touch and smell

Environmentalism is really just a love of nature, he argues, but suggests that the “branding and politicising” of the issue has lost it widespread support across the country.

“People understand what they can see, hear, touch and smell. At that level I think most people really do care about the environment – even if they hate green politics and can’t stand talk of climate change,” Hilton writes.

“I’ve yet to meet someone who is in favour of dirty air and water, dead forests or poisoned landscapes.”

In the book there’s a call for campaigners to not only ratchet down divisive rhetoric on the environment, but to also think about how the impact of – say – climate change is communicated.

“Climate change doesn’t mean sea level rise (though this may happen), it means that farmers lose their crops and livelihoods, entire species of animals and plants are lost forever, and centuries-old villages are wiped out by the sea,” he says.

“Noble as fighting for ‘parts per million’ is, it just doesn’t mean anything if you’re not a scientist.

“We have to make sure that nature is accessible to everyone so that everyone can have their own experiences, their own memories to draw from, their own reason to care that we don’t destroy it all.”

Nature’s services

What’s clear from his book is that Hilton – who apparently voted for the Greens in 2001 – is passionate about conservation and tackling global warming.

Acidification is an “urgent problem” facing all the world’s oceans, soil health is worsening while overuse of fertilizers is killing off “entire marine ecosystems”.

Hurricane Katrina – which devastated much of New Orleans in 2005 – illustrated the fallacy in destroying the precious and storm soaking wetlands that once surrounded the city.

“Nature doesn’t only mitigate the impacts of future disasters, it provides us with essential services every day – often cheaper and more reliably made than made-made services can,” he adds.

Hilton contends that politicians and conservationists are well meaning but their strategies to address these – some of the world’s most pressing issues – are making matters worse.

Far from creating a wide united field they have morphed into Big Green, making the environment a partisan and contested battlefield.

So what’s the answer? If a degraded environment and soaring levels of greenhouse gas emissions are this serious, what can the public and governments do?

It’s not new laws, or new policies. “It’s the simple act of being in nature, walking in nature, playing in nature, getting out into nature, seeing the world’s wonder.”

But it’s also pushing for a new politics within the UK system, one that offers a space for voters who have Tory views on taxes, “Green views on the environment and Labour views on social justice”.

“Our views are as complex as we are but our politics is not. Our views are not politicians’. We need our politics to reflect this.”

Vested powers

It’s a simple – at times simplistic – analysis that does not get bogged down in numbers such as the need to avoid 2C of warming or the costs of clean energy versus fossil fuels.

Certainly, Cameron appeared to take climate change more seriously when Hilton was in Number 10, although that perhaps had more to do with pressure from his Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

Recent policy decisions by his government have left many green groups fearing the worst for the UK’s climate stance, despite tough talking from envoys on the international stage.

That’s not a subject this book – written in advance of the 2015 election – tackles, but Hilton does offer a theory on why politics and policy rarely seems to change.

“We’ve allowed it to be captured by the insiders and the vested interests and the people with money and influence,” he says.

“They’re counting on you to be put off by it all, by the hassle, the complexity, the difficulty. That’s their bet. That you don’t actually care that much. That you don’t really want change.”

The post Climate playbook: David Cameron policy guru offers tips for activists appeared first on Climate Home News.

More on this otherworldly sight later (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

By Olga Dobrovidova in Igarka

This story, just like many others, starts with a sentence. 

The sentence, found in the Second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Russia presented by Roshydromet, the Russian state meteorological service, in 2014, reads as follows:

Almost 60% of buildings and structures in Igarka, Dikson and Khatanga and 100% in some small settlements in the Taymyr district are damaged due to permafrost degradation.

I first read this sentence in July 2014, before the report even went public. Thirteen months (I couldn’t let it go) and one Earth Journalism Network climate journalism grant later, I find myself gently touching permafrost eight and a half metres underground.

Listed in the sentence are small towns and villages in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Krai — a region 9.6 times the size of UK that stretches from almost Mongolia to the Kara Sea in the Arctic. It also happens to be my homeland.

Now, I come from Krasnoyarsk, the regional capital in the south. I suspect an overwhelming majority of people born in Krasnoyarsk, like me, may have never been so far north.

So, to me, Igarka, Dikson and Khatanga are just these mysterious names that only exist in TV weather forecasts — with an occasional classmate or colleague who moved to Krasnoyarsk to study or work and sometimes goes home to see their family.

I know these places must exist (and it must be pretty cold most of the time), but that’s all — I have no mental images of what they look and feel like.

Permafrost

Then there’s permafrost. I have spent most of my relatively short career covering all things climate, from the Kyoto Protocol to renewable energy to climate models, but I did it from a desk at a Moscow news agency and occasionally from UN climate conferences.

I filed several stories highlighting the gravity of the problem with permafrost thawing due to climate change and talked about it at length, sometimes to strangers. But I had never seen actual permafrost “in the wild”, despite it covering two thirds of the Russian territory.

That obviously didn’t take anything away from the issue, which was important regardless of whether I personally had witnessed its scale, but it did bother me a little.

And now I am told that there are places where everything is damaged by permafrost degradation, and then there are other places where, fortunately, it’s just two out of every three buildings. Naturally, I just had to find out what the frozen hell that looks like.

One does not simply get to these places, though, especially in September, which is moments away from a dark and rather unforgiving northern winter (you can imagine how many Game of Thrones puns and jokes I have gone through). After extensive and creative planning, my trip now involves a plane, a helicopter, a boat and a bus.

The view from my first ever helicopter flight (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

After a total of four hours in flight with some fellow passengers and lots of cabbage (you gotta get the cabbage to these remote villages somehow), I am now writing this blog from Igarka, a town of five thousand people and streets that mostly look like this:

Yes, this is a street. Named after Yuri Gagarin, no less (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

Still a street (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

You know how sometimes streets have Soviet aeroplanes parked in them? (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

I have yet to carefully survey the streets that do have “buildings and structures” and see if the 60% statistic holds true, but I have already seen some damage — pretty close to where I am staying:

The dog seems unfazed at the building slowly crumbling. What permafrost degradation? (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

In the next several weeks I’m going to write, tweet and occasionally Instagram about my adventures in the Siberian North, all kinds of permafrost (yes, of course there are many) and the people who dare to live and build on it.

Check out my hashtag #thefrostroads and stay tuned for more wild tales from almost winter here on RTCC.

This is my first underground rainbow (Pic: Olga Dobrovidova)

This is the first of a series of reports on the social and economic impacts of permafrost degradation in the Russian Arctic. Olga Dobrovidova’s trip is being funded by a grant from the Earth Journalism Network.

The post Permafrost diaries: Touching down in northern Siberia appeared first on Climate Home News.

Matthew Barzun, US ambassador to the UK (Pic: Germany Embassy, London/Flickr)

By Megan Darby

The US is deploying every part of its diplomatic machine to emphasise its commitment to a global climate deal, and that includes Matthew Barzun, the country’s ambassador to the UK.

A selection of reporters, lobbyists and campaigners were invited to a private meeting last Wednesday with Barzun, a trusted advisor and campaign fundraiser for US president Barack Obama.

The purpose of the event – tea and biscuits at official residence Winfield House – was left vague. Targeted through twitter, invitees were described as “online advocates”, apparently chosen for their social media reach.

RTCC went along expecting the hard sell on Obama’s climate strategy. In the event, Barzun acted less as salesman, more as group therapy facilitator.

Winfield House (Flickr/U.S. Embassy London)

It was an impressive setting. Winfield House is a mansion in the centre of London, its garden second in size only to the Queen’s. So an official said – and Wikipedia corroborated.

Outside the front was a basketball hoop – handy for a visit from the president – and a miniature skateboarding ramp. At the back were downsized football goalposts for the ambassador’s three children.

Carefully curated works by American and British contemporary artists sat alongside oil paintings of US presidents.

In a corner of the central reception room stood Barzun’s vinyl collection, neatly labelled and sorted into three categories: US, UK and UN.

Matthew Barzun’s vinyl collection (Pic: Megan Darby)

After several rainy days, it was a bright Wednesday morning, the lawn a lush green. There was coffee and mingling; selfies on the terrace.

Then we were ushered into a yellow-furnished room, to sit in a circle and talk.

This was part of the embassy’s “digital dialogue” programme – hence the twitter invites. A previous session addressed science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

But the content was curiously incidental. Aside from a single page briefing note, there was no particular attempt to push the US climate agenda.

Rather, it seemed to be about establishing communications channels. Soft power at its softest.

Like any good diplomat, Barzun had a stock of fun facts, starting with the inventor of the incandescent lightbulb: the British Joseph Swan beat America’s Thomas Edison to it, he admitted – although the latter was quicker to patent and market the device.

Then he moved into an unlikely line of research: famous citizens of Hull, a city in the north of England. Did you know John Venn, inventor of the Venn diagram, hails from Hull? Now you do.

You may have heard of the Chatham House rule. Here, Barzun invented the “Winfield House rule”, encouraging everyone to share the experience – but to check before quoting individuals.

Ironically, everyone seemed to be too absorbed in the conversation to tweet it.

Enjoying a nice cup of tea with @MikeSzaboCP from @CarbonPulse b4 #climate discussion with @MatthewBarzun at @USAinUK pic.twitter.com/A9XQDGcovP

— Seb Henbest (@SebHenbest) September 2, 2015

Delighted to have been able to meet U.S. ambassador @MatthewBarzun to chat #climate #COP21 & @POTUS‘s #CleanPowerPlan pic.twitter.com/iQscGSBEIH

— Lang Banks, WWF (@LangBanks) September 2, 2015

Ed Heartney, an environment official at the embassy, had a minor grumble that recent US efforts on that front have not sunk in with the British public. They still tend to judge the US on its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, he said.

Most of the session, though was about listening. Each participant was invited to air one frustration and one hope.

While most were known to each other by their twitter avatars, at least, it was a novelty to meet and vent in person.

The residence boasts an eclectic selection of modern art (Pic: Megan Darby)

Unsurprisingly, the UK government’s recent bonfire of climate-friendly policies came up, to grimaces all round.

The EU received something of a bashing, for ceding the initiative on climate diplomacy to the US.

As for the US itself, some of the weaknesses in Obama’s climate strategy cropped up: controversial Arctic oil drilling and problems of getting climate finance through Congress.

Given the format, Barzun was not called on to defend the plans as such. It was a collaborative rather than combative set-up – unlike the UN climate talks taking place the same week in Bonn.

So conversation turned to more general challenges.

Vested interests

For the journalists and communicators in the room, the main concern was apathy. How can you make an often distant and abstract-seeming problem compelling to the general public? “This is a hard story to tell,” said one reporter.

For others, the main problem was taking on vested interests in the policy and financial spheres, which outgun fledgling low carbon industries.

“When the incumbents start to take you seriously, they will come after you aggressively,” said Anthony Hobley, head of the Carbon Tracker Initative.

He drew a parallel with the “red flag laws” passed in the US and UK when automobiles first came in.

Under the pretext of safety, drivers were made to employ a pedestrian to walk ahead of the vehicle waving a red flag – a measure demanded by the railway lobby, according to Hobley.

Winfield House has the second largest private garden in London (Pic: Megan Darby)

There was some warm debate over the best way to tackle the issues.

At one point, someone inevitably compared the economic shift required to the end of slavery, giving Barzun an opening for another fun fact.

“Do you know where William Wilberforce is from? Hull!” he declared triumphantly.

It defused the tension momentarily, before people got back to arguing over solar subsidies.

Cultural tribalism

For all the obstacles, the mood was reasonably optimistic. Participants cited the national pledges towards a global climate deal in Paris this December, which though inadequate are unprecedented in scope.

A clean technology revolution is under way – it’s just a question of pace – while interventions like the Pope’s were hailed as a boon for public engagement.

Seb Henbest of Bloomberg New Energy Finance saw the main problem as tribalism, with some segments of society hostile to the climate agenda.

He summed it up succinctly: “I don’t think we have a science argument to win; I don’t think we have an economic argument to win; I think we have a cultural argument to win.”

How was the US embassy in London going to help win that argument? And would it help the country ditch its tag as a serial UN climate talks blocker? This round table had spread some good vibes, but the rest remained to be seen. 

The post Tea and biscuits: US makes soft power play on climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

On this week’s podcast Ed King is joined by the FT’s Pilita Clark and Michael Jacobs  – advisor to former UK PM Gordon Brown – now working with the New Climate Economy.

In a week where progress on a proposed Paris climate deal was widely advertised – but little seen – we cut through the spin to establish what’s on the table (and what’s not).

We also hear from UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, France’s top climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana and the two men co-chairing this negotiations: Dan Reifsnyder and Ahmed Djoglaf.

Pilita Clark: 

“The stakes here are enormous – we are talking about economy wide global change here and that is an enormous thing – it has never been done before in quite the same way. It’s understandable that countries will hold back and as part of a negotiations not give in right now… the difficulty is really trying to understand which countries really would be happy with a weak, substandard deal.”

Michael Jacobs:

“The idea that most countries have is that this will be a durable agreement that lasts for 30-40 years… and every 5 years what countries do on climate change will be updated and extended – there will be rounds of agreement every 5 years. People hadn’t really been clear about what was going to be in there – was it mitigation or adaptation as well – and that has definitely been clarified. There has been convergence around middle positions.”

For regular updates on Emission Factor podcasts subscribe to our Soundcloud stream.

The post The Emissions Factor podcast: Bonn climate talks review appeared first on Climate Home News.

Coal is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel (Pic: Takver/Flickr)

By Megan Darby

The coal sector is having a hard time at the moment.

Mining companies are losing value rapidly, the fossil fuel divestment movement is gathering pace and the president of Kiribati is calling for a moratorium on new mines.

Yet in Australia, the Saudi Arabia of coal, new mines are a core part of prime minister Tony Abbott’s economic plan, such as it is.

On Sunday, the Minerals Council of Australia launched a fightback, in the form of its “little black rock” advertising campaign.

Here’s the video:

And the tweet:

Coal powers 71% of all electricity on the grid – http://t.co/i5x3YOY7dd #coal pic.twitter.com/bSkuFQ3Plr

— MineralsCouncilAust (@MineralsCouncil) September 6, 2015

The only problem is, they forgot to mention the health and climate change impacts. Twitter was happy to remind them.

“Research tells us the name Coal is no longer attractive to younger consumers. We are going to now call it, iCarbon” #coalisamazing — Slippery Seal (@slipperyseal) September 7, 2015

#coalisamazing how it powers homes, overloads the atmosphere with carbon, melts glaciers and raises sea level! pic.twitter.com/YhrX8cBLK9

— Jason Box (@climate_ice) September 7, 2015

Because #coalisamazing, it deserves a permanent place of prominence in the Museum of 19th Century Fuels.

— Lawrence Torcello (@LTorcello) September 7, 2015

Yep,hard to believe we have a pm who prefers the site of utterly degraded landscape to wind towers. #coalisamazing https://t.co/RPY9WtjM5C — lnp hates us (@mavsmum) September 7, 2015

Actually, #CoalIsAmazing It stored up millions of years of sunshine for us until we figured out how to capture and use it directly. — Alan Nogee (@alannogee) September 7, 2015

This little black rock is the number 1 cause of climate change. #coalisamazing pic.twitter.com/PcNBN5G3D8 — Max Phillips (@maxphillips) September 6, 2015

Like any good drug dealer: you need it, it’s good for you… #coalisamazing #endofcoal https://t.co/5cAfuy3uqw — Dan Gocher (@justdanfornow) September 7, 2015

#coalisamazing for air quality pic.twitter.com/bPWkkuRNA0

— Kerry Glover (@TheRealKerryG) September 7, 2015

Hey! #coalisamazing because it both raises the temperature and destroys your lungs. All from one black rock! Also, best #prfail ever

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 7, 2015

This #coalisamazing campaign reminds me I nearly bought a ‘piece of Ireland’ souvenir which was a piece of peat nailed to some wood. — Rachael Lonergan (@RachaelHasIdeas) September 7, 201

#coalisamazing at making Gina Rinehart richer. #coalisamazing at getting private rail lines funded out of the public purse. — Martin Gotthard (@M_Gotthard) September 7, 2015

#coalisamazing so amazing it unites communities, farmers, workers, kids as they vote to stop any further mining. #savebulga #nswpol — Sally Corbett (@thatsjazz2) September 7, 2015

The Minerals Council are trying 2 tell us that #coalisamazing …it isn’t http://t.co/LL6jYpLoyD nice try! pic.twitter.com/lKVS9EzIMf — Bronte Hogarth (@brontehogarth) September 7, 2015

Coal pollution prematurely kills 22,000 people per year in Europe, yet people still want more. #coalisamazing http://t.co/JZWLvVDxpc

— Sarah Merrick (@SpeakSarahSpeak) September 7, 2015

My step-grandfather went down the mines as a teenager. He had a quarter of a lung left when he died. #coalisamazing https://t.co/KB8SP3j5Q9

— Nici Lindsay (@nicilind) September 7, 2015

At least one person liked it, though.

The only ones finding #Coalisamazing hilarious are the Extreme Greens. They must be worried . YES!! Facts & Truth win! — Truth Seeker (@overthelies2010) September 7, 2015

The post Why coal is not amazing, in 15 tweets appeared first on Climate Home News.

Negotiating chamber, Bonn (Pic: UNFCCC/Flickr)

By Megan Darby

After a week of talks in Bonn, some signs of compromise over the shape of a global climate deal are emerging.

The US, EU, Australia and Switzerland are working on proposals to address the loss and damage inflicted on the world’s poor by climate change.

Developed economies have previously resisted the idea of climate compensation, so this more constructive engagement was welcomed by NGOs.

Rich countries are set to unveil details of how they will meet their climate finance promises at a World Bank conference next month, Ed King discovered – another crucial element.

Negotiators from 195 countries have entrusted the two co-chairs, Ahmed Djoghlaf and Dan Reifsnyder, with the task of slimming down the lengthy text by early October.

But fears remain about the sheer volume of work to get through before the critical summit in Paris this December, with just five more negotiating days to go.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I wonder if government officials love their children enough” – scientist and community organiser Leehi Yona reflects on Barack Obama’s words and the Arctic’s climate predicament

California coal

In the biggest divestment news since Norway, California’s two biggest public pension funds are ditching shares in coal.

Lawmakers voted 43-27 to pass a law requiring Calpers and CalSTRS to cut their stake in mines, citing climate, health and wealth concerns.

Meanwhile in Brussels, a coalition of investors urged nine multinationals including BP, Glencore and Rio Tinto to cut ties with Business Europe, a lobby group known for undermining climate policies.

INDC watch

Algeria submitted its contribution to a UN climate deal on Friday, pledging to cut emissions 7-22% from business as usual by 2030.

Indonesia mooted a 29-41% emissions cut, but the details have yet to be revealed.

Carbon-neutral Khyber

A Pakistani province better known for terrorism than climate action is planning to go carbon neutral by 2018, Aamir Saeed reported from Islamabad.

Dutch cowardice

The Dutch government is planning to appeal a landmark court judgment that requires it to make deeper emissions cuts.

Urgenda, the campaign group behind the lawsuit, expressed confidence the ruling would hold.

Trying Dutchman

Former UN climate chief Yvo de Boer has criticised the French presidency’s plans to invite heads of state only for the first day of the Paris summit.

He told Megan Darby: “My experience is, politicians travel in order to celebrate success. To fly to Paris and just show a bit of leg at the beginning of a conference is not really enough of a reason.”

The post Weekly wrap: First signs of compromise at Bonn climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

Anchorage, Alaska (Pic: Frank K. [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons))

GLACIER – A contender for backronym of the year, the Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (Glacier) summit takes place in Anchorage, Alaska on Sunday and Monday. Led by the US, it brings together some of the world’s highest-emitting countries to focus on the impacts of global warming on the polar region. Leehi Yona outlines seven things to know about the meeting.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE – One consequence of global warming in the Arctic is the opening up of the Northwest Passage. The Observer’s Robin McKie took a trip through the “bleakly beautiful” landscape.

GREEN PHOTO-OPS – After headlining the Glacier summit, US president Barack Obama is set to visit an actual glacier, before meeting fishing and indigenous communities in Alaska. But the state’s Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, told Associated Press he needed to think about energy development too: “What there’s concern about is that he’s going to use Alaska as some green screen for climate change, when he doesn’t take the opportunity to dig into other issues that are important to Alaskans.”

DRILL BABY DRILL – Climate campaigners, on the other hand, are branding Obama a hypocrite for giving Shell the go-ahead to drill for oil in the Arctic. He defended the decision in his weekly address on Saturday. “Our economy still has to rely on oil and gas,” he said. “As long as that’s the case, I believe we should rely more on domestic production than on foreign imports.”

BONN – While these political debates rage, negotiators have technical issues to thrash out at interim talks on a climate deal this week. With only 10 scheduled negotiating days before December’s Paris summit, there’s a lot of work to do on the 83-page text. Here’s our preview.

THE EMISSIONS FACTOR – If you prefer your climate insights in audio form, check out our new podcast. Veterans Richard Black and Farhana Yamin discuss the latest developments, with input from US journalist Lisa Friedman and former EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard.

PARIS MINISTERIAL – After the technocrats’ five-day session, 6-7 September will see government ministers from several countries get together in Paris to try and make progress on the politics.

OIL REBOUND – After months of low prices, oil rallied last week, with the Brent index closing above US$50 a barrel. Saudi Arabian stocks enjoyed a boost. It is mixed news for the climate – rising oil prices make low carbon technology look more competitive, but may bring high cost production – like shelved tar sands projects – back into play.

HOT HOT HEAT – Lest anyone forget what this is all about, the likelihood of 2015 being the hottest year on record is only increasing – to 99%, according to veteran climate scientist James Hansen. July was yet another record-breaking month, while a developing El Nino system means a warm forecast. It would take a Krakatoa-scale volcanic eruption to cool things down, Hansen told The Independent.

The post Arctic summit and interim talks heat up climate agenda appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Flickr/Christian Kadluba)

By Cecile Kobryner

From farm to plate, producing food has a big impact on water use, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

How much do you know about the environmental footprint of your meal? Take our test to find out.

The post Quiz: Food, farming and climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Flickr/UNFCCC)

By Megan Darby

August is nearly over, which means it’s the next round of interim climate talks in Bonn next week.

Negotiators need to pick up the pace, the bigwigs say, with lots to thrash out on the legal structure of a deal and only 10 working days before the Paris summit.

Want an audio briefing? Listen to our new podcast, The Emissions Factor. Ed King asks veteran climate watchers Richard Black and Farhana Yamin whether optimism in a Paris deal is justified. Lisa Friedman reports from Washington DC and former EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard gives her perspective.

Field to plate

It’s harvest time here in the UK, and this week at RTCC we’ve been looking at food and farming.

Alex Lockwood kicked things off with a blistering attack on the meat industry, which is responsible for anywhere between 18 and 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

From bacon-flavoured seaweed to GM rice, Freya Palmer suggests eight ways to cut the carbon footprint of your dinner.

Restoring degraded land is crucial to the climate, argues Simone Quatrine, founder of a UN fund to do just that, and SOAS climate policy expert Harald Heubaum.

And farmers on four continents tell us their stories of dealing with drought, flooding and storms.

STAT OF THE WEEK

600 million tonnes – increase in emissions as a result of poorly regulated carbon offsetting projects, mostly in Russia and Ukraine

Western Balkans

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia want to join the EU – and leaders from Brussels assured them on Thursday they wanted the same.

While the summit in Vienna focused on migration, there was a brief mention of energy cooperation.

But CAN Europe argued the six countries must clean up their coal habits and get in line with the bloc’s climate policy.

OMG sea levels!

Oceans are rising faster than expected, NASA warned this week, and there are big uncertainties about the future.

Help is at hand with its Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project, which aims to improve understanding of how ice sheets break down.

Meanwhile, this video shows how much sea levels have risen or fallen across the globe in the last two decades.

INDC watch

No more countries have submitted their climate pledges to the UN this week, but we have fresh analysis on Australia’s contribution.

The verdict from Climate Action Tracker is pretty damning: not only is Australia’s emissions target inadequate, Tony Abbott’s government lacks the policy to meet it.

India, meanwhile, is reportedly considering a 300GW target for renewable energy installations by 2030. Its plan is expected next month.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“To exclude civil society is to exclude every Filipino who has lost a loved one, a home, a livelihood for every strong typhoon that has come our way” – young activist Renee Juliene Karunungan accuses the Philippines government of failing to consult on its climate plan

Bolivia summit

Think the Paris climate summit is in hock to big business? Bolivia has the answer.

President Evo Morales is planning his own grassroots conference on “climate change and the rights of Mother Earth” in October. Expect anti-capitalist themes.

Mexican lethargy

Lawmakers are stalling the passage of an energy reform package, key in meeting its Paris commitments.

Heady targets for renewables to provide 35% of Mexico’s electricity needs should have been written into law last year. They might take some time – and damp its wind and solar potential, reports Alex Pashley.

Forest fight

The Asheninka community of Saweto, Peru, have won the title to their ancestral lands after a campaign spanning more than a decade.

Four of their leaders were murdered last year, allegedly by illegal loggers. The men’s widows took the fight to Lima, where the last round of UN climate talks was held.

The government is supporting indigenous land rights as part of a strategy to prevent deforestation, yet another 1,600 communities are still waiting.

The post Weekly wrap: Bonn briefing, food and farming appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Flickr/ Dean Hockman)

By Freya Palmer

Fork after fork, your food is taking a bigger bite out of the carbon budget.

The global food system – from fertiliser, production to packaging – accounts for up to a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, according to CGIAR.

Dialling down diets should be a first step in tackling climate change – removing red meat is good, vegetarianism better, veganism best.

To be sure, any state role in controlling our intake is rightly controversial. So here are eight ideas and initiatives to cut your carbon footprint.

1. Lab-grown meat

A butcher in Bethlehem, Palestine (Flickr/ verdienter Künstler)

Meat is the worst offender on any plate. Rearing livestock strips rainforest for grazing and feed-stocks, while animals themselves produce methane, a potent warming pollutant.

In 2013, however, Maastricht University’s Mark Post answered the groans of all meat-loving environmentalists when he created the world’s first lab-grown burger.

Cultured meat produces 80-95% less emissions than farmed meat, meaning it would have a significant impact on the average carbon footprint. One problem: you’ll have to wait at least ten years before it makes supermarkets.

2. Low-methane cows

Milking ’till the cows come home (Flickr/ Oli)

Now we’ve sorted our burger problem, it’s time to turn to milk. So long as we continue to consume dairy, cows will continue to pollute our plates.

One solution that has been found to this is the introduction of methane inhibitor, 3NOP, which reduces the methane production of cows by 30%.

It’s a potential breakthrough, although it does nothing to stop the deforestation problem.

3. Genetically modified rice

A rice paddy in Bangladesh (Credit: UN photos)

Livestock isn’t the only culprit when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Grown in water-logged conditions which breed methane-producing microbes, rice is one of the largest contributors. As it is also a global staple, the impact of rice on greenhouse gas emissions is huge.

But don’t fear. Guilt-free rice is on its way. Earlier this year researchers succeeded in genetically modifying rice crops to produce virtually no methane.

4. Insects

(Flickr)

But why wait around for genetic modifications and commercial viability when there’s a low-carbon food source already available to us? High in protein, vitamins and minerals, as well as being environmentally sound, insects are an ideal choice for anyone trying to cut their carbon footprint.

In the face of climate change and peak farmland, tree foods offer “hidden harvest” for the global hungry, said a report by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations in June. Grub’s up.

5. Vertical farming

(Credit: wikimedia commons)

Another way to cut the impact of our food is by changing farming methods. Vertical farming uses tall buildings to grow crops like leafy greens, with lower land, water and fertiliser use.

Being close to the urban centres of demand, such farms can also cut down on transport emissions and spoilage.

However, as David Rosenberg, CEO of vertical farming company AeroFarms, admits, a lot of energy is used to power the LED lights and nutrient pumps necessary to crop growth.

Is it lower carbon overall? The jury is still out.

6. Bacon-flavoured seaweed

Seaweed at Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland (Flickr/ Andi Campbell-Jones)

Last month, researchers at Oregon State University patented a new strain of seaweed which will excite environmentally-conscious meat eaters.

The seaweed is protein-rich and tastes exactly like bacon. Not only this, the growing process is also carbon-negative, as the seaweed absorbs CO2 from the water.

7. Cutting food waste

Who would toss the cute little nectarine on the right? Most grocers that’s who. #SaveTheSmalls http://t.co/FlnNAy5f4f pic.twitter.com/YnBS2YvZO2

— @UglyFruitAndVeg (@UglyFruitAndVeg) August 22, 2015

The planet is producing a third more food than it consumes. And greenhouse gases given off over the lifetime of all discarded produce total 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. That would make it the third largest emitter if it were a country, behind China and the US.

One American eco-conscious man, Jordan Figueiredo, has set up the @UglyFruitAndVeg Twitter account to show the waste of imperfect greens. With almost 20,000 followers, his message is getting out there.

ICYMI – The Pepper Boxing Match! #DuelToTheSalsa Pic by @happyacrefarm on IG pic.twitter.com/yRCt6phsgv — @UglyFruitAndVeg (@UglyFruitAndVeg) August 23, 2015

8. Eat your offal

All giblets are good. Ox-feet, tripe and pluck a meal can make. Making nose-to-tail eating fashionable again may not be too difficult for older generations. But in today’s age of supermarket bounty, it’s a more radical thought.

British celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall tried with a book campaign to persuade consumers to look past the prime cuts.

Eating the whole beast is another way of limiting waste, if modern consumers can get over their aversion to innards.

Alex Pashley contributed to this report

The post 8 ways to cut the carbon footprint of your dinner appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ed King hosts the first in a series of podcasts on the road to Paris, where negotiators hope to strike a global climate deal in December.

He is joined by former BBC environment correspondent Richard Black, now head of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and UN climate negotiations veteran Farhana Yamin, founder of Track0.

We also hear from the EU’s former climate chief Connie Hedegaard and get a Washington DC update from ClimateWire deputy editor Lisa Friedman.

Key questions on this week’s show include: What does success in Paris look like? Are expectations being dampened? What’s with the long term goal? Where the hell will the money for this come from?

Richard Black on success:

“For me the question is about the momentum, political will. Does it keep the door open to us getting to 2C and build confidence for all governments to go further?”

Farhana Yamin on the talks:

“The US are basically in charge of the negotiations. I’ve never seen such a coordinated diplomatic effort from top downwards… it’s a huge part of their diplomatic effort overseas and at home. Barack Obama has spent his political capital to secure his climate legacy.”

The post The Emissions Factor Podcast: Is optimism ahead of Paris justified? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Youth demonstrators at the 2013 Warsaw climate summit (Flickr/Adopt A Negotiator)

By Freya Palmer

Whatever the outcome of the UN climate talks in Paris later this year, it is young people and future generations that will feel its effects most.

Youth have been participating in the UN climate process from the very beginning. Today, they work together as YOUNGO.

Over the years, YOUNGO has built itself up into a strong and united movement through cross-continent Skype calls, online training sessions and annual youth conferences.

Paris will see some of their biggest campaigns yet, as they fight for a fair and effective response to the biggest threat to their lives.

RTCC asked a handful of youth delegates what they are hoping to see from December’s deal.

Tone Bjørndal, Norway, International Federation of Liberal Youth

We hope the Paris agreement will be as strong as possible. For all Parties to agree, it will be, as Christiana [Figueres, UN climate chief] said in Bonn, “a macro-level agreement” – it will not deal with specifics.

Whatever the agreement looks like, I think it is extremely important to actually achieve an agreement.

I think it will send a strong signal to society, to governments, people and industry that we mean business. Now is the time to act – we will not look back, only forward, and when looking forward we see a sustainable and fair future powered by renewable energy.

Adrian Yeo, Malaysia, Malaysia Youth Climate Change Society

2015 will be the crucial year in the history of battling climate change.

My hope is that every country participating in the Paris talks will reach consensus and produce an ambitious yet practical implementation plan. The plan should include strong climate fund for those country in need and the resources to shift towards emission free development pathway.

Having said the above, we strong uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in providing ability and ambition.

Natalie Jones, New Zealand, New Zealand Youth Delegation

Our neighbours in the Pacific are amongst those already starting to experience the disastrous effects of climate change, yet the New Zealand government is failing to act. Their climate pledge actually allows an increase in emissions, showing that our government could potentially obstruct an ambitious international agreement in Paris.

Which is why our delegation of eight is working with New Zealand youth and the wider climate movement to call for effective and equitable solutions.

But Paris isn’t the be all and end all. We can also look to communities, youth, businesses and local governments, all of which are already working towards a zero carbon economy.

Hamzat Lawal, Nigeria, African Youth Initiative on Climate Change

What I hope for from the Paris deal is to see that world leaders commit this time, not politically and not by giving a speech, but actually commit. This means taking actions to reduce greenhouse gas emission and taking actions to adhere to the treaty that will be signed in Paris.

I also hope to see young people put in the centre stage of the negotiation because we are the future generation. As well as this, we are the present generation. We bridge the gap between the past generation, the current generation and the future generation. This should be addressed in the Paris deal, whereby intergenerational equity should be a strong component.

Joanna Read, UK, UK Youth Climate Coalition

There are a wide range of opinions within UKYCC regarding the effectiveness of the UN process. My personal view is that climate change is a global issue, and I believe to some extent it needs a united global solution. The meeting in Paris in December is one step on the way to achieving that.

Arguably more important is the building of the climate movement up until Paris. A milestone such as COP21 is a great talking point, to raise awareness and a good excuse to bring people together.

We hope it’s going to be a year to remember. I hope it will be for the right reasons!

Saket Mani, India, youth advocate and representative to the UN

COP21 is one of our last chances to act, before climate change becomes irreversible. If we fail, my parents and my generation’s legacy could become one of enduring injustice, to the voiceless of today and tomorrow.

Irrespective of one’s optimism or doubtfulness about the prospects for a global accord among the various nations, it is clear that young people will have to play an active role in any effort to mitigate or adapt to the challenges posed by climate change.

Kyle Gracey, US, SustainUS

SustainUS is looking for the strongest possible deal in Paris – one that ensures a just transition away from fossil fuels, provides enough money for developing countries to adapt to climate change and create their own clean energy economies, and helps us keep long-term temperature increases to no more than 1.5C.

The post What do young people want from a Paris climate deal? appeared first on Climate Home News.