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Kicking the hornet’s nest
It’s time for a serious look at shading the Earth, say the Swiss. Switzerland kicked the hornet’s nest of geoengineering with an official proposal at the UN Environment Assembly’s latest gathering in Nairobi.
The Swiss wanted the UN to set up an expert group to study “the risks, benefits and uncertainties” of blocking some of the sun’s rays using techniques of solar radiation modification (SRM). The most common suggestion is to inject sulphur aerosols into the atmosphere and reflect some fraction of the sun’s heat before it hits the Earth.
The proposal provoked fierce opposition, especially from African nations, which countered with a demand for a “non-use” agreement on SRM. After some cantankerous debate, nothing was agreed. Switzerland ultimately pulled its proposal, saying, “At least we managed to start a global conversation about this important topic.”
In truth, that conversation is already well underway. In the past several months, climate engineering has been part of reports and research strategies issued by the U.S. government, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament. There’s a Climate Overshoot Commission studying geoengineering chaired by the former head of the WTO that includes Kim Campbell, who was (briefly) Canada’s 19th prime minister.
Luminaries of climate science like James Hansen are calling for intensified research and there are now institutes at various universities and scientific conferences dedicated to the topic. It’s a hornet’s nest even in academic circles where some scientists say we’d better get our emergency options figured out while others think we’re already running too many geoengineering experiments altering the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses.
Several countries have geoengineering on their research agendas, including Canada. Environment and Climate Change Canada’s science strategy aims to “understand the potential for climate engineering and determine the implications,” specifically for solar radiation modification, marine geoengineering and carbon dioxide removal techniques.
Almost everyone involved seems to think it’s a desperate idea. Tempered by the fact that we’re headed into desperate territory. “Solar radiation management is both a terrifying, terrible idea and an absolutely inevitable future,” says Nils Gilman, editor at Noema Magazine.
“Inevitable” might be a provocative turn of phrase but the Swiss are not just looking at their own vanishing glaciers. The numbers have been tabulated for February and the global heat wave is unrelenting.
It was the ninth straight month obliterating global heat records. February was not just the hottest February on record, it averaged 1.77 C above pre-industrial temperatures. Every month since last July has exceeded the symbolic 1.5-degree figure.
Last year, it felt momentous that we topped 2 C for two days. This February, there were four days above two degrees.
The global heat wave is most obvious in the world’s oceans — temperatures are not just record-high but streaking way above any recorded precedent. The red line shows this year, while orange is 2023 and those grey lines date back to 1979.
One of the most immediate impacts of heating up the oceans is unfolding on the world’s coral reefs. The U.S. government’s Coral Reef Watch has been forced to add new alert levels and warns we are on the verge of the “worst bleaching event in history,” impacting corals in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian oceans.
In Australia, officials at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park just officially declared the world’s largest reef is suffering mass bleaching — something unheard of before 1998 but this is now the fifth “event” on the Great Barrier Reef in the past eight years.
Lissa Schindler, a scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told The Guardian: “This is a huge wake-up call for Australia and the global community that we need to do much more to address climate change, which is driving the marine heat waves that lead to coral bleaching.
“Australia’s current target of a 43 per cent cut in carbon pollution by 2030 is consistent with a 2 C warming pathway, which equates to the loss of 99 per cent of the world’s coral reefs.”
First world progress?
It often feels like we’re barrelling into ever higher temperatures and still spewing more and more climate pollution. Sadly that’s still true at the global level — CO2 emissions were higher last year than ever before. But if you dig beneath the top-line bad news, the trends in clean energy are beginning to make an impact, and climate pollution from rich countries is actually decreasing.
You might be surprised to hear that rich countries’ CO2 emissions have been reduced to the lowest level since the 1970s. Last year, emissions fell about 4.5 per cent across the advanced economies — the biggest annual drop ever outside of recessions and the pandemic.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) figures carbon pollution has been in structural decline since 2007 from this group of wealthy countries and is now lower than 50 years ago.
And rich countries are burning less coal than they have since 1900. Coal hit its peak in 2007 and has dropped by half, with some wealthy countries eliminating coal burning entirely. “This reduction was driven by the remarkable increase in the share of renewables,” says the IEA. The agency reports that renewables “more than doubled from 16 per cent to 34 per cent of electricity generation during this period.”
That’s not to say there wasn’t also a lot of switching from coal to fossil gas. But not as much as renewables and certainly not the coal-conquering role advertised by the gas industry. “There has been significant coal-to-gas switching,” acknowledges the IEA. “The share of natural gas in electricity generation (rose) from 22 per cent to 31 per cent.
The deployment of clean energy is starting to make a dent. Over the past five years, it has displaced 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2 that would otherwise have come from fossil fuel burning.
It’s not yet a big enough dent to drive down carbon pollution at a global level. Emissions grew in 2023 but clean energy is limiting the growth. Without all that clean energy, the global rise in CO2 emissions last year would have been three times larger.
By far the biggest share of these “avoided emissions” came from China where solar, wind and EVs are being deployed at stunning rates. But it’s a bifurcated picture because China’s climate pollution is still rising. Its CO2 emissions per capita are now higher than Europe’s or Japan’s.
China recorded a big increase in carbon pollution last year and worryingly, about a third of the increase resulted from a historically bad year for hydropower caused by drought. India, Indonesia and other developing countries also had increases in CO2 emissions. About a quarter of the increase in India was similarly caused by a poor monsoon season, which decreases hydropower while increasing demand for electricity.
Here’s the overall picture of our predicament, broken down by region:
Death threats over greenwashing bill
Charlie Angus has been "inundated" with death threats, swearing and homophobic slurs over the MP’s proposal to curb greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry, reports Marc Fawcett-Atkinson.
Angus tabled a private member’s bill to ban misleading advertising by the fossil fuel industry. He’s been bombarded by a "rage machine" — mostly angry men — after oil and gas boosters went ballistic and the Conservative party launched an online petition.
The bill is modelled on laws regulating tobacco advertising in Canada. Other countries have already regulated fossil fuel advertising to minimize greenwashing. France banned the practice in 2022 and requires high-carbon industries to carry warnings about their climate impacts.
Exxon sparks outrage
After decades funding climate denial, Exxon now says it’s the public’s fault the world has “waited too long” to develop low-carbon technologies and isn’t on track cutting climate pollution. Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, says low-carbon energy would be useful but just doesn’t “see the ability to generate above-average returns for investors.”
“It’s like a drug lord blaming everyone but himself for drug problems,” said Gernot Wagner, an economist at Columbia Business School.
“The playbook is this: Sell consumers a product that you know is dangerous, while publicly denying or downplaying those dangers. Then, when the dangers are no longer deniable, deny responsibility and blame the consumer,” says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard.
First Nation sues Alberta Energy Regulator over oilsands leaks
The Alberta Energy Regulator belatedly held a meeting with communities downstream from oilsands tailings leaks that went unreported for months. The regulator got an earful … and notice of a lawsuit.
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation showed up and personally served the regulator’s president a statement of claim. “Now that they've messed up so bad that we have them … we're going to expose all of the negligence that they've been doing over the years,” said Adam.
Banking on it
Canada’s big five banks are undermining their own net-zero commitments and increasing financing for fossil fuels, according to an analysis of their portfolios by InfluenceMap.
“The banks’ financing of oil and gas companies jumped from US$62 billion in 2020 to US$104 billion in 2022.”
RBC has been under particular pressure from climate activists. This week, it announced new plans to boost lending for renewable energy projects up from $5 billion last year to a promised $15 billion by 2030. RBC’s vice-president told the Globe and Mail the move is “aimed partly at answering its environmental critics.”
With or without a carbon tax
“The Canadian carbon price has ruptured like an overcooked sausage,” writes Bruce Lourie.
“This may not present a problem for the Liberals in that they have an extensive toolbox from which to work and are using virtually all the tools at their disposal. The Conservatives, however, will have a tough time coming up with alternatives to carbon pricing after having rejected regulations, standards, incentives, subsidies and most other means of addressing emission reductions.”
Solar cheaper than coal in Asia
Coal’s big competitor in the Asia-Pacific region isn’t gas, it’s solar, according to Wood Mackenzie.
“Utility PV solar has emerged in 2023 as the cheapest power source in the region, while onshore wind is expected to become cheaper than coal after 2025,” says Alex Whitworth, head of Asia-Pacific power research at Wood Mackenzie. “Renewables firmed with battery storage are becoming competitive with gas power today.”
Commercial trucks going electric in China
Heavy commercial trucks were considered one of the hardest things to electrify but Colin McKerracher reports the market is picking up speed in China. There were over 330,000 commercial EV sales last year. Electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks topped 10 per cent of sales, up from basically zero three years ago.
“Those may seem like modest numbers,” writes McKerracher for Bloomberg. “But heavy trucks were supposed to be one of the hardest segments to electrify, and many groups expected them to keep oil demand in the country growing for years to come. Hitting 10 [per cent] of the market is meaningful, and puts them just a few years behind passenger cars.” (Passenger EVs were closing in on 40 per cent of the market in China at the end of last year.)
Electric ferries for Halifax
Halifax Transit will add five electric ferries and two new “net-zero” terminals in a deal announced March 4. (Don’t anyone tell Donald Trump or we’ll be talking about sharks again.)
🍁⚡️Halifax is adding a new, electrified ferry service to transport people between its downtown and Bedford.
— Clean Energy Canada (@cleanenergycan) March 5, 2024
The five electric ferries planned can each carry up to 200 passengers and make the trip in 18 minutes—faster than by car.#nspoli #cdnpolihttps://t.co/0tnLhu8yhB
Jaguar to end production of gas-burning cars this year
“Jaguar is planning a phoenix-like rebirth as the British automaker executes its plan to become an EV-only manufacturer by 2025,” reports Car and Driver. “This will involve killing off its current lineup.”
Net zero may be easier than you think
If you could use some ground for optimism on the energy front, Michael Liebreich lays out the “bull case (for) the Five Superheroes of the Transition.”
The wonk factor is moderately high, as you might expect from the founder of New Energy Finance (now owned by Bloomberg) but the arguments are easy enough to follow. I’ll leave you with a teaser. In “Superhero 5: The Primary Energy Fallacy,” Liebreich writes:
“The fifth and final Superhero is an absolute zinger: The entire decarbonization challenge is far smaller than is made out by its critics. The reason lies in the nature of Primary Energy Demand, the metric that dominates public debate about the transition…”
“Fully two-thirds ends up as ‘rejected energy,’ the majority of it waste heat from fossil-fuelled power stations and transportation — in other words, from burning stuff: the exact same process as produces CO2 emissions. Only one-third ends up as the “Energy Services” actually used by consumers and businesses.