Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #22
In this edition, we talk about how China may see a structural decline in emissions from next year, French footballers adopting sustainable travel and the dismal air quality in Indian cities.
This is a fortnightly news digest covering climate news. In every edition, I will bring to you 5 stories about the changing climate and its impact on us!
3 stormy ones - concerning stories that are a source of alarm
2 sunny ones - green shoots that tell you that all is not yet lost
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Sunny news
China likely to see a structural decline in Carbon emissions from next year
China’s carbon emissions could peak in 2023 before falling into a structural decline for the first time from next year after a record surge in clean energy investments, according to research by CREA (Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air).
China is currently the largest emitter of carbon emissions and its emissions rebounded this year after falling during Covid.
So what has contributed to this situation where emissions are expected to start declining?
Renewable energy: Solar and wind installation targets for the year were met by September. Solar installations increased by 210 gigawatts (GW) this year alone, which is twice the total solar capacity of the US and four times what China added in 2020.
EV: The market share of electric vehicles is already well ahead of the government’s 20% target for 2025.
Sources to read further:
French football teams embrace sustainable living - will travel by train in lieu of flights; UK also following suit!
France’s football teams will travel to all matches that are under 3 hours away by train instead of plane in a bid to cut carbon emissions.
The country’s football federation announced the new policy, which applies to all national teams, last week.
It will take a bit longer to implement for the men’s senior team, as the federation figures out the logistics of public transport for global stars like Kylian Mbappé.
Earlier this year, France had banned short distance commercial flights for routes where a train journey of 2.5 hours or less was available. (We covered it in an earlier edition)
However, this wasn’t applicable to private flights taken by sports teams
UK football is also trying to go green. Clubs including Bristol City, Forest Green Rovers, Millwall and Swindon Town have signed up for the initiative which encourages teams to travel by coach or train as part of a ‘sustainable travel charter’.
Why does this matter?
Private planes (that are often used by football teams) are a huge contributor to carbon emissions and can be up to 100x of emissions from a train journey (the impact of private aviation was covered in an earlier edition)
Seeing football stars make sustainable lifestyle choices like these can encourage more people to follow suit.
Source to read further:
Stormy news
India’s air quality woes: Many Indian cities recorded peak pollution during Diwali days; Delhi continues to struggle with poor air quality on a longer term.
An analysis of hour by hour pollutant levels, shows that many Indian cities registered this years (2023) highest pollution levels on Diwali day (November 12)
Several Indian cities - Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Lucknow, Chennai, Kolkata had hourly pollution levels crossing the 500 μg/m3 mark
Snippet from a piece ‘Many Indian cities record peak pollution during Deepavali day’ from The Hindu Summary on what is happening in Delhi
Air quality in Delhi has been in severe (almost catastrophic) category the last 2 weeks with the AQI crossing 500 in several stations.
SC has directed state govts of Delhi, Raj, Punjab, Haryana and UP to ensure that stubble burning (which is a major contributor to the pollution) is stopped immediately
SC has also questioned the efficacy of the odd even scheme run by the Delhi government to control pollution
The air pollution has further spiked post Diwali as the firecracker ban wasn’t enforced strictly and AQI crossed 1000 in some places.
The Delhi government is using sprinklers to sprinkle water on roads in order to reduce the pollutant concentrations in the air
If you want to read more about air pollution, I had put together a bunch of resources I found useful in a Twitter thread
Details of ‘Loss and damage’ fund not yet finalised even as the COP 28 deadline of finalising it looms close
What is the ‘loss and damage’ fund?
“Loss and damage” is a term used to describe how climate change is already causing serious and, in many cases, irreversible impacts around the world – particularly in vulnerable communities.
At the COP27 climate summit, all countries agreed to set up a fund to pay for loss and damage. This came after a 30-year fight for such a fund led by small island states and developing countries.
What was agreed upon in COP 27?
Agreed to establish a new loss and damage fund
A “transitional committee” should be established, to come up with a plan for how the fund would work in practice
A decision “related to the new funding arrangements” should be adopted “no later than at COP28”.
What are the points of debate?
Who will benefit from the fund? - Should it be all developing countries or only the LDC (least developed countries)
Who will pay into the fund? - Should it be only developed countries (as defined in 1992) or should the larger developing countries (China, Saudi Arabia) also contribute?
Who will operate the fund? - The US wants the fund to be housed in the World bank, however the group of developing countries does not think this is optimal as the world bank is a lending institution and not designed for grant giving.
Why are we talking about it now?
All of the above details were supposed to be finalised and aligned on in COP 28 (that starts on 30th Nov in Dubai)
In spite of 4 meetings that the transitional committee had in the last year, they could not agree on the debated points.
Finally, an emergency meeting was held in early November, but still several points still remain open. So it remains to be seen, whether an agreement can be reached on the details of the fund during COP 28.
Why is this important?
Vulnerable countries are already facing extensive damage and losses due to climate change (e.g. floods in Pakistan and Libya) and such extreme climate events are only expected to become more frequent and intense. In the absence of such a fund their ability to bounce back from such disasters is poor and will result in a humanitarian crisis for the affected people.
Source to read further:
‘Climate hazard flip’: Extreme drought in Northern Italy punctuated by extreme rainfall causing devastating flooding
Italy declared a state of emergency because of drought in Po river (Source: CNBC) Extreme drought in northern Italy has doubled over the past two decades, creating a climate that increasingly mirrors that of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
The Po river which is the longest river in Italy with 17 million people living in its basin that was once the major source of irrigation in the region has been experiencing record low water levels. The government had to declare a state of emergency last year after three years of drought.
But as part of what researchers describe as a “climate hazard flip”, the droughts in Italy are punctuated by extreme rainfall causing devastating flooding, which was experienced in the Lombardy region of Italy this summer.
Similar patterns of flipping weather are being observed in other parts of the world
Mbale, an eastern region of Uganda in the shadow of Mount Elgon, is experiencing much wetter conditions, which has created unprecedented flooding over the past three years. A school teacher said ““We are in total confusion. The months that used to be rainy are now dry. When the rains come, they can be short yet heavy, leading to floods”
Sources for further reading:
