Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #33
Sustainability at the Paris Olympics, Edinburgh's ban on SUV ads, Wayanad landslides, Heatwaves not being a national disaster and the new record for the hottest day on earth and 2 surprises!
Hello folks! Here’s another edition of the climate news digest. I am making a few changes to the newsletter. Bringing in 2 new sections:
What can I do? - Simple actions that we can do as individuals in our daily lives to join this fight against climate change
Sailee’s climate picks - 1 piece of climate content I’d like to recommend that could be books, article, podcasts, movies etc.
Also, trying to make the news sections shorter based on some feedback I’ve been getting from readers. Do let me know what you think of the changes in comments or DMs.
Now on to today’s edition of the news digest
🌞 Sunny news 🌞
1. Paris Olympics potentially the most sustainable Olympics ever!
It’s Olympics season and I absolutely love it. I watch sporting events that I only hear about once in 4 years and learn things like there is actually an event called ‘breaking’! So obviously we had to talk about how the Olympics is doing on sustainability.
What is special about the Paris Olympics in terms of sustainability?
Minimised new construction: Paris is using existing or temporary venues wherever possible. There are only 2 new venues and they have been built in the North Eastern suburb on Paris which is the most under invested neighbourhood of the city. Also, they have been built using recycled material.
Energy use - Uses 100% renewable energy. All venues are connected to the grid so that they don't have to use diesel generators. The venues will depend on renewable energy through solar panels and geothermal cooling as an alternative to ACs.
Public transport - All venues will be accessible by public transport and most of them do not have any provision for parking private vehicles, encouraging attendees to use public transport! The city also built 400 kms of new bike lanes to encourage cycling.
Sustainable food: The 13 million meals that will be served during the Olympics games will incorporate more plant based options, use 80% local ingredients and cut use of single use plastic in cutlery.
Why does this matter?
Large sporting events are typically very bad for the environment. Large venues are built that often don't find use later. A lot of material and energy goes into the construction of these venues. People travel from all over the world. Thus any global sporting event has a lot of emissions related to energy, travel, waste and materials.
Paris Olympics has taken a great step in making the more event more sustainable and very importantly measuring the impact of actions they have taken. This will help set a benchmark that we can expect future events to meet and better.
Sources for further reading:
2. Edinburgh bans ads for airlines and SUVs!
What is happening?
Scotland's capital city, Edinburgh has banned advertisements for airlines and sports utility vehicles, along with ads for cruise lines and oil and gas companies, in what campaigners are calling a "historic" step-up in action to tackle climate change.
In 2020, Amsterdam became the first major city in the world to ban fossil fuel advertising, along with ads for air travel.
Why does this matter?
Reaching our climate targets requires a shift in our way of living, which will come from changing perceptions about what society looks at as aspirational
The advertising industry has a key role to play in promoting todays high carbon and high consumption economy, which is incompatible with our goal of reducing emissions.
Hence, such bans are a great step in driving changes in consumer behaviour towards a low carbon lifestyle.
Sources to read further:
What can I do? 😎
This is a new section that will bring to you a simple action you can do as a step towards leading a more sustainable life
Carry a water bottle everywhere!
Carrying your own water bottle means you don’t pick up the small plastic mineral water bottles in meetings, conferences, hotels or buy them at a store. You thus do your bit towards reducing the use of plastic - thus reducing the emissions that are involved in making the plastic as well as avoiding the plastic waste challenge once you have discarded the bottle.
And you’ll also do a much better job at staying hydrated through the day. So it’s a win-win!
⛈️ Stormy news ⛈️
3. Devastating landslides in Wayanad
What is happening?
Wayanad saw devastating landslides on July 30 which have killed ~400 people so far with ~150 people still missing
What can this be attributed to?
The human toll and destruction from the landslide can be attributed to a combination of extremely heavy rainfall + unplanned development in an ecologically sensitive region.
The Wayanad district saw very heavy (200 mm+) of rainfall on July 30.
The Wayanad region is an ecologically sensitive region highly prone to landslides. Then, there has been significant development in the Wayanad region over the last few decades. The development has increased the propensity of the landslides itself.
Additionally, the development in the region has increased the density of people living there, putting more people at risk.
Why does this matter?
Like Wayanad, several ecologically sensitive regions in India are seeing unplanned and thoughtless development. The tragedy in Wayanad should serve as a wake up call to other places as such events could very well happen elsewhere driven by a combination of higher probability of extreme weather events induced by climate change.
Sources for further reading
4. Heatwaves are still NOT notified natural disasters according to the Indian government
What are we talking about?
Heatwaves are not listed as a notified disaster under the Disaster Management Act of India
The Act defines a disaster as a “catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence” arising from “natural or man-made causes” that results in substantial loss of life, destruction of property, or damage to the environment.
What is the argument to consider Heatwaves as natural disasters?
Several parts of India have been seeing increasingly brutal heatwaves in summer with people dying or falling severely sick. The official toll of people who have died from heatwaves this summer is 100, but that is likely only a fraction of the actual number.
Notifying heatwaves as natural disasters will allow states to use their disaster response funds to provide compensation and relief and conduct other activities to minimise the effects of a heatwave.
How do other countries view Heatwaves?
Several countries have started bringing more attention to heatwaves. In fact, several European countries have started naming heatwaves (similar to cyclones) in order to create awareness about how deadly they can be and the seriousness of the response needed.
Sources for further reading
5. July 22, 2024 was the world’s hottest day ever!
What are we talking about?
July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record, according to a NASA analysis of global daily temperature data.
Why does this matter?
The previous record for the world’s hottest day was set only a year ago in July 2023. July 21 and 23 of this year also exceeded July 2023 record.
These record-breaking temperatures are part of a long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases.
This has come on the back of 13 consecutive hottest months and is yet another worrying sign for the future
Sources for further reading:
Sailee’s climate picks
This is a new section where I’ll bring to you 1 piece of climate content I’d like to recommend that could be books, article, podcasts, movies etc.
This week’s recommendation is:
Everything is everything: Can we build Switzerland in India
from the brilliant
andYou can read previous editions of the newsletter -
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #32
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #31
Sunny climate, stormy climate | News Digest #30
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