A heat wave in Greenland and a storm in Antarctica. These kinds of individual weather “events” are increasingly being supercharged by a warming climate. But despite being short-term events they can also have a much longer-term effect on the world’s largest ice sheets, and may even lead to tipping points being crossed in the polar regions.

We have just published research looking at these sudden changes in the ice sheets and how they may impact what we know about sea level rise. One reason this is so important is that the global sea level is predicted to rise by anywhere between 28 cm and 100cm by the year 2100, according to the IPCC. This is a huge range – 70 cm extra sea-level rise would affect many millions more people.

Partly this uncertainty is because we simply don’t know whether we’ll curb our emissions or continue with business as usual. But while possible social and economic changes are at least factored in to the above numbers, the IPCC acknowledges its estimate does not take into account deeply uncertain ice-sheet processes.

Sudden accelerations

The sea is rising for two main reasons. First, the water itself is very slightly expanding as it warms, with this process responsible for about a third of the total expected sea-level rise.

Second, the world’s largest ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are melting or sliding into the sea. As the ice sheets and glaciers respond relatively slowly, the sea will also continue to rise for centuries.

Photo by Cassie Matias on Unsplash

Scientists have long known that there is a potential for sudden accelerations in the rate at which ice is lost from Greenland and Antarctica which could cause considerably more sea-level rise: perhaps a metre or more in a century. Once started, this would be impossible to stop.

Although there is a lot of uncertainty over how likely this is, there is some evidence that it happened about 130,000 years ago, the last time global temperatures were anything close to the present day. We cannot discount the risk.

To improve predictions of rises in sea level we therefore need a clearer understanding of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. In particular, we need to review if there are weather or climate changes that we can already identify that might lead to abrupt increases in the speed of mass loss.

Weather can have long-term effects

Our new study, involving an international team of 29 ice-sheet experts and published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, reviews evidence gained from observational data, geological records, and computer model simulations.

We found several examples from the past few decades where weather “events” – a single storm, a heatwave – have led to important long-term changes.

The ice sheets are built from millennia of snowfall that gradually compresses and starts to flow towards the ocean. The ice sheets, like any glacier, respond to changes in the atmosphere and the ocean when the ice is in contact with sea water.

These changes could take place over a matter of hours or days or they may be long-term changes from months to years or thousands of years. And processes may interact with each other on different timescales, so that a glacier may gradually thin and weaken but remain stable until an abrupt short-term event pushes it over the edge and it rapidly collapses.

Because of these different timescales, we need to coordinate collecting and using more diverse types of data and knowledge.

Historically, we thought of ice sheets as slow-moving and delayed in their response to climate change. In contrast, our research found that these huge glacial ice masses respond in far quicker and more unexpected ways as the climate warms, similarly to the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and heatwaves responding to changes with the climate.

Ground and satellite observations show that sudden heatwaves and large storms can have long-lasting effects on ice sheets. For example a heatwave in July 2023 meant at one point 67% of the Greenland ice sheet surface was melting, compared with around 20% for average July conditions. In 2022 unusually warm rain fell on the Conger ice shelf in Antarctica, causing it to disappear almost overnight.

These weather-driven events have long “tails”. Ice sheets don’t follow a simple uniform response to climate warming when they melt or slide into the sea. Instead their changes are punctuated by short-term extremes.

For example, brief periods of melting in Greenland can melt far more ice and snow than is replaced the following winter. Or the catastrophic break-up of ice shelves along the Antarctic coast can rapidly unplug much larger amounts of ice from further inland.

Failing to adequately account for this short-term variability might mean we underestimate how much ice will be lost in future.

What happens next

Scientists must prioritise research on ice-sheet variability. This means better ice-sheet and ocean monitoring systems that can capture the effects of short but extreme weather events.

This will come from new satellites as well as field data. We’ll also need better computer models of how ice sheets will respond to climate change. Fortunately there are already some promising global collaborative initiatives.

We don’t know exactly how much the global sea level is going to rise some decades in advance, but understanding more about the ice sheets will help to refine our predictions.

Edward Hanna, Professor of Climate Science and Meteorology, University of Lincoln and Ruth Mottram, Climate Scientist, National Centre for Climate Research, Danish Meteorological Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That’s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow” depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation and the catastrophic consequences.

While Hollywood’s vision was over the top, the 2004 movie raised a serious question: If global warming shuts down the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is crucial for carrying heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes, how abrupt and severe would the climate changes be?

Twenty years after the movie’s release, we know a lot more about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation. Instruments deployed in the ocean starting in 2004 show that the Atlantic Ocean circulation has observably slowed over the past two decades, possibly to its weakest state in almost a millennium. Studies also suggest that the circulation has reached a dangerous tipping point in the past that sent it into a precipitous, unstoppable decline, and that it could hit that tipping point again as the planet warms and glaciers and ice sheets melt.

In a new study using the latest generation of Earth’s climate models, we simulated the flow of fresh water until the ocean circulation reached that tipping point.

The results showed that the circulation could fully shut down within a century of hitting the tipping point, and that it’s headed in that direction. If that happened, average temperatures would drop by several degrees in North America, parts of Asia and Europe, and people would see severe and cascading consequences around the world.

We also discovered a physics-based early warning signal that can alert the world when the Atlantic Ocean circulation is nearing its tipping point.

The ocean’s conveyor belt

Ocean currents are driven by winds, tides and water density differences.

In the Atlantic Ocean circulation, the relatively warm and salty surface water near the equator flows toward Greenland. During its journey it crosses the Caribbean Sea, loops up into the Gulf of Mexico, and then flows along the U.S. East Coast before crossing the Atlantic.

This current, also known as the Gulf Stream, brings heat to Europe. As it flows northward and cools, the water mass becomes heavier. By the time it reaches Greenland, it starts to sink and flow southward. The sinking of water near Greenland pulls water from elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and the cycle repeats, like a conveyor belt.

Too much fresh water from melting glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet can dilute the saltiness of the water, preventing it from sinking, and weaken this ocean conveyor belt. A weaker conveyor belt transports less heat northward and also enables less heavy water to reach Greenland, which further weakens the conveyor belt’s strength. Once it reaches the tipping point, it shuts down quickly.

What happens to the climate at the tipping point?

The existence of a tipping point was first noticed in an overly simplified model of the Atlantic Ocean circulation in the early 1960s. Today’s more detailed climate models indicate a continued slowing of the conveyor belt’s strength under climate change. However, an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation appeared to be absent in these climate models.

Ted-Ed Video: “How do ocean currents work? – Jennifer Verduin”

This is where our study comes in. We performed an experiment with a detailed climate model to find the tipping point for an abrupt shutdown by slowly increasing the input of fresh water.

We found that once it reaches the tipping point, the conveyor belt shuts down within 100 years. The heat transport toward the north is strongly reduced, leading to abrupt climate shifts.

The result: Dangerous cold in the North

Regions that are influenced by the Gulf Stream receive substantially less heat when the circulation stops. This cools the North American and European continents by a few degrees.

The European climate is much more influenced by the Gulf Stream than other regions. In our experiment, that meant parts of the continent changed at more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) per decade – far faster than today’s global warming of about 0.36 F (0.2 C) per decade. We found that parts of Norway would experience temperature drops of more than 36 F (20 C). On the other hand, regions in the Southern Hemisphere would warm by a few degrees.

These temperature changes develop over about 100 years. That might seem like a long time, but on typical climate time scales, it is abrupt.

The conveyor belt shutting down would also affect sea level and precipitation patterns, which can push other ecosystems closer to their tipping points. For example, the Amazon rainforest is vulnerable to declining precipitation. If its forest ecosystem turned to grassland, the transition would release carbon to the atmosphere and result in the loss of a valuable carbon sink, further accelerating climate change.

The Atlantic circulation has slowed significantly in the distant past. During glacial periods when ice sheets that covered large parts of the planet were melting, the influx of fresh water slowed the Atlantic circulation, triggering huge climate fluctuations.

So, when will we see this tipping point?

The big question – when will the Atlantic circulation reach a tipping point – remains unanswered. Observations don’t go back far enough to provide a clear result. While a recent study suggested that the conveyor belt is rapidly approaching its tipping point, possibly within a few years, these statistical analyses made several assumptions that give rise to uncertainty.

Instead, we were able to develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal involving the salinity transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic Ocean. Once a threshold is reached, the tipping point is likely to follow in one to four decades.

The climate impacts from our study underline the severity of such an abrupt conveyor belt collapse. The temperature, sea level and precipitation changes will severely affect society, and the climate shifts are unstoppable on human time scales.

It might seem counterintuitive to worry about extreme cold as the planet warms, but if the main Atlantic Ocean circulation shuts down from too much meltwater pouring in, that’s the risk ahead.

This article was updated on Feb. 11, 2024, to fix a typo: The experiment found temperatures in parts of Europe changed by more than 5 F per decade.

René van Westen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Physics, Utrecht University; Henk A. Dijkstra, Professor of Physics, Utrecht University, and Michael Kliphuis, Climate Model Specialist, Utrecht University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Action continues to fall far short of pledges, even as temperature and greenhouse gas records are repeatedly broken

Catherine Early

( China Dialogue ) – Countries must make far greater efforts to implement their climate strategies this decade to stand a chance of keeping global temperature rise within 1.5C (2.7F) of the pre-industrial average.

Continued delays will only increase the world’s reliance on uncertain carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDR), according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

In the most recent annual assessment of progress on global climate action, the Emissions Gap Report 2023, UNEP pointed to progress since the Paris Agreement. When it was adopted in 2015, greenhouse gas emissions were projected to rise 16% by 2030. Today, that increase is projected to be 3%.

But from now emissions must fall 28% by 2030 to keep temperature rise to 3.6F (2C), or 42% to stay within 2.7F (1.5C), and countries are failing to match this need with action, UNEP found.

Photo by Andreas Felske on Unsplash

Current climate policies will result in a rise of 3C this century. The increase will be limited to 5.2F (2.9C) if countries fully implement their national climate plans (known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs).

This could be kept to 4.5F (2.5C) if plans by developing countries, which are currently conditional on obtaining financial support, are carried out – since that would result in a 9% fall in emissions.  

In UNEP’s most optimistic scenario, where all conditional NDCs and net zero pledges are met, limiting temperature rise to 3.6F (2C) could be achieved, UNEP says. This scenario is considered to give at best a 14% chance of limiting warming to 2.7F (1.5C).

Now, 97 countries have pledged to meet net zero emissions, up from 88 last year. Pledges cover 81% of the world’s greenhouse gases (GHGs). However, the authors do not consider these pledges to be credible, pointing out that none of the G20 countries are reducing emissions at a pace consistent with their net-zero targets.

National net zero plans have several flaws, according to Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report. Many are not legally binding, or fail to have clear implementation plans, and there is a lack of targets between now and the dates when governments claim to be aiming for net zero, she says.

“But most importantly, emissions are still going up in countries that have put forward zero emission pledges. There are many ways to net zero, but at some point you need to peak and reduce. And the longer you wait until you peak, the more difficult it’s likely to be to actually get to net zero,” she says.

Under the Paris Agreement, ambition in the NDCs is designed to be ramped up over time. At COP28, which begins in Dubai at the end of November, countries will debate how to build new ambition under the first Global Stocktake. This will inform the next round of NDCs that countries should submit in 2025, which will have targets for 2035.

Countries should focus on implementing existing policies this decade, rather than pledging higher targets for 2030, says Olhoff.

“Whether or not the ambition of the 2030 targets is raised or not is less important than achieving those targets. If countries find that they can also strengthen ambition for 2030, that’s an added benefit,” she says.

The more action taken this decade, the more ambitious countries can be in their new targets for 2035, and the easier it will be to achieve those targets, she points out.

The report states that high-income and high-emitting countries among the G20 should take the most ambitious and rapid action, and provide financial and technical support to developing nations.

However, it adds that low- and middle-income countries already account for more than two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. Development needs in these countries need to be met with economic growth that produces low emissions, such as by reducing energy demand and prioritising clean energy, it says.

“This is an extremely large and diverse group of countries, and the opportunities for low-emissions growth depend a lot on national circumstances,” Ohloff says. Proposed reforms to international finance through multilateral development banks should improve access to finance and the ability of developing countries to attract investment. Borrowing often costs a lot more in these countries than in developed ones, she says. 

But some countries who suffer from corruption need to “get their own house in order” and improve governance to avoid this, she adds.

The role of carbon removal

The report points out that the world will also need to use carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which the authors see as having a role on three timescales.

It can already contribute to lowering net emissions, today.

In the medium term, it can contribute to tackling residual emissions from so-called hard-to-abate sectors, such as aviation and heavy industry.

And in the longer term, CDR could potentially be deployed at a large enough scale to bring about a decline in the global mean temperature. They stress that its use should be in addition to rapid decarbonisation of industry, transport, heat and power systems.

CDR refers to the direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and its durable storage in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. It is different to carbon capture and storage (CSS), which captures CO2 from emissions at their sources, such as a power station, and transfers it into permanent storage. While some CCS methods share features with CDR, they can never result in CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

Some CDR is already being deployed, mainly through reforestation, afforestation and forest management. However, this is very small scale, with removals estimated at 2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) annually. Research and development into more novel technologies is increasing, with methods including sequestering carbon in soil; enhanced weathering, which speeds up the natural weathering of rocks to store CO2; and direct air capture and storage (DACC), where CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere.

There are multiple risks associated with scaling up CDR. These include competition with land for food, protection of tenure and rights, as well as public perception. In addition, the technical, economic and political requirements for large-scale deployment may not materialise in time, UNEP says. Some methods are very expensive, particularly DACC, which UNEP estimates at US$800 per tonne of CO2 removed.

Governments have tended not to specify the extent to which they plan to use CDR to achieve their emission-reduction targets, nor the residual emissions they plan to allow annually when achieving net-zero CO2 and greenhouse gas emission targets, UNEP found. Estimates of the implied levels of land-based removals in long-term strategies and net-zero pledges are 2.1-2.9 GtCO2 of removals per year by 2050, though this is based on an incomplete sample of 53 countries, the report notes.

Politicians need to coordinate the development of CDR, the report states. Dr Oliver Geden, lead author of the chapter on CDR, explains that governments need to clarify their role in national and global climate policy, and develop standards for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions reductions that can eventually be included in national GHG inventories under the UN climate change process.

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist. You can find her on X @Cat_Early76.

Via China Dialogue

Republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY NC ND) licence

There are many milestones to pass in the transition from a high to low-carbon sustainable energy system. There is the first hour without coal, or oil, or gas generation (or all of them together) and the point when the last coal, oil or gas power plant (or all of them together) are finally retired.

Another milestone that feels important is the first year when renewables generate more electricity than fossil fuels. For the past three months we have been tracking the data for Great Britain (not Northern Ireland, which shares an electricity grid with the Republic of Ireland) and we believe it is on track to pass this milestone in 2023, but it will be very close.

Using the broadest definition, renewables actually first overtook fossil fuels in the odd, COVID-affected year of 2020 (although not in the subsequent years of 2021 and 2022). However, that includes 5% or so of Britain’s electricity that is generated through “biomass” plants (which burn wood pellets, often imported from forests in America).

Trees can of course be regrown, so biomass counts as renewable. But the industry has its critics and it’s not globally scalable in the same way as the “weather-dependent” renewables: wind, solar and to a certain degree hydro power.

When we use this narrower, weather-dependent definition that is more appropriate for a global transition, then there is a very good chance these renewables will overtake fossil fuels for the first time ever in 2023. Once this milestone has been passed, we also think it is unlikely (though not impossible) that gas and coal will ever again generate more of Britain’s electricity than wind, solar and hydro over a full year.

Whether Britain passes the milestone in 2023 will come down to the final few days of the year (from here on we’ll use “renewables” to refer to the tighter, biomass-excluding definition).

The chart above can be used to track progress and will update with the latest data each day. The lines show the running total of the difference between how much electricity has been generated by renewables and fossil fuels.

When the line is increasing, this shows more renewables than fossil fuels for that period. The horizontal axis shows the day of the year, so, if at any point the line is above the zero axis, that indicates that the year so far has had more renewable than fossil fuel generation. If the red line ends the year above zero, then Britain will have achieved the milestone.

Image by Roman Grac from Pixabay

(One caveat is that we know from the official statistics published later that there are some differences from “missing” and estimates for embedded generation; this typically only accounts for around 1%-2% of the final total.)

It depends on the weather

As we write this, with ten days of data left in 2023, renewables are very slightly ahead (by just over 1000 GWh – about the same level as a peak day of electrical demand). However if they are to stay ahead it will depend on the weather – especially the wind.

The reasoning here is that Britain uses less electricity over the holiday period due to less industrial and commercial demand. As wind power is clean and has become cheaper, it tends to be used first, meaning when demand is low or it is sufficiently windy there is less need to generate electricity with fossil fuels.

There are nuances around this such as where the generation is located, and the amount of electricity imported from other countries, but the general principle of renewables taking market share away from fossil fuels is a factor of Britain’s electrical market.

An important area to also highlight is the continued drop in electrical demand. 2023 is on track to have a lower demand than 2022, which itself was lower than the COVID-impacted year of 2020 (against our predictions) due to record prices. The drop in electrical demand means that additional generation was not needed, much of it inevitably from fossil fuels.

Additional milestone also likely to be passed

However 2023 could be the first year where renewable generation exceeds domestic electricity demand (homes comprise 36% of total electrical demand). This means the annual electricity generated by Britain’s wind turbines, solar panels and hydro resource will now be greater than that consumed over the year by its 29 million households.

The above bar chart demonstrates the trend towards this point since 2009. In the first half of 2023, renewable output was less than domestic electrical demand by 1.5 TWh (1500 GWh), but strong renewable performance since then means it is likely to end the year with total generation in excess of household demand.

If either of the milestones described here do not happen for 2023, then they will almost certainly occur in 2024, during which another 1.7 GW of offshore wind capacity will begin generating and Britain’s last coal-fired power station is scheduled to cease producing electricity altogether.

Grant Wilson, Associate Professor, Energy Systems and Data Group, Birmingham Energy Institute, University of Birmingham; Joseph Day, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Energy Systems and Data Group, University of Birmingham, and Katarina Pegg, PhD Student, Energy Systems and Data Group, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The year 2023 was marked by extraordinary heat, wildfires and weather disasters.

In the U.S., an unprecedented heat wave gripped much of Texas and the Southwest with highs well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) for the entire month of July.

Historic rainfall in April flooded Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with 25 inches of rain in 24 hours. A wave of severe storms in July sent water pouring into cities across Vermont and New York. Another powerful system in December swept up the Atlantic coast with hurricane-like storm surge and heavy rainfall. California faced flooding and mudslides from a series of atmospheric rivers early in the year, then was hit in August by a tropical storm – an extremely rare event there.

Wildfires ravaged Hawaii, Louisiana and several other states. And Canada’s worst fire season on record sent thick smoke across large parts of North America.

“Photo by Saikiran Kesari on Unsplash

Globally, 2023 was the warmest year on record, and it wreaked havoc around the world. El Niño played a role, but global warming is at the root of the world’s increasing extreme weather.

So, how exactly is global warming linked to fires, storms and other disasters? I am an atmospheric scientist who studies the changing climate. Here’s what you need to know.

Dangerous heat waves and devastating wildfires

When greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from vehicles and power plants, accumulate in the atmosphere, they act like a thermal blanket that warms the planet.

These gases let in high-energy solar radiation while absorbing outgoing low-energy radiation in the form of heat from the Earth. The energy imbalance at the Earth’s surface gradually increases the surface temperature of the land and oceans.

NASA: “What Is the Greenhouse Effect?”

The most direct consequence of this warming is more days with abnormally high temperatures, as many countries saw in 2023.

Extreme heat waves hit large areas of North America, Europe and China, breaking many local high temperature records. Phoenix went 30 days with daily high temperatures at 110 F (43.3 C) or higher and recorded its highest minimum nighttime temperature, with temperatures on July 19 never falling below 97 F (36.1 C).

Although heat waves result from weather fluctuations, global warming has raised the baseline, making heat waves more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting.

That heat also fuels wildfires.

Increased evaporation removes more moisture from the ground, drying out soil, grasses and other organic material, which creates favorable conditions for wildfires. All it takes is a lightning strike or spark from a power line to start a blaze.

Canada lost much of its snow cover early in 2023, which allowed the ground to dry and vast fires to burn through the summer. The ground was also extremely dry in Maui in August when the city of Lahaina, Hawaii, caught fire during a windstorm and burned.

How global warming fuels extreme storms

As more heat is stored as energy in the atmosphere and oceans, it doesn’t just increase the temperature – it can also increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

When that water vapor condenses to liquid and falls as rain, it releases a large amount of energy. This is called latent heat, and it is the main fuel for all storm systems.

When temperatures are higher and the atmosphere has more moisture, that additional energy can fuel stronger, longer-lasting storms. This is the main reason for 2023’s record-breaking storms. Nineteen of the 25 weather and climate disasters that caused over US$1 billion in damage each through early December 2023 were severe storms, and two more were flooding that resulted from severe storms.

Tropical storms are similarly fueled by latent heat coming from warm ocean water. That is why they only form when the sea surface temperature reaches a critical level of around 80 F (27 C).

With 90% of the excess heat from global warming being absorbed by the ocean, there has been a significant increase in the global sea surface temperature, including record-breaking levels in 2023.

Higher sea surface temperatures can lead to stronger hurricanes and longer hurricane seasons. They can also lead to the faster intensification of hurricanes.

Hurricane Otis, which hit Acapulco, Mexico, in October 2023, was a devastating example. It exploded in strength, rapidly intensifying from a tropical storm to a destructive Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours. With little time to evacuate and buildings not designed to withstand a storm that powerful, more than 50 people died. The hurricane’s intensification was the second-fastest ever recorded, exceeded only by Hurricane Patricia in 2015.

A recent study found that North Atlantic tropical cyclones’ maximum intensification rates increased 28.7% between the 1971-1990 average and the 2001-2020 average. The number of storms that spun up from a Category 1 storm or weaker to a major hurricane within 36 hours more than doubled.

The Mediterranean also experienced a rare tropical-like cyclone in September 2023 that offers a warning of the magnitude of the risks ahead – and a reminder that many communities are unprepared. Storm Daniel became one of the deadliest storms of its kind when it hit Libya. Its heavy rainfall overwhelmed two dams, causing them to collapse, killing thousands of people. The heat and increased moisture over the Mediterranean made the storm possible.

Cold snaps have global warming connections, too

It might seem counterintuitive, but global warming can also contribute to cold snaps in the U.S. That’s because it alters the general circulation of Earth’s atmosphere.

The Earth’s atmosphere is constantly moving in large-scale circulation patterns in the forms of near-surface wind belts, such as the trade winds, and upper-level jet streams. These patterns are caused by the temperature difference between the polar and equatorial regions.

As the Earth warms, the polar regions are heating up more than twice as fast as the equator. This can shift weather patterns, leading to extreme events in unexpected places. Anyone who has experienced a “polar vortex event” knows how it feels when the jet stream dips southward, bringing frigid Arctic air and winter storms, despite the generally warmer winters.

In sum, a warmer world is a more violent world, with the additional heat fueling increasingly more extreme weather events.

Shuang-Ye Wu, Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( Tomdispatch.com) – A recent opinion poll rocked the world of the Big Oil lobbyists in their proverbial thousand-dollar suits and alligator shoes. The Pew Research Center found that 37% of Americans now feel that fighting the climate crisis should be the number one priority of President Joe Biden and Congress, and another 34% put it among their highest priorities, even if they didn’t rank it first. Companies like ExxonMobil and countries like Saudi Arabia have tried since the 1990s to gaslight the public into thinking climate change was either a total fantasy or that the burning of coal, natural gas, and petroleum wasn’t causing it. Having lost that battle, the fossil-fuel lobbyists have now fallen back on Plan B. They want to convince you that Big Oil is itself swinging into action in a major way to transition to — yes! — green energy.

The hosting of the recent COP28 climate summit by the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s leading petroleum exporters, exemplified exactly this puffery and, sadly enough, it’s just one instance of this greenwashing world of ours. Everywhere you look, you’ll note other versions, but it certainly was a classic example. Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber served as president of the Dubai-based 28th Conference of Parties — countries that had signed onto the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. While his green bona fides include his role as chairman of the board of the UAE’s green energy firm Masdar, controversy swirled around him because he’s also the CEO of ADNOC, the UAE’s national petroleum company. Worse yet, he’s committed to expanding the oil and gas production of his postage-stamp-sized nation of one million citizens (and eight million guest workers) in a big-time fashion. He wants ADNOC to increase its daily oil production from its present four million barrels a day to five million by 2027, even though climate scientists stress that global fossil-fuel production must be reduced by 3% annually through 2050 if the world is to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.

Embed from Getty Images
COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber attends a plenary session during the United Nations climate summit in Dubai on December 13, 2023. Nearly 200 nations meeting in Dubai on December 13 approved a first-ever call for the world to transition away from fossil fuels, the top culprit of climate change behind a planetary crisis. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP) (Photo by GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, since COP28 was held in the heart of the petroleum-producing Middle East, it also platformed bad actors like Saudi Arabia, which led the charge to stop the conference from committing to ending the use of fossil fuels by a specific date. The awarding of COP28 to the Emirates by the UNFCCC Secretariat allowed a whole country, perhaps a whole region, to be greenwashed, a genuinely shocking decision that ought to be investigated by the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services. (And next year, it looks like COP29 will be hosted by another significant oil producer. In other words, the oil countries seem to be on a hot streak!)

Imaginary Algae

Mind you, those Gulf oil states are anything but the only major greenwashers on this planet. After all, the private sector has outdone itself in this arena. A congressional investigation into the major oil companies produced a long report and an appendix that came out last year, including internal corporate emails showing repeated and systemic bad faith on the subject of climate change. ExxonMobil executives, for instance, had publicly committed their company to the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep the increase in the average surface temperature of the earth to no more than 1.5° Centigrade (2.7° Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial era. Although a 1.5-degree increase might sound small, keep in mind that, as a global average, it includes the cold oceans of the higher latitudes, the North and South Poles, and the Himalayas. In already hot climates like South Asia and the Middle East, that means over time it might translate into a stunning 10- to 15-degree increase that could make some places literally unlivable.

Scientists worry that exceeding that level could throw the world’s climate system into full-scale chaos, producing mega-storms, substantial sea level rise, ravaging wildfires, and deadly heat and drought over large parts of the earth’s surface. Still, despite his public commitment to it in 2019, the CEO of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, asked an oil industry lobbying group to delete a reference to the 2015 Paris climate agreement from the draft of a statement on sustainability it had prepared. That mention, Woods said, “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris agreement goals.” So much for oil company pledges!

In a similar fashion, in 2020, executives of the London-based Shell PLC asked public relations employees to highlight that the company’s vow to reach zero net carbon emissions by 2050 was “a collective ambition for the world,” rather than a “Shell goal or target.” As a company executive admitted all too bluntly, “Shell has no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10-20 years.” (Oh, and in case you missed this, the profits of the major fossil-fuel outfits have in recent years gone through the roof.)

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Nor is corporate greenwashing simply a matter of public pronouncements by oil company executives. ExxonMobil has run a multi-million-dollar campaign of television and streaming advertising attempting to pull the wool over people’s eyes about what it’s doing. In one instance, it paid the New York Times to run an extended commercial gussied up as if it were a news article, a shameful procedure to which the Times acquiesced. Studies show that most readers miss disclaimers about such pieces actually being paid advertisements. It was entitled, “The Future of Energy? It may come from Where you Least Expect: How scientists are tapping algae and plant waste to fuel a sustainable energy future.” The advertisement was extremely misleading. As Chris Wells, an associate professor of emerging media studies at Boston University’s College of Communication, told BU Today last February, “Exxon is doing a lot of advertising around its investments in algae-based biofuels. But these technologies are not yet viable, and there is a lot of skepticism that they ever will be.”

In fact, about a month after Wells gave that interview, ExxonMobil admitted publicly that it had pulled out of algae biofuels research entirely at the end of 2022, having invested about $29 million a year over 12 years. It spent more millions, however, in advertising to give the public the impression that this paltry investment outweighed the company’s multi-billion-dollar efforts to bring ever more petroleum online.

The environmentalist group Client Earth notes that ExxonMobil spends between $20 billion and $25 billion annually looking for — yes, of course! — new oil fields and is committed to doing so through at least 2025. The company had a net profit of $55.7 billion in 2022. In other words, it’s still devoting nearly half of its annual profits to looking for more petroleum when, of course, it could be using them to launch its transition to sustainable forms of energy. Such — to put it politely — inertia is clearly unwise. New electric vehicle sales in the U.S. soared to about a million this year alone, and EVs will have avoided using 1.8 million barrels of oil in 2023. Better yet, the cost of battery packs for the vehicles fell 14% and is expected to keep heading down, guaranteeing that EVs will be ever more affordable over time. Moreover, in significant parts of the rest of the world, as the New York Times reported recently, electric-powered two- and three-wheeled vehicles are beginning to give the giant oil companies a run for their money. In the decades to come, ExxonMobil’s inflexibility and refusal to innovate will undoubtedly doom the company, but the question remains: In the process, will it doom the rest of us, too?

A Deceptive Greenwashing Marketing Campaign

In another, better world, the courts could punish the oil majors for their greenwashing. That misleading paid ad in the New York Times forms but one cornerstone of a wide-ranging lawsuit against ExxonMobil by the state of Massachusetts, initiated in 2019, which has so far survived that company’s legal challenges. As the office of Attorney General, Andrea Campbell explains, it is “alleging that the company violates Massachusetts law through a deceptive ‘greenwashing’ marketing campaign that misleadingly presents Exxon as a leader in cutting-edge clean energy research and climate action… and… its products as ‘green’ while the company is massively ramping up fossil fuel production and spending only about one-half of 1% of revenues on developing clean energy.” Campbell, an African-American born in Boston, is keenly aware that climate change is an equity issue, since its deleterious effects will initially be felt most strongly among the less privileged. (Of course, given our present Supreme Court, don’t hold your breath on this one.)

In its complaint, the state points to marketing campaigns like those featured on ExxonMobil’s YouTube channel, which still shows an ad produced eight years ago, “Making the World’s Energy go Further,” that, in just 30 seconds, presents a medley of greenwashing’s greatest early hits — algae biofuel, “new technology for capturing CO2 emissions,” and cars twice as efficient in their gas mileage. Algae biofuels, however, have by now bitten the dust; there is no affordable and safe method of capturing and storing carbon dioxide; and electric cars are between “2.6 to 4.8 times more efficient at traveling a mile compared to a gasoline internal combustion engine,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. 

The biggest fault in such commercials, however, is that the oil company’s ad makers were trying to convince the public that ExxonMobil was putting major resources into sustainable alternatives.  As the state of Massachusetts points out, in reality “ExxonMobil has ramped up production and reportedly is now the most active driller in the Permian Basin, the shale oil field located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico that yields low-cost oil in months, rather than the years required for larger offshore projects to begin producing crude… ExxonMobil has invested billions of dollars into the development of massive Canadian oil sands projects, which are among the costliest and most polluting oil extraction projects in the world.”

Carbon Capture and Lake Nyos

An even more dangerous scam than algae biofuels (implausible but not life-threatening) is the idea of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Remind me: Why would we try to store billions of tons of a poisonous gas? On August 21, 1986, subterranean carbon dioxide deposits bubbled up through Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing nearly 2,000 people, thousands of cattle and other animals, and in the process turned four local villages into graveyards. Some scientists fear similar underground carbon dioxide storage elsewhere could set off earthquakes. And what if such quakes in turn release the gas? Honestly, since I still remember the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster where 11 million gallons of oil, spilled into the waters off Alaska, wrecked hundreds of miles of shoreline and killed unknown numbers of sea creatures and birds, I’d just as soon not have ExxonMobil store carbon dioxide in my neighborhood.

Worse yet, most of the CO2 harvested by oil companies so far has been injected into drill sites to help bring in — yes, you guessed it! — more petroleum. Worse yet, studies have shown that carbon-capture technology itself emits a lot of carbon dioxide, that it can only capture a fraction of the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels, and that just shutting down coal, fossil gas, and petroleum production and substituting wind, solar, hydro, and batteries is far safer, cheaper, and better for the environment. 

Carbon capture is, however, a favorite greenwashing tool of Big Oil, since company executives can pretend that a technological breakthrough somewhere on the horizon justifies continuing to spew out record quantities of CO2 in the present moment. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) wasted billions of taxpayer dollars by including provisions for CCS research and development in Joe Biden’s otherwise admirable Inflation Reduction Act. In the process, he managed to insert a key greenwashing technique into even the most progressive climate legislation ever passed by an industrialized hydrocarbon state.

As for Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of COP28, he let his mask slip in November in a testy exchange with former Irish President Mary Robinson, who had invited him to an online discussion of how women’s lives could be improved if the climate crisis were effectively addressed. When she urged him to act as president of COP28, he exploded: “I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” He was pushing back against the goal advocated by scientists and many diplomats of quickly phasing hydrocarbons out. He claims to advocate phasing them down, not presumably eliminating them. He added, “Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.” Al-Jaber was posturing, since he surely knows that the International Energy Agency has issued just such a roadmap, which does indeed require rapid reductions in fossil fuel use. Oh, and if he has his way, it’s quite conceivable that, somewhere down the road, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, could become too hot to be livable.

“City of Salt,” by Juan Cole, Digital, Dream/ IbisPaint, 2023.

Given the plummeting cost of green energy, it’s clear that moving quickly and completely away from fossil fuels will improve the quality of life for people globally while making energy cheaper. In the end, COP28 could only issue an anodyne call for “transitioning away” from fossil fuels. Despite al-Jaber’s globe-straddling greenwashing at the climate summit, however, there is no realistic alternative to phasing fossil fuels not just down but out, and on an accelerated timeline, if our planet’s climate isn’t to turn into a Frankenstein’s monster. After all, 2023 has already proved a unique year for heat — with month after month of record-setting warmth across the globe. And sadly, as fossil-fuel production only continues to increase, that’s just the beginning, not the end, when it comes to potentially broiling this planet.

Admittedly, under the best of circumstances, this transition would be challenging and, according to the United Nations, will certainly require more investments than the countries of the world are now making, but it still appears eminently achievable. As for ExxonMobil and other oil majors, every day they resist investing their obscene profits in truly innovative green energy technology is a day they come closer to future financial ruin. In the meantime, they are, of course, wreaking historically unprecedented harm on the planet, as was all too apparent with the serial climate disasters of 2023, now believed to be the hottest of the last 125,000 years.

Copyright 2023 Juan Cole

Via Tomdispatch.com

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Officials in Washington are doubling down on their efforts to create a new energy corridor that runs through the Caucasus, a major transit route for trade and energy that connects Europe and Asia.

Focusing on Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries at odds over land and history, officials in Washington hope to link the two countries with energy pipelines, despite Azerbaijan’s recent incursion into Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the territory in September.

“A transit corridor built with the involvement and consent of Armenia can be a tremendous boon to states across the region and to global markets,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

U.S. Objectives

For decades, U.S. officials have pursued geopolitical objectives in the Caucasus. Viewing the region as a strategically important area that connects Europe and Asia, they have sought to integrate the region with Europe while pulling it away from Iran and Russia, both of which maintain close ties to the region.

“The Caucasus is tremendously important as a crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East,” Senator James Risch (R-ID) said in a statement last year. “Trade agreements, energy deals, infrastructure, and investment all have the potential to better integrate the region within the transatlantic community.”

At the heart of U.S. planning is Azerbaijan. Given the country’s extensive energy resources, especially its oil and natural gas, U.S. officials have seen Azerbaijan as the key to creating a U.S.-led Caucasus that will help Europe transition away from its dependence on Russian energy.

“We have been hard at work, along with our European colleagues, over the course of the last decade, trying to help Europe slowly wean itself off of dependence on Russian gas and oil,” Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) explained at a hearing in September. “Part of that strategy has been to deliver more Azerbaijani gas and oil to Europe.”

Another reason for the U.S. focus on Azerbaijan is its location. With Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the east, and Iran to the south, U.S. officials have seen the country as “the epicenter of Eurasia energy policy,” as U.S. diplomats once described it. The United States has worked to position Azerbaijan as the starting point for an east-west energy corridor that benefits the West and deters a north-south corridor that would work to the advantage of Iran and Russia.

For the United States and its European allies, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline demonstrates the possibilities. Since 2006, the BTC pipeline has carried oil from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean Sea, where it has been shipped to global energy markets. The pipeline is controlled by a consortium of energy companies headed by BP, the British oil giant.

“We need that to keep functioning,” State Department official Yuri Kim told Congress in September.

From the U.S. perspective, another major geopolitical achievement has been the Southern Gas Corridor. The corridor, which combines three separate pipelines, runs from Azerbaijan all the way to Europe. Since its initial deliveries of natural gas to Europe in 2020, the corridor has been critically important to keeping Europe supplied with energy during the war in Ukraine.

“That Southern Gas Corridor is extremely important for ensuring that there is energy diversity for Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, potentially Albania, and definitely Italy, and possibly into the Western Balkans,” Kim said. “We cannot underestimate how important that is.”

A New Route?

As pipelines carry oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the West, U.S. officials have sought to reinforce the east-west corridor by creating additional pipelines that run through Armenia. Not only would a pipeline through Armenia add another route to the corridor, but it would pull Armenia away from Russia, which maintains a military presence in the country and provides Armenia with most of its energy.

For decades, one of the major challenges to U.S. plans has been the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. As long as Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained at odds over the region, U.S. officials have seen few options for integrating Armenia into a broader east-west energy corridor.

“If not for the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009, “the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline could have been routed through Armenia, reducing the distance and construction cost, and providing Armenia both an alternative source of gas as well as much-needed transit fees.”

In recent years, regional dynamics have rapidly shifted, however. As Azerbaijan grew flush with cash from its operations as an energy hub for the West, it began spending more money on weapons. With Israel and Turkey selling Azerbaijan increasingly sophisticated weapons, Azerbaijan built a large arsenal and acquired the upper hand over Armenia.

“Where other Western nations are reluctant to sell ground combat systems to the Azerbaijanis for fear of encouraging Azerbaijan to resort to war to regain [Nagorno-Karabakh] and the occupied territories, Israel is free to make substantial arms sales and benefits greatly from deals with its well-heeled client,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009.

Photo by Sarin Aventisian on Unsplash

Emboldened by its growing power and influence, Azerbaijan made its move. As fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September 2020, Azerbaijan’s military forces took advantage of their advanced weaponry from Israel and Turkey to capture the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.

Before Azerbaijan’s military forces could seize control of Nagorno-Karabakh, however, Russia intervened, brokering a ceasefire and deploying about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. Although various observers portrayed the outcome as a victory for Russia, the deal did not last long.

This past September, Azerbaijan moved to take the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh, armed by additional supplies of Israeli weapons. Following Azerbaijan’s incursion, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the territory for Armenia, where they remain today.

Now that Azerbaijan has taken control of Nagorno-Karabakh, U.S. officials are renewing their efforts to persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to forge a peace deal that could be the basis for a new energy corridor.

“There is business to be done in this region,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

At the Start Department, officials have been reviewing U.S.-funded plans for building the new energy corridor. As O’Brien noted, “the feasibility studies on this transit corridor [have] actually been done, funded by [the Agency for International Development (AID)], so we’re in the middle of seeing what kind of economic future there may be.”

Obstacles

Several obstacles stand in the way of U.S. plans. One possibility is that an increasingly emboldened Azerbaijan will invade Armenia and take the territory it wants for new pipelines. If Azerbaijan continues to acquire weapons from Turkey and Israel, it could take Armenian land by force, something that U.S. officials believe could happen.

“I think, from what I hear, the Armenians are concerned and feel threatened by that corridor and what it might imply for another grabbing of land by Azerbaijan,” Representative James Costa (D-CA) said at the hearing in November.

A related possibility is that Azerbaijan could work more closely with Russia. As Russia maintains military forces in Azerbaijan, it could facilitate a move by Azerbaijan to take Armenian land for a north-south energy corridor that benefits Russia.

Although Russia maintains a security pact with Armenia, relations have soured over Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, making it possible that Russia will side with Azerbaijan.

Another challenge is the Azerbaijani government. For years, critics have charged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with leading a corrupt and repressive regime that has hoarded the country’s wealth while leaving the population to suffer.

In internal reports, U.S. diplomats have been highly critical of Aliyev. Not only have they compared him to mobsters, but they have suggested that the country “is run in a manner similar to the feudalism found in Europe during the Middle Ages.”

As critics have called on Washington to reconsider the U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan, some members of Congress have begun questioning U.S. strategy, particularly as it concerns the U.S. partnership with Aliyev.

The United States may have made “the wrong bet by moving more Azerbaijani resources into Europe,” Senator Murphy said in September. “This strategy of being dependent on a system and series of dictatorships… may not necessarily bear the strategic game that we think it does.”

Other members of Congress have questioned the State Department’s claims that a new energy corridor can bring peace to the region.

“I don’t see the peace process as going nearly as well as some of the description I’ve just heard,” Representative Costa said at the hearing in November. “It was ethnic cleansing that happened with the removal of these Armenians from their historic homeland in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Regardless, officials at the State Department remain confident in their plans. Pushing forward with efforts to forge a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they remain hopeful that they can create a new energy corridor that runs through Armenia, even if means that the ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh will never be able to return to their homes.

“As we go from the medium to the longer term, there’s going to have to be some effort made to help integrate these folks into Armenian life,” AID official Alexander Sokolowski told Congress in November. “Many of them dream of going back to Nagorno-Karabakh, but for right now, they’re oriented towards making a life in Armenia.”

Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.

Foreign Policy in Focus

(The Conversation) – On the morning of December 6 1917, a French cargo ship called SS Mont-Blanc collided with a Norwegian vessel in the harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada. The SS Mont-Blanc, which was laden with 3,000 tons of high explosives destined for the battlefields of the first world war, caught fire and exploded.

The resulting blast released an amount of energy equivalent to roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT, destroying a large part of the city. Although it was far from the front lines, this explosion left a lasting imprint on Halifax in a way that many regions experience environmental change as a result of war.

The attention of the media is often drawn to the destructive explosions caused by bombs, drones or missiles. And the devastation we have witnessed in cities like Aleppo, Mosul, Mariupol and now Gaza certainly serve as stark reminders of the horrific impacts of military action.

However, research is increasingly uncovering broader and longer-term consequences of war that extend well beyond the battlefield. Armed conflicts leave a lasting trail of environmental damage, posing challenges for restoration after the hostilities have eased.

Research interest in the environmental impacts of war

Toxic legacies

Battles and even wars are over relatively quickly, at least compared to the timescales over which environments change. But soils and sediments record their effects over decades and centuries.

In 2022, a study of soil chemistry in northern France showed elevated levels of copper and lead (both toxic at concentrations above trace levels), and other changes in soil structure and composition, more than 100 years after the site was part of the Battle of the Somme.

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

Research on more recent conflicts has recorded the toxic legacy of intense fighting too. A study that was carried out in 2016, three decades after the Iran-Iraq war, found concentrations of toxic elements like chromium, lead and the semi-metal antimony in soils from the battlefields. These concentrations were more than ten times those found in soils behind the front lines.

The deliberate destruction of infrastructure during war can also have enduring consequences. One notable example is the first Gulf War in 1991 when Iraqi forces blew up more than 700 oil wells in Kuwait. Crude oil spewed into the surrounding environment, while fallout from dispersing smoke plumes created a thick deposit known as “tarcrete” over 1,000 sq km of Kuwait’s deserts.

The impact of the oil fires on the air, soil, water and habitats captured global attention. Now, in the 21st century, wars are closely scrutinised in near real-time for environmental harm, as well as the harm inflicted on humans.

Embed from Getty Images
American Red Adair fire fighting worker sets up a permanent hose 30 May 1991 in Al-Ahmadi oil field in southern Kuwait in order to keep the fire of the damaged oil wells in the direction of the wind whilst protecting the employees who attempt to extinguish it. In 1991, Iraqi troops retreating after a seven-month occupation, smashed and torched 727 wells, badly polluting the atmosphere and creating crude oil lakes. In addition, up to eight billion barrels of oil were split into the sea by Iraqi forces damaging marine life and coastal areas up to 400 kilometres (250 miles) away. Kuwait will seek more than 16 billion dollars compensation for environment destruction wrought by Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anba said 07 December 1998. (Photo credit should read MICHEL GANGNE/AFP via Getty Images).

Conflict is a systemic catastrophe

One outcome of this scrutiny is the realisation that conflict is a catastrophe that affects entire human and ecological systems. Destruction of social and economic infrastructure like water and sanitation, industrial systems, agricultural supply chains and data networks can lead to subtle but devastating indirect environmental impacts.

Since 2011, conflict has marred the north-western regions of Syria. As part of a research project that was led by my Syrian colleagues at Sham University, we conducted soil surveys in the affected areas.

Our findings revealed widespread diffuse soil pollution in agricultural land. This land feeds a population of around 3 million people already experiencing severe food insecurity.

The pollution probably stems from a combination of factors, all arising as a consequence of the regional economic collapse that was caused by the conflict. A lack of fuel to pump wells, combined with destruction of wastewater treatment infrastructure, has led to an increased reliance on streams contaminated by untreated wastewater for irrigating croplands.

Contamination could also stem from the use of low-grade fertilisers, unregulated industrial emissions and the proliferation of makeshift oil refineries.

More recently, the current conflict in Ukraine, which prompted international sanctions on Russian grain and fertiliser exports, has disrupted agricultural economies worldwide. This has affected countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Nigeria and Iran particularly hard.

Many small farmers in these countries may have been forced into selling their livestock and abandoning their land as they struggle to buy the materials they need to feed their animals or grow crops. Land abandonment is an ecologically harmful practice as it can take decades for the vegetation densities and species richness typical of undisturbed ecosystems to recover.

Warfare can clearly become a complicated and entangled “nexus” problem, the impacts of which are felt far from the war-affected regions.

Conflict, cascades and climate

Recognising the complex, cascading environmental consequences of war is the first step towards addressing them. Following the first Gulf War, the UN set up a compensation commission and included the environment as one of six compensable harms inflicted on countries and their people.

Jordan was awarded more than US$160 million (£127 million) over a decade to restore the rangelands of its Badia desert. These rangelands had been ecologically ruined by a million refugees and their livestock from Kuwait and Iraq. The Badia is now a case study in sustainable watershed management in arid regions.

In the north-west region of Syria, work is underway to assess farmers’ understanding of soil contamination in areas that have been affected by conflict. This marks the first step in designing farming techniques aimed at minimising threats to human health and restoring the environment.

Armed conflict has also finally made it onto the climate agenda. The UN’s latest climate summit, COP28, includes the first themed day dedicated to “relief, recovery and peace”. The discussion will focus on countries and communities in which the ability to withstand climate change is being hindered by economic or political fragility and conflict.

And as COP28 got underway, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a UK charity that monitors the environmental consequences of armed conflicts, called for research to account for carbon emissions in regions affected by conflict.

The carbon impact of war is still not counted in the global stocktake of carbon emissions – an essential reference for climate action. But far from the sound and fury of the explosions, warfare’s environmental impacts are persistent, pervasive and equally deadly.

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Jonathan Bridge, Reader / Associate Professor in Environmental Geoscience, Sheffield Hallam University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Global emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO₂), in yet another year of growth, will increase by 1.1% in 2023. These emissions will hit a record 36.8 billion tonnes. That’s the finding of the Global Carbon Project’s 18th annual report card on the state of the global carbon budget, which we released today.

Fossil CO₂ includes emissions from the combustion and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and cement production. Adding CO₂ emissions and removals from land-use change, such as deforestation and reforestation, human activities are projected to emit 40.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023.

The world’s vegetation and oceans continue to remove about half of all CO₂ emissions. The rest builds up in the atmosphere and is causing increasing warming of the planet.

At current emission levels, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit warming to 1.5°C will likely be exceeded in seven years, and in 15 years for 1.7°C. The need to cut emissions has never been so urgent.

Emissions from every fossil source are up

Fossil CO₂ emissions now account for about 90% of all CO₂ emissions from human activities. Emissions from every single fossil source increased this year compared to 2022:

• coal (41% of global CO₂ emissions) up 1.1%
• oil (32%) up 1.5%
• natural gas (21%) up 0.5%
• cement (4%) up 0.8%.

Although global emissions have increased, the picture for individual countries is more diverse. There are some signs of progress towards decarbonisation.

China’s emissions (31% of the global total) increased by 4% with growth in all fossil fuel sources. The highest relative growth was from oil emissions. This was in part due to the transport sector’s recovery after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.

The United States’ emissions (14% of global) are down by 3%. The rapid retirement of coal-fired power plants drove most of this decline. US coal emissions are the lowest since 1903.

India’s emissions (8% of global) increased by 8.2%. Emissions for all fossil fuels grew by 5% or more, with coal the highest at 9.5%. India is now the world’s third-largest fossil CO₂ emitter.

European Union emissions (7% of global) are down by 7.4%. This decline was due to both high renewable energy penetration and the impacts on energy supply of the war in Ukraine.

During the decade of 2013-2022, 26 countries had declining fossil CO₂ emission trends while their economies continued to grow. The list includes Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Romania, South African, United Kingdom and USA.

Total CO₂ emissions are near a peak

While fossil CO₂ emissions continue to increase, net emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation (CO₂ source), minus CO₂ removals, such as reforestation (CO₂ sink), appear to be falling. However, estimates of emissions from land-use change are highly uncertain and less accurate overall than for fossil fuel emissions.

Our preliminary estimate shows net emissions from land-use change were 4.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023. These emissions follow a small but relatively uncertain decline over the past two decades.

The declining trend was due to decreasing deforestation and a small increase in reforestation. The highest emitters are Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These three countries contribute 55% of net global CO₂ emissions from land-use change.

Global emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO₂), in yet another year of growth, will increase by 1.1% in 2023. These emissions will hit a record 36.8 billion tonnes. That’s the finding of the Global Carbon Project’s 18th annual report card on the state of the global carbon budget, which we released today.

Fossil CO₂ includes emissions from the combustion and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and cement production. Adding CO₂ emissions and removals from land-use change, such as deforestation and reforestation, human activities are projected to emit 40.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023.

The world’s vegetation and oceans continue to remove about half of all CO₂ emissions. The rest builds up in the atmosphere and is causing increasing warming of the planet.

At current emission levels, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit warming to 1.5°C will likely be exceeded in seven years, and in 15 years for 1.7°C. The need to cut emissions has never been so urgent.

Emissions from every fossil source are up

Fossil CO₂ emissions now account for about 90% of all CO₂ emissions from human activities. Emissions from every single fossil source increased this year compared to 2022:

• coal (41% of global CO₂ emissions) up 1.1%
• oil (32%) up 1.5%
• natural gas (21%) up 0.5%
• cement (4%) up 0.8%.

Although global emissions have increased, the picture for individual countries is more diverse. There are some signs of progress towards decarbonisation.

China’s emissions (31% of the global total) increased by 4% with growth in all fossil fuel sources. The highest relative growth was from oil emissions. This was in part due to the transport sector’s recovery after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.

The United States’ emissions (14% of global) are down by 3%. The rapid retirement of coal-fired power plants drove most of this decline. US coal emissions are the lowest since 1903.

India’s emissions (8% of global) increased by 8.2%. Emissions for all fossil fuels grew by 5% or more, with coal the highest at 9.5%. India is now the world’s third-largest fossil CO₂ emitter.

European Union emissions (7% of global) are down by 7.4%. This decline was due to both high renewable energy penetration and the impacts on energy supply of the war in Ukraine.

During the decade of 2013-2022, 26 countries had declining fossil CO₂ emission trends while their economies continued to grow. The list includes Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Romania, South African, United Kingdom and USA.

Total CO₂ emissions are near a peak

While fossil CO₂ emissions continue to increase, net emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation (CO₂ source), minus CO₂ removals, such as reforestation (CO₂ sink), appear to be falling. However, estimates of emissions from land-use change are highly uncertain and less accurate overall than for fossil fuel emissions.

Our preliminary estimate shows net emissions from land-use change were 4.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023. These emissions follow a small but relatively uncertain decline over the past two decades.

The declining trend was due to decreasing deforestation and a small increase in reforestation. The highest emitters are Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These three countries contribute 55% of net global CO₂ emissions from land-use change.

When we combine all CO₂ emissions from human activities (fossil and land use), we find very little trend in total emissions over the past decade. If confirmed, this would imply global CO₂ emissions from human activities are not growing further but remain at very high record levels.

Stable CO₂ emissions, at about 41 billion tonnes per year, will lead to continuing rapid CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere and climate warming. To stabilise the climate, CO₂ emissions from human activities must reach net zero. This means any residual CO₂ emissions must be balanced by an equivalent CO₂ removal.

Nature’s a big help, with a little human help

Terrestrial vegetation and ocean absorb about half of all CO₂ emissions. This fraction has remained remarkably stable for six decades.

Besides the natural CO₂ sinks, humans are also removing CO₂ from the atmosphere through deliberate activities. We estimate permanent reforestation and afforestation over the past decade have removed about 1.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year.

This is equivalent to 5% of fossil fuel emissions per year.

Other non-vegetation strategies are in their infancy. They removed 0.01 million tonnes of CO₂.

Machines (direct air carbon capture and storage) pulled 0.007 million tonnes of CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Enhanced weathering projects, which accelerate natural weathering processes to increase the CO₂ uptake by spreading certain minerals, accounted for the other 0.004 million tonnes. This is more than a million times smaller than current fossil fuel emissions.

The remaining carbon budget

From January 2024, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit global warming to 1.5°C has been reduced to 275 billion tonnes of CO₂. This budget will used up in seven years at 2023 emission levels.

The carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.7°C has been reduced to 625 billion tonnes of CO₂, with 15 years left at current emissions. The budget for staying below 2°C is 1,150 billion tonnes of CO₂ – 28 years at current emissions.

Reaching net zero by 2050 requires total anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to decrease on average by 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year. That’s comparable to the fall in 2020 emissions resulting from COVID-19 measures (-2.0 billion tonnes of CO₂).

Without additional negative emissions (CO₂ removal), a straight decreasing line of CO₂ emissions from today to 2050 (when many countries aspire to achieve net zero CO₂ or the more ambitious net zero for all greenhouse gases) would lead to a global mean surface temperature of 1.7°C, breaching the 1.5°C limit.

Renewable energy production is at a record high and growing fast. To limit climate change fossil and land-use change, CO₂ emissions must be cut much more quickly and ultimately reach net zero.

Pep Canadell, Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Environment; Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO; Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science, University of East Anglia; Glen Peters, Senior Researcher, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo; Judith Hauck, Helmholtz Young Investigator group leader and deputy head, Marine Biogeosciences section a Alfred Wegener Institute, Universität Bremen; Julia Pongratz, Professor of Physical Geography and Land Use Systems, Department of Geography, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Philippe Ciais, Directeur de recherche au Laboratoire des science du climat et de l’environnement, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA); Pierre Friedlingstein, Chair, Mathematical Modelling of Climate, University of Exeter; Robbie Andrew, Senior Researcher, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo, and Rob Jackson, Professor, Department of Earth System Science, and Chair of the Global Carbon Project, Stanford University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When we combine all CO₂ emissions from human activities (fossil and land use), we find very little trend in total emissions over the past decade. If confirmed, this would imply global CO₂ emissions from human activities are not growing further but remain at very high record levels.

Stable CO₂ emissions, at about 41 billion tonnes per year, will lead to continuing rapid CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere and climate warming. To stabilise the climate, CO₂ emissions from human activities must reach net zero. This means any residual CO₂ emissions must be balanced by an equivalent CO₂ removal.

Nature’s a big help, with a little human help

Terrestrial vegetation and ocean absorb about half of all CO₂ emissions. This fraction has remained remarkably stable for six decades.

Besides the natural CO₂ sinks, humans are also removing CO₂ from the atmosphere through deliberate activities. We estimate permanent reforestation and afforestation over the past decade have removed about 1.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year.

This is equivalent to 5% of fossil fuel emissions per year.

Other non-vegetation strategies are in their infancy. They removed 0.01 million tonnes of CO₂.

Machines (direct air carbon capture and storage) pulled 0.007 million tonnes of CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Enhanced weathering projects, which accelerate natural weathering processes to increase the CO₂ uptake by spreading certain minerals, accounted for the other 0.004 million tonnes. This is more than a million times smaller than current fossil fuel emissions.

The remaining carbon budget

From January 2024, the remaining carbon budget for a one-in-two chance to limit global warming to 1.5°C has been reduced to 275 billion tonnes of CO₂. This budget will used up in seven years at 2023 emission levels.

The carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.7°C has been reduced to 625 billion tonnes of CO₂, with 15 years left at current emissions. The budget for staying below 2°C is 1,150 billion tonnes of CO₂ – 28 years at current emissions.

Reaching net zero by 2050 requires total anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to decrease on average by 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year. That’s comparable to the fall in 2020 emissions resulting from COVID-19 measures (-2.0 billion tonnes of CO₂).

Without additional negative emissions (CO₂ removal), a straight decreasing line of CO₂ emissions from today to 2050 (when many countries aspire to achieve net zero CO₂ or the more ambitious net zero for all greenhouse gases) would lead to a global mean surface temperature of 1.7°C, breaching the 1.5°C limit.

Renewable energy production is at a record high and growing fast. To limit climate change fossil and land-use change, CO₂ emissions must be cut much more quickly and ultimately reach net zero.

Pep Canadell, Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Environment; Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO; Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science, University of East Anglia; Glen Peters, Senior Researcher, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo; Judith Hauck, Helmholtz Young Investigator group leader and deputy head, Marine Biogeosciences section a Alfred Wegener Institute, Universität Bremen; Julia Pongratz, Professor of Physical Geography and Land Use Systems, Department of Geography, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Philippe Ciais, Directeur de recherche au Laboratoire des science du climat et de l’environnement, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA); Pierre Friedlingstein, Chair, Mathematical Modelling of Climate, University of Exeter; Robbie Andrew, Senior Researcher, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo, and Rob Jackson, Professor, Department of Earth System Science, and Chair of the Global Carbon Project, Stanford University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Featured photo via Pixabay