Fires, torrential rains and heat waves:“It's not the Mediterranean summer.It's climate change."

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The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

The fires around Palermo, on the island of Rhodes, in Greece, in Algeria;the torrential rains that hit Milan at night;the record temperatures that continue from week to week and divide Europe, and Italy in particular, in two:thunderstorms in the north, Saharan dust in the centre-south.

If we needed further manifestations of the effects of the climate crisis, we are experiencing them first-hand. At all latitudes, from the far west to Japan.Nevertheless it's still there those who sow doubts, belittle and pollute the public debate by claiming that it is not the first time that summer in Italy has been very hot and those who talk about the climate crisis use apocalyptic tones.

Positions conveyed by politics and the media.Just a few days ago the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, he spoke of "difficult bad weather" and "unpredictable climatic reality" referring to the extreme meteorological events in Sicily and Lombardy, while the Minister of the Environment Pichetto Fratin, guest of the Sky Tg 24 lounge, even questioned the anthropic origin of the change climate.Almost in discord with the Minister for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies, Nello Musumeci, who he instead acknowledged that “if the world around us changes and we remain still, we will continue to mourn the dead and helplessly witness the devastation of our territory.Which by its nature is fragile and vulnerable."

And then, as we were saying, there are the media.The title of a is emblematic item by Giuliano Ferrara on The Sheet:“In July it has been hot for centuries:let's get over it instead of sacrificing ourselves to ideology”.In the best case scenario, when the news is given in the correct way, there is a lack of in-depth analysis and contextual information, explains al Guardian Carlo Cacciamani, head of the Italian national meteorological and climatological agency:“It's not that we don't talk about warmth, what's missing is depth, he said.“There needs to be further explanation as to why this is happening and what is causing it.”Then, adds Stefano Caserini, professor of climate change at the Polytechnic of Milan, “there are the right-wing newspapers which, if they do not openly deny the climate crisis, are inactivist.We will experience even more heat waves in the coming years and currently the debate here is not really happening.”

The scientific debate on climate change is over

On Network 4, during the daily show “Diario del Giorno”, Andrea Giambruno, presenter and partner of Giorgia Meloni, he argued that the heat waves that have hit Italy "aren't really great news".When the correspondent in Bari, Rossella Grandolfo, tried to say that "The scientists of the UN IPCC must be right, who study all this and who unfortunately for all of us have confirmed that the heat waves compared to the 1980s are increased and above all they became closer together", the host immediately downplayed.On the other hand, the coordinates given by the title of the episode were already distorting:“Crazy weather or is it just summer?”.

Even the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, said he was surprised by "the many discussions on the validity of the risks, the level of alarm, the degree of concern" also in the face of "the dramatic images of what happened, in the North as well as in the Center as in the South".While 100 scientists they sent an open letter to the Italian media:“Talk about the causes of climate change and its solutions”

We can't talk about either a crazy climate or "just summer".As journalist Rudi Bressa points out in a tweet:“2003, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019, 2022.They are not lottery numbers, but the years in which we have had persistent and long-lasting heat waves.This is not the Mediterranean summer.But new stuff."

For years, climatologists they say that the Mediterranean is becoming a climate change hotspot.In recent days, the scientists of World Weather Attribution, which are responsible for attributing extreme weather events to the climate crisis, they collaborated to assess the extent to which human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood and intensity of extreme July heat in Mexico, southern Europe and China.And they came to the conclusion that we cannot talk about either a crazy climate or a phenomenon linked to summer.“Without human-induced climate change, these thermal events would have been extremely rare.In China they would have occurred once every about 250 years [instead of once every 5 years, as occurs now] and would have been practically impossible in the United States and Mexico [one every 15 years is currently expected] and in southern Europe [now one every 10 years]”.If we do not stop burning fossil fuels, the report concludes, “these events will become even more common and the world will experience even hotter, longer-lasting heat waves.A heat wave like the recent ones would occur every 2-5 years in a world 2°C warmer than the pre-industrial era.”

But, how he observed last week Antonio Scalari in an article on Blue suitcase, “it's much easier to repeat the same, repetitive, notes, like those in the song Is it hot?It's summer, than reading and explaining what decades of scientific research have produced.This is the asymmetry between correct information and misinformation."

Heat waves and climate change:against the deniers

In a post on Facebook, the geologist and science communicator, Mario Tozzi, said that he no longer wanted to participate in talk shows or conferences in which "even remotely, the shadow of a denier appears" so as not to give "any validity of counterpart scientific to those who deny the scientific evidence of the facts.They should not be opposed or invited, they just want to cause confusion and delay any regulation of the economic system."

“Disputing the link between emissions and global warming is like flat-Earthism.Cutting emissions is not just a question of moral responsibility towards our children, it is a pragmatic question.We know the facts, we have the ability to manage the risk,” he states in an interview with Tomorrow, the director of Copernicus, the main Earth climate monitoring program of the European Union, Carlo Buontempo, who adds:

“Acting now on emissions means we are better positioned for risk management.Again, this is rational thinking based on facts.There is no need to make it an ideological question.It's as if we knew the interest rates for the next ten years in advance:If we had this information would we use it to our advantage or not?We don't have it in the economy, we do in the climate."

The point is that the political parties most inclined to denialism are today trying to transform climate change into a cultural battle, Note Gordon Brown, United Nations envoy for global education and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010.Even when they do not outright deny climate change, their propaganda tactics aim to associate climate change issues with left-wing ideology.These parties treat the issue as if it were a fixation of environmentalists, extremists and fanatics, who want to destroy our economy and prosperity.In their speeches, climate and environmental policies become a worse problem than climate change itself.We saw it with the speech of the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, during the closing of the electoral campaign of the Spanish radical right party Vox:“It is necessary to stop the “ultra-ecological fanaticism” that is leading the left to “attack our economic and production model”, he said.

As Scalari further explains, 

“Thanks to this propaganda, facts disappear and only words and polemical tones, slogans and ideological enemies remain.If the facts disappear, it is as if no one ever discovered them.It's as if we never knew them, as if we were still completely ignorant.Denialism is also this:induced, interested and malevolent ignorance".

And meanwhile the economy, which those parties say they want to defend, is threatened by climate change itself.Limited to the Mediterranean, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) he identified some key threats that are affecting wheat and olive production, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, coastal areas with risks of flooding, erosion and salinisation due to rising seas, marine ecosystems, with a decline in biodiversity and the extinction of 20% of fish and invertebrates with a decrease in fisheries revenue of up to 30% by 2050.

According to data from the Swiss Re insurance group, reports The Financial Times, losses to insurers resulting from extreme weather events, such as crop failures due to drought or property damage from wildfires, increased by $15 billion in the period between 2017 and 2022, compared to the previous 5 years , going from 29.4 to 46.4 billion dollars.In California, one of the areas hardest hit by the fires, some large US insurers have backed out.

Rethinking cities in times of heat waves

Extreme weather events are finally showing all the inadequacy of our cities and homes, planned in an era in which the devastating effects of the climate crisis were something unimaginable.Just think about the UK homes, designed to attract light and heat and which now instead become incandescent boxes. According to a study by the University of Oxford, With global temperatures rising 2°C compared to the pre-industrial era, people in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Norway and Finland will experience the most significant relative increase in heat exposure.

An article from last year by El Pais, unfortunately very current, reports some solutions that could adapt urban centers to the ever-high temperatures.“The difference between an urban area and a residential area with green spaces can reach 15 degrees,” the article reads.It is the thermal phenomenon of the heat island that promotes heat retention in cities and raises temperatures, especially at night.To curb this phenomenon, more trees and less asphalt are needed.

During the day, shadowless facades and sidewalks accumulate the sun's energy and, at night, release it, transforming the streets into small stoves.In some neighborhoods with a high density of buildings, the street network prevents the free circulation of air, making it difficult to cool these areas.Furthermore, the accumulation of polluting gases prevents part of this energy from dissipating, keeping it within the city.

What to do?Demolishing entire neighborhoods to encourage air currents is an impractical path.But there are others that are easy to implement, such as reconfiguring the use of public space, using materials that retain less heat and reducing pollution.

The gases released by cars, industries and boilers trap the heat released by the engines of air conditioners and vehicles.These gases prevent the energy from dissipating and keep it within the city, increasing temperatures.To the extent that the emission of these gases is reduced, the heat island can be mitigated.The way in this case is reduce the use of cars, finding a balance between the travel and liveability needs of our cities.

Imagine a city without cars

“70% of the city is dedicated to cars, we need to reduce it to 30 or 40% and gain space for vegetation and people,” explains José María Ezquiaga, architect specializing in urban projects.“The tree is our salvation.Where there is forest or vegetation, the heat island is substantially reduced.”Trees provide shade, reduce pollution and cool the environment, three key features for the adaptation of cities.

In addition to the roads, "we should also start working on houses and buildings", adds architect Belinda Tato.Most building facades and roofs are made of materials and colors that absorb a large amount of energy, heating streets and homes.For researcher Julio Díaz, “the renovation of homes is essential if we want cities to adapt to extreme temperatures.”

In the United States, Xiulin Ruan, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, is experimenting with the use of a white paint that, when applied, can reduce the temperature of the surface of roofs and cool the buildings below, tells the climate journalist of New York Times Dear Buckley.The paint created by prof.Ruan is able to reflect 98% of the sun's rays, making surfaces cooler by around 13°C at midday and up to 28°C at night, thus reducing temperatures inside buildings and decreasing the demand for air conditioning up to 40%.This type of paint could be put on the market next year while experiments are underway to increase its durability and resistance to dirt.

However, there is no shortage of critical issues.First, there are the ecological impacts of paint production, such as the carbon footprint resulting from the extraction of barium sulfate, an element used in Purdue's ultra-white paint.And then it is still an adaptation measure.“This is definitely not a long-term solution to the climate problem,” says Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis, who researches clean technologies.“It's something you can do in the short term to mitigate the worst problems while trying to get everything under control.”

Finally, again in the United States, it is being tested building homes that can withstand hurricanes, flying debris, power outages and fires.In Massachusetts, a retired architect, Dana Levy is designing a house using a particular construction system:the walls are made of reinforced concrete using insulating formwork (also called "ICF panels" or "climablock"), usually in polystyrene (EPS), which incorporate the concrete casting with the function of permanent thermal insulation.The walls are thus able to withstand strong winds and flying debris, and maintain stable temperatures in the event of a power outage, thanks to solar panels, backup batteries and an emergency generator.The roof, windows and doors will be hurricane resistant.In Colorado, architect Renée del Gaudio has designed homes that use steel structures and cladding made of ironwood, a fire-resistant timber.

Big oil companies scale back climate commitments in the name of profits, while the planet is ravaged by extreme weather events

Despite July being on track to be the hottest month in history, major energy companies are pushing to expand fossil fuel production, insisting there is no alternative.It's proof that record profits, not the climate crisis, continue to be the priorities for these companies. they say al Guardian Naomi Oreskes, professor of history of science at Harvard University and author of the book "Merchants of Doubt", published in 2010, and Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University.

“The fossil fuel industry has profited enormously from the sale of a dangerous product, like oil, and now innocent people and governments around the world are paying the price for their recklessness,” comments Oreskes.

In recent years, oil majors have pledged to reduce oil and gas production and their emissions.But more recently they have revised their plans.In the middle of a February with record temperatures, BP scaled back its previous goal of reducing emissions by 35% by 2030, aiming for between 20% and 30%.ExxonMobil he withdrew funding for a project that aimed to use algae to create low-carbon fuel.Shell he announced that it will not increase its investments in renewable energy this year, despite the previous promises to drastically reduce its emissions.

Climate-fueled extreme weather persisted throughout the spring and summer but fossil fuel companies ramped up their oil and gas-based business models.Shell plans to cut oil production by 20% by 2030 selling some operations to another oil company and thus not reducing emissions into the atmosphere.BP has expanded gas extractions.And, last month, Exxon CEO Darren Woods he declared during an industry conference that his company plans to double the amount of oil produced from its U.S. shale holdings within the next five years.

So what's happening?In a hostile context, in which the ecological transition had become a priority of global institutions and fossil fuels were becoming less profitable, energy companies had started talking about reducing gas and oil.Now that gas prices have risen, the announced commitments can be put aside, he always comments to Guardian Timmons Roberts.

“It has become clear that they are motivated only by profits,” explains Roberts.And so now that the transition seems less immediately profitable, oil companies are starting to introduce the discourse that "change is impossible".It's always the same strategy "to block climate action and keep us dependent on their products" that changes skin, adds Oreskes.

To promote a true energy transition, Roberts concludes, world leaders must stop believing that energy companies will voluntarily change their business models.

“I thought fossil fuel companies could change.But I was wrong." he commented about this in an article on Al Jazeera Christiana Figueres, climate conference negotiator and co-founder of Global Optimism.“I did it because I was convinced that the global economy could not be decarbonized without their constructive participation and was therefore willing to support the transformation of their business model,” explains Figueres.“But what the industry is doing with its unprecedented profits over the last 12 months has changed my mind.”

With the trillions of dollars they are making, oil companies could “move away from any new oil and gas exploration, invest in renewable energy, and accelerate carbon capture and storage technologies to clean up existing use of fossil fuels.” , continues Figueres.Furthermore, they could cut methane emissions from the entire production line, reduce emissions along their value chain and facilitate access to renewable energy for those still without electricity who number in the millions.Instead, “what we see are international oil companies cutting, slowing or, at best, reluctantly maintaining their decarbonization commitments, paying higher dividends to shareholders, buying back more shares and – in some countries – putting pressure on governments to reverse clean energy policies, while paying lip service to change.”

But, explains the journalist expert on economics and climate change, Pilita Clark, in an article on Financial Times, we are wrong to “expect the fossil fuel industry to lead us out of a crisis caused by fossil fuels.Only governments have the power to reduce demand for these fuels and their work has only just begun."

The G20 agreement on phasing out fossil fuels failed after opposition from Saudi Arabia

Several countries led by Saudi Arabia have blocked the agreement of the G20 countries to reduce the use of fossil fuels, reports The Financial Times.After days of intense discussions, hosted by India in Goa, a document was published saying that some Member States highlight the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels without resorting to controversial emissions capture and storage (CSS) technology “in line with the different national contexts”.But others have "different opinions on the issue", highlighting the lack of agreement on the gradual reduction of fossil fuels and the use of CSS.It appears that Saudi Arabia blocked the agreement, supported by many other countries.In the negotiations of recent years, Russia, China and Indonesia opposed it 

Failure to reach a deal is likely to increase pressure on the UAE to step up discussions with environment and energy ministers and prime ministers.

On the eve of the Goa summit, COP28 President-designate Sultan Al Jaber had published a 15-page letter in which he presented his plan for the United Nations Conference next December in Dubai and he asked States to update their emission reduction targets by September and identify all delays, errors and gaps in their implementation.

The plan presented by Al Jaber (in his unusual role as president of COP and simultaneously head of the UAE's national oil company, Adnoc) involves setting a "mid-century" timeline to "gradually reduce" the use of fossil fuels .“The phasing out of fossil fuels is inevitable and essential:will happen,” he said in an interview with Guardian.“What I'm trying to say is that you can't unplug the world from the current energy system before you build the new energy system.It's a transition:transitions don't happen overnight, transitions take time."

Al Jaber's dual role was arousing criticism from activists, although it was supported by the governments of the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union.He was attacked after trying to shift the focus of talks away from phasing out fossil fuels - a key demand of more than 80 countries - to the gradual elimination of emissions of fossil fuels.In one letter al Financial Times, a group of climate ministers, led by Germany, Vanuatu and Canada, called on participants at the next COP to focus on “phasing out” all fossil fuels.

Among the agenda items of the next COP, Al Jaber indicated the implementation of a "fully effective" loss and damage fund, the tripling of renewable energy production and the doubling of hydrogen production by 2030, reports Bloomberg.There will also be a strong emphasis on the “inclusivity” of COP28 with greater representation of youth groups, civil society, indigenous peoples and women.At the same time, a controversial hypothesis is gaining ground, namely the opening of talks during the COP to fossil fuel companies.Some fossil fuel companies are reportedly forming one “global alliance” that would commit to climate action, including moving to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The collapse of deforestation in Brazil and Colombia

On July 6, the Brazilian government he announced that in the first six months of the year, 2,649 square kilometers of Amazon forest were destroyed, 33.6% less than in the same period of 2022.

These data are proof of the government's commitment to protecting the Amazon, said Environment Minister Marina Silva.President Lula, in office since January 1, has pledged to end deforestation by 2030.Earlier this year, Lula decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and limiting commercial agriculture.A decision welcomed by indigenous leaders who, at the same time, underlined the need to protect other areas.

A significant drop in the percentages of deforested areas is also being recorded in the Colombian Amazon.According to official data, deforestation decreased by 26% last year."It's really impressive," he says al Guardian the environmentalist Rodrigo Botero.“It is the highest reduction in deforestation and forest fires in the last twenty years.”

The 50,000 hectares of forest saved in 2022 are the first result of what is probably the first peace process in history to put the environment at the center.“This is just the beginning,” he said Guardian Colombian Environment Minister (and former environmental activist), Susana Muhamad, visiting the southern state of Guaviare.

When the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, it formally ended six decades of internal conflict that killed 450,000 people.But when 7,000 FARC guerrillas laid down their weapons, a new and unexpected victim was also created:the forests of the country.Other armed groups - including dissident rebel factions that rejected the deal - have taken advantage of the FARC's absence to level hundreds of hectares at a time in vast land grabs.“The consequence of the peace process was a major environmental disaster,” adds Muhamad

The new government, led by Colombia's first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, is now trying a new approach to peace processes.Petro he committed to bring "total peace" to the country through dialogue with the numerous armed groups that arose or reorganized after the dissolution of the FARC.In these discussions, the aim is to protect the environment.According to environmental experts, deforestation collapsed on the orders of a dissident rebel faction - and de facto authorities in the region - known as the Estado Mayor Central, or Central Command (EMC).The group, made up of former FARC fighters, ordered local farmers to stop cutting trees as a "gesture of peace", in the hope of reaching a peace agreement with Petro's government.On July 8, Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace he announced that informal talks are progressing and that the government will soon enter formal peace negotiations with the rebels.

In any case there is little to be happy about:the amount of forest lost in the first six months of 2023 is greater than Luxembourg and in June alone, which coincides with the start of the dry season in Brazil, there were 3,075 fires, the highest number since 2007.Many of the fires - which release large amounts of carbon emissions - have been linked to deforestation of previously cleared areas.

In April, research by the Global Forest Watch monitoring network he showed that in 2022, an area of ​​tropical forest the size of Switzerland has been lost worldwide due to increased deforestation.According to the study, areas as large as about 11 football fields were lost per minute.

How the “Sir David Attenborough” ship will help scientists study climate change

At the end of the year the "Sir David Attenborough" ship, a sort of "floating research station", as it was defined by researchers and crew, will set sail to Antarctica, the Arctic and Greenland to conduct research and study little-known ecosystem processes that are fundamental to better understanding climate change.The goal is to analyze the samples collected at the poles already on board instead of having to wait months before returning to their usual laboratory space.

The vessel has 14 laboratories, dedicated experimental aquariums for the preservation of organisms and cold water samples, a laboratory for processing organic sediment cores, a darkroom containing a first-class scanning electron microscope and a “moon pool ”, a 4 by 4 meter hatch in the center of the ship that offers direct access to the sea below.

The ship will travel to the Weddell Sea where researchers will study the behavior of copepods, tiny crustaceans of the plankton fauna, a fundamental link in the food chain and responsible for the carbon cycle, to track the movements of the main nutrients and measure sea temperature and ocean currents.

In 2019, research published in Nature he estimated that, globally, copepods are responsible for processing a billion tons of carbon per year (more than sequestered by all US forests).However, the study omitted the role of copepods in Antarctica due to a lack of available data, explains a Carbon Brief Nadine Johnston, a marine ecologist working on the project at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

The hope is to gain information to improve climate models, tools that scientists use to try to understand how climate change could affect Earth in the future.A recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's leading authority on climate science, noted that the Earth system models that researchers currently use to make future climate projections "omit or incompletely [understand]" the role of "ecological processes," such as transportation of ocean nutrients or carbon cycling by copepods.

In addition to helping make climate change projections, the research project will also investigate how current climate change is already affecting polar copepods and, therefore, the ocean carbon cycle.In fact, Johnston explains:“The poles are experiencing some of the most rapid climate change on the planet.There is a real and clear urgency to understand the full implications of these changes for the polar regions, but also for the wider Earth system."

The “Sir David Attenborough” ship will also be involved in other research projects, such as study of the impacts of hot periods on the Greenland ice sheet and one research on sea level rise resulting from the melting of the Thwaites Glacier (also called the “doomsday” glacier because it is estimated that the disintegration of the platform could favor the release of the enormous volume of ice upstream, until now blocked by the braking action of the platform itself, like a cork on a bottle of a fizzy drink), in Antarctica, which extends for 120 thousand kilometers squares (therefore almost as large as half the Italian peninsula) ed he is already responsible about 4% of the annual global sea level rise.

Data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere

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