Nine ideas to save the planet

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

More and more often, after news of fires, hurricanes, heat waves, floods, storms, droughts, we hear that we need to start getting used to what could soon be "the new normal".If we do nothing, what seems like an exception today will become the norm.Yet talking about a "new normality" suggests that what we are witnessing is an irreversible, slow, linear and, in some ways, natural and foreign to us process.But that's not the case.

“This is not the new 'normal' and the climate is not just changing, it is destabilizing,” writes Greta Thunberg in her latest book “The Climate Book” (out November 1st) and of which the Guardian he published some extracts.“Until now, Earth's natural systems have acted as a shock absorber, dampening the dramatic transformations underway.But the planetary resilience that has been so vital to us will not last forever, and the evidence seems increasingly clear to suggest that we are entering a new era of more dramatic change."

And therefore, climate change is not "a slow and even rather harmless process" as it may appear to us.The transformation often starts slowly, but then begins to accelerate.“The delicately balanced natural patterns and cycles that are a vital part of the systems that support life on Earth are being disrupted, and the consequences could be catastrophic.Because there are negative turning points, points of no return.And we don't know exactly when we will cross them.What we know, however, is that they are getting terribly close, even the bigger ones."

To have even a small chance of avoiding triggering irreversible chain reactions far beyond human control, Thunberg continues, we need drastic, immediate and far-reaching emissions cuts at the source.“When the bathtub is about to overflow, you don't go looking for buckets or start covering the floor with towels:start by turning off the tap as soon as possible.Leaving the water open means ignoring or denying the problem, delaying action to resolve it and minimizing its consequences."Thunberg reiterated this again in recent days in an interview with the German public television Ard.When asked whether nuclear energy could be suitable for combating the climate crisis (with clear references to Germany's decision to close the three existing nuclear power plants by the end of the year and to relaunch coal-fired power plants to reduce production of electricity from gas), the Swedish activist he replied:"Depends.If they are already in operation, I believe it would be a mistake to shut down existing plants and switch to coal."

In the book she edited, Thunberg availed herself of the collaboration of over 100 experts who agree on the need for system change to achieve climate goals.Staying within the 1.5°C increase from pre-industrial era temperatures, as mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement, “would literally require breaking valid contracts and agreements on an unimaginable scale.This should dominate our hourly newscasts, political discussions, business meetings and every inch of our daily lives.”But that's not what's happening.

In another excerpt from the book, the Guardian proposes the contributions of some people, including activists, writers, climate scientists, academics, contacted by Greta Thunberg for her book:nine ideas to save the planet which, taken together, lead to the system change desired by the Swedish activist.

1) Free politics from lobbies

“We must ban direct and indirect corporate campaign donations, and we must stop the revolving door between corporate lobbyists and legislators so that writing industry laws and regulations does not become fertile ground for pro-profit policies. 'pollution".
(Naomi Klein, writer)

2) No more fossil fuels for cars, boats and buses

“It is now possible – and necessary – for humans to end their burning habit, which dates back 200,000 years.Flames served us well in prehistory and made some of us rich during the industrial revolution.But now we need to stop setting things on fire and rely on the fact that the good Lord has put a great ball of glowing gas in the sky that we have the wits to take full advantage of.Let's put out the sparks that light kitchens, ovens, power plants, car, boat and bus engines.And let's do it quickly."
(Bill McKibben, environmentalist)

3) Make healthcare green

“The healthcare sector faces many of the consequences of climate change.At the same time, it is responsible for around 5% of carbon emissions, a significant contribution to climate change, while hundreds of millions of people are still cared for in hospitals and clinics without electricity.Last year, 60 countries committed to making their healthcare systems more climate resilient and reducing carbon emissions from healthcare.WHO calls on all countries to make the same commitment and provide clean, reliable electricity to all health facilities.”
(Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization)

4) Switch to recyclable materials

“In our disposable society, the use of plastic objects seems normal.A simple idea holds the key to reversing the trend:reuse.We need to move to reusable packaging that stays in circulation and, crucially, out of the environment.”
(Nina Schrank, senior campaigner, Greenpeace UK)

5) Tax the rich appropriately

“To fight climate change we must invest massively to decarbonise our transport, energy and production systems:for this we need billions of euros.The wealthy should pay their fair share of taxes to fund these efforts.This is all the more legitimate if we know that the rich contribute disproportionately to climate change.Globally, 10% of the population contributes to around half of all emissions and there are also large pollution inequalities within each country."
(Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel, economists)

6) Empower the poorest countries

“We can save the planet if we can save our common humanity.We must move from an unequal society to one that truly understands the interdependence that our common future needs.We need climate justice to be at the heart of climate action.”
(Sunita Narain, environmentalist)

7) High-quality decision-making processes

“Clear, high-quality decision-making processes are needed to address the complex systemic challenges posed by the climate crisis.At the moment, this process is largely hindered by hidden agendas, dishonesty and greed.My idea for saving the planet is therefore to cultivate and insist on much higher standards of honesty among our political and corporate decision makers.Otherwise, nothing will work."
(Mike Berners-Lee, author)

8) Regenerate the planet's biodiversity

“Rewilding can repair not only our living systems, but also our relationship with them.By allowing depleting forests, wetlands, savannas, coral reefs and other ecosystems to return and regenerate, rewilding could simultaneously help stop the sixth great extinction and bring down much of the carbon we have released into the atmosphere".
(Rebecca Wrigley, director of Rewilding Britain, and George Monbiot, writer)

9) Achieve climate justice

“The United States is one of the world's largest polluters.They also have great influence on climate negotiations.A major change in our global political and economic situation would be to remove the power that corporations have over U.S. legislatures, courts, and regulatory systems, and reduce their influence on global negotiations and commitments made by other nations.In short, to achieve climate justice, we must ensure that power remains in the hands of the people."
(Jacqueline Patterson, founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project)

If we do not reduce emissions, Europe is destined for drought

This summer practically all of Europe has had to deal with exhausting and prolonged heat waves and periods of drought.A combination of record temperatures and low rainfall caused the drying up of rivers, the outbreak of fires and the loss of crops which aggravated the already high prices of food products.“This year's drought appears to be more persistent, more intense and more extensive than 2018's, so far the worst ever recorded since 1500,” he declared al New European Andrea Toreti, senior researcher at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission.

Second what was detected from the service World Weather Attribution, the high temperatures recorded in the Northern Hemisphere would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change.And not only that:with the current climate in the Northern Hemisphere we may have to deal with droughts of this intensity once every 20 years.While, in a world without climate change, similar conditions would occur just once every 400 years.

“What Europe looks like in 2030 and 2050 depends on the actions we take today in terms of mitigation and adaptation,” explains Toreti.“If we do nothing, if we don't curb global warming by immediately reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these extreme droughts could occur almost every year by 2050.The whole world will change radically."

In addition to the obvious effects of drought on plants and animals, widespread water scarcity will also impact energy production, industry, food production, biodiversity and perhaps even global population movements.Water scarcity and rising temperatures could cause more and more people to move from the climatically hostile south of Europe to the north.

The solutions are now known, writes the New European.The world must rapidly reduce emissions, decarbonise our societies, for example by adopting renewable energy, switching to electric cars, eating less meat and producing less waste.But politics complicates the picture, pitting fossil fuel-producing nations against vulnerable island states and other communities hard-hit by the climate crisis, and turning a shared problem into a fight to protect themselves first.

"The world can go in two directions.It can lead to conflict, because we compete for resources...and our economies are damaged, or it can go in the opposite direction and lead us to cooperate to strengthen international institutions and try to make ourselves more resilient,” commented Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds and director of Priestley International Center for Climate.

From this point of view, private individuals are ahead of governments, adds Forster.“Global financial institutions are recognizing the reality – and consequences – of the climate emergency and resulting drought.They realize that action is needed, for example, to secure global supply chains, and this could push for institutional change.”

EU countries are still far from a common action to combat the energy crisis

While gas prices they drop to around 150 euros per megawatt hour for the first time since July (we are still far from the 38 euros per megawatt hour of a year ago), last weekend there was a meeting in Prague between the prime ministers of the EU countries to discuss the measures to be adopted to deal with the energy crisis.According to what reported by Political, no great progress has been made:“So many questions remained unanswered.Every decision - including the possibility of placing a cap on gas prices - has been postponed to future summits."

There was also much discussion about whether to increase the EU's common debt to cover increasingly higher energy costs. Solution rejected by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who, in a press conference, proposed instead using EU funds for the recovery of national economies after the lockdowns due to the pandemic.The only point of convergence was the proposal to start new talks with alternative gas suppliers to purchase it in greater quantities at lower prices, he adds Financial Times.Since the start of the war in Ukraine, EU countries have spent 100 billion euros on Russian fossil fuels and continue to be the main importers from Russia.

The estimated overall 11% decline in total gas consumption in the first half of the year was offset by an increase in the use of petroleum products by 8%, hard coal by 7% and lignite by 12%, according to data from the government agency Eurostat.As a result, carbon dioxide emissions in the EU are likely to have increased by around 2% in the first half of 2022, according to estimates from the Energy and Clean Air Research Center (CREA).Globally, reports the think tank Ember, in July and August there was an increase in coal and gas production due to record drought and heat waves which increased the demand for electricity.

Meanwhile, reports The Guardian, the European Commission is said to be about to review the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) which has so far allowed fossil fuel companies to sue governments for taking climate measures against their emissions.

The TCE it is an international agreement, to which 52 countries have joined, which establishes a multilateral framework for cooperation in the energy industry, and fossil fuels in particular, by neighboring nations.It began as an attempt to defend the revenues of European energy companies that invested in the economies of the former Soviet Union after the fall of the Iron Curtain.It allows them to sue states in a secretive court system when they believe their profit expectations have been damaged by political decisions.But this could expose states to legal action if they close down oil, coal or gas extraction projects to meet the EU's 2050 net-zero emissions target. It is believed that more than two-thirds of EU energy investments protected by the treaty come from investors based within the bloc and, by some estimates, for a total turnover of 1.3 billion dollars by 2050.

The implications of the war in Ukraine for the climate goals of Asian countries

An article by AP makes the point on the implications of the war in Ukraine on the climate objectives of Asian countries.Following the energy crisis in Europe and the disruption of global energy markets, most Asian countries are prioritizing energy security, sometimes even to the detriment of their own climate goals.“We are at a really important crossroads,” said Kanika Chawla, of the United Nations Sustainable Energy Unit.“Asian states could double down on investments in clean energy or decide not to immediately phase out fossil fuels.”

In Sri Lanka Coal and oil-fired power plants, hydropower, and some solar power are coping.Huge debts prevent the purchase of energy on credit, forcing the state to ration fuel for key sectors, with a shortage expected next year.The country has set itself the goal of obtaining 70% of all energy from renewable sources by 2030 and aims to reach net zero - balancing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted with that removed from the atmosphere - by 2050.However, at present, these goals appear to be more aspiration than reality, explains Murtaza Jafferjee, director of the Advocata Institute think tank.

There China, currently the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, aims to reach net zero by 2060, which requires significant emissions reductions.But since the post-war period, China has not only imported more fossil fuels from Russia, but also increased its own coal production.The war, combined with a severe drought and an internal energy crisis, pushed the government to prioritize energy security over the reduction of fossil fuel sources.However, the deputy director of the planning department of the National Energy Administration (NEA), Song Wen, he declared that China "will focus on three areas to promote the development of high-quality energy infrastructure."These include “giant wind and solar bases mainly in the Gobi Desert and other arid regions, hydropower bases in southwest China, and the construction of energy output channels with a renewable energy transmission ratio in principle not less than 50%".

THE'India, the world's third largest emitter, aims to reach net zero emissions about a decade after China, combining the energy transition with a major increase in energy demand in the coming years.It is estimated that the country will need $223 billion to meet its clean energy goals in 2030.Like China, India is trying to increase coal production to reduce dependence on expensive imports and continues to buy Russian oil despite calls for sanctions.India is also investing heavily in renewable energy and has committed to producing 50% of its energy from clean sources by 2030.

Both the Japan that the South Korea they are pushing for nuclear energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Sanctions against coal and gas imports from Russia have pushed Japan to look for alternative energy sources, although anti-nuclear sentiments following the 2011 Fukushima disaster remain strong.While South Korea has not suffered any short-term impacts on energy supplies, as it receives gas from Qatar and Australia and oil from the Middle East, it is pushing for nuclear energy and has said it is reluctant to drastically reduce its reliance on nuclear power. coal and gas to avoid economic repercussions from the war in Ukraine and protect themselves from European competition on the gas and oil markets.

Australia's plan to halt the loss of endangered species and habitats

Australia has one of the highest rates of species and habitat loss in the world due to climate change.And so the new government decided to prepare a plan to avoid further losses and safeguard 110 species and 20 habitats at risk.

The ten-year plan includes a commitment from the centre-left Labor government to conserve 30% of the country's land surface, aligning itself with dozens of other nations that have signed up to the same goal.So far, around 22% of Australia's surface area is currently protected; reaching 30% would mean an additional 61 million hectares.

The government has not, however, allocated new funds for the implementation of the plan.“It is not possible to achieve the goal of stopping extinctions on the basis of available financial resources,” explains al New York Times James Watson, professor of conservation science at the University of Queensland.“To save all of Australia's threatened species would require a lot more money, around A$1.3 billion,” Watson added.Although “the new Labor government's approach represents an improvement over a decade of 'terrible' conservation strategies by the previous Conservative government (...) in Australia there are more than 1,700 threatened species and, if we focus on 110 especially, there will be no way to meet the needs of the other 1,600."

According to a recent study by Oxford Brookes University, primates and lemurs they are abandoning the trees to seek shade and water and refresh themselves from the temperatures that are too high due to global warming and the thinning of tropical forests.The study is based on 150,000 hours of observation of 47 species of tree-dwelling primates at nearly 70 sites in Madagascar and the Americas.Species that manage to adapt to living on land "may be more likely to survive in the future", while "primates less advantaged for this transition will be increasingly at risk".

Preview image via The Philadelphia Citizen