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Welcome to Carbon Transient’s DeBriefed. A necessary information to the week’s key developments regarding local weather change.
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2023 ‘smashes’ information
RECORD-SHATTERING: 2023 “smashed” the report for the most well liked yr by a big margin, reported the Guardian. The newspaper mentioned on Tuesday that, based on the EU’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service, 2023 was 1.48C hotter than pre-industrial instances. That is 0.17C greater than the final report set in 2016 – “marking a really giant improve in local weather phrases”, based on the Guardian. And right this moment the report was confirmed by the UN’s World Meteorological Group, which has simply printed the findings of six main local weather datasets.
CHARTING CHANGE: In its protection of the information, BBC Information produced plenty of charts and figures illustrating the trail of worldwide warming. Its evaluation confirmed that nearly every single day since July has seen a brand new world air temperature excessive for the time of yr. In the meantime, the Unbiased printed a characteristic analyzing whether or not 2024 could possibly be even hotter than 2023.
STATE OF THE CLIMATE: Carbon Transient has simply printed the final of its quarterly state of the local weather updates for 2023. It explains that 2023 was the warmest yr “by a big margin”, at between 1.34C and 1.54C above pre-industrial ranges throughout totally different datasets. Final yr was additionally the warmest on report for ocean warmth content material, which elevated notably between 2022 and 2023.
UK MP quits over fossil fuels
‘TRAGEDY’: The UK’s former vitality minister Chris Skidmore stop as an MP in protest on the authorities’s plans to drill for extra oil and fuel within the North Sea, the Monetary Occasions reported. In his resignation letter, Skidmore mentioned it was “a tragedy that the UK has been allowed to lose its local weather management” underneath prime minister Rishi Sunak, based on the newspaper.
BILL DELAYED: Skidmore stop over the federal government’s offshore petroleum licensing invoice, which goals to “maximise” new oil and fuel manufacturing, the FT mentioned. The invoice was attributable to be learn within the Home of Commons this week, however ended up being postponed, the Occasions reported. BBC Information reported that Sir Alok Sharma, the Conservative MP and COP26 president, mentioned he would vote towards the invoice, calling it “a complete distraction” which reinforces the concept the UK is “not severe” about tackling local weather change.
Renewables on the rise
RECORD RENEWABLES: A increase in Chinese language solar energy drove one other record-breaking yr of renewables development in 2023, based on a brand new Worldwide Power Company (IEA) report coated by Carbon Transient. The world is now on observe to construct sufficient photo voltaic, wind and different renewables over the subsequent 5 years to energy the equal of the US and Canada mixed, based on Carbon Transient’s evaluation of the findings.
UK SOLAR: Together with the rise in world renewable capability, there was continued development in low-carbon upgrades on UK properties, with photo voltaic and warmth pumps driving report installations in 2023, based on separate Carbon Transient evaluation.
US COAL DROP: US emissions fell by 1.9% in 2023, largely attributable to coal declining to its lowest degree in 50 years, the New York Occasions reported. In contrast, US oil and fuel manufacturing is about to hit a report in 2024 and 2025, mentioned the Monetary Occasions.
‘A LA CARTE’: Saudi Arabia’s vitality minister has claimed that the headline COP28 settlement to transition away from fossil fuels is only one of a number of “selections” on an “a la carte menu”, reported Local weather Dwelling Information.
WAR EMISSIONS: Israel’s assault on Gaza since 7 October has produced extra greenhouse fuel emissions than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable international locations create in a yr, based on new evaluation coated by the Guardian.
GERMANY PROTESTS: Farmers took to the streets of Berlin to protest towards the German authorities’s determination to chop agricultural subsidies, Deutsche Welle reported.
DEEP SEA MINING: Norway has develop into the primary nation to approve business deep-sea mining, opening up an unlimited space of the Arctic to the extractive follow regardless of warnings from scientists, Mongabay reported.
OFFSETS CONTROVERSY: The primary-ever carbon-offset change underneath a brand new Paris Settlement mechanism, involving Switzerland shopping for credit for the rollout of electrical buses in Thailand, is going through integrity questions, Local weather Dwelling Information mentioned.
The proportion of North Sea oil and fuel licences in UK waters owned by overseas firms and traders, based on EnergyMonitor.
A brand new analysis paper in Nature Local weather Change offered a “conceptual framework” for contemplating the function of justice inside local weather analysis.
The presence of city inexperienced house is related to “considerably decrease charges of violent crime dedicated outdoors”, based on an Worldwide Journal of Biometeorology examine carried out in Australia.
A pair of research within the Journal of Local weather delved into an “distinctive heatwave” in east Antarctica in 2022, which introduced “widespread 30-40C temperature anomalies throughout the ice sheet”.
(For extra, see Carbon Transient’s in-depth day by day summaries of the highest local weather information tales on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
A report 42 editorials opposing motion to sort out local weather change had been printed by UK newspapers in 2023, based on new Carbon Transient evaluation. Written nearly solely by right-leaning papers, these editorials referred to as for delays to UK bans on the sale of fossil fuel-powered automobiles and boilers, in addition to for extra oil-and-gas manufacturing within the North Sea, based on the findings. In response to such calls for, prime minister Rishi Sunak carried out a “U-turn” in September on a few of his authorities’s main net-zero insurance policies.
Investigating Antarctica’s colossal icebergs
This week, Carbon Transient speaks to Dr Oliver Marsh, a glaciologist who’s principal investigator of a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) mission at present finding out iceberg calving occasions at Antarctica’s Brunt ice shelf (pictured).
Carbon Transient: Are you able to please clarify what fieldwork you’re at present engaged on?
Dr Oliver Marsh: We’re drilling ice cores to gather ice samples from the Brunt ice shelf. These might be introduced again to Cambridge [where BAS is located] and College Faculty London (UCL) with a purpose to take a look at their bodily and chemical properties. We’re additionally establishing seismic and GPS tools to watch fracture development and pressure charges on the ice shelf. We are going to then hyperlink the properties of the ice to the behaviour of the fractures.
CB: What do you hope to seek out out by conducting this fieldwork?
OM: We have an interest within the mechanism and timing of crack development resulting in iceberg calving [where chunks of ice break off from the front of a glacier]. Particularly, we need to perceive how modifications in ice properties change calving charges. The ice shelf we’re engaged on has a well-documented historical past of crack development, with two giant calving occasions within the final three years, and the brand new info we achieve from exact laboratory measurements will assist us to know how – and underneath what situations – fractures happen within the lead-up to those calving occasions.
CB: What are the most important hazards with conducting fieldwork on the Brunt ice shelf?
OM: The Brunt ice shelf is an efficient location to watch fracture development attributable to its dynamic behaviour. This implies there are rifts and different cracks within the ice that may be hazardous for journey. These cracks are closely monitored with a collection of geophysical devices, together with ground-penetrating radar, GPS and satellite tv for pc information, and precautions are taken when shifting round. Fieldwork in Antarctica additionally has important hazards related to the climate, for instance, robust winds and wind chill.
CB: How is local weather change affecting iceberg calving occasions in Antarctica?
OM: Calving happens as a traditional means of ice loss from the continent. However, because it happens in discrete occasions and really occasionally for some ice cabinets, it’s tough to find out whether or not charges are altering from a brief satellite tv for pc report. Different fracturing processes, akin to hydrofracture and ice shelf collapse, are linked to each ocean and atmospheric warming, so it’s doable that calving charges might improve sooner or later.
CB: What could be the implications of accelerated iceberg calving for the local weather and ecosystems?
OM: Elevated calving is more likely to weaken ice cabinets that fringe the continent and help the glaciers inland. This might help to hurry up glacier circulate and ice loss to the ocean, contributing to sea degree rise. A rise within the quantity of icebergs may trigger points for ecosystems, notably in areas the place icebergs floor on the ocean ground, blocking foraging routes for penguins and seals, as an illustration.
IDAI AFTERMATH: An audio documentary from the BBC World Service explored how communities in Beira, Mozambique are nonetheless reeling 5 years after Cyclone Idai.
PEOPLE FIRST: Context spoke to a spread of specialists about how the deal to transition away from fossil fuels agreed at COP28 will be achieved in a method that prioritises folks’s wants.
INFLECTION POINTS: Robinson Meyer, founding editor of the local weather publication Heatmap, appeared on the Chris Hayes Podcast to speak about rising fossil fuels and falling low-carbon know-how costs.
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please ship any suggestions or suggestions to [email protected]
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