Arguments
Climate pollution caused by burning fossil fuels hit a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, marking a 0.8% rise from the previous year – and dashing hopes that a peak in global emissions might occur this year.
That’s according to the latest annual Global Carbon Budget, which underscores a deeper challenge: the world’s ongoing reliance on coal, oil, and gas, which continues to drive emissions and disrupt the climate. The report, organized by a global consortium of scientists centered at the University of Exeter, paints a complex picture of global energy trends, with troubling increases in some areas and signs of progress in others.
Emissions from most wealthy countries fell this year, though by relatively small amounts in many cases. Meanwhile, climate pollution from most developing economies rose, driven by economic growth and a rising demand for energy. Global consumption of coal, oil, and gas all increased, though coal and oil saw less than 1% growth.
While global emissions have yet to reach a clear “peak” – the point at which carbon pollution stops rising and eventually shifts to a consistent decline – there are signs that this turning point could be on the horizon. The rapid deployment of clean technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs) may help accelerate this shift, although much faster progress will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
These global trends have urgent implications for our climate, economies, and ecosystems. To understand what’s behind this year’s record highs and what they signal for the future, let’s explore the key factors shaping climate pollution today.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49
Posted on 8 December 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Alternative listing prototype
Instead of a "Story of the Week" we added a listing by assigned category, so this installment will have the same list of articles twice, first by category and then by publication date. Please let us know in the comments which format you prefer, if the manually assigned categories actually fit the articles and if additional categories might make sense without getting too fine grained. To keep things simple, an article can only be assigned to one category.
Climate change impacts
- Doomsday Glacier collapse! Time for MORE human intervention?? by Dave Borlace, "Just have a Think" on Youtube, Dec 1, 2024
- An Arctic Hamlet is Sinking Into the Thawing Permafrost Canada is losing its permafrost to climate change. The Indigenous residents of Tuktoyaktuk know they’ll have to move but don’t agree on when. by Norimitsu Onishi and Renaud Philippe, NYT > Climate and Environment, Dec 02, 2024
- Climate change and insurance: a growing fustercluck In this podcast episode, David Roberts talks with Kate Gordon, CEO of California Forward, about how climate change is breaking the insurance industry. by David Roberts, Volts, Dec 04, 2024
- How climate risks are driving up insurance premiums around the US - visualized ‘Tight correlation’ between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from climate crisis, experts say by Oliver Milman with graphics by Andrew Witherspoon, The Guardian, Dec 05, 2024
- Younger people at greater risk of heat-related deaths this century - study New research estimates a 32% increase in deaths of people under 35 if greenhouse gases not radically cut. by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Dec 06, 2024
- Traditional Foods, and the Threats They Face, Take Center Stage at Navajo Summit Climate change is leading to a decline of many wild and farmed ingredients in traditional Diné staples, but presenters at the Food Gathering Summit hope that passing on recipes and legacies can help them persist. by Noel Lyn Smith, Inside Climate News, Dec 07, 2024
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- Guest post: The conflicting practices in using land to tackle climate change Removing CO2 from the atmosphere using land-based mitigation strategies is central to nearly every country’s net-zero target. by Guest author Dr Evelyn Beaury,, Carbon Brief, Dec 05, 2024
Climate law and justice
- Top UN court to begin hearings on landmark climate change case ICJ to hear submissions from more than 100 groups in Pacific-led campaign to provide an advisory opinion on states’ obligations for climate harm by Rebecca Bush and Bethanie Harriman, The Guardian, Dec 02, 2024
- Australia accused of undermining landmark climate change case brought by Pacific nations in international court Vanuatu leads the charge of several nations arguing developed nations have a legal responsibility beyond non-binding promises by Adam Morton and Australian Associated Press, The Guardian, Dec 03, 2024
Interview with John Cook about misinformation and artificial intelligence
Posted on 6 December 2024 by John Cook, BaerbelW
In March, John Cook met with Adam Ford from Science, Technology & the Future to talk about his work researching misinformation and how to counter it. The interview - published on October 10 - explored the complex and evolving landscape of climate misinformation, covering a range of topics including the different types of misinformation, the role of social media and AI in spreading and combating it, the psychological barriers that prevent people from accepting climate science, and the importance of communicating effectively about climate change. Key takeaways include:
- The nature of climate misinformation: Misinformation takes many forms, including outright denial of climate science, attacks on climate scientists and solutions, and promotion of conspiracy theories. It is often emotionally driven and tailored to specific audiences.
- The role of social media and AI: Social media has amplified the spread of misinformation, and AI can be used to both generate and combat it. The development of sophisticated, personalized misinformation is a concerning and challenging trend.
- Psychological barriers to accepting climate science: These barriers include psychological distance and political ideology. Overcoming these barriers requires effective communication that address the underlying concerns and motivations of different audiences.
- The importance of human oversight: While AI is a powerful tool, human judgment is still crucial for accurately identifying and countering misinformation. Hybrid approaches that combine AI with human expertise are likely to be the most effective.
- The need for hope and efficacy: Communicating about climate change shouldn't just focus on the negative impacts. A message of hope and efficacy is needed to inspire action and avoid paralyzing people with fear.
The interview highlights the crucial role of ongoing research, education, and collaboration in addressing climate misinformation. It also emphasizes the importance of individual action, encouraging people to engage in conversations, connect with others, and use their unique skills and passions to contribute to the fight against climate change.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2024
Posted on 5 December 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Global emergence of regional heatwave hotspots outpaces climate model simulations, Kornhuber et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Multiple recent record-shattering weather events raise questions about the adequacy of climate models to effectively predict and prepare for unprecedented climate impacts on human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Here, we show that extreme heat in several regions globally is increasing significantly and faster in magnitude than what state-of-the-art climate models have predicted under present warming even after accounting for their regional summer background warming. Across all global land area, models underestimate positive trends exceeding 0.5 °C per decade in widening of the upper tail of extreme surface temperature distributions by a factor of four compared to reanalysis data and exhibit a lower fraction of significantly increasing trends overall. To a lesser degree, models also underestimate observed strong trends of contraction of the upper tails in some areas, while moderate trends are well reproduced in a global perspective. Our results highlight the need to better understand and model the drivers of extreme heat and to rapidly mitigate greenhouse gas emissions to avoid further harm from unexpected weather events.
The first ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean could occur before 2030, Heuzé & Jahn Jahn, Nature Communications:
Projections of a sea ice-free Arctic have so far focused on monthly-mean ice-free conditions. We here provide the first projections of when we could see the first ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean, using daily output from multiple CMIP6 models. We find that there is a large range of the projected first ice-free day, from 3 years compared to a 2023-equivalent model state to no ice-free day before the end of the simulations in 2100, depending on the model and forcing scenario used. Using a storyline approach, we then focus on the nine simulations where the first ice-free day occurs within 3–6 years, i.e. potentially before 2030, to understand what could cause such an unlikely but high-impact transition to the first ice-free day. We find that these early ice-free days all occur during a rapid ice loss event and are associated with strong winter and spring warming.
Global lake phytoplankton proliferation intensifies climate warming, Shi et al., Nature Communications:
In lakes, phytoplankton sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and store it in the form of biomass organic carbon (OC); however, only a small fraction of the OC remains buried, while the remaining part is recycled to the atmosphere as CO2 and methane (CH4). This has the potential effect of adding CO2-equivalents (CO2-eq) to the atmosphere and producing a warming effect due to the higher radiative forcing of CH4 relative to CO2. Here we show a 3.1-fold increase in CO2-eq emissions over a 100-year horizon, with the effect increasing with global warming intensity. Climate warming has stimulated phytoplankton growth in many lakes worldwide, which, in turn, can feed back CO2-eq and create a positive feedback loop between them. In lakes where phytoplankton is negatively impacted by climate warming, the CO2-eq feedback capacity may diminish gradually with the ongoing climate warming.
Mediterranean seagrasses provide essential coastal protection under climate change, Agulles et al., Scientific Reports:
Seagrasses are vital in coastal areas, offering crucial ecosystem services and playing a relevant role in coastal protection. The decrease in the density of Mediterranean seagrasses over recent decades, due to warming and anthropogenic stressors, may imply a serious environmental threat. Here we quantify the role of coastal impact reduction induced by seagrass presence under present and future climate. We focus in the Balearic Islands, a representative and well monitored region in the Mediterranean. Our results quantify how important the presence of seagrasses is for coastal protection. The complete loss of seagrasses would lead to an extreme water level (eTWL) increase comparable to the projected sea level rise (SLR) at the end of the century under the high end scenario of greenhouse gases emissions. Under that scenario, the eTWL could increase up to ~ 1.4 m, with 54% of that increase attributed to seagrass loss. These findings underscore the importance of seagrass conservation for coastal protection.
Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, McLoughlin et al., Science:
We tested a hypothesis that misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, examining generalizability across multiple platforms, time periods, and classifications of misinformation. Outrage is highly engaging and need not be accurate to achieve its communicative goals, making it an attractive signal to embed in misinformation. In eight studies that used US data from Facebook (1,063,298 links) and Twitter (44,529 tweets, 24,007 users) and two behavioral experiments (1475 participants), we show that (i) misinformation sources evoke more outrage than do trustworthy sources; (ii) outrage facilitates the sharing of misinformation at least as strongly as sharing of trustworthy news; and (iii) users are more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without reading it first. Consequently, outrage-evoking misinformation may be difficult to mitigate with interventions that assume users want to share accurate information.
Increasingly Active Wildfire Seasons Threaten the Sustainability of Forest-Backed Carbon Offset Programs, Badgley, Global Change Biology:
In 2024, wildfires burned a record number of forests participating in California's forest offset program, exposing the danger of relying on forests to slow climate change. While California maintains a reserve of offset credits—known as a “buffer pool”—that is intended to safeguard against such carbon losses, the growing frequency, and severity of wildfires threatens to undermine the program's environmental goals.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Aligning with Net Zero in the PR & Advertising Sector, InfluenceMap
The authors analyze the corporate clients of the Big Six public relations and advertising agency holding companies – Dentsu, Havas, IPG, Publicis, Omnicom, and WPP. Client mapping of the 'Big Six' reveals significant potential ‘conflicts of climate interest’, where clients of the same holding company have opposing objectives in their climate policy advocacy. Using available Ad / PR agency client lists, the authors categorize clients with a traffic light system: Obstructive (Red), Partially Misaligned (Amber), Partially Aligned (Yellow), or Supportive (Green) in their climate policy engagement. While several of the Big 6 holding companies have strategies to work with clients to promote ‘low-carbon' or ‘sustainable’ products to the market, none have developed science-based methodologies to ensure these products align with a 1.5°C future.
Selling Hot Air. Lessons from how Shell’s flagship carbon capture project sold $200M of credits for reductions that never happened, Greenpeace Canada
Shell’s flagship carbon capture project has made over $200 million (CAD) selling emissions credits for reductions that never happened. The findings come as Canadian oil sands companies advertise carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a solution to oil sands pollution while lobbying against regulations that would cap emissions from the sector.
Safeguarding International Climate Protection Against the Trump Agenda. What Germany and the EU Can Do Now, Vinke et al., German Council on Foreign Relations
International climate protection is in trouble. A second Trump presidency will derail US climate leadership, leading to a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and reducing international climate finance. Therefore, the EU and Germany must step up, leading by expanding green tech development and strengthening partnerships with key global players.
133 articles in 56 journals by 767 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A positive atmospheric feedback on the North Atlantic warming hole, Kramer et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-80381-7
Constraining net long-term climate feedback from satellite-observed internal variability possible by the mid-2030s, Uribe et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-13371-2024
Estimated human-induced warming from a linear temperature and atmospheric CO2 relationship, Jarvis & Forster, Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-024-01580-5
Irreversible changes in the sea surface temperature threshold for tropical convection to CO2 forcing, Park et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01751-7
Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?
Posted on 4 December 2024 by Guest Author
This article by Lela Nargi originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, a nonprofit publication dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to all. Sign up for Knowable Magazine’s newsletter.
Ralph Loya was pretty sure he was going to lose the corn. His farm had been scorched by El Paso’s hottest-ever June and second-hottest August; the West Texas county saw 53 days soar over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer of 2024. The region was also experiencing an ongoing drought, which meant that crops on Loya’s eight-plus acres of melons, okra, cucumbers and other produce had to be watered more often than normal.
Loya had been irrigating his corn with somewhat salty, or brackish, water pumped from his well, as much as the salt-sensitive crop could tolerate. It wasn’t enough, and the municipal water was expensive; he was using it in moderation and the corn ears were desiccating where they stood.
The hidden threat from rising coastal groundwater
Ensuring the survival of agriculture under an increasingly erratic climate is approaching a crisis in the sere and sweltering Western and Southwestern United States, an area that supplies much of our beef and dairy, alfalfa, tree nuts and produce. Contending with too little water to support their plants and animals, farmers have tilled under crops, pulled out trees, fallowed fields and sold off herds. They’ve also used drip irrigation to inject smaller doses of water closer to a plant’s roots, and installed sensors in soil that tell more precisely when and how much to water.
In the last five years, researchers have begun to puzzle out how brackish water, pulled from underground aquifers, might be de-salted cheaply enough to offer farmers another water resilience tool. Loya’s property, which draws its slightly salty water from the Hueco Bolson aquifer, is about to become a pilot site to test how efficiently desalinated groundwater can be used to grow crops in otherwise water-scarce places.
Desalination renders salty water less so. It’s usually applied to water sucked from the ocean, generally in arid lands with few options; some Gulf, African and island countries rely heavily or entirely on desalinated seawater. Inland desalination happens away from coasts, with aquifer waters that are brackish — containing between 1,000 and 10,000 milligrams of salt per liter, versus around 35,000 milligrams per liter for seawater. Texas has more than three dozen centralized brackish groundwater desalination plants, California more than 20.
Such technology has long been considered too costly for farming. Some experts still think it’s a pipe dream. “We see it as a nice solution that’s appropriate in some contexts, but for agriculture it’s hard to justify, frankly,” says Brad Franklin, an agricultural and environmental economist at the Public Policy Institute of California. Desalting an acre-foot (almost 326,000 gallons) of brackish groundwater for crops now costs about $800, while farmers can pay a lot less — as little as $3 an acre-foot for some senior rights holders in some places — for fresh municipal water. As a result, desalination has largely been reserved to make liquid that’s fit for people to drink. In some instances, too, inland desalination can be environmentally risky, endangering nearby plants and animals and reducing stream flows.
But the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, along with a research operation called the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) that’s been granted $185 million from the Department of Energy, have recently invested in projects that could turn that paradigm on its head. Recognizing the urgent need for fresh water for farms — which in the U.S. are mostly inland — combined with the ample if salty water beneath our feet, these entities have funded projects that could help advance small, decentralized desalination systems that can be placed right on farms where they’re needed. Loya’s is one of them.
U.S. farms consume over 83 million acre-feet (more than 27 trillion gallons) of irrigation water every year — the second most water-intensive industry in the country, after thermoelectric power. Not all aquifers are brackish, but most that are exist in the country’s West, and they’re usually more saline the deeper you dig. With fresh water everywhere in the world becoming saltier due to human activity, “we have to solve inland desal for ag … in order to grow as much food as we need,” says Susan Amrose, a research scientist at MIT who studies inland desalination in the Middle East and North Africa.
Brackish (slightly salty) groundwater is found mostly in the Western United States. (Image credit: J.S. Stanton et al. / USGS)
That means lowering energy and other operational costs; making systems simple for farmers to run; and figuring out how to slash residual brine, which requires disposal and is considered the process’s “Achilles’ heel,” according to one researcher.
The last half-decade of scientific tinkering is now yielding tangible results, says Peter Fiske, NAWI’s executive director. “We think we have a clear line of sight for agricultural-quality water.”
Sabin 33 #5 - Is solar energy worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels?
Posted on 3 December 2024 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #5 based on Sabin's report.
There is overwhelming evidence that the lifecycle emissions1 of solar energy are far lower than those of all fossil fuel sources, including natural gas2. On average, it takes only three years after installation for a solar panel to offset emissions from its production and transportation. Modern solar panels have a functional lifecycle of 30–35 years, allowing more than enough time to achieve carbon neutrality and generate new emissions-free energy3.
A National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report released in 2021 examined “approximately 3,000 published life cycle assessment studies on utility-scale electricity generation from wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, biopower, geothermal, ocean energy, hydropower, nuclear, natural gas, and coal technologies, as well as lithium-ion battery, pumped storage hydropower, and hydrogen storage technologies.” The report found widespread agreement that all modes of solar power have total lifecycle emissions significantly below those of all fossil fuels. The report found specifically that the total lifecycle emissions for solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) panels were 43 and 28 grams of CO2-eq/KWh (carbon dioxide-equivalents per kilowatt-hour), respectively. Coal, by contrast, generated lifecycle emissions of 1,001 grams of CO2-eq/KWh, and natural gas generated lifecycle emissions of 486 grams of CO2-eq/KWh.
Figure 1: Total lifecycle emissions for different energy sources. Source: NREL.
To be fair, there are some outlier studies. For example, one study examined a worst-case scenario in which the coal-powered manufacture of inefficiently sized solar PV cells may contribute to greater lifecycle emissions than the cleanest and most efficient fossil fuel plants (Torres & Petrakopoulou 2022). However, the conclusion that solar is worse for the climate than fossil fuels is not backed up by NREL’s more extensive survey.
In addition to having smaller greenhouse gas emissions, solar power likewise outperforms fossil fuels in minimizing direct heat emissions. A 2019 Stanford publication notes that, for solar PV and CSP, net heat emissions are in fact negative, because these technologies “reduce sunlight to the surface by converting it to electricity,” ultimately cooling “the ground or a building below the PV panels.”4 The study found that rooftop and utility-scale solar PV have heat emissions equivalent to negative 2.2 g-CO2e/kWh-electricity, compared to the positive heat emissions associated with natural gas, nuclear, coal, and biomass.
Figure 3: The 100-year CO2e emissions impact associated with different energy sources’ heat emissions, measured in g-CO2e/kWh-electricity. Source: M.Z. Jacobson (reproduced and adapted with permission)
Looking at academic scholarship from outside of the United States, a 2022 analysis from India’s Hirwal Education Trust’s College of Computer Science and Information Technology describes the global impact of solar panel heat emissions as "relatively small".5
How Plastics Fuel Climate Change
Posted on 2 December 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
We're choking our planet with pollution - whether that's greenhouse gases or plastics. But these two crises are deeply connected - and it all goes back to fossil fuels. And for both, the world needs to tackle the problem at source. Right now, the world is coming together to discuss the Global Plastic Treaty - a unique opportunity to get to grips with waste, and clean up our environment. But with fossil fuel companies up to their usual tricks, will we finally start to tackle the plastic problem and the climate crisis?
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48
Posted on 1 December 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Before Skeptical Science and an entire fleet of other websites devoted to combating and correcting climate misinformation and disinformation, there was Real Climate ("RC" for short and familiar). For our part we've been slinging climate facts for 17 years, but Real Climate team members Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf and Eric Steig are still plugging away after a full 20 years on this often (chronically!) frustrating but entirely necessary beat.
Real Climate's archive begins in November of 2004 with a glossary entry covering Antarctic Oscillation. Within a month, RC's articles evolved to include critiques of inadequate terminology for communication of science to the public, detailed corrections of climate bunk promoted by high-profile journalists, and corrective guidance on common (and carefully fostered) misunderstandings about our role in warming Earth's climate. In the intervening period between way-back-then and now the RC team have devoted extraordinary energy, persistence and— above all— patience to helping us all better understand our climate predicament, and how to escape it. Today the archives span hundreds of entries, each an informative nugget.
Reader comments captured at Real Climate over the course of decades are a sort of zoological garden of climate-denying critters; every species of "I don't want to know" is represented. RC comments are a longitudinal record of chumpish parroting of denier talking points, exciting contrarian fads that have come and gone, a whole bag of bent "final nails in the coffin" of climate science avidly sought by the deluded, like phlogiston by alchemists. We read this record and are prompted to both cry and laugh— progress is impaled on and arrested by the ridiculous, after all.
Many of us found our entry into the world of climate science and fake climate skepticism via Real Climate, including your author writing this article today. RC was in 2004 and remains now an excellent onramp to this fraught subject, managed by experts in the field.
Two decades is likely longer than anybody imagined would be necessary to agree on reversing our climate mess. But as Real Climate's commemorative post points out, the Keeling Curve is still droopy when by now it ought to be arched— and that droop means continued acceleration of CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere by our culture. Clearly the struggle to create sensible and crisply effective public policy to abate our emissions is not over. Successful public policy is an outcome of political processes guided by evidence and not wishful thinking or narrow self-interest; so long as the machinery of politics is operating in a hallucinatory fog of climate fiction serving various needs we won't get this situation under control.
Are we truly still stuck in climate murk? Here at Skeptical Science we maintain access statistics for our collection of climate myth debunkings. Overwhelimingly search-driven, use of our resources serves as a rough proxy of what sort of claptrap on climate is circulating in the public mind. Today's stats show the top five confusions to be Models are Unreliable (they're very reliable), CO2 Effect Is Saturated (it's not), It's the Sun (it isn't), 2nd law of thermodynamics Contradicts Greenhouse Theory (it doesn't), and There Is No Consensus (there most certainly is). These are all ancient myths predating the inception of Real Climate— 20 years ago. We are indeed still mired in climate garbage, and really no suprise as this rubbish is promoted at industrial scale.
It's unfortunately the case that Real Climate needs to continue. We'd all like to hang up our hats but we're not there yet. We salute Real Climate and also hope for their and our end to come sooner than later. Perhaps never before has redundancy been such a fond wish for the potentially disemployed— especially when most of us (including the RC crew) are volunteers!
That's our sad Story of the Week.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before November 24
- Book: Climate Obstruction Across Europe, Climate Social Science Network and published via Oxford University Press, Brulle et al., editors. From denial to delay, climate obstruction tactics appear to be thriving.
- Trump Energy Secretary Pick Chris Wright Calls Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg a `Friend`, DeSmog, Geoff Dembicki. With fracking CEO Wright tapped to serve in Trump’s cabinet, Lomborg’s influence could extend into the highest levels of the U.S. government.
- Twenty years of blogging in hindsight, RealClimate, Rasmus Benestad.
- Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis, Environment, The Guardian, Oliver Milman. "Among sweeping rightwing electoral victories across the globe, the 'big loser of the elections has been climate’ "
- 350 Chicago Hosts Climate Misinformation Seminar In Association With Loyola, The Loyola Phoenix, Jackson Steffens. The event aimed to combat the spread of false information surrounding the climate crisis.
- Misinformation & Artificial Intelligence - An interview with John Cook, "Science, Technology & the Future" on Youtube, Adam Ford.
Translation #20 of The Debunking Handbook 2020 published!
Posted on 29 November 2024 by BaerbelW
In November 2011, we published the first version of The Debunking Handbook. As the update notice on that page already shows, more research has come in since then and the time had finally come for a complete overhaul of this very popular handbook (it still gets downloaded a couple of thousand times in most months!). The two authors of the original handbook - Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook - got in touch with other researchers who look into how best to counter misinformation and 20 of them signed up as co-authors. The result of their work can be downloaded as The Debunking Handbook 2020.
The handbook is a consensus document that was created by an innovative process that involved a series of predefined steps, all of which were followed and documented and are publicly available. The authors were invited based on their scientific status in the field, and they all agreed on all points made in the handbook. We therefore believe that the new Handbook reflects the scientific consensus about how to combat misinformation. Read more about the consensus process.
After its initial publication in October 2020, it didn't take long for the first translation - German - to make an appearance, followed in fairly short order by Italian and Turkish. Since then, several translations have been added annually and this year we published French on November 28, getting us up to 20 translations of this handbook!
With this 20th translation, The Debunking Handbook 2020 has now caught up with The Conspiracy Theory Handbook for which we managed to reach this milestone earlier this year!
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2024
Posted on 28 November 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Progression of ocean interior acidification over the industrial era, Müller & Gruber Gruber, Science Advances:
Ocean acidification driven by the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 represents a major threat to ocean ecosystems, yet little is known about its progression beneath the surface. Here, we reconstruct the history of ocean interior acidification over the industrial era on the basis of observation-based estimates of the accumulation of anthropogenic carbon. Across the top 100 meters and from 1800 to 2014, the saturation state of aragonite (Ωarag) and pH = −log[H+] decreased by more than 0.6 and 0.1, respectively, with nearly 50% of the progression occurring over the past 20 years. While the magnitude of the Ωarag change decreases uniformly with depth, the magnitude of the [H+] increase exhibits a distinct maximum in the upper thermocline. Since 1800, the saturation horizon (Ωarag = 1) shoaled by more than 200 meters, approaching the euphotic zone in several regions, especially in the Southern Ocean, and exposing many organisms to corrosive conditions.
Light Limitation of Poleward Coral Reef Expansion During Past Warm Climates, Kruijt et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
The latitudinal range of modern shallow-water tropical corals is controlled by temperature, and presently limited to waters warmer than 16–18°C year-round. However, even during Cenozoic climates with such temperatures in polar regions, coral reefs are not found beyond >50° latitude. Here, we test the hypothesis that daily available solar radiation limited poleward expansion of coral reefs during warm climates, using a new box model of shallow marine coral calcification. Our results show that calcification rates start to decline beyond 40° latitude and drop severely beyond 50° latitude, due to decreasing winter light intensity and day length, irrespective of aragonite saturation. This suggests that light ultimately prohibits further poleward expansion in warm climates. In addition, fossil coral reef distribution is not a robust proxy for water temperatures and poleward expansion of reefs beyond 50° latitude is not an expected carbon cycle feedback of climate warming.
Estimated human-induced warming from a linear temperature and atmospheric CO2 relationship, Jarvis & Forster, Nature Geoscience:
Assessing compliance with the human-induced warming goal in the Paris Agreement requires transparent, robust and timely metrics. Linearity between increases in atmospheric CO2 and temperature offers a framework that appears to satisfy these criteria, producing human-induced warming estimates that are at least 30% more certain than alternative methods. Here, for 2023, we estimate humans have caused a global increase of 1.49 ± 0.11 °C relative to a pre-1700 baseline.
Climate-Induced Saltwater Intrusion in 2100: Recharge-Driven Severity, Sea Level-Driven Prevalence, Adams et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Saltwater intrusion is a critical concern for coastal communities due to its impacts on fresh ecosystems and civil infrastructure. Declining recharge and rising sea level are the two dominant drivers of saltwater intrusion along the land-ocean continuum, but there are currently no global estimates of future saltwater intrusion that synthesize these two spatially variable processes. Here, for the first time, we provide a novel assessment of global saltwater intrusion risk by integrating future recharge and sea level rise while considering the unique geology and topography of coastal regions. We show that nearly 77% of global coastal areas below 60° north will undergo saltwater intrusion by 2100, with different dominant drivers. Climate-driven changes in subsurface water replenishment (recharge) is responsible for the high-magnitude cases of saltwater intrusion, whereas sea level rise and coastline migration are responsible for the global pervasiveness of saltwater intrusion and have a greater effect on low-lying areas.
Weather as Fuel—The Wicked Problem of Renewable Energy, Seitter, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
A key component of mitigating climate change is reducing society’s dependence on fossil fuels, which will require replacing them with clean energy sources. The key strategy being pursued in the United States (and most other countries) is to rapidly scale up our use of renewable energy sources. Electricity generation provided by wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels, in particular, has been growing rapidly, and most energy experts expect them to be the dominant forms of electricity generation in the future. Given the dependence these energy sources have on weather conditions (windiness and cloudiness, respectively), it is useful to view weather as the “fuel” for these renewables in the same way that coal or natural gas serves as the fuel in generating electricity in a fossil-fuel power plant. This paper uses a novel thought experiment to drive home this concept, while also exploring the complexity of providing reliable power on a grid dominated by renewable generation. The paper then shows how the transition to renewable energy falls into the class of problems known as “wicked problems” and discusses approaches that will be needed to make progress. The current status of addressing these complex issues is reviewed through the lens of the wicked problem paradigm.
From this week's government/NGO section:
The 2024 EPA Automotive Trends Report. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Fuel Economy, and Technology since 1975, Hula et al., Environmental Protection Agency
The authors summarize information about new light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, fuel economy, technology data, and auto manufacturers' performance in meeting the agency’s GHG emissions standards. The model year (MY) 2023 vehicle fuel economy reached a record high while greenhouse gas emissions dropped to record low levels. All 14 large automotive manufacturers comply with EPA’s light-duty greenhouse gas program requirements through the MY 2023 reporting period. Today, the new MY 2023 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the road have led to 11% lower CO2 emissions.
Climate Obstruction Across Europe, Brulle et al., Climate Social Science Network
In Italy and Germany, far-right networks spread misinformation by questioning climate science’s validity, while in Spain and the UK, blame-shifting and deflecting responsibility for climate action is common. European-based fossil fuel industries, like Shell, engage in greenwashing, by framing gas as a ‘bridging technology crucial for the energy transition’, delaying genuine progress. Climate obstruction is defined as the intentional actions and efforts to slow or block policies on climate change that are commensurate with the current scientific consensus of what is necessary to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
Documenting Duke Energy’s Early Knowledge and Ongoing Deception About Climate Change, David Anderson and Sue Sturgis, Energy and Policy Institute
According to the authors, the utility companies that comprise today’s Duke Energy Corporation were privy to early warnings about climate change in the 1970s, well before the phenomenon emerged as a major public issue in 1988. Duke Energy utilities’ history of involvement in industry groups that acknowledged the climate change risks of burning fossil fuels for electricity as far back as the 1960s and ‘70s. Duke Power, Carolina Power & Light, Public Service Indiana, and other utilities now owned by Duke Energy used the looming threat of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels to promote nuclear power as a climate solution since the 1980s. Duke utilities began backing disinformation campaigns in the 1990s that denied the science on the human causes of climate change and opposed binding national and international legal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Duke Energy’s recent efforts to block policy solutions to climate pollution and delay the transition to clean energy through new investments in methane gas and by pushing back plans to phase out coal.
143 articles in 51 journals by 880 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
An increasing delay in vegetation spring phenology over northern snow-covered landmass driven by temperature and snowmelt, Xiong et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110310
Decadal Changes in the Pathways of the Atlantic Water Core in the Arctic Ocean Inferred From Transient Tracers, Körtke et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2024jc021419
Recorded webinar about climate change misinformation and disinformation
Posted on 27 November 2024 by BaerbelW
On November 6, 2024 the Consortium for Climate Risks in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN) hosted a webinar within the Green Infrastructure, Climate, and Cities Seminar Series about climate change misinformation and disinformation. CCRUN is a NOAA-funded initiative that has been studying the impact of climate change on the Northeast since 2010. The webinar was moderated by Franco Montalto, one of the co-investigators of the initiative. This webinar series began in 2014, and all previous seminars are archived on the CCRUN website for reference.
The webinar's topic focused on climate change misinformation and disinformation and included three speakers: Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Dr. John Cook, and Dr. Emily Vraga who each gave a presentation on this critical topic. Below, we feature each presentation separately to make the 2-hour long webinar easier to take in. Clicking on the image will take you to the relevant timestamp within the video in a new browser tab.
First to speak was Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the principal investigator for the GISS Earth System Model. This model has been used extensively in GISS contributions to CMIP3 and CMIP5 databases, which have informed the IPCC Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports. Dr. Schmidt is also the co-founder of the Climate Science Blog, Real Climate. His research focuses on understanding past, present, and future climate changes, including the impacts of multiple drivers such as solar radiance, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, and greenhouse gases. He holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from University College London.
Sabin 33 #4 - Clearing trees for solar panels negates any climate change benefits
Posted on 26 November 2024 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #4 based on Sabin's report.
Forests have immense ecological benefits, recreational benefits, and intrinsic value. However, when looking at the narrow but important issue of carbon accounting, it is usually not true that removing trees to build a solar farm negates any emissions reductions from solar generation. In fact, an acre of solar panels in the United States usually offsets significantly more carbon dioxide emissions than an acre of planted trees can sequester.
In the United States, the emissions intensity of electricity produced by natural gas-fired power plants is roughly 1,071 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour (MWh).1 The emissions intensity of solar PV, meanwhile, is about 95 pounds per MWh, a difference of 976 pounds per MWh compared to natural gas. According to a 2022 Journal of Photovoltaics study, utility-scale solar power produces between 394 and 447 MWh per acre per year (Bolinger & Bolinger 2022). When displacing electricity from natural gas, an acre of solar panels, producing zero-emissions electricity would therefore save between 385,000 to 436,000 pounds, or 175 to 198 metric tons, of carbon dioxide per year.
By comparison, according to the EPA, an average acre of U.S. forest sequesters 0.857 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.2 Thus, an average acre of solar panels in the United States reduced approximately 204–231 times more carbon dioxide per year than an acre of forest.
Furthermore, while removing trees from forests releases stored carbon, such emissions can be offset by solar energy generation and the resulting reduction in fossil fuel-driven emissions. The EPA has estimated the average acre of forests contains 83 metric tons of carbon, and approximately half of that amount is sequestered in soil.3 Even assuming that all 83 metric tons of carbon (comprising 304 metric tons of carbon dioxide)4 were released when building a solar farm on an acre of forested land, those emissions could be offset within two years of operation of a typical solar farm.5 Finally, to put the threat to forests in context, only about 4% of solar projects in the United States are being sited on currently-forested lands (Kruitwagen et al. 2021).6
Human-caused ocean warming intensified recent hurricanes, including all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 2024
Posted on 25 November 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Hurricane Milton approaching landfall in Florida on October 9, 2024. (Image credit: NOAA/CIRA/Colorado State University)
Human-caused climate change boosted the wind speeds of recent Atlantic hurricanes, making them more damaging and costly, according to a pair of scientific reports released today.
Research published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate, “Human-caused ocean warming has intensified recent hurricanes,” found that between 2019 and 2023, the maximum sustained winds of Atlantic hurricanes were 19 mph (31 km/h) higher because of human-caused ocean warming.
And a parallel report by Climate Central, a nonprofit scientific research organization, applied the techniques developed in the Environmental Research paper to the 2024 hurricane season, finding that climate change increased maximum wind speeds for all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 2024, increasing their highest sustained wind speeds by nine to 28 mph (14-45 km/h).
This increase in wind speeds moved seven of the hurricanes into a higher Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale category and strengthened Hurricanes Debby and Oscar from tropical storms into hurricanes. The report found that without human-warmed ocean temperatures, Hurricane Beryl and Milton would have been Category 4 storms, but the extra human-caused warming increased their winds by 18 mph (29 km/h) and 23 mph (37 km/h), respectively, lifting them to Category 5 strength.
“Every hurricane in 2024 was stronger than it would have been 100 years ago,” said Daniel Gilford, climate scientist at Climate Central and lead author of the new research. “Through record-breaking ocean warming, human carbon pollution is worsening hurricane catastrophes in our communities.”
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
Posted on 24 November 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
This week, we again asked Gemini to create a topical summary of the articles we shared during the week. Based on feedback kindly provided in comments to last week's edition - thanks a lot for that! - we have now updated our Google form used to collect the articles with a new drop-down list from which (for now) one item can be picked which will eventually be used to generate a list based on topic instead of date.
Major Climate Change Impacts:
- Extreme Weather Events: Increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, hurricanes, typhoons, and other extreme weather events due to climate change. (The Guardian, Yale Climate Connections, Carbon Brief, CNN)
- Climate Change and Health: Rising temperatures contributing to the spread of diseases, foodborne illnesses, and other health risks. (NBC News, Yale Climate Connections, Inside Climate News)
- Ocean Warming: Impact of ocean warming on hurricanes and marine ecosystems. (Yale Climate Connections)
Climate Policy and Diplomacy:
- Climate Negotiations: Challenges and setbacks at COP29, including the 1.5C target and adaptation funding. (The Guardian, Inside Climate News, Climate Home News)
- Climate Disinformation: The role of misinformation and disinformation in hindering climate action. (The Verge, Inside Climate News, The Guardian)
- Fossil Fuel Influence: Continued influence of the fossil fuel industry on climate policy and negotiations. (Inside Climate News)
Climate Science and Research:
- Climate Attribution Science: Advances in understanding the link between climate change and extreme weather events. (The Guardian, Carbon Brief)
- Climate Modeling and Projections: Future climate scenarios and their implications. (RealClimate)
Climate Solutions: Potential solutions, such as renewable energy, carbon capture, and adaptation measures. (New York Times, The Guardian)
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before November 17
- Trump promise to repeal Biden climate policies could cost US billions, report finds, Environment, The Guardin, oliver Milman. "Trump could stop in its tracks US’s emergence as clean energy superpower and forfeit billions in investment"
- With dengue cases at an extreme high, research points to climate change's role, Health, NBC News, Randi Richardson. "Rising temperatures are responsible for nearly a fifth of the world’s dengue burden, according to the new findings — a share that's expected to keep rising."
- Nuclear Power Was Once Shunned at Climate Talks. Now, It’s a Rising Star., Climate, New York Times, Brad Plumer. "Growing worldwide energy demand and other factors have shifted the calculus, but hurdles still lie ahead."
- The Tug-of-War on This Climate Super Pollutant Has Big Implications for the Future, Fossil Fuels, Phil McKenna. "A U.N. summit calling for fast action on methane may be undermined by a second Trump administration as voluntary efforts fail to curb emissions globally."
- Category 5 Super Typhoon Man-yi hits the Philippines, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "The island nation endures its fourth typhoon in less than two weeks, while Tropical Storm Sara rakes Honduras."
Fact brief - Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
Posted on 23 November 2024 by Guest Author
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
Planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather, jeopardizing the stability of ecosystems and human populations.
Warmer temperatures increase evaporation while warmer air holds more moisture. This has caused prolonged heat waves and drought in some regions and intensified precipitation, storms, and flooding in others.
Global warming has also increased sea levels due to ice melt and thermal expansion of the oceans, worsening storm surges and coastal flooding.
Impacts of these ongoing trends include ecosystem disruption, crop failures, water shortages, infrastructure damage, mass displacement, and increased disease and death.
In a study published in 2023, researchers used satellites to measure abnormally wet or dry conditions around the world between 2002 and 2021. They concluded that “extreme hydroclimatic events” are increasing with global warming, risking “dire consequences for human health, food security, human migration and regional unrest and conflict.”
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Environmental Defense Fund Extreme weather is getting a boost from climate change
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate change impacts
Nature Changing intensity of hydroclimatic extreme events revealed by GRACE and GRACE-FO
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
Posted on 21 November 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Projected increase in the frequency of extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons, Lopez et al., Science Advances:
Future changes to the year-to-year swings between active and inactive North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) seasons have received little attention, yet may have great societal implications in areas prone to hurricane landfalls. This work investigates past and future changes in North Atlantic TC activity, focusing on interannual variability and evaluating the contributions from anthropogenic forcing. We show that interannual variability of Atlantic TC activity has already increased, evidenced by an increase in the occurrence of both extremely active and inactive TC seasons. TC-resolving general circulation models project a 36% increase in the variance of North Atlantic TC activity, measured by accumulated cyclone energy, by the middle of the 21st century. These changes are the result of increased variability in vertical wind shear and atmospheric stability, in response to enhanced Pacific-to-Atlantic interbasin sea surface temperature variations. Robust anthropogenic-forced intensification in the variability of Atlantic TC activity will continue in the future, with important implications for emergency planning and societal preparedness.
The Summer Heatwave 2022 over Western Europe: An Attribution to Anthropogenic Climate Change, Feser et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
The European summer heatwave 2022 was exceptional in its intensity, duration, and spatial extent (Copernicus Observer 2022). Large-scale and persistent high temperatures, both over land and over sea, in combination with local droughts characterized the extraordinary heatwave. Both methods showed that the heatwave was an extreme event, in terms of temperature differences between present-day, preindustrial, and +2°C times and in its statistics. According to our results, the anthropogenic contribution was crucial for the high temperatures of the extreme heatwave of summer 2022.
Pervasive fire danger continued under a negative emission scenario, Kim et al., Nature Communications:
Enhanced fire-prone weather under greenhouse gas warming can significantly affect local and global carbon budgets from increased fire occurrence, influencing carbon-climate feedbacks. However, the extent to which changes in fire-prone weather and associated carbon emissions can be mitigated by negative emissions remains uncertain. Here, we analyze fire weather responses in CO2 removal climate model experiments and estimate their potential carbon emissions based on an observational relationship between fire weather and fire-induced CO2 emissions. The results highlight that enhanced fire danger under global warming cannot be restored instantaneously by CO2 reduction, mainly due to atmospheric dryness maintained by climatic inertia. The exacerbated fire danger is projected to contribute to extra CO2 emissions in 68% of global regions due to the hysteresis of climate responses to CO2 levels. These findings highlight that even under global cooling from negative emissions, increased fire activity may reinforce the fire-carbon-climate feedback loop and result in further socio-economic damage.
Partisan belief in new misinformation is resistant to accuracy incentives, Stein et al., PNAS Nexus:
One explanation for why people accept ideologically welcome misinformation is that they are insincere. Consistent with the insincerity hypothesis, past experiments have demonstrated that bias in the veracity assessment of publicly reported statistics and debunked news headlines often diminishes considerably when accuracy is incentivized. Many statements encountered online, however, constitute previously unseen claims that are difficult to evaluate the veracity of. We hypothesize that when confronted with unfamiliar content, unsure partisans will form sincere beliefs that are ideologically aligned. Across three experimental studies, 1,344 conservative and liberal US participants assessed the veracity of 20 politically sensitive statements that either confirmed or contradicted social science evidence only known to experts. As hypothesized, analyses show that incentives failed to correct most ideological differences in the perceived veracity of statements. Sixty six to 78% of partisan differences in accuracy assessment persisted even when monetary stakes were raised beyond levels in prior studies. Participants displayed a surprising degree of confidence in their erroneous beliefs, as bias was not reduced when participants could safely avoid rating statements they were unsure about, without monetary loss. These findings suggest limits to the ability of disciplining interventions to reduce the expression of false statements, because many of the targeted individuals sincerely believe them to be true.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Powering United States Primary Steel Decarbonization, Snook et al., Clean Energy Buyers Association
The U.S. primary steel industry will require 174 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity annually by 2050 to slash up to 57% of the industry’s emissions and help achieve global aims to reduce carbon emissions. The 174 TWh would be a 159 TWh increase from business-as-usual practices. To power this next generation of steel with carbon-free energy would require at least 28 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind resources and 58 GW of battery storage by 2050, as well as interregional transmission reform. The report’s findings amplify the need for transmission reform as well as accelerated deployment of carbon-free energy to power these steel-making facilities and processes, retain domestic competitiveness, and reduce emissions deep in corporate supply chains.
The economic cost of extreme weather events, Oxera Consulting LLP, International Chamber of Commerce
The authors estimate that climate-related extreme weather events have cost the global economy more than $2 trillion over the past decade. They used almost 4,000 events which impacted a total of 1.6 billion people between 2014 and 2023. In the last two full years alone, global economic damages reached $451 billion – representing a 19% increase compared to the previous eight years of the decade. The analysis highlights the acute impact on many developing economies with single extreme weather events often imposing economic costs more than a country’s annual GDP.
94% of Europeans support measures to adapt to climate change, according to EIB survey, European Investment Bank
Almost three-quarters of people polled across the European Union recognize the need to adapt their lifestyle due to the effects of climate change, according to the annual Climate Survey commissioned by the European Investment Bank. Among the challenges facing their countries, respondents ranked climate change second only to the cost of living. Many believe that investing in adaptation now will not only boost the economy but will also prevent higher costs in the future. The Survey presents the views of over 24,000 respondents from across the European Union and the United States on the topic of climate change. In the EU, 24,148 people took part in the survey, which was conducted in August 2024.
132 articles in 58 journals by 855 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Enhanced understanding of warming and humidifying on ground heat flux in the Tibetan Plateau Hinterland, He et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107799
Estimated human-induced warming from a linear temperature and atmospheric CO2 relationship, Jarvis & Forster, Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-024-01580-5
Irreversible changes in the sea surface temperature threshold for tropical convection to CO2 forcing, Park et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01751-7
Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
Posted on 20 November 2024 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink
The world is emitting over 40 gigatons of CO2 per year, contributing to an accelerating warming of the planet. The world needs to cut emissions rapidly to be remotely on track to meet our Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to well-below 2C, and we should be spending the vast majority (>95%) of our resources today on reducing emissions.
But once we get close to zero emissions, we will need to rely on an increasing amount of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to stabilize temperatures. As I discussed in an earlier Climate Brink article, every ton of CO2 we put in the atmosphere continues to warm the earth for millennia to come. Getting to zero emissions will stop the Earth from warming, but will not cool the planet back down. The only way to do that, or to counterbalance any remaining positive emissions in the system, is to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
However, because of the extremely long warming effects of our emissions today, I’ve long argued that only carbon dioxide removal that removes CO2 from the atmosphere for millennia – comparable to the atmospheric residence time of CO2 – can actually counterbalance our fossil fuel emissions.
Net-zero requires a “like for like” framework
I have a new paper out in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment today titled “Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for Paris climate goals”. I teamed up with ETH Zurich researchers Cyril Brunner and Reto Knutti to run climate model simulations of differing carbon removal durability over the next 500 years.
Figure 1 from our paper, shown below, explores the climate impacts of 1 GtCO2 emissions and 1 GtCO2 removals deployed simultaneously. The red line shows what would happen to the climate if the captured CO2 was immediately re-released, while the orange, dark blue, and light blue lines show the impact of 100-year, 1000-year, and permanent carbon removal, respectively.1
Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
Posted on 19 November 2024 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #3 based on Sabin's report.
The amount of waste that solar panels are expected to generate over the next few decades is trivial compared to the amount of waste that will be generated by fossil fuels. A study published in Nature Physics in October 2023 found that “35 years of cumulative PV module waste (2016-2050) is dwarfed by the waste generated by fossil fuel energy and other common waste streams.” Specifically, the study found that “if we do not decarbonize and transition to renewable energy sources, coal ash and oily sludge waste generated by fossil fuel energy would be 300-800 times and 2-5 times larger [in mass], respectively, than PV module waste.”1
Figure 1: PV module waste from 2016-2050 compared to other sources of waste. Source: The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (visualizing data from Heather Mirletz et al. 2023).
In addition, although only about 10% to 15% of solar panels are recycled in the United States2, the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for additional research and development for solar technology recycling.3 A 2024 study on solar PV recycling concluded that “PV recycling will reduce waste, and CO2 emissions, while contributing to a sustainable environment,” and that “[i]t is expected that the research for efficient PV recycling strategies will accelerate as the PV industry grows and as many more organizations and government work towards a sustainable future.” (Ngagoum Ndalloka et al. 2024)
Already, some companies have been able to recover 90% of solar panels’ mass in their recycling processes (Aman et al. 2015). One commercial recycling plant in France can recycle more than 95% of a solar module (Deng et al. 2022). Bulk materials such as glass, steel, and aluminum are recoverable through existing recycling lines4 (Heath et al. 2020), while certain semiconductor materials (tellurium and cadmium) can also be recovered at very high rates of 95% to 97% (Chowdhury et al. 2020). Valuable materials in the panels, including silver, copper, and crystalline silicon, are actively sought for the development of other products, including the next generation of solar panels.5 In addition, new companies are emerging with innovative technologies to recycle solar panels.
