Tag: Environmental and Racial Justice

Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero

Inside Climate News discusses Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero. That’s one of several recent conclusions about climate change that came more sharply into focus in 2020.

Parts of the world economy may have been on pause during 2020, dampening greenhouse gas emissions for a while. But that didn’t slow the overall buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which reached its highest level in millions of years.

If anything, research during the year showed global warming is accelerating. Symptoms of the fever include off-the-charts heat waves on land and in the oceans, and a hyperactive and destructive Atlantic hurricane season.

And through November, the last year was on pace to end up as either the hottest, or second-hottest on record for the planet, almost 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial times, inching closer to the 1.5 degree limit set by the Paris climate agreement.

Here are five aspects of climate change that were new and unexpected in 2020: The La Niña Effect?;  The Polar Breakdown; Swamped by the Seas?; Climate Justice and Science are Connected; Making it Stop.

Covid-19 and Climate Change Will Remain Inextricably Linked, Thanks to the Parallels (and the Denial)

Inside Climate News discusses Covid-19 and Climate Change Will Remain Inextricably Linked, Thanks to the Parallels (and the Denial). Covid-19 has been described as climate change in fast motion. Climate activists hoped it would underscore the threat. But for some, it may have done the opposite.

Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and quality of life, especially for the diverse and low-income communities they’ve already hit hardest.

The Covid-19 pandemic acted “almost like a heat-seeking missile,” homing in on the same communities most vulnerable to the effects of a warming world, said Robert Bullard, an author and professor at Texas Southern University who is widely known as “the Father of Environmental Justice.”

Even worse, Bullard said, the pandemic represented only the “tip of the iceberg” for what such communities could face.

Report: 5 Global Cities Tackling Climate Change and Inequality

US News & World Report discusses 5 Global Cities Tackling Climate Change and Inequality. From sustainable urban farming to infrastructure combating floods, projects launched by these global cities are winning plaudits.

Although the global pandemic of 2020 made for some somber headlines, one nonprofit believes cities around the world still managed to make achievements worth celebrating.

Through its Prize for Cities competition, the World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes solutions to improve cities, is recognizing five cities that launched ambitious projects to tackle both climate change and inequality.

Making sure climate solutions don’t make more problems

Marketplace discusses Making sure climate solutions don’t make more problems.

We’ve been looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change as part of our series “How We Survive.” One big problem is the technology that could help us survive is not being evenly distributed.

Environmental justice is the idea that the effects of climate change are disproportionately felt in poor countries, poor communities, and often by people of color.

So building resilience can’t only be about one home, one tribal chapter, one town at a time. Melissa Roberts is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit American Flood Coalition. She says some people and communities will be able to pay to lift their homes or take other measures to avoid floodwaters. “And those with the least means who are often in harm’s way already won’t be able to do those things,” Roberts said. “That’s just not a system that makes our community or country resilient. And that just is not fair.”

Of course, the type of systemic change that Roberts and White-Newsome are calling for takes policy, awareness and the participation of business. And big tech companies are starting to make resilience and adaptation part of their portfolios. You can learn more about that in our hourlong climate special. Listen and read here.

Report: Scientists warn of the social and environmental risks tied to energy transition

RCINet discusses Scientists warn of the social and environmental risks tied to energy transition. [No study links provided.]

As the world gears up to transition its energy sources from fossil fuels to renewable energy to curb greenhouse gas emissions, new research by Canadian and European scientists warns that the “decarbonization of the economy is by no means inherently environmentally innocuous or socially inclusive.”

A recently published research paper authored by scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) says green energy mega projects are often as socially and environmentally disruptive as large scale extractive industry projects.

The research, which has analyzed protests over 649 energy projects, cautions that while renewable energy projects are often portrayed as being environmentally sustainable, they often disproportionately impact vulnerable groups such as rural communities and Indigenous peoples.

Amongst the so-called low carbon energy projects, hydropower was found to have the highest number of conflicts with concerns over social and environmental damages, according to the paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Report: The world’s rich need to cut their carbon footprint by a factor of 30 to slow climate change, U.N. warns

The Washington Post discusses The world’s rich need to cut their carbon footprint by a factor of 30 to slow climate change, U.N. warns. Despite sharp drop in greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic, the world remains on pace for catastrophic warming in coming decades.

Last year’s “emissions gap” report found that humans would need to collectively cut emissions by close to pandemic amounts (7.6 percent) every year to begin to meet the Paris agreement’s most ambitious climate goals. That is nowhere near to becoming a reality.

Trump administration rejects tougher standards on soot, a deadly air pollutant

The Washington Post discusses Trump administration rejects tougher standards on soot, a deadly air pollutant. “People of color and the poor — that is who gets hit the hardest by this,” one activist says.

 

Study: Rising seas: California’s affordable housing faces worse floods

Cal Matters discusses Rising seas: California’s affordable housing faces worse floods. For low-income Americans, the number of homes at risk of flooding could triple by 2050, researchers say. Three Bay Area cities are among the top at-risk communities.

California’s crisis of affordable housing appears to be running smack into another intractable problem: sea level rise.

A new study published this week projects that the number of affordable housing units at risk of flooding in the United States is projected to more than triple by 2050.

“In terms of the absolute number of units exposed….threats are primarily clustered in smaller cities in California and in the northeastern United States,” the study found.

It’s Time for the US to Carry Its Fair Share on Climate Change

The Sierra Club discusses It’s Time for the US to Carry Its Fair Share on Climate Change. Domestic emissions reductions aren’t enough—the US needs to help speed the climate transition in poor countries.

The term “climate injustice” is easy to understand. When the poor and vulnerable people of New Orleans or Nicaragua are abandoned to the ravages of a climate-fueled hurricane, we know something hideous has occurred. But climate justice is not just the absence of climate injustice. It also demands the presence of real and meaningful fairness, and an extremely ambitious climate mobilization that takes this fairness just as seriously as decarbonization itself. No mobilization that tries to skip this step can possibly succeed.

Check the science and you’ll see how very late it is. Stabilizing the climate would be extraordinarily difficult under the best of circumstances, which these are decidedly not. Add the imperative of mobilizing in a fair way and the challenge can seem overwhelming. Why is fairness so decisive? The simple answer is cooperation. Absent an overall sense of fairness, justice, and equity—and the cooperation required to achieve those ideals—we haven’t got a chance of avoiding climate chaos. Bringing down greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to keep global temperatures (more or less) in check is going to be the hardest thing we’ve ever done. We can only do it together.