Climate And Energy News In 2018 Actually Wasn’t All Bad

Vox - Umair Irfan | David Roberts

Three big trends are helping us address the climate crisis: better technology, cheaper technology, and more ambitious policies.

Growing support for a Green New Deal was a major development in climate change and energy policy in 2018.
Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

You might have thought the news about climate change in 2018 was all bad. And indeed, global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high this year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius said we may have only until 2030 to avert catastrophic climate change.
There was also the Trump administration’s aggressive rollback of climate policies, including its efforts to replace Obama’s Clean Power Plan with a much weaker rule, freeze fuel economy rules for cars and light trucks, and lift greenhouse gas limits for coal plants. And let’s not forget all the signs of how dangerous climate change is for humans (think wildfires) and biodiversity (think the insect apocalypse).
Yet that’s not the whole story. In 2018, clean energy technologies also got bigger, better, and cheaper. The political will to fight climate change gained considerable momentum. And the business case for cutting greenhouse gases got stronger.
Voters are increasingly concerned about climate change. Public opinion shifted in 2018 in favor of regulating greenhouse gases, and 100 percent renewable energy goals became wildly popular. In the November midterm elections, several candidates for governor and congressional offices campaigned — and won — on their climate change bona fides. And activists began pushing representatives even further, demanding a comprehensive strategy — a Green New Deal — for decarbonizing the economy and making it fairer and more just.

Net Power started up a 50 MW-thermal demonstration power plant in La Porte, Texas, that burns natural gas without emitting carbon dioxide. PRNewsfoto/NET Power, LLC

Climate change is unquestionably a sprawling, incredibly urgent global problem, and the transition away from fossil fuels is the biggest challenge humanity has ever taken on. But our policies and our technological tools continue to improve. Here are some of the most encouraging trends of the year.

Clean technology keeps getting bigger and better
In 2018, we saw a wide range of new and established clean technologies being deployed. These tools — which are critical to reducing emissions from transportation, the power sector, and industry, as well as removing carbon from the atmosphere — keep getting better. And the tool chest itself is getting larger.
For instance:

• Electric scooter rentals arrived in cities across America. They’re helping urban commuters avoid driving, get to metro stations, and glide swiftly between neighborhoods, filling in a crucial transit niche.
• As part of its restructuring, General Motors said it wants to devote more attention to Bolt, its all-electric car, and developing other EVs.
• Companies are investing in gigantic wind turbines that can harvest air more efficiently and cheaply.
• A vast suite of new solar energy technologies, from floating solar farms to self-cleaning photovoltaics to double-sided panels, is helping good old PV panels go further.
• Net Power started up a new natural gas plant with carbon capture and storage this year. In 2018, there were 43 CCS facilities in operation, under construction, or in development.
• New plants that suck carbon dioxide directly out of the air to recycle it or remove it from the atmosphere entirely came online this year. Direct air capture is still in its infancy, though, and needs lots more R&D.
• Carbon dioxide–spewing coal plants are closing down despite the Trump administration’s desperate attempts to prop up the ailing industry. The US is on track to retire a record 15.4 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity in 2018.

Renewable energy consumption is growing dramatically in the United States. Energy Information Administration

Clean tech is also getting cheaper
The big reasons these technologies are taking off are their declines in price. A major driver of price declines is economies of scale. And the reason there’s such large-scale demand is the price. See how that works? It’s a virtuous cycle.
Take a look at how solar power has taken off in the United States as prices have fallen:

As prices come down, solar installations go up. Economics! Energy Innovation

In 2011, the US Department of Energy launched the SunShot Initiative. The goal was to lower the price of installing solar energy such that it can compete with conventional energy sources without subsidies. The program hit its target for utility-scale solar, 6 cents per kilowatt hour, three years ahead of schedule. The agency has now set an even more ambitious price target of 3 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030.
It’s a similar story with offshore wind, electric vehicle batteries, carbon capture, and so on as costs continue to fall faster than expected. And there’s no sign of these plummeting prices slowing down anytime soon. That means clean energy is increasingly competitive on its economic merits.
In Europe, major renewable energy projects are already starting to take root without direct subsidies. In the US, renewables are rapidly closing the gap with natural gas power plants despite low natural gas prices.
This year, several huge corporations signed record-breaking purchasing agreements for renewables. There are at least 158 private companies like Ikea, Allianz, and Apple aiming to power their operations with just renewable energy. Google now buys enough renewable energy to match its annual energy demand.
This demand for clean energy is now forcing utilities to respond. Some are trying to slow down the stampede. But Xcel Energy announced that it’s committed to going completely carbon-free by 2050 (and 80 percent carbon-free by 2030).

Climate change is now a serious political issue
Polls show that while climate change isn’t usually a top-tier issue in the US, the policies for addressing it have broad support. Just check out the results from this August survey of 22,000 Americans by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Americans generally want policies that advance clean energy and reduce fossil fuels. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

That support is now increasingly being reflected in policies at the local and state level. In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed an executive order committing the state to the most ambitious climate target in history: total, economy-wide carbon neutrality and 100 percent use of zero-carbon electricity by 2045.

Protestors rally outside New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Manhattan office on August 16, 2018, calling on him to stop fossil fuel infrastructure and shift New York to 100 percent renewable energy. Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images

According to the Sierra Club, more than 90 cities, 10 counties, and two states have set targets for 100 percent renewable energy. That includes cities ranging from Berkeley, California, to Boulder, Colorado, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Concord, New Hampshire.
Several candidates in the 2018 midterm elections ran on clean energy ambitions. Democrat Steve Sisolak won the governorship of Nevada after announcing his support of a ballot initiative that would mandate Nevada use 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. “In fact, as governor, I would like to get us on the road to 100 percent,” Sisolak said in a campaign video.
Some of the Republicans that did support policies to address climate change, like a carbon tax, lost their seats in the election. But the more recalcitrant members of Congress that held their seats are finding it harder to wave away climate change.

IMAGE

Oil giant Exxon Mobil also launched a lobbying initiative this year to advance the case for a carbon tax. Behind the scenes, Shell lent its weight to a carbon tax proposal too.
Environmental activists also began mobilizing this year around a Green New Deal. (You can read the full explainer here.) The contours of the proposal will be under discussion for some time, but in essence, it demands a major government-led investment program in clean energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions while creating a vastly larger energy employment sector. It’s become a new progressive shibboleth, alongside Medicare-for-all.
While federal action on climate change is unlikely anytime soon, even the president of the United States can’t dodge the question.
Make no mistake: We do still need much more federal, state, local, and private action on climate change, and on a vastly larger scale than anything we’ve seen to date. Policy is essential to the development and deployment of clean energy, and we need stiffer mandates for emissions reductions and the clean energy transition from every level of government. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there’s “no documented historic precedent” for the global economic and social changes required to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.
What we accomplished in 2018 is nowhere near enough, but it’s not nothing. We have a better sense of our climate goals, we have a pretty good idea of what it would take to meet them, and we have some momentum. The challenge now is building the global will to launch ourselves further and faster than ever toward a future without carbon emissions.

Links

• UK emissions are falling fast. Now the country might try for zero.
• The case for “conditional optimism” on climate change
• 9 questions about climate change you were too embarrassed to ask
• What made solar panels so cheap? Thank government policy.
• 3 big takeaways from the disasters that hammered the US in 2018
• Clean energy technologies threaten to overwhelm the grid. Here’s how it can adapt.

The Story Of Sustainability In 2018: “We Have About 12 Years Left”

Harvard Business Review - Andrew Winston

viaframe/Getty Images

Every year, I look for important themes in sustainability that will have lasting impact on society, from glaring evidence of global megatrends to inspiring stories of corporate action. The year 2018 brought extreme change — in weather and environmental ecosystems, in political winds and power, and in the expectations of business. It also brought incredible clarity about the scale of our challenges and opportunities.
So let’s start with the big picture before moving to some corporate success stories.

The world’s scientists sound a final alarm on climate
We have about 12 years left. That’s the clear message from a monumental study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To avoid some of the most devastating impacts of climate change, the world must slash carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, and completely decarbonize by 2050 (while, in the meantime, emissions are still rising).
The IPCC looked at the difference between the world “only” warming two degrees Celsius (3.8°F) — the agreed upon goal at global climate summits in Copenhagen and Paris — or holding warming to just 1.5 degrees. Even the latter, they say, will require a monumental effort “unprecedented in terms of scale.” We face serious problems either way, but every half degree matters a great deal in human, planetary, and economic losses.
It wasn’t just the IPCC that told a stark story. Thirteen U.S. government agencies issued the U.S. National Climate Assessment, which concluded that climate change could knock at least 10% off of GDP. Other studies tell us that sea level rise is going to be worse than we thought, Antarctica is melting three times faster than a decade ago, and Greenland is losing ice quickly as well. If both those ice sheets go, sea level rise could reach 200-plus feet, resulting in utter devastation, including the loss of the entire Atlantic seaboard (Boston, New York, D.C., etc.), all of Florida, London, Stockholm, Denmark, Paraguay, and land now inhabited by more than 1 billion Asians).
All of this suggests that business must dramatically change how it operates: companies will need to push well past their comfort zones from areas like politics and policy to engaging consumers to how they make investment decisions.

Entire towns are wiped off the map by extreme weather
This year the weather devastation around the world got, in the words of one colleague, “biblical.” The town of Paradise, California, was effectively eliminated by wildfires (that, yes, are made worse by climate change), killing at least 85 people. Most houses in Mexico Beach, Florida, were destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Unprecedented rains and damage from Hurricane Florence slammed North Carolina and temporarily turned a major highway into a river. Typhoon Mangkhut ravaged the Philippines and parts of China, killing dozens of people. Incredible heat blanketed four continents this summer, with records falling across Europe and Asia. Venezuela’s last glacier is disappearing. Finally, Capetown, South Africa, is essentially out of water due in part to drought — the city nearly shut off all the taps this year, but has held off “Day Zero” through ongoing restrictions and aggressive citizen action.
The consequences of these extremes are not theoretical. What is the economic cost to an area with no water, or one that’s under water, or burned to the ground? In the U.S. alone, it was $306 billion in 2017, shattering records.

Coral is dying, insects are disappearing, and the fate of major ecosystems looks dim
The world’s top coral expert confirms that at 2 degrees of warming, all coral will die. This will destroy a critical part of an ocean system that provides protein to hundreds of millions of people, helps blunt coastal storm surges, and supports the livelihoods of people working in fishing and tourism.
And it’s not just coral: there’s the death of pacific kelp forests, radical declines in insect populations, and continuing population drops in all mammals and bees.
How does this all connect to business? For some sectors, it’s obvious: the food and agriculture industry will have trouble feeding us without pollinators, and tourism takes a big hit without coral and other wildlife. But more broadly, society will not thrive in a world where entire pillars of planetary support are collapsing. And if society can’t thrive, neither can business.

The U.S. environmental protection system continues being dismantled … from within
The EPA and Department of Interior are reversing years of protections for air, water, and land. In 2018, the Trump administration has opened up offshore waters and rolled back safety rules for drilling, greatly weakened the voice of science in policy, reduced focus on children’s health, and moved to make it easier to build dirty coal plants.
The big question now is whether businesses will push back and go down a cleaner path on their own. It’s easy to see why multinationals might as they face pressure from sub-national regions — California Gov. Jerry Brown held a Global Climate Action Summit which produced many aggressive climate goes from cities and state, for example. Gov. Brown also signed aggressive new laws committing to carbon-free electricity statewide by 2045 and requiring solar on all new homes. So even if U.S. action sputters, governors and mayors who influence local and regional business conditions will be pushing the clean economy and pro-climate agendas.
In pointed contrast to the U.S., the EU backed a proposal to strike no new trade deals with countries not in the Paris climate accord (i.e., only the U.S.), France will shut coal plants by 2021, India just cancelled plans for big coal plants, and China banned 500 inefficient models of cars.

A prominent leader retires, but new leaders step up
For nearly a decade, no business leader has done more to bring sustainability into the business mainstream than Paul Polman, Unilever’s outgoing CEO (Full disclosure: I’ve worked with Unilever). His depth of understanding of our biggest global, social, and environmental challenges, and his commitment to use business as a way to tackle them, has been unparalleled. But it wasn’t just talk. The company also grew throughout Polman’s tenure and the stock outperformed peers and the FTSE index. Luckily, there are other corporate leaders who are stepping up, including Danone’s Emmanuel Faber (see below for more).
But climate isn’t the only area where we’re seeing bold stances. Societal issues more broadly made headlines, too. The New York Times declared 2018 year that “CEO activism has become the new normal,” with prominent voices like Salesforce’s Marc Benioff leading the way. Other notable moments include Nike making Colin Kaepernick — the man who led NFL player protests about police violence against African Americans — the face of its 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign (sales rose quickly). Under pressure from survivors of school mass shootings, Dick’s Sporting Goods stopped selling assault weapons, and other companies cut ties to the powerful National Rifle Association. Kroger celebrated a year of its “End Hunger” initiative. Unilever threatened to pull its substantial ad dollars from Facebook and Google if they didn’t police “fake news and toxic content.” One hundred U.S. CEOs urged action on controversial immigration issues. And more than 100 U.S. companies gave employees time off to vote.

Danone becomes the world’s largest B Corporation
A “B Corp” certification requires answering an intensive set of questions on environmental, social, and governance issues. But most importantly, it commits a company to create value for all stakeholders (customers, employees, communities, and so on), not just shareholders.
French consumer products giant Danone has now put 30% of its brands and businesses through the certification process and says that “companies are fundamentally challenged as to whose interests they really serve.” Becoming a B Corp is arguably is a direct statement about whose interests it values most, and it’s and fascinating frontal attack on the dominance of shareholder capitalism.

More investors are viewing climate and sustainability as core value issues
Something is shifting in finance. Vanguard wants CEOs to be a force for good. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, said that “70% of [UK] banks, who normally have a shorter horizon, are viewing climate as a financial risk—not a CSR one.” Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset owner, encouraged longer-term thinking about environmental, social, and governance issues in a strongly-worded letter to large-company CEOs.
Anecdotally, I’ve talked to leaders at big banks who are now thinking differently about purpose and systemic risk. And in a quieter move, a major real estate investor in Miami began pulling money out of coastal assets to avoid risk of sea level rise. Watch this space.

The clean technology explosion continues and accelerates
Three big clean tech themes wowed me this year.
1) Renewables keep getting cheaper. According to Lazard’s annual analysis of the cost of building new power plants, renewables are now the cheapest. And another global analysis showed that new wind and solar are cheaper than one-third of the coal already on the grid — and will be cheaper than 96% of existing plants by 2030).
2) Corporate buying of clean energy keeps rising. By the end of just the first half of 2018, businesses bought more clean energy than they did in 2017. Companies like Owens Corning (disclosure: a client of mine) are buying enough green energy to pitch their products as cleanly manufactured (which they started doing in late 2017).
3) Electric vehicles are exploding, and it’s not just small vehicles: even container ships are going electric. UPS bought its first EV delivery vehicles at price parity to combustion engines, and China is adding nearly 10,000 electric buses to the roads — equal to the size of London’s entire bus fleet – every five weeks.

China rejects the world’s trash
For years, the U.S. had a great deal: When container ships arrived from China with goods, we sent them back filled with our recyclable paper and glass. But starting January 1, 2018, China stopped accepting our trash. The ripples of this move are unpredictable and still moving through the system, but in some regions, materials piled up and prices for recycled content plummeted. In a business world trying to go “circular” (i.e., find a use for everything and eliminate waste), it was a wake-up call about how much waste we still produce.

The battle against single-use plastic heats up, starting (somewhat oddly) with straws
Sometimes weird things hit a tipping point. For a combination of reasons, including a viral video showing a turtle with a straw stuck in its nose, companies waged war on straws this year. Marriott, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, and the city of Seattle, among others, all banned or are phasing out straws. It was a very small part of a larger conversation about “single-use plastics,” most notably plastic bags, which IKEA and Taiwan are banning as well.

Raising the bar for suppliers
The greening of the supply chain is a perennial story, but there are some noteworthy recent actions. Apple created a $300 million fund to help suppliers in China build more solar, and also partnered with Alcoa and Rio Tinto to develop a better smelting process to make carbon-free aluminum. On the labor side of the supply chain equation, PepsiCo and Nestle cut ties with a palm oil supplier over human rights abuses and Coca-Cola said it would work with the U.S. State Department to use blockchain to fight forced labor.

Meatless options grow plentiful
Given the way most cattle is currently raised, one of the most effective things an individual can do to reduce her carbon footprint is eat less meat. The options to do so are growing, and the rise of products made from non-animal proteins has been remarkable. The Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat, and other brands have made believers out of skeptics (they taste great) and are, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “overrunning grocery meat cases.” In another fascinating move, tech company WeWork went meat-free in its offices and even stopped reimbursing employees on business trips for meat meals.

What comes next…
I’m sure I missed many stories, especially globally (my view is from the U.S.). Predictions are hard, but I’m safe in assuming 2019 will be a bumpy ride again. Ultimately, today’s global political situation is, at best, unpredictable. Brazil now has a strongman-style leader who talks about cutting down the Amazon, but the U.S. just swung its House of Representatives back the other way, giving power to Democrats who want more focus on climate change, inequality, and other sustainability agenda items. No matter what happens politically, it seems clear that companies will continue to feel pressure, internally and externally, to do more on social and environmental issues. While the problems we are extremely serious, I remain optimistic that companies will be doing more in 2019 than ever before.

Links

• Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
• Carbon Dioxide Emissions Are Up Again. What Now, Climate?
• What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’?
• We believe in climate change and we’re taking action
• US hits record for costly weather disasters: $306 billion

‘Grown-Ups Have Failed Us’

Earth Island Journal - Maureen Nandini Mitra

Conversation: Greta Thunberg

“Why should we be studying for a future that soon will be no more and when no one is doing anything to save that future?” Greta Thunberg asks, in a widely circulated letter explaining her action.

Greta Thunberg is a troublemaker. A rabble rouser. A movement builder. She’s also all of 15 years old. Thunberg might look small for her age, but this pigtailed teenager from Stockholm has been packing quite a punch on the international arena ever since she went on strike for about three weeks leading up to Sweden’s September 9 elections by refusing to attend school. Instead, she parked herself outside the Swedish parliament to protest her country’s inadequate action on climate change, handing out leaflets to passersby that said: “I’m doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.”

Greta Thunberg at her now-regular protest spot outside the Swedish parliament.

Thunberg first heard the words “climate change” when she was eight and it didn’t take her too long to figure out how serious the situation was and how little was actually being done to address it. At first, she started with making changes at home, convincing her family members to learn more about the issue and make major lifestyle changes in order to cut their carbon footprint. Her mother – the well-known opera singer Malena Ernman – gave up her international career in 2015 because of aviation’s huge carbon footprint. But over the next few years, Thunberg came to the conclusion that making personal lifestyle changes wasn’t enough and that developed nations, Sweden included, needed to do more to address the climate problem. Hence her solo protest outside the corridors of power. “Why should we be studying for a future that soon will be no more and when no one is doing anything to save that future?” she asks, in a widely circulated letter explaining her action.
Once the elections were over, Thunberg returned to school for four days a week but is usually back at her protest spot on Fridays. Her dogged action has struck a chord in Sweden, which has just suffered through heatwaves and wildfires during its hottest summer in 262 years. Many Swedes, including some of her friends and school teachers, have joined her at her post from time to time. News of her campaign has reverberated across the world as well, making international headlines and even inspiring hundreds of high-schoolers in Australia to start planning similar “school strikes.” She’s also been invited to speak at climate events in Finland and London. (She drove to these, of course!)
In early November, Thunberg was nominated for the Children’s Climate Prize by Swedish renewable energy company Telge Energi, but in true Thunberg style, she declined the nomination, writing that she was honored but “the idea that all the finalists are to be flown in from all over the world, to be a part of a ceremony, has no connection with reality.”

Greta Thunberg and Antonio Guteterrez, UN Secretary General, at COP24, Poland. “We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to be changed.”

When I spoke with Thunberg over Skype recently, she called on all young people across the world to join the #FridayForFuture movement and push their governments to take more urgent action on climate change. “The grown-ups,” she says, “have failed us.”

How did you first learn about climate change?
It was in school when they said save water and turn off the lights, don’t throw away food and paper, and so on, and I asked why. And they said because there’s something called global warming and climate change caused by humans, by our way of living.

How did you come to be so concerned about climate change?
I am a person who doesn’t like it when people say something and do something else. And I found that was the case with the climate issue, because they keep saying that it is an existential threat but do very little about it.
I thought it was very weird because if the climate crisis was as serious as it was then people would be talking about it all the time. It would be our top priority and you would never hear about anything else. And then I started reading about it and … the more I read it the more I realized how urgent this issue was.

Were any of your classmates as concerned about it as you were?
No.

What did they think when you started talking to them about it?
Nothing.

Did they think it was strange?
(Snorts) I have always been a little bit different. So yeah, I think so.

Is there any specific thing about the impacts of climate change that you’re most worried about?
Every one of them, but I think specifically that we might soon, if we haven’t already, reach a tipping point and then there’s no going back. Then it doesn’t matter what we do. That is scary.

Once you learned about our role in changing the climate, you made a very big lifestyle change and so did your family. Can you talk about that?
First I stopped flying, and then my mom stop flying. She had to fly to do her job because she was an opera singer and she worked at different opera houses around the world. And so she gave up her opera career and now she works as a musical artist. So, yeah, that’s changed our lives pretty much.

Greta Thunberg addresses a crowd at what campaigners say was Finland's largest ever climate demonstration.

What about your dad?
Yeah, my dad and my sister too have stopped flying.

Did you fly a lot earlier?
Yes, because my dad was, or is still, some kind of housewife. He gave up his career so that my mom could continue working. Because he was home with us we could follow [my mom] on the trips. But we never went on vacations because work travels were enough.

How did you convince your mom to stop flying?
I don’t know. At first, when I started turning off the lights at home [my parents] thought it was very weird. They said to me that we have to have light, but I kept on doing it and they asked me why, and we started reading about [climate change] together, and so they also realized the situation. And then there was an article about the airplanes’ emissions and the emissions were extremely high. So, yeah, that’s how.

You said earlier that you see the world a little differently. Can you explain what you mean by that? How is your view the world different from others?
I have Asperger’s Syndrome, autism. That means that I see the world in a very literal way and my brain works a bit different.

When you say you see the world in a literal way do you mean that you expect that when people say something they mean it?
Yeah. And that’s why I thought it was very strange about climate change, because people said one thing and then [they didn’t take any big action when] the emissions increased.

So why did you choose this form of climate activism? You could have, say, joined a movement or organization that’s working to address climate change, but instead you chose a rather unique form of protest and you did it all alone.
Because I have tried being in organizations with other people but it didn’t lead anywhere. So I decided I must do something and then I did this. And because we children can’t vote but have to go to school, this is a way that I can make my voice heard.

And it is being heard all across the world right now. You are demanding that the Swedish government take climate change more seriously…
And follow the Paris Agreement.

Do you think it’s enough for Sweden to take action just to reduce its own emissions?
No. But Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in the world with high ecological footprints per capita. We live as if we had the resources of 4.2 planets. This means that Sweden steals 3.2 years of natural resources from future generations every year. We have to change ourselves. Of course, we should help other countries too, but we can’t do that without changing ourselves. Rich countries like Sweden need to do more, change more, so that poor countries can heighten their standard of living. Sweden needs to reduce its emissions by 15 percent every year to align with the Paris Agreement.


Greta Thunberg condemns global inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change at the U.N. plenary in Katowice, Poland

So now you are sitting in front of the parliament every Friday during school hours?
Yeah.

Have you managed to keep up with your schoolwork?
Yes. I was actually ahead of school when I returned [and started going to school four days a week]. I have books that I read when I am sitting outside the parliament.

Can you describe how a typical Friday in front of the parliament goes for you these days?
I wake up maybe at 6:30 a.m. in the morning. I ride my bike to the Swedish Parliament and then I sit down with my sign and flyers and then the first one or two hours I am alone. Then at nine or ten o’clock more people start joining in. Then more people at lunch come and sit with us. Then I go home maybe about three or four o’clock.
How long do you think you’ll be doing this?
Until Sweden is aligned with the Paris Agreement, and that can take a while.

What you’re doing has definitely had an impact, not just in your country but in several places across the world. But I’m wondering if your action and the response it has received has impacted you in any way.
Yes, of course! I feel like my life has a meaning, that this is something I have to do and, yeah, except from being pretty tired, I’m very happy.

What message do you have for young people who, unlike you, do not concern themselves with such matters?
I don’t know. Learn and read about it and then you will understand more and do something about it. Put pressure on the adults. If just not going to school for a few weeks can make headlines, think of what we could do together.

And do you have a message for grown-ups?
Treat [climate change] as a crisis. Do something about it. Change your own habits and put pressure on people in power [to address it.] Start living within planetary boundaries.

What do you look forward to doing once you can call an end to your protest?
I have no idea. I don’t know what is going to happen after this. So I will just have to see where it goes.

Links

• 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice
• Children Demand Climate Change Action Through Protests And Lawsuits
• Australian Students Stage School Strikes Over Climate Change Inaction
• Schools Climate Strike: The Best Protest Banners And Posters
• Yes, Prime Minister, I'm Striking From School: Consider It A Climate Lesson
• Climate Change Threatens Our Children's Health As Well As Their Future
• 'We'll Be Voting Soon': Students Take On PM Over Climate Change

6 Glimmers Of Climate Optimism For The End Of A Dark Year

Fast Company - Eillie Anzilotti

It was a year of frightening reports on the future of our planet. But sustainability experts are still feeling optimistic about some of the strides we’ve made this year.

In 2018, we learned from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we have around 30 years to fully decarbonize or risk widespread global devastation from warming and sea-level rise. We also learned that current emissions patterns are nowhere near in line with that goal. Even though the Trump administration tried to bury the U.S.’s own findings on climate, the 1,656-page National Climate Assessment backed up the IPCC report, and called for a doubling down on climate protection policies to prevent damage (which is already underway) to the environment and the country’s infrastructure. The consensus among scientists, researchers, and sustainability experts following this years’ reports is that while stopping climate change will require an undoubtedly Herculean effort, the biggest hurdle is political, not technical. In other words, if all the innovations in sustainable technology and science were harnessed and directed at reducing emissions and environmental collapse, we might stand a chance at meeting the goals laid out in the reports.

[Photo: Victor Rodriguez/Unsplash]

Don’t get us wrong: It will take a heroic, global effort if we’re even going to come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius–the point after which, according to the reports, large swaths of the planet will become uninhabitable, and issues like mass starvation will become widespread. And the lack of leadership from United States, under climate change denier Donald Trump, is making cohesive political action difficult.
But underneath all this, activists, scientists, and business leaders are working to advance progressive climate action, and despite everything, have hung onto a sense of optimism as we move into 2019. Here are some reasons why:

[Photo: Impossible Foods]

We have the potential to radically shift the way we eat
On the heels of the IPCC report, the World Resources Institute released research tracking global meat consumption, and found that food production, especially animal agriculture, accounts for around a quarter of all emissions. It’s the single-largest driver of climate change. This makes a pretty compelling case for wide-scale adoption of vegetarianism and veganism, but far more importantly, should clue in food distributors, like restaurants and grocery stores, that they need to change their offerings. That’s already happening. This year, the plant-based Impossible Burger started appearing everywhere from airline menus to fast-food restaurants, and is preparing to launch in grocery stores. Just, another startup, is growing real meat in bioreactors, which dramatically reduces emissions and the environmental footprint of meat production. It’s possible, now, to imagine a future where factory-farm-produced meat is replaced by plant-based versions, or meat grown in labs.

We can grow more food without damaging the environment
“Over the last century, we’ve relied heavily on fertilizer to meet the food demands of a growing population,” says Karsten Temme, CEO of the startup Pivot Bio. Fertilizer is most commonly made from synthetic nitrogen, which is easy to produce and distribute, but releases a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Synthetic nitrogen alone is responsible for around 5% of global warming. Next year, Temme’s startup will begin delivering a new, natural alternative to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to farmers. Pivot Bio’s product consists of natural, nitrogen-producing microbes that adhere to plants’ roots, supporting plant growth while eradicating the need for environment-damaging synthetic versions. Especially as populations grow and land constricts due to climate change, well-fertilized crops will be necessary to meet food demands.

[Source Image: Makalo86/iStock]

We’re ready to end dependency on coal
This is something that Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, has believed for years, and is now excited to see play out in policy. “Coal retirement announcements continue coming at a steady clip,” she says. In fact, she says, 2018 saw a record number of coal plant retirements, with 14.7 gigawatts going offline this year, and by 2024, the current coal capacity of 246 gigawatts in the U.S. will drop as much as 15%.

Activists are fired up
“More and more people taking action themselves, but also demanding action from their leaders,” says Philip Drost, who leads the steering committee for the UN Environment’s annual report on emissions targets. Most recently, young activists from the Sunrise Movement have flooded the halls of Congress, calling for a “green new deal” that would transition the economy off carbon, and at least 22 elected officials have signed on. Activists in Portland, Oregon this year also succeeded in passing a first-of-its-kind initiative to mandate that big companies pay a portion of their revenue toward supporting green infrastructure projects in low-income communities of color, which are disproportionately affected by climate change and industrial pollution.

[Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images]

Some of most polluting industries are cleaning up their acts
The transportation sector remains one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions both in the U.S. and the world. But policies and innovations this year are beginning to address that. California is pushing a bill that will mandate a shift to 100% electric buses. Airlines like JetBlue and Virgin are experimenting with electric planes and using biofuel blends, both of which are more sustainable than pure fossil fuels. And Shell, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, is investing in clean energy solutions.

A full shift to renewable energy is already under way
“For the first time in U.S. history, renewable energy is now cheaper than running existing coal plants,” the Sierra Club’s Hitt says. And Ellen Roybal, who heads up strategy and market intelligence at GE Solar, cites the fact that some of the largest companies in the U.S., like Walmart and Google, are making steep commitments to renewables. “There are so many companies falling into line behind them–it’s trickling down to smaller consumer brands, and outward into other industries,” Roybal says. “Companies like Dow Chemical have power-purchasing agreements with wind plants.” Roybal think that as more shifts to renewables happen at the corporate and local levels–Georgetown, Texas became 100% powered by renewable energy this year–the more momentum will swing toward abandoning fossil fuels. “There’s so much more that has to be done for our planet as a whole,” she says.

Links

• Global emissions must drop 55% by 2030 to meet climate goals
• Impossible Foods is making 500,000 pounds of fake meat a month
• 2018: The 8 Biggest Moments In Climate Change
• These 13 Words Defined Our Overheating Planet In 2018
• 2018 | The Year In Climate Change