climate change

Energy storage industry hails ‘transformational’ Inflation Reduction Act

By Andy Colthorpe
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US President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act yesterday, bringing with it tax incentives and other measures widely expected to significantly boost prospects for energy storage deployment.

“The Inflation Reduction Act invests US$369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever — ever, ever, ever — in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening our economic — our energy security,” Biden said.

The legislation was readied for Biden’s signature at a speed which took many by surprise, from the announcement of compromises being reached by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the end of July, to its quick passing in the Senate and then the House of Representatives in just over a fortnight.

Its investment in energy security and climate change mitigation targets a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) levels by 2030, supporting electric vehicles (EVs), energy efficiency and building electrification, wind, solar PV, green hydrogen, battery storage and other technologies.

Most directly relevant to the downstream energy storage industry is the introduction of an investment tax credit (ITC) for standalone energy storage. That can lower the capital cost of equipment by about 30%, although under some prevailing conditions it will be more or less, depending on, for example, use of local unionised labour.

It also unties developers from pursuing a disproportionately high percentage of solar-plus-storage hybrid projects, since prior to the act, batteries were eligible for the ITC, but only if they charged directly from the solar for at least 70% of every year in operation. The industry has campaigned for the standalone ITC for many years.

For the upstream battery and energy storage system value chains, there are also tax incentives for siting production within the US, as there are for wind and solar PV equipment manufacturers that source components or make their products domestically.

There are also 10-year extensions to existing wind and solar ITCs along with new or extended clean energy production tax credits (PTCs) and the ITC for solar goes up from 26% to 30%, while the standalone storage ITC will also be in place for the next decade.

There are also provisions that community solar installations where at least 50% of customers live in low to moderate income communities can prevail of an extra 20% ITC, and an extra 10% ITC for projects built with at least 40% domestic content, rising to a 55% threshold in 2027.

Interconnection costs are also included in ITC-eligible project costs.

Incentives will scale down by small increments every couple of years but could be further extended if targeted emissions reductions are not achieved in that timeframe.

As might be expected, many companies and commentators across the industry had plenty to say on the act becoming law with the stroke of Biden’s pen. Here are a few of their comments:

American Clean Power Association

National trade association representing clean energy companies, since last year merged with the national Energy Storage Association

“This does for climate change and clean energy what the creation of Social Security did for America’s senior citizens. This law will put millions more Americans to work, ensure clean, renewable and reliable domestic energy is powering every American home, and save American consumers money.   

For our industry, it’s the starting gun for a period of regulatory certainty which will triple the size of the US clean energy industry and generate over US$900 billion in economic activity through construction of new clean energy projects,” Heather Zichal, CEO.

Stem Inc

Provider of standalone storage and solar-plus-storage solutions to behind-the-meter commercial and industrial (C&I) and distributed front-of-meter market segments

“…we view the investments in clean energy within the Inflation Reduction Act as transformational for our country, the energy industry, and our company as we continue to accelerate the clean energy transition.

For customers deploying energy storage and solar, the most significant parts of the bill are tax credits for clean electricity investment and production. We anticipate that these incentives will increase investment certainty and make adoption more affordable in existing and new energy markets,” John Carrington, CEO

LDES Council

Trade association representing technology providers and large end-users for long-duration energy storage (LDES)

“The passing of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act is a critical win for long-duration energy storage technologies. This historical act enables energy storage to accelerate to the scale we need by levelling the playing field for all types of storage. LDES improves grid reliability, resiliency, and flexibility around renewable energy sources like wind and solar, and has the ability to standalone [sic] and contribute increased stability to the grid,” Julia Souder, executive director.

Stryten Energy

US-based provider of vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) solutions

“Stryten Energy welcomes this legislation’s long-term, standalone energy storage investment tax credits and its ten-year runway, which will help our customers incorporate medium and long-duration energy storage such as VFRB batteries into their operations more economically than before.

Leveraging domestic VFRB technology and other long-term energy storage solutions will enable reliable access to clean power and help the U.S. achieve energy security as it transitions to a clean energy economy,” Tim Vargo, CEO.

KORE Power

Manufacturer of battery cells, racks and complete systems, serving the energy storage system (ESS) and electric mobility infrastructure sectors

“The clean energy provisions in the Act prioritise scaling the domestic clean energy ecosystem, renewing our focus on raw material production and manufacturing, and catalysing the maturation of the nation’s domestic supply chain. It will position domestic suppliers to meet the demands of decarbonisation in the energy and transportation sectors.

As a lithium-ion battery cell manufacturer building a gigafactory outside Phoenix, we look forward to accelerating the growth of an end-to-end battery supply chain by delivering American IP built by American workers with recyclable North American materials to power e-mobility and energy storage solutions.

As a partner to suppliers, end users, and recyclers, we are most excited that the Act will expand access to the jobs needed to realize these goals and will rapidly expand the benefits that modern electrification and energy storage offer our economy, our customers and communities,” Lyndsay Gorrill, CEO.

International Zinc Association

Trade association representing zinc production and related companies, including a subsidiary trade group, Zinc Battery Initiative

“The International Zinc Association (IZA) applauds the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 for bringing critical focus and funding to the cleantech space. This unprecedented climate legislation will promote the production of critical minerals required for batteries as well as the manufacture and purchase of energy storage, such as rechargeable zinc batteries. IZA members are proud to provide safe, sustainable options for the energy storage industries, an essential part of the clean energy transition,” Andrew Green, executive director.

Center for Sustainable Energy

National clean energy non-profit group

“These tax credits and incentives will spur increased manufacturing and adoption of clean technologies by all Americans, including people with low and moderate incomes and communities that have borne the brunt of pollution. We’re investing in climate solutions – including energy-efficient, all-electric homes; rooftop solar; energy storage; and electric vehicles,” Lawrence Goldenhersh, president.

Howden

Provider of mission-critical air and gas handling products

“The very generous tax credits, up to US$3/kg for 10 years, will make the renewable H2 produced in the US the cheapest form of hydrogen in the world.

“There is no doubt that this step will accelerate progress in the global hydrogen market, and more and more countries and organisations will now start speeding up their plans to become major players in this growing sector,” Salah Mahdy, global director of renewable hydrogen.

No doubt, there will be much more to follow on this topic…

Floating Cities May Be One Answer to Rising Sea Levels

An idea that was once a fantasy is making progress in Busan, South Korea. The challenge will be to design settlements that are autonomous and sustainable.

Part of the prototype for the Oceanix floating city.Photographer: Oceanix/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

By: Adam Minter
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Thanks to climate change, sea levels are lapping up against coastal cities and communities. In an ideal world, efforts would have already been made to slow or stop the impact. The reality is that climate mitigation remains difficult, and the 40% of humanity living within 60 miles of a coast will eventually need to adapt.

One option is to move inland. A less obvious option is to move offshore, onto a floating city.

It sounds like a fantasy, but it could real, later if not sooner. Last year, Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, signed on to host a prototype for the world’s first floating city. In April, Oceanix Inc., the company leading the project, unveiled a blueprint.

It sounds like a fantasy, but it could real, later if not sooner. Last year, Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, signed on to host a prototype for the world’s first floating city. In April, Oceanix Inc., the company leading the project, unveiled a blueprint.

Representatives of SAMOO Architects & Engineers Co., one of the floating city’s designers and a subsidiary of the gigantic Samsung Electronics Co., estimate that construction could start in a “year or two,” though they concede the schedule might be aggressive. “It’s inevitable,” Itai Madamombe, co-founder of Oceanix, told me over tea in Busan. “We will get to a point one day where a lot of people are living on water.”

If she’s right, the suite of technologies being developed for Oceanix Busan, as the floating city is known, will serve as the foundation for an entirely new and sustainable industry devoted to coastal climate adaptation. Busan, one of the world’s great maritime hubs, is betting she’s right.

A Prototype for Atlantis

Humans have dreamed of floating cities for millenniums. Plato wrote of Atlantis; Kevin Costner made Waterworld. In the real world, efforts to build on water date back centuries.

The Uru people in Peru have long built and lived upon floating islands in Lake Titicaca. In Amsterdam, a city in which houseboats have a centuries-long presence, a handful of sustainably minded residents live on Schoonschip, a small floating neighborhood, completed in 2020.

Madamombe began thinking about floating cities after she left her role as a senior adviser to then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The New York-based native of Zimbabwe had worked in a variety of UN roles over more than a decade, including a senior position overseeing partnerships to advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. After leaving, she maintained a strong interest in climate change and the risks of sea-level rise.

Her co-founder at Oceanix, Marc Collins, an engineer and former tourism minister for French Polynesia, had been looking at floating infrastructure to mitigate sea-level risks for coastal areas like Tahiti. An autonomous floating-city industry seemed like a good way to tackle those issues. Oceanix was founded in 2018.

As we sit across the street from the lapping waves of Busan’s Gwangalli Beach, Madamombe concedes that they didn’t really have a business plan. But they did have her expertise in putting together complex, multi-stakeholder projects at the UN.

In 2019, Oceanix co-convened a roundtable on floating cities with the United Nations Human Settlements Program — or UN-Habitat — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Ocean Engineering and the renowned architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (better known as BIG). “The UN said there’s this new industry that’s coming up, it’s interesting,” Madamombe said. “They wanted to be able to shape the direction that it took and to have it anchored in sustainability.”

At the Oceanix roundtable, BIG unveiled a futuristic, autonomous floating city composed of clusters of connected, floating platforms designed to generate their own energy and food, recycle their own wastes, assist in the regeneration of marine life like corals, and house thousands.

The plan was conceptual, but the meeting concluded with an agreement between the attending parties, including UN-Habitat: Build a prototype with a collaborating host government. Meanwhile, Oceanix attracted early financial backers, including the venture firm Prime Movers Lab LLC.

Busan, home of the world’s sixth-busiest port, and a global logistics and shipbuilding hub, quickly emerged as a logical partner and location for the city. “The marine engineering capability is incredible,” Madamombe tells me. “Endless companies building ships, naval architecture. We want to work with the local talent.”

Busan’s mayor, Park Heong-joon, who is interested in promoting Busan as a hub for maritime innovation, shared the enthusiasm and embraced the politically risky project as he headed into an election. An updated prototype was unveiled at the UN in April 2022.

Concrete Platforms, Moored to the Seafloor 

The offices of SAMOO, the Korean design firm that serves as a local lead on Oceanix Busan, are located high above Seoul. On a recent Monday morning, I met with three members of the team that’s worked closely with BIG, as well as local design, engineering and construction firms, to bring the floating city to life.

Subsidiaries of Samsung don’t take on projects that can’t be completed, and SAMOO wants me to understand that they’re convinced this project is doable. They also want me to understand that it’s important.

“Frankly, it’s not the floating-city concept we were interested in, but the fact that it’s sustainable,” says Alex Sangwoo Hahn, a senior architect on the project.

Floating infrastructure is nothing new in Korea. Sebitseom, a cluster of three floating islands in Seoul’s Han River, were completed in 2009 and are home to an event center, restaurants and other recreational facilities.

But they are not autonomous or sustainable, and they were not built to house thousands of people safely. Built from steel, they are likely to last years. But corrosion and maintenance will eventually be an issue.

Oceanix Busan must be more durable and stable. Current plans place it atop three five-acre concrete platforms that are moored to the seafloor, with an expected life span of 80 years. The platforms will be 10 meters deep, with only two meters poking above the surface. Within the platforms will be a vast space designed to hold everything from batteries to waste-management systems to mechanical equipment.

That’s a lot of space, but the design and engineering teams are learning that there’s never enough room to do everything. For example, indoor farming — an aspiration at Oceanix — requires large amounts of energy that must be devoted to other goals.

Dr. Sung Min Yang, the project manager on Oceanix Busan and an associate principal at SAMOO, acknowledges that — for now — the floating city won’t meet all its aspirations. “We hoped to be net positive with energy, we would recycle everything and not have any waste going out,” he says. “Now we are striving for net zero, but we are also looking at a backup connection to the mainland for electricity and wastewater.

Madamombe, who spends much of her time working out differences between the various teams involved in the project, isn’t bothered that some of the initial vision must be reined in. She recounts a piece of advice she received from advisers from the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering: “Don’t try to prove everything.” She shrugs. “If we grow 50% of our food and bring 50% in, will it be a great success?” she asks. “Yes, it would be. It’s a city!”

That wouldn’t be the only success. Creating three massive floating concrete platforms that can safely support multi-story buildings while recycling the wastes of residents (including water) would be a major technological advance, and one that Oceanix says that it — and its partners — can pull off, and profitably market. In time, the technologies will improve, becoming more autonomous and sustainable, in line with Oceanix’s earliest aspirations.

But first a prototype must be built. SAMOO estimates that constructing the first floating platforms will require two to three years as the contractors and engineers work out the techniques. Even under the best of circumstances, construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, putting completion — aggressively — mid-decade.

Costs are also daunting. Estimates for this first phase of Oceanix Busan range as high as $200 million and — so far — that funding hasn’t been secured. That will require private fundraising, including in Korea.

Madamombe says Busan will “help raise money by backing the project and making introductions,” not by contributions. But the slow ramp-up isn’t dissuading anyone. According to SAMOO, multiple Korean shipbuilding companies are interested in the project.

An aerial view of the design. 
Photographer: Oceanix/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

It’s a Start

Visionaries have long dreamed of floating cities that are politically autonomous, as well as resource autonomous. One day, that dream might be achieved. But for now, Oceanix is about developing technologies that help coastal communities adapt to climate change and persist as communities.

To do that, Oceanix Busan will be directly connected to Busan by a roughly 260-foot bridge. Rather than function as an autonomous city, it will instead function as a kind of neighborhood under the full administrative jurisdiction of Busan city hall.

Of course, three platforms and 12,000 planned residents and visitors won’t be enough to save Busan from climate change. Neither will the additional platforms that Oceanix hopes to see built and connected to the first three in coming years.

But it’s a start that can serve as a model and inspiration for other communities hoping to adapt to sea-level changes, rather than just respond to them. After all, disaster assistance and sea walls are expensive and require intensive planning, too.

Long term, humanity will need to learn to live with rising sea levels. Floating cities will be one way for coastal communities to do it.

The Future of Green Construction Materials

Architects are working with manufacturers to source new materials that improve health, lower costs, and reduce environmental impact.
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Building materials—and what’s in them—have been making headlines, and for good reason. As The American Institute of Architects (AIA) raises the bar in response to climate change, architects and design professionals are partnering with clients, contractors, and manufacturers to source materials that meet new environmental goals, part of a larger effort to improve resiliency for the future.

“Historically, architects haven’t asked what goes into building materials,” says Lona Rerick, AIA, an associate principal at ZGF Architects in Portland, Oregon. “We used to just look at aesthetics, performance, and durability. But in the past decade, there’s been a shift to thinking more holistically about sustainable design and better building materials. Now we’re collaborating with clients to improve embodied carbon and health.”

Greener building materials are key to halting climate change. Currently, buildings produce about 40% of the world’s fossil-fuel carbon-dioxide emissions (CO2). In fact, the United States’ building stock produces more than two billion tons of greenhouse gases per year. But that number can be greatly reduced by limiting the embodied carbon of our building materials. Embodied carbon—the CO2 released during material extraction, manufacture, and transport, combined with construction emissions—will be responsible for 74% of all CO2 emissions of new buildings in the next 10 years. And unlike operational carbon, which can be reduced during a building’s lifetime, embodied carbon is locked in as soon as a building is completed and can never be decreased.

The good news? People want change. According to a 2019 survey by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, 85% of U.S. investors now express interest in sustainable investing, while half have factored attributes such as the sustainability of a business into their decision to buy. Overall this shows that people want to improve the environmental and social impact of their investments.

To help clients address climate change, architects need to prioritize lowering the embodied carbon of the materials that produce it most. It all starts with a discussion at the outset. “As the design team, we need to have early conversations with clients about the importance of building materials,” says Frances Yang, AIA, the structures and sustainability specialist at Arup in San Francisco. “We need to show them that materials made with little or net zero embodied carbon can be healthier and sometimes cheaper than traditional products. Once clients are on board, contractors and suppliers will support it, and more people will start to realize that they need to come up with greener strategies.”

Architects can minimize embodied carbon by focusing their efforts on the top three worst offenders—concrete, steel, and aluminum, which account for 22% of all embodied CO2.

Prioritize building materials that reduce carbon

The easiest way to reduce embodied carbon is through reuse—not just of existing building materials, but of existing structures, too. For renovation projects, architects can draft efficient designs that make the most of the current footprint. For new projects, architects can bring in salvaged materials sourced from deconstructed buildings. Most of all, when considering new materials, architects can minimize embodied carbon by focusing their efforts on the top three worst offenders—concrete, steel, and aluminum, which account for 22% of all embodied CO2.

Recently, Yang and her colleagues at Arup designed a project for a Bay Area client that required large amounts of concrete. The client was considering purchasing carbon offsets. But the low-carbon-concrete options Yang researched were cheaper than the offsets and could reduce a greater amount of embodied carbon. By choosing concrete made from granulated blast-furnace slag, a byproduct of steel manufacturing, Yang helped the client reduce both the cost of the project and its impact on the environment.

“Teamwork was key,” Yang says. “At the beginning, we worked with the sustainability and engineering teams to share the benefits of slag cement with the client and get them on board, which then persuaded the contractor to also get behind it. The main thing is to start the conversation early and get everyone’s support. In that instance, we were able to help the client cut 12,000 tons of embodied carbon—making everyone really happy with the outcome.”

Manufacturers agree. “Collaboration and communication between architects and concrete suppliers provides many benefits,” says Alana Guzzetta, the laboratory manager at the U.S. Concrete National Research Laboratory in San Jose, California, which has partnered with Yang on projects over the years. “Communication allows architects to be familiar with the cement substitutions and low-carbon-concrete options available in specific markets, which can be helpful in writing specifications. Additionally, when an architectural aesthetic is required for the concrete, the supplier needs to understand those needs to provide the correct mix. Overall, collaboration between designers, contractors, and suppliers is important for implementing the lowest-carbon mixes that meet performance and schedule requirements.”


The 7 steps to adopting better building materials

Creating a plan to build with healthier resources

  1. Establish the goal and scope: Turn values related to health and transparency into clearly written goals and a scope of work, approachable targets, and roles and responsibilities for the project.
  2. Set priorities within budget: Most projects are constrained by cost, and healthier materials are too often abandoned when an all-or-nothing mentality is adopted. Instead, allow projects to achieve incremental improvements. Some improvement is better than none at all.
  3. Develop measurable targets: This step establishes measurable criteria that define success for the project. The target should reinforce the goals and priorities described in the previous steps. Some rating-systems criteria have targets already defined. For example, LEED requires that a minimum of 20 products used on a project meet the disclosure requirements to achieve one point in the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization credit related to healthier materials.
  4. Define methods and metrics: Once targets for healthier materials—which are less toxic for human or environmental health—are established, the next step is to select tools to measure progress. A wide variety of resources are available. Choosing the right one requires matching the information it provides with the goal and scope of the project. For example, if the objective is to avoid certain harmful substances, a list of materials not to be used in the project (and conversely, ones that can be used) should be the primary reference guide.
  5. Outline roles and responsibilities: Determine who will fulfill the essential roles among the primary parties on the project, including the owner, designer or specifier, builder, and operator. Responsibilities include materials research, selection and specification, tracking progress, procurement, and reviewing contractor submissions.
  6. Ongoing review and documentation: During the design phase, tracking gives everyone the ability to see progress toward the project’s targets and also serves as a useful tool to ensure goals will be met.
  7. Develop a materials manual: A manual of building materials is intended to pull together essential information for the facilities operations team. It should address maintenance, warranties, repair, replacement, cleaning, and general care that may be specific to the products installed on the project. Owners who manage their own buildings may wish to use this as the starting point for a continual feedback loop with the building management team. Overall, this can be a great opportunity for architects to develop a closer working relationship with a project manager—a key factor in reducing embodied carbon.

Help clients source better building materials

Another way architects can help reduce embodied carbon is to source materials that have been verified with environmental product declarations (EPDs). Similar to nutrition labels, EPDs are documents that communicate the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle, conveying the carbon footprint of materials at a glance. Today, architects can easily check the EPDs of products by using the EC3 Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3). Created by the Carbon Leadership Forum, the EC3 is a free, open-access application that helps architects and contrators source sustainable materials in categories like concrete, insulation, gypsum board, and carpet. “Increasingly, we’re writing into our specifications that suppliers must have an EPD if they’re providing a product,” Rerick says. “We need to see that to prove that the builder has lowered the global-warming potential of that product below a certain baseline.”

Recently, Rerick and her colleagues at ZGF Architects were hired by a major tech company to design a new campus in the Pacific Northwest. The tech company is working to become carbon-negative—removing more emissions from the environment than it contributes—and is starting by focusing on construction materials. Using the EC3 tool, ZGF and the other project teams helped the company reduce its carbon footprint while also enriching the EC3 database with additional EPD-approved materials. The size of the project greatly increased the data available to architects everywhere. “The EC3 database is now even more of a game changer, because we have a deeper resource to compare all these different EPDs,” Rerick says. “It enables us to set better targets for lower embodied carbon and then reach them.”

In addition to the EC3 tool, ZGF uses a digital calculator of its own design to further reduce the embodied carbon of projects. Available for free online, the Life Cycle Analysis tool enables architects to enter the ingredients of concrete mixes and quickly see the carbon impact—an innovation that should help improve the industry for years to come. “By creating a database and material-specific baselines to target for products with EPDs, the Carbon Leadership Forum is reducing uncertainty about them,” Rerick says. “This project is helping to accelerate the demand for EPDs among both clients and manufacturers.”

The 5 Key Takeaways of the AIA Materials Pledge

Guidelines for selecting sustainable materials:

  • Support Human Health by preferring products which support and foster life throughout their life cycles and seek to eliminate the use of substances that are hazardous.
  • Support Social Health and Equity by preferring products from manufacturers who secure human rights in their own operations and in their supply chains, and which provide positive impacts for their workers and the communities where they operate.
  • Support Ecosystem Health by preferring products which support and regenerate the natural air, water, and biological cycles of life through thoughtful supply chain management and restorative company practices.
  • Support Climate Health by preferring products which reduce carbon emissions and ultimately sequester more carbon than emitted.
  • Support a Circular Economy by reusing and improving buildings and by designing for resiliency, adaptability, disassembly and reuse aspiring to a zero-waste goal for global construction activities.

Advocate for Local Legislation

Going forward, one of the most important ways architects can increase the use of greener building materials is to advocate for local legislation to lower emissions. In 2019, New York City passed the Climate Mobilization Act, which set emissions caps for buildings, with the goal of reducing output levels 40% by 2030. Nearly 70% of New York City’s emissions come from buildings. As part of the legislation, owners of structures 25,000 square feet or larger must reduce emissions or pay a substantial fine, an initiative that’s sparking massive change.

Todd Kimmel, the New York City architectural manager for insulation manufacturer Rockwool and a Certified Passive House Designer, is working with architects to design green projects that include large-scale passive buildings such as the House at Cornell Tech Campus and Sendero Verde, a three-building, 752,000-square-foot complex in East Harlem that will be a model of low-energy construction. In the past, Kimmel focused on passive design and reducing operational carbon, figuring out how projects can utilize Rockwool insulation, a stone wool that retains heat while minimizing negative health impacts. (Unlike rigid or spray-foam insulation, mineral wool has no plastics that can be released into the air during installation or a fire.) But lately, thanks in part to the city’s Climate Mobilization Act, Kimmel has seen an increase in the number of architects working with contractors and manufacturers to source materials made with less embodied carbon—a trend he attributes to spillover from legislation that addresses operational carbon.

“Architects used to consider materials primarily from a performance standpoint,” Kimmel says. “Now we’re seeing clients invest in greener building materials and operations that exceed the code requirements, because they need to build for the future, to ensure they don’t get hit with penalties. As a result, that way of designing, which creates a healthier environment anyway, is becoming the new norm.”

Build Consensus

The key to building with more sustainable materials is to create consensus, from clients to contractors to manufacturers. Change isn’t easy. For manufacturers in particular, research and development can be costly and time-consuming. But innovation is leading to better options, including wooden materials that capture carbon and concrete materials that sequester it. In turn, these materials are becoming more available, giving architects an extraordinary opportunity for change.

“Manufacturing today requires investing in innovation,” says Cassandra Mellon, the director of architectural sales at Rockwool. “We’re a net carbon-negative company, and want to lower the embodied carbon of stone wool even more, because we believe that’s important. Part of what helped inspire us were initiatives like the AIA materials pledge, which showed that this movement was gaining momentum. If architects ask about things, we listen. Ultimately, the materials pledge creates the foundation for a collaborative approach between architects and manufacturers as we all strive for sustainable materials, and I think we’re going to see more of these types of products across the industry in the future.”

The Blueprint for Better campaign is a call to action. AIA is asking architects, design professionals, civic leaders, and the public in every community to join our efforts. Help us transform the day-to-day practice of architecture to achieve a zero-carbon, resilient, healthy, just, and equitable built environment.

Why scaling investment is crucial for sustainable development

Written By: Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu
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Mobilizing financial resources will play an important role in reaching the sustainable development goals.



  • Global organizations are cooperating on scaling investment to help achieve sustainability goals.
  • Investment promotion needs to change to target sustainable investments, particularly to help reach climate goals.
  • Turkey is implementing this approach by making the SDGs central to its foreign direct investment strategy.

Climate change has been on the international agenda for a long time, but recent developments have upped the urgency of taking immediate action for both humanitarian and developmental reasons. World leaders gathered in Glasgow to discuss climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26, following the G20 summit in Rome in late October, which also prioritized sustainability.

Keeping climate change at bay through mitigation and adaptation is imperative to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were set by the United Nations in 2015 and made social, economic and environmental sustainability central to economic development.

Achieving the SDGs will, in turn, require an integrated approach and close cooperation among all stakeholders. Mobilizing financial resources will play an especially important role in reaching the SDGs and addressing the adverse effects of climate change. In this regard, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a significant source of external finance for many countries, especially developing economies, to help achieve sustainable economic development.

Commitment to SDGs can mobilize foreign direct investment

Today, all economies vie for greater FDI inflows as it not only brings capital but also generates employment, transfers technology, and helps move up the value chain. Moreover, FDI can be instrumental in a country’s economic transformation towards a greener economy, as multinational corporations (MNCs) have both the financial wherewithal and technical capacity to help transform local operations to greener global best practices. MNCs have been increasingly incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles into their investment strategies, not only to achieve ESG investor score targets but also to save costs and mitigate risks, helping achieve both more sustainable and more profitable operations.

The international community is putting more efforts into scaling such investments through establishing effective mechanisms to support cooperation on investment issues, such as the planned World Investment for Development Alliance, which can facilitate collaboration on public-private projects to scale sustainable investment. One important dimension of such scaling is for countries to create a favorable environment to attract “Green FDI” in order to help achieve environmental and climate goals.

Through smart and targeted policies, sustainable investment can make significant contributions to a country’s economic development, including Green FDI to help reduce carbon emissions.—Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu

Unless host countries are attractive enough for such investments, MNCs will hesitate to invest there, especially in a time when attracting FDI is becoming increasingly difficult due to unexpected challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, policy uncertainty from increasing protectionism, economic shocks, and geopolitical risks. Moreover, the growing inclusion of sustainability clauses into new generation trade and investment agreements by major trading blocs will also affect MNCs’ location choices. Therefore, in order to make the best use of FDI in the aftermath of the pandemic, investment agencies should recalibrate their strategies and position themselves as promoters and facilitators of sustainable investment.

Through smart and targeted policies, sustainable investment can make significant contributions to a country’s economic development, including Green FDI to help reduce carbon emissions. Incorporating the SDGs into a country’s FDI attraction strategy can thus bring benefits across society. Therefore, FDI practitioners and policymakers should develop novel strategies that are more inclusive and SDG-oriented.

How Turkey is contributing to sustainable investments

Cognizant of that we, as the Investment Office of Turkey, have recently revised our FDI strategy and made SDGs one of the main pillars of our investment promotion and attraction policies. We have also incorporated “impact investments” into Turkey’s national development agenda. Through an extensive engagement with national and international stakeholders, “impact investments” have become a priority for private and public sectors in Turkey.

Together with the United Nations Development Program(UNDP), we co-published a series of reports on The Impact Investing Ecosystem in Turkey and SDG Investor Map Turkey, providing a guide for the private sector to perform diligence and make impactful business decisions. After these successful initiatives, Turkey’s Impact Investing Advisory Board was established to mobilize government agencies and private sector stakeholders to develop a state-of-the-art regulatory framework. Establishing such a national impact management framework will standardize the measurement and control across all sectors, which will incentivize impact investing and boost the performance of impact investors.

Success is contingent on going beyond defining certain metrics and standards or appeasing shareholders. Implementation, monitoring, and assessments are essential to creating real impact through sustainable investments. Therefore, national and international efforts to establish strong mechanisms for implementing impact investments and attracting Green FDI must be backed up through collaboration and partnership at every level.

International organizations, such as The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UNDP, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Economic Forum have been playing an important role in creating effective platforms for cooperation. National institutions should continue to engage with these organizations in order to adapt their local investment ecosystems to the changing international investment trends, practices, and opportunities. We are all facing global challenges that require global solutions, and cooperation is a sine qua non requirement to find sustainable solutions for the problems that are threating humanity.

America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

By Prashant Gopal
View the original article here.

Mass migration begins as coastal homes are bulldozed in the state facing the biggest threat from climate-driven inundation.

Lori Rittel’s home in Marathon Keys, on Sept. 16

Lori Rittel’s home in Marathon Keys, on Sept. 16

Lori Rittel is stuck in her Florida Keys home, living in the wreckage left by Hurricane Irma two years ago, unable to rebuild or repair. Now her best hope for escape is to sell the little white bungalow to the government to knock down.

Her bedroom is still a no-go zone so she sleeps in the living room with her cat and three dogs. She just installed a sink in the bathroom, which is missing a wall, so she can wash her dishes inside the house now. Weather reports make her nervous. “I just want to sell this piece of junk and get the hell out,” she said. “I don’t want to start over. But this will happen again.”

Lori Rittel

Lori Rittel

The Great Climate Retreat is beginning with tiny steps, like taxpayer buyouts for homeowners in flood-prone areas from Staten Island, New York, to Houston and New Orleans — and now Rittel’s Marathon Key. Florida, the state with the most people and real estate at risk, is just starting to buy homes, wrecked or not, and bulldoze them to clear a path for swelling seas before whole neighborhoods get wiped off the map.

By the end of the century, 13 million Americans will need to move just because of rising sea levels, at a cost of $1 million each, according to Florida State University demographer Mathew Haeur, who studies climate migration. Even in a “managed retreat,” coordinated and funded at the federal level, the economic disruption could resemble the housing crash of 2008.

The U.S. government’s philosophy has been that local officials are in the best position to decide what needs to be done. Consequently, the effort has so far been ad hoc, with local and state governments using federal grants from the last disaster to pay for buyouts designed to reduce the damage from the next one.

“The scale of this is almost unfathomable,” said Billy Fleming, a landscape architecture professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “If we take any of the climate science seriously, we’re down to the last 10 to 12 years to mobilize the full force of the government and move on managed retreat. If we don’t, it won’t matter, because much of America will be underwater or on fire.”

If not for the $174,000 that Rittel, 60, owes on her mortgage, the Montana transplant would have left long ago. Insurance money is insufficient to rebuild, so she applied for one of the buyouts, administered by the state with $75 million of Irma-relief cash from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as long as it lasts.

The inside of Lori Rittel’s home. Photographer: Jayme Gershen/Bloomberg

The inside of Lori Rittel’s home.
Photographer: Jayme Gershen/Bloomberg

Florida accounts for 40% of the riskiest coastal land in the U.S., according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, but it’s done little so far to pull people back from the coasts and lags behind states such as New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas. Across the country, the effort is still more theory than practice, even as a consensus among planners grows that “managed retreat” may be the best of bad options.

This year, HUD made available $16 billion for climate resilience, its first dedicated fund to fortify for future storms. Nine states, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, will decide how to use it, whether to build sea walls, put houses on stilts or move people out of the way. The money is a fraction of what’s needed, and the process is moving at the speed of government.

A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council this month found that buyouts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to disasters, take five years on average to be completed. By that time, many homeowners have rebuilt or moved. Similar data isn’t available on the grants from HUD, which also provides money to demolish homes.

“It’s a slow-motion emergency,” said Rob Moore, director of NRDC’s water and climate team. “But it’s happening right now. These last three hurricane seasons show us what it kind of looks like.”

A FEMA spokesman said the agency supports the  voluntary acquisition of flood-prone structures and provides the grant funding, but the prioritization of projects happens at the local level first and then by the state acting as the recipient. The agency believes each county floodplain manager and local official knows the needs of their communities best and are responsible for land usage and permitting.

About 6 million Floridians will need to move inland by century’s end to avoid inundation, according to Hauer, the demographer, in a 2016 paper. By then, about 80% of the nearby Keys, the archipelago that includes the tourist mecca of Key West, will be underwater. About 3.5 million people would be flooded in South Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward, the two counties with America’s biggest exposed populations.

“Florida’s doing it at a really small scale,” said A.R. Siders, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware who studies climate adaptation. “Compared with the new housing units going up in South Florida, I don’t know if that would even cancel out.”

Here Comes the Flood

Number of people at risk by county from a sea level rise of 1.8 meters

Florida State University demographer Matt Hauer

Florida State University demographer Matt Hauer

But Florida runs on tourism and real estate revenue, and managed retreat is a phrase that makes real estate listing agents nervous. But there’s another Florida housing bubble waiting to pop. The Union of Concerned Scientists warns of a coming housing crash — from Miami to San Mateo, California — on a scale worse than last decade’s foreclosure crisis, caused by climate change — from flooding to heat waves and wildfires.

Cities are only starting to grapple with where to resettle residents, and how to transport communities and hometown identities. And homes on higher ground will also demand higher prices, worsening an affordability crisis.

Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is trying to relocate the Native American settlement of about 100 people on the Isle de Jean Charles, a narrow island that lost 98% of its land over the past six decades to climate change. It’s working with a $48 million grant from HUD for buyouts and to help them start anew on a 500-acre sugar cane field 40 miles north that the government will populate with homes and businesses. Importantly, it will be 9 feet above sea level. All but three of about 40 households have signed on.

“They’re starting to scale this up,’’ said Jesse Keenan, a social scientist at Harvard University who also specializes in climate adaptation. “This is about building up institutional knowledge on how to do this.’’

​​​​​​​New Jersey has a $300 million fund for buyouts and has purchased hundreds of houses since Superstorm Sandy in 2012, though like Florida, even more homes have been built on the coast in the meantime. Harris County, Texas — which includes Houston, ravaged by a series of storms including 2017’s Harvey — has done more than 3,000 FEMA buyouts, more than any other county in the U.S., according to NRDC.

In Monroe County, Florida, where Rittel lives, the planning is just beginning. The county has applied for $5 million of the HUD money — the state maximum. Already, about 60 local homeowners have applied, so it will require triage. Senior citizens, families and residents in the riskiest flood zone would get priority, said Assistant County Administrator Christine Hurley.

Rittel isn’t sure how long she can hang on.

Her insurance payout of about $100,000 would cover repairs to the 640-square-foot house. But the county requires that when more than 50% of a home is damaged, that it be completely rebuilt to meet modern storm-resiliency codes and — in her flood zone — on stilts. That would cost at least $200,000, money she doesn’t have.

She dreams of resettling in Key West or Homestead, a safer spot on the Florida mainland.

“I’d like to take the money and run,” Rittel said. “But I’ll have to buy something on stilts. I’m not buying anything on the ground down here ever ever again.”

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to highlight climate change.

 

Don’t Confuse the Causes and Solutions of Climate Change with Sea Level Rise

By John Englander
View the original article here.

With the growing awareness of the threat from rising seas, there is a fundamental point of confusion. It is widely believed that “green projects,” energy efficiency, and better public transportation can “solve sea-level rise.”

This popular notion is even showing up in candidates’ platforms for the upcoming election. It is simply wrong.

The warming of the planet, now about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century and headed for at least double that level, correlates with increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from fossil fuel use — the so-called greenhouse effect. Even the controversial 2015 Paris Climate Agreement only aims to keep the temperature rise to 50 percent further warming, and recognizes we are not instituting the changes to reach even that modest goal.

Efforts to slow and reverse that warming should be our highest priority. Those efforts should focus on reducing energy consumption and switching to renewable sources, such as solar energy. Improved mass transit, electric vehicles, and more use of bicycles are all efforts that will contribute to slow the warming.

Also, developing technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere or lock carbon in plant matter — trees, the Everglades and even algae — can help reduce the warming atmosphere. But none of those efforts can soon stop sea-level rise.

Rising sea level is primarily caused by the melting of the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, which is happening at an accelerating rate because of the extraordinary heat alreadystored in the oceans. The oceans also expand slightly as they continue to warmThose two causes of rising sea level cannot be stopped in the next few decades, even if the entire world could magically switch to 100 percent solar energy right now.

Our oceans, atmosphere, and planet have gotten warmer primarily because the heat-trapping CO2 (carbon dioxide) level is now 410 PPM (Parts per million), 40 percent higher than any time in the last 10 million years.

That greater atmospheric insulation adds heat to the sea equivalent to four nuclear bombs every second of every day. Like a giant outdoor swimming pool, the ocean retains heat even if the air temperature cools. That extra ocean heat will continue to affect our weather and melt glaciers for many decades, even if we can slow the warming.

The latest projections from International and national science organizations and the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compactsay that we need to plan for a few feet of higher sea level by mid-century and as much as 6 to 8 feet by the end of the century.

Thus, it is imperative that we now separate three quite distinct problems and solutions. A solution to one will not soon have any effect on the other two.

  1. Reduce emission of greenhouse gases and even remove them from the atmosphere. SOLUTIONS: Energy conservation, switch to renewable energy sources, improve public transportation, promote bicycle use, plant trees and develop affordable technologies to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
  2. Prepare for extreme weather events. More heat in the oceans and atmosphere produces stronger storms, more rainfall, droughts, and wildfires. SOLUTIONS: Buildings, infrastructure, and building codes should be designed to accommodate periodic flooding, improve drainage, use less energy, etc.
  3. Adapt for rising sea level:  Higher sea level will change coastlines and marshlands all over the world and means ever increasing high tides and worse temporary flooding from storms, rainfall and runoff. SOLUTIONS: Elevate buildings and infrastructure (better building codes), install temporary flood barriers for extreme events, and ultimately, accept that coastlines will change.

Our futures require that we design and implement personal, community, and governmental policies to respond to these three threats: elevated greenhouse gases, extreme weather events, and sea level rising ever-higher.

It is great to see that politicians, the public, and professionals are developing greater concern for climate change and rising sea level. Recognizing that these three challenges demand separate solutions is the only smart path forward — and upwards.

 

John Englander is an oceanographer and author of “High Tide On Main Street.”  He is also President of The International Sea Level Institute, a new nonprofit think tank and policy center. His weekly blog and news digest can be found at www.sealevelrisenow.com

 “The Invading Sea” is a collaboration of four South Florida media organizations — the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and WLRN Public Media.

 

In-depth Q&A: The IPCC’s special report on climate change at 1.5C

The original article was written by the Carbon Brief Staff on 8/10/18. You can view it here.

Earlier today in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its long-awaited special report on 1.5C.

The IPCC is a body of scientists and economists – first convened by the United Nations (UN) in 1988 – which periodically produces summaries of the “scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation”.

The reports are produced, in the first instance, to inform the world’s policymakers.

In this detailed Q&A, Carbon Brief explains why the IPCC was asked to produce a report focused on 1.5C of global warming, what the report says and what the reaction has been…

Why did the IPCC produce this special report?

For many years, limiting global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels was the de-facto target for global policymakers. This was formalised when countries signed the Cancun Agreements at the UN’s climate conference in Mexico in 2010.

However, at the climate talks in Bonn in May 2015, the UN published a new report that warned that the 2C limit was not adequate for avoiding some of the more severe impacts of climate change.

The report – a product of a two-year “structured expert dialogue” (SED) involving more than 70 scientists – found that 2C of warming was not a “guardrail up to which all would be safe”. Instead, it recommended that while “science on the 1.5C warming limit is less robust, efforts should be made to push the defence line as low as possible”.

The findings of the SED subsequently fed into the working draft that would form the Paris Agreement. In December 2015, 195 countries endorsed the agreement, which backed a long-term goal to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2C” and to “pursue efforts towards 1.5C”.

As part of the text of the agreement, the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “invited” the IPCC “to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways”.

The IPCC accepted this invitation following a meeting in Nairobi in April 2016 and then drafted an outline of the report at their Geneva gathering in August of the same year. This outline was rubber-stamped two months later at a meeting in Bangkok.

A timeline of notable dates in preparing the 1.5C special report (shaded blue) embedded within processes and milestones of the UNFCCC (grey). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

A timeline of notable dates in preparing the 1.5C special report (shaded blue) embedded within processes and milestones of the UNFCCC (grey). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

The author team (pdf) for the report – including review editors – was made up of 91 scientists and policy experts drawn from 44 nationalities. The country most represented was the US with seven authors, followed by Germany with six and the UK with five.

The report, published today following a week-long meeting in Incheon in South Korea, draws on scientific literature from across all three of the IPCC’s “working groups”. However, the authoring was led by the technical support unit of the IPCC’s Working Group I (WG1), which focuses on assessing the physical scientific basis of the climate system and climate change.

The report writing process began with a first author meeting in Sao José dos Campos, Brazil, in March 2017. Three author meetings, three report drafts and 42,000 reviewer comments later, the final report was submitted.

The report has two main parts: a full technical report and a short summary for policymakers (SPM). The wording of the latter was agreed line-by-line by government delegates last week in Incheon. Following the approval of the SPM, there are some updates that need to be made to the full report to ensure it is consistent with the revised SPM. These have not been yet made and so the individual chapters are subject to changes listed in the “trickle-back” document (pdf).

How far away is 1.5C of warming?

Global average temperatures have already warmed by around 1C since pre-industrial times (taken as 1850-1900 by the IPCC). However, the rate of warming is not consistent across the Earth’s surface, as the SPM notes:

“Warming greater than the global annual average is being experienced in many land regions and seasons, including two to three times higher in the Arctic. Warming is generally higher over land than over the ocean.”

In fact, chapter one (pdf) of the report notes that 20-40% of the global population live in regions that have already experienced warming of more than 1.5C in at least one season.

This is illustrated in a group of maps found in the same chapter, which show regional warming (in 2006-15) as an annual average and for the winter and summer seasons. The red and purple shading highlights that much of the high latitudes in the northern hemisphere have already exceeded the 1.5C of warming.

Maps of regional human-caused warming for 2006-15, relative to 1850-1900, annual average (top), the average of December, January and February (bottom left) and for June, July and August (bottom right). Shading indicates warming (red and purple) and cooling (blue). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Maps of regional human-caused warming for 2006-15, relative to 1850-1900, annual average (top), the average of December, January and February (bottom left) and for June, July and August (bottom right). Shading indicates warming (red and purple) and cooling (blue). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Around 100% of this warming is the result of human activity, the SPM says:

“Estimated anthropogenic global warming matches the level of observed warming to within ±20%.”

At current rates, human-caused warming is adding around 0.2C to global average temperatures every decade. This is the result of both “past and ongoing emissions”, the report notes.

If this rate continues, the report projects that global average warming “is likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052”.

Note that this is not referring to the first time that global average temperatures in a single year hit 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Natural influences in the global climate – such as variability in the oceans – could temporarily tip temperatures beyond the 1.5C limit. (Similarly, factors such as a large volcanic eruption could suppress global temperatures in the short term.) What the special report is referring to is the point where long-term, human-caused warming reaches 1.5C, with these natural influences taken out.

This is illustrated in the chart from the SPM below, which shows global temperatures, relative to pre-industrial levels. The black line shows the fluctuations of global monthly temperatures to date, which includes the influence of natural variability. The red line shows the estimate of human-caused warming, which shows a more gradual increase. The grey, blue and purple shading illustrate different pathways to keeping warming to no more than 1.5C in 2100.

 

Chart shows observed monthly temperatures (black line), estimated human-caused warming (red), and idealised potential pathways to meeting 1.5C limit in 2100 (grey, blue and purple). All relative to 1850-1900. Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Chart shows observed monthly temperatures (black line), estimated human-caused warming (red), and idealised potential pathways to meeting 1.5C limit in 2100 (grey, blue and purple). All relative to 1850-1900. Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Past greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to be enough by themselves to push global warming from 1C to 1.5C in the coming decades, the report notes, meaning that if emissions stopped today, the 1.5C limit would not be breached.

However, at the same time, the global emissions to date “will persist for centuries to millennia”, the report says, “and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts”.

(To see how every part of the world has already warmed – and could continue to warm under a range of different scenarios  – see Carbon Brief’s new searchable map.)

 How do the impacts of climate change compare between 1.5C and 2C?

Since the inclusion of the 1.5C limit in the Paris Agreement, there has been something of a flurry of research into the impacts of 1.5C of warming on the planet.

In fact, as Prof Piers Forster – professor of physical climate change at the University of Leeds and a lead author on chapter two of the special report – wrote in a Carbon Brief guest post at the end of the Paris talks, “climate scientists were caught napping” by the 1.5C limit:

“Before Paris, we all thought 2C was a near-impossible target and spent our energies researching future worlds where temperatures soared. In fact, there is still much to discover about the specific advantages of limiting warming to 1.5C.”

In a recent interactive article, Carbon Brief presented the findings of around 70 peer-reviewed studies showing how the potential impacts of climate change compare at 1.5C, 2C and beyond. The data covers a range of impacts – such as sea level rise, crop yields, biodiversity, drought, economy and health – for the world as a whole, as well as specific regions.

In the special report on 1.5C, chapter one (pdf) notes that climate impacts are already being observed on land and ocean ecosystems, and the services they provide:

“Temperature rise to date has already resulted in profound alterations to human and natural systems, bringing increases in some types of extreme weather, droughts, floods, sea level rise and biodiversity loss, and causing unprecedented risks to vulnerable persons and populations.”

The people that have been most affected live in low- and middle-income countries, the report says, some of whom have already seen a “decline in food security, linked in turn to rising migration and poverty”. Small islands, megacities, coastal regions and high mountain ranges are also among the most affected, the report adds.

In general – and, perhaps, unsurprisingly – the potential impacts of global warming “for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5C than at present, but lower than at 2C”, the SPM says. The risk are also greater if global temperatures overshoot 1.5C and come back down rather than if warming “gradually stabilises at 1.5C”.

There are a lot of impacts to consider, which is reflected in the fact that chapter three(pdf) on impacts is the longest of the whole report at 246 pages.

In many cases, the IPCC has “high confidence” that there is a “robust difference” between impacts at 1.5C and 2C – such as average temperature, frequency of hot extremes, heavy rainfall in some regions and the probability of drought in some areas.

As an illustration, the report includes a “reasons for concern” graphic that shows how the risks of severe impacts varies with warming levels. The example below shows a section of this graphic showing some of these impacts. The coloured shading indicates the risk level, from “undetectable” (white) up to “very high” (purple).

The graphic shows how warm water corals and the Arctic are particularly at risk from rising temperatures, moving into the “very high” category with 1.5C and 2C of warming, respectively.

How the level of global warming affects impacts and/or risks associated for selected natural, managed and human systems. Adapted from IPCC (pdf)

How the level of global warming affects impacts and/or risks associated for selected natural, managed and human systems. Adapted from IPCC (pdf)

Tropical coral reefs actually get their own specific section in Box 3.4 in chapter three, which emphasises that at 2C of warming, coral reefs “mostly disappear”. However, even achieving 1.5C “will result in the further loss of 90% of reef-building corals compared to today”, the report warns. And short periods (i.e. decades) where global temperatures overshoot 1.5C before falling again “will be very challenging to coral reefs”.

For the Arctic, the report expects that “there will be at least one sea-ice free Arctic summer out of 10 years for warming at 2C, with the frequency decreasing to one sea-ice-free Arctic summer every 100 years at 1.5C”. Interestingly, the report also notes that overshooting 1.5C and coming back down again would “have no long-term consequences for Arctic sea-ice coverage”.

Warming of 1.5C will also see weather extremes become more prevalent across the world, the report says. Increases in hot extremes are projected to be largest in central and eastern North America, central and southern Europe, the Mediterranean region, western and central Asia, and southern Africa. Holding warming to 1.5C rather than 2C will see around 420 million fewer people being frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves, the report notes.

High and low extremes in rainfall are also expected to become more frequent, the report says. The largest increases in heavy rainfall events are expected in high-latitude regions, such as Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, northern Europe and northern Asia. Whereas in the Mediterranean region and southern Africa, for example, “increases in drought frequency and magnitude are substantially larger at 2C than at 1.5C”.

For global sea levels, increases are projected to be around 0.1m less at 1.5C than at 2C come the end of the century, the report notes, which would mean that “up to 10.4 million fewer people are exposed to the impacts of sea level globally”. However, sea levels will continue to rise beyond 2100, the report says, and there is a risk that instabilities in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets triggered by 1.5–2C of warming cause “multi-metre” increases in sea levels in the centuries and millennia to come.

Sea level rise is particularly pertinent for the risks facing small island states, which are covered in Box 3.5. The combination of rising seas, larger waves and increasing aridity“might leave several atoll islands uninhabitable” under 1.5C, the report warns.

Another topic given its own specific box is food security (“Cross-Chapter Box 6”), which is affected in various different ways by climate change, the report says:

“Overall, food security is expected to be reduced at 2C warming compared to 1.5C warming, due to projected impacts of climate change and extreme weather on crop nutrient content and yields, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and land use (cover type and management).”

Climate change can exacerbate malnutrition by reducing nutrient availability and quality of food products, the report notes. However, in general, “vulnerability to decreases in water and food availability is reduced at 1.5C versus 2C, whilst at 2C these are expected to be exacerbated, especially in regions such as the African Sahel, the Mediterranean, central Europe, the Amazon, and western and southern Africa”.

How quickly do emissions need to fall to meet the 1.5C limit?

Not all 1.5C limits are made equal. In model simulations that translate emissions into atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations – and, ultimately, to future warming – different emissions pathways take different routes to staying below 1.5C in 2100.

The special report broadly separates these pathways into two categories, as the Frequency Asked Questions section (pdf) of the report explains:

“The first involves global temperature stabilising at or below before 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The second pathway sees warming exceed 1.5C around mid-century, remain above 1.5C for a maximum duration of a few decades, and return to below 1.5C before 2100. The latter is often referred to as an ‘overshoot’ pathway.”

The charts below illustrate the difference, with an “overshoot” pathway on the left and a stabilisation pathway on the right.

Two main pathways for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C: stabilising warming at, or just below, 1.5C (right) and warming temporarily exceeding 1.5C before coming back down later in the century (left). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Two main pathways for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C: stabilising warming at, or just below, 1.5C (right) and warming temporarily exceeding 1.5C before coming back down later in the century (left). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Below, as the table from chapter two (pdf) shows, the emissions scenarios used in the report fall into different categories, according to how much they overshoot 1.5C. Notably, only nine of the 90 1.5C scenarios stay below 1.5C for the entire 21st century. The other 81 all overshoot at some point.

This issue led the European Union to reportedly argue last week that overshoot scenarios should not count as aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit.

 

IPCC5

According to the SPM, in order to limit warming to 1.5C with “no or limited overshoot”, net global CO2 emissions need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net zero” by around 2050.

In other words, by the middle of this century, the CO2 emitted by human activities needs to be matched by the CO2 deliberately taken out of the atmosphere through negative emissions techniques, such as afforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

For 2C, CO2 emissions will need to decline by about 20% by 2030 and reach net zero around 2075.

Both the 1.5C and 2C limits would also need similar “deep reductions” in non-CO2 emissions, such as methane and nitrous oxide, the SPM adds.

The graphic below illustrates how steeply CO2 emissions (left) and non-CO2 emissions (right) need to fall for 1.5C. The blue lines and shading show examples of pathways that meet the 1.5C limit with little (0-0.2C) or no overshoot, while the grey shows those where temperatures have a “high” temporary overshoot before coming back down again.

The requirement to reach net zero by 2050 is the same for future pathways with and without overshoot, chapter two notes.

Illustration of the timings of net zero for CO2 for meeting the 1.5C limit under “no or limited overshoot” (blue) and “high overshoot” (grey) scenarios. Also shown are emissions reductions required for methane, black carbon and nitrous oxide (right). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

Illustration of the timings of net zero for CO2 for meeting the 1.5C limit under “no or limited overshoot” (blue) and “high overshoot” (grey) scenarios. Also shown are emissions reductions required for methane, black carbon and nitrous oxide (right). Credit: IPCC (pdf)

So, how do current ambitions to cut emissions compare with these targets?

As part of the Paris Agreement, individual countries and the EU submitted pledges to reduce their emissions, known as “Nationally Determined Contributions”, or “NDCs”. These commitments run up to 2025 or 2030, with the intention that ambition is “ratcheted up” through the century.

However, as they stand, the cumulative emissions reductions are some way off the pathway to 1.5C, says chapter two:

“Under emissions in line with current pledges under the Paris Agreement, global warming is expected to surpass 1.5C, even if they are supplemented with very challenging increases in the scale and ambition of mitigation after 2030.”

Essentially, following such a relatively slow pace of emissions cuts for the next decade or so would would mean emissions need to drop to net zero even earlier – by 2045. And even if that were achieved, holding warming to 1.5C would still not be guaranteed.

As an FAQ from chapter two concludes:

“With the national pledges as they stand, warming would exceed 1.5C, at least for a period of time, and practices and technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a global scale would be required to return warming to 1.5C at a later date.”

What would it take to limit warming to 1.5C?

Cutting emissions to meet a 1.5C limit would require “rapid and far-reaching transitions” across the global economy, the SPM says.

These transitions would need to transform the way energy is used and the sources it comes from; the way land use and agricultural systems are organised; and the types and quantities of food and material that are consumed. The summary continues:

“These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options.”

The details of these transformations are set out in more detail in the 113-page chapter two (pdf) of the report and a 99-page technical annex (pdf), based on research using integrated assessment models (IAMs). These IAMs combine different strands of knowledge to explore how human development and societal choices interact with and affect the natural world.

(See Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer on IAMs for more on what they are and the ways they are limited.)

One “key finding”, says chapter two of the report, is that there are many different ways to meet the 1.5C limit under a wide spread of assumptions about future human and economic development. These pathways reflect different futures in terms of global politics and societal preferences, implying different trade-offs and co-benefits for sustainable development and other priorities.

However, all 1.5C pathways share certain features, including CO2 emissions falling to net-zero and unabated coal use being largely phased out by mid-century. They also include renewables meeting the majority of future electricity supplies, with energy use being electrified and made more efficient.

Investment in unabated coal is “halted” by 2030 in “most” 1.5C pathways, says chapter two. It adds:

“Some fossil investments made over the next few years – or those made in the last few – will likely need to be retired prior to fully recovering their capital investment or before the end of their operational lifetime.”

These changes are even more stark for the electricity sector, which is “virtually full[y] decarbonised…around mid-century”. This means that by 2050, coal use in the power sector falls to “close to 0%” and renewables supply 70-85% of the electricity mix.

Not including bioenergy, renewable deployment in 1.5C pathways increases between six and 14-fold by 2050, compared to 2010. Nuclear energy use increases in “most” 1.5C pathways, the report says – but not in all of them.

In addition, 1.5C pathways all include deep cuts in other greenhouse gases, such as a 35% reduction in methane emissions below 2010 levels by 2050.

“The energy transition is accelerated by several decades in 1.5C pathways compared to 2C pathways,” chapter two explains.

In addition to shifting to zero-carbon electricity, extra reductions in 1.5C versus 2C pathways come mainly from transport and industry, it says, with emissions from industry falling 75-90% below 2010 levels by 2050.

Furthermore, energy demand is tempered to a greater degree by efforts to improve end-use efficiency.

It is worth noting that IAMs have a well-known bias towards technological solutions, such as switching the source of energy supply or adding carbon capture and storage(CCS). Scientists have started to explore other ways to limit warming to 1.5C, for example by radically changing the way energy is used.

Finally, it is worth adding that IAM pathways are only really able to explore what is technically feasible. As explained in a lengthy section of chapter one of the report, this is distinct from what is socially, environmentally, politically or institutionally feasible.

Though some aspects of these broader questions are explored in chapter four (pdf), the report does not – and cannot – say whether it will, ultimately, be possible to avoid 1.5C of warming.

What does the report say about the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C?

One of the key tools that scientists have used in recent years to communicate the urgency of cutting emissions to meet the 1.5C limit is the idea of a “carbon budget”. This is essentially the amount of CO2 the human activity can emit into the atmosphere and still hold warming to the 1.5C limit.

Based on estimates made in the IPCC’s most recent assessment report (“AR5”), published in 2013-14, there were around 120 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) remaining in the budget from the beginning of 2018 for a 66% chance of avoiding 1.5C warming. That is equivalent to just three years of current global emissions.

However, since AR5 was published, a number of new research papers using different methods have suggested that the 1.5C is actually substantially larger. And as the remaining budget for 1.5C is – by any measure – relatively small, the choice of approach can make quite a difference.

The IPCC’s report takes these new approaches on board and expands the 1.5C budget, pushing it out to 420GtCO2 – equivalent to around 10 years of current emissions.

In a separate analysis piece published today, Carbon Brief has delved into the detail of this new, larger carbon budget and expanded on the reasons behind the shift.

Despite the change, it is worth noting that the key message remains the same: global CO2 emissions need to fall to net-zero by mid-century to avoid 1.5C of warming.

And even with the revised 1.5C carbon budget, it is unlikely to be the end of the debate. There are still a number of large uncertainties remaining, such as how to account for non-CO2 factors, what observational temperature datasets should be used, and whether Earth-system feedbacks, such as melting permafrost, are taken into account.

What role will ‘negative emissions’ play in limiting warming to 1.5C?

The report acknowledges that limiting warming to 1.5C will require the use of “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) – methods that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. In the report, these techniques are referred to as “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR).

To limit global temperature rise to 1.5C without overshoot, some use of NETs will be needed, the SPM notes:

“All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5C with limited or no overshoot project the use of CDR on the order of 100-1,000GtCO2 [billion tonnes] over the 21st century.”

And, if global temperatures do overshoot 1.5C, large-scale use of NETs will be required in order to bring warming back down, Prof Piers Forster told a press briefing:

“I think one of the most of the important things in the terms of this 1.5C report are these high overshooting scenarios where temperatures go above 1.7C and then return to below 1.5C by the end of the century. These scenarios will only be possible if we hugely invest in, scale up and build the technology for CO2 removal.”

It is worth noting that the SPM appears to underestimate the degree to which NETs could be needed in order to limit warming to 1.5C in comparison to the full report, says Dr Oliver Geden, head of the research at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, who was not a report author. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The SPM states that conventional mitigation is not enough and that there’s an additional need for CDR. Compared to the full report, the SPM paints too rosy a picture on this. The SPM talks about 100-1,000GtCO2 removal by 2100. But the report itself shows a mean CDR value much closer to the upper end of the 100-1,000GtCO2 range.”

The amount of CO2 that will need to be removed using NETs depends on how quickly and effectively cuts are made to global greenhouse gas emissions, the report says.

Even with rapid mitigation efforts, it is likely that NETs will be required to offset emissions from sectors that cannot easily reduce their emissions to zero, researchshows. These sectors include rice and meat production, which produce methane, and air travel.

The degree to which NETs will be needed matters because each of them come with “economic and institutional barriers” – as well as possible impacts on people and wildlife, Prof Heleen de Coninck, a researcher in climate change mitigation and policy from Radboud University in the Netherlands and coordinating lead author of chapter four of the report, told a press briefing.

For instance, several of the NETs would require the world to drastically change the way it uses the land. This includes bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation.

BECCS involves growing crops, burning them to produce energy, capturing the CO2 that is released during the process and storing it in an underground site. Afforestation, meanwhile, involves turning barren land into forest. Because plants absorb CO2 as they grow, both techniques would effectively remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

However, if these techniques were deployed at scale, they could compete for land with food production and natural habitats, the SPM says:

“Afforestation and bioenergy may compete with other land uses and may have significant impacts on agricultural and food systems, biodiversity and other ecosystem functions and services.”

The charts below show four possible pathways for reaching 1.5C. On the charts, grey shows fossil fuel emissions, while yellow and brown show the emissions reductions achieved by BECCS, and agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), respectively.

(Note that AFOLU also includes emissions reductions from other land-based NETS, such as natural forest regeneration and soil carbon sequestration.)

Four illustrative scenarios for limiting temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Grey shows fossil fuel emissions, while yellow and brown show the emissions reductions achieved by BECCS, and agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), respectively. Source: Summary for Policymakers, IPCC

Four illustrative scenarios for limiting temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Grey shows fossil fuel emissions, while yellow and brown show the emissions reductions achieved by BECCS, and agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), respectively. Source: Summary for Policymakers, IPCC

The P1 pathway assumes that the world rapidly reduces its fossil fuel emissions after 2020. This is largely achieved by reducing the global demand for energy, chiefly by switching to more energy-efficient technologies and behaviours. This pathway requires a relatively small amount of negative emissions, which is expected to be achieved via afforestation.

The P2 pathway also sees the world switch towards sustainable and healthy consumption patterns, low-carbon technology innovation, and well-managed land systems – this time with a limited amount of BECCS.

The P3 pathway is a “middle-of-the-road scenario” in which historical social and economic trends continue. Emissions reductions are mainly achieved by changing the way in which energy is produced and to a lesser degree by reductions in demand. This scenario requires a relatively large amount of BECCS.

The P4 pathway is a “resource and energy-intensive scenario”, which sees a growth in demand for high-energy products, such as air travel and meat. Emissions reductions are mainly achieved through BECCS.

(Pathways 1-3 see little-to-no overshoot of the 1.5C target, whereas P4 expects a high chance of overshoot.)

The chart below – which is taken from page 46 of chapter two (pdf) of the main report – shows the expected land-use change in 2050 and 2100 under each scenario. It is important to note that, on this chart, P1, P2, P3 and P4, correspond with “LED”, “S1”, “S2” and “S5”, respectively.

On the chart, expected land-use change for food crops (pink), energy crops (orange), forest (turquoise), “natural” land (blue) and pasture (green) are shown. Any number below zero indicates an overall decrease, while any number above shows expected increase.

 

Expected land-use change (million hectares) under four illustrative scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Land-use change for food crops (pink), energy crops (orange), forest (turquoise), “natural” land (blue) and pasture (green) are shown. Source: IPCC

Expected land-use change (million hectares) under four illustrative scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Land-use change for food crops (pink), energy crops (orange), forest (turquoise), “natural” land (blue) and pasture (green) are shown. Source: IPCC

The chart indicates how that, even in the scenario assuming the lowest possible reliance on negative emissions (P1/LED), land-use change is still expected to be substantial. Under P1/LED, it is assumed that 500m hectares of land – an area that is roughly twice the size of Argentina – is converted to forest by 2100. The pathway expects a similar-sized reduction in pastureland.

The P2/S1 pathway, which sees only limited use of BECCS, also expects large areas of land to be converted to forests, the report authors note on page 45:

“In pathways that allow for large-scale afforestation in addition to BECCS, land demand for afforestation can be larger than for BECCS. This follows from the assumption in the modelled pathways that, unlike bioenergy crops, forests are not harvested to allow unabated carbon storage on the same patch of land.”

However, in addition to the possible impacts of each of the NETs, the researchers also had to consider their overall level of “maturity” – or feasibility, Prof Jim Skea, co-chair of working group III (WG3) and chair of sustainable energy at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:

“Some of the nature-based techniques are definitely mature in the sense that we are doing them now and they are ready – it’s a question of the scale and the incentives that are needed for seeing them through.”

These “nature-based techniques”, which are also known as “natural climate solutions”, include afforestation, natural habitat regeneration and enhancing soil carbon stocks.

In comparison, BECCS should be considered less mature than nature-based methods, Skea says. This is because, although carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been demonstrated on a small scale at several sites across the world, it has not been shown to work alongside bioenergy at scale. “We’ve never really combined them together,” he says:

“Some of the other methods are lot more conceptual – for example, the enhanced weatheringof rock. Scientists believe it could be done. That’s what’s meant by the different levels of maturity. Some are ready to go now – they just need more incentives, others need a bit more development work.”

Could ‘solar geoengineering’ play a role in meeting 1.5C?

Solar geoengineering is only mentioned once in the SPM and 11 times in chapter four(pdf) of the report, where it is referred to as “solar radiation modification” (SRM).

SRM refers to a group of untested technologies that could, theoretically, reduce global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight that is reflected away from the Earth.

The report lists four of what it calls the “most-studied” options for SRM: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, cirrus-cloud thinning and high-albedo crops and buildings. (More information on how these methods would work is detailed in Carbon Brief’s explainer on SRM.)

A lack of available scientific research led the authors to focus on just one of the proposed options, Prof Heleen de Coninck told the press briefing:

“The type of SRM we looked at was mainly stratospheric aerosol injection because that is what most of the literature is about. There’s been no experiments done so there’s no experimental evidence to assess – that’s why we’re saying it can only theoretically be effective in reducing the temperature.”

In accordance with the available scientific research, the report only considers “SRM as a supplement to deep mitigation, for example, in overshoot scenarios,” the authors say. The SPM reads:

“Although some SRM measures may be theoretically effective in reducing an overshoot, they face large uncertainties and knowledge gaps as well as substantial risks, institutional and social constraints to deployment related to governance, ethics, and impacts on sustainable development. They also do not mitigate ocean acidification.”

One ethical concern is a possible “moral hazard effect”, de Coninck says, which is the idea that research and development into solar geoengineering could deter policymakers from pursuing stringent mitigation.

Another risk mentioned in the report is “termination shock”. This is the fear that, if solar geoengineering was deployed and then suddenly stopped – as a result of political disagreement or a terrorist attack, for example – global temperatures could rapidly rebound.

This sharp temperature change could be “catastrophic” for wildlife, studies have suggested. However, other research argues that the likelihood of a termination shock has been “overplayed” and that measures could be put in place to ensure that the risk is minimised.

Many of the risks posed by SRM have not yet been adequately assessed by scientific research, de Coninck says:

“We’re not saying it’s not viable – that would be going beyond the IPCC’s mandate – but we’re noting that…it’s still a very developing field.”

What are the costs and benefits of meeting the 1.5C limit?

One obvious question about the 1.5C limit is whether it is worth meeting. In other words, do the benefits of avoided climate damages due to flooding, for example, outweigh the cumulative costs of cutting emissions?

Unfortunately, SR15 explicitly does not look at the total cost of 1.5C pathways. This is because the scientific literature on the subject is “limited”. Instead, the report looks at the global average “marginal abatement costs” this century. In other words, the costs per tonne of avoided emissions.

These marginal abatement costs are sometimes ambiguously referred to as the price of carbon used in IAM model pathways. This is not the same as a target or “required” carbon price in the real world, not least because IAMs often use a carbon price as a proxy for all other climate policy. Chapter two explains:

“A price on carbon can be imposed directly by carbon pricing or implicitly by regulatory policies. Other policy instruments, like technology policies or performance standards, can complement carbon pricing in specific areas.”

Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that carbon pricing should increase in order to meet more stringent climate goals, says chapter two.

In general, the SPM says that marginal abatement costs are roughly three to four times higher in 1.5C pathways, compared to 2C. It also sets out estimated investment needs for 1.5C pathways:

“Total annual average energy-related mitigation investment for the period 2015 to 2050 in pathways limiting warming to 1.5C is estimated to be around $900bn…Annual investment in low-carbon energy technologies and energy efficiency are upscaled by roughly a factor of five by 2050 compared to 2015.”

The SPM adds that “knowledge gaps” make it difficult to compare these mitigation costs against the benefits of avoided warming. For example, adaptation costs at 1.5C “might” be lower than for 2C, the SPM says, though it adds that costs are “difficult to quantify and compare”. Chapter two says:

“Pathways that are consistent with sustainable development show fewer mitigation and adaptation challenges and are associated with lower mitigation costs.”

Notably, however, while IAM pathways set out the costs of limiting warming to 1.5C, they do not generally consider the benefits of doing so, says the technical annex (pdf) to chapter two.

Meanwhile, these potential avoided climate damages from limiting warming to 1.5C are highly uncertain, as chapter three (pdf) of the report explains:

“Balancing of the costs and benefits of mitigation is challenging because estimating the value of climate change damages depends on multiple parameters whose appropriate values have been debated for decades (for example, the appropriate value of the discount rate) or that are very difficult to quantify (for example,the value of non-market impacts; the economic effects of losses in ecosystem services; and the potential for adaptation, which is dependent on the rate and timing of climate change and on the socioeconomic content).”

The best estimate of cumulative discounted damages due to 1.5C of warming by 2100 amounts to $54tn, the report says, rising to $69tn for 2C.

Will the world be able to adapt to 1.5C and beyond?

The report finds that, in general, the need for adaptation to climate change will be lower at 1.5C than 2C. However, it warns that, even if global warming is limited to 1.5C, it will not be possible to prepare for all of the impacts of climate change.

The report describes human adaptation to climate change as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities”.

There are a number measures that could be taken to limit the impact of climate change on humans, the report says.

The table below – taken from pages 38-9 of chapter four (pdf) of the report – details eight “overarching” options for adaptation. The first column lists the conditions needed for the options to work and the second offers examples of where the options have already been implemented.

Eight “overarching” options for adapting for climate change. The first column lists the conditions needed for the options to work and second offers examples of where the options have already been implemented. Source: IPCC

Eight “overarching” options for adapting for climate change. The first column lists the conditions needed for the options to work and second offers examples of where the options have already been implemented. Source: IPCC

 

The first option, disaster risk management, is defined by the authors as “a process for designing, implementing and evaluating strategies, policies and measures to improve the understanding of disaster risk, and promoting improvement in disaster preparedness, response and recovery”.

As temperatures continue to rise, there is likely to be an “increased demand to integrate DRM and adaptation”, the authors write, “to reduce vulnerability, but institutional, technical and financial capacity challenges in frontline agencies constitute constraints”.

Another adaptation option discussed in the table is migration. The report notes that, at present, there is “low agreement as to whether migration is adaptive, in relation to cost effectiveness”. It says:

“Migrating can have mixed outcomes on reducing socio-economic vulnerability and its feasibility is constrained by low political and legal acceptability, and inadequate institutional capacity.”

In contrast to the report, migration is not listed as an adaptation option in the SPM.

The last adaptation option, “climate services”, refers to the possible dissemination of relevant climate information via daily forecasts and weather advisories, as well as seasonal forecasts and even multi-decadal projections. These kinds of services are already being used in sectors such as agriculture, health, disaster management, the report notes.

A number of steps could also be taken to reduce the risks facing natural ecosystems, the report says. These include restoring degraded natural spaces, strengthening actions to halt deforestation and pursuing sustainable agriculture and aquaculture.

The total costs associated with adapting to global warming of 1.5C are “difficult to quantify and compare with 2C,” says the SPM. This is largely to gaps in the scientific literature, the report authors say.

The SPM notes that adaptation has, typically, been funded by public sector sources, such as national governments, channels associated with the UN and through multilateral climate funds.

What are the links between 1.5C and poverty?

The final chapter of the report (chapter five, pdf) is dedicated to examining how climate change could impact sustainable development, poverty and inequality.

The SPM notes that, across the world, poorer communities are likely to be impacted disproportionately by global warming of 1.5C or higher.

“Populations at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences of global warming of 1.5C and beyond include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples, and local communities dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods.”

A large proportion of the world’s poor rely on subsistence farming and so will be directly affected by the impact of climate change on temperature, rainfall and drought, says Prof Chuks Okereke, lead author of chapter five from the department of geography and environmental science at the University of Reading. He told a press briefing:

“A key finding of the report is these efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C can actually go hand in hand with many other intended to address issues of inequality and poverty eradication.”

In fact, limiting temperature rise to 1.5C rather than 2C could save “several hundred million” people from facing poverty by 2050, according to the report.

In addition, limiting global warming could also help the world to achieve many of the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), the report says. The 17 SDGs are a set of targets, agreed in 2015, that aim to “end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity” by 2030, according to the UN Development Programme.

It is worth noting, however, that, in some cases, actions to limit warming to 1.5C could come with trade-offs with the SDGs, the SPM notes:

“Mitigation options consistent with 1.5C pathways are associated with multiple synergies and trade-offs across the SDGs. While the total number of possible synergies exceeds the number of trade-offs, their net effect will depend on the pace and magnitude of changes, the composition of the mitigation portfolio and the management of the transition.”

The chart below summarises the potential positive (synergies) and negative (trade-offs) effects of mitigation options for reaching 1.5C on each of the SDGs. On the chart, the total length of the bars represent the size of the positive or negative effect, while shading shows the level of confidence (light to dark: low to very high).

The mitigation techniques are split into three sectors: energy supply, energy demand and land. Options assessed in the energy supply sector include biomass and renewables, nuclear, BECCS, and CCS with fossil fuels. The energy demand sector comprises options for improving energy efficiency in the transport and building sectors. The land sector comprises afforestation and reduced deforestation, sustainable agriculture, low-meat diets and a reduction in food waste, and soil carbon management.

You can read the Q&A in its entirety here.

What’s next?

In the short term, the report will be used immediately by the people who first requested it nearly three years ago in Paris – the world’s governments.

Climate negotiators from almost 200 countries are due to meet in Poland in December at the next annual round of talks. The IPCC report is certain to be cited and quoted by negotiators from a variety of countries as they, among other things, try to agree on the “rulebook” for the Paris Agreement.

The IPCC itself will now turn its attention to two more special reports before it publishes its sixth assessment report (pdf) in 2021. In September 2019, at a meeting in Kenya, it is due to finalise a special report on the “ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate”. At the same time, it will also finalise a special report on “climate change and land”.

In the UK, the government said earlier this year that, once the IPCC report is out, it will ask its official advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, to assess the “implications” of revising the Climate Change Act 2008 to better reflect the Paris Agreement’s goals.

The Climate Change Act legally commits the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by “at least” 80% by 2050 against 1990 levels. Claire Perry, the minister for energy and clean growth, has said on a number of occasions since that announcement in April that governments need to “raise ambition to avert catastrophic climate change”.

As Carbon Brief explained at the time, the CCC has already said that a global 1.5C limit would mean a more ambitious 2050 goal for the UK, in the range of 86-96% below 1990 levels, as well as setting a net-zero target at some point.

We don’t need more doomsday climate predictions. We need solutions — like this one.

By David Von Drehle
View the original article here.

High waters flood Market and Water Streets as Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Wilmington, N.C., on Friday.

High waters flood Market and Water Streets as Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Wilmington, N.C., on Friday.

Like most people (according to polls), I believe greenhouse gases trap heat — a fact easily proved by experiments simple enough to perform at home. More greenhouse gases will trap more heat. And when temperatures rise on Earth, they impact the entire ecosystem.

The case for limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is all right there. Most people get it. Yet many of our most passionate citizens on this topic seem to believe that only panic will produce results. In trying to stimulate alarm, however, they often wind up fortifying the dwindling but stubborn cadre of skeptics.

Case in point: Hurricane Florence. As the cyclone worked its way up the Saffir-Simpson scale of storm strength, I braced for the inevitable pronouncements that climate change is making our storms worse, with Florence as Exhibit A. Then the incredible complexity of climate kicked in. The cyclone went to pieces (as most of them, thankfully, do) and staggered ashore as a very wet and dangerous Category 1 storm. Power was knocked out, homes were flooded, trees were snapped or torn up by the roots. An unpleasant, unwelcome visitor, but hardly unprecedented.

Climate activists should get out of the prediction business, because climate is too complex to be reduced to a single factor. The strongest storm to hit the United States continues to be the Labor Day hurricane of — wait for it — 1935, which wiped out entire towns in the Florida Keys. Runner-up: Camille in 1969. Billions and billions and billions of tons of carbon dioxide have been pumped into the atmosphere since those storms raged.

Looking backward rather than ahead, however, a tentative case, a hypothesis, could be ventured that we are in fact seeing greater frequency of strong storms. Since the introduction of weather satellites in the 1960s made comprehensive tracking possible, meteorologists have calculated the total energy of Atlantic cyclones each year. All seven seasons of greatest hurricane energy have come since 1995. Even so, the years from 2013 through 2015 were unusually calm.

But debating over doomsdays only empowers the climate skeptics, because it takes a topic of consensus and puts it in the realm of dispute. People don’t need more fear of climate change. They need more hope for solutions. And one single step could galvanize the awesome power of America’s economy toward answers: cap and trade.

Capping total carbon dioxide emissions nationwide and allowing producers to trade emission permits are not an intrusion on the free market, as some conservatives have complained of the trailblazing program underway in California. Instead, cap and trade empowers the market. As Adam Smith explained, the wealth-creating genius of a free market stems from its ability to efficiently gather vast stores of data about people’s needs and wants and convey that information to producers through the simple signal of what people are willing to pay. Good old supply and demand.

Carbon emissions impose social costs. But most of the U.S. economy is blind to that information. Without an overall cap on emissions, the market thinks that supply — in this case, the ability to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — is infinite and thus the cost of emitting is zero. Cap and trade switches on a price signal, which in turn focuses the creativity, innovation and efficiency of the entire economy on cutting emissions without sacrificing quality of life. The free market does what it does best (more Adam Smith): lowers production costs while maintaining and enhancing the appeal of its products.

Opponents of cap and trade say the idea has failed in Europe, but the hiccups in that market are attributable to weakness of the European Union — Brussels set its cap too high — and the slow European economy. A more revealing case comes from here at home. In 1995, the United States capped sulfur dioxide emissions (the primary cause of acid rain) and issued tradable permits. By 2010, according to one gimlet-eyed assessment, emissions were down nearly 70 percent and health-care costs were reduced by as much as $100 billion.

Admittedly, carbon emissions are a more complex market than sulfur emissions. Everyone has a carbon footprint, while sulfur dioxide is mainly a byproduct of coal-burning power plants. But there are many ubiquitous commodities in our lives: virtually everyone uses steel, paper, electricity, water, wheat and so on. Somehow, the market manages to put a price on all of them and efficiently collect those costs from willing consumers.

When carbon-dioxide emissions reflect what most of us agree to be their true costs, capitalists throughout the economy will turn their resources to cutting those costs. They will discover greater efficiencies. They will invest in alternative energy. They will sink money into inventions and technologies undreamed of today. They will move with speed and agility no government bureaucracy can match.

You might say I’m predicting a Category 5 storm of hope. But this is the U.S. economy I’m talking about; its potential power is never in doubt.

The Religions of the World Agree: Being Sustainable Is a Moral imperative; So, How Can We Bring the Ecology of Faith Home

PJ PictureBy: Paul L. Jones, CPA
LEED Green Associate
Director, Financial Advisory Services for Emerald Skyline Corporation

“Climate change is the most serious issue facing humanity today. It is already seriously impacting economies, ecosystems, and people worldwide. Left unchecked, it will cause tremendous suffering for all living beings.” From the International Dharma Teachers’ Statement on Climate Change, 1/8/2014

Because creation was entrusted to human stewardship, the natural world is not just a resource to be exploited but also a reality to be respected and even reverenced as a gift and trust from God. It is the task of human beings to care for, preserve and cultivate the treasures of creation.” Saint Pope John Paul II, The Church in Oceania, 2001, n.31

“For the Church of the 21st Century, good ecology is not an optional extra, but a matter of justice. It is therefore central to what it means to be a Christian.” Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church Care, Church of England

“We are convinced that there can be no sincere and enduring resolution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless the response is concerted and collective, unless the responsibility is shared and accountable, unless we give priority to solidarity and service.” From the Joint message from Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the World Day of Prayer for Creation, September 1, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-10-03 at 11.59.24 AM

‘Ecology’ (from the Greek oikos) refers to the Earth as our home; our place of wellbeing. For Christians, ecological stewardship is the conviction that every gift of nature and grace comes from God and that the human person is not the absolute owner of his or her gifts or possessions but rather the trustee or steward of them. These gifts are given in trust for the building of the Kingdom of God. Christians are called to appreciate the spiritual and theological significance of the Earth and to exercise ecological stewardship of the Earth and its resources. The gifts of creation are not simply there for human use, but have their own dignity, value and integrity.

In April 2016, Muslim leaders delivered the Islamic climate change declaration. From an article announcing its’ release, “Islam teaches us that ‘man is simply a steward holding whatever is on earth in trust’,” says Nana Firman, Co-Chair of the Global Muslim Climate Network. “The Declaration calls upon all nations and their leaders to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and support vulnerable communities, both in addressing the impacts of climate change and in harnessing renewable energy.”

“Mahatma Gandhi urged, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’ If alive today, he would call upon Hindus to set the example, to change our lifestyle, to simplify our needs and restrain our desires. As one sixth of the human family, Hindus can have a tremendous impact. We can and should take the lead in Earth-friendly living, personal frugality, lower power consumption, alternative energy, sustainable food production and vegetarianism, as well as in evolving technologies that positively address our shared plight.” From the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change

“In the Jewish liturgy there is a prayer called Aleinu in which we ask that the world be soon perfected under the sovereignty of God (le-takein ‘olam  be-malkhut Shaddai). Tikkun ‘olam, the perfecting or the repairing of the world, has become a major theme in modern Jewish social justice theology. It is usually expressed as an activity, which must be done by humans in partnership with God. It is an important concept in light of the task ahead in environmentalism. In our ignorance and our greed, we have damaged the world and silenced many of the voices of the choir of Creation. Now we must fix it. There is no one else to repair it but us.” by Rabbi Lawrence Troster

So, all of the world’s major religions and all of the spiritual leaders of the world agree: Being a faithful steward in the care of His Creation is a religious and spiritual mandate: It is our obligation. But then we see churches that run the air conditioning full blast – when only a few people are present or we witness waste in water consumption, food preparation and other church, school and ecological waste in related parish activities. I think this lack of prioritization among every pastor, priest, rabbi, imam, swami and teacher, not just the leadership of a few, as evidenced by the failure to make every building occupied by a religious or spiritual institution sustainable.

As Saint James tells us “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of Wisdom.” (James 3:13)

Hartford Institute estimates there are roughly 350,000 religious congregations in the United States. This estimate relies on the RCMS 2010 religious congregations census. Of those, about 314,000 are Protestant and other Christian churches, and 24,000 are Catholic and Orthodox churches. Non-Christian religious congregations are estimated at about 12,000.

According to the Catholic Climate Covenant in their presentation on the Catholic Covenant Energies program, “there are an estimated 70,000 Catholic-owned buildings in the United States.” Considering that the Catholic Church represents less than 10% of all religious congregations in the U.S., the opportunity for reducing the carbon footprint through sustainable practices in our churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, day care centers and other facilities operated by religious congregations is enormous. The Covenant calculates that by implementing proven and affordable conservation measures, Catholic-owned buildings can reduce energy use in buildings owned by 25% saving the Catholic Church $630 million in energy costs, “reducing energy use by an equivalent of 8.7 million tons of coal.”

Now, imagine if all faith denominations practiced what they preached – and not just in the United States but throughout the world! The Church and all religious denominations would then make a real – and positive – impact on the lives of all people, reducing suffering and promoting the cause of social justice. Further, the savings from lower utility bills and other sustainable practices can be diverted to core Church ministries like education, youth outreach and the care of the least in their community. Finally, through the implementation of sustainable practices, parishioners would learn how to be sustainable in their personal lives – saving on their utility bills helps the poor afford other necessities – life food or medicine.

So, what is a congregation to do?

In his book, “Inspiring Progress: Religions’ Contributions to Sustainable Development,” Gary Gardner, provides five capacities in which religion can help meet the challenge posed by climate change and sea level rise:

  1. Engage members of faith-based groups
  2. Moral authority – offer ethical guidelines and religious leadership
  3. Provide meaning by shaping world views and new paradigms of well-being
  4. Share physical resources; and
  5. Build community to support sustainable practices

And then there is the key to the Kingdom, be sustainable. Here are some of the most cost-effective steps any parish can take to begin the process of becoming a sustainable religious community. These steps can help reduce energy bills, tackle climate change and build a more sustainable future.

  • Air seal doors, windows and any other drafty locations which reduces the waste of energy used to heat or cool the facility;
  • Employ energy efficiency technology that optimizes energy performance which includes LED lighting, occupancy sensors, and insulating hot water storage tanks.
  • Be prudent in energy use: adjusting the thermostats 1 degree lower in the church, parish hall or other facilities can cut heating costs 5 percent over the course of a heating season. Setting the air-conditioning a few degrees higher has an equal effect; and
  • Improve water use efficiency by using low-flush toilets and urinals in parish facilities, landscaping with plants that don’t require a lot of water, collecting and reusing water for irrigation, employing detection devices to fix leaking pipes and plumbing (Installing high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and appliances can help reduce indoor water use by one-third, saving on water and sewer bills, and cutting energy use by as much as 6 percent);
  • Choose local suppliers and contractors who employ sustainable practices like energy efficiencies and use of “green” products;
  • Identify and employ wider, imaginative ways – like a temporary farmer’s market, reversible accommodation for classes, meetings and other uses to use church properties when not engaged in worship; and
  • Reduce, reuse and recycle.

Then, pewsthere are larger projects – like replacing HVAC equipment and appliances that are near the end of their functional life; adding solar panels, installing a geo-thermal plant, replacing vehicles with fuel-efficient, electric, hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles and encourage use of mass transit, carpooling and telecommuting.

The Catholic Climate Covenant and its sister organization, Catholic Covenant Energies, a non-profit organization which is working with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and similar for-profit organizations like Commons Energy which is working with the Archdiocese of Vermont are available to provide financing.

Now is the time for our religions to take the lead in bringing sustainable practices to their properties, to their parishes and to their community… From the first letter of Saint John (3:18), “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in Truth.”

Exxon boss: climate change is ‘real’ and ‘serious’

The company is accused of ignoring its own climate change science for years.

By: Alejandro Dávila Fragoso
View the original article at ThinkProgress.

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ExxonMobil Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson. CREDIT: AP/Evan Vucci

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said Wednesday the company backs a price on carbon and believes climate change brings “real” risks that require “serious” action.

Speaking at the Oil & Money conference in London, Tillerson also noted that the Paris climate accord set to kick in this November is unlikely to limit near-term consumption of oil and gas, Climate Central reported.

“We have long used a proxy cost of carbon… there’s a range depending on the country, depending on the tax that we think would be appropriate,” he said. “We’re trying to influence and inform people and business on the choices they make.”

Tillerson’s comments come amidst accusations that Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest listed oil and gas company, for years ignored company scientists who warned about climate change as early as 1977. The company has also been accused of funding climate science denial groups. Since the story broke in 2015, multiple state attorneys general, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, and organizations have subpoenaed the company to give investigators 40 years of documents on research findings and communications about climate change.

Exxon denies the accusations and has even sued some state AGs. On Monday, after almost a year of cooperating, the company sued in a Texas federal court to block the subpoenas from New York and Massachusetts, Inside Climate News reported.

In a news release, Exxon called the New York and Massachusetts investigations “biased attempts to further a political agenda for financial gain.” The company said Schneiderman and others are colluding with anti-oil and gas activists. For more than decade “it has widely and publicly confirmed” the risk of climate change and its potential impacts on society and ecosystems, the company said in the news release.

Organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) dispute that, however. UCS claims that as recently as 2015, Tillerson said the world should improve its understanding of climate science before acting, and that he’s asserted climate models are inaccurate. The advocacy organization also notes Exxon is still associated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a free-market lobbying group that has worked to kill renewable energy programs, and teach climate denial in schools.

On Wednesday, Tillerson avoided the most recent controversy, but said that since 2006, Exxon has been committed to doing the “right thing the right way.”

“Integrity is in everything we do. It’s the foundation of trust and cooperation. A focus on integrity makes a corporations more effective,” he said.