Water Power’s Bright Future And 17 Other Key Stories

Posts 02 Aug 2016

Things are moving quickly as our planet makes the transition to a new, clean economy. You want to stay in the loop – but you’re busy, that’s why we keep an eye on the headlines for you!

Welcome to the 2 August 2016 edition of the Daily Planet’s weekly State Of The Planet. Don’t hesitate to send your tips and comments to @peter_koekoek or peter.koekoek@climate-kic.org.

1. Enjoying the summer in the city? Here are six urban garden projects that will blow your mind.

Urban areas are often huge contributors to climate change due to the high output of greenhouse gas emissions. So what are cities doing to solve this? One of the changes cities around the world are implementing is the development of more green spaces to reduce flooding, filter air pollution and cool local temperatures, the Daily Planet reports.

2. Scientists have been caught off-guard by record temperatures this year.

Record temperatures in the first half of 2016 have taken scientists by surprise despite widespread recognition that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense, the director of the World Climate Research Program has said according to Reuters.

3. The EU is investing an additional €62 million in wind and solar projects.

The European Investment Bank is investing up to €62 million in a new renewable energy fund, Climate Home reports, noting it is still a fraction of the €2 trillion the European Commission estimates is needed in electricity networks, energy efficiency and clean energy by 2030.

4. Water power may have a bright future in the United States.

Long before wind and solar, water was America’s top renewable energy source according to an article in the Washington Post. The United States has built enormous dams – like the Hoover Dam in Nevada – to produce tremendous amounts of energy. Yet it’s rarely talked about and lacks the excitement attached to other renewables, the article says.

But the Washington Post reports that a new study concludes that substantial growth is possible in the sector, which already is the single largest renewable source in the US, providing 6 per cent of Americans’ electricity. One key reason is the number of existing dams that are not producing any electricity, with only 2,000 out of over 80,000 dams in the US equipped to produce power.

The article also mentions emerging technologies for getting energy from water, such as marine or riverine hydrokinetics – letting water flow turn turbines without the involvement of huge dams – and wave and tidal energy.

5. Climate change has been linked to California’s wildfires.

Reports from the front lines of the recent wildfires in California have painted the scene as apocalyptic, according to Scientific American. A recent drought-fueled fire was explosive, fast-moving and devastating, burning through 38,000 acres in the Santa Clarita Valley and forcing the evacuation of more than 10,000 homes.

“Climate change has exacerbated naturally occurring droughts, and therefore fuel conditions,” said Robert Field, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies according to the Climate Central article in Scientific American. Wildfires in California have risen 500 per cent on public lands since the late 1970s.

6. Municipal governments in the United States have access to a new tool to help them plan for local climate change challenges.

Residents, communities and businesses now have easy access to climate projections, through a few easy keystrokes, for every county in the contiguous United States says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA’s newly updated Climate Explorer offers downloadable maps, graphs, and data tables of observed and projected temperature, precipitation and climate-related variables dating back to 1950 and out to 2100.

The Climate Explorer helps community leaders, business owners, municipal planners, and utility and resource managers understand – and plan for – how environmental conditions may change over the next several decades.

7. Sweden and Scotland best at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Western Europe.

Environmental campaigners have welcomed figures showing that Scotland has achieved the second-highest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Western Europe over a quarter of a century, the Independent reports. In Western Europe, Scotland’s figures were bettered only by Sweden.

8. “Vegetarian cities” can bring down greenhouse gas emissions.

Many people do not equate meat consumption with climate change, according to Newsweek. But agriculture and food production currently account for about a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, 80 per cent of which are livestock-related.

Cities across the world have introduced Meatless Mondays – a global initiative to go veg one day a week, and reduce personal meat consumption by 15 per cent, according to Newsweek.

While not a complete cultural overhaul, these small actions will serve as examples of effecting social change through public policy that governments elsewhere could replicate, according to the article.

9. “Spiral-tastic” – Climate Home has brought together three viral climate change animations.

Climate Home reports how climate scientist Ed Hawkins “broke the internet” in May with a gif that showed global temperatures spiraling since pre-industrial times.

Now, it has inspired scientists from Climate-KIC partner the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Australian-German Climate and Energy College in Melbourne to animate the rise of carbon dioxide concentrations in the air with similar graphics.

10. The Middle East is baking because of climate change.

More than war even, climate change is making the region uninhabitable according to the Economist. Unlike other parts of the world where climate change has led to milder winters, in the Middle East it has intensified summer extremes, repeated studies show according to the article.

https://twitter.com/EconomistOnce/status/760050031479119872

11. The world is on an “epic solar binge” – check out these 18 stories from 2016’s first half.

The Daily Planet has put together a selection of the solar-related climate change stories that made headlines in the first half of 2016.

12. Canada’s Justin Trudeau intends to unveil a program this autumn that will require big polluters in business to pay for their carbon emissions.

By 2030, Canada intends to see its greenhouse gas emissions fall 30 per cent from the 2005 levels of 749 megatonnes, the Guardian reports – noting that this relatively modest goal was set by the previous, Conservative, government. To get there, the country expects its businesses to play an important role in a new plan that will include a program to make companies pay for their carbon emissions.

“There’s a strong consensus among Canadian business that carbon pricing can actually be a business friendly approach to better managing the planet’s carbon resources,” the Guardian quotes John Stackhouse, a senior vice president at the Royal Bank of Canada.

Canada’s climate change minister Catherine McKenna, meanwhile, starred alongside Trudeau in a Twitter promo for the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup – which has no link to climate change, but it’s August and it is a great video!

https://twitter.com/REDBLACKS/status/759898534824906754

13. Climate change is at the heart of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.

This year, as Hillary Clinton thrusts climate change to the heart of her campaign, the issue is taking on a prominence it has never before had in a presidential general election, the New York Times reports.

During the 2012 race for president, the issue of climate change was nearly invisible. President Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, almost never spoke about it, and it did not come up during their debates. There was far more talk of ramping up oil and gas production than cutting emissions.

Clinton has stated she wants to make America “the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.”

14. Patricia Espinosa’s has taken over as the UN’s new climate chief, and this is what her first week looked like… on Twitter.

While the world is getting ready for the next global climate summit, Patricia Espinosa takes over as UNFCCC executive secretary. The Daily Planet has put together an overview of Espinosa’s first days, as seen on Twitter: from saying goodbye, to her first public appearance and a video call with the pilot of the world’s first transatlantic electric airplane.

15. Air-quality indices make pollution seem less bad than it is, Europeans better move to America if they want clean air.

This is how an article in the Economist puts it: “Smoking a whole packet of cigarettes in a day once or twice a year would certainly make someone feel ill, but probably would not kill him. Smoking even one cigarette every day for decades, though, might do so.”

This is the difference between acute and chronic exposure, according to the Economist, saying that most people don’t understand the same thing applies to air pollution. The Economist crunched a year’s worth of data collected in 15 big cities. They were gathered by Plume Labs, a Climate-KIC supported start-up based in Paris, which uses the data for its air-quality app. Based on the data, the article advises people living in cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and London to “move to America” where diesel is less common than in Europe.

16. What not to say when you pitch your green start-up.

Face it, your pitching strategy will determine the difference between getting funded or going bust, says start-up coach Eleanor Saunders. In a piece for the Daily Planet, Saunders explains how the ‘coffee shop test’ and five key tips can help you “launch your idea into the real world of mixed opinions.”

17. Is Norway a “paradox nation” – a climate leader making money on oil?

Norway wants to get rid of fossil fuel powered cars, plans to become carbon neutral by 2030 and spends billions on helping poor countries reduce their carbon footprints. But meanwhile, it’s pushing ever farther into the Arctic Ocean in search of more oil and gas, the Washington Post reports.

18. Amateur diving data could help climate change studies.

Recreational divers could play a significant part in studying the effects of climate change on oceans thanks to the decompression computers worn by many scuba enthusiasts, Engadget reports.

Looking for something to fix?

Some of these stories may just inspire your next business venture:

  • Forests won’t save the US from climate change. A new study concludes that warmer and drier weather will reduce North American forests’ growth rate through the 21st century, Tuscon.com reports.
  • Minnesota’s mosquito season is longer than it was. Thanks to climate change, mosquito season in the US state of Minnesota is now more than a month longer since 1980, according to a new study by Climate Central, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive next week’s State Of The Planet in your inbox. Don’t hesitate to send your tips and comments to @peter_koekoek or peter.koekoek@climate-kic.org!

 
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