Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[garbon]

Well, Vienna used to have about 8-10 30+ days per year (60s-90s average). It's now 3-4 times that amount.

I just realized it has been 5 years since I saw you in Vienna. Time flies.

[Sheilbh]

Yet again my old annoyance comes back  - the UK has so many natural advantages, like the 90% of the time decentish weather,  that it just spurns in an effort to be shit.

There is literally no opinion you have that I find more baffling to wrong-headed than that the UK generally has decent weather

[Josquius]

Yet again my old annoyance comes back  - the UK has so many natural advantages, like the 90% of the time decentish weather,  that it just spurns in an effort to be shit.

There is literally no opinion you have that I find more baffling to wrong-headed than that the UK generally has decent weather

I mean, its probably not the BEST weather. That would go more to, I dunno, Champagne or somewhere else in Northern France? But there you have the problem of French people.
But that the UK has a mild and balanced climate and generally optimum weather for human civilization is pretty much science no?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yet again my old annoyance comes back  - the UK has so many natural advantages, like the 90% of the time decentish weather,  that it just spurns in an effort to be shit.

There is literally no opinion you have that I find more baffling to wrong-headed than that the UK generally has decent weather

Oddly this is the area where I strongly agree with Jos 

England has excellent weather with the North of England, especially Lancashire, being particularly good 

Very few annoying insects too, truly a paradise 

[garbon]

Yet again my old annoyance comes back  - the UK has so many natural advantages, like the 90% of the time decentish weather,  that it just spurns in an effort to be shit.

There is literally no opinion you have that I find more baffling to wrong-headed than that the UK generally has decent weather

Oddly this is the area where I strongly agree with Jos 

England has excellent weather with the North of England, especially Lancashire, being particularly good 

Very few annoying insects too, truly a paradise 

I guess that is one sad perspective. Meanwhile those in the know are aware that San Diego weather is actually near perfect.

[Sheilbh]

Those opinions strike me as positively unhinged. I've not been to San Diego but can believe it. My choice would be the South of France or Italy as basically the optimal climate.

[Josquius]

Those opinions strike me as positively unhinged. I've not been to San Diego but can believe it. My choice would be the South of France or Italy as basically the optimal climate.

Italy?
The place so searingly hot that people wake up with sun rise and sleep through midday?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I've only been to San Diego once, a lovely place; but while I was there there was a heat wave and temperatures in the high thirties 

They were rushing old folk to places with aircon because most private citizens didn't bother with it as the weather is usually perfect.

Going back to climate change though, those heatwaves in coastal California do seem to be getting more frequent. Similarly the Mediterranean area is heating up in a sub-optimal way 

[grumbler]

Meanwhile those in the know are aware that San Diego weather is actually near perfect.

Word.  It was so consistently pleasant that I stopped appreciating just how pleasant it was.

[Syt]

Well, Vienna used to have about 8-10 30+ days per year (60s-90s average). It's now 3-4 times that amount.

I just realized it has been 5 years since I saw you in Vienna. Time flies.

It does.

[Norgy]

Monkeypox is now declared a "global emergency".

From the NYT:

W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak
The epidemic is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the virus has now appeared in a dozen other African countries.

This sounds alright, though. A bit of pox again. I am certainly considering getting measles and a bit of polio to feel part of the group.

[Syt]

We're at 33 days over 30C so far. And the forecast looks like we'll easily hit 40 or more days (which continues the trend of recent years; 1961-90 the average was 9 days of 30+ up till this point in the year).

Overall we've had 85 days over 25°C this year - the average in the past was 47.

[Sheilbh]

Update on Chinese emissions peaking - it does look like they're properly transitioning from coal to non-carbon (which also supports the wider Chinese economic strategy). It seems like it may come in the next year or two (so far Chinese speed of energy transition has been running ahead of schedule generally) which will be well ahead of the 2030 target:

China Might Not Need Coal to Grow Anymore

And if it doesn't, that's very good news, indeed, for global emissions.
Matthew Zeitlin
•
August 22, 2024
China Might Not Need Coal to Grow Anymore

First it was the reservoirs in China's massive network of hydroelectric dams filling up, then it was the approval of 11 new nuclear reactors — and it's all happening as China appears to be slowing down its approval of new coal plants, according to a research group that closely follows the Chinese energy transition.

While China is hardly scrapping its network of coal plants, which power 63% of its electric grid and makes it the world's biggest consumer of coal (to the tune of about half of global coal consumption), it could mean that China is on the verge of powering its future economic growth non-carbon-emitting energy. This would mean a break with decades of coal-powered growth and could set the table for real emissions reductions from the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

It is true that many researchers consider it necessary to essentially halt approvals of new, unabated fossil fuel assets to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and hold global temperatures rise to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. But any world where emissions are falling will have gone through a transitional period where Chinese coal construction first slows down.

The report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that in the first half of this year, China has approved just 9 gigawatts of new coal plants, an 83% drop from the first six months of 2023; in 2022 and 2023, the country approved 100 gigawatts of new coal. For scale, the United States added a total of 40 gigawatts of new capacity in 2023 across all sources of energy, including non-emitting ones like solar and lower-emitting ones like natural gas.

CREA attributes this slow down to "the rapid development of clean energy, which is now being installed at levels sufficient to meet China's electricity demand growth." But China's power mix is changing on the demand side, as well. If the government continues to shift from a strategy of rapid urbanization and massive new construction projects that depend on huge amounts of steel and cement (both of which require coal to produce) to high-value manufacturing like (electric!) automobiles, the demand for coal will likely plateau and fall, with emissions following.

The report adds to a growing body of data that shows China may have hit its emissions peak already, well before its 2030 goal. Even late last year, some experts speculated that peak emission would come by 2026. "If renewables continue to cut into coal generation then a peak in China's CO2 emissions — pledged to happen before 2030 — is on the horizon, if not already here," CREA said in a release accompanying the report.

But the report cautioned that the coal sector in China is hardly down and out. There were over 40 gigawatts' worth of coal construction projects started in the first half of this year. And even if its emissions have peaked, 30% of the global total still comes from China, according to CREA, and the country is responsible for 90% of emissions growth since the signing of the Paris Agreement.

China has no issue deploying non-carbon-emitting power on a gargantuan scale — it makes up almost a third of the world's hydropower and is installing roughly the electricity consumption of France in new, non-emitting power generation on an annual basis — but still, meaningful emissions reductions won't come until these capacity additions can at least match the country's economic growth without the help of new coal.

Now, the trends may finally be pointing in the right direction. "If China maintains the trend of increasing renewable power capacity observed in [2023 and the first half of 2024], it will lead to a 20% reduction in coal power generation and a 35% reduction in overall coal consumption by 2035," the CREA report argues.

Semi-relatedly I saw Canadian tariffs of 100% (basically in line with the punitive US approach not the more legalist EU approach) on Chinese EVs. I think there is a trade-off here between concerns around China and domestic industry v energy transition. I can absolutely see the case for the US or EU trying to protect or build their own domestic industry (though I'm a little dubious - I'd note many Chinese EV companies are getting around that by ramping up manufacturing in Western entrepots like Turkey and Hungary - both in the customs union so not impacted by tariffs). I'm less sure for countries like Canada or the UK - I feel unless the US is really pushing on it like Huawei, the benefits of quicker, cheaper, broader energy transition outweigh the costs.

[Tonitrus]

While I am not at all unsympathetic to a quicker adoption/transition to EVs...the strategic danger of surrendering a massive market share of EV manufacturing to the PRC is extremely  dangerous.

[HVC]

They already make all our batteries, don't they?