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Climate Change Blog 56

Afghanistan had a series of devastating Floods in May which killed hundreds in the northern province over weeks of heavy rains. Many people were missing, 1,000s of homes were destroyed, 60,000 acres of farmland was washed away and 1,000s of animals killed. The latest devastation follows floods that killed at least 70 people in April, destroying about 2,000 homes and schools in other provinces. Abdul Aziz Ayyar, a tribal elder, fled with his 30-year-old niece and her 1 and 3-year-old daughters. He tried to help them but they were swept away and drowned. Entire villages were submersed in muddy floodwater, with women and children entirely covered in thick brown mud.

Incessant torrential rains triggered three consecutive weeks of deadly flooding in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul in late-May, destroying the region, a key part of the agricultural sector of Brazil’s economy. Over 150 fatalities were reported with 104 people missing, and about 600,000 people were displaced. More than 2 million people were impacted by the unprecedented floods, which meteorologists attributed to global warming. The Guaíba river, which runs by the state capital Porto Alegre, breached its banks and rose to a record high of 5.33 meters at its peak compared to its previous record high of 4.76 meters set in 1941. Economists estimate that the disaster will reduce Brazil’s economic growth this year with the economic damage due to the flood estimated at $2 billion.

In early May and late April, Brazil battled some of its worst floods in recent history. Torrential soaked the same area and caused severe flooding which engulfed entire towns, blocked roads, broke a major dam and shut down the international airport. At least 105 people died, and 130 others were reported missing. The floods displaced almost 164,000 people. In the state capital, Porto Alegre, a city of 1.3 million people, streets were covered in murky waters and the airport was shut with flights canceled due to the deluge. The flooding blocked roads disrupting deliveries of basic goods, and some residents walked almost three miles in search of clean drinking water, with stranded residents waiting on rooftops to be rescued.

In India’s capital, New Delhi, temperatures as high as 47.4C (117.32F) were reported in late May. Authorities shut down schools in the capital due to the intense heat with other states taking similar measures. In Pakistan, in late May, authorities shut down all public and private schools in the northeastern Punjab province to ensure student safety due to intense heat reaching 43C (109.4 F). Doctors treated hundreds of victims of heatstroke at hospitals across the country due to sizzling heat attributed to climate change. Temperatures reached 49 C (120 F) in the city of Mohenjo Daro.

In Mexico over 100 heat-stressed, endangered howler monkeys died and fell from trees across the Tabasco and Chiapas region in late May, as persistent heat waves baked the region. The deaths resulted from dehydration due to high temperatures, officials said. The monkeys also suffered from smoke inhalation from a large wildfire that burned in Tobasco. Ten cities broke all-time record temperatures for May and one city hit 118 F. At least 26 people died due to the heat and birds and squirrels also died, according to community sources.

In late May, Authorities in Russia’s far eastern republic of Sakha (Yakutia) declared a state of emergency after seasonal flooding submerged hundreds of homes and forced residents to move to temporary shelters. Almost 450 homes and over 550 land plots were flooded when the Lena River started overflowing in mid-May due to ice jams. Over 300 displaced residents, including 71 children, were placed in temporary shelters. Sakha’s Governor Aysen Nikolaev declared a region-wide emergency due to the floods.

Powerful storms and possible tornadoes in late May battered parts of Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arkansas, killing at least 18 people, damaging homes and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. More than six million people were under a tornado watch including parts of Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee and over 18 million people were in a wider area with an “enhanced” risk of severe weather. In northern Texas, a tornado killed at least seven people, including two children aged 2 and 5, injuring almost 100 people. Three of those killed were trapped in debris at a home. Another person died after his home was blown away. The storm destroyed 200 structures or homes and damaged about 120 more. At Lake Ray Roberts Marina in Denton County, Texas, a tornado damaged boats, boat houses and a fuel dock, and overturned recreational vehicles. “There is so much damage, we don’t even know where to start,” a marina worker said.

In Oklahoma, two people were killed in the city of Pryor, due to overnight storms in late May. In Arkansas, there were eight confirmed deaths from extreme weather. There were at least 4 fatalities in Arkansas and one in Louisville, Ky. In Rogers County, Okla., trees and power lines were struck down by a possible tornado, cutting off electricity and leaving some roads inaccessible. In Claremore, Okla. there were 23 storm-related injuries reported. Nineteen people were taken to hospitals, three of them with possible life-threatening injuries. In all, over 440,000 customers were without power in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Texas. The US came under an onslaught of destructive storms in May, with daily reports of tornadoes. Five people were killed, and part of a city was destroyed in Iowa in late May after the southwestern part of the state was engulfed by a weather system that produced a powerful tornado that carved a 43-mile path with windspeeds of at least 185 mph.

In late May, five people were killed and at least 35 were injured when powerful tornadoes tore through Iowa, with one carving a path of destruction through the city of Greenfield. The tornado left a wide swath of obliterated homes, splintered trees and crumpled cars. The twister also shattered massive power-producing wind turbines making them look like ripped up paper. The storms in late May also battered parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in both states. The National Weather Service issued tornado and flash flood warnings in Texas. The month of April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the US. As of late May, 859 tornadoes have been confirmed in 2024, 27% more than the US sees on average, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, with Iowa having 81 confirmed twisters, the highest number and one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota. “Debris was lifted thousands of feet in the air and ended up falling to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. That’s evidence of just how intense and deadly this tornado was,” Jon Porter, Accu Weather Chief Meteorologist, said. The destructive weather in late May also saw flooding and power outages in Nebraska, damage from tornadoes in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and dust storms in Illinois which forced the closure of two interstates. The mid-May deadly storms also struck the Houston area, causing at least eight fatalities and power outage for hundreds of thousands.

Miami experienced its hottest May on record. “It’s completely crazy, what just happened,” Brian McNoldy, a senior research scientist at the University of Miami, said. “It’s insane,” John Morales, a meteorologist for ClimaData, said. “Not only is it insane, it is also dangerous.” They were referring to the heat index, which hit a high of 112F for two days in late May, breaking the previous record by a phenomenal 11F. Last year was the hottest in Florida since 1985, with coastal waters reaching 90F, bleaching coral and possibly contributing to the mysterious deaths of endangered sawfish. The heat index in Key West reached 115F in mid-May, surpassing the previous record for the day by 17F.

Cities from Florida to Mexico and Central America had record high temperatures in May. Tampa, FL had 108F. La Fragua in Guatemala had 113F almost an all-time high record for Guatemala. Chaa Creek, Belize, had 108F, the hottest temperature in Belize’s history. Gallinas, Mexico, was 112F, the hottest May Day in North America and Becanchen in Mexico’s state of Yucatan, temperatures rose to 113F, the hottest day in the history of the state of Yucanta.

In Houston, Texas, school officials canceled classes and hundreds of thousands were left without power due to severe storms that battered Texas in mid-May. At least two people were killed by falling trees, and one was killed in an accident involving a crane that toppled over in strong winds. Three other weather-related deaths were confirmed. Wind gusts in downtown Houston reached speeds of up to 100 mph. Houston’s public school district shut down schools due to flooding. Emergency responders warned people to stay home, saying that many roads were impassable, and most traffic lights were out across the city, and Firefighters had to remove a live power line from a major highway. About 630,000 customers were without power across Texas, according to Poweroutage.us. The storm also reached Louisiana where 55,000 people were without power. In Harris County, Public libraries served as cooling centers. Considerable damage was reported in downtown Houston, with the force of the winds shattering the windows of high-rise towers, twisting metal signposts and felling trees. The storm ripped the walls of at least one building, leaving piles of bricks, falling debris and crushed cars with main streets covered in crushed glass and debris. Flash flood warnings were also in effect for parts of Mississippi and Louisiana, and a severe thunderstorm brought hail the size of golf balls to the city of San Patricio, Texas. The Weather Service office in Corpus Christi, Texas, warned residents to move inside because of “continuous cloud-to-ground lightning.” Portions of Harris County, including areas near the San Jacinto River, had already been hit with major flooding earlier in May prompting Harris County to issue a disaster declaration.

In mid-May in Piney Woods, East Texas, rivers were still in moderate to major flood stage after weeks of heavy rainfall. “It’s just an insane amount of rain,” the National Weather Service, said, “that just seems to keep falling over the same area.” “Over the last 14 days, portions of eastern Texas have received five to 10 inches of rain, with localized amounts as high as 15 to 20 inches,” Marc Chenard, a forecaster with the Weather Prediction Center, said. “This is 400 to 600 percent the normal rain for this two-week period.” Since January, some towns, like Huntsville, Texas, have already exceeded the 51” of rainfall they would typically receive in an entire year.

A 4-year-old boy, Lucas N. Warren died in early May in Johnson County, Texas, after being swept away by floodwaters. His body was found southeast of Fort Worth, several hours after the authorities received a 911 call reporting that two adults and the boy were stuck in a vehicle in fast-moving water. All three tried to escape the vehicle but were swept into the floodwaters, only the adults survived.

Surging rivers continued rising in Southeast Texas in early May prompting evacuations and rescues from floodwaters which swamped roads, stranded cars and inundated homes. Emergency responders in airboats searched the flooded streets around Houston, rescuing 73 people and 42 animals from stranded cars and rooftops. Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County’s top executive issued evacuation orders in early May for about 5,000 people living along the east fork of the San Jacinto River. Also in early May, the American Red Cross shelters across six Texas counties housed 122 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said. North and east of Houston, small towns, including Cut and Shoot and Shepherd, experienced devastating flooding. Also in early May, the US Coast Guard airlifted a 12-hour-old baby and her mother from a hospital in Cleveland, Houston, the hospital was inaccessible to ambulances due to floodwater. About a quarter of the 178 river gauges tracked by the National Weather Service in Houston experienced flooded conditions. Areas north of Houston received 12 to 20” of rain from late April to early May, Harris County Flood Control, said. Much of Southeast Texas was under a flood watch in early May.

Scientists used tree rings to compare last year’s extreme heat with temperatures over the past two millenniums. They confirmed that 2023 was the warmest Northern Hemisphere summer since around 1850, when people started systematically measuring and recording temperatures. Researchers now say it was the hottest in 2,000 years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature that compares 2023 with a longer temperature record across most of the Northern Hemisphere. The study goes back before the advent of thermometers and weather stations, to the year A.D. 1, using evidence from tree rings. “That gives us the full picture of natural climate variability,” said Jan Esper, a climatologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany and lead author of the paper. The average temperature from June through August 2023 was 2.20C warmer than the average summer temperature between the years 1 and 1890, according to the report. Last summer was 2.07C warmer than the average summer temperature between 1850 and 1900. “This period is really not well covered with instruments,” Dr. Esper said, adding that “the tree rings can do really, really well. So we can use this as a substitute and even as a corrective.”

April 2024 was the 11th consecutive month of record warm monthly temperatures globally, and April 2024 was warmer than any other April on record, Copernicus, the European Union’s climate data and information service said.

In mid-May, fourteen people died in a suburb of Mumbai, India’s financial capital, as strong winds from a storm caused the collapse of a huge billboard. At least 64 people were injured, and rescue workers searched for survivors under the debris. The rains were followed by dust storms, and Mumbai’s airport authorities diverted over a dozen flights and suspended operations.

In early May, a weekend spring storm that pounded the San Francisco Bay Area and closed Northern California mountain highways also set a single-day snowfall record for the 2023/24 spring season on May 5th in the Sierra Nevada, dropping 26.4” of snow and surpassing the previous record set on March 3rd, by a staggering 2.6”, making May 5th the snowiest day of the season, according to UC Berkeley Central Sierra’s Snow Lab.

In early May, heavy rains caused severe flooding in Zhuhai, Guangdong, a coastal province in southern China.

In Vietnam’s Dong Nai province in early May, at least 200 tons of fish died in a reservoir due to dwindling water levels amid a searing heatwave in the region that broke records and closed schools. The dead fish covered the entire surface of the 300-hectare Song May reservoir without any visible sign of water. The region had been grappling with extreme heat with no rainfall in weeks, like the rest of Southeast and South Asia. Temperatures in Dong Nai province reached 40C (104F) in April, breaking the record high temperature recorded in 1998.

In Nairobi, Kenya, the death toll due to flooding since March rose to over 200 in early May. Torrential rains have battered East Africa, causing flooding and landslides that have destroyed crops, submerged homes, and displaced over 165,000 people with 90 missing, local officials said. In late April, days of torrential rains battered parts of Kenya, with at least 32 people dead, 15 injured and more than 40,000 people displaced. The flooding killed almost 1,000 farm animals and destroyed thousands of acres of crops. The rains began in March during what is known in the country as the “long rains,” but intensified. The capital, Nairobi, was hard-hit by the late April deluge with more than 30,000 people displaced. Kenya Railways suspended train services and authorities closed parts of four major roads in Nairobi. The downpours in late April were preceded by torrential rains and floods a few months earlier, which killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more nationwide. In Tanzania, at least 155 people died, and 236 were injured when incessant rainfall swept through several parts of the country in late April. About 200,000 people were affected and farms, bridges, roads, schools and places of worship were damaged.

In early May, at least four people were killed by storms in the US from the Plains to the East Coast, which damaged and flooded communities in at least 10 states. Over 17 million people from Central Texas to the Georgia coast were under an enhanced risk for severe weather in early May, the third level of risk out of five, the National Weather Service said. Also, over five million people in parts of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina were under a tornado watch in early May, and over 180,000 customers across five states, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, were without power. The storms in the Midwest and South killed at least three people and brought intense rain, winds and hail. Multiple cities across the region had torrential rainfall, which flooded roads and set off a wave of flood warnings. Also in early May, over a dozen tornadoes tore through the Midwest, including Michigan, where storms damaged almost 200 mobile homes and temporarily trapped dozens of FedEx workers inside a building. One tornado, almost two miles wide, tore through a community in Barnsdall, Okla., killing one person.

A series of severe thunderstorms swept through the Plains in late April, with tornadoes in Texas, Sulphur, Oklahoma, Elkhorn, Nebraska, and Minden, Iowa. A total of 130 tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service within a four-day period in late April. They spanned 10 different states. Over 30 tornadoes were confirmed in Oklahoma alone, with at least two dozen in Iowa, 20 in Texas, 16 in Missouri, 15 in Kansas and 13 in Nebraska. The strongest tornadoes tore through the west side of Marietta, Oklahoma, in late April. One person died and a warehouse was heavily damaged. A handful of them tore through eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. A tornado touched down on the northeast side of Lincoln, Nebraska. A manufacturing plant was damaged and the twister eventually struck a train, derailing numerous cars. Another tornado touched down near Omaha's Eppley Airfield, where aircraft hangars and some unsecured small aircrafts were destroyed. Two additional tornadoes in far western Iowa tore through parts of Pottawatomie and Shelby Counties. The town of Minden was hard hit, with substantial damage, one death and three injured. The Minden tornado was on the ground for almost 41 miles. A tornado carved through parts of the south and east sides of the Des Moines, Iowa. The National Weather Service office issued 42 tornado warnings for their forecast area on April 26, alone. Two other strong Oklahoma tornadoes were deadly: one person died in Sulphur, Oklahoma City. Another long-track tornado passed just west of Holdenville in Hughes County, before it tracked into Okfuskee County.

In late April the Philippines closed all public schools due to dangerously high temperatures, moving classes online. Average temperatures in many parts of the country topped 40C (over 100F). In Manila, residents set up inflatable pools on busy roads, while others dipped into Manila Bay, flouting rules that prohibit swimming in its polluted waters. Extreme Temperatures also disrupted daily life in other parts of Asia with heat waves forcing the closure of schools in Bangladesh and India.

In Limpio, Paraguay, several people were rescued after flood engulfed the city in late April.

In late April severe flooding engulfed the Russian city of Orenburg, on the banks of the Ural River with vast swaths of land and houses submerged in muddy water with just their rooftops visible.

In late April, South Africa experienced one its driest growing seasons ever recorded, with corps destroyed and millions left hungry and with no sign of rain. These extremely dry seasons have been attributed to climate change.

In late April, heavy rains pounded southern China, causing flooding and forcing tens of thousands of evacuations in the country’s most populous province, as a waterspout appeared briefly in Hong Kong. Rain had been falling in Guangdong, with a population of about 127 million, since late April, intensifying and pounding the north of the province and the Pearl River Delta in the south, which includes Guangdong’s capital, Guangzhou, as well as the cities of Hong Kong and Macau. The city of Yingde, in Guangdong’s north, received nearly a foot of rain in 3 days, with almost 20,000 people evacuated and nine rivers were at risk of overflowing. In Guangzhou, the Longxue neighborhood received nearly 5” of rain over a four-hour period, the highest amount in the province, and the Beijiang River flooded.

In mid-April, torrential rainfalls in the United Arab Emirates and Oman submerged cars, clogged highways caused delays and cancellations at Dubai’s airport and killed at least 21 people. Flights out of Dubai’s airport, a major global hub, were severely disrupted. More than 5.59” fell in Dubai in mid-April, with almost 5” recored at Dubai’s International Airport, where about 3” of rain is normal in an entire year. The 24-hour rain total was the country’s largest since records began in 1949. One person died in the city of Ras Al-Khaimah and the authorities urged residents to remain at home, with cars submerged on gridlocked highways and planes taxied down flooded runways.

In Muscat, Oman’s capital, flash flooding turned streets into raging rivers. The storm killed 19 people including an infant. Ten of the deaths were schoolchildren who were swept away in a vehicle with an adult. At Muscat International Airport, flights were delayed and canceled. The extreme weather appeared to be the result of a regular rainy weather system being supercharged by climate change, Professor Janette Lindesay, a climate scientist at the Australian National University, said.

In early April, a nor’easter dumped more than a foot of snow across the US NE, causing blackouts and flight cancellations. The storm left almost half a million customers without power. In Maine, over 280,000 customers were without power in early April, including over 100,000 in New Hampshire and about 15,000 in Vermont. More than a foot of snow fell over much of the region. In York County, Maine, almost 20” of snowfall was reported. Air travel was disrupted with over 500 flights in the US canceled, mostly in Boston, and over 8,500 flights delayed.

In early April millions of people across the West were under high wind warnings or fire danger alerts. Fierce winds in Oklahoma and Colorado fueled fires. High winds and dry conditions in Texas and New Mexico posed a critical fire risk, the National Weather Service said, while parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma faced an elevated risk of fires. Nearly three million people were under red flag warnings. There were eight reports of wildfires in Oklahoma. In northwest Oklahoma, a wildfire prompted officials to issue an evacuation order for the town of Sharon. Two firefighters were injured and more than 587,000 people were in areas deemed at “critical” risk of experiencing a large wildfire, including in Lubbock, Texas, and Clovis, New Mexico. High winds also caused power outages, with more than 130,000 customers without power across Colorado after strong winds fueled fires and downed trees. Xcel Energy in Colorado had preemptively cut power to roughly 55,000 customers in several counties over wildfire concerns. Almost two million people in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming were under a high wind warning. In Colorado, windspeeds of over 90 mph were recorded in some parts of Boulder County.

In early April, a storm system brought rain to much of the east coast, delivering high winds and leaving close to half a million customers without power. About 1.5 million people, including in areas throughout the Northeast, were under a winter storm warning. Two people were killed. The storm created hazardous travel conditions in parts of the region. In the NYC area, rainfall up to 3” occurred within a two-day period. One person was killed in Westchester County, N.Y by a fallen tree while driving. A winter storm warning was in effect for portions of east central and eastern New York and southern Vermont. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority canceled ferry service in the Boston area due to high winds and the Massachusetts State Police said it responded to several crashes because of poor road conditions. In New Hampshire, state troopers responded to three tractor-trailer rollovers in less than seven hours and air travel was disrupted, with more than 400 flights canceled and over 1,300 flights delayed.

Stormy weather in early April caused power outage across parts of New England and other regions, with over 310,000 customers in Maine without power, over 122,000 in New Hampshire, over 26,000 in Wisconsin, over 21,000 in West Virginia and more than 15,000 in New York. Heavy snow warnings were issued by the Weather Service office with winds exceeding 45 mph reported in some beach communities, and 15” of snowfall recorded in Maine. Gov. Janet Mills of Maine ordered all state offices closed due to heavy snow and high winds.

In early April severe storms swept across the Ohio Valley and moved east killing at least two people and leaving tens of thousands of customers without power. Two storm-related deaths were reported, one each in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Over 251,000 customers were without electricity in Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In Kentucky, Gov. Beshear declared a state of emergency saying the National Weather Service had confirmed that tornadoes had hit six Kentucky counties, and storm-related damage had been reported in more than 20 counties.

In early April, fierce storms across the country threatened parts of the central and eastern US with severe weather, accompanied by widespread risks of tornadoes, large hail, and strong winds. The storm system moved through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois with more than 9 million people placed under a severe thunderstorm watch. At least 3 tornadoes were sighted in Oklahoma and several tornado warnings were issued as a line of storms moved across the state. Portions of Oklahoma and Texas were placed under a "moderate" risk at level 4 on the weather service's 1 to 5 scale of severe storm severity. In late March, the storm system fueled storms that pummeled Southern California, dropped tennis ball-size hail over parts of Illinois, and flooded low-lying areas throughout the Midwest. In Texas, hail the size of grapefruits or baseballs fell in parts of central Texas as wind gusts near 90 mph were reported. A wind advisory was issued in portions of southwest and western Texas and an enhanced risk of severe thunderstorms was in place for parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley regions in early April, and the central Gulf Coast states including Louisiana, Alabama and northern Florida, consisting of over 50 million people, were at risk of severe weather.

In late March Al-Baha a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia was hard hit with unprecedented flooding. The fast-moving tide swept away cars and submerged vast strips of land.

In late March, an unusually severe winter in Mongolia left much of the country’s grazing land frozen and snow-covered, resulting in starvation or freezing of millions of animals and disrupting thousands of lives, with a third of the population dependent on herding and agriculture. 2024 brought the most snow in 49 years to Mongolia, and caused the death of over 5.9 million livestock, the worst toll since 2010, international aid groups said. The livestock deaths were caused by a weather event known in Mongolia as dzud, where a dry summer is followed by a severe winter that brings deep snow and bitter cold, covering pastures under ice. “Some of the herders have lost all of their animals,” a UNICEF representative said. “All of them.” In eastern Mongolia, Shijirbayar Dorjderem, 48, said that he had lost 800 livestock this year out of the 1,000 he inherited from his parents. “All I can think about is my bank loan,” he said, afraid the bank might take away his remaining livestock. The snow had isolated families, including children who had missed weeks of school, a UNICEF official said.

In 2023, global levels of carbon dioxide rose to 419 parts per million, around 50% more than before the Industrial Revolution. (On March 8, 2024, a measurement of 425.96 ppm CO2 in air was recorded.) That means there are roughly 50% more CO2 molecules in the air than there were in 1750. As it builds up in the atmosphere, it traps heat and warms the planet. The more CO2, the warmer the planet, which is why climate scientists stress the need to get to zero emissions. Warmer air can hold around 7% more moisture for every 1C of temperature rise and we are already 1.2C above preindustrial levels. This only gets worse every year.

Currently, CO2 levels are rising at near-record rates. According to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory in April, 2023 had the fourth-highest annual rise in global CO2 levels. The rise is caused by burning fossil fuels, as well as other human activities such as deforestation and concrete production.

International efforts to increase the use of clean energy is rising, but so is the demand for energy. Fossil fuels make up the difference. This is why global fossil fuel emissions are still at a record high. The ocean and land absorb about 50% of the CO2 that humans emit, and the rest stays in the air, said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research.

As global warming continues, climate scientists expect the land and the ocean to absorb a smaller share of CO2 emissions, causing a larger share to end up in the air, said Doug McNeall, who studies these effects at Britain’s Met Office.

Xin Lan, the lead scientist responsible for NOAA’s global CO2 measurements, referred to the natural absorption as a “carbon discount.” “We pay attention to it because we don't know at which point that this discount is gone,” she said. It may be that there is only so much that the air, land and ocean can absorb. It may be that we have reached that point.

The levels of other potent GHGs like methane and nitrous oxide are also on the rise, which further contribute to warming.

Last year was exceptionally hot, both on land and in the ocean. The oceans absorb over 90% of the excess heat caused by global warming. It was the hottest year in over 170 years of record keeping even exceeding scientists’ predictions. El Niño may be part of the explanation, but only a part of it.

The current high emissions levels make the climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C increasingly difficult to reach. Even if global emissions were cut in half, CO2 would still continue to accumulate and cause additional warming. “You need to bring them essentially down to zero in order to stop warming,” Mr. McNeall said. Even if the world exceeds the 1.5-degree threshold, “every fraction of a degree matters,” Mr. McNeall said. “The closer that you can get to that threshold, the better.”

Melting polar ice shelves and glaciers are such an immense threat on so many levels, I will continue to report on this. This is one of many of the dire threats posed by warming. Another iceberg, about the size of Las Vegas, calved off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Less reflective ice means less albedo effect and more warming as more dark sea is exposed to sun light. This is one of many tipping points we may have crossed where more ice melt leads to more warming which leads to more ice melt. And more ice melt means increased sea level rise which threatens trillions of dollars in coastal development and infrastructure as well as enhanced danger from storm surge and flooding. And more disruption to oceanic currents which regulate global climate. The more disruption to global climate the less food production, more environmental refugees and immigration and increased political instability, conflicts and the rise of nationalism, disruption of supply trains and economic harms. All of which threaten the future of human civilization as we know it. From about 1993-2003 mean SLR was about 2.1mm/yr, from 2015-2024 it is doubled to 4.4 mm/yr. SLR will continue even if emissions are reduced to zero.

Global warming and ice melt has resulted in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean heat content far exceeding normal temperature for Mid-August, as measured in April. The stored potential energy in the Atlantic is dangerous in terms of the power of potential storms that could result as we start hurricane season. We’ll soon see.

"Over two million deaths and $4.3 trillion in economic losses; that’s the impact of a half-century of extreme weather events turbo-charged by man-made global warming” according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is fuelling the increased frequency and severity of marine heatwaves, which are impacting the Great Barrier Reef in more frequent and profound ways. "It's looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year." "We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet" according to Derek Manzello of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch.

The global sea surface temperature set a record high on March 4, 2024, at 21.17C following months of above-average temperatures. Scientists are alarmed about a potential fourth mass coral bleaching event. The imminent mass coral reef bleaching event could be the worst in history, experts warn.

The risk of a mass bleaching event was recently raised by US and Australian researchers in a paper published in the journal Science, which suggested that last year’s extreme marine heatwaves may be a precursor to a mass bleaching and coral mortality event across the Indo-Pacific in 2024-25.

These important ecosystems exist in more than 100 countries and territories and support at least 25% of marine species and are crucial to the health of Earth’s vast and interconnected web of marine biodiversity and provide ecosystem services valued up to $9.9 trillion annually. They are sometimes referred to as “rainforests of the sea” for their ability to act as carbon sinks by absorbing excess CO2 in the water.

Coral reefs are disappearing at an alarming pace. According to the most recent report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the world has lost approximately 14% of corals since 2009.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest and longest reef system located off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It covers about 350,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the UK and Ireland combined. The immense coral reef system has suffered six mass bleaching events in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, and 2024. The events in 2016 and 2017 were so severe that they led to the death of 50% of the reef.

Coral death has also been severe in South Asia, the Pacific, East Asia, the Western Indian Ocean, The Gulf, and Gulf of Oman.

Within the last century, sea temperatures have risen at an average rate of 0.13C every decade. Warmer waters make coral reefs more vulnerable to bleaching and impede their ability to recover.

“Ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific clearly reflect El Niño. But sea surface temperatures in other parts of the globe have been persistently and unusually high for the past 10 months. The January 2024 sea-surface temperature was by far the highest on record for January. This is worrying and cannot be explained by El Niño alone,” explained WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

As of early March 2024, the North Atlantic Sea surface temperature had been at record warm levels for an entire yea, setting daily record highs every day for 365 consecutive days and counting. A solid year of continuous record shattering of an ocean area covering 40 million square kilometers doesn't usually happen.

“There’s no ambiguity about the data,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “So really, it’s a question of attribution.”

Global temperatures are rising long-term because the burning of fossil fuels adds GHGs to the atmosphere, which warm the planet. So far, climate change has raised the global average temperature by about 1.2C (2.2F) above the preindustrial average temperature. And because it takes more energy to heat up water than air, the oceans have absorbed the vast majority of the planet’s warming. Warming water adds to SLR as water expands when warmed.

In addition to climate change and El Niño, the recent reduction in aerosol pollution from container ships may be contributing to global warming. Aerosols have a cooling effect in the atmosphere and had been masking the true extent of climate change until now. There was also the huge eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano in 2022 which emitted huge plumes of soot and aerosols, which blocked sunlight and temporarily cooled the atmosphere. And, because this volcano was submerged under the Pacific Ocean, its eruption also emitted millions of tons of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. Water vapor is a powerful GHG.

The interplay of these various factors is complex and subject to further study, but the underlining fact of GHG emissions and global warming is simple and clear.

A new study on Antarctica was recently published in Nature Journal on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). The AAC is the most powerful, fastest and "arguably the most important current in Earth's climate system," said Gisela Winckler, a geochemist at the Columbia University Laboratory, which led the expedition. It is accelerating, which is not good.

The study mapped the AAC's relationship to climate over the past 5.3 million years and involved 40 scientists from a dozen countries. During past natural climate fluctuations, the current moved in tandem with Earth's temperature, slowing during cold periods and accelerating during warm periods. This acceleration led to large ice losses in Antarctica.

The finding suggests that the present acceleration will continue due to human-caused global warming. The likely consequence will be faster ice loss in Antarctica and SLR. In addition, the ocean's ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere is inhibited. Ms. Winckler said the study "suggests that the retreat or collapse of Antarctic ice is associated with increased ACC flow, a scenario we are seeing today in the context of global warming."

Scientists have observed that winds over the Southern Ocean have increased by about 40% over the past 40 years. This has accelerated the ACC and moved relatively warm water from higher latitudes toward Antarctica's vast floating ice shelves which hold back the even larger glaciers within. These warm waters are eating away at the undersides of ice shelves which is the main cause for their disintegration, not warming air temperatures.

If we are to limit global warming to 1.5C, we must transition away from fossil fuels and use only renewable energy. But the oil and gas industry is as powerful and influential as ever and continues to enjoy immense subsidies. The International Monetary Fund estimates it as $5.4 trillion in annual subsidies worldwide and $646 billion in the US, annually, every year.

Another crucial part of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is rapidly reducing the use and burning of fossil fuels. For this to happen, fossil fuel companies must leave fossil fuels in the ground and turn their resources toward producing renewable energy. But that is not happening. In fact, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest US energy companies, enjoyed historic earnings in 2022, and in early February 2024 reported sizable profits for the final quarter of last year (Exxon earned $7.6 billion), showing that the oil and gas industry remained robust despite concerns about climate change. For 2023, Exxon reported $36 billion in earnings, after $55.7 billion in 2022.

Chevron reported earnings of $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 and for the year the company made $21.4 billion, down from $35.4 billion in 2022. The companies generated enough cash to fund big dividends and share buybacks which is what investors now look for in the industry, analysts say.

“In 2023, we returned more cash to shareholders and produced more oil and natural gas than any year in the company’s history,“ Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, said. Exxon paid out $14.9 billion in dividends and made $17.4 billion in buybacks last year. Darren Woods, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, said this topped the payouts at other western energy giants. “I have a great sense of pride in what our people accomplished.”

Exxon, Chevron and other oil companies are making some investments in lower carbon businesses, but the cash that funds shareholder payouts come from the production and sale of oil and gas. Exxon said that over the year, output from two key areas, the Permian basin in the US and Guyana in South America, rose 18%.

Shell, Europe’s largest energy company made $7.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $28 billion for the entire year. It paid out $23 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. Wael Sawan became chief executive of Shell last year. He said that Shell would add half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent into production by 2025. “They will enable us to continue providing the energy that the world needs while delivering cash flow,” he said.

BP’s new chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, promised a flexible approach to the shift away from fossil fuels as BP reported a $3 billion profit in the fourth quarter 2023. Its annual profit was $27 billion in 2022 and $13.8 billion last year. He said “we see growing demand for energy right now across the globe.” “It is not slowing down.” BP is “going to invest in today’s energy system, to help make sure that prices don’t get out of control.” “So that’s investing into oil and gas,” while also putting money into alternative energy sources like biofuels and hydrogen. He is pursuing more of a profit-oriented approach than his predecessor, Bernard Looney, who began a shift into renewable technologies compared with other major oil companies. Mr. Looney returned his focus to oil and natural gas production in early 2023 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped drive oil and gas prices higher.

The leaders of oil companies, especially in Europe, face a difficult balancing act between demonstrating to customers and governments that they are serious about lowering emissions and appealing to investors, who insist on profitability and returns above all. “The first thing investors want is to make sure they get performance,” said Giuseppe Bivona, the chief investment officer of Bluebell Capital Partners, a hedge fund that has criticized BP over plans to reduce its oil and gas business while investing in offshore wind power. The fund managers have said that BP lacks the expertise to succeed in the wind industry.

BP wrote off $1.1 billion in investments in offshore wind projects along the East Coast of the US last year. Mr. Auchincloss acknowledged that BP had paid a “premium” to enter a business that has proved difficult.

In the meantime, the company’s mainstay oil and gas production rose 2.6% last year. Supplies of liquefied natural gas — a chilled, compressed fuel transported by ships — rose by more than 20%.

Mr. Auchincloss said that oil output would continue to rise 2- 3% a year through 2027 because of production increases in Abu Dhabi, Angola, the US and elsewhere. He said BP may pursue projects that could prolong the growth in oil and gas for years if necessary. “We have some big decisions ahead of ourselves.”

In cleaner energies, BP is now betting on businesses that are closer to the company’s existing strengths in distributing fuel and servicing automobiles. For instance, the company’s production of so-called biofuels that are made from plants and substances like cooking oil were up 18%. The company’s portfolio of EV charging points rose by 35%.

At COP26 in 2022, bankers and investors attended the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow and agreed to tackle climate change. Hundreds of banks, insurers and asset managers vowed to put $130 trillion in capital into reducing carbon emissions and financing the energy transition as they introduced the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. But a recent study, published by the European Central Bank, said “Our results cast doubt on the efficacy of voluntary climate commitments for reducing financed emissions, whether through divestment or engagement.”

The researchers found that since 2018 the banks had reduced lending 20% to sectors they had targeted in their climate goals, such as oil and gas and transport, but they found it was not sufficient since this decline was the same for banks that had not made the same commitment. “It’s not OK for the net-zero bank to act exactly like the non-net-zero bank, because we need that to scale up financing,” said Parinitha Sastry, an assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School and one of the paper’s authors. “We want there to be a behavioral change.”

Expectations for banks from policymakers and climate activists are high. Every year trillions of dollars need to be invested in clean energy if global emissions is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. Most of that cost will need to be financed privately, and banks are the key facilitators in those deals. The world's big banks poured a staggering $705 billion into fossil fuels in 2023 alone.

The researchers used data from the European Central Bank on lending from more than 300 European banks. Of those, about 10% had joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. They tended to be larger and lend more to high-carbon sectors like mining, particularly outside the eurozone.

The economists found that banks in the alliance did not change the interest rates on loans to firms with high emissions and that the companies that received the loans were not more likely to set decarbonization targets. In fact, all banks acted the same regardless of the methods available to them to reduce emissions, including divesting from high emitters, increasing investment to green activities and engaging with firms to cut their own emissions, Ms. Sastry said. “It’s hard to really say from this evidence that the net-zero commitments are leading to changes in behavior by banks.”

The Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which is backed by the United Nations, is among the strictest of the voluntary climate groups that banks can join. Members have committed to setting emissions targets for 2030, with interim targets for 2050, as well as promises to publish their emissions data annually.

The banking group and similar financial coalitions have experienced a backlash against green and other socially responsible initiatives in the US. The Net-Zero Banking Alliance has been accused of watering down the commitments to appease Wall Street banks, its largest members. The alliance for insurers lost about half its members last year, and Climate Action 100+, a group for investors, suffered departures of prominent members this year.

As the impacts of climate change continue, it is likely that a country or entity will embark in a desperate attempt to take matters into its own hands. Some scientists advocate geoengineering arguing that it is sensible to at least experiment and see if there’s anything feasible we can do.

Researchers at the University of Washington began one such experiment in April, spraying tiny sea-salt particles across the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier docked in Alameda in San Francisco Bay. They sought to determine if the material were sprayed skyward, would it make clouds brighter and fight global warming by reflecting more sunlight.

The experiment was stopped by the City Council.

Brightening clouds is one of several ideas to push solar energy back into space, which is sometimes called solar radiation modification, solar geoengineering, or climate intervention. The idea is built on a scientific concept called the Twomey effect: Large numbers of small droplets reflect more sunlight than small numbers of large droplets. Spraying vast quantities of minuscule aerosols into the sky, forming many small droplets, could change the reflective properties of clouds.

Compared with other options, such as injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, marine cloud brightening would be localized and use relatively benign sea salt aerosols in place of other chemicals.

The concept has been opposed by some environmentalists because a focus on artificially cooling the planet will distract attention and resources from efforts to address the root cause of climate change, the continued combustion of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas.

There are also concerns about local environmental changes. Scientists note there are potential side effects that should be studied, including changing ocean circulation patterns and temperatures, which might hurt fisheries. Cloud brightening could also alter precipitation patterns, reducing rainfall in one place while increasing it elsewhere. And once such an effort is begun it must be continued or else the bounce-back effect upon stopping could be extreme.

But ideas to temporarily cool the Earth have gained new attention and funding as global GHG emissions continue to rise, making hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, heat waves and other climate shocks more severe, more frequent or both.

The researchers stressed that research into cloud brightening is not an alternative to cutting emissions, but rather a strategy that might be necessary to buy the world some time until emissions are reduced.

Permafrost underlies about 14 million square kilometers of land in the Arctic region. The top 3 meters contain an estimated 1 trillion metric tons of carbon and 55 billion metric tons of nitrogen. This region has been a sink for carbon, as frozen soils inhibit microbial decomposition. But wildfires and deforestation, along with air warming much faster than the global average, are speeding up permafrost thaw and enhancing the biogeochemical activities that exacerbate climate change by releasing GHGs such CO2, methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Worldwide, soil in the permafrost zone contains about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon, about twice as much as exists in Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists call this deep legacy carbon, composed of plants and animals that froze before they could decay.

Recent studies synthesized GHG measurements of the northern permafrost region between 2000 and 2020 give us a sense of the quantities of GHGs the area absorbs and emits. The research, part of the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP2) project, suggests that the area has already shifted from a sink to a small source of carbon.

They found that the study area was a net source of CH4 and N2O between 2000 and 2020. Wetlands were large methane emitters, as were lakes. Dry tundra was the biggest driver of N2O release, and permafrost bogs were a close second. Terrestrial ecosystems, particularly boreal forests, absorb CO2. But significant emissions came from fires, abrupt permafrost thaw, and inland waters, which emitted an estimated 12 million metric tons of CO2.

The researchers estimate that the northern permafrost region emitted 38 million metric tons of CH4 and 670,000 metric tons of N2O into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2020. Emissions from erosion and other factors was 144 million metric tons of carbon and 3 million metric tons of nitrogen. The pace may accelerate with additional warming. And scientists have expressed concern that a tipping point may be reached where run-away warming results from more thawing which produces more emissions which adds to the warming, etc.

Washington:

If the US is to continue to approach the goals of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which provides tax incentives of more than $370 billion to promote EVs and wind, solar and other renewable energy projects, the grid bottleneck must be addressed. On May 13, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-to-1 in a partisan split to do just that. It passed a new rule that requires grid operators to plan for the next 20 years so that energy projects that have been unable to connect to electric grids because of a lack of new transmission lines, may proceed. One study found that about half of the climate benefits under the IRA could not be realized if transmission capacity, including new high voltage power lines, was not expanded significantly.

FERC regulates interstate electricity, hydroelectric projects and oil and gas pipelines. As such, it is a key connection between the power grid and addressing climate change. Utilities that burn gas and coal to produce electricity are the second largest source of the pollution that is driving global warming.

Biden appointed Richard Glick to chair the commission. Glick said FERC should focus on the impacts of climate change when approving natural gas pipelines. That angered Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Commission, who refused to hold a confirmation hearing for Glick, who then stepped down. When one of the two Republican commissioners, James Danly, left the agency in January, Democrats has a 2-1 voting advantage.

Democrats have attempted to speed up the pace of adding solar and wind to the grid while Republicans favor faster permitting for fossil fuel projects and pipelines. Neil Chatterjee, former FERC chairman under Trump said, “The Republican Party used to be a party that led on transmission policy.” But now “it’s seen as facilitating Biden achieving his climate agenda, and they’re against it just to be against Biden.”

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “We always had FERC in the back of our minds because it could be done without congressional Republican approval.” It could take years for the rule to have an effect, and the commission could face legal challenges from states concerned about higher costs.

There are over 11,000 proposed wind, solar and battery projects in limbo in the US due to lack of grid capacity. Individual developers are currently required to pay for grid upgrades to accommodate their projects in a process that is piecemeal and slow. That’s like requiring a trucking company to pay for an additional lane on a highway that all motorists will use. Thus, the ‘who pays?’ question has sparked furious debate.

Officials in Kentucky or West Virginia who do not favor wind and solar power do not want to be forced to pay for new multibillion-dollar transmission lines to benefit states like New Jersey or Illinois. FERC’s guidelines on cost-splitting for new transmission projects state that before planning any lines, utilities and grid operators should work with states on a cost allocating formula for customers based on the potential benefits from the new lines.

A version of this exists where the grid that handles electricity in 15 Midwest states, known as MISO, recently approved $10.3 billion in new power lines. MISO estimated there would be $69 billion in total benefits. While some of the states had ambitious renewable energy goals requiring more transmission, others would still benefit from lower fuel costs and fewer blackouts.

A 2011 attempt by the commission to further transmission planning was unsuccessful in part because utilities opposed new long-distance lines that threatened their monopolies, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. Because of the decentralized nature of the US grid system, federal regulators are limited in what they can do.

The new rule affects grid planning within 12 large regions but doesn’t require the planning of transmission to connect those different regions to each other, which may be an even bigger need. The rule would also not affect Texas which has a grid that is not subject to federal regulations as it doesn’t cross state lines.

Nor does the rule address the logistical and political challenges of constructing new long-distance power lines. It can take a decade or more for developers to pursue a project through numerous jurisdictions, get permits from different federal and state agencies and resolve lawsuits about spoiled views or damage to ecosystems.

The Biden administration recently addressed cutting the federal permitting time in half for certain large transmission lines. But expediting things further requires Congressional action, which is unlikely.

Also on May 13, FERC outlined certain situations in which it could override state objections to a small subset of new power lines. In that case, involving a set of ten “national interest electric transmission corridors” the Energy Department has tentatively identified places where new lines would be particularly beneficial and could approve such projects over state regulators’ objections.  

On April 25, 2024, the Biden administration finalized a rule intended to expedite issuance of federal permits for major transmission lines, part of a broader push to expand America’s electric grids. The pace of construction for high-voltage power lines has sharply slowed since 2013. DOE will become the lead agency in charge of federal environmental reviews for certain interstate power lines and will attempt to issue permits within two years. Currently, the federal approval process can take four years or more and often involves multiple agencies each conducting their own separate reviews.

DOE is looking to invest $20 billion in grid upgrades and to streamline approvals for new lines. The permitting changes would only affect lines that require federal review, like those that cross federally owned land. Such projects made up 26% of all transmission line miles added between 2010 and 2020. To qualify, developers would need to create a plan to engage with the public much earlier in the process. Experts say Congressional action is needed but not expected.

The change could be significant for power lines in the West, where nearly half the land is owned by the federal government and permitting takes years. It took 17 years to approve a major line, known as SunZia, that connects an enormous wind farm in New Mexico to homes and businesses in Arizona and California.

The rule will not affect state environmental reviews, which can slow transmission projects facing complaints and lawsuits.

DOE is also looking to help utilities get greater capacity from the existing grid via “grid-enhancing technologies” such as sensors that allow energy companies to send more power through existing lines without overloading them and advanced controls that allow operators to reduce congestion on the grid. Existing lines can be replaced with advanced conductors, which could double capacity. DOE is offering $3.9 billion toward such solutions and could be deployed in a few years.

Congress has authorized federal regulators to override objections from states for power lines deemed to be in the national interest. This could be contentious, and the Biden administration not yet exercised this power while it works to identify potential sites that could qualify.

On April 11, Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry. Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry and was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies.

Trump has publicly opposed Biden’s energy and environmental agenda which has restored and strengthen dozens of climate and conservation rules that Trump had weakened or erased while in office. More specifically, Trump has promised to eliminate Biden’s climate rules intended to accelerate the nation’s transition to EVs, and to push a “drill, baby, drill” agenda aimed at opening more public lands to oil and gas exploration.

Under Biden, the fossil fuel industry has enjoyed record profits. In 2023, the US produced record amounts of oil. And even with the pause in new permits for gas export terminals, the US is the world’s leading exporter of natural gas and is still on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 because of projects already permitted and under construction. Biden has also approved several oil and gas projects sought by the fossil fuel industry including an enormous $8 billion oil development in Alaska known as the Willow project. He also granted a crucial permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project championed by Senator Manchin despite opposition from climate experts and environmental groups. Last month, undeterred by opposition from climate activists, the Biden administration also gave approval for an oil export project in Texas known as the Sea Port Oil Terminal.

Some oil and gas executives have said that they want consistency. They prefer that some of Biden’s regulations remain such as the rule requiring companies to detect and stop methane leaks from oil and gas wells. They do not want an endless pattern of regulatory whiplash in which rules are enacted by one administration, repealed by the next and restored by the one after that.

But many have attacked Biden’s policies, and the industry has contributed heavily to Trump’s presidential campaign. Attendees included Mike Sabel, the chief executive and founder of Venture Global LNG; Toby Rice, the president and chief executive of EQT Corporation; Jack Fusco, the chief executive of Cheniere Energy; and Nick Dell’Osso, the president of Chesapeake Energy. Also present were Doug Burgum (governor-ND) who has been advising Trump on energy issues; and Mr. Hamm, the billionaire executive chairman of Continental Resources, which is among the biggest oil and gas drilling companies in Oklahoma and North Dakota.

The American Petroleum Institute, the nation’s top fossil fuel industry group, is running an eight-figure national advertising campaign to promote fossil fuels and “dismantle policy threats,” Mike Sommers, the chief executive of the trade group, has said. Separately, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents petroleum refiners, is buying ads in nine battleground states urging Americans to fight Biden’s regulation on tailpipe emissions.

And states with Republican attorneys general have filed legal challenges against most if not all of Biden’s regulations, including a suit announced on May 16 by 27 states arguing that the administration overstepped its authority regulating smokestack pollution from power plants.

On April 30, 2024, The Biden administration released rules intended to expedite the issuance of permits for clean energy projects while requiring federal agencies to more heavily weigh damaging effects on the climate and on low-income communities before approving projects like highways and oil wells. The rules were part of last year’s reform of the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the federal government to consider environmental effects and to seek public input before approving any project requiring a federal permit. The rules were released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and are intended to guide federal agencies in putting the reforms in place.

“These reforms will deliver smarter decisions, quicker permitting, and projects that are built better and faster,” said Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council. “As we accelerate our clean energy future, we are also protecting communities from pollution and environmental harms that can result from poor planning and decision making while making sure we build projects in the right places.”

For decades, the oil and gas, construction and real estate industries complained that the permitting requirements hindered business. Communities affected by major projects and environmental groups have often been able to use NEPA to delay or prevent projects from moving forward.

The Trump administration stripped away some of the protections under the environmental law, only to have Biden restore them. In 2023, Biden sought Republican support for legislation to lift the federal debt ceiling and agreed to expedite federal approvals. Now, the analyses of a project’s environmental impact must be completed within two years as opposed to the average of 4.5.

Similarly, the CEQ rules will allow projects that have a demonstrated long-term environmental benefit to receive expedited environmental reviews or bypass them altogether. Federal agencies are now required to identify environmentally preferable alternatives to proposed projects early in the permit review process. And federal agencies must consider whether a proposed project would avoid or reduce the pollution that disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities.

Opposition was voiced by major business groups and the fossil fuel industry, including the Chamber of Commerce; the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers; the American Road and Transportation Builders Association; and the National Mining Association: the rule is “a step in the wrong direction.”

Also on April 25, 2024, the EPA issued four major regulations designed to slash multiple forms of toxic and planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s dirtiest source of electricity. The rules are expected to shutter nearly all the nation’s 200 remaining coal plants by 2040.

Industry representatives say there is no widely used technology available to substantially reduce CO2 emissions from power plant smokestacks. While one very expensive technique, carbon capture and sequestration, exists where emissions are trapped before they reach the atmosphere and are stored underground, that process has never been deployed in any coal plant in the US. The cheapest way to comply may be to just close.

Existing coal plants intended to operate through or beyond 2039 must reduce their GHG emissions 90% by 2032. Plants that are scheduled to close by 2039 must reduce their emissions 16% by 2030. Plants that retire before 2032 are exempt (that includes about 50 plants). More than 200 coal plants closed in the past decade.

Coal use in the US has plummeted since 1990, when it produced 50% of the nation’s electricity. Last year coal was responsible for 16.2% of US electricity generation.  Renewable energy, wind, solar, hydropower, biomass and geothermal combined, has surpassed coal, accounting for 21.4% of power generation in 2023. Natural gas was responsible for 43.1% of US electricity and nuclear about 18%.

Republican-led states and the coal industry are expected to challenge the rules in court. The Supreme Court has already restricted the way in which the EPA can regulate power plants and the conservative-leaning court could further restrict the administration’s efforts. Obama tried to limit carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, but the Court blocked his 2015 Clean Power Plan. Trump rolled back the rule and allowed coal plants to continue operating. In 2022, the Court found EPA had the authority to regulate emissions but could not force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal. Instead, it allowed a narrower approach that regulated how individual power plants operate.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced on March 25 that DOE will partially fund 33 different projects in 20 states to test methods for curbing emissions from a wide variety of factories and industrial plants, calling it “the single largest industrial decarbonization investment in American history.” The Biden administration plans to invest up to $6 billion on new technologies to cut CO2 emissions from heavy industries like steel, cement, chemicals and aluminum, which all contribute enormously to global warming with emissions that have been difficult to reduce.

Constellium, an aluminum producer, could receive up to $75 million to build a novel aluminum casting plant in Ravenswood, W.Va., that can run on cleaner burning hydrogen fuels rather than natural gas. Kraft Heinz, a food manufacturer, could get up to $170.9 million to install electric boilers and heat pumps at 10 facilities across the country, where they would be used to generate the large amounts of heat needed for things like drying macaroni without directly burning fossil fuels. Cleveland-Cliffs, a steel manufacturer, could get up to $500 million to help retire a large coal-consuming blast furnace in Middletown, Ohio, and replace it with two furnaces that use electricity to turn scrap into steel. The company would also test ways to produce steel using hydrogen.

Ms. Granholm said the goal was to demonstrate novel technologies that can scale up rapidly and “set a new gold standard for clean manufacturing in the United States and around the world.” The money for these projects comes from DOE’s Industrial Demonstrations Program, which was funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 IRA. The 33 projects will undergo further negotiations with the agency before receiving final funding.

Heavy industry is one of the nation’s largest sources of planet-warming pollution, accounting for about 25% of all emissions. Many factories burn coal or natural gas to produce the heat needed to create steam, temper glass or turn iron into steel. Cement makers emit CO2 as part of the process of transforming limestone. Chemical producers use oil and gas as raw materials for their products.

In theory, there are technologies that can cut emissions. Industrial heat pumps or thermal batteries could help factories generate heat from renewable electricity. Cement makers could capture and bury their CO2. Steel makers could use clean hydrogen instead of coal. But many of those solutions are expensive and in their infancy.

“It’s different from the electricity sector, where widely available alternatives to fossil fuels like wind, solar and batteries have come down dramatically in cost,” Morgan Bazilian, a professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines, said. “With industry, we haven’t yet seen clear winners emerge at the price needed.”

Policymakers have not cracked down on industrial emissions due to concerns that factories and jobs could move abroad to places with looser environmental rules.

On April 4, EPA announced that it will award $20 billion in ‘Green Bank’ Grants ranging from $500 million to $6.9 billion to eight nonprofits that will loan the money to clean energy projects. VP Harris called it “the largest investment in financing for community-based climate projects in our nation’s history.” The organizations will use the money to offer loans to businesses, homeowners and others to spur clean energy across the country, particularly in low-income areas.

Loans could be for something as small as helping one family purchase an electric induction stove or as ambitious as helping to build energy-efficient low-income housing. The administration estimated the program would attract about $150 billion in private capital, or about $7 for every federal dollar spent. The awardees have committed to collectively cut or avoid up to 40 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in the next seven years, the equivalent of taking 9.5 million cars off the road for a year.

The $20 billion comes from the 2022 IRA, which included $27 billion for a program known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The biggest grants under the program include $6.97 billion to the Climate United Fund, which is led by Calvert Impact, a nonprofit investment firm. The Coalition for Green Capital, a nonprofit founded by Reed Hundt, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, was awarded $5 billion. Power Forward America, which is made up of five climate and housing organizations, was awarded $2 billion.

The EPA program will fund different nonprofit groups which will act as lenders. “This has been a long road to get here,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen (MD-D), who introduced legislation in 2009 to create a green bank. Sen. Van Hollen said he expects the funding will make a significant difference in low-income communities where residents may be less likely to take advantage of federal tax incentives that are available for EVs or home appliances, as they lack upfront cash.

One grant recipient, Rewiring America, currently does work in communities like De Soto, Ga., a rural area where it has made loans and awarded grants to help about 78 families upgrade appliances and weatherize homes.

The above views are my own.

Teraine Okpoko assisted with the Facts on the Ground section.

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