Welcome to Planet Days, a five-minute roundup of the latest climate news and what it means for our Planet. If this was forwarded to you, smash that subscribe button:
First, some housekeeping. We’re taking next week off for some much-needed R&R, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Monday, March 21. Now, onto the week of climate news:
Last week, a wildfire in South Korea forced thousands to evacuate, an atmospheric river swamped the Pacific Northwest, and Build Back Better was (again) resuscitated.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet.
Monday, February 28
IPCC: We’re not keeping up with climate change
Climate impacts are outpacing our ability to adapt to them. That’s only one of the many takeaways from the 3,500-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a report that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”
Here are other major takeaways from the report:
Climate impacts are more severe and widespread than previously thought.
No one will escape climate impacts, but the populations who have contributed least to the problem will be disproportionately affected.
Climate change is leading to massive species die-offs.
Everyone on the Planet is suffering mentally or physically from climate change.
As the Planet warms, all these impacts will multiply.
The report is only the second of three parts — the first part, which we covered in August, was about how the climate is changing'; and the third, expected later this month, will cover solutions. For a deeper dive, CarbonBrief’s got you. For something shorter, HuffPost has 14 takeaways.
Australia’s worst flood in a decade
Heavy rains pounded southeast Australia last week, killing at least 14 people and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. The floods are the worst the country’s seen in over a decade.
Brisbane, the country’s third-largest city, saw 31.2 inches of rainfall in six days (the city’s average rainfall is 47 inches for a whole year). The rains are whiplash from years of record drought and wildfires, which have destroyed thousands of homes and razed millions of acres in the region. The Associated Press has more.
Climate action hinges on landmark Supreme Court case
Previously, President Joe Biden has leaned into executive orders on climate. Now, such orders could be at risk in a Supreme Court with a conservative majority.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments for West Virginia v. EPA, in which Republican-led states questioned the EPA’s authority to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.
Should the Court side with the states, the decision could hamper Biden’s future plans to regulate greenhouse gasses and deal a devastating blow to U.S. climate action in general. E&E News has more.
Big Oil’s exodus from Russia
The war in Ukraine is driving Big Oil out of Russia. Last week, Exxon, BP, Shell, and Equinor all pulled the plug on Russian projects, which could lead to a combined $22 billion of write-offs, reports The Wall Street Journal.
BP will take the biggest hit, abandoning its 20% share in a Russia-owned oil company, worth about $14 billion. So far, however, these companies have fared okay on the stock market, perhaps because of rising oil and gas prices.
But a mass exodus from oil isn’t always a good thing. Big Oil uses profits from oil and gas to fund its transition to clean energy. And leaving Russia, the companies may just look for other, dirtier ways to extract oil and gas elsewhere, like pushing for more drilling in the U.S.
Tuesday, March 1
Sanctions could go further
Speaking of oil, the International Energy Agency announced that member countries will release 60 million barrels of oil (30 million of which will come from the U.S.), signaling that “there will be no shortfall in supplies as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Meanwhile on the Hill, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) unveiled a bill that bans energy imports from Russia. Though initial sanctions against Russia have been harsh, the Biden administration has yet to cut off Russian oil, for fear of raising gas prices. The Washington Post covers the developments.
Deforestation emissions jump
The world’s forests store an enormous amount of Planet-heating carbon. But a new study suggests that carbon loss (the emissions released when a tree gets cut down) has doubled in the last two decades — and it continues to rise.
Deforestation is now the second-largest human source of greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuels, with about 10% of the Planet’s tree cover falling since 2000. Despite this trend, the recent findings contrast previous assessments, which suggested a slight decline in carbon loss from deforestation. Read the full story in The Guardian.
Wednesday, March 2
World takes aim at plastic pollution
On Wednesday, world leaders and environmental ministers from 173 countries agreed on a legally binding resolution, which lays out an ambitious plan to “end plastic pollution.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the agreement “the most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.” But much of the work is yet to come: The specifics of the deal will be negotiated over two years, with financial and compliance issues and plastic-industry-backed fights abound. The Washington Post has more.
Bonus
Greetings from America’s newest National Park
Part of the reason we’re taking off next week is Brandon is doing some traveling. Yesterday, Brandon and his girlfriend Sarah went to New River Gorge, the country’s newest national park.
Spanning 53 miles along the New River in southern West Virginia, the park became the 63rd national park in December 2020, as part of the COVID-19 relief bill. Since then, the New River has seen its popularity grow: Just last year, a record 1.68 million people visited the park, an increase of more than 600,000 from 2020. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has more.
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam