Planet Week: 2020 rivals hottest year on record
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule to block future limits on industrial greenhouse gases. A court in Paris heard a landmark case against France for climate inaction. And scientists found that oceans reached their hottest temperatures on record in 2020.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Monday, January 11
Countries commit to preserving biodiversity at One Planet Summit
On Monday, world leaders met at One Planet Summit, a virtual conference, to discuss preserving biodiversity and accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The Summit focused on topics from agroecology to marine ecosystems to deforestation.
At the conference, 50 countries committed to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which aims to protect 30% of the Planet’s land and sea in the next decade. France also launched PREZODE, an international initiative to prevent the emergence of new zoonotic diseases. Read more from The Associated Press.
Insects are disappearing
Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate, according to a dozen studies published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Land-use changes, like deforestation and grassland degradation, as well as invasive species and industrial agriculture, are driving much of the decline. Climate change is also stressing and shifting habitats, threatening millions of insects with extinction.
“Insects, like every bit of the natural world, are declining,” insect ecologist Matthew Forister, who was involved in one of the studies, told National Geographic. “But it’s clear insects have a possibility to rebound. It’s grim, but it’s not too late.”
Tuesday, January 12
Energy companies reconsider political funding
Major energy corporations, including Dow Inc. and General Electric, are halting political donations to lawmakers who objected to election results and contributed to the violence at the United States Capitol last week.
Dow promised their bans would last for the remainder of the current election cycle — nearly two years for members in the House and up to six years in the Senate — while others, like BP and ConocoPhillips, will pause all political funding through the first half of this year. These oil companies joined a growing list of donors reevaluating their role in politics. E&E News has more.
This week, we wrote about Big Business’s newfound moral standing and what it means for the future of climate action.
American greenhouse gas emissions plummet in 2020
Last year, U.S. emissions dropped 10.3%, the largest dip since World War II, according to the Rhodium Group. The drop came with a heavy price, though, in both economic damage and human suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trading death and poverty for emissions reductions is obviously no way to address climate change — “it’s both cruel and politically unviable,” writes Grist. And with a vaccine on its way, this dip is by no means permanent. That means it’s still up to a Biden presidency to usher in massive structural change and deliver significant climate action. CNN has the story.
Wednesday, January 13
Green movement is gaining diversity — but slowly
The environmental movement has been grappling with its exclusive past for years, but things are slowly changing, according to a recent diversity report card from Green 2.0.
Between 2017 and 2020, participating organizations added, on average, six people of color and eight women as full-time staff, two people of color and two women as senior staff, and one person of color and one woman to their boards. However, women and people of color are still most likely to leave NGOs and foundations, reversing some of these gains.
“Several environmental organizations who believed they had made a commitment to diversity found themselves struggling to reconcile their good intentions with the reality of a discontented staff or with accusations of harassment and discrimination,” the report read. “Diversity without accountability does not promote justice.” Read more at The Hill.
Thursday, January 14
2020 rivals hottest year on record
Several studies confirmed a disturbing trend: 2020 tied 2016 for the hottest year on record, with the last seven years being the hottest. NASA’s analysis, released Thursday, found that global temperatures have risen 1.2 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the Industrial Age and that the worst warming was felt on the poles, in areas like the Arctic and Siberia.
These numbers spell disaster for the Planet and its inhabitants. Rising temperatures are melting sea ice, increasing sea levels, and fueling severe droughts and extreme heatwaves. They’re also shifting plant and animal habitats, making it harder for species to survive.
“It’s no longer a question of when the impacts of climate change will manifest themselves: They are already here and now,” climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe told The Washington Post. “The only question remaining is how much worse it will get. And the answer to that question is up to us.”
We’re not adapting fast enough
Climate change may be here and now, but countries still aren’t adapting to these impacts fast enough. That’s according to the new Adaptation Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Programme.
To turn this trend around, wealthier nations must increase global development aid, with much more funding going to poor countries — the report finds that only about $30 billion goes to helping poor countries adapt to climate change, even though climate cost for these countries is around $70 billion.
“The hard truth is that climate change is upon us,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, in a statement. “Its impacts will intensify and hit vulnerable countries and communities the hardest — even if we meet the Paris Agreement goals of holding global warming this century to well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C.” Read more in The Guardian.
Bonus
New Halloween bat discovered
Two years ago, researchers in Africa stumbled across a bat unlike any they’d seen before — bright orange fur with black wings and orange fingers. It took a while, but last week, scientists confirmed myotis nimbaenis as a new species, offering a bright spot in a time of dark biodiversity outlooks.
“It’s rare for someone to go out in the field and find a striking, gorgeous animal that’s new,” Nancy Simmons, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told The Washington Post. “These bats are found only in this area atop the Nimba Mountains. They could have gone extinct and no one would have ever known.”
Have a great week.
— Brandon and Sam