Weekly Fresh Air Brief: September 19th

Asia

• Activists have launched an urgent appeal calling upon outgoing Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to protect key forest area before he steps down.
• India’s west coast city of Surat - a pioneer member of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network - is anticipating the worst effects of climate change, and preparing to cope.
• Researchers with CDKN are drawing lessons from the tragic floods in Kashmir, and making the case for how to avoid mega floods becoming the ‘new normal’ in India.

• A coalition of major green groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, urged Obama in a letter to “swiftly” issue binding emission regulations on oil and gas production, the largest industrial source of methane.
• NRDC is celebrating a move by the US government who this week convened industry leaders to pledge reductions in and replacements for HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) ahead of the UN climate summit.
• The internet cloud services of Amazon, who was singled out as a bad corporate actor in a Greenpeace report earlier this year, is about to get a even dirtier. Amazon’s newest server farm will be served by an electric utility with a history of lobbying for the coal industry.
• Civil society groups in Mexico are grappling with a flood of fossil fuel energy projects threatening biodiversity and the way of life in the Veracruz region.
• Peruvian authorities have pulled more human remains from a remote river in the Amazon, which may belong to one of the four murdered activists allegedly killed by loggers on September 1st.

• The vast majority of €12 billion in EU allowances and transfers intended to tackle climate change and diversify the energy mix between 2013-19 will instead be spent on coal, according to a new report by WWF, CAN Europe and Greenpeace.
• In related news, the coal sector is eying salvation in the green bonds market. Whether it’s possible or not will be addressed at an industry conference in Denmark next month.
• New analysis from Sandbag warns that coal burning in Europe into the 2030s won’t be significantly constrained by the raft of EU legislation and the blocs Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

• Our Australian partners pushing back against deep cuts to the country’s Renewable Energy Target aregetting traction - feeding hopes that the Abbot government will relent.

• A petition calling for 100% clean energy by 2050, launched by Avaaz ahead of the UN summit, has quickly hit 2 million signatories and continues to rise. Will they hit 3 million before next week’s UN Summit?
• An international group of 160 environmental leaders issued a challenge to foundations and other charitable givers with combined holdings to divest from fossil fuels and free up billions of dollars to invest in clean energy.
• CERES convened a group of hundreds of heavyweight investors representing some $24 trillion in assets, all asking for stronger political leadership and more ambitious policies to finance the transition to low-carbon and climate resilient economies around the world.
• A new campaign challenging people to #walkthewalk on climate change ahead of the People’s Climate Mobilization this weekend picked up high profile support from Desmond Tutu and Christiana Figueres.
• This week the International Declaration on the Future of the Arctic has reached a milestone of 1000 influential signatories from all walks of life and all corners of our planet.
• Criminal deforestation is a growing threat to some of the worlds most important carbon sinks. According to a new report by Forest Trends, 49% of all recent tropical deforestation is the result of illegal clearing for commercial agriculture.
• A group of palm oil and timber companies that pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains have agreed to a process to define zero deforestation commitments as part of a civil society-spurred initiative.
• Greenpeace is celebrating a move by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) who just agreed to protect the vast majority of the world’s Intact Forest Landscapes across FSC forests.
• A new report on the social costs of carbon zeros in on climate-induced wildfires, estimating global losses rising to between $50-300 billion each year, by 2050.
• Richard Branson’s failure to deliver on a much-vaunted pledge to spend US $3 billion on low carbon fuels has become a case study for why it’s unrealistic to rely on business to find solutions to climate change; in a new book on the subject by Naomi Klein.
• In related news, efforts supported by Branson-led non-profit the Carbon War Room could lead to a five-fold increase in the number of sea ports using ship-evaluation systems to combat carbon emissions as momentum gathers to improve the industry’s fuel efficiency.
• ChinaDialogue published the views of 6 prominent activists and scholars from around the world on how climate politics have changed since Copenhagen.
• Alice Bell, writing for the Road to Paris blog, examines a spike in climate change optimism and asks whether we can be rationally hopeful about the environment.

With record-warm August, scientists say world on track for record warm year
Just days after US scientists at NASA data showed that August 2014 was the warmest August on record, theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the ranking and raised the ante: there’s a good chance 2014 could become the warmest year on record.

For the year-to-date, the globe has measured 1.22°F above the 20th century average of 57.3°F, which makes January-August 2014 the third warmest such period since records began in 1880. Climate Central is reportingthat if each of the remaining months of the year rank among the top five warmest, 2014 will beat out 2010 for the top spot.

With climate impacts on the rise, extreme weather displaced more people than war in 2013
Research by the Norwegian Refugee Council uncovered a troubling new trend - extreme weather displaced more people than war in 2013. ‘Mega disasters’ such as typhoons and hurricanes drove 22 million people from homes. Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak highlighted the issue in a video address, standing in front of his ocean-threatened home before heading off to New York for the UN Climate Leaders Summit. According to Loeak, “The world has changed too much. The science is more alarming, the impacts more severe, the economics more compelling, and the politics more potent.”

• RTCC has an update from the latest round of UNFCCC negotiations on supporting developing country’s who suffer from ‘Loss & Damage‘ due to climate change impacts. The meeting, which just wrapped in Bonn, delivered a 2-year work plan that covers a number of financial instruments that could affected communities.
• Indonesian lawmakers have approved a pact for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to tackle smog pollution, becoming the grouping’s final member to sign up to the regional co-operation effort.
• Peru has announced that renewable energy will provide 66% of the countries power by 2024. Peru currently sources 54 per cent of its energy from renewables - primarily hydro.
• In addition to moves by the US to reduce HFCs announced Tuesday, the government delayed its process for enacting new pollution cuts for coal power plants and unveiled actions aimed at improving domestic energy efficiency and increasing the use of solar power in homes and businesses.
• While the US state of California continues to struggle from unprecedented drought and heat, it hopes to get ahead of another climate change impacts by compiling the country’s most detailed database to help it predict and adapt to rising sea levels.
• The Chinese President XI is set to visit the low lying island state of the Maldives where he will discuss how to work together to tackle climate change.
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron came into power pledging to be the ‘greenest government ever;’ but according to the a cross-party Environmental Audit Committee, Cameron’s government is failing to reduce air pollution and prevent flooding.
• The NYT posted a ground-breaking if incomplete piece on the global and spreading impacts of the German energiewende (energy transformation).

• Global flood events during August 2014 caused US $4 billion in economic damage and caused 478 deaths, according to the latest monthly summary from reinsurance intermediary Aon Benfield, the reinsurance intermediary
• The drought in Sao Paulo has reached a critical level. In the latest warning from Brazil’s Public Ministry, reservoirs could run dry in the next 100 days. Scientists believe the drought is at least partly caused by deforestation which has led to the loss of billions of liters of water released as vapour clouds by Amazon rainforest trees.
• Construction has started on a 1000 foot observation tower in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon to monitor further changes in the regions climate.
• A new study on Asia’s monsoon - which is the world’s largest climatic system - predicts that rains will intensify as more CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere. In other parts of the world climate change is set to unleash a series of decades-long ‘megadroughts’ this century, according to new research.
• A new report from Austrian says average temperatures in the country have risen by almost 2ºC since 1880; compared with a global rise of 0.85ºC in the same period.
• Apparently all that excess CO2 is boosting the speed of tree growth - as much as 77% according to a new study.

• The world’s biggest exported of crude oil, Saudi Arabia, told OPEC that it cut production by 408,000 barrels a day in August amid signs of a supply surplus and dropping prices. Saudi Arabia will make further reductions if the price continues to drop.
• Moscow has reduced its gas exports to Poland in an apparent attempt to prevent EU countries from re-exporting Russian gas to Ukraine. As part of the latest round of sanctions against Russia, the US government took aim at Exxon’s project in the Arctic Ocean, ordering American companies to cut off exports to Russian oil exploration within 14 days.
• After its deadly and disastrous deepwater drilling failure in the US Golf of Mexico, BP plans to risk going even deeper to tap inaccessible oil reserves and profits.
• New research confirms that US power plants remain an outsized contributor to the world’s carbon pollution. However, a study by the government’s watchdog agency has concluded that more coal plants will retire by 2025 than it previously thought.
• Australian coal exporters are scrambling to clarify the fallout from changes to China’s coal import rules, which will limit the import of high sulphur and ash coal.
• A Chinese-backed energy and trading hub taking shape in Western Myanmar is rapidly growing to meet China’s energy needs; and threatening villagers livelihoods in the process.
• Electricity shortages and grid inefficiencies in the Philippines are being leveraged by the coal industry tofast-track the approval and construction of new coal power plants.
• And a study from the US Geological Survey found a “direct link” between the injection of fracking wastewater into the ground and earthquakes.

• A new report from CDP - an environmental organization that gathers information on behalf of investor - shows that large global companies are ready for a price on carbon. Government support to bolster the pricing of carbon is expected at next week’s UN summit.
• Analysis by the financial times shows that large wind farms and solar plants are now cost-competitive with gas-fired power in many parts of the US even without subsidy raising the prospect of a fundamental shift in the country’s energy market.
• French investment bank Kepler Chevreux just published analysis showing that $100 billion invested in either wind energy or solar energy will produce significantly more energy than that same $100 billion invested in oil.
• Global offshore wind power is set to grow from 7.1 gigawatts in 2013 to 39.9 gigawatts by 2020, according to research firm GlobalData.
• Japan is about to have the world’s largest floating solar power plant, signalling increasing adoption of the efficient and innovative technology in Japan, which is due partly to lack of space on land.
• Germany opened the largest commercial battery plant in Europe on Tuesday and the new installation will help stabilise the region’s renewable energy supply.
• Researchers have developed a new method for mapping global carbon emissions for individual cities on an hourly basis — a major improvement over previous techniques, which quantified greenhouse emissions less accurately and at coarser scales.
• And a round 40 million viewers tuned in to inaugural Formula E race - the world’s first all-electric Grand Prix.