Solutions

Kumi Naidoo resists ‘climate apartheid,’ calls for more voices, joy to address climate change

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:52:49 +0000

Kumi Naidoo resists ‘climate apartheid,’ calls for more voices, joy to address climate change Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/04/2022 - 14:52

Lisa Marshall

We are at a moment in history when all of us must now take on a mantle of leadership. And we must do it in a way that energizes and motivates rather than saying ‘It’s too late.

—Kumi Naidoo

South Africa-born human rights activist Kumi Naidoo kicked off a fiery Sunday-morning talk at CU ��«��Ƶ’s Glenn Miller Ballroom with a pointed request for his audience.

“Please stand if you believe that: A) Everything is fine climate wise; B) We have a massive challenge ahead, and the window of opportunity is closing; or C) It’s too late,” he instructed.

Seven people stood for C. The rest stood for B. Notably, no one stood for A.

Each and every one of them, he asserted, has a responsibility to rise up against climate change.

“We are at a moment in history when all of us must now take on a mantle of leadership,” said Naidoo. “And we must do it in a way that energizes and motivates rather than saying ‘It’s too late. What’s the point of resistance?’”

During a presentation that conjured reflections from Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Matt Damon, Cree elders, and the late South African rapper Riky Rick, Naidoo called for a new kind of collective action to push back on what he calls “climate apartheid” –– one that includes more voices, communicates more clearly and even incorporates a little joy.

“Pessimism and cognitive dissonance are not luxuries we can afford anymore,” he said.

As a lifelong human rights activist who first began protesting South Africa’s system of institutionalized racial oppression at age 15, Naidoo knows something about resistance.

After multiple arrests, he was forced to flee his country in the 1980s and lived in exile in the United Kingdom. He risked his life placing protest banners on oil rigs in Greenland, served in leadership roles with Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, and was instrumental in getting the African National Congress –– banned for decades under Apartheid –– formally registered as a political party again in the mid-1990s.

From this vantage point of experience, Naidoo shared a list of dos and don’ts for today’s climate activists, starting with a request to look inward.

“All of us, academia and NGOs included, have adjusted to injustices that we never should have adjusted to,” he said, suggesting that endemic “civil obedience” has stalled progress.

In addition to direct actions such as sit-ins, strikes and other protests, he said today’s activists have changed the way they communicate the climate crisis, moving away from the sterile language of science to the language of lives, land, health and jobs.

“We have tried to win this with facts and figures: ‘1.5 degrees. 350 parts per million. Blah blah blah. All of this goes completely over the heads of 99% of people,” he said.

He added that one mistake his generation has made as activists was to put too much power into the hands of a few, and he suggested it’s time for a more decentralized, participatory and collectively shared climate justice movement.

In the past, climate activists –– many of them white and wealthy –– have also failed to recognize the harm that their protests have on working people. This, too, must change.

“If you have a persistent pattern of civil disobedience being done by wealthy white people and it adversely impacts people of color, that is an arrogance that must be addressed,” he said.

Today’s climate warriors, he said, must also stop preaching to the crowd.

“Activism cannot continue to be the art of developing a position and mobilizing the people who agree with you and dissing the ones who don’t agree. It has to be about having the humility to build bridges with those we disagree with. That means learning to love the people who voted for Donald Trump.”

He praised a new generation of youth activists who have embraced the climate crisis with unprecedented urgency, but also with new tools. In addition to bringing economic and legal weapons to the fight, they are also bringing art, song and poetry.

In that vein, he ended his talk not with jarring statistics or talk of catastrophe, but rather with a song.

On a screen behind him played a music video created by his stepson, rapper Riky Rick, who tragically died this year. It was initially created as a love song –– one lover trying to woo back another who he’d harmed. But Naidoo and his family adapted it into a love song from humans to our planet.

On the screen, images of waterfalls and sunrises intermixed with those of trash heaps and sewage as the lyrics declared:

“I was focused on paying bills when I should have focused on showing you how I feel.”

Naidoo asked the audience to stand again, this time to dance.

And they did.

In keynote address on Sunday, South African-born Kumi Naidoo stressed the need for a “mantle of leadership” among all people as humanity works to address climate change, with a more inclusive, collective approach.

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4 key ways to address the climate crisis now

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:39:23 +0000

4 key ways to address the climate crisis now Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/04/2022 - 14:39

Lisa Marshall

“We’ve heard from the activists. We know they’re being threatened. They’re being jailed for their work. They’re being deprived of their livelihoods. Now we need to move to action.”

—Therese Arnesen, UN Human Rights Officer

Closing Reception

Beth Osnes, associate professor of theater and dance and environmental science at CU ��«��Ƶ, leads a performance of young people from fifth grade through college age. The performance included musical pieces focused on the impacts of climate change and what we must do to address it. Osnes injected comedy into the performances and included a piece on reducing food waste.

Day three of the Right Here Right Now Global Climate summit at CU ��«��Ƶ was filled with discussions of concrete solutions and urgent calls for collective action to reduce the human toll of the climate crisis today and to fend off a catastrophic future.

To get there, panelists and speakers said the world must update its infrastructure, rethink its economy and consider Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science. And a new generation of climate defenders must better communicate the realities of the crisis in ways that strengthen the movement and foster political will.

“We’ve heard from the activists. We know they’re being threatened. They’re being jailed for their work. They’re being deprived of their livelihoods,” said U.N. Human Rights Officer Therese Arnesen after the close of the summit. “Now we need to move to action.”

Here’s a look at what that action might look like, according to participants who attended the third day of the summit:

Adapt to reality now to save lives

While the mitigation of future warming must remain a priority, the world is progressing slowly on this front, and countries must adapt to global climate realities now to save lives, said economist Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute, during a panel on Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Response.

Robinson noted that after a 2003 heat wave led to 15,000 deaths in France, the French government established an early warning system that now alerts elderly people and other vulnerable communities of oncoming heat waves and directs them to cooling stations. When another heat wave hit in 2019, 1,500 died, a fraction of the number who might have died had the warning system not been implemented.

Similarly in Nigeria, the government has invested in programs to assure that construction and agricultural workers, whose health is increasingly threatened due to climate change, have access to water and toilets on hot days.

“We must continue to focus on mitigation, but adaptation can work. It can save lives, and it’s not that complicated,” she said.

Expedite a global green energy infrastructure

Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Lab based in Golden, Colorado, joined Robinson on the panel.

Keller added that scientists and energy companies from the developed world could make a big difference in mitigating future warming if they would do more to help developing countries transition to a cleaner energy infrastructure, powered by solar and wind.

He noted that many countries, particularly in Africa, have no electricity at all yet, so providing funding and expertise now can enable them to skip powering their country with fossil fuels entirely, much like they skipped landline telephones and went directly to cell phones.

“We need to act now to prevent them from making the same mistakes that we have,” Keller said.

He stressed that the transition to green energy must be a just one, considering and financially supporting those at risk of losing their livelihood.

Rethink what rich means

Solutions for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change abound, and many are within reach, “But a crucial question we have to confront is: Who will pay?” noted economist Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the Climate Policy Lab, during a panel on economics, pricing and policy.

Some panelists throughout the day suggested that in carbon offset systems, the price of carbon is already too low and should be raised.

Others pointed to the recent Loss and Damage fund established at the United Nations’ COP27 climate conference as a ray of hope, if implemented properly.

And many suggested that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should be overhauled to make them more amenable to investing in green economies.

“If you think about these two institutions, they have become conservative and risk averse and in reality they should be the opposite,” said Robinson.

On a more fundamental level, it could be time for many to reimagine what it means to be rich.

“What if we saw it as having clean air and clean water,” said Canadian youth activist Tia Kennedy, during the summit’s closing panel on traditional knowledge.

Consider Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science

During that panel, Indigenous participants from Belize, Arizona, Canada, the United States and Panama highlighted a worldview in which values of reciprocity prevail, not only with one another but also between humans and the planet. The earth and animals are viewed not as a “natural resource” to be extracted from but as part of an interconnected web.

In thinking this way, simple solutions arise that can often trump sophisticated technical fixes, explained botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

She shared how her ancestors stayed warm in winter because they built a small fire and sat close to it.

Meanwhile, “they observed that the settlers built a really big fire in a big house and sat far away from the fire.” That story still resonates with her today.

Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a member of the Hopi Tribe in Arizona, and “250th generation” farmer shared this story, a fitting way to bring the summit to a close:

“We only receive 6 to 10 inches of annual rainfall every year at Hopi. That’s it, but we’re able to raise things like melon, squash, beans (and) corn. When I was at Cornell University, they told me I needed 33 inches of annual rainfall to raise corn, and I said, ‘Man, you guys have got some weak corn here.’ Do you know what makes it come up? It’s our faith, and it’s our belief system that makes that corn come up. It’s not a commodity, folks. It’s life.”

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Robin Wall Kimmerer

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:24:48 +0000

Robin Wall Kimmerer Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 12:24

United States

Expertise:
Climate Change & Environment

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the Earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.

Wall Kimmerer tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of environmental biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs that draw on both Indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. She was named a MacArthur fellow this year.

As a writer and a scientist, Kimmerer’s interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in botany from the University of Wisconsin, and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

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Cristina Coc

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:40:07 +0000

Cristina Coc Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 08:40

Belize (Q’eqchi’)

Expertise:
Human Rights

Program Director
Julian Cho Society

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

The Julian Cho Society (JCS), founded by Cristina Coc, is dedicated to the conservation of the environments and rights of Indigenous peoples of southern Belize. Coc is program director, and an organizer and co‐spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance. As a Maya woman, she brings a wealth of knowledge of these communities, fluency in Q’eqchi’, and experience mobilizing local residents.

When the government of Belize granted unrestricted logging concessions to a multinational company in the mid‐1990s, the Maya built a social movement that fought back. They also sued the government for Indigenous rights to their lands. In 2004, the Inter‐American Commission for Human Rights ruled that the Maya had full Indigenous rights to the lands of southern Belize, but concrete changes have been slow.

In 2007, two Maya villages, Conejo and Santa Cruz, brought a claim against the government for its failure to recognize and protect the customary land rights of the Maya people. After a trial, the Supreme Court of Belize accepted the villages’ argument that Maya property rights, like other forms of property, are protected by the Belize Constitution and international human rights law.

Recently, Coc and other Maya leaders have worked with lawyers from the Indigenous People’s Law & Policy Institute at the University of Arizona to test the lawsuit, negotiate with the government and build capacity among local Maya.

Coc is a young woman, but in this work, she has accumulated vast experience. She has felt the cold reality of discrimination. She has negotiated complicated and contentious issues at the highest level. Most important, she has gained the respect of the Q’eqchi’ and Mopan villagers of Toledo.

The Julian Cho Society (JCS), founded by Cristina Coc, is dedicated to the conservation of the environments and rights of Indigenous peoples of southern Belize.

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Constance Okollet

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:54:12 +0000

Constance Okollet Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/11/2022 - 09:54

Uganda

Expertise:
Human Rights

Chairperson
Osukuru United Women's Network (OWN)

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Adaptation, Mitigation, Disaster Response: How should governments, acting individually and through international cooperation, address the impact of climate change for the most vulnerable, whose voices are often unheard?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Constance Okollet is the chair of the Osukuru United Women’s Network (OWN) in the Tororo district of eastern Uganda, and is a self-described peasant farmer and mother of seven. As the chair for OWN, she leads a consortium of about 1,200 small women’s groups working on education, community health and nutrition.

Constance Okollet is the chair of the Osukuru United Women’s Network (OWN) in the Tororo district of eastern Uganda, and is a self-described peasant farmer and mother of seven.

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Kishore Rao

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:26:50 +0000

Kishore Rao Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/11/2022 - 09:26

United States

Expertise:
Business & Industry
Climate Change & Environment

Global Consulting Sustainability and Climate Leader
Deloitte

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Economics, Pricing, Policy: How do governments and various stakeholders pay and otherwise take action to develop climate policy solutions in a manner that is equitable?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Kishore Rao is Deloitte’s global consulting sustainability and climate leader, focused on government and public sector clients. He works with leaders and professionals across the globe, helping governments and public services agencies develop and translate policy into practical action on such issues as climate action, sustainability, social inclusion and good governance. Rao also leads Deloitte’s business relationship with global international affairs and development organizations.

For over 25 years, Rao has been helping global governments to devise and implement strategies that enhance sustainability, drive climate action, promote digitalization, build competitiveness, promote trade and investment, and build infrastructure. He also supports global companies ranging from real estate and energy to technology to build business models to enter and expand in global markets. More recently, his work has focused on environmental, societal and governance issues.

Over his career, Rao has held leadership positions with major consulting companies engaged in global expansion, economic development and social impact. He has lived and worked in over 70 countries and serves on the boards of globally focused nonprofits that advocate for international engagement and social impact.

Kishore Rao is Deloitte’s global consulting sustainability and climate leader, focused on government and public sector clients.

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Tristan Ahtone

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 15:56:27 +0000

Tristan Ahtone Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/10/2022 - 08:56

Finland
Editor at Large • Grist

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and is editor at large at Grist. He previously served as editor in chief at the Texas Observer and Indigenous affairs editor at High Country News. He has reported for Al Jazeera America, PBS NewsHour, Indian Country Today and NPR, to name a few.

Ahtone’s stories have won multiple honors, including a George Polk Award, a National Magazine Award nomination, and investigative awards from the Gannett Foundation and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). A past president of the Native American Journalists Association, Ahtone is a 2017 Nieman fellow.

Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and is editor at large at Grist.

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Technology may prevent the worst climate scenarios, but how do we adapt now?

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 21:14:25 +0000

Technology may prevent the worst climate scenarios, but how do we adapt now? Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/24/2022 - 15:14

Lisa Marshall

“The reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state.”

—Lori Peek

Ask a room full of experts for their solutions on addressing the climate crisis, and talk of promising new technologies often takes center stage.

Indeed, things like expanded solar and wind power and alternative transportation systems will play a critical role in mitigating some of the worst-case scenarios a warming planet could bring. But for those already living those scenarios, the time to adapt is now. It’s often the quieter, grass-roots strategies—like implementing new farming practices, financially empowering women and including the most vulnerable when making plans for the future—that can have a big impact, experts say.

According to a new survey by the World Economic Forum, more than half of adults on the planet believe climate change has already had a severe impact on their part of the world, and 35% fear it may force them from their homes in the next 25 years. In 2020 alone, weather-related events displaced 30 million people.

“The reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state,” said sociologist Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the ��«��Ƶ. “Technical fixes are important, but they can only get us so far. We need social fixes, too.”

Empowering the vulnerable

For Constance Okollet, summit panelist and founder of the Osokura United Women Network, that means empowering women, who, as the traditional family caregivers in many areas, tend to bear the brunt of climate change impacts.

Constance Okollet. Image credit: Edward Echwalu

“The woman is the engine of the home,” Okollet said via Zoom from her home in Asinget village, Uganda. “If you want something to change, look to the woman.”

Three-quarters of Uganda’s population relies on subsistence agriculture, with farmers using the money from selling surplus crops to pay for basics like children’s school fees and medicine. When crops fail, the effects ripple.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, already the world’s most food-insecure region, climate change is making things worse.

“When I was growing up, we had good yields and times were good,” recalled Okollet, a 58-year-old mother of seven.

Now, people must travel long distances for water, and scorching droughts are followed by floods that wash away crops. Every season is a gamble.

“Now, there is no food,” she said. “People go to sleep hungry. People are dying.”

She helped establish the Osokura United Women Network in the late 2000s, after lethal floods washed away crops, livestock and homes in her own village. At the time, she didn’t know what climate change was. When she learned that pollution from industrialized nations was essentially killing her neighbors, she was stunned. People in her region didn’t cause the problem, but she had ideas on how to help solve it.

With about 2,000 members, the group sends participants across the region to educate their neighbors about climate change and how to adapt. They teach them how to pool and save money so they can survive when crops fail, start small businesses, and manage their farmland in ways that make it more resilient.

Meanwhile, Okollet travels the world encouraging policymakers to invest in and replicate grassroots programs like hers.

2,000 miles to the south, in Johannesburg, panelist Ndivile Mokoena, project coordinator for Gender CC Southern Africa, takes a similar approach. The organization brings women from different regions and generations together to learn from one another about how to handle new pests, extended dry spells or torrential rains in their kitchen gardens or farms.

If a particular seed isn’t working in one area anymore but working in another, they trade.

They teach one another how to preserve and can, so if there is no harvest, they have food to live on. They learn how to get credit or even buy their own land, a practice once unheard of due to patriarchal traditions. And they learn how to engage in the political process.

“We are teaching them to be a part of the dialogue around climate change, so that no decisions are made about them without them,” Mokoena said.

Jola Ajibade

Rethinking home

Some models project that as many as 340 million people in coastal areas could be displaced by rising sea waters by 2050.

For many of these communities, adaptation will mean picking up and permanently leaving home.

To ensure that relocation is successful and just, policymakers around the world should be making plans now, inviting communities to talk about what this migration might look like, said Jola Ajibade, an associate professor of geography at Portland State University who studies managed retreat due to climate change.

In one recent analysis of 138 case studies of relocations, she concluded that just 46% were successful. All of the relocations came with unintended consequences.

In one case in Lagos, where Ajibade is from, about 30,000 people were violently forced out of a coastal community with guns and teargas, with no place to go. In several instances, often in poor communities in developing countries, top-down government plans have moved people from one threat, such as sea level rise, to another, drought or landslides. Often, people are moved to new communities to find the houses poorly built, and no access to transportation or cultural touchstones, like churches or burial grounds.

In contrast, the paper points to the Blue Acres buyout program in New Jersey as, in many ways, a standout model to improve community resilience amid a changing climate. Established in 1995, it offers homeowners pre-disaster market value for their properties while extending relocation assistance to renters. Vacated land is converted into parks. And community members are largely driving the process. Blue Acres has purchased over 700 properties statewide and negotiated nearly $6 million in debt relief for people owing more than their home is worth, Ajibade reported.

“A paradigm shift in retreat policies, planning and implementation is urgently needed,” she wrote, noting that such success stories are the exception, particularly in the developing world.

Ajibade’s advice to policymakers: “Start talking to communities now, long before deciding whether relocation is the appropriate adaptation, about what that would look like. And make sure the most vulnerable people’s voices are not just heard, but taken seriously.”

Lori Peek

Building community resilience

Relocation plans aside, nearly every community must face the fact that natural disasters are now a norm, not an exception, Peek said.

“The single most important thing we can do is invest in our community before the next disaster comes,” she said.

That means, in addition to making buildings and infrastructure stronger, making our social fabric stronger.

“There is growing recognition that these events are not ‘great equalizers,’” Peek said. “People at the margins suffer first and worst.”

Peek encourages communities to develop communication strategies to ensure that everyone, including the elderly, children and people with disabilities, knows how to get out when disaster comes, and plans to be sure schoolchildren can continue to learn (and ideally stay connected with one another) if evacuated.

Peek also said she hopes to see policy changes that support people, both socially and financially, if they can’t return home.

“Our whole structure of recovery has been predicated on people recovering in the places where they were, but what if those places are no longer safe?” Peek said. “Those are the kinds of discussions we need to be having—questioning the whole basis of disaster recovery.”

Another way to become more resilient to climate change: Get to know your neighbors. You may need their help someday.

“If we are ever going to come up with real solutions, it’s going to be through mutual connections and investments in this one great planet that we call home,” Peek said.

Ask a room full of experts for their solutions on addressing the climate crisis, and talk of promising new technologies often takes center stage.

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Top 4 promising solutions by sector to fight rising emissions

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:20:53 +0000

Top 4 promising solutions by sector to fight rising emissions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/20/2022 - 09:20

Kelsey Simpkins

—Martin Keller

Mitigating climate change by significantly reducing carbon emissions this decade will require big transitions in all sectors, from energy and transportation to construction and industry. But significant reductions in global emissions are possible, and the payoffs will be far-reaching, experts say.

Affordable electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind could provide 65% of the world’s total electricity supply by 2030 and remove 90% of carbon emissions from the power sector by 2050, according to the United Nations.

With the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by up to 70% globally by 2050—and in the process improve the health of the planet and its people.

“It won’t be easy, but we have done this before, when we first built out the grid,” said Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and president of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, the company that operates NREL for the US Department of Energy.

The global transition to clean energy will require a new level of collaboration by many diverse sectors, creating both challenges and win-wins, he said. Meanwhile, meeting increased demand for clean energy would kick-start economies and improve equality and equity around the world.

“New technology can not only be a tremendous opportunity for rural communities and underserved communities here in the US, but for many other countries this can be a new way for them to build out their opportunities,” said Keller, who will join the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit at CU ��«��Ƶ as a panelist on Day 3: Solutions. “We have to make sure that in the energy transition, we bring everybody along.”

Here's a snapshot of shifts underway, and the promise they hold:

Electricity

The most promising solutions in the electrical sector are something we already have: renewable energy technologies, mainly wind and solar power. Between 2010 and 2020 alone, the cost of solar-powered energy fell 85%, and the cost of wind energy fell by about half, according to the UN.

Wind and solar power use also increased tenfold during this time, accounting for 1% of total electricity production globally a decade ago, compared with 10% in 2021.

Increasing capacity to meet higher demand will be a big lift, Keller said. But it’s already underway in the US, thanks to declining costs and the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which heavily funds the acceleration of clean energy and the decarbonization of energy systems.

There are suddenly many tax incentives to drive the market toward this, and experts like Keller expect to see a huge increase on the employment side for wind, solar and renewables.

Switching to renewables can also build resilience in communities hurt by climate change. For instance, when Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida—which bills itself as America’s first sustainable solar powered town—was hit by Hurricane Ian in September, residents’ lights stayed on, thanks to their 700,000-panel grid and underground utility lines.

Emerging countries can also benefit. In regions just beginning to build their electricity infrastructure, planners can move straight to renewables rather than having to adapt a system based on fossil fuels.

These countries can also capitalize on their natural resources and evolve into energy-exporting countries. Keller noted that the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) has a lot of sun, and Chile and Patagonia have an abundance of wind. As about 6 billion people depend on importing fossil fuels from other countries, according to the UN, this diversification of global energy exporters can not only help meet demand but also stabilize economies and relations between nations.

Transportation

In car-dependent countries, reducing carbon emissions from commuter traffic represents a key challenge. According to the US Department of Transportation, transportation is the second largest source of total US greenhouse gas emissions, with gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles accounting for about two-thirds of those emissions.

Public transportation like buses and trains moves people through cities more efficiently, reducing greenhouse gas emissions even when not at full capacity. Compared with private car use, public transit contributes only about half as much carbon to the atmosphere, and US estimates show that it saves 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Besides investing more in public transportation, electric vehicles—whether electric cars or e-bikes—will be key to cutting emissions. Cost, however, soon won’t be as much of a problem.

Upwards of 130 million electric bicycles are expected to be sold worldwide between 2020 and 2023, with countries around the world now offering generous subsidies for residents to purchase them.

The technology is advancing at such a rapid speed that electric cars are expected to become cheaper than vehicles with combustion engines.

The Inflation Reduction Act also aims to entice battery manufacturers back to the US and increase domestic vehicle production—all moves that could bring costs down and speed up development worldwide. For diesel engines and long-distance transportation, researchers at universities, companies and labs across the country (like NREL) are working to turn them from fossil fuel machines into hydrogen engines.

But how will alternative fuels be transported? And how will the materials for creating all these batteries be sustainably sourced? There are still many details to figure out.

Answers to these questions and many more are being researched at NREL, as well as other national and international labs, institutes and academic collaborations.

The ASPIRE Engineering Research Center (Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification) is one of them.

Led by Utah State University (with partner institutions including CU ��«��Ƶ, and researchers from Colorado State University, University of Colorado Colorado Springs and NREL), ASPIRE is exploring a diverse range of transportation questions. These include: How to electrify highways that can charge vehicles on the go; data security of and best placement for charging stations; and how to build the necessary workforce of engineers, policymakers, teachers, lawyers and collaborators in related fields.

Wil Srubar III holding a limestone algae concrete block

Buildings

The great indoors—or rather, where people around the world spend most of their modern lives—accounts for 230 billion square meters of building space globally, and billions more square meters could be added this decade. So what about all the carbon-intensive materials and emissions involved in construction?

Wil Srubar III, associate professor in Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and CU ��«��Ƶ’s Materials Science and Engineering Program, is working to transform a notoriously polluting construction staple into a carbon-neutral and carbon-negative material: He’s developed concrete made out of limestone grown by algae and bricks that are part bacteria themselves.

“We see a world in which using concrete as we know it is a mechanism to heal the planet,” Srubar said. “We have the tools and the technology to do this today.”

Buildings are also, in general, becoming more efficient, with some state-of-the-art homes run completely on renewable energy.

A key question is whether innovation can keep up with increasing demand.

Industry

Mining, steel production and chemical manufacturing are some of the trickier sectors in which to reduce carbon emissions. Industry is directly responsible for more than 20% of all heat-trapping emissions, according to the IPCC. Heavy industry, including mining, shipbuilding and the aircraft industry, presents some of the biggest challenges. But a few companies are leading the way.

For example, mining giant Fortescue Metals announced plans in September to eliminate the use of fossil fuels from its iron ore operations by 2030, saying it will invest more than $9 billion building batteries and greening its fleet of machinery, vehicles and trains. And last year, Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto proposed a $7.5 billion plan to cut its carbon emissions by half by 2030.

Alternative materials with lower emissions could also soon come to replace plastics and some metals, while waste could be reclaimed to help create a circular economy. Refrigerants—potent greenhouse gases that often leak during use or disposal—can also be better managed and disposed of. Machines can be electrified, and energy efficiency can be increased.

“Our lives are built around using energy,” said Lisa Dilling, professor of environmental studies at CU ��«��Ƶ and fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), after the release of the IPCC report on climate change mitigation in April 2022. “But we have all these other options now that are cost effective. We don’t have to get it out of the ground anymore.”

While the dirty, carbon-producing energy source of coal still accounts for almost one-third of energy use—the single largest share of global capacity—and new coal plants are still being built in some parts of the world, the speed at which new coal is being added to the grid is slowing down.

“There is still a lot of work ahead of us,” Keller said. “But there is a new kind of excitement in this decarbonization effort which I have never seen before.”

Mitigating climate change by significantly reducing carbon emissions this decade will require big transitions in all sectors, from energy and transportation to construction and industry.

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Steve Baragona

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 21:11:17 +0000

Steve Baragona Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/19/2022 - 15:11

United States
Science Correspondent • Voice of America

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Economics, Pricing, Policy: How do governments and various stakeholders pay and otherwise take action to develop climate policy solutions in a manner that is equitable?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Steve Baragona is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering science, environment and health for Voice of America (VOA). His work has focused on the ways climate change impacts people—from the economy and policy to health and human rights. He has reported on the relationship between fighting climate change and the economy, how major disasters are linked to climate change, the Paris Agreement and everything in between.

Baragona joined VOA as an international health reporter from 2002 to 2004. He then spent more than four years as communications and public affairs officer for the Infectious Diseases Society of America before returning to VOA as a food, agriculture and nutrition correspondent. He assumed his current role as a science correspondent with VOA in 2013.

Before his career in journalism, he spent eight years in molecular biology and infectious disease research before deciding that writing about science was more fun than doing it. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a master’s degree in journalism in 2002.

Steve Baragona is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering science, environment and health for Voice of America (VOA).

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