Tag: Climate

Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely

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Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.

Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.

Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.

Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.

“The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan …. but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”

To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.

This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.

With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.

“We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”

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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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October 5, 2022
Cities are largely to blame for climate change. Could they also be part of the solution?

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Our cities are at the forefront of climate change, consuming around 75% of the world’s energy and producing more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. But they also hold the tools to be part of the solution, creating meaningful impact while being small and nimble enough to avoid the bureaucracy of national politics. In fact, some cities have already started work.

Some of the most extreme weather events on record took place in 2022, as climate change-induced wildfires and droughts ravaged parts of Europe, the U.S. and Africa, even as Asia battled disastrous floods and monsoon rains.

Experts say this is just the beginning.

“What we calculated and what we knew as, say, one-in-10-year events is now becoming one-in-five-years,” Ana Mijic, professor at Imperial College London, told CNBC.

The world’s cities are at the forefront of those shifts.

Cities play an outsized role in climate change, consuming around 75% of the world’s energy and producing more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions.

But could they also be part of the solution, being small and nimble enough to avoid the bureaucracy of national politics?

Watch the video above to find out how cities are responding to — and reducing — the rising risks of climate change.

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October 3, 2022
King Charles III decides not to attend climate summit

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LONDON — King Charles III has decided not to attend the international climate change summit in Egypt next month, fueling speculation that the new monarch will have to rein in his environmental activism now that he has ascended the throne.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the decision came after Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss objected to Charles attending the conference, known as COP27, when she met with the king last month at Buckingham Palace.

While there was no official rebuttal, other British media quoted unidentified palace and government sources as saying that Charles made his decision after consultation with the prime minister and that any suggestion of disagreement was untrue.

Under the rules that govern Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the king is barred from interfering in politics. By convention, all official overseas visits by members of the royal family are undertaken in accordance with advice from the government and a decision like this would have resulted from consultation and agreement.

Before becoming king when Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8, there had been speculation Charles would travel to the summit in the role he then held as Prince of Wales.

Charles attended the previous climate summit, COP26, last year in Glasgow, Scotland, but his attendance at this year’s conference was never confirmed. COP27 is taking place Nov. 16-18 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

When he was Prince of Wales, Charles was accused of meddling in government affairs, including allegations that he inappropriately lobbied government ministers.

But Charles is now king, and he has acknowledged that he will have less freedom to speak out on public issues as monarch than he did as the heir to the throne. At the same time, his advisers would be looking for the right time and place for Charles’ first overseas trip as sovereign.

“My life will, of course, change as I take up my new responsibilities,’’ Charles said in a televised address after his mother’s death.

“It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply. But I know this important work will go on in the trusted hands of others.”

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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

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Follow all AP stories on the British monarchy at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii.

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October 2, 2022
Ian shows the risks and costs of living on barrier islands

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SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — When Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s Gulf Coast, it washed out the bottom level of David Muench’s home on the barrier island of Sanibel along with several cars, a Harley-Davidson and a boat.

His parents’ house was among those destroyed by the storm that killed at least two people there, and the lone bridge to the crescent-shaped island collapsed, cutting off access by car to the mainland for its 6,300 residents.

Hurricane Ian underscores the vulnerability of the nation’s barrier islands and the increasing costs of people living on the thin strips of land that parallel the coast. As hurricanes become more destructive, experts question whether such exposed communities can keep rebuilding in the face of climate change.

“This is a Hurricane Katrina-scale event, where you’re having to rebuild everything, including the infrastructure,” said Jesse M. Keenan, a real estate professor at Tulane University’s School of Architecture. “We can’t build back everything to what it was — we can’t afford that.”

Ian slammed into southwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday with among the highest windspeeds in U.S. history — in nearly the same spot where Hurricane Charley, also a Category 4, caused major damage in 2004.

The latest storm has initiated a new cycle of damage and repair on Sanibel that’s played out on many other barrier islands, from the New Jersey shore and North Carolina’s Outer Banks to a ribbon of land along the Louisiana coast.

Barrier islands were never an ideal place for development, experts say. They typically form as waves deposit sediment off the mainland. And they move based on weather patterns and other ocean forces. Some even disappear.

Building on the islands and holding them in place with beach replenishment programs just makes them more vulnerable to destruction because they can no longer move, according to experts.

“They move at the whims of the storms,” said Anna Linhoss, a professor of biosystems engineering at Auburn University. “And if you build on them, you’re just waiting for a storm to take them away.”

After devastating parts Florida, Ian made landfall again in South Carolina, where Pawleys Island was among the hardest hit places. Friday’s winds and rains broke apart the barrier island’s main pier, one of several in the state to crumble and wash away.

On Saturday, homeowners in the beach community about 73 miles (120 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston struggled to assess damage from storm. The causeways connecting the island to the mainland were strewn with palm fronds, pine needles and even a kayak retrieved from a nearby shoreline. The intercoastal waterway was littered with the remnants of several boat houses torn apart and knocked off their pilings in the storm.

Like Pawleys Island, many barrier island communities anchor long-entrenched tourist economies, which are often the source of crucial tax dollars. At the same time, the cost of rebuilding them is often high because they’re home to many expensive properties, such as vacation homes.

“When there’s a disaster like this, we will pour tens of billions of public dollars into these communities to help them rebuild,” said Robert S. Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, which is a joint venture between Duke University and Western Carolina University.

“And we will ask very little for that money in return in terms of taking a step back from places that are incredibly exposed to hazards and making sure that we never have this kind of a disaster again,” Young said.

But any big changes to the standard disaster response will be complicated, said Dawn Shirreffs, Florida director of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Challenges could include decisions on who participates in programs that elevate flood-prone homes or programs that buy those homes and tear them down. Planting mangroves to prevent erosion could end up blocking someone’s view.

Many homeowners bought their properties before people were fully aware of climate change and the risks of sea-level rise, Shirreffs said.

But Keenan, the Tulane professor, said Sanibel will undoubtedly be changed by Hurricane Ian based on the research he’s done. There will be fewer government resources to help people rebuild. Those with fewer means and who are underinsured will likely move. People with financial means will stay.

“Sanibel will just be an enclave for the ultrawealthy,” Keenan said.

But Muench, the Sanibel resident, said homeowners and business owners are sure to rebuild their properties.

His family has owned and operated a campground on the island for three generations. The island, he said, is “paradise — we live in the most beautiful place on Earth.”

“We are going to continue to exist on Sanibel,” Muench, 52, said from Fort Myers on Friday after evacuating Sanibel. “Give us five years, and you might not even notice if you didn’t know.”

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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Meg Kinnard in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, contributed to this story.

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October 1, 2022
Russian pipeline leaks spark climate fears as huge volumes of methane spew into the atmosphere

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Climate scientists described the shocking images of gas spewing to the surface of the Baltic Sea as a “reckless release” of greenhouse gas emissions that, if deliberate, “amounts to an environmental crime.”

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Unexplained gas leaks along two underwater pipelines connecting Russia to Germany have sent huge volumes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

Climate scientists described the shocking images of gas spewing to the surface of the Baltic Sea this week as a “reckless release” of greenhouse gas emissions that, if deliberate, “amounts to an environmental crime.”

Seismologists on Monday reported explosions in the vicinity of the unusual Nord Stream gas leaks, which are situated in international waters but inside Denmark’s and Sweden’s exclusive economic zones.

Denmark’s armed forces said video footage showed the largest gas leak created a surface disturbance of roughly 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter, while the smallest leak caused a circle of approximately 200 meters.

Climate scientists acknowledge that it is hard to accurately quantify the exact size of the emissions and say the leaks are a “wee bubble in the ocean” compared to the massive amounts of methane emitted around the world every day.

Nonetheless, environmental campaigners argue that the incident shows the risk of sabotage or an accident makes fossil infrastructure a “ticking time bomb.”

How bad is it?

Researchers at the German Environment Agency (UBA) estimate the climate impact of the leaks to be equivalent to roughly 7.5 million metric tons of carbon.

The agency said a total of 300,000 tons of methane are expected to be released into the atmosphere from the leaks. Methane is significantly more harmful to the climate than carbon, UBA researchers said, noting that over a 100-year period one ton of methane causes as much warming to the atmosphere as 25 tons of carbon.

BORNHOLM, DENMARK – SEPTEMBER 27: Danish Defense shows the gas leaking at Nord Stream 2 seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022.

Danish Defence/ | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

For context, the International Energy Agency estimates that annual global methane emissions are around 570 million tons.

This means the estimated emissions from the Nord Stream gas leaks are just a fraction of the global total each year, even while campaigners argue the incident serves as another reminder of the risks associated with fossil fuel infrastructure.

Paul Balcombe, honorary lecturer in chemical engineering at Imperial College London, said that even if only one of the two leaking Nord Stream pipes were to release all its contents, it would likely be twice as much methane as the 2015 Aliso Canyon leak in California, the largest known release of methane in U.S. history.

Methane is 84 times more potent than carbon and doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere before it breaks down. This makes it a critical target for combatting climate change quickly while simultaneously minimizing other greenhouse gas emissions.

The massive roiling water due to the leak as we have seen in imagery is symbolic of the enormous amount of fossil fuel that the world is combusting.

Jeffrey Kargel

Senior scientist at Planetary Research Institute

The cause of the Nord Stream gas leaks is not yet known. Many in Europe suspect sabotage, particularly as the incident comes amid a bitter energy standoff between Brussels and Moscow. Russia has dismissed claims that it was behind the suspected attack as “stupid.”

Denmark’s Energy Agency said Wednesday that emissions from the gas leaks correspond to approximately one-third of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on the Danish government’s initial estimates, the worst-case scenario would see 778 million standard cubic meters of gas or 14.6 million metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions. Comparatively, Danish emissions in 2020 were roughly 45 million tons of carbon equivalent.

Grant Allen, professor of atmospheric physics at the University of Manchester, said it has been estimated that there may be up to 177 million cubic meters of gas still residual in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline alone.

Allen said this amount is equivalent to the gas used by 124,000 U.K. homes in a year. “This is not a small amount of gas, and represents a reckless emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” he added.

Jeffrey Kargel, senior scientist at Planetary Research Institute in Tucson, Arizona, described the gas leaks at the Nord Stream pipelines as a “real travesty” and “an environmental crime if it was deliberate.”

“The massive roiling water due to the leak as we have seen in imagery is symbolic of the enormous amount of fossil fuel that the world is combusting,” Kargel said.

“The global climate is changing drastically, with huge impacts on extreme climate mounting every year, decade after decade. It is such an extreme climate change that just about every adult age person on Earth knows it from first-hand experience,” he added. “We can literally feel it on our skin.”

Europe must go ‘full tilt’ for renewable energy

Neither pipeline was pumping gas at the time of the leaks but both lines were still pressurized: Nord Stream 1 stopped pumping gas to Europe “indefinitely” earlier this month, with Moscow’s operator saying international sanctions on Russia prevented it from carrying out vital maintenance work.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, meanwhile, never officially opened as Germany refused to certify it for commercial operations due to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Dave Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, said “the most direct effect of these gas leaks on climate is the extra dollop of the powerful greenhouse gas methane – the main component of natural gas – they are adding to the atmosphere.”

“That said, this is a wee bubble in the ocean compared to the huge amounts of so-called ‘fugitive methane’ that are emitted every day around the world due to things like fracking, coal mining and oil extraction,” he added.

Environmental campaigners argue the risk of sabotage or an accident makes fossil infrastructure a “ticking time bomb.”

Lisi Niesner | Reuters

“Risks of sabotage or accident make fossil fuel infrastructure a ticking time bomb, but even on a good day oil and gas pipes and storage leak methane constantly,” Silvia Pastorelli, EU climate and energy campaigner at environmental group Greenpeace, told CNBC via email.

“Behind all these numbers of cubic metres and megatonnes are real dangers for real people, this potent greenhouse gas is accelerating the climate crisis leading to worse heatwaves like Europe had this summer or more devastating like storms the one battering Florida now,” Pastorelli said.

“Gas pipes from Norway or Algeria won’t get us out of this mess, Europe must instead go full tilt for renewable energy and real energy savings that protect vulnerable people.”

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October 1, 2022
Baltic Sea pipeline leak damages marine life and climate

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WASHINGTON — Methane escaping from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines that run between Russia and Europe is likely to result in the biggest known gas leak to take place over a short period of time and highlights the problem of large methane escapes elsewhere around the world, scientists say.

There is still uncertainty in estimating total damage, but researchers say vast plumes of this potent greenhouse gas will have significant detrimental impacts on the climate.

Immediate harm to marine life and fisheries in the Baltic Sea and to human health will also result because benzene and other trace chemicals are typically present in natural gas, researchers say.

“This will probably be the biggest gas leak ever, in terms of its rate,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson.

The velocity of the gas erupting from four documented leaks in the pipelines — which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has attributed to sabotage — is part of what makes the impacts severe.

When methane leaks naturally leaks from vents on the ocean floor, the quantities are usually small and the gas is mostly absorbed by seawater. “But this is not a normal situation for gas release,” said Jackson. “We’re not talking about methane bubbling up to the surface like seltzer water, but a plume of rushing gas,” he said.

Jackson and other scientists estimate that between 50% and nearly 100% of total methane emitted from the pipeline will reach the atmosphere.

The Danish government issued a worst case scenario that assumed all the gas reached the air, and German officials Thursday issued a somewhat lower one.

In the meantime, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to approach the highly flammable plume to attempt to curb the release of gas, which energy experts estimate may continue until Sunday.

“Methane is very flammable — if you go in there, you’d have a good chance of it being a funeral pyre,” said Ira Leifer, an atmospheric scientist. If the gas-air mix was within a certain range, an airplane could easily ignite travelling into the plume, for example.

Methane isn’t the only risk. “Natural gas isn’t refined to be super clean — there are trace elements of other compounds, like benzene,” a carcinogen, said Leifer.

“The amount of these trace elements cumulatively entering the environment is significant right now — this will cause issues for fisheries and marine ecosystems and people who potentially eat those fish,” he said.

David Archer, a professor in the geophysical sciences department at University of Chicago who focuses on the global carbon cycle, said that escape of methane in the Baltic Sea is part of the much larger worldwide problem of methane emissions.

The gas is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for a significant share of the climate disruption people are already experiencing. That is because it is 82.5 times more potent than carbon dioxide at absorbing the sun’s heat and warming the Earth, over the short term.

Climate scientist have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are far worse than what companies are reporting, despite claims by major companies that they’ve reduced their emissions.

Scientists measuring methane from satellites in space have found that emissions from oil and gas operations are usually at least twice as high as what the companies reported, said Thomas Lauvaux, climate scientist at University of Reims in France.

Many of those so-called leaks are not accidental. Companies release the gas during routine maintenance. Lauvaux and other scientists observed more than 1,500 major methane leaks globally, and potentially tens of thousands of smaller leaks, using satellites, he said.

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AP reporters Patrick Whittle contributed from Portland, Maine, Seth Borenstein from Washington, DC., and Cathy Bussewitz from New York.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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September 29, 2022
Hurricane Ian makes landfall in southwest Florida, bringing destructive floods and wind

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Hurricane Ian made landfall over the west coast of Florida as a category 4 storm on Wednesday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm initially hit near Cayo Costa, Florida with maximum sustained winds at 150 mph, the center said on Twitter. It hit Punta Gorda, near Pirate Harbor, just a few hours later.

Hurricane Ian greatly intensified as it neared land, reaching winds of 155 mph and nearing the most dangerous Category 5 classification Wednesday morning. Hurricane force winds were 35 miles out from the center and tropical storm force winds were 150 miles from the center, according to the National Weather Service.

“This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days” Gov. Ron DeSantis said early Wednesday in a press conference. Officials in Florida and nationally are closely tracking the storm’s movements.

More than 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Florida, but legally, no residents can be forced to leave their homes. DeSantis said the highest-risk areas in the state range from Collier County up to Sarasota County, and it is no longer safe for residents in those counties to evacuate.

“Do what you need to do to stay safe. If you are where that storm is approaching, you’re already in hazardous conditions. It’s going to get a lot worse very quickly. So please hunker down,” he said.

Rainfall near the storm’s landfall site could top more than 18 inches, and storm surges could push as much as 18 feet of water over nearly 100 miles of coastline, according to the National Hurricane Center. The National Weather Service has also issued the highest-possible wind warning for several regions in Florida in anticipation of extreme wind damage from the storm. But meteorologists were most concerned about the flooding.

“Water. We have to talk about the water,” warned National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “90% of fatalities in these tropical systems comes from the water. It’s the storm surge, it’s the rain.”

Much of Florida’s west coast is already experiencing significant storm surges, as whipping winds and feet of water have blanketed the streets of cities like Fort Myers. The city wrote on Twitter that it is experiencing gusts of wind up to 77 mph and asked residents to “PLEASE stay indoors.” It warned that conditions will continue to escalate throughout the day.

Hurricane Ian approaches west coast of Florida on Sept. 28th, 2022.

NOAA

For residents who can still evacuate, American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern encouraged them to follow the evacuation instructions of their elected officials and bring essential medication, documents and other items like glasses with them.

“Check on your neighbors and please don’t wait out the storm if you’re being told to evacuate — it’s dangerous,” she said in a Wednesday press briefing.

Gov. DeSantis said the state has 42,000 linemen, 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and elsewhere and urban search and rescue teams ready to help when the storm is over.

A sail boat is beached at Sarasota Bay as Hurricane Ian approaches on September 28, 2022 in Sarasota, Florida.

Sean Rayford | Getty Images

More than 756,400 power outages have been reported across the state according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, up from 200,000 outages Wednesday morning. DeSantis said the morning’s outages were just a “drop in the bucket” compared to the widespread power outages that are anticipated across southwest Florida over the next 48 hours.

The hurricane left all of Cuba without power after it pummeled the island on Tuesday, according to NBC News. At least two storm-related deaths were reported in Cuba as of Wednesday.

As the storm continues to batter the Florida coast, the National Hurricane Center issued new watches and warnings for parts of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Hurricane Ian is even visible from the International Space Station, with onboard cameras capturing footage of the storm as it looms over Florida.

The view of Hurricane Ian from cameras on the International Space Station, as the orbiting research laboratory passed near the storm around 3 p.m. ET on Sept. 28, 2022.

NASA TV

Even once the storm is over, DeSantis said it may not be completely safe to go outside. He encouraged residents to be careful of fallen powerlines, standing water and fallen trees.

President Joe Biden told Florida residents Wednesday he would support them through the storm “every step of the way.”

“We’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, to help Florida get moving again,” he said.

Utility trucks are staged in a rural lot in The Villages of Sumter County, Fla., Wednesday morning, Sept. 28, 2022, in preparation for Hurricane Ian.

Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP

Candy Powell, an east Orlando resident, has lived in Florida since 2016 and watched the state face hurricanes like Irma, Dorian and Matthew. She said she feels like there was less time to prepare for Hurricane Ian, but she is trying to stay calm for the sake of her neighbors.

“I think a lot of people who just moved into Florida were really, really stressed,” she told CNBC. “I’m kind of trying to be like the calming factor. Even going to the store yesterday, I actually just kind of had to almost get just regular groceries. The shelves were empty. There was hardly any canned stuff left.”

Powell can tell the storm is picking up, and she said she is already noticing rushing winds and heavy rain.

Flannery Dziedzic, who lives in Naples, said she has also noticed the winds pick up in her area. She said her power has been going in and out, and a piece of debris hit her window while she was on the phone with CNBC.

The storm seems bigger and more intense than hurricanes she’s dealt with in the past, she said, but since she is six miles from the coast, she feels “pretty safe.”

“I feel like Floridians are really resilient,” she said.

This story is developing, please check back for updates.

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September 28, 2022
Biden looks to win over Pacific Island leaders at summit

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is hosting Pacific Island leaders for a two-day summit as the U.S. looks to counter China’s military and economic influence in the region. Pacific Island leaders, meanwhile, see an even more pressing concern: climate change.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicked off the summit on Wednesday with a luncheon for the Pacific Island leaders and other senior officials from the region. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will hold a climate roundtable with the leaders, and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will join them for a dinner hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Biden is set to address the leaders at the State Department on Thursday and will host them for a dinner at the White House. The leaders also are to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. business leaders.

Leaders from Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and New Caledonia are attending. Vanuatu and Nauru are sending representatives, and Australia, New Zealand and the secretary-general of the Pacific Island Forum sent observers, according to the White House.

“This summit reflects our deep, enduring partnership with the Pacific Islands; one that’s underpinned by shared history, values, and enduring people-to-people ties,” Blinken told leaders as he opened the summit. Talks are expected to touch on climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery, maritime security, environmental protection and the Indo-Pacific.

The first-of-its-kind summit comes as the administration has sought to demonstrate that the U.S. remains committed to being a enduring player in the region.

While the high-level gathering is welcomed by the region’s leaders as a signal of Biden’s commitment to the Pacific, there’s also a healthy skepticism about whether the United States will remain engaged for the longer term in the Pacific Islands. The area has received diminished attention from the U.S. in the aftermath of the Cold War and China has increasingly filled the vacuum, analysts say.

The Solomon Islands has signaled it was unlikely to sign on to a joint statement that the U.S. hoped to have hashed out by the end of the summit, according to a diplomat familiar with summit planning.

The diplomat, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the resistance is driven in part by the Solomon Islands’ tightening relationship with Beijing and in part is seen as an effort to press the U.S. for greater economic assistance.

A senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters before the summit said discussions on the joint statement are still ongoing.

For the Biden administration, stemming the growing influence of China is a high priority. But for many of the Pacific Island leaders, climate change is the existential crisis that demands attention above all else.

Last week at the U.N. General Assembly, Prime Minister Kausea Natano of the tiny island of Tuvalu described how rising sea levels have affected everything from the soil that his people rely on to plant crops, to the homes, roads and power lines that get washed away. The cost of eking out a living, he said, eventually becomes too much to bear, causing families to leave and the nation to disappear.

“This is how our islands will cease to exist,” Natano said.

In June, Inia Seruiratu, Fiji’s minister for defense, said at the Shangri-La Dialogue that “machine guns, fighter jets, gray ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern.”

“The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change,” he said.

Plans for the summit were announced earlier this month, just days after the Solomon Islands called on the U.S. and Britain not to send naval vessels to the South Pacific nation until approval processes are overhauled. The Solomons in April signed a new security pact with China — a moment that analysts say has created increased urgency for the Biden administration to put greater focus on the region.

The United States and Britain are among countries concerned that a new security pact with Beijing could lead to a Chinese naval base being constructed less than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off Australia’s northeast coast.

Darshana Baruah, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Beijing has been more present in the region in the last decades.

“The first questions from the islands to the United States are, ‘Is this going to last beyond the current tense cycle? Are you going to keep showing up,?’” Baruah said. “The second question is, ‘What kind of messaging is this sending across the Indo-Pacific? Are you mistakenly giving the impression that if you want Washington’s attention you must grab Beijing’s purse?’”

In the leadup to the summit, Pacific Island leaders made clear that they want increased U.S. assistance on battling the impacts of climate change and help for their economies recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a senior Biden administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the “lapse” in the U.S. efforts in the region comes up in “every meeting” with Pacific Island leaders. The White House plans to announce its first U.S. Pacific Island Strategy and announce that the Democratic president will appoint a U.S. envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum.

The U.S. will also be seeking to mend relations with the Marshall Islands, which for decades has been a strong ally but which is in a bitter dispute over a treaty that’s up for renewal.

Just last week, the Marshall Islands pulled out of a negotiating session with the U.S. over their Compact of Free Association, which expires next year. The Marshall Islands says the U.S. isn’t engaging in its claim for proper reparations from the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing in the islands.

The Marshall Islands says there was extensive environmental and health damage from the dozens of tests in the 1940s and ’50s, which a settlement in the 1980s fell well short of addressing.

The U.S. has treated the Marshall Islands, along with nearby Micronesia and Palau, much like territories since World War II, and observers worry that a weakening of those ties would play into the hands of China.

The administration in recent months has sought to have greater presence in the region. In February, Blinken became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Fiji in 37 years. And in recent months, the U.S. along with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the U.K. created an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific Island nations dubbed Partners in the Blue Pacific.

During the Fiji visit, Blinken announced the U.S. would open an embassy in the Solomon Islands. The U.S. operated an embassy in the Solomons for five years before closing it in 1993. Since then, U.S. diplomats from neighboring Papua New Guinea have been accredited to the Solomons, which has a U.S. consular agency.

Guadalcanal, the largest landmass in the Solomon Islands, was the site of the crucial battles between Allied forces and Japan early in World War II.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed reporting.

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September 28, 2022
Context Labs Announces CLEAR Path™ Platform to Catalyze Change in Environmental Commodities Markets

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Leading Market Supporters include KPMG, Williams, Parsons, Project Canary, Carbon GeoCapture & OxoCarbon; Blockchain-enabled Platform Enhances Transparency, Security, Trust, and Traceability To Provide Certified, Trusted Environmental Attributes & Differentiated Commodities

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., September 21, 2022 (Newswire.com)
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Context Labs, an Enterprise Data Fabric Climate Tech company based in Cambridge, MA, and Amsterdam, announced today the launch of its CLEAR Path™ Platform (Context Labs Environmental Attribute Registry). CLEAR Path™ ensures that the fundamental building blocks, “data,” for environmental attributes and differentiated commodities, (e.g., carbon, renewable energy credits, water, plastics, and emission certifications), are transparent, secure, attested, trusted, and traceable. These new advanced capabilities provide a solution to mitigate green-washing and avoid double-counting within the industry, targeted at reliably accelerating the global energy transition.

Powered by the company’s Immutably™ Enterprise Data Fabric, CLEAR Path™ converges advanced machine learning/AI and blockchain technologies to form new empirical, data-driven registry capabilities rendering data as “Asset Grade Data (AGD).” CLEAR Path™ is being supported at launch by KPMG LLP along with select leading global firms, including Williams, Parsons, Project Canary, Carbon GeoCapture, and OxoCarbon.

“Regulators are increasingly mandating carbon transparency. This is driving increased interest in the carbon intensity of commodities. The work that Context Labs is doing to deliver the highest level of transparency to the Global Environmental Attribute markets through their Next Gen Registry called CLEAR Path™ is a critical ingredient for establishing trust and driving demand for lower carbon solutions,” stated Curtis Ravenel, Senior Advisor to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Founding Member of the Secretariat of the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and Board Member to Context Labs.

“CLEAR Path™ is powered by Context Labs’ Immutably™ Enterprise Data Fabric Technology, which integrates and connects all sources of data in the verification and creation of environmental attributes, the fundamental building blocks of environmental commodities, and a new digitally quantified ESG. It generates the highest quality certs, credits, and RECs possible, based on transparent Asset Grade Data, military-grade encryption for data security, and immutable traceability on our blockchain fabric,” said Context Labs Founder and CEO, Dan Harple. “CLEAR Path™ solves two of the crucial problems at the crux of the energy transition: effectively, the lack of trust in existing environmental attributes and ESG data underpinning environmental commodities, and the inability to provide traceability for these environmental attributes across market platforms.”

KPMG is continuing to collaborate closely with Context Labs to deploy data and technology solutions to help businesses measure, monitor and prove their climate and ESG performance and scale their efforts to offer high-quality carbon credits.

“Voluntary carbon markets, underpinned by timely and accurate data, will be instrumental in the transition to a low carbon economy,” said KPMG US ESG leader, Rob Fisher. “With CLEAR Path™, Context Labs has the opportunity to provide a digital backbone that should help take voluntary markets to scale, increase trust and accountability amongst stakeholders, and provide companies with a better picture of both their environmental impact and risk.”

“This is another exciting step in our multi-faceted strategy with Context Labs, leveraging technology that enhances our innovative low carbon and carbon neutral market solutions,” said Chad Zamarin, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development at Williams. “As Williams drives the next generation of the energy marketplace with next-gen gas, clean hydrogen and other low carbon products, CLEAR Path™ from Context Labs will provide an industry-leading platform that will benefit our customers with best-in-class and trusted clean energy solutions.”

“Parsons is in the business of delivering innovative critical infrastructure across the world, including digitally-enabled solutions for utilities, transportation, environmental remediation, facilities and water and wastewater facilities,” said Peter Torrellas, President of Connected Communities for Parsons. “Today, that means we need to have a wider range of operational and environmental data available across a broader collection of stakeholders to drive climate-aligned decisions. Our collaboration with Context Labs opens new avenues of value creation in climate resilience and energy transition for our public and private sector clients.”

“Understanding the environmental footprint of how a natural gas molecule is produced and transported is becoming essential data for both sellers and buyers. We provide markets with independent measurements and assessments to verify these environmental attributes, such as low methane intensity or low water attributes. Now Context Labs CLEAR Path™ provides a trusted registry to track, transfer and retire these attributes,” said Will Foiles, Co-Founder and COO, Project Canary. “We believe in the power of markets to help combat climate change, and our combined offering provides exciting capabilities to accelerate the adoption of differentiated, responsibly sourced gas on terms that meet the needs of both sellers and buyers.”

“Carbon GeoCapture has spent 20 years learning to use unconventional rock formations to reduce capture and cleanup costs and to hold massive amounts of carbon dioxide. As we commercialize our unique approach, we are thrilled to be working with Context Labs to materially enhance how we track the carbon dioxide that we sequester. With CLEAR Path™, we can bring speed and transparency to how we quantify, verify, generate, register, and ultimately trade the highest quality carbon credits that will earn the highest premium in the voluntary carbon markets,” stated John Pope, Ph.D., President, and CEO of Carbon GeoCapture Corp.

“CLEAR Path™ facilitates the trust, traceability, and compliance in the data behind carbon methodologies and projects,” said Ludovino Lopes, OxoCarbon Chairman, Member of the United Nations Global Compact and Environmental and Carbon Legal Advisor. The foundations of an environmentally sympathetic and sustainable global economy need to be built on the basis of trust, transparency, and the highest level of legal and regulatory compliance. OxoCarbon is committed to delivering premium quality carbon credits from nature-based solutions by ensuring the highest level of environmental integrity, trust, traceability, and compliance, and CLEAR Path™ will enable this.

About

Context Labs provides solutions for customers who demand trusted provenance in their data, tracked veracity through the data’s supply chain of use, and a requirement for trusted insights. It is dedicated to sourcing, organizing, and contextualizing the world’s ESG information, enabling data to become trusted, shared, and utilized as Asset Grade Data to provide insights and solutions through Asset Grade Analytics that informs markets. Context Labs’ mission is to provide the world’s trusted data fabric platform, delivering Asset Grade Data, using its Immutably™ Enterprise Data Fabric platform, deploying machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, and cryptographic blockchain technologies, for context-driven insights. The company was formed out of MIT research and is comprised of a leadership team that has been instrumental in the at-scale growth of the Internet, in prior companies.

Contact: press@contextlabs.com | www.contextlabs.com | @contextlabsbv

KPMG LLP is the U.S. firm of the KPMG global organization of independent professional services firms providing audit, tax, and advisory services. The KPMG global organization operates in 144 countries and territories and has more than 236,000 people working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.

KPMG is widely recognized for being a great place to work and build a career. Our people share a sense of purpose in the work we do, and a strong commitment to community service, inclusion and diversity, and eradicating childhood illiteracy. Learn more at www.kpmg.com/us.

Williams As the world demands reliable, low-cost, low-carbon energy, Williams will be there with the best transport, storage, and delivery solutions to reliably fuel the clean energy economy. Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Williams is an industry-leading, investment-grade C-Corp. with operations across the natural gas value chain, including gathering, processing, interstate transportation, storage, wholesale marketing and trading of natural gas and natural gas liquids. With major positions in top U.S. supply basins, Williams connects the best supplies with the growing demand for clean energy. Williams owns and operates more than 30,000 miles of pipelines system wide – including Transco, the nation’s largest volume and fastest-growing pipeline – and handles approximately 30 percent of the natural gas in the United States that is used every day for clean-power generation, heating, and industrial use. Learn how the company is leveraging its nationwide footprint to incorporate clean hydrogen, next-generation gas and other innovations at www.williams.com.

Parsons Corporation is a leading disruptive technology provider in the national security and critical infrastructure markets, with capabilities across cybersecurity, missile defense, space, C5ISR, transportation, environmental remediation, and water/wastewater treatment. Please visit www.Parsons.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to learn how we’re making an impact.

Project Canary^® is the leading provider of on-demand climate insights for emission-intensive companies. The company provides operational insights, emissions data, and verified climate attributes to decarbonize energy systems by integrating sensor data with real-time portal and in-depth data analytics. They are the leaders of independently verified climate credentials that support investment, safety, reporting, and disclosure actions. www.projectcanary.com

Carbon GEOCapture is focused on using its technology and knowledge to sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide in geologic formations as economically and quickly as possible. CGC was founded in 2016 to drive safe, affordable sequestration of carbon dioxide in geologic reservoirs. More information is available at www.carbongeocapture.com.

OxoCarbon is committed to delivering premium quality carbon credits from nature-based solutions by ensuring the highest level of integrity, traceability, transparency, and compliance. Our rigorous validation procedures add incremental layers of value over existing standards and methodologies for carbon emissions, environmental assets, and services, enabling us to deliver environmental assets of the highest quality, in line with the long-term sustainability needs of our planet. www.oxocarbon.com

Source: Context Labs

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September 21, 2022
Announcing the Student Energy Solutions Movement – $150 Million Youth-Led United Nations Energy Compact
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Press Release
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updated: Jun 25, 2021
NEW YORK, June 25, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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Today, Student Energy, New Energy Nexus, and the Government of Denmark announced the launch of the Student Energy Solutions Movement to world leaders and governments at the United Nations High-level dialogue on Energy, Ministerial Thematic Forums. This new, youth-led, global Energy Compact bridges the gap between motivation and action by directly funding and actively supporting the deployment of 10,000 youth-led clean energy projects by 2030.

As one of the first governments to champion the initiative, the Government of Denmark announced their commitment as the first confirmed funder of the Student Energy Solutions Movement:

“Tackling climate change is the biggest challenge of our time and it will not be easy, but seeing the motivation, innovation, creativity, and drive that young people around the world today are showing gives me hope that we will achieve our goals. The kind of ambition demonstrated by Student Energy to support 10,000 youth-led clean energy projects by 2030 is precisely what we need in order to accelerate the energy transition and achieve SDG7. Denmark is proud to be a funding partner of this initiative,” says Asser Rasmussen Berling, Head of Department at the Centre for Global Climate Action at The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities, Denmark.

Announcing the Solutions Movement Energy Compact

Student Energy’s Solutions Movement Energy Compact aims to resource and deploy 10,000 youth-led clean energy projects by 2030, creating structural change by putting real financial resources in the hands of the world’s most passionate youth. Funding required to meet this objective is $10 million by December 2021, and $150 million by 2030. The Compact will scale tangible action by young people 18-30 years old through a unique combination of project funding and education, training, and mentorship within Student Energy’s programs ecosystem.

Ambitions by 2030:
- Launch 10,000 youth-led sustainable energy projects or businesses
- Train 50,000 agile and employable youth workers, with a particular focus on reducing the energy skills gap in developing nations, and for women
- Deploy $150 million toward upskilling, mentoring, and directly financing early- and mid-stage youth-led clean energy initiatives
Quotes:

Meredith Adler, Executive Director, Student Energy —
“For decades, youth ambition and motivation have existed to transition our world to a more sustainable and equitable energy system, there just simply hadn’t been the resourcing to bridge that motivation into action. In launching the solutions movement, we’re shifting gears into taking action and deploying the energy and technology solutions we already have at our fingertips. I want to commend the High-level Dialogue on Energy for putting youth front and center, and for moving so quickly to get our global network engaged. It’s refreshing to see other organizations move with the same hustle and pace as the world’s young people!”

Danny Kennedy, CEO of New Energy Nexus —
“This is the decade to deploy the solutions we have at hand to address the climate crisis, and many of these solutions need to be youth-led. If these businesses are going to last decades, they are going to need the motivation and energy of young people to really disrupt the markets and overcome the incumbents that they’re going to challenge. We at New Energy Nexus are really excited to partner with Student Energy to develop this movement of guided entrepreneurship.”

Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) —
“Every stakeholder has a key role to play as we aim to meet the SDG7 and Paris Agreement targets, including youth, and I am pleased to see the leadership being demonstrated by Student Energy with this Energy Compact commitment. SEforALL’s first ever Youth Summit, held in February 2020, demonstrated our renewed commitment to bringing youth to the fore in this critical year, and it is great to see one of our organizing partners for the Summit come full circle by setting the pace for other young people to follow. This shows that beyond bringing their voices to the table, young people can design and fund the innovations required to achieve our energy and climate goals.”

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator —
“I warmly welcome the launch of the Student Energy Compact. It is a strong symbol of the profound shifts taking place in the development sphere where young people are no longer waiting for others to act. They are taking up the baton, driving forward transformation in critical areas, including when it comes to how our world is powered. With more and more groups joining by the day, the United Nations is building a broad coalition of action to spark a clean energy revolution that will improve the lives of millions of people.”

About the UNHigh Level Dialogue on Energy:

The UN Secretary-General will convene a High-level Dialogue on Energy during the 76th UN General Assembly on September 20, 2021 in New York, to accelerate progress towards achieving SDG7 by 2030. It presents a historic opportunity to provide transformational action in the first years of the Decade of Action. Ministerial-level Thematic Forums are bringing together key stakeholders virtually over five days to mobilize actions on the road to the High-level Dialogue on Energy. Ministers from national governments and leaders from business, civil society, and youth organizations showcased solutions on each priority theme and presented their Energy Compacts, outlining voluntary commitments and actions.

About Student Energy:

Student Energy is the world’s largest youth-led organization empowering young people to accelerate the sustainable energy transition. Since founding in 2009, Student Energy has worked with thousands of youth from over 120 countries, to build the knowledge, skills, and networks they need to take action on energy. Student Energy operates on a unique youth empowerment model, which means that initiatives are co-created with youth, for youth.

Student Energy also works with governments, the UN, and other decision makers to facilitate meaningful youth engagement and mobilize resources, coaching, and mentorship to support youth-led work. Student Energy has built coalitions with over 100 diverse partners, such as Indigenous Clean Energy, Sustainable Energy for All, HSBC Global, the Stockholm Environment Institute, DNV, WSP, and national governments like Canada, Denmark, and Sweden. Student Energy has stewarded CAD$10 million+ in funding to date, supported the development of over 280 youth energy projects, held 6 international Student Energy Summits, and attracted over 12.5 million people to its digital energy education platforms.

Media Contacts:

Shakti Ramkumar, Director of Communications and Policy
shakti@studentenergy.org
+1 (604) 445 4306

Meredith Adler, Executive Director
meredith@studentenergy.org
+1 (604) 354 2930

Sean Collins, Co-Founder
scollins@studentenergy.org
+1 (780) 232 0339

Source: Student Energy
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June 25, 2021