The Hoon

Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:

* Scientists are not entirely sure why sea surface temperatures have been accelerating so quickly over the past year, at the same time as air surface temperatures.

* A study on the effects of storms in the Southern Ocean has found they are triggering an outgassing of carbon dioxide, which may affect their ability to absorb carbon in the future. Nearly half of all current ocean carbon uptake is believed to occur in the Southern Ocean.

* Another study in the journal Nature found that marine heatwaves caused by climate change are triggering low-oxygen extreme events. “[O]ur findings suggest the ocean is losing its breath under the influence of heatwaves, potentially experiencing more severe damage than previously anticipated.”

* Finally, another study has found that just 1.5°C of subsurface ocean warming triggered repeated Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) collapses during the Pliocene, a period considered a good analogue for current and future sea level. These AIS collapses contributed up to 25m of sea level change.

* Understanding why oceans are ‘weirdly hot’ at the moment, the subject of this analysis in NPR, has enormous consequences for what we might expect in the future. A possible link to shipping pollution is gaining credence.

* Energy think tank Ember’s 2024 Global Electricity Review shows the meteoric rise of solar capacity, but also highlights the fact that related efficiency gains would be much higher if they were being built in sunnier countries. This suggests that OECD countries should invest more in climate financing for solar installations in developing countries, while focusing on demand-side reductions in fossil demand at home (although that’s not exactly how Ember put it).  

(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)

1. Scientists stumped over sea surface temps

A series of big papers on ocean heating has come out in the past few weeks, likely in response to the past year’s record mean ocean surface temperatures.

The oceans play a significant role in stabilising earth’s climate, absorbing heat from global warming, but also feeding that additional energy into stronger storms, that intensify more quickly. Any change in the capacity of oceans to absorb heat has big implications for the rate of global warming. According to a blog on pbsnc.org,

It’s likely the warmer Earth and air temperatures are contributing to the warmer ocean temperatures, but scientists don’t know precisely why sea surface temperatures have climbed so high so fast. 

While air temperatures are warmer, water has a greater capacity to absorb and store heat. In fact, the ocean has absorbed about 90% of the heat created by global warming. 

“It takes a lot of heat to raise water’s temperature, and I do fear there may be something else going on that is causing a long-term change in sea surface temperatures we hadn’t predicted,” said John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas, who studies ocean temperatures. 

Far from being immune to this, sea temperatures in some areas around Aotearoa New Zealand have been outstripping global average temperatures three-fold, as we reported last month. Data from Stats NZ show coastal water temperatures increasing 0.19-0.34°C per decade. This would have contributed to the strength of Cyclone Gabrielle last year.

2. Storms tipping the carbon scales

A study on the effects of storms in the Southern Ocean, of which there are many, has found that they trigger a release of carbon dioxide.

In addition to absorbing 90% of earth’s heat, oceans also take up 25% of the excess carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activity and nearly half of this carbon uptake is believed to occur over the Southern Ocean. To date, the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean, particularly in this region, has not been well understood.

The finding that “storms tip the scales in the air-sea exchange of carbon in the Southern Ocean” in a process known as outgassing, is critical to modelling the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon and to predict the effects of climate warming in the future.

3. The ocean is losing its breath

Another study, published in the journal Nature, found that marine heatwaves caused by climate change can trigger low-oxygen extreme events.

Oxygen levels in seawater are a crucial element in sustaining biological survival. It is known that warming oceans are losing oxygen, primarily due to human activity. 

According to the study authors “[O]ur findings suggest the ocean is losing its breath under the influence of heatwaves, potentially experiencing more severe damage than previously anticipated.”

Source: The ocean losing its breath under the heatwaves

4. Insights from the far distant past

Another big study this month has found that just 1.5°C of subsurface ocean warming triggered periodic marine ice sheet collapses in Antarctica during the Pliocene era, contributing up to 25m of glacial-interglacial sea level change.

On the basis of CO2 concentrations and global temperatures, the Pliocene is believed to provide a good comparison for current and future sea level and climate and is thus important for modelling the impact of Antactic Ice Sheet (AIS) dynamics on sea level projections. That puts the speed of ocean warming we are currently seeing into perspective.

5. The role of shipping in heating the sea

Understanding why oceans are ‘weirdly hot’ at the moment, the subject of this analysis in NPR, has enormous consequences for what we might expect in the future.

One leading explanation is that the reduction in pollution from ships is playing a role.

This is a core element of James Hansen’s claim, outlined in the paper ‘Global warming in the pipeline’, which suggests that climate scientists have been underestimating climate sensitivity and that an acceleration in heating is occurring.

Another recent study supports his contention that reductions in ship sulphur emissions since new regulations came into force in 2020 have accelerated global warming. Hansen famously warned that “under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050”. The evidence is continuing to stack up in favour of his view, with ocean heating providing a critical element.

Some climate scientists, according to an article in Bloomberg, are now expecting temperature spikes that set new records to occur more frequently in future, with bigger jumps from one high to the next. Erich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich was lead author of a paper in 2021 that predicted “record-shattering extremes, nearly impossible in the absence of warming” that proved almost immediately prophetic.

As new extremes arrive, Fischer predicts previously rare high-end temperatures will become more commonplace. A 1-in-1,000-year heat wave any time between 1951 and 2019 will have shifted to a 1-in-100-year event by around 2020, according to his study. That not-so-unusual heat wave will move again to a 1-in-40-year event in the mid-2020s.

6. The Ember report: air con boom and solar inefficiencies

Demand for air conditioners is contributing to an anticipated surge in energy demand in 2024 according to energy think tank Ember’s annual Global Electricity Review.

Demand for key electrification technologies that replace fossil fuels with electrification, in particular EVs and heat pumps, have contributed 27% …

The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest science of changing sea temperatures and how most of the solar generation installed is too far north;

* Robert Patman on the latest from Ukraine, Gaza and AUKUS II;

* Dr Jamie Shea from Chatham House on Ukraine’s surprise incursions into Russia, plus AUKUS II; and,

* Major Electricity Users Group (MEUG) director John Harbord on the electricity crisis.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

TL;DR: Here’s the top news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:

* Two new academic studies attempt to pinpoint tipping risks. One modelled tipping risk from four interconnected tipping elements, based on current policy paths that overshoot 1.5˚C, and estimated the tipping risk to be 45% by 2300, even if temperatures are brought back below the target this century. Climate action this decade can have a significant impact on the level of risk, they say.

* Another study, yet to be peer-reviewed or published, modelled just one tipping element, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Shockingly, it found a greater-than-even chance of an AMOC collapse before 2050. The impact of such a collapse would profoundly affect much of the Northern Hemisphere.

* Energy Minister Simeon Brown has offers up his grand plan for importing LNG that solves neither the immediate nor the long-term electricity supply crisis, while the country’s largest gas and energy customers, Methanex and Tiwai Point ramp down their operations (and their associated exports), to offset the short-term pain.

* Propublica has a great scoop this week, gaining access to training videos for The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its secret 180-day Playbook for getting an army of political appointees in place to fight the deep state and rapidly advance a right-wing agenda should Trump win the US election. The videos include plans to “eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere”.

(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)

1. Some ‘hard to ignore’ research into the looming tipping points

In international science news, research attempting to pin down more specific information on tipping points and their timing is emerging.

An article published in Nature magazine says that if we were to follow current policies in place this century, which overshoot 1.5˚C, it would commit the world to a 45% tipping risk by 2300, even if the temperature is subsequently brought back below 1.5˚C. The tipping risk increases for every 0.1˚C of temporary overshoot.

The study uses an Earth System Model of four interconnected climate tipping elements. The paper emphasises that planetary stability relies on stringent emissions reductions in the current decade.

One particular tipping element (one of the four included in the modelling above) that has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or (AMOC), a vital system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that have profound impacts on weather around the world.

2. When might the AMOC tip?

News about the AMOC has been increasingly concerning and a new, yet to be peer-reviewed study, is the most dramatic and worrying yet, suggesting that a tipping point may be much, much nearer than 2300. The research uses a state-of-the-art model that focuses specifically on estimating the likely timing of a collapse. The results suggest that the AMOC is more likely than not to collapse by 2050.

Like a conveyor belt, the AMOC pulls warm surface water from the southern hemisphere and the tropics and distributes it in the cold North Atlantic. The colder, saltier water then sinks and flows south. The mechanism keeps parts of the Southern Hemisphere from overheating and parts of the Northern Hemisphere from getting unbearably cold, while distributing nutrients that sustain life in marine ecosystems.

The impacts of an AMOC collapse would leave parts of the world unrecognizable.

In the decades after a collapse, Arctic ice would start creeping south, and after 100 years, would extend all the way down to the southern coast of England. Europe’s average temperature would plunge, as would North America’s – including parts of the US. The Amazon rainforest would see a complete reversal in its seasons; the current dry season would become the rainy months, and vice versa.

An AMOC collapse “is a really big danger that we should do everything we can to avoid,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany who was not involved in the latest research.

The Southern Hemisphere would become warmer than currently predicted in the case of an AMOC collapse, as less heat would be transported northward.

Rahmstorf said that five or so years ago he would have agreed that an AMOC collapse this century was unlikely, though even a 10% risk is still unacceptably high “for a catastrophic impact of such magnitude.”

“There’s now five papers, basically, that suggested it could well happen in this century, or even before the middle of the century,” Rahmstof said. “My overall assessment is now that the risk of us passing the tipping point in this century is probably even greater than 50%.”

The pre-print (yet to be peer-reviewed and published) of the paper can be read in full here.

Specifically, it estimates the probability of an AMOC collapse before 2050 at 59 ± 17%. If the paper makes it through peer-review largely intact, it should cause a serious rethink of our global approach to reducing emissions as the scale of risk is almost unimaginable.

3. Markets can’t solve it, and the Govt won’t - but it WILL import more gas

Having cancelled the previous Government’s oil and gas exploration ban, Energy Minister Simeon Brown now wants to start importing LNG. That won’t solve the immediate crisis, of course. Or the long-term one, for that matter.

Brown has been quick to blame the previous government's ban on new oil and gas exploration for a shortage in gas to get us through the entirely predictable current dry year issue. But a great explainer in The Conversation by a group of Canterbury University academics points out that a record amount was spent on drilling new wells between 2020 and 2024. It just didn’t produce much new gas and now energy companies think there is less there than they previously thought.

This, combined with policies that change with each new government, means that energy companies will be slow to respond to the new policy regime while both gas and electricity markets lack the ‘confidence to move’. Another way to put it is that markets can’t solve the problem and Governments won’t. What a pickle.

According to The Conversation article,  every short-term solution involves a trade-off that impacts GDP (that shouldn’t be a surprise given how tightly correlated energy and GDP are). And that is what has eventuated with both Methanex (the country’s largest domestic user of indigenous gas) and Tiwai Point (the country’s largest renewable energy customer), both significant exporters, agreeing to ramp down their operations temporarily.

The option to strategically toggle production up and down to off-set variable energy availability is one that has been under-explored until now. The situation with Tiwai Point and Methanex has evolved almost organically, but should we put a tail on it and call it a cunning plan? Where are the feasibility plans for strategically over-building renewable energy alongside industries that can export embedded or stored energy in various forms? It’s not a new idea, but thus far lacks sufficient strategic governance to bring it about in a more intentional form.

Backing into Bernard’s call to exploit China’s cheap battery and solar production, Mike Casey this week made a case for a mini boom in distributed solar. Again, this requires strategic gov…

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest science of climate tipping points and Project 2025‘s plan to banish the phrase ‘climate change’ from a Trump administration;

* Robert Patman on the latest from Gaza and the conflict(s) in the Middle East;

* Journalist Hala Jaber from Beirut on those conflicts, and,

* Civil Contractors NZ (CCNZ) CEO Alan Pollard on the association’s survey of its members showing a crisis because the new Government froze their pipelines of work.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:

* The WHO reports a 30% increase in heat-related deaths worldwide over the past two decades with numbers set to swell (as we all swelter).

* Wait and see, says Zeke Hausfather: Climate scientists are holding out for as long as possible in the hope that global surface temperatures will self-correct to a level closer to their model paths in August.

* A story about how oil companies sold the US on a fake climate change solution, simultaneously swindling billions of dollars of taxpayer money to support the grift, is gaining ground since hearings in the US Senate wound down last month.

* As support for  ‘voluntary off-setting’ hits the skids, a replacement concept is now emerging to help corporates achieve their targets, even when they fail to sufficiently reduce their own emissions. Is it real, or just another way to greenwash?

* The call goes out to make your voice heard, with submissions on the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) set to close on 17 August.

* The Government announced it was looking to import LNG to generate elecricity after a surge in wholesale prices that is forcing factories to close.

(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)

1. WHO warns of ongoing surge in heat-related deaths

As athletes and spectators alike suffered through sauna-like conditions at the Paris Olympics, the UN has pointed out that heat-stress is the leading cause of climate-related deaths in the region. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, there has been a 30% increase in heat-related deaths worldwide over the past two decades.

A staggering 175,000 people die from heat-related causes every year in Europe and that figure is set to soar in line with our steadily warming planet. That’s the warning from the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which said on Friday that European countries are seeing temperatures rise at around twice the global average.

[...] That message echoes the Call to Action on Extreme Heat by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who insisted that Earth “is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere”.

In some places around the world, the climate crisis is already driving temperatures up to unbearable levels, WHO noted. Estimates show that globally, approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year between 2000 and 2019, with the European Region accounting for 36 per cent or on average more than 175,000 lives every year

Mr. Guterres’s comments came in the week that saw the three warmest days recorded on Earth in recent history, according to one of the datasets that the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) uses to monitor the climate.

Source: UN News

2. ‘We’ll know by August’

Meantime, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather pushes back against the dawning realisation that global temperatures have already established a new normal that is 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial level, suggesting we ‘wait and see’ what August brings.

Temperatures in the southern hemisphere (the blue line in the chart below)  were pushed up in the last two weeks of July by a warming spike in Antarctica which soared nearly 30˚C above normal.

Daily global and hemispheric temperatures in the NCEP GFS reanalysis product, including a 7-day forecast. Anomalies shown relative to a 1981-2010 baseline. Sourced from Karsten Haustein’s climate tracking site.

Hausfather suggests that this anomalous situation in Antarctica, which is generally subject to high variability, is likely to disappear, leaving August temperatures to drop slightly below last year’s.

Earlier this year NASA’s Gavin Schmidt and I separately wrote that the evolution of global temperatures in 2024 would be important to tell us if the “gobsmacking” conditions we saw in the latter half of 2023 represented a new persistent condition for the climate or more of a temporary phenomenon.

Gavin suggested that we would have a better sense by August if conditions were stabilizing or the climate was heading into “uncharted territory”.

With August almost upon us we remain in something of a liminal space. Both June and July were notably warmer than I expected earlier in the year (coming in 0.4C and 0.3C respectively above the last big El Nino year of 2016). At the same time, we have moved out of record territory, and we still expect some additional cooling influence from fading El Nino conditions and potential La Nina development.

So I think we will still have to wait and see, though if the spike in temperatures over the past few weeks persists to push August 2024 to set a new record it would be a worrying sign.

Source: The Climate Brink

The problem is that temperatures in August last year were already 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial average according to the EU’s Copernicus programme.  

A new record would be really alarming, but one would think that anything near to last year’s “gobsmacking” conditions would still represent a worrying ‘persistence’. The  requirement for a ‘new record’ to spark concern sounds like the goalposts are being shifted.

3. Eyes on fossil fuel companies’ cynical ‘solutions’ ploy

Award-winning investigative journalist, Amy Westervelt’s piece, supported by the Pulitzer Centre and published in Vox, as well as her own site Drilled at the end of July is gaining traction.

The report shows how fossil-fuel companies have been heavily marketing solutions, such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and biofuels, that they don’t really believe in themselves.

Her reporting has been closely following revelations from a three-year US House and Senate Democrat investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate disinformation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said carbon capture might be necessary to reduce the emissions of certain “hard to abate” sectors like steel, concrete, and some chemical manufacturing, but noted that in the best-case scenario, with carbon capture technology working flawlessly and deployed at large scale, it could only account for a little over 2 percent of global carbon emissions reductions by 2030.

That hasn’t stopped major oil companies from claiming that carbon capture and storage “will be essential for helping society achieve net-zero emissions,” that they are delivering “carbon capture for American industry,” working on reducing emissions in their own businesses (also referred to as “carbon intensity”), and delivering “heavy industry with low emissions.” But internal documents obtained during the federal investigation, as well as information that industry whistleblowers shared with Drilled and Vox, reveal an industry that is decidedly more realistic about the emissions-reduction potential of carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, than it presents publicly.

[...] While Shell’s optimistic projection envisions 10,000 large-scale CCS facilities operational by 2070, with more than 2,500 facilities by 2050, Exxon predicts somewhere between 250 and 500 facilities by 2050. Elsewhere in the scenario, Exxon also envisions that “global scale is limited” for CCS and hydrogen tech by 2050.

Exxon’s past projections were much more in line with what critics of CCS have been saying for years. The IPCC, for example, has said that even if rea…

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on this week’s explosion in wholesale electricity prices;

* Robert Patman on the latest on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, the conflicts in Gaza and the Middle East, and on the debate about Aotearoa joining AUKUS;

* Sanjana Hattotuwa, Research Director at The Disinformation Project, on the role of disinformation in civil unrest in Bangladesh, the UK and Aotearoa, and,

* Kate Day, the co-director of Common Grace Aotearoa, who helps run EveryoneConnected, a campaign to end electricity disconnection fees and end higher prices for pre-pay electricity, on this week’s announcement from Contact that it had stopped charging such fees for non payment and on the problems in the electricity market.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

PS: My apologies for the late delivery of this Hoon. Life got in the way, including the most wonderful walk on Rangitoto Island with my daughter yesterday, during which we took this picture of a Tieke (Saddleback). Thanks for your patience. It was flitting around in a group of three. I’d never seen one before. This was special for me.

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about revolts against the Government over austerity and disinformation by directors and staff alike at Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ, adding to the Kāinga Ora board revolt last month

They also spoke to:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on a big new global study on the dangers and opportunities from Aotearoa’s surge in methane emissions from cows, along with Air NZ’s decision to pull out of a global emissions reduction compact. She referred to The Kākā’s weekly climate wrap out for all today and we talked about comments in 2011 by then PM John Key;

* Special guest Vic Crockford on housing and homelessness. Vic was the CEO at Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) and is now the chair of the Coalition to end Women’s Homelessness, which just published this blog post on the issue. She referred to these two Listener-$$$ articles about women’s homelessness here and here; and,

* Whangārei A&E doctor Dr Gary Payinda on the health crisis.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded last night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:

* A new study published this week in the journal Frontiers in Science shows methane emissions are growing much faster than projected and that rapid reductions are necessary if the world is to stay on track to limit warming to 1.5˚C or 2˚C.

* The research emerges at a critical time for Aotearoa as two reviews of methane targets are currently underway, one by the Climate Change Commission and another by a panel newly formed by the Coalition Government.

* The researchers argue that the alternative climate metric GWP* has been misused to support inequitable claims that current levels of methane emissions cause ‘no additional warming’. The coalition Government’s newly formed panel, tasked with reviewing the country’s methane target has the principle of ‘no additional warming’ embedded in its terms of reference, suggesting that the Government, and an agricultural industry that is eagerly anticipating a downward revision to its targets as a result of the panel’s work, are unlikely to welcome the latest research.

* Air New Zealand announced that it was abandoning its 2030 targets and withdrawing from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) this week. It is the first global airline to join the headlong rush out of the SBTi as 2030 gets uncomfortably close.

* The SBTi itself released a set of reports as a first step toward reviewing its standards, after indicating earlier this year that it was considering reversing its advice against the corporate use of voluntary carbon offsets to achieve Scope 3 emissions targets, causing uproar and a staff revolt. Far from clarifying the organisation’s position, the reports find ‘mixed evidence’ for the effectiveness of carbon offsets.

* Pressure is growing to provide more ways for organisations and states to obscure the confronting reality that they are failing to take sufficient action to remain on track to achieve Paris Agreement targets.

(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)

1. Methane emissions under increasing scrutiny

New research out this week shows anthropogenic methane emissions have been growing much faster than projected, particularly since 2006. They have been responsible for about half of planetary warming between the pre-industrial period and the 2010s but have received far less attention compared to carbon dioxide.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that reducing methane emissions is a critical component, alongside decarbonisation, of achieving global climate goals.

The article by lead author Professor Drew Shindell of Duke University and a group of 14 other international climate scientists says that methane emissions need to drop rapidly, if we are to limit global warming to 1.5˚C or 2˚C.

2. Research comes at critical time for NZ

The study has emerged at a critical time for policymakers in Aotearoa.

Two reviews of our methane emissions targets are currently under way – one by the Climate Change Commission and another by a separate panel newly formed by the Government as part of their coalition agreement.

The terms of reference for that panel are to provide advice on what the target should be that ‘is consistent with the principle of no additional warming’. That framing has been called into question by the latest research.

The researchers argue that the alternative climate metric GWP* has used to support the claim that current levels of methane emissions are not a pressing issue requiring targeted action.

The GWP (Global Warming Potential) index was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases, in order to decide how much effort should be put into reducing the levels of different greenhouse gases. It compares the ability of the various gases to trap extra heat in the atmosphere over time relative to carbon dioxide (CO2). GWP* is a new measure that takes account of the different atmospheric lifetimes of short- and long-lived gases, better capturing their different warming effects.

Responding to the study, Professor Robert McLachlan, Distinguished Professor in Applied Mathematics at Massey University commented,

"Shindell et al. suggest that the alternative climate metric, GWP* has been misused to argue that current levels of methane emissions cause 'no additional warming', and that this 'ignores emissions responsible for roughly half the warming to date and appears to exempt current high methane emitters from mitigation. This is neither equitable nor consistent with keeping carbon budgets within reach.' Two of the five members of the new methane review panel were authors of the original GWP* study.

3. NACT Govt has latched onto that narrative like a life raft

The narrative of ‘no additional warming’ was sold to the current coalition government ahead of the last election and they appear to have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

The agriculture industry has been hoping to reel in reduced methane targets, just as the world wakes up to the increasing threat posed by short-lived gases.

The new research will likely go down like a cup of cold sick across the current government and the agriculture industry, as their preferred narrative comes under fire by an influential group of international climate scientists.

The article suggests that the likely source of the recent and abrupt acceleration in methane emissions is from wetlands, in a worrying response to increased warming, along with additional contributions from fossil fuel use. Both of these results mean that anthropogenic emissions must decrease more than expected to reach warming goals.

The researchers support a split gas approach, as has been implemented in Aotearoa New Zealand, saying that a net-zero target specifically for methane is neither necessary nor plausible. Acknowledging the additional difficulties of reducing agricultural methane emissions, they nonetheless suggest a global sectoral target that reduces emissions 20% by 2030 and 30% by 2050.

Also worth reading is a viewpoint on the article that accompanied its publication in the Frontiers in Science journal, penned by Climate Change Commissioner Andy Reisinger. Reisinger points out that the sectoral targets above were derived from scenarios that assumed rapid and deep cuts in all emissions from 2020 onwards. As these have not yet materialised, future emissions reductions, including those for agricultural methane may need to be even stronger than the article suggests. He also emphasises the relationship between methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions, the value judgements that drive their related targets and explains why competing narratives about methane can be challenging for policymakers to parse

The many connections between CH4 and CO2 that Shindell et al. discuss also make clear that if individual countries or sectors do adopt separate emission targets for long- and short-lived gases, such targets cannot be set in isolation from each other to achieve an overall climate goal. How we slice the global emissions pie to serve a highly uneven world depends on value judgments about equity and pathways for sustainable development, not physics. Separate targets for short-…

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:

* A draft report from a UN taskforce on the use of carbon offsets was leaked this week, revealing the UN plans to reject companies’ use of carbon credits from the voluntary market, following a seemingly endless run of reports detailing serious integrity issues. Outrage from fossil fuel company representatives, quoted by the Financial Times, is already brewing in anticipation of the announcement.

* Rumblings about the current New Zealand Government’s offsetting plans are continuing to grow, following the release of last week’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP). Dame Anne Salmond lashed the proposed ‘tree planting frenzy’ in Newsroom, while the President of the New Zealand Institute of Forestry said it was good, but the Government had got the modelling wrong. In an RNZ interview, James Treadwell pointed out that the industry was only set to plant about half of the Government’s afforestation forecast over the next two years, leaving a big hole in the plan.

* The market’s next ‘black swan’ could come from climate risk gouging more than 40% from global equity valuations creating a ‘lost generation’ in equity returns.

* Fonterra is accused of spending more on advertising than research in a new global study looking at how big meat and dairy “delay, distract, and derail action on transforming the food system” mirroring strategies used by tobacco and fossil fuel industries.

* The social inequities of New Zealand’s transport emissions are unveiled in a new report showing some groups are ‘privileged’ by the current transport system, while it disproportionately harms the environment and other peoples’ health.

* Global temperatures hit fresh record highs in the last week.

(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)

1. Integrity issues of the vast carbon trading market

A UN task force is rejecting the use of carbon credits by companies to off-set their greenhouse gas emissions, outside of government regulated markets, according to a draft report leaked to the Financial Times.

The task force, established by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, says companies should focus on reducing their own emissions rather than participating in vast and growing voluntary carbon trading markets.

Many industries, including carbon intensive industries, rely on carbon off-setting to meet their net-zero carbon targets, claiming that it provides a critical stream of climate financing. This includes highly polluting fossil fuel companies, as well as tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple.

The Financial Times article quotes an outraged Jeff Swartz, vice-president at BP’s trading and shipping arm, which buys and sells carbon credits, “I would hope and I would expect that serious organisations that are committed to protecting ecosystems . . . don’t shut down an avenue for channelling that carbon finance.”

However, in recent years, report after report has emerged detailing serious integrity issues with carbon off-setting. Criticisms include vast over-statements of the emissions reductions achieved, the use of poor verification methodologies, impermanence of emissions reductions, and failure to obtain free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) from indigenous and other local communities.

While the bulk of these criticisms have applied to voluntary markets, government sanctioned schemes including the UN’s own clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI) that operated under the Kyoto Protocol, have also come under fire.

2. Growing scrutiny of NZ’s tree planting plan

Successive governments in Aotearoa have heartily endorsed carbon trading, both as a domestic policy tool for achieving emissions reductions, and as an international mechanism allowing the country to achieve its climate obligations through international off-setting.

Both approaches are coming under increasing scrutiny as challenges emerge. This week, Dame Anne Salmond issued a stern condemnation of plans by Minister for Climate Change, Simon Watts to promote “a tree-planting frenzy”, claiming that the strategy has proved to be an unmitigated disaster in the past:

After Cyclone Bola hit Tairāwhiti in the late 1980s, the government decided pine plantations were the answer to widespread erosion. Farmland was sold to international investors and converted to pine trees, hollowing out rural communities. 

While the profits flowed offshore, the costs stayed with ratepayers and taxpayers, in the provision of port infrastructure, the losses associated with workers killed and injured in the forests, and damage to the regional roading network.

When the trees began to be harvested, some of the most erodible landscapes in the world were left bare, with predictable outcomes.

In a series of severe weather events, culminating in Cyclone Gabrielle last year, sediment and forestry waste (including trees that toppled in the storms) swept down local rivers, destroying bridges, roads, fences, powerlines, farm buildings, paddocks, orchards, vineyards, crops and family homes. 

Riverbeds rose, increasing the flood risk to rural communities and Gisborne city. A little boy was killed by a pine log on Waikanae beach.

Agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, tourism, education, health and service industries in Tairāwhiti all suffered severe damage, and even the forestry companies themselves, many of which have been successfully prosecuted in the courts.  Source: Newsroom

Criticism of the country’s forestry strategy in a report on land-use change issued in May by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton has bounced around in international media, reported by Bloomberg News and turning up in PhysOrg.  Upton has long been critical of the use of afforestation as a cheap way to offset fossil emissions, suggesting they should only be used to offset short-term gases such as methane.

In addition, it emerged last week that the forecast tree planting in the Governments modelling for the draft Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) overestimates by a factor of two the planting that is likely to occur in 2024 and 2025. New Zealand Institute of Forestry President, James Treadwell says that the government’s numbers are wrong and the projections unrealistic in an interview with Ingrid Hipkiss on RNZ, leaving a big hole in the ERP.

3. Beware the next black swan

In other news, a new study from the EDHEC- Risk Climate Impact Institute shows that failure to address climate change could gouge 40% from global equity valuations in what Bloomberg News describes as “the market’s next black swan”. According to lead author Riccardo Rebonato,

“After Covid we had a massive GDP loss but then a rebound. Here it seems to be like a headwind, a continuous headwind, without a rebound,” Rebonato said. “It could be the Climate Lost Generation in equity returns.”

The EDHEC paper forecasts much bigger stock-market losses than most other studies do, Rebonato noted. That’s partly because those other studies focused on the costs of transitioning the global economy to renewable energy rather than the far greater havoc climate change will inflict on growth.

[...] Weather disasters cost the global economy $1.5 trillion in the 2010s, according to the World Meteorological Organiza…

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care report released this week, and with:

* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and the rapid crumble of the Thwaites Glacier;

* University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor Robert Patman on the likely Democratic candidacy of Kamala Harris for US President and any implications for US foreign policy on Gaza, Ukraine, NATO and AUKUS;

* Special guest Green Transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter on Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s ‘Northern Expressway’ and speed limit increases in towns, around schools and on expressways, and Brown’s re-announcement of Labour’s plan for 18 new diesel-electric locomotives for Wairarapa and the Kapiti Coast, albeit less than National’s promise for 22 ‘tri-mode’ electric locomotives.

The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded last night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey.

(This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)

Ngā mihi nui.

Bernard