Europe heatwave: Paris forecast to set all-time high temperature record

23.07.19

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Europe heatwave: Paris forecast to set all-time high temperature record

Many publications report on the latest heatwave to sweep Europe. Temperatures are expected to reach 34C today in southern England and could exceed the UK’s record temperature of 38.5C by Thursday, the Washington Post reports. Paris could also see a new temperature record on Thursday. “Climate science research shows that heatwaves like this one are becoming more likely and more severe in many parts of the world, including Europe, as the overall climate warms because of human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels for energy,” the Washington Post says. Many UK publications, including the Times, Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, Reuters and the Guardian, also cover the heatwave – but none mentions climate change in their reporting.

Guterres asks all countries to plan for carbon neutrality by 2050

Climate Home News

Climate Home News reports the UN chief António Guterres has written to every head of state to ask them to plan for “carbon neutrality by 2050”. In a letter seen by Climate Home News, Guterres invited governments to send “a brief summary or an indication of the plans” they are to present at a UN summit in New York in September, where countries “are due to present concrete proposals to accelerate the pace of decarbonisation”. Climate Home News says: “Countries are expected to compete for the spotlight during the high-level meeting, with only the most ambitious and meaningful strategies being showcased on stage.”

£680m of UK foreign aid spent on fossil fuel projects – study

The Guardian

The UK government has spent £680m of its foreign aid budget on fossil fuel projects since 2010, according to an analysis commissioned by the Catholic development agency Cafod, the Guardian reports. The UK gave more funding to oil and gas in the two years after signing the 2015 Paris Agreement than it had in the previous five, the Guardian says. “The UK wants to be a leader on climate change, so it’s shocking that UK aid money is still being spent on fossil fuels overseas,” Sarah Wykes, Cafod’s lead analyst on climate change and energy, tells the Guardian. Carbon Brief has previously mapped where UK foreign aid is spent on climate change and where multilateral climate funds spend their money.

New UK nuclear plants could be paid for upfront through energy bills

Financial Times

The Financial Times reports that the UK government has backed proposals to finance new nuclear plants by having taxpayers pay upfront through their energy bills. “The proposal is likely to face criticism for loading risks on to consumers and the government at a time when renewable alternatives to nuclear like wind and solar are rapidly becoming cheaper,” the FT says. The funding proposal was put forward by the utility company EDF, the Times reports. “The business department said last night it believed the ‘regulated asset base’ model that the French energy giant wants for its proposed Sizewell plant in Suffolk could reduce consumer bills compared with the subsidy contract used to back the £20bn Hinkley Point plant EDF is building in Somerset,” the Times says. It adds: “A consultation document published last night confirms that consumers would, however, be asked to start paying for the plants on energy bills while they were still under construction and to share in the risks of cost overruns.”

Comment

Miners have a role to play in fighting climate change

Andrew Mackenzie, Financial Times

Andrew Mackenzie, chief executive of the mining company BHP, has written in the Financial Times to argue that divesting from his company is “counterproductive”. He says: “Resource companies today face two inescapable truths. First, the climate is changing and, second, our activities and the use of our products are contributing to that change. These are truths that cannot, and must not, be avoided. There is a third truth: our operations have also made the world a better place. No one burns coal or gas for the sake of it.” He says that BHP realises “more than most people” the impact that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere can have. “We can see the extinction events in the geological record,” he says. However, some of the solutions to climate change, he argues, such as electric cars, will require “more mined resources than less”. “That is why we must change the current assumption that there are easy, single solutions and acknowledge that there are many competing perspectives that must be taken into account in the pursuit of effective responses to climate change,” he says. “It is also why I believe that those who simplistically call for divestment from all resource companies are fundamentally wrong.” The FT also reports that BHP is to set new targets next year “on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its products even after they have been sold”.

Why setting a climate deadline is dangerous

Shinichiro Asayama, Rob Bellamy, Oliver Geden, Warren Pearce & Mike Hulme, Nature Climate Change

A group of academics write in the journal Nature Climate Change to argue against “the rise of the political rhetoric of setting a fixed deadline for decisive actions on climate change”. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on 1.5C of global warming, the group argues, were interpreted by some to mean that the world has a “12-year deadline for [avoiding] catastrophic climate change”. This “sparked widespread calls for urgent radical actions, ranging from the Green New Deal proposal in the United States to the youth activism of climate school strikes around the world, civil disobedience by the Extinction Rebellion group”, the group says. They continue: “However, setting a near-term deadline to urge immediate policy actions could do the opposite of what is intended. The speed of the countdown to a climate deadline is set by the rate of CO2 emissions. Emissions reductions slow the countdown. Whereas policymakers are urged to take policy actions to meet the deadline, they might instead be motivated to extend the deadline.”

Science

An emerging tropical cyclone–deadly heat compound hazard

Nature Climate Change

There is an emerging risk of a combination of extreme weather – known as a “compound event” – where dangerous heat follows a major tropical cyclone, a study warns. Such compound events are already possible, the researchers note, but only an estimated 1,000 people have been affected to date. However, in a 2C warmer world, the researchers estimate this number could “rise markedly” as more than two million people would be at risk. The combination has “serious potential consequences given that mega-blackouts may follow powerful tropical cyclones, and the heavy reliance on air conditioning”, the researchers say.

Freshwater requirements of large-scale bioenergy plantations for limiting global warming to 1.5C

Environmental Research Letters

A new paper estimates the amount of freshwater needed to implement bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) on a scale that may be necessary to meet the 1.5C warming limit. Using a global biosphere model, the researchers analyse the availability of water for bioenergy plantations, taking into account land used for conservation and agriculture, as well as water demand from industry, households and farming. Their findings suggest that global water demand for irrigating bioenergy crops ranges between 400 and 3,000 cubic kilometres per year.

Nonlinear increases in extreme temperatures paradoxically dampen increases in extreme humid-heat

Environmental Research Letters

The drying of the land surface caused by rising temperatures could partially offset the health impact of heat and humidity extremes in the future, a new study suggests. The researchers “demonstrate that globally, on the hottest days of the year, the positive effect of amplified warming on wet bulb temperature [a measure of humid-heat] is counterbalanced by a larger negative effect resulting from drying”. In parts of North America and Europe, for example, this drying could “dampen the rise in frequency of dangerous humid-heat” by up to five days per year, the study says.

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