The Good-The Bad-The In Between: Polar Bears might be coming for us, War Sanctions Only Apply to Football Clubs, & more
Edition 23
Hi there!
Welcome to this week’s edition on Living In A Greenhouse!
We are already 3 months into 2022. I hope it has been everything you thought it would be. Even if it wasn’t, I hope the coming months bring with it the magic that is the Spring season =)
Before we get to this week’s edition, here is a huge shout-out to Cli-Mate.
Cli-mate is a community resource that makes information on climate really accessible to anybody serious about climate change, regardless of where you are on your journey. (Bonus: It also includes a jobs board).
Go take a look around and consider becoming a Cli-Mate!
Give Yashasvini and Sampriti a follow on Twitter.
You know they are amazing humans when they were kind enough to list my very-average newsletter as a climate resource.
The Good
— You Emit → You Report
When you think of Corporate America, you don’t really picture people who are friends of urgent climate action. They just might begrudgingly become just that.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Corporate America’s watchdog, proposed a rule earlier this week that requires publicly listed companies to report their emissions and climate risks to business continuity.
What’s more? Companies are expected to disclose ‘transition risks’ - or how their business is likely to be affected by moving away from dirty to clean energy.
Companies can decide whether to report Scope 3 emissions—those generated in a company’s supply chain or through use of their goods—if they determine the information is “material” to investors or if they’ve set targets to reduce those emissions. In many cases, Scope 3 emissions represent the bulk of a company’s greenhouse gases.
Here’s a quick infographic on different scopes of emission that I have used before.
After a period of 60 days for public comments, the rule will be ratified by the SEC.
The underlying logic behind this development is sound.
Companies have a fiduciary responsibility to inform shareholders, whether they are institutional or individual, about all material risks to their business - and consequently to shareholder money.
Climate change is undeniably a material risk to most businesses. If a company thinks otherwise, just go ahead and disclose the lower risk as the new rule suggests.
The Bad
— Glacier On My Mind (Again)
This is bad. No way to see it otherwise.
A 450-square mile Conger ice shelf has collapsed in the eastern part of Antarctica. The largest segment of the collapsed ice-shelf is about 200 square miles long. That’s about two-thirds the size of New York City.
The problem with ice shelves breaking is that it accelerates the flow of glaciers into the ocean, and changes marine ecosystems around the world.
The only (and it is a slim one) silver lining in all of this is that the two glaciers behind the Conger ice shelf are fairly small. Even if they were to accelerate, they would have very minimal impact on sea-levels.
Scientists say this occurred because of an unusually perfect storm of reasons: warm waters floating under the ice shelf combined with air heavy with water vapours brought in from the ocean.
This resulted in unusually high temperatures on the surface and in the water beneath the ice shelf.
Ice-shelf loss was a major problem in Western Antarctica, where warming induced by climate change is more pronounced. I wrote about the Thwaites glacier (which is on the West) and its giant cracks.
But this time, it’s the East that fell.
This is the first recorded ice-shelf collapse in East Antarctica since we started using satellite imagery in 1979.
I am writing about it a little too frequently for my liking.
Okay, I held out on one other silver lining. East Antarctica is still considered to be the stable ice-shelf and the collapse doesn’t change this view.
With that said, the Polar Bears may soon be coming for us.
The In-Between
— Sanctions apply only to footy clubs owned by Russian Oligarchs
(No, I am not a Chelsea fan).
I have written previously about Europe’s energy reliance on Russia. But CIA wrote about it way back. The CIA turned Oracle and warned Ronald Reagan about it in 1981.
Back to today. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left Europe and its member countries worrying about energy security.
So much so that sanctions against Russia only appear to be on paper.
Since the war in Ukraine began on February 24, the European Union has paid out €21 billion ($23.3 billion) for fossil fuel imports from Russia, according to the Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Germany continues to import natural gas from Russia (as of today), and face allegations that they are effectively funding the war.
There’s more to that story though.
For starters, Germany is highly reliant on Russia for its natural gas supply: 55% in 2021. (Although that’s dropping; it was at 40% in the first quarter of this year).
Cutting it off abruptly would have serious ramifications in industrial and economic activity. The new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz went as far as to say that an embargo on imports “from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and the whole of Europe into a recession.”
Further, Germany has no terminals to receive liquefied-natural gas (LNG), the main alternative to Russia’s natural gas. They won’t have one until 2026.
Biden, in what is equal parts American bravado and equal parts compensating for a missed opportunity in the 1980s, announced that the US would step into to offset shortages caused by a drop in Russian gas supply. For the record, US only produces LNG.
The United States expects to more than double its gas sales to Europe, to 50 billion cubic meters, “until at least 2030.”
Let us play this scenario out.
Assuming Biden manages to construct a trans-Atlantic pipeline and Europe builds a bunch of terminals to receive American-LNG, Europe would essentially lock itself to continued usage of natural gas in its electricity mix. (Since the invasion in February, Germany has approved two new LNG terminals).
That leaves question marks around whether Europe’s ambitious climate targets would be met.
Let us give Europe the benefit of the doubt here and say that, sure - they are just replacing Russian stuff with American stuff. That won’t change anything.
Where will all this American stuff come from?
US is currently exporting gas at capacity. All buyers have long-term purchase contracts.
Unless US significantly ramps up its production capacity, which would make no sense considering the need to quickly stop any new exploration or production activities, they will not be able to meet this.
New projects take years to build, are expensive, and tend to be used for 20-30 years at least.
And the Biden Administration, that ran its Presidential campaign on imminent and significant climate action, has been unable to enact any major climate-related legislation.
Seriously, someone tell me - where will all this gas come from?
Bonus
— All this startup hype
— The Many Shades of Greenwashing
Banter
— With all the takes floating around …
… the IPCC weighs in
