This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including confirmation of a 12-month hot streak and a pivotal speech by the UN Chief to mark World Environment Day.
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1. Warmest May on Record Puts World on ‘Shocking’ 12-Month Hot Streak
According to the latest climate bulletin published Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the global average surface air temperature last month stood at 0.65C above the 1991-2020 average. It was also 1.52C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average, marking the 11th consecutive month that temperatures breached the 1.5C global warming threshold set in the Paris Agreement.
While this does not signal a permanent breach of the critical limit, which scientists say is measured over decades, it sends a clear warning to humanity that we are approaching the point of no return much faster than expected.
So far, the world has warmed by 1.2C compared to pre-industrial times, though data by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that 20-40% of the global human population live in regions that, by the decade 2006–2015, had already experienced warming of more than 1.5C in at least one season. According to the UN body, every 0.5C (0.9F) of global warming will cause discernible increases in the frequency and severity of heat extremes, heavy rainfall events, and regional droughts.
Read more here.
2. Southern Brazil Floods Made Twice as Likely Due to Climate Change: Report
The devastating floods that affected Southern Brazil in April and May, killing 169 and displacing nearly 600,000 people, were made twice more likely to occur by human-caused climate change and amplified further by El Niño and infrastructure failures, a new study has revealed.
The deadly floods, triggered by heavy rain, affected 90% of the Rio Grande do Sul state, an area equivalent to the UK. While Brazil and neighbouring countries are no strangers to major rainfall, last month’s storms were significantly stronger than usual.
World Weather Attribution (WWA) conducted a rapid attribution study to understand the effect of human-caused warming on the floods. The analysis concerned an event that occurred between April 26 and May 5, which saw a succession of three rainfall events. The average accumulation of rain over this period was 420mm, equivalent to three normal months of rain. By comparing historical weather data and climate models, researchers concluded that in today’s world –which is 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial times due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels – such event was made twice more likely and around 6-9% more intense.
Read more here.
3. Global Clean Energy Investments to Hit $2tn in 2024, Double Fossil Fuel Figures
The world is on track to invest $2 trillion in clean energy technologies and infrastructure, nearly double the amount going to planet-warming fossil fuels, according to a new report.
Lower costs and improved supply chains are fuelling global investments in clean technologies such as renewables, electric vehicles (EVs), nuclear power, grids, storage, and heat pumps, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual World Energy Investment report published Thursday. Slightly over $1 trillion will be spent on coal, gas, and oil. Global spending on renewables and grids combined overtook fossil fuel investments for the first time last year.
“The rise in clean energy spending is underpinned by strong economics, by continued cost reductions and by considerations of energy security,” said Birol, referring to policy initiatives to accelerate the energy transition adopted by large economies such as the multi-billion US Inflation Reduction Act.
Read more here.
4. UN Chief Calls on Advertising and PR Agencies to Stop Fuelling Climate Disinformation
In a pivotal speech at the American Museum of Natural History in New York to mark World Environment Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on countries to ban fossil fuel advertising in the same way they restricted tobacco.
“Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns. They have been aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men fuelling the madness,” the UN chief said.
Fossil fuel giants have repeatedly used international events, social media platforms, and influencers to promote their planet-warming activities.
A 2023 analysis by the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) found that major fossil fuel corporations pumped millions of dollars into digital advertising in the lead-up to COP28, the year’s most important climate summit. The UN conference is notorious for allowing fossil fuel lobbyists to join the talks. According to an analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, at least 2,456 representatives from the world’s largest polluters were granted access to the talks in Dubai last year. At COP27 in Glasgow, the number was 636.
Read more here.
5. Potential of Cities in Tackling Climate Change Still Largely Untapped, UN Says
National policy plans to drive sustainability and emissions reduction must put greater emphasis on urban priorities and climate action ahead of next year’s COP30, a new UN study has warned.
The report, published Wednesday by UN-Habitat, UNDP, and the UNESCO Chair on Urban Resilience at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU.Resilience), analyzed the climate commitments of 194 countries party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement that set out a framework for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
Home to 56% of the global population, cities are responsible for 70% of global primary energy consumption and 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making them key players to achieving the Paris Agreement targets. And yet, the study found that only 27% of NDCs – mostly from low- and middle-income countries including China, Colombia, Morocco, India, South Africa, and Turkey – had a strong focus, meaning urban sectors were featured prominently and identified as a priority. Despite the low proportion, this still represented a 14% increase compared to 2016.
Read more here.
