extreme weather
The Green Energy Revolution Can Be Sabotaged and Delayed, But It Cannot Be Stopped
A cleaner, better world is in sight, but that world cannot be realized until we leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground once and for all.
The renewable energy transformation is accelerating — no matter how hard the fossil fuel industry and its supporters push back. It’s about time. I’m just one of many who’ve spent decades warning about the consequences of burning massive amounts of dirty fuels.
Email Of course, we must do much more if we want to avoid worsening the climate change impacts we’re already seeing: heat domes and other extreme weather events, floods, droughts, wildfires, migrant crises, species extinctions, water shortages, rising sea levels and more — not to mention pollution-related health problems.The good news is that the transition is well underway. The International Energy Agency expects global investment in renewable energy technology and infrastructure to reach US$2 trillion this year, double the amount going into gas, oil and coal. Last year also saw a significant increase. According to Reuters, “Combined investment in renewable power and grids overtook the amount spent on fossil fuels for the first time in 2023.”
The latest research clearly shows the world is well on its way to quitting fossil fuels — but we need to move even faster to avoid increasing weather chaos and catastrophe.
A report by London-based energy think tank Ember found that “renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023, driven by growth in solar and wind.” Solar generation grew by 23 per cent, wind by 10 per cent and fossil fuels by just 0.8 per cent. “The report analyses electricity data from 215 countries, including the latest 2023 data for 80 countries representing 92% of global electricity demand.”
The renewable energy contribution might have been higher, but drought conditions caused a reduction in hydropower, some of which was replaced by coal power in China, India, Vietnam and Mexico — the main reason behind the slight growth in fossil fuel generation.
According to the report, “the latest forecasts give confidence that 2024 will begin a new era of falling fossil generation, marking 2023 as the likely peak of power sector emissions.”
“There’s an unprecedented opportunity for countries that choose to be at the forefront of the clean energy future,” Ember’s Global Insights program director Dave Jones said. “Expanding clean electricity not only helps to decarbonise the power sector. It also provides the step up in supply needed to electrify the whole economy; and that’s the real game-changer for the climate.”
Contrary to fossil fuel interest claims, Ember also found that fossil gas isn’t replacing coal power. “There’s going to be a bit of a rude awakening on gas,” Jones said. “The gas industry before were really looking forward to coal collapsing because that was going to create a new market for them but actually … wind and solar is replacing coal and it’s replacing gas.”
David Suzuki Foundation research confirms that increased fracking for liquefied natural gas in British Columbia and Alberta isn’t good for the climate or economy — let alone drought-stricken water supplies.
Another sign of the fossil fuel era��s demise is the number of countries producing power from renewable sources. According to the International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency, seven countries — Albania, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Iceland, Nepal, Paraguay and the Democratic Republic of Congo — now generate 99.7 per cent of their electricity from geothermal, hydro, solar and/or wind power.
“Another 40 countries got at least half of their electricity from renewables in 2021 and 2022 including 11 in Europe,” EuroNews reports. “Others, like Germany or Portugal, are capable of running on 100 per cent wind, water and solar for short amounts of time.”
An earlier David Suzuki Foundation report found that Canada can achieve reliable, affordable, 100 per cent emissions-free electricity by 2035 “without relying on expensive and sometimes unproven and dangerous technologies like nuclear or fossil gas with carbon capture and storage.”
Growing electrification of the global economy means increased demand, so energy conservation is also important. We must use and waste less.
The latest research clearly shows the world is well on its way to quitting fossil fuels — but we need to move even faster to avoid increasing weather chaos and catastrophe. We’ve already locked in enormous amounts of greenhouse gases that will remain in the atmosphere for decades, so impacts will continue, but we can slow and eventually reverse the trend.
The accelerating shift is good for the economy, climate, human health and air, land and water. A cleaner, better world is in sight, but we must leave fossil fuels in the ground and in the past.
As FEMA Unveils Flood Rule, Climate Campaigners Urge More Radical Overhaul
One campaigner called for "a modern disaster agency poised to tackle the deadly fossil fuel-driven heat decimating the whole country."
While welcoming the Federal Emergency Management Agency's new rule to better protect U.S. infrastructure from flooding, one climate campaigner stressed Wednesday that FEMA EMA still must be much more radically transformed to handle disasters of a rapidly warming world.
"FEMA's new rule to rebuild public infrastructure back higher to avoid flood damage is an important shift in policy, but FEMA still desperately needs to transform into a modern disaster agency poised to tackle the deadly fossil fuel-driven heat decimating the whole country," said Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.
Extreme weather impacts of global heating—largely driven by humanity extracting and burning fossil fuels—include not only widespread flooding and stronger hurricanes but also record-smashing heatwaves and wildfires.
Extreme heat is currently impacting tens of millions of people across the United States. On the West Coast, it's believed to have killed at least eight people. In Washington, D.C., Tuesday was the fifth day in a row of 97°F or higher, with the upper 90s also forecast for Wednesday. It's "oppressively hot," in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is on track to set a record for the most consecutive days over 115°F.
Texas residents are facing high temperatures along with the effects of historic Hurricane Beryl, which made its third landfall on Monday after hitting Mexico and the Caribbean and kicked off what experts fear will be an "extraordinary" season in the Atlantic. As of Wednesday morning, about 1.7 million Texans still lacked power. The storm is now expected to bring flooding and tornadoes to the Northeast.
"This mindset should be extended to address the nation's enormous need for a bold game plan to save lives and help struggling communities through heat."
"FEMA's rule acknowledges the public impacts of the climate emergency, and this mindset should be extended to address the nation's enormous need for a bold game plan to save lives and help struggling communities through heat," said Su. "There has to be an urgent mass mobilization of resources to deploy lifesaving cooling centers, air conditioning, and community solar, not piecemeal efforts and lackluster leadership."
Last month, over two dozen environmental, labor, and public health groups—including the Center for Biological Diversity—petitioned FEMA "to amend its regulations to include extreme heat and wildfire smoke in the Stafford Act regulatory definition of 'major disaster.'"
"This simple but elegant amendment serves to unlock critical funds for state, tribal, and local governments and communities to manage and mitigate extreme heat and wildfire smoke—both natural catastrophes predicted to worsen in duration, frequency, and severity due to the climate emergency," the coalition explained.
Su and her group are also part of a movement urging President Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency—which, as she and co-author Maya Golden-Krasner detailed in a February 2022 report, would "unlock emergency executive powers already granted by Congress to aggressively combat the crisis."
While facing pressure from campaigners like Su to go much further, the Biden administration is demonstrating with its new rule an example of the Democratic president's priorities versus those of his Republican predecessor, as they prepare for a November rematch.
As The New York Timesdetailed Wednesday:
FEMA first proposed the rule, called the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, in 2016 during the Obama administration. The proposal generated intense opposition, particularly from homebuilders who warned that new restrictions would lead to higher construction costs, according to Roy Wright, who ran disaster mitigation programs for FEMA at the time.
The National Association of Home Builders did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A few months after Donald J. Trump became president, FEMA withdrew its proposal. When President Biden took office, he directed federal agencies to once again set rules to protect the projects they funded in flood zones. FEMA again began the process of drafting a rule.
"The federal government really has a duty to account for a future flood risk when it's providing funding to build or rebuild homes or infrastructure, because it's using taxpayer dollars," Joel Scata, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council and an expert on flood policy, toldGrist. Under the new rule, he said, FEMA is "going to be building in a way that's not setting people and infrastructure up for future failure."
National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said in a Wednesday statement that "President Biden is taking bold action—mobilizing historic investments to protect communities before the storm strikes, upgrade critical infrastructure to reduce vulnerability and risk, and boost our collective capacity to recover quickly after disasters."
"By using commonsense solutions like elevating or floodproofing critical infrastructure, today's rule will help local communities harness the best in science and engineering to better prepare for flood risks from rising sea levels and damaging storms," Zaidi added. "This important step will help protect taxpayer-funded projects, including fire and police stations and hospitals, from flood risks and is an integral part of the Biden-Harris administration's broader efforts to enhance climate resilience across the country."
The rule comes as Biden defies growing calls to step aside and pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democratic presidential nominee following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. Long before that, the president was facing criticism of his climate record—especially compared with his 2020 campaign promises.
While Biden has been praised for signing a "landmark" climate package and announcing a pause on liquefied natural gas exports, he has come under fire for skipping last year's United Nations summit, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, and supporting the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Willow oil project—as well as not declaring a national climate emergency.
Trump, meanwhile, has publicly pledged to "drill, baby, drill" if he returns to the White House, and earlier this year reportedly told fossil fuel industry leaders he would gut Biden's climate regulations if they raised $1 billion for his campaign.
Elders Arrested Protesting Citibank Funding of Planet's Destruction
"We are on the cusp of a ruined planet, and the big banks like Citi are funding it, to the tune of trillions," said one organizer.
As Earth sizzles during what's likely to be its hottest summer on record amid a worsening planetary emergency, dozens of elder climate campaigners including 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben were arrested Monday in New York while protesting Wall Street giant Citigroup's continued fossil fuel financing.
Members of the group Third Act—who are mostly aged 60 and older—led a "funeral procession" near Citigroup's Manhattan headquarters in remembrance of the senior citizens who have died during recent dangerous heatwaves and to call out the bank "for being the number one funder of fossil fuel expansion in the world," according to Summer of Heat, which is organizing a series of ongoing climate protests.
Summer of Heat said McKibben was one of 46 demonstrators arrested Monday, and that "with today's protest, there have now been 305 total arrests in this summer's historic campaign of relentless, disruptive protests to stop Wall Street funding the oil, coal, and gas projects that are making our planet unlivable."
According to Summer of Heat:
Older Americans are worried about growing climate extremes and how Wall Street is using their savings to harm the planet and their grandchildren's future. Third Act supporters are retired teachers, healthcare professionals, lawyers, union members, parents, grandparents, great aunts, uncles, and now activists. They are taking action—together with youth and families—to make a difference! They are calling on banks like Citi to invest in a peaceful and livable world for all.
"It might feel very hot to us, but it was 122 degrees (Fahrenheit) in New Delhi two weeks ago. Lots and lots and lots of people died," McKibben told protest participants before his arrest. "Things like this now happen every day around the world, and they happen worst [and] first in the places that have done the least to cause this crisis."
"This is the deepest question of justice the world has ever come across," McKibben added. "And the bank that we're outside has done more than almost any institution on Earth to make it worse. Given full warning by scientists of all kinds for the last 30 years, they have decided instead to try to make profit off the end of the world."
Margaret Bullit-Jonas, an Episcopalian priest and author who took part in Monday's protest, said that "Citibank is destroying the world that God loved into being and entrusted to our care."
"At this decisive moment in history, we teeter on the brink of climate chaos," she added. "Now is the time for Citibank to choose life and to stop financing fossil fuels."
Third Act members were joined by activists from various climate, environmental, and social justice groups. Summer of Heat organizer Liv Senghor said that the campaign "is an intergenerational and intersectional movement."
"We know that there is no climate justice without social justice," Senghor said. "And we know that if we do not stop financial institutions like Citibank right now, we will all feel the deadly consequences today, tomorrow, and for generations to come."
HipHop Caucus president and CEO Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. asserted that "to limit ongoing damage, and ensure a bright future for the next generations, we need bold action now to curb emissions, transition to clean energy, and to help households and communities mitigate current and future risks."
Gus Speth, a former U.S. Council on Environmental Quality chair, warned that "we are on the cusp of a ruined planet, and the big banks like Citi are funding it, to the tune of trillions."
"It's time for the Citigroup board of directors to wake up to their responsibility," he added. "Citi talks about environmental sustainability but practices environmental destruction."
Citigroup contends that it is "supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy through our net zero commitments and our $1 trillion sustainable finance goal," and that its "approach reflects the need to transition while also continuing to meet global energy needs."
However, since the 2015 signing of the Paris agreement, Citi has provided $204.46 billion in financing for new fossil fuel projects, according to Stop the Money Pipeline, a Summer of Heat co-organizer.
"From the Bronx to the Gulf South, Black, Latine, Asian, Indigenous, and low-income communities living on the frontlines of the climate crisis—and the ones least responsible for it—face the highest asthma rates and staggering cancer rates while an unprecedented number of people are dying from heat waves," Summer of Heat said.
"Instead of staying home and hiding from the heat, organizers are calling on all New Yorkers and climate defenders from across the globe to take to the streets and demand that Wall Street stop destroying our future," the group added.