Light Amid the Doom: A Year in Good Climate Change News - The Messenger

Light Amid the Doom: A Year in Good Climate Change News - The Messenger
Kentucky Nurse Who Underwent Treatment For Kidney Stone Woke Up With No Legs- And Was Told Her Arms Were Next Dave Levitan

Our Year in Review series examines the most important trends, people and companies within science and technology in 2023.

It was, by many measures, a year filled with dismal tidings for the world around us. Deadly heatwaves abounded. Destructive floods swept across several continents. All-time temperature records came month after month. Meanwhile, projections of fossil fuel use remain depressingly high. When the final data come in, 2023 will almost certainly have been the warmest year in recorded history and likely in many thousands of years.

With all that climate chaos, it can be easy to miss that there are, in fact, some bright spots out there. Some of the most dire warming scenarios have likely been staved off by actions the world has taken over the last couple of decades. The incredible drop in the price of renewable energy has made solar and wind cheaper to install in many places than fossil fuels. And the increasingly bleak situation does seem to be pushing governments toward increased action.

Even as the mercury continues to tick upward, it’s worth revisiting some of the some of the good news to emerge this past year.

1. Renewable energy: an ‘unstoppable’ force

It may not be happening fast enough to meet some climate targets, but the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy is a runaway freight train at this point. In October, the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2023 projected a number of positive signs based on existing policies alone: 10 times as many electric vehicles on the road in 2030 as today; global solar power installed that will eclipse the entire U.S.’s electricity generation capacity; and renewable energy as a whole jumping from 30% of installed electricity today all the way to 50% by 2030.

In fact, most countries in the world have likely passed the peak of their fossil fuel use, according to another report from Ember, a U.K. think tank. Again, the speed is an issue, but when it comes to the renewable energy transition, as the IEA executive director Fatih Birol said, “It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s just a matter of ‘how soon.’”

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2. A promising U.S.-China deal

China is by far the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses — and the U.S. is second. The general agreement is that without China (and No. 3 India) it will be hard for the world to achieve its climate change goals. In the face of simmering tensions between America and China, a deal inked in the weeks leading up to the COP28 climate talks offers hope for a cleaner path forward.

The “ Sunnylands Statement” reaffirms the U.S.’s and China’s “commitment to work jointly and together with other countries to address the climate crisis.” It lacks details and implementation plans, but with points on methane reduction, acceleration of renewable energy and more, the agreement was welcomed as a reasonably major step toward decarbonizing the world’s biggest economies.

3. The Inflation Reduction Act's other mission

Now a year and a half removed from its passage, the bill that included drug pricing reform, IRS tax enforcement measures and other economic policy maneuvers doubles as the largest climate legislation the U.S. has ever seen. Through its first year, the law has produced hundreds of announcements of new battery, solar panel and electric vehicle manufacturing facilities, among many other things. The original $369 billion it supposedly provided for climate-related action was not capped by the law, and may actually swell past $1 trillion when all is said and done.

“We're starting to see the profound changes that the Inflation Reduction Act will bring in catalyzing the growth of clean energy,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

A month later, the Environmental Protection Agency added more fuel to the IRA’s fire, with a report showing that emissions from electricity production could drop by as much as 83% from 2005 levels in 2030. Multiple analyses have found emissions could fall by more than 40% by decade’s end thanks to the IRA — not quite the 50-52% target the Biden Administration has set, but well on the way.

4. A $100 billion bet on the developing world

Rich nations have belatedly fulfilled a promise to the developing world. This is technically a 2022 achievement, but with the announcement only arriving late this year it still deserves a spot: the rich world finally provided the $100 billion in climate finance it had promised to poor countries way back in 2009.

That pledge, intended to help the developing world both adapt to the changing climate and to build out its own energy and other infrastructure in climate-friendly ways, was supposed to be met beginning in 2020. It wasn’t. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development though, 2022 very likely saw climate finance cross that $100-billion threshold.

To be clear, that number is still far below the half-trillion or so dollars the developing world is going to need every year very soon, and too much of the money still arrives as interest-bearing loans rather than grants or other more direct funding. But it is still an indicator of rich countries getting slightly more serious about helping the most vulnerable cope with the warming world.

5. A lawsuit led by kids

There are dozens of climate change-related lawsuits moving through the courts today. These exist across all 50 states, many led by young people who argue that the government is depriving them of rights by continuing to burn fossil fuels and warm the planet. In August, the kids won the first such case, Held v. Montana, to actually make it to trial.

In Held v. Montana, a state trial judge ruled that the Montana government violated the plaintiffs’ right to a “clean and healthful environment” by failing to consider the harms of fossil fuels. The ruling could force Montana to change its policies and reconsider fossil fuels, and it could also be a harbinger of more victories to come.

To be fair, Montana’s constitution paved the way for the victory, as it contains a clause guaranteeing the right to a clean environment. A number of other states do as well, though the U.S. constitution does not — meaning, the most prominent youth-led case, Juliana v. United States, faces some rougher seas ahead. The next state-level case to make it to trial will likely be in Hawai’i, and experts said that the victory in Montana could be a great sign for the next kids to make it to the courtroom.

6. COP28's historic moment

The global climate summit known as COP28 was overshadowed by an oversized fossil fuel lobby presence and the leadership of an actual oil executive, state-run oil company ADNOC’s Sultan Al-Jaber, but it still delivered what many considered a landmark agreement at its conclusion in mid-December. Almost 200 countries to transition away from fossil fuels, a first for the conferences that have been held annually since 1995.

Still, many observers pointed out that the agreement is short on details, contains reference to nebulous “transition fuels” and still relies on carbon-capture technology that hasn’t been deployed at scale. Nonetheless, after 27 previous U.N. climate summits, finally admitting the world must move on from fossil fuels felt like a monumental step.

"For the first time in three decades of climate negotiations, the words 'fossil fuels' have made it into a COP outcome," said Mohamed Adow, director of the non-profit advocacy group Power Shift Africa, the day the summit was gavelled to a close. "We are finally naming the elephant in the room. The genie is never going back into the bottle."

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