?? Carbon emissions reach record highs

Happy Monday. ??

Welcome back to another episode of The Grumpy Optimist. The days are incredibly short and dark here in the UK but the weather is balmy at what feels like a very weird time of the year when snowdrops are already coming out (they don’t normally make an appearance until January).

With COP27 going on I’d love to be able to provide more positive news but it’s fairly quiet from cop so far with a lot of tension and few commitments. Regardless, there is still some positive news about French solar energy and the role of the just transition in renewable energy systems. Have a great week!

?? Articles to read

???France requires car parks to be covered by solar panels.?All car parks with over 80 spaces will be required to be covered by solar panels. The plan could generate up to 11-gigawatt hours of energy, the equivalent of 10 nuclear reactors and helps boost electric vehicle infrastructure.

???Carbon emissions set to reach record high in 2022.?While we’re constantly optimistic about the progress being made to tackle climate change, sometimes headlines like this really provide a reality check. The emissions increase is due to the rise in aviation emissions post covid as well as coal burning in Europe. Emission increases are falling but we need our overall emissions to fall, not plateau.

?????Climate crisis solutions may also ease global financial shocks.?Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is set to address the G20 summit next week and tell business leaders that the best way to recover from global shocks such as the pandemic is to deal with the climate crisis together.

???A just transition depends on energy systems that work for everyone. Protests at COP27 have had many themes and one of the main ones is?“energy colonialism”. This term encompasses the push that rich western countries are making for more fossil fuel projects in Africa, trying to solve the current energy crisis with a short-term fix that would lock many countries into decades of polluting energy production.

???Why does this matter??It’s not only fossil fuel projects that are problematic. Sadly, renewable energy projects are causing issues because of land grabbing without consultation. Solar and wind farms require a lot of land to generate enough energy to be effective, and companies are moving in without consulting the local communities and indigenous peoples who are being forced out. This is highly problematic and isn’t helping with a just energy transition. Things are changing in some countries thanks to activists. In Kenya, new legislation in 2016 banned the sale or lease of communally owned land without the consultation and approval of the whole community. Let’s hope more governments listen to activists and the people they govern and take their rights into account.

????The UN and ISO set a standard for net zero.?In an era where corporate?greenwashing is rampant?and every company is either talking about net zero, carbon neutral or carbon negative, we need clear guidance for what is a credible climate programme. The launch of the ISO framework hopes to do just this. It’s a bit of a hefty read, but you can download it for free?here?if you’re interested.

???Where do the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from? Here’s a map.? Climate TRACE , an independent organisation mobilizing technology to track GHG emissions has created an interactive map to show you where all of the world’s emissions come from. This is genuinely a fascinating visualisation that highlights big emitters like energy, aviation and agriculture.

Here’s a podcast we recommend fairly often but this is a great one. The knowledge applies well beyond climate, helping you understand how to communicate ideas and create breakthroughs.

Key Talking Points

• How do we shift from preaching to persuading people about ideas?
• How can we build strong coalitions of progressive movements around the world?
• Why we should stick our feet firmly in the mud to convince people about a cause, not pander to them and try and take them with you.

???Videos to watch

Check out this quick rewilding time-lapse from Knepp Estate in West Sussex and show what our ‘pristine’ farmland really wants to look like. You can see the before and after pictures below, but this really highlights the reason why we have optimism - look what the planet can recover from.

That’s all from us this week folks, have a great week!

The Grumpy Optimists ??