Sustt: Supply shocks, GFANZ drops Race to Zero, Chilling news, Bringing biodiversity back
The war in Ukraine has uprooted energy markets. So will climate change
By Anja P.
What’s happening??Energy systems are set to become more vulnerable to extreme weather, and climate change could affect global energy security as much as the war in Ukraine, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and its climate and energy lead Roberta Boscolo. (Reuters)
Why does this matter??The Ukraine war has highlighted the vulnerability of the global energy system, resulting in European governments scrambling to diversify supplies away from Russian sources. While these efforts have been?relatively successful, the gas market will still?remain tight?into next year.
However there is also another looming threat to global energy security – climate change – as extreme weather events such as?Hurricane Ian, the unprecedented drought in?Europe?and severe flooding in?Pakistan?have aptly demonstrated.
The WMO’s recently published?State of Climate Services 2022?report summarises some of the risks to the sector, which can affect fuel supplies and power production as well as the physical resilience of energy structure.
Water woes –?According to the analysis, 87% of the global electricity produced from thermal, nuclear and hydropower in 2020 was dependent on water availability, making these systems highly vulnerable to changes in precipitation regimes. About 11% of hydropower capacity is found in areas of high-water stress while 26% of existing and 23% of planned dams are in river basins facing medium to high water scarcity risk.
In China’s?Sichuan province, for example, factories were forced to close this summer due to low reservoir levels linked to an extreme heatwave – with experts estimating that climate change could reduce the region’s hydropower output by up to 10% between 2020 and 2070. Turkey, India, Mexico and parts of the US are also expected to see reductions due to water scarcity in the future.
The other side of the coin –?At the same time, many hydropower facilities are threatened by flooding. A?recent paper?found that 75% of existing and 83% of projected dams are facing medium to high flood risk. Canada, Russia, China, India, Egypt and Uganda are among the countries with the largest hydropower capacity that are expected to see increased flood risk to their hydropower dams.?By 2050, 61% of all hydropower dams globally could face either a very high or extreme risk of flooding or drought, or both.
Not just hydro –?Nuclear power plants are also vulnerable to growing pressure from anthropogenic climate change, especially from sea-level rise, storm surges and drought. Approximately 15% of the world’s nuclear capacity is located in areas facing high water stress, with the WMO warning that this could rise to 25% in the next two decades.
A 2019 paper published by US scientists estimates that?around 41%?of all nuclear power plants are located near coastlines, making them vulnerable to sea level rise and increases in storm intensity. Without adequate adaptation plans, this could pose a health and safety risk to local communities. More than 510 million people across the globe live within an 80 km radius of a nuclear power plant, according to the research.
Work to do –?Despite these growing risks, climate adaptation in the sector is falling behind. The WMO notes that just 40% of countries prioritise resilience in the energy sector. Transitioning to a carbon-free power system could alleviate most of the projected climate impacts, yet countries have committed to just half of the renewable capacity needed by 2030 to align the sector with the goals of the Paris Agreement.??
Without adequate climate change mitigation and adaptation, the physical resilience of the power sector is increasingly at risk – and will also face substantial financial losses. In the US, utilities in the most hurricane-prone states lost $1.4bn on average due to storm-related costs and power outages over a 20-year period, according to research by?McKinsey, which estimates that these losses would rise by 23% by 2050.
Solutions with myriad benefits –?Based on these results, McKinsey highlights the cost-efficiency of climate adaptation measures – such as reinforcing transmission and distribution infrastructure, investing in battery storage or decentralising generation – which would bring additional benefits of increased reliability and a more diversified supply.
As Carbon Brief analysis?highlights, solar power capacity in the EU avoided the bloc having to import €29bn worth of gas this summer. And distributed, renewable generation can provide security against other threats from bad actors, given decentralised energy systems?avoid?choke points that could have significant consequences if targeted.?
____________
领英推荐
Stat of the week
Governments must do more to encourage?regular exercise, and failure to do so could result in a global cost of $27bn per year by 2030, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) first global report on physical activity.??
The report predicts that, without action, there will be almost five million new cases of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health conditions by the end of the decade, including dementia, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression and some cancers, with nearly half resulting from high blood pressure.
With a shocking 81% of adolescents and 27.5% of adults not currently meeting the suggested amount of exercise they should be doing daily or weekly, it's clear that more needs to be done. The WHO's?Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030?sets out a range of evidence-based policy recommendations but, in the five years since its publication, take-up by governments has been "slow and uneven" and the Covid-19 pandemic set things back even further.
?As people are?living?longer than ever, it's important to stay healthy, not just to keep the strain off increasingly stretched health care systems, but for personal happiness and wellbeing. Regular exercise is a core component of that and can also introduce opportunities to socialise and reduce?loneliness, which is also highly detrimental to physical and mental health.?
____________
Bite-sized insights
What else we're seeing this week ??
GFANZ drops Race to Zero?–?The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which includes 60 banks and financial companies that manage about $153tn in assets, has?dropped the requirement?that its members have to be part of the UN-backed Race to Zero (RtZ) climate change campaign that requires firms to phase out fossil fuels.?
This announcement comes amid?reports?that some Wall Street banks are threatening to leave GFANZ over concerns they could be sued if they don't meet increasingly stringent decarbonisation targets. The banks' largest concern comes from the RtZ’s updated minimum criteria. To be a GFANZ member requires meeting these criteria, and in June they were updated to clarify that a credible climate pledge should recognise the need to phase out support for fossil fuels.
The news also follows the chair of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) last week?saying?the group is not bound by criteria set by RtZ. The NZBA will independently consider the RtZ’s updated criteria before assessing the need for changes to its own guidelines.
This all leaves questions about the purpose of these coalitions if members aren't prepared to take the?actions necessary?to meet their aims.
Chilling news?–?Could glaciers be the source of a future pandemic? Apparently so, according to a University of Ottawa?study?where researchers identified viruses and potential hosts in samples of soil and sediment collected from Lake Hazen, the largest high Arctic freshwater lake in the world. They found that the risk of viral spillover to another host was more likely at locations where large amounts of glacial meltwater flowed in. The findings suggest that global warming may cause viruses and bacteria trapped in glaciers and permafrost to reawaken and infect local wildlife, with potential?further implications.
Bringing biodiversity back?–?We thought we'd finish on a couple of positive news stories we've seen about biodiversity in both land and ocean habitats.
First, in Hawaii, the expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea marine national monument in 2016 has not only?improved?the marine biodiversity levels found inside the 1.5 million square km reserve, but in its surrounding areas too. Catches of bigeye and yellowfin tuna near the reserve increased by 12% and 54%, respectively, over the three years following the expansion of the protected area. The no-catch marine sanctuary is the world’s largest fully protected reserve and shows the knock-on benefits a marine protected reserve can have on a broader area.
Separately,?reintroduced?bison in Kent are now parents, following the?birth?of a bison calf. The animal is the first wild bison to be born in the UK in thousands of years. The bison were released into the Kent countryside earlier this year as part of the Wilder Blean project in July, which aims to use the animals to convert a commercial pine forest into a woodland through their natural behaviour.
According to experts, the bison will remove some trees by eating their bark, open up trails and increase the amount of light on the forest floor by creating more open ground – allowing new plants and wildlife to come back. This is an encouraging step for rewilding efforts in the UK, which is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world.