An interactive piece from BBC News described how the forecasted “super” El Niño could impact global climate and weather in the coming months. Past events have been linked to spikes in food prices and hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars in lost income globally, as crop failures and trade disruptions ripple through supply chains and economies.
Mangrove forests have adapted over tens of millions of years to survive in harsh flooding from salty seas, while locking away vast stores of climate-warming carbon and protecting the world’s coastlines from storm surge. But a new modeling study suggests that even these hardy trees may reach their breaking point in the face of rapidly rising seas, with major consequences for the climate.
GREENING
Fallout of the closure of the strait of Hormuz: Many countries are turning to China for cheap solar panels. Chinese exports of solar panels reached a record 68 gigawatts of capacity in March, roughly equivalent to the entire solar capacity of Spain, according to Ember. Fifty countries, including Australia, India, Egypt and even the United States, have set monthly records for the highest Chinese solar imports. Farmers are looking for new solutions as well. In countries including Brazil and Senegal, The Associated Press reported, some farmers are giving up chemical fertilizers in favor of compost and natural alternatives. And in India, the government is encouraging the use of natural farming practices.
The United Kingdom, Norway, and several major European Union nations including Germany and Denmark agreed to a pact to build out a sweeping array of wind turbines in the North Sea, turning the waterway into “the world’s largest clean energy reservoir.” If the pledge holds, roughly 11% of the 222,000-square-mile sea could be covered in turbines.
Public Service Co. of New Mexico looks to offset the loss of coal power from a retiring plant by adding 800 MW of wind, 240 MW of solar, and 40 MW of natural gas generation, along with 610 MW of battery energy storage. (PV Tech)
The historic, 175-acre Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, becomes the first cemetery in the country to use entirely battery-powered equipment. (WGBH)
Natural gas’ share of electricity generation in the market run by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) fell to a record low on May 16, dropping to just 3.1% of total generation. That day was not an outlier either; from May 13-17, gas’ share of daily CAISO output was less than 10%. There have been 68 days already when gas’ market share fell below 20%, and there has not been a single day when gas accounted for more than 50% of CAISO generation.
A small Bay Area company is rapidly building utility scale solar for data centers using “virtual twins” of the site in order to specify the exact siting and elevation of all components of the solar project. Then automated tractors carry out the instructions on the actual site. Automation has allowed them to cut building time and land required in half.
The House of Representatives passed seven bipartisan bills to speed geothermal energy projects Maria Gallucci
The UK government has proposed reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040, reported the Associated Press. The newswire cited scientists saying that the goal “puts the UK on course to meet its 2050 net-zero target”. To meet this target, the UK would “need to invest around £880bn over 25 years…but doing so would yield benefits worth £1,620bn”, according to an in-depth analysis of the plans by Carbon Brief. Conservatives are opposing anything to do with net-zero.
CLIMATE DESPOLIATION
More than 1.7 million people participated last week in the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia—consistently one of the world’s largest mass gatherings. Muslims are expected to perform Hajj at least once in their lives, but an increasingly perilous threat looms over the holy journey: heat. When Hajj took place in mid-June during 2024, more than 1,300 people died, many succumbing to heat-related illnesses as temperatures topped 125 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity hit unusually high levels. A study published last year found the upper limits of human heat tolerance were topped for a total of 43 hours over the six days of the 2024 Hajj, which would be difficult for people to handle even in peak physical condition.
The Trump administration plans to spend $75 million to jumpstart a proposed coal export terminal in Oakland, California, that local opposition has delayed for years. (Los Angeles Times)
The wildfires that have battered the US and the rest of North America in recent years have significantly increased emissions and been linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths, but their impact on air quality is greater than previously known, according to research. Since 2015, wildfires have reversed US progress toward ozone air quality standards, as the worsening pollution caused by wildfire smoke has undone years of efforts to reduce emissions. Paradoxically, ground level ozone is a short-lived climate pollutant, heating the atmosphere and making more fires likely.
Just days after New York State delayed its carbon-cutting plan and loosened the rules on how it counts greenhouse gases, California mounted its own retreat on climate goals. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that the California Air Resources Board had voted to give as much as $4 billion of free allowances to oil refiners and other industrial polluters to make compliance with the state’s 13-year-old carbon market easier.
The Trump administration is planning to remove a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems, warming waters and powerful currents. The Trump administration’s decision to dismantle most of a federal ocean-observing network will leave scientists without an irreplaceable source of data used to understand how climate change is affecting crucial currents and marine ecosystems and increasing coastal flooding. Days after the Trump administration vowed to dismantle a deep-ocean observation system, the European Union said it would bolster its own monitoring of the world’s oceans.
The Energy Department has issued new guidance that could prevent people from receiving rebates for replacing gas appliances with electric ones. It would prevent states from offering rebates to people who buy an electric stove to replace a gas range and end rebates for similar swaps of ovens, dryers, heat pumps and water heaters.
Seven Democratic-controlled states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its move to block a planned wind farm off the coast of New York. The lawsuit seeks to overturn an extraordinary deal that the Trump administration reached in March with the French energy giant TotalEnergies. That agreement saw the government pay TotalEnergies $928 million to abandon plans to build the wind project off New York and another one off North Carolina. Read more.
The New York state legislature is poised to pass a bill that would put a one-year moratorium on data center development, create a new electricity rate for the facilities, and impose renewable energy requirements on them. (Politico)
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent body that regulates US securities markets, has proposed repealing the climate-disclosure rule, which “requires some public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from global warming”, said the Associated Press.
Residents of Monterey Park, California, voted to ban new data centers, making it the nation’s first city to permanently block the facilities via a popular vote. (Los Angeles Times) Meanwhile Northwest utilities are acquiring gas-fired power and building new fossil fuel infrastructure to meet growing demand from data centers. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Federal energy efficiency rebate programs will no longer cover a switch from fossil fuels to electricityfor heating, according to long-awaited guidance from the Department of Energy. The department published an update on how it will implement consumer programs with $8.8 billion in funding. The new provisions include eliminating use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations, among other changes.
Take Action!
The California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force has just released its five year plan. This is the primary planning agency for wildfire prevention, in charge of both home hardening and forest treatments. Both the report and a link to making comments (which you can do until August) are here. An LA times article about the plan is here.
Wildfires are a huge challenge to keeping global warming from accelerating. They release huge amounts of climate trapping black carbon as well as methane. Take some time to understand what the state is trying to do and then share your thoughts!
Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from 350 Humboldt, please click here.
