Energy innovation necessary to overcome biggest zero emissions challenges.
Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities must approach zero within several decades to avoid risking grave damage from the effects of climate change. This will require creativity and innovation because some types of industrial sources of atmospheric carbon lack affordable emissions-free substitutes, according to a new paper in Science from team of experts led by University of California Irvine's Steven Davis and Carnegie's Ken Caldeira.
In addition to heating, cooling, lighting, and powering individual vehicles--subjects that are often the focus of the emissions discussion--there are other major contributors to atmospheric carbon that are much more challenging to address. These tough nuts to crack include air travel; long-distance freight by truck, train, or ship; and the manufacture of steel and cement.
"We wanted to look closely at the barriers and opportunities related to the most difficult-to-decarbonize services," said lead author Davis.
Read more at Path to Zero Emissions Starts Out Easy, but Gets Steep
Scientists studying one of the fastest-warming regions of the global ocean say changes in this region are so sudden and vast that in effect, it will soon be another limb of the Atlantic Ocean, rather than a characteristically icy Arctic sea.
The northern Barents Sea, to the north of Scandinavia and east of the remote archipelago of Svalbard, has warmed extremely rapidly — by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit just since the year 2000 — standing out even in the fastest-warming part of the globe, the Arctic.
“We call it the Arctic warming hot spot,” said Sigrid Lind, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Research in Tromso, Norway.
Now Lind and her colleagues have shown, based on temperature and salinity measurements taken on summer research cruises, that this warming is being accompanied by a stark change of character, as the Atlantic is in effect taking over the region and converting it into a very different entity.
Their results were published this week in Nature Climate Change by Lind and two colleagues at Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and University of Bergen. They underscore that the divide between the Atlantic and the Arctic isn’t just a geographical one — it’s physical in nature.
While the Southern Barents is milder, the northern Barents has — until recently — had all the characteristics of an Arctic sea. It featured floating sea ice that, when it melted, helped to provide an icy, freshwater cap atop the ocean. This kept internal heat from escaping to the atmosphere, and also kept the ocean “stratified” — cold, fresher waters in the upper part of the ocean and warmer, Atlantic-originating waters down below.
This situation, which occurs in much of the Arctic, was reinforced by the fact that freshwater is less dense than salt water, preserving stratification.
But that’s changing. Less sea ice is floating down through the northern Barents Sea from higher Arctic latitudes, the research shows.
Read more at A Huge Stretch of the Arctic Ocean Is Rapidly Turning Into the Atlantic. That’s Not a Good Sign
Oil supermajor BP said on Thursday that it would buy the UK’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging company, Chargemaster, in the latest show of Big Oil’s move into EV charging networks.
Chargemaster, which has more 6,500 EV charging points across the UK, also designs, builds, sells, and maintains EV charging units for a wide range of locations, including for home charging.
After the acquisition is completed, Chargemaster will be re-branded to BP Chargemaster and will operate as a wholly owned BP entity. BP Chargemaster will combine Chargemaster’s EV charging network with BP’s 1,200 service stations in a move that will widen access to electric vehicle charging in the UK, BP said.
BP Chargemaster will rollout ultra-fast charging infrastructure, including 150 kW chargers capable of delivering 100 miles of range in 10 minutes.
Read more at BP to Buy UK’s Largest EV Charging Company
Changes in temperature and rainfall will impact almost half of South Asia in the coming decades, reducing economic growth in one of the world’s poorest regions, the World Bank said.
A World Bank report released on Thursday analyses two scenarios - “climate sensitive”, based on collective action by nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and “carbon intensive”, which assumes no action on climate change.
The report combines future changes in temperature and rainfall with household survey data linking living standards to weather conditions for the first time.
More than 800 million people now live in areas predicted to become moderate-to-severe “hotspots”, or affected areas, by 2050 under the carbon intensive scenario, with India accounting for almost three quarters of them, the report said.
Moderate hotspots are areas where projected consumption spending declines by 4-8 percent and severe ones are where the drop exceeds 8 percent.
Read more at Half of South Asia Living in Vulnerable Climate 'Hotspots': World Bank
The lawsuits over HFCs are the latest legal challenges to a far-reaching agenda of rolling back environmental regulations, especially relating to climate change.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding enforcement of regulations on super-polluting greenhouse gases in air conditioners and refrigerators.
A similar lawsuit was filed by environmentalists on Tuesday. Both challenge an attempt by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to roll back federal regulations on the class of chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.
The HFC lawsuits are the latest in a string of legal challenges to the Trump administration's far-reaching agenda of rolling back environmental regulations, especially those relating to climate change.
Instead of launching a new formal rulemaking procedure to rescind or replace the HFCs rule, Pruitt announced in April that the agency would no longer enforce the Obama-era rule, which a federal court had partially struck down in a case brought by two foreign HFCs manufacturers.
The court had struck down only part of the HFCs rule, leaving some elements in place, yet Pruitt's move essentially eliminated the rule entirely. By using "guidance" to do that rather than going through the formal rulemaking process, Pruitt violated administrative law, the NRDC's Lissa Lynch wrote in a blog post explaining her group's lawsuit over the move.
"Throwing out these commonsense restrictions on this potent pollutant is contrary to the law and science, and it is disruptive to the manufacturers that have invested in alternatives," Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in announcing the states' lawsuit. "We are suing to protect the health of our residents and the planet."
Read more at 11 States Sue Trump Administration Over Climate Super-Pollutants Used in Cooling
