phase out

Nearly everyone wants climate action

July 29, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A global survey of 75,000 people revealed that 80% of participants want their governments’ climate action commitments to be stronger. The poll, conducted by the United Nations Development Program, GeoPoll, and Oxford University, asked 15 questions in telephone calls to residents of 77 countries representing 87% of the global population.

According to the survey, 89% of poorer countries favored increasing efforts to curb global emission, while 76% of wealthy G20 nations supported tougher climate action.

The two biggest greenhouse emitters in the world were less enthusiastic: Chinese participants were 73% in favor of stronger action and Americans were 66% in favor of greater efforts to combat global warming.

Other demographic differences included that in the big emitting countries of Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and the U.S., women were 10 to 17% more in support of stronger climate action than men.

Overall, only 7% of those polled globally thought their government should not transition away from fossil fuels at all. More than half of those polled said that they were more worried about climate change this year than last year. A worldwide majority of 72% support a fast fossil fuel phaseout, including those in nations that are among the top ten coal, oil, and gas producers.

As is the case across the board with respect to climate issues, the more influential factor continues to be economic as opposed to scientific or humanitarian. Those who stand to lose the most money from the transition away from fossil fuels continue to hold sway over those who will lose in many other ways.

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Four Out of Five People Want Increased Climate Action, UN Poll Says

Photo, posted July 31, 2020, courtesy of School Strike 4 Climate via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Another ban on neonics

July 22, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There have been ominous declines in many insect populations. Chief among them have been declines in pollinators, which have severe consequences for our food supply. There are multiple possible causes of these declines and undoubtedly several have been involved simultaneously.

A new study on butterfly populations in the Midwest indicates that agricultural insecticides exerted the biggest impact on the diversity of butterfly populations in the Midwest during the period 1998 to 2014. The biggest culprits were the widely used insecticides called neonicotinoids that are absorbed into the tissues of plants.

Neonics are meant for targeted pesticide use but are often used more broadly, including for corn crops.

Neonics are already well-known to be especially harmful to bees and are gradually being restricted in various places. Quebec province passed restrictions on neonic-treated seeds in 2019. Last December, New York signed into law a phase-out of neonic-treated seeds and a ban on non-agricultural uses of them.

Vermont has now become the second state to ban the use of neonicotinoids by virtue of its state legislature overriding a veto from Governor Phil Scott. The law minimizes the use of neonics by requiring potential users to obtain written exemptions.

Opponents to neonic restrictions claim that slashing their use will greatly reduce crop yields. The experience in Quebec over the past five years is that the Canadian neonic restrictions have reduced corn and soybean crop yields by about 0.5%. As a result of this tiny reduction, there has been a strong reduction in the amount of neonics contaminating waterways.

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Vermont Becomes Second State to Ban Bee-Killing Neonic Pesticides

New ‘Detective Work’ on Butterfly Declines Reveals a Prime Suspect

Photo, posted September 7, 2017, courtesy of Watts via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Are we really serious about eliminating fossil fuels?

December 15, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Almost all the countries around the world have pledged to take action to reduce planet-warming emissions by expanding the use of renewable energy sources and phasing out fossil fuels. But very few countries seem to be taking the fossil fuel phase-out seriously.

Almost all the top 20 fossil-fuel producing countries plan to produce more oil, gas, and coal in 2030 than they do today. Countries are doubling down on fossil fuel production, which will make it virtually impossible to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

Despite having an administration that takes climate issues very seriously, the United States is now the world’s biggest crude oil producer and is ramping up exports of natural gas. Brazil, under its environmental champion President da Silva, plans to increase oil production by 63% and more than double its gas output over the next decade. India, which has promised to expand renewable energy production, will more than double its production of coal by 2030. Canada, which has a net-zero commitment enacted as law, will boost its oil output by 25% in the next 12 years. Meanwhile, countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia aren’t even pretending to make the transition away from fossil fuels.

Governments and citizens around the world may be serious about the climate crisis and are taking various actions. But the world cannot address climate change without tackling its root cause. The overwhelming force of greed and the power wielded by the fossil fuel industry has created a dynamic that is making real progress nearly impossible as fossil fuels continue to power the world.

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Coming Soon: More Oil, Gas and Coal

Photo, posted June 22, 2020, courtesy of John Morton via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Coal In The UK And Asia | Earth Wise

August 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Coal was the driving force of the British industrial revolution beginning in the 18th century. Coal was used for manufacturing iron, heating buildings, driving locomotives, and more. Annual coal production in the UK peaked in the year 1913 at 316 million tons. Until the late 1960s, coal was the main source of energy produced in the UK.

Recently, Britain announced that it plans to phase out coal power entirely by October 2024, one year earlier than its previous target date. This is on the heels of a dramatic decline in coal usage over the past decade. In 2012, coal accounted for 40% of the UK’s power generation. By 2020, that number was 1.8%.

In both Europe and the United States, coal power is generally significantly more expensive than renewable power from the sun and wind. As a result, market forces have driven the demise of coal power in those places.

The situation is different across much of Asia where coal power remains cost competitive. Five Asian countries – China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam – still have plans to build more than 600 new coal-fired power plants, which is bad news for the environment. In 2020, China produced more than half of the world’s coal power, which reflects both the growth of coal in Asia and its decline in the U.S. and Europe.

Despite all this, experts predict that it will be more expensive to run almost all coal plants globally than to build new renewable energy projects by the year 2026. Sooner or later, coal power will no longer make its unfortunate contributions to the world.

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UK Aims to Dump Coal Early, While Asia Stays the Course

Photo, posted March 8, 2021, courtesy of Stanze via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate-Friendly Refrigerants

March 29, 2017 By EarthWise

In 1988, President Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol, which banned CFC refrigerants like Freon in air conditioners and refrigerators. The chlorofluorocarbons were the cause of a giant hole in the ozone layer, which has been shrinking ever since the ban. Unfortunately, the chemicals that replaced CFCs – hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs – have their own major problem: they are a seriously bad greenhouse gas, far worse than carbon dioxide. Last fall, an international agreement was reached by over 170 countries to reduce and eventually replace HFCs, which included 100 developing countries like China and India where air conditioning use is growing fastest.