The smell of campfire smoke is as associated with summer nights as woodsmoke from fireplaces and woodstoves is with winter. It adds an ancient scent and particles to the air that stick to your skin, hair and clothes.
Wildfire smoke likewise doesn’t just leave an acrid smell behind. Its remnants contain harmful chemical compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are highly toxic and can remain inside homes and businesses for days to months, a press release from Portland State University (PSU) said.
A new study by Aurélie Laguerre, a senior research assistant at PSU, and Elliott T. Gall, an associate professor in mechanical and materials engineering at PSU, looked at how long wildfire smoke chemicals can last, as well as the best ways to remove them using common household cleaners.
PAHs are created during the high temperature combustion process of wildfires.
“They are associated with a wide variety of long-term adverse health consequences like cancer, potential complications in pregnancy and lung disease,” Gall said in the press release. “So if these compounds are depositing or sticking onto surfaces, there are different routes of exposure people should be aware of. By now, most people in Portland are probably thinking about how to clean their air during a wildfire smoke event, but they might not be thinking about other routes of exposure after the air clears.”
During wildfires it is recommended that people reduce their risk of smoke exposure by closing doors and windows, running an air purifier and — in extreme cases or when outdoors — wearing a mask. But what are the best practices for after the wildfire and its smoke have subsided?
“Wildfire smoke contains PAHs that, after infiltrating indoors, accumulate on indoor materials through particle deposition and partitioning from air,” Laguerre and Gall wrote in the study.
The researchers examined PAH accumulation and retention on cotton, glass and air filters over a four-month period, the press release said.
The initial findings were that PAH levels were elevated for weeks following exposure to wildfire smoke. It took air filters 37 days to reduce PAH levels by 74 percent, while levels of the toxic compounds on glass and cotton fell by 88 and 81 percent, respectively, in that timeframe. But the elongated exposure means increased health risks.
“Cleaning processes efficiently remove PAHs, with reductions of 71% and 62% after cleaning smoke-exposed glass with ethanol and a commercial cleaner, respectively. Laundering smoke-exposed cotton in a washing machine and heated drying removed 48% of PAHs. An exposure assessment indicates that both inhalation and dermal PAH exposure pathways may be relevant following wildfire smoke events,” the authors wrote in the study.
Following an extreme wildfire smoke event, air filters need to be changed.
“Even if there’s potentially some more life in them, over time PAHs can partition off the filter and be emitted back into your space,” Gall said in the press release. “While it may be a slow process, our study shows partitioning of PAHs from filters and other materials loaded with smoke may result in concentrations of concern in air. And while that partitioning is occurring, dermal contact and ingestion of PAHs from the materials may be important. One example might be holding and drinking from a glass that was exposed to wildfire smoke.”
The study, “Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Wildfire Smoke Accumulate on Indoor Materials and Create Postsmoke Event Exposure Pathways,” was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Gall pointed out the importance of considering the effects of the cleaning solutions that are commonly available. Other concerns include how materials such as ceramic or drywall respond to cleaning, and whether PAHs would be reduced to levels that were nontoxic if a person has access to a washing machine but not a dryer.
The positive conclusion was that, while toxic PAHs can linger for a long time after wildfire smoke has subsided, simple cleaning techniques can significantly reduce exposure to them.
According to Gall, the focus of future studies on reducing PAHs will be on other common indoor surfaces and cleaning techniques, in addition to working to understand the range of potential health effects from exposure.
Many people have heard that switching to a more plant-based diet has health benefits. But while adjusting your diet may be a personal choice, its impacts are far from just individual.
According to a recent study by an international team of researchers, shifting our diets to ones that are more plant-based could prevent as many as 236,000 premature deaths per year globally by improving air quality, according to The Conversation. It could also increase gross domestic product (GDP).
“Air pollution increases cardiovascular and respiratory-disease risk, and reduces cognitive and physical performance. Food production, especially of animal products, is a major source of methane and ammonia emissions which contribute to air pollution through the formation of particulate matter and ground-level ozone,” the authors of the study wrote. “Our findings suggest that incentivising dietary changes towards more plant-based diets could be a valuable mitigation strategy for reducing ambient air pollution and the associated health and economic impacts, especially in regions with intensive agriculture and high population density.”
“Dietary changes towards lower consumption of animal source foods… substantially reduced agricultural emissions — by 84–86% globally for the adoption of vegan diets, 69–70% for vegetarian diets, and 44–48% for flexitarian diets,” the new study said.
Agriculture not only impacts land use, but also adversely affects air quality, research has shown.
“The food system is a major cause of ambient air pollution, with significant impacts on human health. Of particular importance are ammonia emissions that are generated when manure and other fertilizers are handled and applied to fields. Through the formation of ammonium salts, ammonia contributes to the concentration of air-borne fine particular matter, including particles with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5). Such particles are linked to a range of health impacts, including cardiovascular and respiratory diseases,” the new study said.
The World Health Organization has said that agriculture was responsible for approximately one-fifth of the four million premature deaths that were associated with ambient air pollution in 2019.
The new study looked at the effects on air quality of people worldwide shifting toward healthier diets that are better for the environment, The Conversation said. That included flexitarian, vegetarian and vegan diets.
The researchers found that air pollution could be significantly reduced by moving toward plant-based diets, and that regions with large amounts of livestock — like northern Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the midwestern United States and southern China — would experience especially noticeable reductions in concentrations of fine particulate matter.
In addition to the health benefits of cleaner air, the research team discovered that the adoption of flexitarian diets could prevent more than 100,000 premature deaths worldwide.
And the health perks only go up as people consume fewer animal products. In Europe and North America alone, the adoption of vegan diets could result in 20 percent fewer premature deaths caused by all air pollution. If everyone on the planet switched to vegan diets, more than 200,000 fewer premature deaths would result from air pollution.
“We consider these scenarios as illustrative ‘what if’ exercises intended to provide inputs into decision-making. Our focus is on the relative changes in emissions, air pollution, and health impacts that are associated with dietary changes towards this set of dietary patterns,” the study said.
The findings of the study also pointed to positive economic impacts of cleaner air, with a switch to vegan diets having the potential to increase the worldwide GDP by $1.3 trillion, or more than one percent.
“Improving air quality is undoubtedly beneficial for our health and the economy. We argue that dietary changes should thus be placed firmly on the policy menu,” wrote Marco Springmann, lead author of the study and a senior researcher on environment and health at University of Oxford, and Toon Vandyck, another of the study’s authors who is also a research fellow in economics at KU Leuven, in The Conversation. “Embracing more plant-based diets is a cost-effective strategy for tackling emissions. But it also lowers the need for expensive investments in emission-reducing equipment for livestock systems, such as scrubbers that remove ammonia from the air.”
Other benefits of moving toward more plant-based diets include less land use, fewer fertilizers and less water for agriculture. “Together with measures to guide farmers in the transition, our food systems can be steered towards sustainability,” Springmann and Vandyck wrote in The Conversation.
Colorado has suspended applications for its e-bike rebate program — at least temporarily. The reason? The program was incredibly popular, so much so that it ran out of its initial funding ahead of schedule.
The program started in August 2023, and interested customers could submit an application for a lottery selection for the rebates. As Colorado Public Radio reported, the program was allotted $6.6 million in funding, following an air quality law from 2022 known as SB22-193. The funding was expected to sustain the e-bike rebate program through at least February 2024.
Officials expected a 65% redemption rate, but by Dec. 21, 2023, 87% of the total available rebates had already been claimed. The low-income standard rebates, which offered a base of $1,100, had a 92% redemption rate, according to a press release from Colorado Energy Office (CEO).
As such, the program has suspended new applications until next month, when additional funding will be allocated for at least one additional round of application selections.
“Applications for the e-bike rebate program are temporarily paused until February 2024,” the rebate website currently reads. “CEO will reallocate $1.8 million in additional funding to support at least one additional round of statewide e-bike rebate applications in February.”
According to CEO, the program has led to discounts worth $5,417,300 and has helped 4,520 people in the state purchase electric bikes. The rebate program offered a base of $500 for moderate-income residents and $1,100 for low-income residents, plus additional incentives for additional equipment, e-cargo bikes and adaptive e-bikes.
“We are incredibly proud to have successfully implemented one of the largest e-bike rebate programs in the country,” Sarah Thorne, a senior program manager for CEO’s transportation team who runs the program, said in a press release. “E-bike adoption is at an all-time high in Colorado as a result of this program. More than 4,500 income-qualified Coloradans across the state who could not previously afford an e-bike now own an e-bike as an efficient, low-cost, zero-emission transportation option.”
About 400 residents have been waitlisted to receive the remaining rebates, including unused rebates from previous application rounds. Additionally, another $1.8 million in funds reallocated from the Local Government Community E-Bike Rebate Grant Program will allow CEO to take at least one more round of rebate applicants in February 2024.
CEO doesn’t expect to receive additional funding for the rebate program moving forward, but starting in April 2024, the state will implement a new tax credit program, offering “a $450 point-of-sale discount on a qualified e-bike purchase from an authorized e-bike retailer through 2032,” according to the office’s press release.
Aside from e-bikes, Colorado is also boosting other electric vehicles with increased state tax credits for EV and hybrid vehicle purchases. The updated tax credits increased to a $5,000 rebate for vehicles with up to an $80,000 MSRP in July 2023, and an additional tax credit of up to $2,500 for vehicles with an MSRP of $35,000 or less starting in 2024. According to CEO, customers have the option to assign their tax credit to a participating dealership, which will then deduct the credit amount from the vehicle purchase price at the time of purchase.
Last year, climate change came into sharp relief for much of the world: The planet experienced its hottest 12-month period in 125,000 years. Flooding events inundated communities from California to East Africa to India. A heat wave in South America caused temperatures to spike above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of winter, and a heat dome across much of the southern United States spurred a 31-day streak in Phoenix of 110 degree-plus temperatures. The formation of an El Niño, the natural phenomenon that raises temperatures globally, intensified extreme weather already strengthened by climate change. The U.S. alone counted 25 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023 — more than any other year.
Yet this devastation was met by some of the largest gains in climate action to date. World leaders agreed for the first time to “transition away” from oil and gas at the annual United Nations climate summit, hosted last month by the United Arab Emirates. Funds and incentives from President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, started to roll out to companies and municipalities. Electric vehicle sales skyrocketed, thousands of young people signed up for the first-ever American Climate Corps, and companies agreed to pay billions of dollars to remove harmful chemicals called PFAS from drinking water supplies.
As we enter a new year, we asked Grist reporters what big stories they’re watching on their beats, 24 predictions for 2024. Their forecasts depict a world on the cusp of change in regard to climate — both good and bad, and often in tandem. Here’s what we’re keeping an eye on, from hard-won international financial commitments, to battles over mining in-demand minerals like lithium, to the expansion of renewable energy.
Protesters hold placards during a climate march in New York City last September.
Photo by Ryan Rahman/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Politics & Policy
A new climate corps will turn young people’s anxiety into action
The American Climate Corps will officially kick off in the summer of 2024, sending 20,000 18- to 26-year-olds across the country to install solar projects, mitigate wildfire risk, and make homes more energy-efficient. President Biden’s New Deal-inspired program is modeled after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Climate Conservation Corps and attracted 100,000 applicants. As it rolls out, the climate corps will continue to draw criticism from the left for low wages and ageism, and from the right for being a “made-up government work program … for young liberal activists.” Yet the program will remain popular with the public, bolstering towns’ resilience to weather disasters and training thousands of young people to help fill the country’s shortage of skilled workers needed for decarbonization.
Kate Yoder
Staff writer examining the intersections of climate, language, history, culture, and accountability
Despite rising temperatures, climate change takes a backseat during the 2024 election
Although more than a decade of surveys and polls show that a growing proportion of Americans are concerned about climate change, it has never been a defining issue in a general election — and will likely remain that way in 2024, at least on the main stage. Put simply, there are too many immediate concerns that will dominate the campaign trail as President Joe Biden faces off against the Republican nominee — most likely former President Donald Trump: Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, Israel’s war against Hamas, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the fight for abortion rights, new charges against Biden’s son, Hunter, and, of course, the numerous criminal charges against Trump. Biden may herald his signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, in his own messaging, but climate change is unlikely to cross party lines.
Zoya Teirstein
Staff writer covering politics and the intersection between climate change and health
A climate reparations fund gets off the ground
During COP28, the U.N. climate conference that took place in Dubai last year, countries agreed to set up a climate reparations fund on an interim basis at the World Bank. The fund was a longtime priority of developing countries and climate justice advocates who argued that nations that had contributed negligibly to a warming planet were facing the consequences. This year, the World Bank is expected to set up the fund and begin disbursing money to poor nations. Board members will be selected, an executive director will be appointed, decisions about how countries can access the money will be made, and money will begin flowing to those in need. During COP28, wealthy countries chipped in more than $650 million to the fund. More money will also fill the coffers this year.
Naveena Sadasivam
Senior staff writer covering environmental justice and accountability
‘Greenhushing’ spreads as companies seek to dodge lawsuits
Just a few years ago, splashy corporate climate promises were everywhere. Even oil companies promised to cut their emissions. But there won’t be as many misleading advertisements touting companies’ climate progress in 2024. Amid new regulations against false environmental marketing and a pileup of greenwashing lawsuits, more corporations will join in hiding their climate commitments to avoid scrutiny. This trend of “greenhushing” ramped up in 2023, when 1 in 5 companies declined to publicly release their sustainability targets, a threefold increase from the prior year. While this makes it harder to see what companies are doing, California’s new “anti-greenwashing” law, which went into effect on January 1, will tackle the transparency problem by requiring companies to disclose their carbon emissions.
Kate Yoder
Staff writer examining the intersections of climate, language, history, culture, and accountability
A global treaty to end plastic pollution faces delays
Delegates from around the world have been working to finalize a U.N. treaty by the end of 2024 that will “end plastic pollution.” They’ve had three negotiating sessions so far, and two more are scheduled for later this year. Despite signs of progress, petrochemical industry interests have resisted the most ambitious proposals to limit plastic production — they’d prefer a treaty focused on cleaning up plastic litter and improving plastic recycling rates. After countries failed to make significant headway at the most recent round of talks, it’s now possible that an extended deadline will be needed to deliver the final treaty. To some involved in the talks, that’s OK if it’ll mean a stronger agreement. But the pressure is still on, as every year without a treaty means more unchecked plastic pollution.
Joseph Winters
Staff writer covering plastics, pollution, and the circular economy
Employees of NY State Solar, a residential and commercial photovoltaic-systems company, install solar panels on a roof in Massapequa, New York, in 2022. AP Photo/John Minchillo
Energy
Expect a deluge of new household electrification and efficiency rebates
When the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022, some decarbonization incentives were quickly accessible — such as tax credits for solar and heat pump installation — but others have taken longer to kick in. The wait, however, is almost over, and 2024 is set to see a slew of new, or expanded, opportunities come online. The Inflation Reduction Act earmarked $8.8 billion for residential electrification and energy-use reduction, especially in low-income households.Think things like induction cooktops and energy-efficient clothes dryers, which don’t currently have federally funded rebates. The Department of Energy is in the process of allocating funding to participating states, which will be in charge of getting the money into Americans’ pockets.
Tik Root
Senior staff writer focusing on the clean energy transition
A push for public power takes root in communities nationwide
Across the country, close to a dozen communities are exploring ways to replace their investor-owned electric utilities with publicly owned ones. Advocates say they want to lower electricity costs, improve reliability, and speed up a clean energy transition. While a referendum in Maine to create a statewide publicly owned utility failed this past November, supporters elsewhere are just getting started. Next year, a group in San Diego could succeed in getting a vote for a municipal utility on the ballot. Decorah, Iowa, is contemplating a similar vote, and ongoing efforts could gain traction in San Francisco, the South San Joaquin Irrigation District in California, New Mexico, and Rochester, New York.
Akielly Hu
News and politics reporting fellow
Puerto Rico becomes be a U.S. leader in residential-solar energy adoption
While the nationwide rate of residential-solar installations is expected to shrink by more than 10 percent next year, due to interest rates and changes in California’s net-metering rules, installations show no sign of slowing down in Puerto Rico. The archipelago of 1.2 million households already installs 3,400 residential rooftop solar and battery-storage systems per month. In spring 2024, the Energy Department will begin deploying $440 million in residential-solar funding, which they say will be enough for about 30,000 homes. Analysts predict that by 2030, one-quarter of Puerto Rico households will have photovoltaic systems, though that depends in part on whether Puerto Rico passes a pending bill that would protect net metering until then.
Gabriela Aoun Angueira
Climate solutions reporter who helms The Beacon, Grist’s solutions-oriented newsletter
Workers walk the assembly line of Model Y electric vehicles at Tesla’s factory in Berlin in 2022. Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images
Business & Technology
Changes to the federal tax credit will improve EV access for lower-income drivers
As of January 1, consumers can redeem the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-vehicle tax credit directly at car dealerships. Last year, the $7,500 incentive for new electric vehicles and $4,000 for previously owned ones were only available as a credit, meaning that car buyers had to wait until they filed their taxes to get any benefit. The point-of-sale rebate will make getting a clean vehicle more accessible to buyers who can’t afford a hefty down payment, or whose income is too low to owe taxes. But their model options will also shrink — the Treasury Department just proposed rules disqualifying cars with battery components or minerals that come from countries deemed hostile to the U.S.
Gabriela Aoun Angueira
Climate solutions reporter who helms The Beacon, Grist’s solutions-oriented newsletter
Carbon-capture tech will continue to boom (and be controversial)
In some ways, it was a mixed year for carbon capture. While the world’s largest carbon-capture plant broke ground in Texas, the builders of a major carbon dioxide pipeline — which would be used to transport captive emissions to their final destination underground — canceled the project in the face of regulatory pushback. Climate activists have also long been skeptical of carbon capture as an industry ruse to keep burning fossil fuels. Overall, though, the carbon-capture market is surging on the tailwinds of largely favorable government policies in recent years. The use of the technology is also spreading beyond traditional sectors, such as natural gas facilities, into other industrial arenas, including cement, steel, and iron manufacturing. Next year will bring some continued hiccups but, overwhelmingly, continued growth.
Tik Root
Senior staff writer focusing on the clean energy transition
Republicans ramp up their war on “woke” ESG investing
An ongoing Republican crusade against ESG investing — shorthand for the environmental, social, and governance criteria investors use to evaluate companies — could end up costing retirees and insurers millions in lost returns next year. GOP lawmakers claim that considering climate risks while making investments imposes “woke” values and limits investment returns. Yet anti-ESG laws passed in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas last year were estimated to have cost taxpayers up to hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s partly because most Wall Street banks and businesses still employ ESG strategies. The backlash could continue through next year’s election — presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have both taken strong anti-ESG positions.
Akielly Hu
News and politics reporting fellow
Unions expand their fight for electric vehicle worker protections
United Auto Workers recently won provisions for electric vehicle employees after a sweeping strike at Detroit’s Big Three carmakers — Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors. Now, the union has launched organizing campaigns at 13 non-union shops, including at EV leaders like Tesla and at other companies just getting into the EV space, such as Volkswagen and Hyundai. Next year, these campaigns will begin to go public, with resulting walkouts, negotiations, and expected union-busting tactics. Such efforts have failed in the past, and some companies have announced wage increases to entice workers away from a potential union drive, but UAW has already announced thousands of new member sign-ups and filed labor grievances against several companies, signaling a hard-headed approach that may win new contracts to protect workers as the auto industry increasingly shifts toward EVs.
Katie Myers
Climate solutions reporting fellow
A ConocoPhillips refinery abuts a residential area in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles in 2022. Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Environmental Justice
The EPA will back away from using civil rights law to protect residents
In 2020, a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to start investigating the complaints it receives under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin in any program that gets funding from the federal government. Since then, communities around the country have attempted to use the law to achieve environmental justice in their backyards. But after the agency dropped its highest profile civil rights case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” following a lawsuit from the state attorney general, advocates worry that the legal avenue won’t fulfill its promise. In 2024, it’s likely that the EPA will pursue Title VI complaints in states with cooperative environment agencies, but shy away from pressuring industry-friendly states like Louisiana and Texas to make big changes based on the law.
Lylla Younes
Senior staff writer covering chemical pollution, regulation, and frontline communities
Additional testing will reveal the true scope of “forever chemical” pollution
Major chemical manufacturers like 3M, DuPont, and Chemours were forced to strike multibillion-dollar settlements last year with coalitions of states, cities, and townships over PFAS — the deadly “forever chemicals” these companies knowingly spewed into the environment for decades. 2024 will be a big year for determining just how pervasive this problem is in U.S. water supplies. New hotspots are likely to emerge as the EPA conducts additional testing across the country, particularly in areas where little data on the chemicals currently exists. New fights over forever chemicals will also unfold in places like Minnesota, where lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require 3M and other large chemical corporations to pay for medical testing for PFAS-exposed communities, and in North Carolina, where the United Nations just declared PFAS pollution a human rights violation.
Zoya Teirstein
Staff writer covering politics and the intersection between climate change and health
A booming liquefied natural gas industry goes bust … maybe
The liquefied natural gas industry is booming on the U.S. Gulf Coast as companies export huge amounts of fracked gas to Europe and Asia, but the buildout of liquefaction facilities in the South has stumbled in recent months. A federal court revoked one facility’s permit in Texas, and the federal Department of Energy denied another company seeking an extension to build a facility in Louisiana. The coming year will be a big test for the nascent business: If courts and regulators delay more of these expensive projects, the companies behind them may abandon them and instead try building smaller, cheaper terminals elsewhere in the United States or even offshore.
Jake Bittle
Staff writer focusing on climate impacts and adaptation
Polluting countries could be legally liable to vulnerable ones
At COP28, negotiators from small island states sought to hold larger countries financially accountable for their outsize role in fueling carbon emissions. In 2024, that issue could be decided in international courts: As soon as March, the International Court of Justice will weigh arguments regarding countries’ obligations under international law to protect current and future generations from the harmful effects of climate change. The case brought by Vanuatu raises the question of how much big polluters owe island nations, with Vanuatu and other Pacific island communities particularly affected by rising sea levels and worsening storms.
Anita Hofschneider
Senior staff writer focusing on Indigenous affairs
An aerial view of Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. A proposed lithium mine on the site has drawn impassioned protest from the local Indigenous population, ranchers, and environmentalists. Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Land Use
Mining for critical minerals takes off, as new discoveries and investments are made
Discoveries of major new deposits of rare earths and other minerals critical to the expansion of renewable energy will continue to explode in the western and southeastern U.S. — places like the Salton Sea in California and a lithium belt in North Carolina — as well as in Alaska. These developments, alongside incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, will bolster domestic mining and renewable energy industries in 2024. Many of these discoveries are being made in coalfields and oil fields by fossil fuel companies looking to diversify their portfolios. In response, expect a boom in the efforts to reform laws around the poorly regulated mining industry as well as community-driven activism against places like the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada.
Katie Myers
Climate solutions reporting fellow
Congress doles out funds for unproven “climate-smart” agriculture
2024 could be the biggest year yet for “climate-smart” agriculture. Billions of dollars that Congress earmarked a year and a half ago in the Inflation Reduction Act are starting to flow to farmers planting trees and cover crops that sequester carbon. Lawmakers will have the chance to carve out even more funds in the farm bill, the sprawling legislative package that will be up for renewal next year. But climate advocates won’t be satisfied with all of the results: The fight over what counts as “climate smart” will heat up as subsidies go to tools like methane digesters, which some advocates blame for propping up big polluters.
Max Graham
Food and agriculture reporting fellow
More renewable energy comes to public lands
The Bureau of Land Management controls a tenth of the land base in the U.S. — some 245 millions acres. The Biden administration has been trying to utilize that public land for renewable energy projects and infrastructure, with the Department of Interior recently announcing 15 such initiatives. The department is also aiming to reduce fees to promote solar and wind development. These efforts have run into roadblocks in the past, including from Indigenous nations. For example, the Tohono O’odham Nation and San Carlos Apache Tribe challenged a transmission line in southern Arizona because of its potential to harm cultural sites. But with the goal of permitting 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on BLM land by 2025, expect the federal government to continue pushing its buildout next year.
Tik Root
Senior staff writer focusing on the clean energy transition
Residents in Houston look out at flooding from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Climate Impacts
El Niño peaks, bringing a preview of life in the 2030s
Last year brought the onset of the latest cycle of El Niño, a natural phenomenon that spurs the formation of a band of warm water in the Pacific Ocean and fuels above-average temperatures globally. In fact, the cycle has already nudged the world over 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming for the first time.
Because these systems tend to peak from December to April, the worst impacts will likely hit in the first half of 2024. Scientists predict the world will experience its hottest summer on record, giving us a preview of what life will look like in the 2030s. El Niño has already spurred an onslaught of knock-on effects, including heat waves in South America, flooding in East Africa, and infectious disease outbreaks in the Americas and the Caribbean. This year, researchers expect El Niño will lead to an unusually strong hurricane season in the Pacific, impact agricultural production and food security, lead to more explosions of vector-borne diseases, and depress the global economy. In some places, this is already happening.
Zoya Teirstein
Staff writer covering politics and the intersection between climate change and health
To migrate or not: Pacific islanders weigh their options
Last year, a proposed treaty between Australia and Tuvalu made international headlines for a unique provision: migration rights for climate refugees from the Pacific island country, which is at particular risk of rising seas. Now, Tuvalu’s general election, set for later this month, may serve as a de facto referendum on the agreement. But the country’s voters aren’t the only ones weighing their options as their islands slowly sink. The coming year will bring more attention to the plight of Pacific Islanders who are confronting a future of forced migration and grappling with the question of where their communities will go, what rights they’ll have, and how their sovereignty will persist.
Anita Hofschneider
Senior staff writer focusing on Indigenous affairs
Insurers flee more disaster-prone states
California. Louisiana. Florida. Who’s next? The insurance markets in these hurricane- and fire-prone states have descended into turmoil over the past few years as private companies drop policyholders and flee local markets after expensive disasters. State regulators are stepping in to stop this downward spiral, but stable insurance markets will mean higher prices for homeowners, especially in places like low-lying Miami, where the average insurance premium is already around $300 a month. The next year will see the same kind of insurance crisis pop up in other states such as Hawaiʻi, Oregon, and South Carolina, as private carriers try to stem their climate-induced losses.
Jake Bittle
Staff writer focusing on climate impacts and adaptation
Despite barriers, workplace heat standards make slow progress
Earlier this year, Miami-Dade County in Florida — where the region’s humidity makes outdoor workers especially vulnerable to extreme heat — was poised to pass one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful workplace heat standards in the country. Instead, county commissioners bowed to pressure from industry groups, and the vote was deferred. On the national level, OSHA, the agency responsible for workplace safety, has been in the process of creating a federal heat standard for over two years. That work is far from over, and it seems unlikely that the agency will announce a finalized rule next year, despite record-breaking heat. That leaves states and municipalities to lead the way in 2024 for worker-heat protections, but as was the case in Miami-Dade, local officials will likely face obstacles from powerful industry groups as they do so.
Siri Chilukuri
Environmental justice reporting fellow
“Heatflation” comes for desserts
Heatflation came for condiments like olive oil and sriracha in 2023. This year, it’ll strike desserts. Unusually dry weather and a poor sugar cane harvest in India and Thailand — two of the world’s biggest producers — have driven global sugar prices to their highest level in more than a decade. Heavy rainfall in West Africa has led to widespread rot on the region’s prolific cocoa farms, causing chocolate prices to soar and snack companies like Mondelēz, which makes Oreos, to warn of more expensive products in 2024. And an extra-hot year fueled by a strong El Niño could be a rough one for wheat growers and flour prices. So now’s the time to indulge in chocolate cake — before it’s too late.
This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Makueni County, a corner of southern Kenya that’s home to nearly a million people, is a land of extremes. Nine months a year, Makueni is a hardened, sun-scorched place where crops struggle and plumes of orange dust billow from dirt roads. Twice yearly, though, the county is battered by weeks of torrential rain, which drown farm fields and transform roads into impassable morasses. “Water,” says Michael Maluki, a Makueni County engineer, “is the enemy of roads.”
Maluki’s axiom is true the world over: Where roads and water intersect, trouble follows. Roads cut off streams and bleed sediment; meanwhile, floods often erode roadbeds into muddy gullies. Although wealthy nations are far from immune, these problems are most severe in developing countries, where roads are largely unpaved and thus especially vulnerable to obliteration. In Kenya and other nations, the issue is exacerbated by climate change, which has amplified the intensity of seasonal monsoons and droughts.
In 2019, Maluki began to ponder how to reconcile two of his county’s challenges: the aridity of its dry season and the destructiveness of its wet season. That year, he and colleagues attended a local workshop led by a Dutch consulting firm called MetaMeta on the concept of “Green Roads for Water” — a set of precepts for designing roads to capture water through strategic channels, culverts, and ponds and divert it for agricultural use. Inspired by the session, Maluki brought the idea to his colleagues and local farmers, who gave Green Roads their cautious blessing.
Makueni County’s Green Roads quickly proved their worth. Along roadsides, Maluki’s team members installed “mitre drains,” which shunted floodwaters into newly dug channels that irrigated mangoes, bananas, and oranges. They excavated farm ponds, which stored the rainy season’s floodwaters for use during drought, and they planted roadside fruit trees to absorb runoff and help control the dust that billowed from unpaved roads. And where travel routes crossed ephemeral rivers at right angles, the county built drifts — concrete road segments that also functioned as makeshift dams. During seasonal floods, the drifts captured deep banks of sand on their upstream sides. The sand retained pockets of water, which farmers tapped during the dry season via four-foot-deep wells dug upstream of the drift. In neighboring Kitui County, one study found that every $400 spent on similar low-tech tweaks increased farmers’ yields by around $1,000; according to Maluki, they’ve also made the rainy season far less damaging.
A tree-lined road in Bangladesh. Trees block dust, reduce erosion, and absorb runoff.
Andrew Zakharenka
“The biggest asset for [the county government] in this program is the reduction of maintenance costs,” Maluki says. “It’s a two-way benefit.” He estimates that between 5 and 10 percent of the counties’ roads now apply water-harvesting principles.
Southern Kenya isn’t the only place seeing such gains: Nearly 20 countries have either implemented Green Roads for Water or plan to begin soon, and thousands of kilometers of roads, worldwide, have already received Green Roads interventions. Engineers who have taken MetaMeta’s trainings have employed its tenets in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, and the concept is rapidly spreading to places as diverse as Somaliland, Tajikistan, and Bolivia. The idea has also gained a toehold at the World Bank and other international lending institutions, which are currently financing a road-building boom that promises to reshape ecosystems and communities around the world. Green Roads for Water offers one potential path through this thicket of new construction, one that repositions roads as environmental assets as well as liabilities.
“By integrating these small and easy practices, you can have very big benefits,” says Anastasia Deligianni, manager of MetaMeta’s Green Roads for Water program. “We think this is a critical moment to really do it right.”
Green Roads for Water is the brainchild of Frank Van Steenbergen, a Dutch geographer and MetaMeta’s director. While working on irrigation projects in Pakistan in the early 1990s, van Steenbergen first encountered “gabarbands,” stone terraces likely built by farmers millenia ago to capture water and soil from seasonal rivers during monsoons. The gabarbands were proto-dams, but their sinuous paths across ancient streambeds also reminded van Steenbergen of roads, which tend to gather water along their surfaces. In the years that followed, he began to wonder: Why not use roads to direct and collect water in desirable locations, rather than undesirable ones?
The idea’s first major test occurred in the Ethiopian state of Tigray. Every year, the region’s farmers take part in a weeks-long volunteer restoration effort known as “mass mobilization,” rebuilding terraces and clearing irrigation canals. In 2015, the mobilization included the application of Green Roads principles. Among other measures, Ethiopian farmers dug new trenches and ponds and installed “floodwater spreaders” — low earthen berms that channeled road runoff into adjacent fields of maize, wheat, and barley.
Low stone barriers built to channel runoff into cropland in Tigray, Ethiopia.
Courtesy of MetaMeta
The results, says Kifle Woldearegay, a geoengineer at Ethiopia’s Mekelle University, were dramatic. By 2018, so much water had infiltrated the soil around Tigray’s Green Roads that the water table had risen around two meters, improving the productivity of adjacent farms by 35 percent. Woldearegay has estimated that Tigray’s efforts produced nearly $17,000 in agricultural and infrastructural benefits for every kilometer of road the state treated — around a fourfold yield on the government’s investment.
“Farmers were very happy,” Woldearegay says. “They see that moisture is retained in their farmlands and landscapes, and that their crops are performing better.” Today, he says, practically every road in Tigray has been retrofitted with at least some water-harvesting techniques.
Buoyed by their success in Ethiopia, van Steenbergen and a growing network of collaborators have refined the precepts of Green Roads for Water. The techniques tend to be astonishingly simple. Gentle earthen ridges called crossbars guide water off roads and toward irrigation ditches. “Borrow pits” left after the excavation of gravel can be repurposed as rainwater collection ponds. In Bangladesh, engineers have deployed gated culverts to channel floodwaters into rice paddies. “It is often very non-glorious things that make the difference,” van Steenbergen says.
Although MetaMeta coined the term “Green Roads for Water,” van Steenbergen is adamant that no single entity owns the concept. MetaMeta holds no patents nor licenses any technologies; it merely conducts trainings and assessments, and it offers technical guidance to road-building agencies. Many of the techniques it promulgates were developed by local engineers and farmers: for example, an Ethiopian drain design that might also apply to Yemen, or a Pakistani culvert with relevance in Tajikistan. “People are very creative,” says van Steenbergen. “These are all things that can be easily replicated.”
As Green Roads practices have cohered, the concept has garnered institutional support. The German NGO Welthungerhilfe has funded Green Roads trainings and construction in Somaliland; the Global Resilience Partnership has funded assessments in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nepal; and the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the United Nations World Food Programme have organized events on the topic. In 2021, the World Bank hired MetaMeta to compile a set of guidelines delineating the principles of Green Roads for Water and highlighting successful case studies. The approach, says Kulwinder Singh Rao, the World Bank’s lead transport specialist, “offers a new way of thinking” about the relationship between roads and water. “Practitioners and policymakers in the road sector need to embrace this new concept.”
Trees block dust that billows from an unpaved road in Makueni, Kenya.
Courtesy of Makueni County
The Green Roads movement is expanding in an era of unprecedented road construction in developing nations. William Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University, has dubbed the phenomenon an “Infrastructure Tsunami” — a wave of construction that could produce more than 15 million miles of paved roads by mid-century and tens of millions of miles of unpaved roads. This exploding transportation network may produce immense benefits for human welfare. “Once there is a road, there is everything,” says Saroj Yakami, an engineer who spearheads the Green Roads movement in Nepal, where thousands of road miles have been constructed since 2015. “You can go to the hospital easily. You can get government services quickly. You can take your produce to the market.”
Yet this enhanced connectivity often comes at a high social and ecological price. In the Amazon, Laurance has found, the vast majority of deforestation occurs near roadways; in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, researchers have cautioned that roads stand to “cause dramatic reductions in tiger numbers” over the next two decades. According to Yakami, shoddily bulldozed Himalayan roads often leave behind wedges of spoil, which absorb water and trigger devastating landslides. “They’re taking roads everywhere, and that is not good for the environment,” he says.
In some cases, roads provide benefits and costs simultaneously. According to Yakami, new Nepalese roads have cut off mountain springs that have long sustained farms and households, but they’ve also revealed long-buried springs. Left to flow, the unearthed springs turn dirt roads into unstable slicks of mud. But channeled into taps and pipes, they can become important water sources for drought-stressed villages. This approach differs from Green Roads strategies in Ethiopia or Kenya, where roads have primarily been modified to capture rainfall rather than groundwater, but it similarly tries to synchronize road design with water delivery infrastructure.
But if roads can be recast as boons for water provision, will that framing provide a perverse incentive to build more of them? The very notion that a road can be “green” seems oxymoronic: A vast body of scientific literature demonstrates that roads befoul air and water, fragment ecosystems, introduce non-native species, and obliterate wildlife. In an email, Laurance expressed worry that “water harvesting might become a driver of road expansion in arid environments.”
Deligianni doesn’t dismiss those fears outright, but she doesn’t give them much credence. For one thing, most Green Roads for Water techniques have thus far been applied as retrofits to existing roads, rather than included in new ones. For another, she says, new roads are inevitable and, in many cases, desirable to local communities. So why not optimize the construction to come? “We’re looking at the projections for the future, and so many roads are going to be built,” Deligianni says. “We’re just trying to change the narrative and add some benefits.”
For now, the Green Roads movement, for all its institutional momentum, is moving forward in fits and starts. The idea, says the World Bank’s Singh Rao, requires “a paradigm shift in thinking and practice,” one that entails cooperation across agencies that tend to be siloed. In Ethiopia, Woldearegay says that agricultural ministries are enthusiastic about Green Roads and have incorporated them into their own technical guidelines, but road departments themselves have proved reluctant. “They don’t want the costs associated with designing and implementing [them],” he says. That’s the case in Kenya’s Makueni County, where limited budgets have hampered progress.
Yet these projects continue to attract attention: In recent months, Michael Maluki has given Green Roads tours to newspaper reporters, engineers, and farmers from neighboring counties. “We have been receiving so many visitors,” Maluki says. “The small things we do here, people are noticing.”
A new baby orca whale was spotted recently in Washington State’s Puget Sound with the southern resident orca whales’ J pod, reported The Seattle Times. According to researchers, the calf is likely only a few days old.
Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Seattle Times that the calf — known as J60 — was seen near President Point.
“It’s really, really good news,” Hanson said. “It also comes with the trepidation of how they’re going to fare throughout the first few years of their life.”
The calf was spotted near an adult female named Suttles — also known as J40 — who the Center for Whale Research said in a post on social media seemed most likely to be the mother.
“Maya Sears shared a viewfinder photo with Dave Ellifrit of the underside of J60. Dave was able to confirm that J60 is a boy! We can’t wait to see this new J Pod baby firsthand,” the Center for Whale Research said on their website.
According to Donna Sandstrom, founder and director of The Whale Trail, Suttles is a 19-year-old female, as King 5 News reported. If she is the mother, J60 would be her first calf.
“Mark said the calf looked really healthy. He said it looked like it was trying to tail-slap. It was practicing tail slapping, which is just, so wonderful,” Sandstrom said, according to King 5 News.
The endangered J pod’s first new calf since September of 2020 was born last year, a female known as J59.
According to Orca Conservancy data, the birth of J60 brings the southern resident orca population — which consists of the J, K and L pods — up to 77. It also increases the J pod to 26 members and means there are now 10 southern resident calves less than five years of age.
Southern resident orcas are affected by pollution, shrinking populations of the Chinook salmon they feed upon and boat noise. The underwater noise makes it more difficult for the whales to hunt and communicate, reported The Seattle Times.
New legislation that goes into effect next year will require recreational boats to keep three times the distance they are currently asked to maintain from the whales, King 5 News reported.
“I am a little concerned with a new calf and the population. People are very tempted to go get photos of that adorable baby. That’s the wrong thing to do. Give them 1,000 yards away, and give that baby and its mom a chance to survive,” Sandstrom said, as reported by King 5 News.
The southern resident orca population peaked in 1995 at 98 members before declining by nearly 20 percent by 2001, The Seattle Times reported.
Hanson said they weren’t having many calves, and some were not living long enough to reproduce.
“In order for the population to grow, you really need them to have five or six successful calves. And that’s just not been happening in the population,” Hanson said, as reported by The Seattle Times.
According to researchers, lack of food causes two-thirds of southern resident orca pregnancies to be unsuccessful.
More recent studies have determined that southern resident females do not have as much success hunting as populations farther north. They also found that not only have southern resident orca numbers been falling, but that the population has become more and more inbred and could be headed toward extinction.
“One of the problems this population has had, is some pods — especially K Pod — has had a hard time even getting pregnant, or having pregnancies come to fruition. So anytime there’s a successful birth of a calf, everyone rejoices,” Sandstrom said, as King 5 News reported.
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day has killed at least 55 people, reported Reuters.
Freezing temperatures were making the efforts of approximately 3,000 rescuers to reach people trapped beneath demolished buildings in isolated coastal areas more difficult.
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said access to the secluded northern portion of the peninsula had been cut off by a destroyed road, CNN reported.
“To secure the route there, we are to mobilize all the means of transport, not only on the ground but also by aerial and marine transport. We have been making an effort to transfer goods, supplies and personnel there since the last night,” Kishida said, as reported by CNN.
Helicopters carrying officials surveyed the peninsula and reported landslides, fires and damaged roads, buildings and infrastructure, according to Kishida.
Masuhiro Izumiya, the mayor of Suzu — a town of about 5,000 households near the epicenter of the earthquake — said about 5,000 households may have been demolished, Reuters reported.
“The situation is catastrophic,” Izumiya said, as reported by Reuters.
According to the country’s meteorological agency, approximately 200 tremors have been felt since the quake first hit.
“The government has deployed emergency rescue teams from the Self-Defence Forces, police and fire departments to the area and is doing its utmost to save lives and rescue victims and survivors, but we have received reports that there are still many people waiting to be rescued under collapsed buildings,” Kishida said, as Reuters reported.
Japan sits on the western part of the “Ring of Fire” — a string of sites of seismic activity and volcanoes partially surrounding the Pacific Basin. The tectonic belt produces roughly 20 percent of the planet’s earthquakes that are a magnitude six or stronger, with as many as 2,000 earthquakes each year that can be felt.
The quake is the deadliest in the country since 2016, authorities said.
Many flights and rail schedules have been suspended in the area. The airport in Noto was closed because of terminal building damage and cracks in its access road and runway.
Water, food and blankets were being handed out by the Japanese military to those who were forced to evacuate, reported the BBC.
About 100,000 were ordered to leave their homes Monday night, but nearly half had returned the following day after tsunami warnings were lifted, Reuters reported.
Approximately 33,000 households in Ishikawa prefecture still did not have power after a night of below-freezing temperatures, and more than 100,000 households had no water.
Aftershocks were being felt on Monday and Tuesday, and Yoshimasa Hayashi, the country’s chief cabinet secretary, warned residents to look out for further quakes “of an intensity of up to 7” during the next week, as reported by the BBC.
On Tuesday, authorities in several cities were rescuing people from buildings that had collapsed, as well as battling fires that had sprung up as a result of the quake, Reuters reported.
“I’ve never experienced a quake that powerful,” said 71-year-old Shoichi Kobayashi, a resident of Wajima, another city on the Noto Peninsula that was hit particularly badly, as reported by Reuters.
Five of the top Big Oil companies in the world were expected to pay shareholders over $100 billion for 2023.
The estimated 2023 payouts from BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies were on track to surpass the dividend payments and share buybacks from 2022, which reached $104 billion, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“At the current pace of distributions via share buybacks and dividends, these five super-majors could set a record for distributions to shareholders in 2023, topping the $104 billion spent during the 2022 calendar year,” Trey Cowan, an analyst at IEEFA, told The Guardian.
According to International Energy Agency (IEA), the entire oil and gas industry made $4 trillion in 2022, a record high. But the industry experienced a decline in profits for 2023, according to IEEFA.
In 2022, ExxonMobil saw record-breaking profits of $56 billion. As of Q3 in 2023, the company’s profits had declined compared to its 2022 profits, The Associated Press reported.
BP also made headlines in early 2023 following a year of record profits, as the company announced plans to expand oil and gas production through 2030 rather than work toward climate targets to reduce production. The company has increased dividend payouts by about 20% in 2023, after initially expecting to offer a 10% increase last year, despite a decline in profits compared to the previous year.
Shell, a company that also experienced a decline in profits, announced in November that it would offer payouts of at least $23 billion, a total more than six times the amount of money the company reserved for renewable energy in 2023, The Guardian reported.
Aside from criticism over spending far more in shareholder payouts than investing in clean energy, campaign groups have argued that these Big Oil companies are making massive profits from the Russia-Ukraine war and the high energy costs that have negatively impacted customers.
“The global energy crisis has been a giant cash grab for fossil fuel firms. And instead of investing their record profits in clean energy, these companies are doubling down on oil, gas and shareholder payouts,” said Alice Harrison, a campaigner at Global Witness, as reported by The Guardian.
Despite increasing payouts for shareholders in 2023, experts predict the industry will no longer hold the top spot for highest payouts in 2024.
Cowan told The Guardian that the oil industry “is beginning to empty its war chest used to pay shareholders faster than they can replenish it. Future distributions to shareholders of these companies appear likely to fall and not continue to ascend.”
In November 2023, Reuters reported that major U.S. investors in Big Oil Companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Vanguard, voted against Follow This climate resolutions, which are focused on reducing emissions by 2030 to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Some of the top investors based in Europe voted in favor of the resolutions, the report found.
