When Lucas George Wendt arrived in Lajeado in late May, the water had already started to recede.

Just days before, the peaks of roofs and the tops of trees were some of the only things visible above the murky brown water that had covered his hometown. Located in the Taquari Valley, Lajeado, population 85,000, was one of the communities hit hardest by the historic flooding that tore through Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, between late April and mid-May, displacing more than 650,000 people, killing 173, and injuring 806.

When Wendt arrived, 38 people were still missing. Backhoes were scooping mud from blocked roads, city workers were clearing sidewalks with pressure washers, and volunteers were sorting through donations of clothing, food, personal hygiene products, and bottled water.

Wendt — who now lives in the state capital of Porto Alegre and is studying for his master’s degree in information science while working in communications at the University of Taquari Valley (Univates) — had come home to check in on family and friends. But he also wanted to do something to help while there.

Last September, he had heard about a Univates mapping project led by researcher Sofia Royer Moraes, an environmental engineer who studies extreme flooding events in the Taquari-Antas River Basin. At the time, the Taquari River, which runs through Lajeado, had overflowed, leaving the region to deal with the worst flooding in 82 years, the displacement of at least 359,000 people, and the deaths of 48. Residents of the Taquari Valley were used to dealing with annual flooding, but this event was different. Studies showed that climate change had worsened the flood, which meant that future floods would bring even more deaths.

It was then that Moraes decided she could do something to help. She created what is known as a Citizen Map, using Google Maps as a platform for ordinary people using their smartphones to pinpoint the floodwaters’ reach. These so-called citizen scientists were instructed to take photos of what they saw and send them, along with their geolocation, to a WhatsApp group monitored by Moraes and her team. Combining that information with historic flood data from the area, the team could model what might happen during future floods, helping residents who had already lost everything to decide where it would be safest to rebuild their lives. The models could also give authorities the information they needed for better urban planning and allocation of resources.

Fascinated by the potential of the project, Wendt knew he wanted to pitch in. By now, Univates was partnering with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and this time, the goal was to map the entire state of Rio Grande do Sul.

As he drove around his hometown, Wendt snapped photos of everything he thought would benefit the Citizen Map: a white cross smeared with mud where a church once stood; a lone house standing among pieces of hundreds of others that had washed away; markings on a wall in the city center that registered the water’s height.

Wendt’s more than 20 data points collected at the end of May are now among the more than 600 on the constantly updated Citizen Map, a contribution he knew would help others but that he was surprised to see helped him as well.

“It helped me understand all of these connections,” he said. “If it’s raining in one place, what is the impact that’s going to have downriver? Someone who participates in this type of citizen science initiative ends up being more aware, more secure, and more empowered to deal with this type of situation, which, unfortunately, we know we can expect more of in the near future.”

In the context of climate change, the team behind the Citizen Map wants Brazilian authorities to use this data to rethink everything from urban planning and post-disaster recovery to the availability of health care and clean drinking water in the aftermath of climate-change-induced catastrophes. They also hope that by educating people about what’s going on around them, they’ll not only become more interested and invested in participating in solutions to local flooding, but also feel prepared to face what’s to come.

Experts have attributed the severity of the recent flooding in southern Brazil to human-driven climate change. An analysis carried out by researchers at the Pierre Simon Laplace Institute’s Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory showed that extreme weather events in Rio Grande do Sul that occurred between 2001 and 2023 delivered up to 15 percent more precipitation than events that occurred between 1979 and 2001.

A recent study also found that “the highly densely populated regions [in] Southern and Southeastern Brazil as well as the coastal section of Northeast Brazil are the most exposed to landslides and floods,” and that these impacts will continue to worsen with more warming. and increased the intensity of the rainfall between 6 and 9 percent.

The first record-setting flood to wash out the Taquari Valley and other parts of Rio Grande do Sul took place in 1941. That event, which also occurred in April and May, left the region’s population, living mostly in rural areas at the time, without food, water and shelter. The only record of the floodwaters’ height was a mark scratched into the wall of a school.

“That memory is isolated there,” says Wendt of the marker. “It doesn’t contribute as much as it could if it had happened nowadays, with the technology we have.”

The first Citizen Map that Moraes created last September collected data only on the perimeter of the affected area to determine what parts of the Taquari Valley would be considered at high risk of future flooding. Around 600 data points were sent in by 150 citizen scientists.

Some neighborhoods that participated heavily in mapping the September floods haven’t been involved in creating the new map, but that’s likely because those areas are still difficult to access, or not accessible at all. And while the state continues to recover from the emergency — it initially focused on saving people and animals from fast-moving waters and collapsing buildings and is now setting people up in shelters and other more permanent housing — data collection is expected to be slow.

“Data will likely start to come in quicker in another two or three weeks,” says Moraes. “The actual modeling of the Citizen Map should happen in July and August, and it will be available for consultation then too.”

In addition to using perimeter data, which shows the horizontal spread of water, the new map will also use data related to the height of floodwaters, often measured by water and mud stains left on the walls of people’s homes and local businesses.

The Citizen Map is currently very simple and powered by Google, but the team plans to partner with the the open-mapping nonprofit Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to improve the visuals of their final product. “Google Maps has good visuals, but they’re fairly standard,” says Wendt. “We want our map to be as easy to understand as possible to make sure it can be used by anyone who wants to consult it to keep themselves safe and make the best decisions possible for their future.”

On May 2, when the second of this year’s three rain and flood episodes began in Rio Grande do Sul (the other two were on April 29 and May 13), Moraes and her team had to move out of the university building where they worked. The water had, again, started to rise, and this time it made its way inside.

They ended up setting up shop at A Hora, a local radio station that gave them space to work and talked about their project on the air, providing its WhatsApp number for anyone who wanted to send data or ask questions.

Soon, messages started to pour in. Some 200 people sent their locations to the Citizen Map team on May 2, and the team spent all afternoon and night analyzing data to determine who was in or near an area of risk and who ought to evacuate. For people living downstream, information on what was happening farther upstream was crucial in making such decisions.

“It’s so important for people to understand their surroundings, to know if they’re in an area of risk,” says Moraes. “And they want to understand. They want to be engaged.”

While anyone with a smartphone can collect data for the newest edition of the Citizen Map, most participants so far are professors and their students from universities around the region. The hope is that more people will join in once the situation on the ground starts to improve.

“I really support citizen science initiatives because they are exactly what people need to learn and feel empowered,” says Marta Angela Marcondes, an expert in water resources and coordinator of the Water Pollutant Index Project at the Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul. “I really believe in processes of prevention and not remediation, and civil society is a key component in making this happen.”

The culture of prevention is important to Moraes, too. She wants the Citizen Map not only to help residents of Rio Grande do Sul keep themselves safe and informed, but also for it to guide authorities to do the same. By using the map to define areas of risk, she says, decision makers can improve urban planning, creating better mitigation plans for future flooding — like improving stormwater drainage and management systems — and allowing new homes, schools, and health care facilities, among others, to be built in safer areas.

Moraes wants the Citizen Map to keep growing, eventually mapping the lack of drinking water and access to basic health care, as well as instances of disease, in the aftermath of climate-related crises.

“With that information, I can see the big picture by municipality, region, or state,” she says. “As a decision maker, I can then use this information to determine which areas are more fragile and direct the necessary public policies to those that need them most.”

Two to five years after the original event, Moraes hopes she will be able to map where those public policies have ended up and measure their success. “In this new context of climate change, people need to be prepared,” she says. “We can’t stop these events from happening, but we can make sure we’re ready to deal with them in the best way possible.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How a ‘citizen map’ is helping Brazil prepare for its next big flood on Jun 23, 2024.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, one of the largest rural cooperative utilities in the U.S., is bringing the energy transition home to its massive western service territory. It’s acquiring its first large-scale solar power plants as it prepares to shift away from its current dependence on coal power.

Tri-State generates and transmits power to 41 member cooperatives, which retail to 1 million customers in rural Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska (four states, despite the name). The customer base spans 200,000 square miles, more land than the entirety of California, with an average density of just five customers per mile of power line. Just a few years ago, two member cooperatives quit Tri-State to seek cheaper, cleaner power elsewhere. Since then, Tri-State has rolled out a series of clean energy commitments that it says will deliver 50 percent renewable electricity by the end of 2025, up from 33 percent in 2023.

The cooperative announced last week it will buy the forthcoming Axial Basin Solar, a 145-megawatt project in Moffat County, Colorado, and Dolores Canyon Solar, a 110-​megawatt project in Dolores County, Colorado. Both projects are still under construction, but they are slated to deliver power by late next year. Tri-State also signed three new power purchase agreements from solar plants that will come online by the end of this year.

Within days of that announcement, Tri-State also reported that electricity was flowing from the largest third-party solar project it has contracted for thus far, a 200-megawatt site developed by Origis Solar at the former Escalante Station coal-fired power plant in New Mexico. The cooperative also filed an innovative proposal with federal regulators to collaborate with its members that wish to generate clean energy for themselves locally.

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“In the past several months and years, Tri-State has been a very significant leader in the cooperative space in identifying ways to bring the benefits of clean energy to their members, and use the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act to a maximum degree,” said Uday Varadarajan, a senior principal at climate think tank RMI who tracks rural cooperative decarbonization. (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)

This embrace of the energy transition was by no means guaranteed. America’s cooperative utilities, which deliver about 12 percent of the country’s electricity but serve 56 percent of its landscape, were at serious risk of getting left behind by the clean energy transition. The U.S. incubated its renewables industry with tax credits, which don’t do much good for the many federal, municipal, or cooperative utilities that generate power as not-for-profit corporations, and thus owe little to the IRS. Many cooperatives also signed very long-term contracts, which left them committed to paying for coal plants even after they might’ve wanted to switch to cleaner, cheaper alternatives.

Those conditions are changing now, thanks to the landmark climate policies passed in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Chief among them is a ​“direct pay” option that lets nonprofits access the same generous clean energy tax credits as their for-profit peers — even with little to no tax burden. Once Tri-State’s leadership saw clarity on the tax rules, they decided this was the time to strike.

“Not-for-profit cooperatives simply could not take advantage of those [renewable tax credits] because we did not have the tax liability to offset,” said Lee Boughey, vice president of communications at Tri-State. Now, though, he added, ​“We are pursuing the maximum amount of funding available for cooperatives.”

From incumbent to change agent

Back in 2016, at least a few local co-ops that buy power from Tri-State were chafing at its pace of decarbonization. New Mexico’s Kit Carson Electric Cooperative cut ties that year, paying a $37 million exit fee in order to buy power from a company called Guzman Energy and generate more clean energy locally. Colorado’s Delta-Montrose Electric Association soon followed suit. Guzman won them over with renewables-heavy portfolios that it said would save them money over time, compared to staying with Tri-State.

Tri-State kicked off a clean energy planning effort in 2019, and in late 2020 promised to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2030 and shut down several coal plants. The latest solar investments represent strides toward that promise. 

Clean energy technologies and prices reached a different stage of maturity in the early 2020s compared to where they were in 2016, Boughey said. Now the utility sees ample savings and benefits for its customers in maximizing low-cost renewable generation, while ensuring it has enough ​“firm” power — today provided by coal and fossil gas plants — to keep the lights on. The utility recently hit a new record for instantaneous renewable production on May 24, when wind and solar delivered 87 percent of its generation for half an hour.

Cooperative customers are also shareholders, so the people who get to vote on the utility’s leadership are the same ones benefiting from lower-cost renewables. By investing in projects within its territory, Tri-State also supports economic development for its customer-owners. 

“You can pursue an energy transition and still retain that reliability and resilience even in the face of the challenging weather that utilities in the western U.S. can face,” said Boughey.

Inflation Reduction Act breaks down barriers for cooperatives

The Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, finally gave cooperatives a chance to avail themselves of the renewable power discounts that for-profit corporations with large tax burdens could access. But it also included a program specially designed to help rural co-ops deal with closing coal plants without burdening their customers with higher power prices.

Co-ops can’t raise money in quite the same ways as Wall Street–owned for-profit utilities do — they don’t issue stock to profit-hungry investors, for instance. To build new plants without piling steep rate hikes on customers, co-ops often borrow low-cost debt and pay it off over decades using the revenue from generating or transmitting power. Many co-ops, Tri-State included, are still paying off coal plants that they expected to run for decades more; shuttering them early, for climate or economic reasons, leaves customers saddled with an outstanding debt for something that no longer generates any value.

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This turns out to be one of the many obscure decarbonization challenges that the IRA tackled. It created a program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture called Empowering Rural America (New ERA for short), which offered up $9.7 billion to help rural utilities finance the transition from coal and support coal communities in the process. The program drew proposals for $93 billion worth of energy transition investment, from public and private sources (winning projects have not yet been announced).

“It did break down some of these barriers to make it easier than it was, and rural America showed up,” Varadarajan said. ​“It is pretty remarkable what has been proposed post-IRA by rural cooperatives.”

Tri-State used the new federal funding opportunity as a springboard for imagining the next phase of its clean energy transition. Its late-2023 proposal to Colorado utility regulators argues that federal funding, if awarded, could help move up the closure of coal plants Craig Station in 2028 and Springerville in 2031. Tri-State would fill the gap with 1,250 megawatts of wind, solar, and energy storage, including conventional lithium-ion batteries and novel iron-air batteries for multiday energy storage. The plan would also add a 290-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant with plans for carbon capture and sequestration. 

“We have to have the dispatchable capacity for when those renewable resources aren’t available,” Boughey said, noting that Tri-State goes beyond industry-standard reliability metrics to prepare the grid for extreme weather events, hot or cold.

Renewables purists may balk at the nod to carbon capture at a fossil-fueled plant, which has little precedent for economic success in the real world. But Tri-State frames that plant as more of a backup for moments when renewables can’t carry the day; and even with that new gas, the portfolio is projected to lower carbon emissions from Tri-State’s Colorado electricity generation by 89 percent by 2030, compared to the 2005 baseline. That reduction exceeds what Colorado requires of its utilities, the company noted — and the pace of many of the most progressive utilities nationwide.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This coal-heavy rural co-op utility is buying its first solar plants on Jun 22, 2024.

A new study by a psychologist at University of Stirling in Scotland has found that, like humans, wild bumblebees are capable of logical reasoning.

In the study, the bees were tasked with spontaneously locating strips of sugar-coated paper in various colors and positions. In both circumstances, the analysis showed they looked in the correct location well above chance, a press release from University of Stirling said.

“My studies examine the ability to make a decision by excluding alternatives, known as inferential reasoning, which is usually considered uniquely human and language dependent,” said Dr. Gema Martin-Ordas, the study’s lead researcher and a University of Stirling senior lecturer in the faculty of natural sciences, in the press release.

It was the first demonstration of insects being capable of inferential reasoning — a hallmark of human cognition.

“The ability to make a decision by excluding alternatives (i.e. inferential reasoning) is a type of logical reasoning that allows organisms to solve problems with incomplete information. Several species of vertebrates have been shown to find hidden food using inferential reasoning abilities. Yet little is known about invertebrates’ logical reasoning capabilities,” Martin-Ordas wrote in the study.

“For example, if I am presented with two cups and I am told that one of them hides a nice reward, when lifting one of them and seeing that it’s empty, I will be able to infer that it is the cup that was not lifted that hides the reward,” Martin-Ordas said in the press release. “This is the first time that this ability is shown in invertebrates, specifically in insects, and questions whether language or big brains are required for this ability. The results are very robust because bees’ performance was consistent across the experiments.”

In May 2023, 33 bumblebees were caught in Stirlingshire, United Kingdom. A transparent plastic tube was used for the two-hour experiments, after which the bees were released back into the wild unharmed.

In the United Kingdom, bumblebees are declining and two species have already become extinct. Of the remaining 24, eight species are currently prioritized for conservation because of widespread declines, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said.

“Bee decline has become a very public symbol of [environmental] deterioration, which has galvanised conservation efforts through public appreciation,” Martin-Ordas said. “This conservation effort has been further propelled by many of the fascinating discoveries about bees’ cognition. I hope the results of my study will also contribute to these conservation efforts.”

The study, “Inferential reasoning abilities in wild-caught bumblebees,” was published in the journal Biology Letters.

The post Wild Bumblebees Capable of Logical Reasoning, Study Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

On Thursday, Hawaii agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by 13 young people alleging the state had violated their constitutional rights with infrastructure that adds to greenhouse (GHG) emissions, exacerbating climate change.

In the settlement, the state agreed to decarbonize its transportation system by 2045.

At a news conference, Governor of Hawaii Josh Green, a Democrat, called the settlement “groundbreaking,” reported Reuters.

“We’re addressing the impacts of climate change today, and needless to say, this is a priority because we know now that climate change is here,” Green said, as Reuters reported. “It is not something that we’re considering in an abstract way in the future.”

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Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT) is the first constitutional climate case led by youth that addresses climate pollution from transportation, a press release from Earthjustice said.

In the lawsuit, youth plaintiffs asserted their state constitutional rights to a healthy and safe climate. They asked Hawaii’s government to take needed actions to address the climate crisis and shift to a transportation system with zero emissions.

The young people argued that Hawaii had been focusing on projects like highway expansion and construction, rather than making projects that reduce carbon emissions more of a priority, reported Reuters.

“The settlement agreement, which the court has approved, recognizes children’s constitutional rights to a life-sustaining climate and mobilizes HDOT to plan and implement transformative changes of Hawaiʻi’s transportation system to achieve zero emissions in all ground transportation, and interisland sea and air transportation, by 2045. The court will retain jurisdiction to enforce the agreement for the next 21 years until its terms have been achieved,” the press release said.

The settlement includes provisions for immediate and ongoing steps for HDOT to take to implement changes to the state’s transportation system, including establishing a plan for GHG reductions within one year; creating a council of youth volunteers to advise HDOT; and making investments in green transportation infrastructure, including the dedication of at least $40 million for the expansion of public electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 and the completion of bicycle, pedestrian and transit networks within five years.

“Hawai‘i’s young people raised their voices to protect our future here in the islands, and their voices were heard. Today’s settlement shows that the State and HDOT are committed to transformative action to reduce our transportation emissions before it’s too late. This new partnership puts climate action in the fast lane towards a more just and equitable future,” said Earthjustice senior associate attorney Leinā‘ala Ley in the press release.

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Many of the youth are Native Hawaiians who have been experiencing climate change impacts such as sea level rise, flooding, drought and wildfires. These climate hazards have threatened cultural traditions like fishing, kalo farming and gathering, as well as put their lives at risk.

“Being heard and moving forward in unity with the State to combat climate change is incredibly gratifying, and empowering. This partnership marks a pivotal step towards preserving Hawai‘i for future generations — one that will have a ripple effect on the world. I hope our case inspires youth to always use their voices to hold leaders accountable for the future they will inherit,” said youth plaintiff Rylee Brooke K. in the press release.

The post Hawaii Agrees to Decarbonize Its Transportation in ‘Groundbreaking’ Youth Climate Change Settlement appeared first on EcoWatch.

This week’s inspirational quote tells a hard truth. The photo below is from Geeamana, Romania,…

The post Earth911 Inspiration: Strange Days appeared first on Earth911.

Last week, the leaders of the world’s seven biggest economies convened in Italy to discuss several pressing global issues during the annual gathering known as the G7 summit. They agreed to lend Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine, pushed for a ceasefire in Gaza, and pledged to launch a migration coalition.

Those discussions, which concluded Saturday, came right on the heels of the annual Bonn Climate Change Conference, which sets the foundation for the United Nations’ yearly climate gathering. In Bonn, Germany, an enduring dispute over who should provide trillions of dollars in climate aid to poor nations once again ended with little progress toward a solution, dominating the agenda so much so that dialogues on other issues often reverted back to financial debates.  

Government heads at both conferences barely addressed what may be one of the most pressing questions the world faces: how to respond to the immense role animal agriculture plays in driving climate change. This continues a pattern of evasion around this issue on the international stage, which advocates and scientists find increasingly frustrating, given that shrinking the emissions footprint of global livestock production and consumption is a needed step toward mitigating climate change.

“We’re seeing, essentially, the cow in the room being ignored,” said Stephanie Feldstein, population and sustainability director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re seeing these kinds of vague references to needing to shift diets, but still a refusal to call out animal agriculture as the leading cause, by far, of agricultural emissions, as well as other forms of environmental destruction in food and agriculture systems.” 

Although estimates vary, peer-reviewed studies have found that the global food system is responsible for roughly one-third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Animals raised for consumption generate 32 percent of the world’s methane emissions, and agriculture is the largest source of anthropogenic methane pollution. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon, and it’s 80 to 90 percent more powerful than carbon in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. This is why many scientists believe that aggressively curbing humanity’s methane pollution would be the fastest way to slow planetary warming. And methane isn’t the only environmental problem associated with meat and dairy. Even though animal agriculture provides 17 percent of the world’s calories, it accounts for 80 percent of global agricultural land use and 41 percent of global agricultural water use, which translates into an outsize impact on biodiversity. 

Despite the mountain of evidence establishing a connection between the food we eat and climate change, the subject has only recently begun to pop up at international conferences. The big breakthrough came at last December’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, where more than two-thirds of countries in attendance, including the U.S. and the European Union, pledged to take steps to reduce the colossal climate footprint of food systems. Around the same time, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, or FAO, unveiled its first-ever installment of a roadmap for transforming the global food system to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). 

However, the FAO roadmap came under criticism because its slate of proposed solutions almost entirely omitted the need to reduce human consumption of meat and dairy. Some researchers later asked the FAO to retract its report, alleging that it misrepresented their work by minimizing reduced meat intake as a way to cut agricultural emissions.

The failure of delegates at COP28 to directly address the causal relationship between meat consumption and climate change was just repeated by G7 nations and the Bonn climate conference attendees. These failures show how “incredibly politically charged” this issue is in multinational gatherings dominated by countries with very high rates of meat and dairy consumption, said Martin Frick, who heads up the World Food Programme’s Berlin office. 

“We are moving in the right direction, but we are not moving fast enough,” said Frick. “Unless we are really serious about food, and look at it from a systems approach, ask ourselves the hard questions and give ourselves the hard answers, I don’t see how we can fix climate change.” 

Still, some do see progress. 

“Only six months ago, 159 governments at world-leader level made a commitment to incorporate food into their climate plans,” said Edward Davey, senior advisor of the Food and Land Use Coalition based at the World Resources Institute. The COP28 pledge includes incorporating the climate footprint of food into each country’s “nationally determined contribution,” or NDC — a specific emissions target required by the Paris Agreement. 

Countries are expected to submit new NDCs by next February, and Davey said those updates will indicate whether those countries are taking the pledge seriously. 

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Until then, how the topic surfaces in international gatherings is the next best benchmark. “I wanted to see that food was genuinely getting its moment in the sun in the climate talks,” said Davey. “And I think what we saw was that the Bonn talks were largely focused on finance, and less on particular sectors.” 

Food was not entirely absent from the G7 summit agenda. At the gathering in southern Italy, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni announced the launch of the Apulia Food Systems Initiative, a climate and food policy aimed at investing in resilient food systems for poorer countries. It commits an undisclosed amount of funding to strengthen agricultural climate adaptation, with most aid allocated across the African continent, where climate change is intensifying food insecurity. The initiative will back a U.S. State Department-led crop research effort, a project to create more resilient coffee supply chains, and technical support for implementing the COP28 food and agriculture pledge into countries’ NDCs.

Unsurprisingly, it does not include any projects to decarbonize animal agriculture. “Livestock is clearly a very good example of what wasn’t tackled directly, in the sense that there is no mention of livestock, per se,” said Francesco Rampa, head of the think tank European Centre for Development Policy Management’s sustainable food systems team, who assisted the Italian G7 presidency in developing the initiative. Rampa is quick to add that this is because the Apulia plan is structured to help poor nations that have negligible emissions from animal agriculture, and not higher-income countries with sizable contributions — like the G7 countries themselves.

Past G7 food initiatives have faced criticism for limited clarity and accountability around finance pledges, for not reaching small farmers, and for failing to facilitate a transition to more sustainable and equitable food systems in the places they aim to aid. Multiple experts told Grist they don’t expect the new Apulia pledge to buck that trend. 

“I’m skeptical of the ability of the international community to act in a way, with the urgency, that this whole issue requires,” said William Dietz, director of research and policy at the Global Food Institute at George Washington University. “We’ve got a generation of leaders like Nero who are fiddling while the world is burning.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Food’s climate footprint was once again MIA at global talks on Jun 21, 2024.

Kathrin Zangerl is a pediatrician at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health in Germany, where she is a specialist on how climate change affects children at different stages in their lives. For instance, an infant’s developing lungs make her more susceptible to lasting harm from air pollution. A teenager, on the other hand, might be more likely to become part of the mental health pandemic among adolescents, where climate anxiety is a factor.

In other words, children have differing needs, more vulnerability, and interventions that work for adults might not work for kids.

“Children are not tiny adults,” she said.

So when Zangerl and other researchers combed through the official national climate adaptation plans of 160 countries, they were looking for consideration of the needs and roles of children, especially when it comes to health. How many countries are taking kids into account when they think about climate change?

In an article published earlier this month in The Lancet, Zangerl and her team revealed their findings: Not many. 

It’s not that national climate adaptation plans have the force of law, but they can guide policymakers and attract focused funding from richer countries to low and middle-income countries. International bodies, like the United Nations, its Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF, are increasingly urging countries to consider the specific needs of children in their climate policies. 

The numbers were dismaying. 

Nearly a third of the plans  — 28 percent —did not mention children at all. Another third — 31 percent — mentioned children in only one area, such as education. And none mentioned children’s mental health. 

As Zangerl wrote in the article: “Children’s mental health is a crucial public health concern that requires immediate action.”

Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, scored the highest in the report for its number of mentions of children in its plan. But Zangerl said that’s grading on a curve. 

“No country comprehensively addressed child health needs,” she said. “A few countries were better than others, but they weren’t really good.” 

“I’m not surprised,” said Tooba Akhtar, a PhD researcher at Trinity College Dublin, who was not involved in this study. She focuses on the development and well-being of children affected by climate change.  

Akhtar and two of her colleagues, Kristin Hadfield and Alina Paula Cosma, wrote a recent open letter to the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. They looked for evidence supporting programs that would help young children cope with the emotional toll of climate disasters, and found none. 

“Our hunch is that these programs do not actually exist,” Akhtar said. 

This is personal for Akhtar, who grew up in Pakistan. She was recently speaking to a friend working for a nonprofit there, documenting the aftermath of the devastating 2022 floods. Camps for displaced survivors have set up makeshift schools. 

“Who’s attending? Children who are already school-aged. Those under 6 are forgotten.” Akhtar said that simple programs for very young children, like shared book reading, could promote social-emotional skills and parent-child bonding, helping entire families cope with post-traumatic stress. But that’s rarely happening. “The father’s off managing the land that’s been destroyed, the mother is taking care of six other kids.”

Children’s needs, especially young children’s, are left out of climate planning, experts said, because of a lack of advocacy, a lack of funding, a lack of collaboration across government ministries, and a lack of data — conditions which all reinforce each other. 

“The child lobby is really lacking,” in international climate negotiations, Zangerl said. A 2023 report from Save the Children found only 2.4 percent of the money from big international climate funds went to projects that incorporated children’s needs. 

As a result, research into climate impacts on children isn’t well funded, and this, in turn, impacts decision-making. For example, in Europe where Zangerl lives, there’s an enormous amount of research on elderly people dying in heat waves. Far less is known about children’s morbidity, such as the way heat waves experienced in early childhood might not necessarily end a life, but could shorten a life. 

For Zangerl and Akhtar, there are two big arguments for countries to do better at planning for and meeting children’s needs in climate adaptation. 

One is that it’s practical and pragmatic. If we want a healthy, resilient adult population to cope with the worsening effects of climate change in 20 years, we need to invest in children today. And most of the world’s children —  more than 75 percent of all adolescents — happen to be located in low- and middle-income countries that are more susceptible to the impact of climate. 

Education and public health awareness are the most common way that children are being included in these national adaptation plans. This perspective tends to treat children more as a resource to be tapped for the benefit of society, than as a population with needs to be served. Children are being prepared for the green workforce. Or they’re helping disseminate health information.

“In many low- and middle-income countries, the child is the only one who receives formal education,” said Zangerl. “They then teach their wider family and community, and so the multiplier effect of teaching children is really high across the globe.” 

The other argument for including children in a country’s climate plans is different. It’s about fairness and children as a more vulnerable population. 

“Children are inheriting an over-warmed world, and they will live longer in it than previous generations,” said Akhtar, noting that children will be forced to bear the long-term consequences of decisions made before they were born. “Equipping them with the knowledge and skills to mitigate and adapt is essential to help them survive.” 

Zangerl said that when talking about children and climate policy, it’s tempting to keep focused on “risk and vulnerability and protection.” But what’s also important “is agency and empowerment” — having young people as part of the decision-making process on policies that will affect their survival. 

“We’re seeing lots of youth advisory boards and adolescents who are change agents or participating actively” in policymaking and activism, she said, noting that it’s possible to listen to even younger children if you are creative about how you do it.  For instance, she is currently working on a study with children from ages 3 to 6, where they are making art and taking photos to express how they are coping with changes to weather and nature. 

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of countries with climate adaptation plans that mention children.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The kids are not alright: Countries fail to include children in their climate plans on Jun 21, 2024.

According to a new global survey of 75,000 people — Peoples’ Climate Vote 2024 — 80 percent want their governments’ climate commitments to be stronger.

The poll, conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), GeoPoll and Oxford University, posed 15 questions via telephone to residents of 77 countries that represented 87 percent of the global population, reported AFP.

“The Peoples’ Climate Vote is loud and clear. Global citizens want their leaders to transcend their differences, to act now and to act boldly to fight the climate crisis,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, in a press release from UNDP. “The survey results – unprecedented in their coverage – reveal a level of consensus that is truly astonishing. We urge leaders and policymakers to take note, especially as countries develop their next round of climate action pledges – or ‘nationally determined contributions’ under the Paris Agreement. This is an issue that almost everyone, everywhere, can agree on.”

According to the survey, 89 percent of poorer countries were in favor of increasing efforts to curb global emissions, while 76 percent of wealthy G20 nations supported tougher climate action.

The numbers were a bit lower from the planet’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, with China at 73 percent and the United States at 66 percent backing more fervent measures to combat global heating.

“As world leaders decide on the next round of pledges under the Paris Agreement by 2025, these results are undeniable evidence that people everywhere support bold climate action. The Peoples’ Climate Vote has enlisted the voices of people everywhere – including amongst groups traditionally the most difficult to poll. For example, people in nine of the 77 countries surveyed had never before been polled on climate change. The next two years stand as one of the best chances we have as the international community to ensure that warming stays under 1.5°. We stand ready to support policymakers in stepping up their efforts as they develop their climate action plans through our Climate Promise initiative,” said Cassie Flynn, UNDP’s global director of climate change, in the press release.

Some of the highest numbers were in Brazil — where 85 percent were in favor of strengthening climate commitments — Iran with 88 percent and Italy with 93 percent.

Among five big emitters — Canada, France, Germany, Australia and the U.S. — women were more in support of stronger climate action by 10 to 17 percent.

The survey also showed a worldwide majority — 72 percent — in support of a fast fossil fuel phaseout, including in nations that are in the top 10 largest coal, oil and gas producers.

Just seven percent of those polled globally thought their government should not transition away from fossil fuels at all.

Climate change is definitely on the minds of people throughout the world. The poll found that 56 percent of people were thinking about it on a regular basis — daily or weekly — with 63 percent of those living in Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

More than half of those polled — 53 percent — also said they worried more about climate change this year than last year.

Worldwide, 69 percent indicated that their big life decisions, such as where to work or live, were impacted by the climate crisis. In LDCs the proportion was higher at 74 percent and lower in Northern and Western Europe at 52 percent and North America at 42 percent.

“A survey of this size was a huge scientific endeavour. While maintaining rigorous methodology, special efforts were also made to include people from marginalised groups in the poorest parts of the world. This is some of the very highest quality global data on public opinions on climate change available,” said Professor Stephen Fisher of University of Oxford’s Department of Sociology in the press release.

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The derailment of a freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio, last year was an environmental disaster.

A new analysis of pollution and precipitation data has found that snow and rain samples collected from the Midwest to Maine and North Carolina after the crash contained high levels of pollutants, including the extremely toxic vinyl chloride, released during a controlled burn to prevent a potential explosion, reported The Guardian.

In all, at least 16 states and southern Canada were affected over an area of 1.4 million square kilometers, AFP reported.

“On 3 February 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailment occurred in East Palestine, Ohio. The accident and subsequent fire resulted in the emissions of large amounts of hazardous compounds to the ambient atmosphere over many days,” the study said. “About 50 train cars were involved in the accident, of which 38 derailed and at least 11 cars were carrying a variety of hazardous materials… The cargo carried by the involved railroad cars included several volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including vinyl chloride, 2-butoxyethanol, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, etc.”

The precipitation samples were collected from 260 sites around the country as part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP).

Finding high levels of toxic pollutants across such a large area was “very surprising” to the researchers, who had expected to find evidence of the fires from the crash 50 miles away, said lead author of the study David Gay, a researcher at University of Wisconsin and coordinator of NADP, as reported by The Guardian.

“We saw the chemical signal from this fire at a lot of sites and far away,” Gay said. “There was more than we ever would have guessed.”

The smell of chemicals lingered in the town of approximately 4,700 for weeks after the derailment.

Gay said fires burning so long after the crash, as well as the vinyl chloride being so hot and concentrated — which resulted in a tall plume reaching into the strong winds of the planet’s free troposphere — caused the extensive spread of chemical pollution.

“Our measurements not only show the expected high chloride concentrations, but also the vast geographical area they covered,” Gay said, as AFP reported. “However, even more surprising are the unexpectedly high pH levels (more basic) and exceptionally elevated alkali and alkaline earth metals, exceeding the 99th percentiles of the last ten years of measurements. All of these pollutants are important in the environment because their accumulation has an impact on the Earth’s aquatic and terrestrial environments in many ways.”

Gay pointed out that the “exceptionally high” pH levels were found as far afield of the crash as northern Maine, reported The Guardian. Gay said the cargo on the train — including cotton balls, semolina and frozen vegetables — probably contributed to elevated pH levels because large volumes of potassium, calcium and magnesium were released. Firefighting foam used at the site could also have contributed calcium to the high pH.

During the burn a low pressure system moved in across the region, pushing the pollution through Michigan and into Wisconsin. Gay said it was likely that all of the Great Lakes other than Lake Superior were affected.

Chemical pollution levels were elevated for two weeks after the fires, then dropped off the third week.

Gay said this was “further evidence that it’s from the train wreck,” The Guardian reported.

“This study demonstrates the important role of a nationwide network for routine precipitation monitoring,” Gay emphasized, as reported by AFP. “Our observations allowed us to determine the regional atmospheric impact from the accident and subsequent response activities.”

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has changed the listing for the Iberian lynx species, or Lynx pardinus, from Endangered to Vulnerable in the organization’s Red List, a list detailing the extinction risk of species around the world.

Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, coordinator of the LIFE Lynx-Connect project that led conservation efforts for the species, described the population rebound as “The greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation” in a statement by IUCN.

The change listing follows more than 20 years of recovery efforts to save the Iberian lynx, which had only 62 mature individuals by 2001, CBS News reported. The species was threatened by human activity and habitat loss along with declines in its prey, European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). By 2005, the Iberian lynx habitat spanned just 449 square kilometers.

In response, conservationists worked to improve the species’ habitat, including restoring Mediterranean scrub and forest areas, minimizing deaths of the cats from human activities and boosting European rabbit populations in the lynx’s range. Conservationists worked with local communities to reduce lynx deaths from traffic collisions and poaching, CBS News reported.

According to IUCN, scientists also used breeding programs and translocations to improve genetic diversity within the species. More than 400 Iberian lynx have been reintroduced in Portugal and Spain as part of these efforts.

“There is still a lot of work to do to ensure that Iberian lynx populations survive and the species recovers throughout its indigenous range,” Ortiz said. “Looking ahead, there are plans to reintroduce the Iberian lynx to new sites in central and northern Spain.”

In 2022, there were 648 mature Iberian lynx. Today, IUCN estimated that there are more than 2,000 mature individuals, spanning a habitat range of around 3,320 square kilometers.

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“The significant recovery of the Iberian lynx demonstrates that even the most threatened species can be brought back from the brink of extinction through committed, science-based conservation action and provides hope for those working to protect wildlife across the globe,” Sarah Durant, professor at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, said in a press release.

While IUCN has changed the status of the Iberian lynx from Endangered to Vulnerable, it also describes the species as Largely Depleted, which means the species will require ongoing conservation actions and protections.

In 2013, a study warned that the Iberian lynx could become extinct in the wild by the 2060s. Now, IUCN said that the species could fully recover in the next 100 years with continued actions toward conservation.

IUCN will publish a comprehensive Red List update for this year on June 27.

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