Virgin Atlantic has made the first transatlantic flight of a commercial passenger jet powered entirely by “sustainable” fuel.
Flight100 took off from London Heathrow and made its way across the Atlantic to New York’s JFK airport on a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mixture of mostly “waste fats,” as well as plant sugars, oil, proteins and fibers, a press release from Virgin Atlantic said.
“Flight100 proves that Sustainable Aviation Fuel can be used as a safe, drop-in replacement for fossil-derived jet fuel and it’s the only viable solution for decarbonising long haul aviation. It’s taken radical collaboration to get here and we’re proud to have reached this important milestone, but we need to push further,” said Shai Weiss, chief executive officer of Virgin Atlantic, in the press release.
Currently, fuel standards allow commercial jet engines to use a blend containing as much as half SAF. SAF can produce up to 70 percent fewer lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions as traditional jet fuel.
“There’s simply not enough SAF and it’s clear that in order to reach production at scale, we need to see significantly more investment,” Weiss said. “This will only happen when regulatory certainty and price support mechanisms, backed by Government, are in place.”
One of the benefits of SAF over other potential alternative fuels is that it’s currently available, though its volume is less than 0.1 percent of the total amount of jet fuel worldwide.
“While other technologies such as electric and hydrogen remain decades away, SAF can be used now,” the press release said. “Flight100 will prove that the challenge of scaling up production is one of policy and investment.”
The Virgin Atlantic flight was made in a Boeing 787 powered by Rolls-Royce engines.
“We are incredibly proud that our Trent 1000 engines are powering the first ever widebody flight using 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel across the Atlantic today,” said Simon Burr, group director of engineering, technology and safety at Rolls-Royce, in the press release. “Rolls-Royce has recently completed compatibility testing of 100% SAF on all our in-production civil aero engine types and this is further proof that there are no engine technology barriers to the use of 100% SAF. The flight represents a major milestone for the entire aviation industry in its journey towards net zero carbon emissions.”
Five commercial SAF production plants are slated to begin construction in the UK by 2025, reported The Guardian. The fuel used for Flight100 was imported from the European Union and the United States.
“This flight is a key step toward our commitment to deliver 100% SAF-compatible airplanes by 2030,” said Sheila Remes, Boeing’s vice president of environmental sustainability, in the press release.
An announcement by the UK’s Department for Transport that SAFs would “make guilt-free flying a reality” was seen as misleading by campaigners.
“The idea that this flight somehow gets us closer to guilt-free flying is a joke,” said Cait Hewitt, Aviation Environment Federation policy director, adding that it would be extremely difficult to scale up SAF production sustainably, as The Guardian reported.
“Hopefully, we’ll have better technological solutions in future but, for now, the only way to cut CO2 from aviation is to fly less,” Hewitt said.
The non-carbon emissions of Virgin Atlantic’s SAF flight will be assessed in order to improve the scientific knowledge of the effects of alternative fuels on particulates and contrails, as well as to assist in the implementation of contrail forecasts in planning flights, the press release said.
Last week, the International Civil Aviation Organization agreed to a goal of lowering jet fuel’s carbon intensity by five percent by 2030, reported The Guardian.
But to negotiators at these U.N. summits, words matter quite a bit. In 2007, negotiators at COP13 in Bali famously debated a single comma late into the night. In 2015, the United States’ objection to the word “shall” nearly derailed the Paris Agreement, a landmark climate treaty in which countries agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s because minor language tweaks can add up to major policy implications by either strengthening or weakening countries’ obligations. Some words, like “shall,” even carry special legal status, compelling countries to follow through on their pledges. Former negotiators gave Grist an overview of how and when language matters — or sometimes doesn’t — during climate negotiations.
At climate conferences, countries often use certain words to soften language on tricky topics, such as financing for damages caused by climate change, to reach agreement. “The issue is that we have to reach a consensus,” said Ian Fry, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and climate change and a former negotiator for Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. That means all 198 countries need to agree on the annual U.N. climate conference’s final decision — a document that describes the actions countries will take to address climate change. “Usually there are specific words that are used as some sort of compromise to gain the consensus required.”
Fry calls these phrases “slippery words.” One example is “as appropriate” or “if appropriate,” he said. If, say, a decision called for wealthy countries to provide climate adaptation funding to developing countries, rich nations might push to tack on “as appropriate” at the end — a qualifier that Fry says gives donor countries much more discretion and agency. “It turns a general obligation into one that’s determined by the party who’s providing the funds,” he said.
Another example is the word “consider.” Rather than committing to an action, countries might choose to say they will “consider” a given measure, Fry said. He describes this “slippery word” as a kind of delay mechanism — deciding to “consider” something, rather than deciding something outright, means “there’s no conclusion on this issue and we’ll think about it further.”
Viewed in a positive light, minute language tweaks are a creative way to reach a deal among countries with vastly different priorities. Susan Biniaz, who has served as a lead U.S. climate negotiator for more than three decades, wrote in 2016 that while countries sometimes need to compromise on major issues, “Lesser known are the smaller, largely language-based tools negotiators have used to resolve differences, sometimes finding a solution as subtle as a shift in the placement of a comma.” Biniaz cataloged nearly 30 pages of real-life examples of these “language-based tools,” including adding footnotes, using the passive voice (for example, writing “support shall be provided” rather specifying where that support will come from), and using certain verbs to avoid creating legal commitments.
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with delegates at COP21 in Le Bourget, north of Paris, in December 2015. Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images
Under international law, some verbs are “legally binding,” meaning parties are strictly obligated to follow through on those commitments. Most verbs used in U.N. climate talks, like “will” and “should,” are not legally binding — but a few, like “shall,” are. In 2015, one of the final drafts of the Paris Agreement stated that wealthy countries like the U.S. “shall” set economy-wide targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. That could have forced the U.S. to send the treaty back to a Republican-majority Senate for approval, causing negotiators to scramble to change it to a “should” at the last minute. “When I looked at that, I said, ‘We cannot do this and we will not do this,’” then-Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the time. The U.S. delegation claimed that “shall” had been mistakenly swapped in at the last minute; Paris convention leaders eventually categorized it as a typo.
“These are the games that are played by countries to minimize their obligations,” Fry said of the incident in Paris, where he represented the delegation of Tuvalu.
At other times, word choice doesn’t mean much at all, said Kaveh Guilanpour, a former climate negotiator for the European Union, United Kingdom, and the Alliance of Small Island States. Among verbs that are not legally binding, there’s little difference in how politically meaningful they are. For example, an agreement might “urge” countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — or “encourage,” “request,” or “invite.” Unlike “shall,” none of these words strictly commit countries to take action. They might even be randomly chosen — during negotiations, “Words are plucked out at the last moment just to find the way forward,” Guilanpour said.
Get caught up on COP28
What is COP28? Every year, climate negotiators from around the world gather under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assess countries’ progress toward reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rise.
The 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP28, is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between November 30 and December 12 this year.
What happens at COP? Part trade show, part high-stakes negotiations, COPs are annual convenings where world leaders attempt to move the needle on climate change.
While activists up the ante with disruptive protests and industry leaders hash out deals on the sidelines, the most consequential outcomes of the conference will largely be negotiated behind closed doors. Over two weeks, delegates will pore over language describing countries’ commitments to reduce carbon emissions, jostling over the precise wording that all 194 countries can agree to.
What are the key issues at COP28 this year?
Global stocktake: The 2016 landmark Paris Agreement marked the first time countries united behind a goal to limit global temperature increase. The international treaty consists of 29 articles with numerous targets, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing financial flows to developing countries, and setting up a carbon market. For the first time since then, countries will conduct a “global stocktake” to measure how much progress they’ve made toward those goals at COP28 and where they’re lagging.
Fossil fuel phaseout or phasedown: Countries have agreed to reduce carbon emissions at previous COPs, but have not explicitly acknowledged the role of fossil fuels in causing the climate crisis until recently. This year, negotiators will be haggling over the exact phrasing that signals that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels. They may decide that countries need to phase down or phase out fossil fuels or come up with entirely new wording that conveys the need to ramp down fossil fuel use.
Loss and damage: Last year, countries agreed to set up a historic fund to help developing nations deal with the so-called loss and damage that they are currently facing as a result of climate change. At COP28, countries will agree on a number of nitty-gritty details about the fund’s operations, including which country will host the fund, who will pay into it and withdraw from it, as well as the makeup of the fund’s board.
What’s far more important is the substance of the decision itself, he said. In 2021 at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, for example, world leaders explicitly referenced fossil fuels — the primary cause of climate change — for the first time. Diplomats agreed to pursue a “phasedown of unabated coal power” and a “phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” in the final decision of that conference. Last year at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, diplomats largely repeated the same commitment.
That’s a big deal, Guilanpour said. The 2015 Paris Agreement, for example, doesn’t mention “fossil fuels,” “coal,” “oil,” or “gas” at all. Guilanpour said it’s a sign that climate negotiations are gradually beginning to target specific sectors like the oil and gas industry. Those signals, he said, make it clear “to the world and to certain markets that this transition is happening” — and that businesses need to prepare.
Fry noted that a similar cascading effect happened after COP25 in Madrid, where leaders formally connected climate change to ocean conservation for the first time. “That has driven a whole lot of work by various U.N. agencies, NGOs, etc., to develop work around the connection between oceans and climate change,” he said.
COP28 in Dubai, which begins this week, will likely continue highlighting the need to move away from fossil fuels. But as in the last two years, diplomats could end up wrangling over which words they should use to describe that transition. At COP26 and COP27, small island nations called for a “phaseout” of coal, which refers to a complete displacement of coal with renewables. But oil-exporting countries like Saudi Arabia and coal-reliant economies like India successfully pushed for a “phasedown” instead, which would significantly reduce coal use but stop short of eliminating it entirely. Some countries also tried to limit the use of all fossil fuels, not just coal — a debate that will likely arise again at this year’s negotiations.
Delegates from Timor-Leste listen to speeches at the COP27 in November 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Peter Dejong / AP Photo
Fry said the subtle change to “phasedown” rather than a “phaseout” ultimately weakened countries’ climate commitments. “There’s quite a significant difference between saying fossil fuels are going to end and saying fossil fuels will continue into the future,” he said. “It sends a weakened signal to businesses and other countries.” A group of 21 countries called the High Ambition Coalition have advocated for a “phaseout of fossil fuels” in a statement ahead of this week’s conference.
Another point of contention is the word “unabated.” Wealthy nations including the U.S. and the European Union have called for a “phaseout of unabated fossil fuels.” The High Ambition Coalition, which includes Barbados, Finland, and the Marshall Islands, has said that wording would leave the door open for “abated” coal, oil, and gas projects — those that use carbon capture technology. Those countries have argued that “abatement technologies” cannot be used to “green-light fossil fuel expansion.” In September, the International Energy Agency characterized carbon capture as “expensive and unproven at scale.”
A U.S. State Department official told reporters in November that whether it’s “phasedown,” “phaseout,” or different wording altogether, this year’s decision will likely include some reference to the transition away from fossil fuels. Guilanpour added that regardless of what negotiators settle on in Dubai, it’s what happens after everyone goes home — and begins the work of actually implementing those commitments — that counts.
“It isn’t just about the nuances of the language, but also following through,” he said.
At the height of the Great Depression, when home foreclosures in the United States soared to 1,000 per day, the federal government adopted programs to keep people in their homes and make mortgages more affordable — just not for everybody. To determine who would get assistance, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, created as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, mapped out cities across the country in the 1930s. Appraisers ranked neighborhoods all over the country on a scale from Grade A to Grade D, drawing green lines around the neighborhoods deemed most desirable and red lines around the “hazardous” ones — essentially a code word for where ethnic minorities and especially Black people lived.
Even though “redlining” was banned in 1968, its legacy is still creating problems today, since urban planners saddled these neighborhoods with polluting industrial plants, airports, and highways. Historically redlined neighborhoods have fewer trees than richer neighborhoods and suffer more from air pollution and extreme heat. And according to a recent study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, they are also subject to more noise pollution, often at volumes that pose risks to human health.
Researchers at Colorado State University, along with experts in New Mexico, New Hampshire, and the United Kingdom, analyzed how exposure to transportation noise aligned with maps of historically redlined neighborhoods, looking at the consequences for human health and urban wildlife. They found that the maximum noise levels in neighborhoods coded as Grade D by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation back in the 1930s were 10 times higher than in Grade A neighborhoods, in terms of sound intensity.
While you might expect that the more crowded the city, the louder it would be, the research found that redlining grades predicted noise levels from traffic, trains, and planes even better than population size did. “What was striking to me was how clear those patterns were,” said Sara Bombaci, an author of the study and a professor of conservation biology at Colorado State University. Previous studies have found that noise pollution is worse in Black neighborhoods and in segregated cities as a whole, but the new analysis is the first to look at redlining specifically.
The Environmental Protection Agency recommends that noise levels stay below 70 decibels in order to avoid hearing loss. Nearly all redlined neighborhoods across 83 cities had maximum noise levels above that threshold, according to the study, as did most Grade A through C neighborhoods. Several redlined areas had maximum noise levels above 90 decibels, roughly as loud as a blender or power tools — a threshold that’s associated with hearing damage, higher stress levels, and physical pain. Only a handful of Grade A neighborhoods were exposed to that level of sound.
Not all noise is bad for your health — the sound of crickets, for instance, can reach up to 100 decibels, yet people still fall asleep to it. What stresses people out is “unwanted sound,” according to Erica Walker, an epidemiology professor at Brown University. Unexpected noises can disrupt your sleep and your mood and even trigger a fight-or-flight reaction. “This stress response is the same stress response that you would have if you’re walking down a dark alleyway and out jumps a man with a knife,” Walker said. Confronted with an irritating noise, your body releases stress hormones that put you at greater risk for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and mental health problems.
“Noise today is an artifact of poor urban planning policies,” Walker said, pointing to how governments built major highways right through longstanding Black communities.
According to data provided to Grist, the cities where redlined neighborhoods had the worst noise levels are Miami; New York; Austin, Texas; Chicago; San Francisco; and Denver, in that order. Some of those cities are just loud in general: In Miami and Chicago, even Grade A neighborhoods were subject to maximum noise levels above 95 decibels, Bombaci said.
Columbus, Georgia, had the quietest redlined neighborhoods, followed by Davenport, Iowa, and Jackson, Mississippi.
A freight train roars by homes outside of Los Angeles, March 28, 2002.
Don Tormey / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The researchers used data from the Department of Transportation that only considered noise from traffic, rail, and aviation. If noise from industry and construction were included, Bombaci suspects that the separation between Grade A and Grade D neighborhoods would be even more distinct.
Noise is often viewed as a first-world problem, Walker said, or simply a sacrifice of living near where things are happening. But there are plenty of ways that cities can reduce noise pollution, including lowering speed limits on roads and using quieter types of pavement to decrease friction with tires. Some cities, like Washington, D.C, have banned gas-powered leaf blowers, silencing their 80-decibel drone. The New York City Council is considering bills to minimize the blare of sirens on emergency vehicles.
But it’s not easy to move a highway or airport. “Once we go back and look at how urban planning and policies contributed to this, then we need to do justice,” Walker said. “And then we need to make sure that going forward, that we aren’t implementing policies and procedures without considering noise.”
More than 70,000 delegates from around the world are gathering at the U.N. climate talks in Dubai this week to negotiate (ostensibly) how to tackle the climate crisis. Many of the important conversations at COP28 will revolve around “loss and damage,” rules for “carbon markets,” and whether to “phasedown” or “phaseout” fossil fuels. Not exactly kitchen-table topics.
“There will be a fair amount of gobbledygook coming out of COP28,” said John Marshall, the CEO of Potential Energy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit marketing firm.
A lot of that jargon is bound to go over people’s heads, but a new survey, the largest of its kind, shows that people around the world want their governments to take action. Some 78 percent of those polled agree that it’s essential to do “whatever it takes” to limit the effects of climate change, according to the survey released on Thursday by Potential Energy, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and other organizations. The research also gauged what messages resonated with people the most. The best one? “Later is too late.”
That fits with the reason people want action: to protect the planet for the next generation. What the report called “generational messaging” was 12 times more effective than other options, such as increasing job opportunities or reducing social inequality. “The thing that moves people the most is putting right in front of them the things that they care about and showing them that those things are at risk,” Marshall said. “It was the leading message in every segment in every country and every age group and every political persuasion.”
According to Marshall, who has 35 years of experience in corporate marketing, keeping the message simple, straightforward, and jargon-free is best. The phrase “later is too late” increased people’s support for immediate action on climate change by an average of 11 percent in randomized controlled trials. It had nearly double the effect of a message about making polluters pay, the runner-up.
While people around the world are united in supporting government action on climate change, some of that support evaporated when it came to specific policies. They were most enthusiastic about clean energy instead of coal and subsidies for renewable energy companies, and least enthusiastic for phasing out fossil fuels and ending subsidies for polluters. Messages that used the words “mandate,” “ban,” or “phaseout” generated 9 percentage points less support, on average, than those that didn’t. For example, only 54 percent were in favor of “banning” gas appliances in buildings, but 74 approved of requiring “better technologies” and “smart upgrades” in all new construction. That could be bad news for popular climate catchphrases like “keep it in the ground.”
“I think the data is saying we need to lean in to the messages that get us the wins, as opposed to the messages that make us feel good about ourselves,” Marshall said. Talking about upgrading appliances and heating and cooling systems and setting clean energy goals increased people’s support for climate policies. The only kind of limitation people liked was reducing pollution. For that reason, Marshall said, it’s important to stress that burning fossil fuels causes pollution that’s overheating the planet.
Among the 23 countries surveyed, the United States had the lowest support for climate policies — but still, nearly 60 percent supported action. Germany, Japan, Australia, Norway, and Saudi Arabia also had relatively low levels of support, suggesting that political polarization and fossil fuel production might have something to do with it. The United States had the biggest difference between liberals and conservatives, with almost a 50 percent gap in policy support. Republicans had the lowest support for climate policies in the world, followed by Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland Party, or AfD. (Just as Republicans once claimed that a Green New Deal would eliminate hamburgers, AfD politicians have warned that elites are trying to take away schnitzel.)
Activists protest the Obama administration’s plans to allow new fossil fuel drilling on public lands and oceans during a demonstration in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., in 2015. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
On the other end of the spectrum, Chile, Kenya, Argentina, Colombia, and Indonesia all had strong support for action, with more than 70 percent of people in each country approving the climate policies tested.
In every country, people largely blame the government and businesses for climate change, not individuals, the report found. Only 26 percent of people worldwide said that individuals should be most responsible for tackling the problem.
People often underestimate the popularity of climate action, and Marshall said that it’s a mistake for politicians to shy away from talking about climate change directly. He thinks there’s “too much cleverness going on” when it comes to how to talk about the problem. “It’s the largest crisis that humanity has ever faced, and we feel the need to go in the side door,” he said. “I hope this data helps people not chicken out — like, just go through the front door. It’s not that hard.”
Big meat companies and lobbyists for the industry have plans to be out in full force at the COP28 climate conference, bringing with them a message of meat as “sustainable nutrition,” documents from the Global Meat Alliance (GMA) reveal, according to a press release from DeSmog.
The GMA documents disclose that JBS, the biggest meat company in the world, will be joined by other major industry members like the North American Meat Institute and the Global Dairy Platform to push their pro-meat message at the climate summit in Dubai.
“These companies are stepping up their game because the exposure they are facing is stepping up,” said Jennifer Jacquet, a University of Miami environmental science and policy professor, in the press release. “It used to be that they were caught on the back foot, but now they’re completely prepared.”
Farming will be a big feature at COP28, with a “food and agriculture” agenda pressing governments to work with industry to come up with solutions to food insecurity exacerbated by climate change, the press release said.
GMA members are urged to promote the idea that meat will help “feed the world” and that it is good for the environment.
It has been estimated that the planet’s three largest meat companies produce more emissions than the BP and Shell oil companies, and that the 3.4 percent of emissions that come from the dairy industry is more than that of aviation.
According to DeSmog, trade groups will also “push” for “positive livestock content” by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) at the climate conference. Recently, industry pressure resulted in censorship of reports by FAO on the contribution of livestock to greenhouse gas emissions.
“Any credible action to reduce emissions in the food sector will inevitably lead to a reduction in the total volume of meat and dairy products produced,” said Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the nonprofit Changing Markets Foundation, as reported by The Guardian. “The industry is terrified of that and has been deploying multiple tactics to delay the inevitable.”
Raising animals for human consumption is the world’s biggest source of methane emissions. Agricultural emissions are putting the planet at risk of permanently breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius planetary temperature threshold that would lead to catastrophic climate-related disasters like rising ocean temperatures, the melting of Arctic sea ice, drought, wildfires, extreme weather, flooding and coastal erosion.
“It is hard to understand why decision-makers would allow companies like JBS to have a seat at the table at climate negotiations,” Urbancic said in the press release. “They are simply not credible partners in these crucial talks, especially now when the time for action is rapidly running out.”
According to Urbancic, big meat producers are mimicking the oil industry’s strategies of using voluntary pledges to delay action on climate, all the while promoting science funded by the meat industry.
The GMA documents also revealed that the meat and dairy industry plans to collaborate with governments and major meat-producing countries to advance their agenda in Dubai.
Government support of animal agriculture is believed by some academics to be a significant factor in the industry continuing to have power over meat and dairy alternatives, the press release said.
For instance, a study from earlier this year found United States meat and dairy farmers received 800 times the public funding of novel alternative sources of protein, and in the European Union it was 400 times higher than that.
Brazil, Australia and the U.S. are the three biggest exporters of beef worldwide, with their respective governments holding a considerable economic interest in the industry’s growth.
“Typically, the talk is about demand side interventions, like you can get schools [or] individuals to give up meat,” Jacquet said in the press release. “But I’m a little worried that some of this [meat] production is so baked into subsidies and policy, that even with decreased demand, this apparatus will just keep flowing. We need the animal agriculture equivalent of ‘keep it in the ground’ for fossil fuels. It’s really about production at the end of the day.”
Ozawa Bineshi Albert wants the world to stop relying on fossil fuels. So last year, the co-executive director of Climate Justice Alliance flew from the U.S. to Egypt to make her voice heard at COP27, the international conference on climate change where world leaders gather to negotiate new commitments to battle the climate crisis.
But at COP27, Albert, who is Anishinaabe and Yuchi, noticed that Indigenous peoples like herself were outnumbered by fossil fuel lobbyists. She was also struck by how many people touted nuclear energy as an alternative to burning oil and gas.
“Nuclear is one of the most dirty, damaging energy sources, particularly for Indigenous people,” she thought. “It touches Indigenous communities all along its lifecycle from where it gets mined, to where it gets processed, to where nuclear power plants are placed, to where nuclear waste gets stored.”
That observation was just one indication of how the perspectives, and experiences, of Indigenous peoples aren’t always reflected in the broader environmental movement. As COP28 kicks off in the United Arab Emirates this week, hundreds of Indigenous advocates are making their way to Dubai with the hope of ensuring that their communities aren’t overlooked by global leaders.
Though the conference doesn’t officially begin until Thursday, the work has already started. Jennifer Tauli Corpuz is Kankanaey-Igorot from the Philippines and is managing director of policy at Nia Tero. She spent eight hours Tuesday in an auditorium with about 350 fellow members of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, a delegation representing Native peoples, working on the details of a two-minute opening statement that the Caucus will be allowed to give during COP28’s opening ceremony. Corpuz says it’s not easy to distill everyone’s perspectives and issues into such a short statement and the work required interpreters in five languages.
Apart from ending fossil fuel reliance, Indigenous advocates at COP28 want to ensure that funding to offset the impacts of climate change reaches their communities; ensure Indigenous knowledge is seen as a solution to climate change; and prevent governments and private actors from violating their rights, especially as those actors pursue green energy projects.
Corpuz said the caucus plans to approve advocacy papers outlining their positions Wednesday. Then comes the work of convincing negotiators to listen. But it’s not easy.
The estimated 350 Indigenous peoples at COP28 is an attendance record for Native advocates, but it’s still far fewer than the 600 fossil fuel lobbyists who attended COP27 last year. As well, the most important work at the conference, negotiating the exact language of international climate change treaties, gets done behind closed doors among designated representatives from United Nations member countries.
Corpuz estimates that perhaps 20 of the 350 Indigenous people at COP28 this week have government badges that allow them access to negotiations. But even then, because they aren’t credentialed delegates representing a negotiating party, they are only able to watch and listen, not speak, she said.
Still, it’s an improvement over past years when Indigenous peoples’ representatives were locked out from even more rooms, said Corpuz. At least now Indigenous representatives will be able to hear the details of the negotiations, the perspectives of international representatives, and carry the information back for advocates to lobby government delegates. “A lot of the work of the Indigenous Caucus happens in the hallways,” Corpuz said.
A key question that’s expected to be decided this year is how much money wealthy nations like the U.S. should pay in order to cover the costs of climate disasters in the Global South, an initiative known as the loss and damage fund. One study estimates that nations in the Global North are responsible for 92% of excess carbon emissions each year, compared with 8% in the Global South.
“What’s at stake is how these finance mechanisms are going to impact and be accessible to Indigenous communities and other impacted communities, how they will be funded, and to what levels will they be funded,” Albert said. “And will those resources actually get to communities and not be taken up by agencies that will administer them?”
Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Canada and executive director of Indigenous Climate Action, thinks that it makes sense that wealthy countries would be paying for climate impacts, but Deranger also wants the money to be available to Indigenous people no matter what country they live in due to already extreme climate impacts, many of which are exacerbated by colonization and land theft.
“If Canada, for example, or the U.S. is contributing to the loss and damage fund and we don’t have access to it as Indigenous people in North America or in the Global North, where are we going to see those kind of climate reparations and restitution for the damages that we are facing from the climate crisis?” Deranger asked.
But money is only part of the equation, said Kandi White, a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations in the U.S. and program director at the Indigenous Environmental Network, which sent a 25-member delegation to Dubai. “For Indigenous peoples, it’s not just about the money, but it’s also about the return of our sovereignty over our lands,” said White.
Both Deranger and White, who are in Dubai this week, also hope to establish a grievance procedure through which Indigenous peoples whose rights are infringed upon could hold governments accountable. “We need there to not just be lip service of, ‘We recognize Indigenous rights,’ but we need to see language that has teeth,” Deranger said.
But securing that level of accountability may be an uphill battle. Even when world leaders make promises, they don’t always fulfill them: wealthy countries blew a 2020 deadline to spend $100 billion a year to help poorer nations cope with climate impacts and make progress toward decarbonization. One study suggested that goal may have been met last year, two years late, even as the world hurtles toward 3 degrees of warming.
The combined challenges—a lack of access to negotiating tables and tepid commitments by global leaders—have fueled disillusionment. Moñeka De Oro, who is Chamorro from the Mariana Islands and co-executive director of the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, says that last year at COP some Indigenous Caucus members discussed boycotting the convention, “no longer being a part of these processes that continuously degrade our input,” she said.
“If you’re going to continue to continuously be ignored and continuously be just erased from the entire process, I don’t know how much longer we want to be complicit in attending these sorts of things,” she said.
The power imbalances can be discouraging but Ozawa Bineshi Albert still feels determined.
“COP is not a place that we go to thinking we’re going to get everything we want,” she said. To her, the overarching question is: “How can we make sure that we at least hold the line and make sure the least amount of damage and the least amount of harm is caused to frontline and Indigenous communities?”
Editor’s note: Nia Tero is a funding partner with Grist. Funding partners have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
The year 2023 is already expected to be the hottest on record, following a record-hot summer. But despite this, the U.S. is expected to reach record numbers in fossil fuel production for the year.
Liquified natural gas exports from North America are expected to double through 2027, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently reported. Most of the liquified natural gas projects under construction in North America are in the U.S., particularly concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico, where a major oil spill with over 1 million barrels of crude oil was recently discovered.
The latest short-term energy outlook from EIA forecasted that for 2023, crude oil production in the U.S. will reach 12.9 million barrels per day, up from 11.27 million barrels per day in 2021 and 11.91 million barrels per day in 2022. Further, the administration estimated that in 2024, U.S. crude oil production will reach 13.15 million barrels daily.
Overall, U.S. officials predict that oil and gas production will likely continue reaching near-record levels year after year to 2050, The Guardian reported.
“It’s particularly alarming to see the projections of record U.S. oil and gas production year after year until 2050,” Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at Stockholm Environment Institute, told The Guardian. “The U.S. is locking in production for years that makes it hard to meet climate goals. It’s out of sync and it needs reckoning.”
Globally, countries are slated to be producing 110% more fossil fuels by 2030, despite many countries having pledges to reach net-zero emissions, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report found.
The U.S., which has targeted net-zero emissions by 2050 and is expected to see declines in coal production by 2030, is the top producer of oil and gas in the world, according to the Production Gap Report.
While fossil fuel production is increasing in the U.S., EIA expects gasoline consumption in the U.S. to decline in 2024, but only by 1%. Still, EIA said that if gas consumption declines 1% next year, it will be the lowest gasoline consumption per capita in 20 years. The administration noted that remote work, improving fuel efficiency in vehicles, higher gas prices and high inflation could contribute to this decline in consumption.
U.S. emissions are expected to decline about 3% for 2023, from around 4,939 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2022 to 4,786 million metric tons in 2023, EIA reported.
“We expect slightly less emissions this winter than in recent winters,” EIA shared in a report. “Less-than-average winter emissions are the result of several factors, including higher-than-average temperatures, improvements in energy efficiency, and decreases in the carbon intensity of electricity and space heating.”
U.S. carbon emissions are expected to fall by 1% in 2024. But the decline in emissions is not happening quickly enough to reach the country’s net-zero targets by 2050, The Guardian reported.
A recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that globally, countries are “severely off track” to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Global emissions need to decline by 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels.
The global population is growing by 1% every year, and is projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050. Vertical farming could provide a solution to cultivating enough food.
Vertical farms can be built in many unconventional indoor spaces, including warehouses, skyscrapers, shipping containers, old industrial buildings and factories.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) regulates temperature, humidity, lighting, water, nutrition and even carbon dioxide to create a perfect indoor microclimate for growing.
Most vertical farms use hydroponic, aquaponic or aeroponic growing methods.
Vertical farms use 95% less water and 99% less land than traditional farmland to create the same amount of food.
Without pests or weeds threatening the success of crops, vertical farms are often 100% organic, using no pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers.
High value, fast-growing crops like herbs, leafy greens, tomatoes and strawberries are among the most common crops grown on vertical farms.
High energy usage, limited crop variety and the highly technical nature of vertical farming are some of the drawbacks of this method.
What Is Vertical Farming?
What if you could walk into your grocery store in February to buy fresh tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, and leafy greens — all fresh and locally grown in the middle of winter? With vertical farming on the rise, that might just become a reality.
The vertical farm Innovatus uses data-driven lettuce cultivation and tailor-made LED light recipes in Fuji City, Japan on Sept. 24, 2019. Jonas Gratzer / LightRocket via Getty Images
Vertical farming is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a horticultural method of farming on vertical surfaces rather than horizontal ones. Vertical farms can be built in many indoor spaces, including warehouses, skyscrapers, shipping containers, old industrial buildings and factories. This highly precise method of farming utilizes LED lighting and smart growing systems to control factors like temperature, light, humidity, water, etc. in an enclosed space. It often employs other methods of farming as well, like hydroponics or concepts from other large-scale controlled agriculture operations.
History of Vertical Farming
Vertical farming as we know it is relatively new, but the concept itself is ancient. The Babylonian Hanging Gardens were built 2,500 years ago and remain one of the earliest examples of an advanced agricultural system that maximized space by growing upwards. The gardens were erected on vaulted terraces and likely were irrigated by a system of buckets and pullets that delivered water from the Euphrates River to a pool at the top. The Aztecs also used vertical farming practices with chinampas: an agricultural system of growing plants on floating, marshy rafts suspended in lakes and rivers. The ground was too swampy for growing crops, so they covered these rafts with soil, and let the roots of the plants grow through the bottom of the rafts into the water. In the 1600s, French and Dutch farms grew fruits against cold stone walls. Even though the Northern European climate was too cold to grow most fruits, the stone captured the day’s heat and released it during the night.
Flash forward to 1999. In a class led by Dr. Dickson Despommier at Columbia University, the modern vertical farm was conceptualized when the class sought solutions to feeding New York City using rooftop farming. In 2009, the first vertical farm was built in Singapore — Sky Greens farm had 100 towers to grow produce, each at 9 meters tall.
The Sky Greens Vertical Farming System in Singapore. Sky Greens
How Does Vertical Farming Work?
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)
Vertical farms differ from conventional agriculture mainly in that crops are grown in highly regulated environments: a concept called Controlled Environmental Agriculture. This type of agriculture is defined by its controlled approach to growing plants by manipulating the indoor environment to provide optimal growing conditions for specific plants. Temperature, humidity, lighting, water, nutrition and even carbon dioxide are customized and monitored. CEA essentially creates a perfect microclimate for growing — similar to a greenhouse environment, but much more exact. This method of farming has a lot of benefits — without the threat of flood, drought or other adverse and unpredictable environmental conditions, it allows for faster harvest cycles and predictable yields. It can also provide plants with the exact levels of nutrition, water and sunlight they need, wasting no resources in the process.
System Structures of Vertical Farming
In these controlled environments, advanced farming technologies also used outside of vertical farms are employed to cultivate plants.Hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic systems are the most commonly used system structures on vertical farms.
In hydroponic farming, plants are grown in a nutrient-rich aqueous solution. It’s the most popular method of vertical farming for its efficiency and versatility, and the initial technology costs are lower than most other systems. This method isolates the nutrients and minerals in soil that are beneficial to plants and adds them directly to the water, eliminating the need for soil entirely. Hydroponics usually employs a soilless growing media to support a plant’s roots while it grows — usually something like coconut coir, vermiculite, perlite, peat moss or rockwool.
The Growing Underground GU1 vertical subterranean farm uses hydroponic technology and LED lighting powered by renewable energy to produce fresh vegetables, in London, England on Sept. 29, 2020. Peter Dazeley / Getty Images
Aquaponic farming is similar to hydroponic, but uses water from fish tanks to support plant life. Water from the tanks contains nutrient-rich fish waste, which is then filtered and supplemented before being used by the plants. The water is oxygenated through this process and then sent back into the fish tank. Basically, there is a co-cultivation of both fish and produce by this method, each system benefiting the other.
In aeroponic farming, plants are provided with a nutrient-rich mist rather than water or soil. The plants grow on foam (which holds the plant in place), and the roots extend into a chamber filled with the mist. AeroFarms is one of the largest companies using this method, and successfully grows 550 kinds of vegetables.
Why Is Vertical Farming Beneficial?
There are notable environmental, economic and social benefits of vertical farming, all of which have contributed to its growth as a method of farming in recent years.
Requires Less Space and Land
You need a lot less space to create a vertical farm than a traditional farm, which requires huge swaths of fertile farmland to grow crops. In the last 40 years, we have lost more than 30% of arable land — that is, land that can be used for growing crops — to erosion and pollution, and are running out of land to meet the caloric needs of our growing population. Because of this massive need for space, farming is also the largest human cause of deforestation. Globally, 38% of land surface is used for agriculture. Razing ecosystems for farmland impacts biodiversity and the species that thrive there — rainforests especially are being cut down and replaced with monocultures, and more than half have already been destroyed. Vertical farming could present a solution to this crisis of space. By some estimates, 700 acres of farmland can be condensed into a supermarket-sized building with vertical farming.
We are in the middle of a water crisis, driven by climate change and our massive use of water for agriculture. Globally, 70% of water usage is attributed to agriculture. The megadrought in the western United States is in its 23rd year — but vertical farming has been identified as a way to relieve the intense pressure the drought places on farmers. Vertical farms use about 95% less water than traditional farms. Because they operate as a closed system, water can be recycled through the farm and reused. None is lost to evaporation, and water can be targeted directly at the roots so none is wasted. Crops grown on vertical farms also don’t need as much washing before they are consumed, since they’re grown in clean conditions.
Limited Chemicals
Soil on farms needs to be reinforced by organic and inorganic fertilizers over time as its nutrient stores are depleted. When fertilizers are applied to traditional farmland, they often run off into nearby waterways, and the excess nitrogen and phosphorus can create “dead zones” in bodies of water. Vertical farming doesn’t require these fertilizers, so there is no runoff into nearby communities.
Vertical farms also have little or no need for pesticides, since the controlled environment keeps pests from entering the space. One billion pounds of pesticides are used every year in the U.S, and have documented adverse effects on both ecosystems and human health — 10,000 to 20,000 farmworkers in the United States suffer from pesticide poisoning every year. Without soil, there’s also no need for herbicides on vertical farms to target weeds. Thus, many vertical farms are inherently 100% organic.
Higher and More Reliable Yields
In all, vertical farms have much higher yields — as much as 10-20x per acre. Looking to the future, the effects of climate change will certainly impact the ability of farms to produce food, whether it be droughts, floods, higher temperatures or more frequent natural disasters. Because vertical farms aren’t dependent on weather and seasons, they create perpetual harvests that are more dependable, so farmers don’t have to worry about unpredictable losses in quite the same way. Furthermore, since temperature and other conditions can be regulated, they can produce seasonal crops all year round.
Food Access
Leafy plants farmed at Veggitech, a farming start-up utilizing agro technology and vertical farming techniques in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates on Sept. 25, 2023. As a desert nation with significant water scarcity, the UAE currently imports over 80% of its food. Andrea DiCenzo / Getty Images
Food access is a growing argument for the expansion of vertical farms — particularly by bringing fresh, locally grown food to urban areas and food deserts, regardless of their environment.
With an estimated 80% of the world population living in cities by 2050, we will need to find a way to feed all of these people in areas where there is already very limited space for agriculture. The world population itself is projected to reach 9.8 billion by that year too, and food production will need to increase by 70% to feed a population of this size. In terms of acreage needed, this translates to an area roughly double the size of India. Given the small size of vertical farms, they can be built in existing spaces, including rooftops and other unconventional places available in cities. Growing fresh, healthy produce locally could make it more accessible and affordable to local people by eliminating the expensive shipping and storing processes of food that’s transported from far away. The food itself tastes better and is of higher quality, too — since it hasn’t been on the road or stored for weeks or months, the nutrients have had less time to deteriorate or for harmful bacteria like E coli to develop..
Reduced Emissions
Along with these opportunities for crop cultivation in urban areas, vertical farms make it possible to grow crops in places inhospitable to farming, like the Mountain West and glaciated parts of the Midwest. Therefore, out-of-season crops typically grown in warmer climates and shipped over long distances can instead be grown locally. This cuts down on the food miles attributed to a produce. Food miles — the distance that food has to travel before reaching consumers — accounts for about 20% of food system emissions. The food itself is also fresher, which means less food waste, and less rotting food producing methane in landfills.
Better Working Conditions for Farmers
Because there is less variability in vertical farming as opposed to outdoor agriculture, profits are more stable and therefore could mean better job security for workers. Workers aren’t using heavy, dangerous farming gear that can cause injury, and aren’t exposed to chemicals from pesticides and fertilizers, or diseases like malaria that are present on outdoor farms.
What Are the Potential Drawbacks of Vertical Farming?
While vertical farming presents exciting opportunities for the future, it also has its drawbacks — namely its high energy usage, limited crop variety and highly technical systems.
Energy Needs
The intense energy consumption of vertical farms is both an economic and environmental drawback. Given how dependent they are on electricity to function, indoor farms are highly vulnerable to fluctuating energy prices. They do, however, have control over when their “days” and “nights” fall, and can use electricity at times when it’s cheaper. Not all places have access to reliable electricity either, making vertical farming a risk endeavor.
The Vaxa Vertical Farm outside Reykjavik, Iceland, where salads, lettuces and other plants are grown under controlled temperatures year-round inside big vertical structures that use geothermal and hydraulic energy. Giulio Paletta / UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Although some vertical farms do utilize natural sunlight, most are highly dependent on LED lights to grow crops. There is some hope that electricity needs will fall in the future: according to Haitz’s law — which measures the progress of LED technology — every decade, the efficiency of LED lighting systems improves by a factor of 20, so energy usage might fall on vertical farms in time. Renewable energy resources can also be utilized to provide electricity, although most vertical farms are still powered by fossil fuels. There is also an argument that renewable energy sources like solar and wind require large amounts of land, which could counteract the land-saving benefits of indoor farming.
Crop Variety
Unfortunately, not all crops are successful in vertical facilities. Leafy greens, herbs and small vegetables and fruits like tomatoes and strawberries are the most common and successful. These high value, fast-growing crops allow the enterprise to be more profitable, given the faster turnover. Root vegetables, for example, take much longer to mature, and aren’t as profitable. Neither are cereal crops like wheat and corn that grow too tall to be stacked, so they cost much more than their conventionally grown alternatives.
There is also the question of whether indoor orchards are a future possibility, perhaps using dwarf varieties of common fruit trees. Some trees take a very long time to mature, however, which leaves them susceptible to diseases and bacteria in indoor environments.
Highly Technical Systems
Of course, given the highly technical nature of vertical farms, they are susceptible to technological issues. Power outages or other system malfunctions threaten the success of the farm — even a single issue with management of temperature, humidity, or lighting can hinder production. Farms must have highly trained people working on these specialized systems, and must be vigilant against water-borne pests or diseases, since they can spread quickly within the system once introduced.
Lack of natural pollination is another drawback of growing crops indoors. Even if bees are introduced, it’s hard for them to navigate under the artificial lights. This is because many indoor farms use pink and purple lights — since plants are most successful when exposed to red and blue wavelength light — but bees see differently from us and become disoriented. Workers therefore need to pollinate plants manually that require pollination to grow fruit.
Takeaway
Vertical farming has the potential to grow more food for a growing population, and can do so without the same environmental impact as traditional farming. It’s not just a thing of the future, though — it’s estimated that roughly 2,000 vertical farms are already operating in the United States. Aerofarms is one of the biggest names in aeroponic farming, and Bowery Farming based out of New York City is considered to be the largest U.S.-based vertical farming operation, and uses an AI operating system. Crop One and Farm.One are other big names in Boston and New York, respectively. Even the International Space Station has soilless systems growing cabbage, lettuce and kale in the cosmos. In 2021, vertical farming created a revenue of $3.4 million, and the industry is only expected to grow. By the year 2030, vertical farming companies are expected to grow by more than 25%, according to a 2023 study. So, maybe farm-fresh strawberries and tomatoes in February aren’t too far off.
