[TheClimate.Vote] January 25, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*January 25, 2021*/

[from Reuters a view forward]
*Big Oil hits brakes on search for new fossil fuels*
By Ron Bousso - JANUARY 24, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) - Top oil and gas companies sharply slowed their search 
for new fossil fuel resources last year, data shows, as lower energy 
prices due to the coronavirus crisis triggered spending cuts.
Acquisitions of new onshore and offshore exploration licences for the 
top five Western energy giants dropped to the lowest in at least five 
years, data from Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy showed.

The number of exploration licensing rounds dropped last year due to the 
epidemic while companies including Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and 
France’s Total also reduced spending, Rystad Energy analyst Palzor 
Shenga said.

“Acquiring additional leases comes with a cost and it demands some work 
commitments to be fulfilled. Hence, companies would not want to pile up 
on additional acreages in their non-core areas of operations,” Shenga 
said...
Of the five companies, BP saw by far the largest drop in new acreage 
acquisition in 2020. Bernard Looney, who became BP’s CEO in February, 
outlined a strategy to reduce oil output by 40% or 1 million barrels per 
day by 2030. BP has rapidly scaled back its exploration team in recent 
months.

Exxon, the largest U.S. energy company, acquired the largest acreage in 
2020 in the group, with 63% in three blocks in Angola, according to 
Rystad Energy...
Total was second with two large blocks acquired in Angola and Oman.

Acquiring exploration acreage means companies can search for oil and 
gas. If new resources are discovered in sufficient volumes, the 
companies need to decide whether to develop them, a costly process that 
can take years.

As a result, the drop in exploration activity could lead to a supply gap 
in the second half of the decade, analysts said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-exploration-cuts-idUSKBN29U00V



[In Japan]
*As climate change push grows, Japanese firms accelerate shift to 
renewable energy*
BY KAZUAKI NAGATA - Jan 23, 2021
With Japan announcing a goal to become carbon neutral by 2050 and 
President Joe Biden signing an executive order to bring the U.S. back 
into the Paris Agreement, a wave of momentum toward curtailing climate 
change is growing at home and abroad. And Japanese businesses are 
following in that wake as they push forward their plans to switch to 
renewables.

Mitsubishi Estate Co., Tokyu Land Corp. and Yahoo Japan Corp. are among 
the major companies shifting their energy sources to renewables, as the 
need to be environmentally friendly is increasingly becoming a key 
factor in expanding their respective businesses.

On Thursday, Mitsubishi Estate, a developer that owns offices and 
shopping complexes in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district, unveiled a plan to 
have its facilities in the district run completely on renewables by 
April 2023.

Initially, Mitsubishi Estate, which manages about 30 properties there, 
was going to make the shift in phases — several properties a year — but 
the government’s new target announced by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga 
in October has prompted the firm to move faster, a company spokesman said.

For fiscal 2021, starting in April, the developer said 18 properties 
will begin to run 100% on renewables, including the Marunouchi Building 
and the Shin-Marunouchi Building in front of Tokyo Station.

This will bump up the firm’s renewable energy rate to 30% compared to 
the current 3%. That is expected to cut its annual carbon dioxide 
emissions by 160,000 tons, or roughly 80% of the total emissions from 
all Mitsubishi Estate-owned buildings.

Another prominent developer and player in the Tokyo real estate market, 
Tokyu Land, is also shifting to renewable energy earlier than it 
initially planned. It is considering accelerating its plan to shift its 
buildings to 100% renewables to 2025 from 2050, a company spokesman said.

With the momentum toward green energy resources among companies growing 
rapidly around the world, the renewable shift “is becoming an essential 
factor for companies to continue and expand their businesses,” said 
Masaya Ishida, senior manager at Renewable Energy Institute.

Ishida pointed out that foreign firms renting office spaces in high-rise 
buildings in Tokyo’s bustling business districts have requested building 
operators to use renewable energy, forcing more Japanese firms to take 
that into consideration in the coming years.

For real estate players like Mitsubishi Estate and Tokyu Land, 
“switching to 100% renewable power will help them attract and keep 
tenants,” Ishida said.

Real estate developers are not the only ones keen to switch to green 
energy sources. Yahoo Japan Corp. on Tuesday announced that it has set a 
goal to shift to 100% renewable energy in three years.

According to Yahoo Japan, 95% of its electricity consumption comes from 
the data centers.

Its data center in Washington is already running 100% on renewables, the 
company said, adding that it will make the shift for its two domestic 
centers in Fukuoka Prefecture.

In the IT sector, global tech giants are ahead of the game. Apple Inc., 
which has already shifted to 100% renewables for its own operations, is 
now aiming to have its suppliers become carbon-neutral by 2030.

Yahoo Japan’s parent company Z Holdings Corp. said it aims to become a 
member of RE100, an international initiative run by the Climate Group 
and an environmental nonprofit organization CDP, for major multinational 
firms to be publicly committed to the 100% renewable target.

According to RE100’s website, 284 companies have joined the initiative, 
with more than 40 Japanese firms participating, including Mitsubishi 
Estate and Tokyu Land.
The momentum toward renewables is growing not only among large companies 
but also among small and midsized businesses in Japan.
The number of participants in RE Action, a domestic framework launched 
in October 2019 for smaller companies, municipalities, schools, medical 
institutions and other groups to commit to 100% renewables, topped 100 
in December.Many firms have joined the initiative following Suga’s 
announcement of Japan’s 2050 goal for carbon neutrality, according to 
the organizing group.

The cost of renewable energy is still high in Japan, which could hamper 
a shift for some big companies that tend to have various operation bases 
across the country and consume a huge amount of electricity, Ishida of 
Renewable Energy Institute said.

But “smaller companies don’t have a lot of operation bases and use less 
electricity, so it’s possible for them to make a swift shift if they 
think it’s worth the cost,” he said.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/23/business/corporate-business/climate-change-japan-renewable-energy/



[Davos]
*What changes in global and regional cooperation will 2021 bring? Here’s 
what business leaders say*
The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2021, reveals how the 
crisis has challenged national policy-making and international relations 
in ways that threaten lasting impacts. Institutions and policies to 
support international coordination were already in decline, and 
responses to the pandemic have caused new geopolitical tensions. “With 
new stalemates and flashpoints in view, GRPS respondents rated ‘state 
collapse’ and ‘multilateralism collapse’ as critical threats over the 
next five to ten years.”...
*‘Respond effectively, creatively and collaboratively’*
Carolina Klint, Managing Director, Marsh

More collaboration across society – the public and private sectors, 
communities, and NGOs – is essential. It will involve developing 
stimulus programs that incentivize sustainable recovery efforts that 
include green infrastructure and clean energy projects. It will require 
partnerships between the public and private sectors to upskill workers 
for an exploding digital economy. And it ought to necessitate the 
creation of new pandemic and emerging risk insurance mechanisms that 
could help stabilize companies during extended crisis events.

To build and maintain resilience, it is important that business keeps an 
eye on potentially high impact events in the short-term and on the 
longer-term landscape. And then be prepared to respond effectively, 
creatively and collaboratively. This is vital for businesses and the 
global community to sustainably navigate the risks and opportunities 
ahead, strengthen their resilience to future shocks and progress towards 
long-term prosperity...
more at - 
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/what-changes-to-global-and-regional-cooperation-will-2021-bring-here-s-what-business-leaders-say/



[Announcing Paris by Twitter]
*Department of State*
@StateDept
US government account
The United States is rejoining the Paris Agreement, renewing its 
commitment to partnering with other nations to tackle the global threat 
of climate change. Read more: https://go.usa.gov/xAGWD.
https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1353432596718505984



[light reading from the NYTimes]
*Three Books Offer New Ways to Think About Environmental Disaster*
By Tatiana Schlossberg
Jan 22, 2021
*SCORCHED EARTH*
*Environmental Warfare as a Crime*
*Against Humanity and Nature*
By Emmanuel Kreike
521 pp. Princeton University. $29.99.
Kreike’s argument is that environmental warfare, in which nature is a 
tool and a target, has occurred for hundreds of years, perpetrated by 
people all over the world, and that environcide (a term my brain wants 
to autocorrect to “envirocide”) should be considered a crime against 
humanity.

“Environcide consists of intentionally or unintentionally damaging, 
destroying or rendering inaccessible environmental infrastructure” — 
which he broadly defines as homes, agriculture, water sources and more — 
“through violence that may be episodic and spectacular … or continuous 
and cumulative.”

At times, this seems like tautology — it’s hard to imagine a war of any 
kind that wouldn’t fit this description. But there are significant 
contributions here. First, Kreike, despite relying heavily on Dutch 
sources (dam enthusiasts will love the details), helps return historical 
agency to non-European actors in the wars of colonization around the 
world. He writes about often forgotten and impressive environmental 
infrastructure, resistance to European invasion and successful 
adaptation — for example, many tribal nations of the American West 
turned to buffalo hunting only after Europeans had made their previous 
sedentary agricultural traditions impossible.

Kreike offers a stark corrective and an implicit warning: Humanity is 
not distinct from nature, and assuming it is can have tragic outcomes. 
Climate change is one; pandemics are another. In this book, catastrophic 
warfare is a third. Waiting for the fourth horseman would seem unwise.
- -
*HOW TO PREPARE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE*
A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos
By David Pogue
610 pp. Simon & Schuster. Paper, $24.
It’s always a good idea to prepare for a disaster, especially one you 
see coming...
- -
What about the rest of us, the people who can’t afford or wouldn’t want 
to move away from the Gulf Coast? What about the people who already live 
in Boulder, or the diminishing water supply in the Rockies? No book can 
do everything, but planning for our collective future should be about 
everyone, including those without the means to prepare, since they are 
in the most danger. Inequality is a large part of what got us here; 
preparing for climate change shouldn’t make that worse.
- -
*HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE*
By Andreas Malm
200 pp. Verso. Paper, $19.95.
- -
“To say that the signals have fallen on the deaf ears of the ruling 
classes of this world would be an understatement. If these classes ever 
had any senses, they have lost them all,” writes Malm, a Swedish 
professor of human ecology and climate change activist, in his 
compelling but frustrating treatise.

A proportionate and rational response, Malm argues, should be to target 
fossil fuel infrastructure: Destroy fences around a power plant; occupy 
pipeline routes, as protesters did for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access 
pipelines; at coal mines or similar sites, set up climate camps, which 
Malm believes are effective as laboratories for activism and for 
shutting things down by putting bodies on the line.

He also advocates powerfully against despair and powerlessness. One of 
the most satisfying parts of his book comes when he brutally dispatches 
with “climate fatalists” like Jonathan Franzen, who argue that we should 
all just give up. “Climate fatalism is for those on top,” Malm writes. 
“Its sole contribution is spoilage.”

So Malm wants us to fight back (though I should add that there aren’t 
any actual instructions here about how to blow anything up).
He argues that there should be room for tactics other than strict 
nonviolence and peaceful demonstrations — indeed, he is a bit 
contemptuous of those who offer strategic pacifism as a solution — and 
notes that fetishizing nonviolence in past protest movements sanitizes 
history, removing agency from the people who fought, sometimes 
violently, for justice, freedom and equality.
Sure. But the problem with violence, even if it’s meant only to destroy 
“fossil capital,” is that ultimately it’s impossible to control.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/books/review/scorched-earth-emmanuel-kreike-how-to-prepare-for-climate-change-david-pogue-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-andreas-malm.html



[right around the middle]
*Climate change will cause a shift in Earth's tropical rain belt — 
threatening water and food supply for billions, study says*
BY LI COHEN - JANUARY 23, 2021
By 2100, billions of people are at risk of facing more flooding, higher 
temperatures and less food and water. A new study published in "Nature 
Climate Change" found that the climate change will cause the Earth's 
tropical rain belt to unevenly shift in areas that cover almost 
two-thirds of the world, potentially threatening environmental safety 
and food security for billions of people.

The tropical rain belt, otherwise known as the Intertropical Convergence 
Zone, or ITCZ, is a narrow area that circles the Earth near the equator 
where trade winds from the Northern and Southern hemispheres meet. Areas 
along the equator are among the warmest on Earth, and this, paired with 
the winds, creates significant humidity and precipitation.

"Our work shows that climate change will cause the position of Earth's 
tropical rain belt to move in opposite directions in two longitudinal 
sectors that cover almost two thirds of the globe," lead author Antonios 
Mamalakis said in a statement, "a process that will have cascading 
effects on water availability and food production around the world."

Mamalakis and other researchers came to this conclusion by analyzing 
computer simulations from 27 climate models. Specifically, they looked 
at how the rain belt would respond if greenhouse gas emissions continue 
to rise through the end of the current century. ..
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-shift-tropical-rain-belt-water-food-supply/



[a little science]
18 January 2021
*Zonally contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to 
climate change*
Antonios Mamalakis, James T. Randerson, Jin-Yi Yu, Michael S. Pritchard, 
Gudrun Magnusdottir, Padhraic Smyth, Paul A. Levine, Sungduk Yu & Efi 
Foufoula-Georgiou
Nature Climate Change (2021)Cite this article
Abstract

    Future changes in the position of the intertropical convergence zone
    (ITCZ; a narrow band of heavy precipitation in the tropics) with
    climate change could affect the livelihood and food security of
    billions of people. Although models predict a future narrowing of
    the ITCZ, uncertainties remain large regarding its future position,
    with most past work focusing on zonal-mean shifts. Here we use
    projections from 27 state-of-the-art climate models and document a
    robust zonally varying ITCZ response to the SSP3-7.0 scenario by
    2100, with a northward shift over eastern Africa and the Indian
    Ocean and a southward shift in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic
    oceans. The zonally varying response is consistent with changes in
    the divergent atmospheric energy transport and sector-mean shifts of
    the energy flux equator. Our analysis provides insight about
    mechanisms influencing the future position of the tropical rain belt
    and may allow for more-robust projections of climate change impacts.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00963-x
- -
[animated illustration]
*Zonally contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to 
climate change*
Jan 18, 2021
Antonios Mamalakis
Summary of our new study on the effect of future climate change on the 
position of the tropical rain belt.
The study has been published in Nature Climate Change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SmHsJWacmI



[Book mention, Oxford Press]
*Tornado God - American Religion and Violent Weather*
Peter J. Thuesen
Description
One of the earliest sources of humanity's religious impulse was severe 
weather, which ancient peoples attributed to the wrath of storm gods. 
Enlightenment thinkers derided such beliefs as superstition and 
predicted they would pass away as humans became more scientifically and 
theologically sophisticated. But in America, scientific and theological 
hubris came face-to-face with the tornado, nature's most violent 
windstorm. Striking the United States more than any other nation, 
tornadoes have consistently defied scientists' efforts to unlock their 
secrets. Meteorologists now acknowledge that even the most powerful 
computers will likely never be able to predict a tornado's precise path.

Similarly, tornadoes have repeatedly brought Americans to the outer 
limits of theology, drawing them into the vortex of such mysteries as 
how to reconcile suffering with a loving God and whether there is 
underlying purpose or randomness in the universe. In this groundbreaking 
history, Peter Thuesen captures the harrowing drama of tornadoes, as 
clergy, theologians, meteorologists, and ordinary citizens struggle to 
make sense of these death-dealing tempests. He argues that, in the 
tornado, Americans experience something that is at once culturally 
peculiar (the indigenous storm of the national imagination) and 
religiously primal (the sense of awe before an unpredictable and 
mysterious power). He also shows that, in an era of climate change, the 
weather raises the issue of society's complicity in natural disasters. 
In the whirlwind, Americans confront the question of their own 
destiny-how much is self-determined and how much is beyond human 
understanding or control.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tornado-god-9780190680282?cc=us&lang=en&#



[captives in the information battlegrounds]
*Two Trump appointees are being investigated for posting reports denying 
climate change.*
Jan. 22, 2021
By Lisa Friedman
The Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General said it will 
investigate an incident earlier this month in which two former Trump 
appointees posted debunked scientific reports denying the existence and 
significance of man-made climate change, purportedly on behalf of the 
United States government.

Senator Mazie K. Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, along with four other 
Senate Democrats, had requested the inquiry into potential wrongdoing 
around the postings and improper use of government logos. In a letter 
Friday to the senator, the compliance and ethics staff of the inspector 
general’s office wrote, “After careful consideration, we decided to 
review this matter further.”

Days before the end of the Trump administration, David Legates, who 
served as the head of the United States Global Change Research Program, 
and Ryan Maue, a senior official at the White House Office of Science 
and Technology Policy (O.S.T.P.), were reassigned after they posted 
reports on a climate denialism website. The Commerce Department is 
conducting the review because the two were on detail from the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Commerce 
Department.

The reports were largely discredited theories, including one claiming 
the sun and not human-caused pollution is responsible for recent 
warming, and bore the logo of the executive office of the president. It 
also purported to be the copyrighted work of the O.S.T.P., representing 
“the current state-of-the-science” on climate change. The head of that 
agency under Mr. Trump, Kelvin Droegemeier, said in a statement at the 
time that the postings had been done without his knowledge or consent...
In requesting the investigation, Sen. Hirono — along with Senators 
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, 
Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut 
— said they worried that the departure of the two appointees “presents 
an opportunity for this issue to fall through the cracks.”

Beyond “disseminating dangerous information,” the senators wrote, the 
use of O.S.T.P.’s logo and copyright without permission is illegal under 
federal law. “Not holding those involved accountable sets a bad 
precedent for future instances along those lines,” they said.  Mr. 
Legates did not immediately respond to a request for comment and Mr. 
Maue declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Biden administration did not respond to a request 
for comment. But President Biden has been outspoken about “bringing 
science back” to the federal government, and on Wednesday the White 
House is expected to issue a sweeping agencywide memorandum on 
scientific integrity, according to an internal planning document 
obtained by The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/two-trump-appointees-are-being-investigated-for-posting-reports-denying-climate-change.html



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - January 25, 1984 *

In his State of the Union Address, President Ronald Reagan says 
something that would be considered highly controversial by the right 
wing today:

"...[L]et us remember our responsibility to preserve our older resources 
here on Earth. Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or 
conservative challenge, it's common sense."

http://youtu.be/TdMTTlpfNP4   (21:52--22:08)

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