$370 billion of climate spending offers to transform the economy and reduce emissions, despite concessions to fossil fuels. 

By Tan Copsey, August 16, 2022

When Build Back Better was killed by Joe Manchin, a single holdout senator from coal country, US progress on climate change seemed stalled, and Joe Biden’s presidency had faltered.

Then, something genuinely surprising happened. On a quiet Wednesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin announced they had a budget deal, eluding the thousands of journalists and Washington insiders who make their money giving you the inside scoop.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes US$370 billion of climate spending in the form of subsidies and tax credits over the course of a decade, passed the Senate and the House. President Biden is expected to sign it into law on Tuesday 16 August.

Biden was jubilant. The IRA “addresses the climate crisis and strengthens our energy security, creating jobs manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles in America with American workers. It lowers families’ energy costs by hundreds of dollars each year,” he said.

These investments could get the US a long way towards meeting its targets of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Combined with existing central government and state-level action, it could reduce emissions by 41-44% below 2005 levels by 2030, compared to 25-34% without it. However, this is still less than the 50-52% Biden has targeted. As the US is the world’s largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter, it’s also likely to be short of what the country should deliver as a fair share.

Hope for the green economy

Analysis conducted by Energy Innovation, a think tank, states that the IRA will create at least 1.5 million new jobs in 2030, mainly in manufacturing, construction and related services.

More will need to be done by localities, businesses and at the state level for the US to reach its climate targets. Yet analysts are optimistic about the bill’s potential to catalyse action. For example, $27 billion provided to a new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – essentially a green bank – can be leveraged to lend more and spur greater private sector investment.

The bill also contains $60 billion to advance environmental justice in disadvantaged communities facing pollution. It has the potential to power a low-carbon transition and development within communities that have long been neglected and where there is considerable potential for economic growth.

In the past, technologies developed in the US have been commercialised in China and Europe. This bill seeks to change that by onshoring green industrial manufacturing and spurring new consumption. For example, by subsidising electric vehicles with batteries made of minerals mined, processed or recycled in the US or in countries with which it has free trade agreements. That said, the US still relies heavily on Chinese manufactured goods for clean energy.

Fossil fuel concessions

But a deal with Manchin, who benefits personally from a family coal company and is a major recipient of political donations from the energy industry, was never going to come without costs.

Democrats agreed to new spending and support for fossil fuels, including leasing federal land for drilling in the Arctic and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, something President Biden promised not to do during last year’s election campaign. Democrats also promised legal changes to speed up the development of specific fossil fuel projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which transports gas through Manchin’s home state of West Virginia.

These concessions were forcefully opposed by groups representing the areas and communities affected by new drilling and facilities. Bineshi Albert, co-director of the Climate Justice Alliance, said: “Hard-fought measures for environmental justice that support our communities are now being positioned alongside things that harm us, essentially holding us hostage to the needs of the fossil fuel industry.” ​​Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity called the bill’s support for fossil fuels “a climate suicide pact”.

But many of the changes to permitting provisions that would be most useful to fossil fuel companies need to pass through congress separately in the coming months. Democrats will be under pressure to oppose them. And Republicans, usually in favour of concessions to industry, are also threatening to block them out of spite, having suffered a rare legislative setback.

Biden may also have a role to play. Advocates are still asking him to declare a “climate emergency”, unlocking additional presidential powers that could, for example, be used to prevent the export of gas overseas.

On the global stage, the US has regained some credibility for asking other nations to deepen emissions cuts. Although for developing countries, many of which are facing post-Covid debt crises, there is a stark difference between the domestic spending the US is planning through the IRA and the climate finance it will provide them; Biden has pledged to gradually ramp up such finance to a relatively paltry $11.4 billion a year by 2024.

Climate politics in the US have entered a new phase. Battles to stop the development of oil wells, rigs, pipelines and export terminals will continue and intensify. Meanwhile, Democrats and the clean energy industry will attempt to profit – politically and financially – from the renewed US effort to build a clean energy economy.

Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action, a think tank, called the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act “a historic moment for climate action, and a turning point in American climate policy.”

How the money is spent, who benefits and what action might follow will determine whether it is truly transformative.

Barriers to the work of global south researchers make accurate climate projections more difficult and limit the ability of countries to adapt, writes Isabella Kaminski. 

By Isabella Kaminski, August 15, 2022

The mountain of science examining climate change continues to grow rapidly, and evidence of its real-world impacts is becoming ever more apparent.

In March, the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report warned of dramatic changes impacting human health, natural ecosystems and global and local economies.

But even as determined measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change become more urgent, significant geographical gaps remain in the research underlying these assessments.

Research gaps

A recent study published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate reveals a pressing need for more information. It found that, while the growing field of attribution science has led to major advances in linking extreme weather with human-induced climate change, there are big differences in the understanding of the impacts on different regions and countries.

One of the report’s authors is Dr Luke Harrington, a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato. At a press conference on the paper, he said many parts of the world do not have long enough historical records or sufficient high-quality data to predict the kinds and severity of extreme weather events they will endure. For example, there are practically no official records of heatwaves in sub-Saharan Africa, despite it being a “literal hotspot for heatwave activity”.

It is a problem recognised by Dr Caroline Wainwright, a Grantham Institute research fellow at Imperial College London who studies climate variability and change in tropical regions. She told China Dialogue that regions such as Europe have “definitely been studied more than places in Africa”, with the result that we do not have a full picture of what’s going on.

Namita Chakma, professor of geography at the University of Burdwan in India, agrees, saying there is a lack of scientific analysis on India due to the paucity of information collected daily from weather stations “and a lack of continuity in the long-term climatic data sets. It is also difficult to study climatic variables at the micro-regional level.”

Nor is there enough information to assess the total human and societal costs of extreme weather events. While some studies have looked at economic and infrastructure impacts, deaths and hospitalisations, these are generally limited to wealthier countries in the global north.

For example, Harrington refers to a global database that records mortality linked to extreme weather events; deaths recorded in Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean were only a small fraction despite those regions making up 85% of the world’s population. “Some parts of the world have much more robust monitoring systems in place to track the impacts of these types of events,” he said.

The result is a significant underestimate of the harms of climate change in lower- and middle-income countries.

Dr Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute and an expert in attribution science, also co-authored the Environmental Research: Climate study. She said at the press conference that not having this information denies countries the knowledge to plan appropriately, make the best use of limited resources and improve chances for people to live safely and adapt to the changing climate.

For example, Wainwright points out that in East Africa, there is huge uncertainty about whether the climate will get wetter or drier, which affects state and community planning.

Barriers to research

This problem has been bubbling under the surface of climate science for a few years.

Part of the issue is a paucity of published academic literature from outside the global north. When Reuters published a “hot list” of the thousand “most influential” climate academics in 2021, it sparked a backlash from researchers because it listed so few scientists from the global south.

However, research by Carbon Brief into the backgrounds of around 1,300 authors involved in the 100 most-cited climate change research papers from 2016 to 2020 found a similar pattern. It also discovered significant imbalances within regions; eight of the ten African authors were from South Africa. And when it came to lead authors, not one of the top 100 papers was led by a scientist from Africa or South America. Of the seven papers led by Asian authors, five were from China.

Language can be a barrier, as can local research capacity.

A 2018 paper published in Nature Climate Change, which examined the obstacles facing Africa’s young climate scientists, found that inadequate facilities, underfunded research, inaccessible data and undeveloped academic writing skills undermined efforts to combat climate change on the continent.

Dr Victor Dike, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Atmospheric Physics who specialises in extreme weather events in Africa and East Asia, said researchers in Africa may not have time or funding available to publish papers in the highest profile journals and do not always have the resources to be up to date with the latest science and policy. “It would be difficult for someone to make a significant contribution in that respect.”

Dike notes that researchers in China are incentivised to publish in high-impact journals with cash bonuses from their institutions.

Wainwright also highlights limitations in short- and long-term weather forecasting, saying this affects agriculture and day-to-day service planning. The Environmental Research: Climate paper points to examples in South Africa, where corruption denies funds to weather reporting facilities leading to massive data gaps in an otherwise good forecasting network, and drought-prone Somalia, where disorderly regime changes have disrupted data collection.

Furthermore, regions like East Africa have high natural variability, which makes studying changes in their climate difficult. And they may be affected by atmospheric phenomena like La Niña, which complicate climatic predictions.

Researchers say geographical gaps also stem from the fact that scientific efforts around the world are not valued equally, with research in the global south often aimed at solving highly local problems. Debra Roberts, acting head of the Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit in South Africa’s Ethekwini municipality, said much of the climate work being done at the city level is not written down. “Very often, a lot of that knowledge is in people’s heads.”

Even the IPCC is not truly representative. Roberts, who is also an honorary professor of life sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and co-chair of the IPCC’s working group II, said there is a constant battle to ensure enough researchers from the global south are working on international reports. “We have improved with each assessment cycle, but it’s still something that needs real work; not only in getting people in the room but ensuring when they’re in the room that they’re heard.”

Technology can be both a climate science boon and another barrier.

Wainwright notes that most climate models have developed in the global north “and are therefore generally better at representing the climate in those regions”. Dike agrees. Having examined several different datasets, he does not think they fully capture the spatial distribution of rainfall or its variability over West Africa.

Artificial intelligence is also a challenge. A paper exploring machine learning tools in the UK found they can support research on climate adaptation policy by quickly processing large volumes of policy text. But they only work with digitised data, “which in many parts of the world is a severe limitation”.

Programmes are attempting to build climate science capacity in the global south, including the UN World Meteorological Organization’s regional training centre in Nanjing and GCRF African Swift’s work funded by UK Research and Innovation, which aims to improve forecasting in Africa.

But there is still much work to be done.

Dike recently received a grant from the Chinese government to work in West Africa. He said such funding is necessary and welcome but also rare. He adds that funding bodies – government or companies – have their own strategic or commercial interests that do not necessarily align with research gaps or the needs of local communities. “They want to solve their own problems.”

He would like a general improvement in the quality of research in Africa and sees mentorship and training as a means to address this. Collaboration is also critical, he said, to assist researchers in reading papers and working with datasets they might not otherwise have access to.

Dike talks wistfully of returning to work in Nigeria. “When I was doing my PhD, I had this burning zeal to go back to Africa to contribute to science. But when you get there, you may not be able to publish your good manuscript. There are a lot of problems facing scientists in Africa.”

Isabella Kaminski

Dear Jon, As an environmental professional, I read about the impacts of climate change every day. Therefore, I hope you can forgive me when I say that I’m not always excited to read the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.  If you’re like me and had the urge to skip this week’s release — don’t! There is good news in it. The scientific community agrees that we already have the solutions and technology necessary to tackle climate change and, if we implement them quickly, we can avoid worst-case scenarios. However, the report also mentions hurdles that we haven’t overcome yet — issues that are preventing us from achieving a safe and healthy climate. Namely, climate misinformation. “Accurate transference of the climate science has been undermined significantly by climate change counter-movements, in both legacy and new/social media environments through misinformation.” The IPCC has been coordinating the global response to climate change since 1988, and has never highlighted misinformation as a threat until now. This is the second time this internationally recognized body has raised the alarm in as many months, labeling it a barrier to climate action. Luckily, we are the solution. And as bad actors prepare to react, we want to make sure that you’re prepared to fight for truth. After almost every IPCC report release, a tired, old false narrative re-surfaces. It’s some form of, “you’re overreacting!”  So how do we relay the urgency necessary to slow warming while not feeding into the narrative that we’re all just a bunch of alarmists? Here are some talking points for anyone doubting the need for urgent climate action: Historically, IPCC predictions have been conservative. A 2012 study found that 20 years worth of IPCC reports consistently underestimated the pace and impacts of global warming. Part of the reason why is, “science's aversion to drama and dramatic conclusions.”    This means that often in scientific research, outliers like the Pacific Northwest heatwave last year are discarded. This video explainer is full of examples of this scientific proclivity to err on the side of caution. Use them in your misinformation combatting efforts.   Over 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming. It may be surprising to you and me, but many Americans still don’t know that there is so much evidence that humans are causing global warming that scientists have stopped arguing this point. In fact, most studies find around 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists. And the greater the climate expertise, the higher the consensus. As long as misinformation continues to undermine science, our path to a clean and healthy future remains in jeopardy. But if we work together to address this threat, we can clear the way for readily available climate solutions that we know will work. Thank you for taking on this fight with me, Lauren Guite, Manager, Misinformation Brigade

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Competition with native wildlife could deter efforts to boost populations of the famous black-and-white bear in its native habitat. 

BYKYLE OBERMANN, SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

HONG KONG The giant panda, China’s national animal, is a global symbol of cuteness. But the black-and-white bears have long suffered for their irresistible qualities—poached for their pelts, smuggled out of the country as cubs to the U.S. and Japan, and speculated on like a tradeable stock by zoo collectors.

By the 1980s, their numbers in the wild had fallen to just over a thousand. Extinction loomed.

But this summer, pandas also became a global symbol of conservation success. Chinese officials announced that the animals—whose wild population has almost doubled after 30 years of government-led recovery efforts—are no longer endangered.

In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature had already downlisted the giant panda from endangered to vulnerable, citing a steadily increasing population and expanded habitat. But some Chinese scientists and officials rejected that assessment, saying it was premature and could undermine panda protection efforts.

Much has been achieved since 2016. China has designated a new Giant Panda National Park, which covers 70 percent of the animals’ existing habitat, mainly in Sichuan Province. And the number of pandas in captive-breeding programs around the world has nearly doubled, to 633. That’s more than twice as many pandas scientists say are needed to preserve genetic diversity, essential for the survival of the species.

Meanwhile, a study about the effects of climate change on bamboo, which makes up 99 percent of pandas’ diet, shows that their tolerance—and that of bamboo—to variations in temperature and rainfall is much higher than previously thought. (Read how the new panda park will be three times the size of Yellowstone.)

“In reality, today’s increase was something no one was certain would happen 20 years ago. Now, the panda is a very successful case,” says Fang Wang, a conservation biologist in the School of Life Sciences, at Fudan University, in Shanghai.

Successful within limits, though, because panda recovery isn’t assured, experts warn. Widespread deforestation and habitat fragmentation restrict pandas in the wild to less than one percent of their historic range. And new threats loom.

Natural conflicts

China’s setting aside of more land in nature reserves to help pandas recover has also benefited Sichuan takins, shaggy, pale-brown ungulates resembling a cross between a cow and a mountain goat that can weigh up to 800 pounds. Their numbers in Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve, an important panda refuge, nearly tripled from 500 in 1986 to more than 1,300 in 2015. (Male takins can be dangerous, particularly during rutting season. During a nine-year period in the Qinling Mountains, they killed 22 people and injured 184.)

“We’ve observed how takin activity clearly influences vegetation growth,” says Diao Kunpeng, founder of the Sichuan-based nonprofit Qingye Ecology, which works to help manage and carry out research on nature reserves.

Takins strip bark from trees for food, exposing them to deadly fungal infections and insects. As a result, the composition of the forest changes—fewer large trees, more shrubby undergrowth. "But pandas like bamboo forests with large trees” that serve as maternity dens for raising their young, Diao says.

Pandas mark trees with a waxy substance secreted from glands beneath their tails as a way to communicate and find mates. But when takins rub against trees to relieve itchiness, they can eliminate or diminish the scent marks.

Scientists don’t yet have conclusive data to show how forest changes affect wild pandas, but a long-term study in Tangjiahe should provide more answers, Diao says.

According to Wang, northern Chinese boars may be even more troublesome for pandas. Both are protected in China. No official estimate of boar numbers exists, but anecdotally it appears that they outnumber takins, their range is larger, and their impact on the environment far more pronounced, he says.

Each spring, young bamboo shoots provide a valuable source of protein and nutrients for pandas, particularly for pregnant or lactating mothers. But boars also like to eat young shoots, and research shows that pandas avoid foraging in areas inhabited by boars. Meanwhile, panda numbers increased in neighboring areas with few boars.

Furthermore, boars carry diseases such as canine distemper and swine fever, which can jump to other species. “It’s certain that these viruses will infect pandas,” Wang says.

And with their rooting, boars also damage villagers’ crops, which Wang fears could reduce support for wildlife conservation efforts in areas where pandas live.

Giant pandas have very few natural predators, and in the past, animals such as snow leopards, a type of wild dog called a dhole, and wolves kept takin and boar numbers in check. But these apex predators have nearly disappeared, according to a 2020 study co-authored by William McShea, a wildlife ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, in Front Royal, Virginia. Most died out because of poaching and habitat loss, says McShea, who has worked in China for more than 20 years and argues for “putting these carnivores back.”

Wildlife officials lack sufficient data on either takins or boars to develop management plans that would balance their numbers and needs with those of pandas, according to Wang.

The Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Administration, the agency responsible for overseeing wildlife and habitat conservation, did not respond to National Geographic’s request for comment.

‘The positive future of the panda’ 

During much of the 20th-century, panda pelts sold on the international black market fetched huge sums—up to $100,000. In his 1994 book The Last Panda, naturalist George Schaller described the panda as a species beset by poaching, habitat loss, and bad management. At the time, he predicted that “poachers would eliminate the panda long before inbreeding could become a problem.”

Today, poaching is rare, and logging has been all-but eliminated inside and outside reserves. Schaller, now in his late 80s, says he’s much more optimistic. If he were to write a new book, he says, “it’d have to be something about the positive future of the panda.”

A dedicated network of wildlife rangers has helped stem pandas’ decline—in Sichuan Province, home to most wild pandas, at least 4,000 rangers patrol the 166 nature reserves. “Rangers act like a buffer between the law and traditional practices,” Wang says.

They also assist conservationists and biologists by collecting vital information about the animals. Rangers usually live inside the reserves, trekking up to weeks at a time through mountainous bamboo forests to maintain camera traps and record wildlife behavior. Data they gather is used to determine China’s official wild panda count—the next official survey will be done in 2022—and inform conservation research and strategies.

GIANT PANDAS 101

One measure Chinese conservationists have adopted is to breed and raise pandas in captivity with the aim of releasing them into reserves to bolster wild populations.

Panda reintroduction is controversial because it’s expensive and time-consuming to raise pandas in captivity.

The effort has had mixed success. So far, 14 pandas have been released, 12 of them captive-bred. Of those, nine have survived. The two others were wild pandas that had been rescued and kept in captivity. The only released panda ever confirmed to successfully breed in the wild was one of the wild rescues. (Read more about pandas being reintroduced into the wild.)

In late 2019, the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas announced a plan to release three pandas in Jiangxi Province, where the animals have been extinct for at least 10,000 years.

This would have been the first release of captive pandas outside Sichuan Province had the plan not fizzled in mid-2020 amid fierce debate among Chinese researchers and officials over the efficacy of reintroducing pandas. (Check out three places to see giant pandas in the wild.)

“Within Chinese expert communities and even inside the breeding program team, there are very strong differing opinions,” Wang says. “So in regards to releasing pandas, there is no complete plan.”

Wang hopes a decision will be made to release more pandas in a methodical, targeted way, to boost small regional populations and to connect wildlife corridors so the animals can move about freely in areas with good habitat.

“No matter what, we don’t need 600 captive pandas,” Wang says. “Perhaps only after a certain amount of failure will we be able to release pandas better and improve the lives of wild pandas.”

The breeding program “isn’t going to change the world,” McShea says. “They’d be much better off creating reserves that produce abundant pandas and translocating those pandas."

(Sources: National Geographic)