2023 OCTOBER ISSUE
PROGRESS REPORT
ON THE
PARIS
CLIMATE AGREEMENT
PART 21
By ANDREW SIA
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From the Desk of the Publisher
In this time we experienced the choking smoke caused by the wildfires in Quebec and Ontario. We have never seen the air quality to be so bad that it irritated our eyes and noses. We have noticed floods in different parts of the world that are causing the loss of lives and ruined the livelihood of the people.
We came to notice that we are in the time of the El Niño which is going to last until next January. We noted that on average El Niño occur every two to seven years and the duration can vary from nine to twelve months.
We also learned about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) which is said to happen at some point between 2025 and 2095, with the 2050s to be most likely. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that the AMOC is unlikely to happen in this century.
This matter was brought up due to the geological evidence that happened in the last ice age. We have to notice that AMOC is the reaction of the mother nature. During the last ice age, which occurred approximately 26,000 to 19,000 years ago. At that time there was a significant drop in global temperatures and large portion of the Earth’s surface was covered by very thick ice sheets and glaciers. We may refer that to Armageddon.
We are talking about global warming and the three nations with the most of the population, China, India and the United States, have not come to term with the global panel. Also the war in Russia and Ukraine doesn’t help the situation either. It is important to bring everyone to the negotiation table and agree to the steps that we should take together to avoid this catastrophic situation that may happen to the mankind.
I am asking you to read through the whole article and give it some thoughts.
Wildfires
Since the week of June 20, we have noticed that there were more than 400 wildfires in Quebec and Ontario turned the dense and choking smoke that filled the air and shrouded the landscape and buildings in an apocalyptic orange that was never seen before. Pedestrians ventured out when there was the need and wearing N95 masks to protect themselves. Otherwise, it was advised to stay home with window closed and to use the air-filters when they were available. This affected 65 million people in the northeast region of the U.S., from Michigan, Vermont to South Carolina. Schools were cancelled, also the major league baseball games and other outdoor events. It was the country’s worst wildfire-related crisis.
Actually, Quebec is not in a drought, but the unusual warm temperatures and its fire season has started early.
The wildfire smoke is filled with toxic particulate matters less than 2.5 micrometers wide. These tiny particles can enter deep into our lungs and also the bloodstream and can reach our brain which can lead to cognitive decline. Even if we are exposed under short-term can increase our risk in developing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Not forget to mention that it can trigger asthma, creates an inflammatory response throughout our body and correlated with cardiac arrest and heart attacks.
UN projected that extreme wildfires may increase by 30% by 2050 and this is bad news for us as our air quality is already declining.
It was in 1970 when the Congress passed the Clean Air Act and since then we have seen improvements in air quality which have saved tens of thousands of lives. But the wildfires in the Western states have been jeopardized since 2016. It is the threat we have no effective strategy to counteract.
The wildfire can be considered as part of the climate change and it is already well underway.
Fast Fashion Will Cause Armageddon
Fast fashion doubled the garment production globally in the past 15 years, driven by a growing middle-class population across the world and benefited by an increased gross domestic product per capita. Globally this is a $1.3 trillion business that employs 300 million people along its value chain.
It is known that in the EU, nearly 80% of the fast fashion ends up in landfills and incinerators. The situation in the U.S. is nowhere better.
We have to take note that the most serious damage occurs outside the developed countries, namely, the U.S. and EU, the vast monocultures harm the environment in China and India, and also other cotton growing countries. The production of cotton in the third world countries alone accounts for almost 7% of all employment of the 300 million people in the value chain.
The “fast fashion” phenomenon is propelled by quick turnaround of new styles which tried to tag along the fashion runway, continuous release of collections and follow by every time lower prices. I would like to call it the “fast fashion” swamp.
In order to resurrect the fashion industry to the way that it can benefit us, we have to create the circular system which can provide us a $560 billion economic opportunity that can be applied to the fashion industry. We have to look for opportunities for new business models and collaboration across the value chain. Otherwise we will continue to see truckloads of clothing being incinerated or ended up in landfills.
In the old practice that we have been applying to our industry we have left the economic opportunities untapped but to put pressure on resources, pollutes and downgrade the natural environment and its ecosystems and creates significant negative societal impacts at local, regional and global scale.
For a visionary approach of a circular economy of fashion, we need to look into three focus areas:
New business models to increase clothing use;
Safe and renewable inputs;
Solutions for used clothes and turn them into new.
We have to admit that clothes that are designed and produced at a high quality standard are more durable, most functionable and increase flexibility. Make sure that they can be resold to provide the longevity and remodified for other functions when needed.
Those renewable resources have been raised in so many occasions that ought to be put into practice already.
Develop the business model that can allow fashion resale, clothing rental, fashion subscription services and create a sharing habit among friends. This can also prolong the longevity of the clothing. Unfortunately, this is not applicable to fast fashion as we don’t want to downgrade this business. We have a belief for “garbage-in garbage-out” and in many instances this doesn’t apply to it.
The most important thing for us to adapt into this concept is to change our mindset through social media, influencers, leaders of all sorts to make this happen.
Implementing Process Fee for Waste Textiles
Fast fashion brands like the online retailers, Shein, Temu and Boohoo, and high street clothing giants H&M, Inditex and Uniqlo, have come under increasing pressure to move away from their low-cost business models that have resulted in millions of clothes being trashed.
An average of 12 kilos of clothes and footwear per EU citizen is discarded each year of which more than three-quarters are incinerated or goes to landfill according to the European Environment Agency data suggested. The consumption of clothing and footwear is expected to increase by 63% from 62 million tons in 2019 to 102 million tons in 2030.
It was on July 5, the EU environment commissioner suggested the companies who would sell to consumers would be responsible for the treatment of any waste textiles with the amount charged in according to the amount of processing required. Actually similar measures are already in place in EU countries such as France and Spain. Its member states are already obliged to put in place systems for collecting textile waste by 2050. An equivalent of around €0.12 per T-shirt, but it would vary in according to products.
Grasslands
At this time of the climate change, forest conservation and tree-planting have become the popular ways to keep carbon out of the atmosphere. We also begin to hear the grasslands have their benefits—sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, their deep root system stores water, create biodiversity and feed the wildlife
We have seen grasslands have been destroyed by farming, grazing, and real estate developing. We come to know that not only forestry is important, but also the green pastures.
We have learned that grass plays an important role in our ecosystem and its functions are observed in carbon storage and soil healthiness.
In the past, we have developed the perception that grasslands are wastelands. In fact, we need to know that climate change and habitat loss when we have our negligence in forests, grasslands, oceans, wetlands and deserts. We have sacrificed these ecosystems for the economic value they brought us, but it is the time now for us to consider the preservations for them to help us to maintain our ecosystems.
We learned that trees can help us to save our climate, but all the others we mentioned would need our preservations and protections. We can also come to realize how little we understand our biosystems.
Perhaps we can take the figure for the total land area of grasslands is approximately 20 to 35 million square kilometers or 7.7 to 13.5 million square miles. In comparison with total forest area, it is approximately 4.06 billion hectares, or 10.03 billion acres, or 39 million square miles.
More About the Hot Weather
We are entering now into a hot summer and every day the temperature is setting a new record. It is likely to become the hottest in our modern time. Our Earth can enter into a multiyear period of exceptional warmed driven by two main factors: continued emissions of heat-trapping gases mainly caused by our burning of oil, gas and coal; and the return of the El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.
We have already seen a warm June where deadly heat waves scorching Texas, Mexico and India and off the coast of Antarctica, sea ice level plummeted to record low level.
In North Atlantic, the surface temperatures in May were 1.6°C warmer than typical for the time of the year.
On the whole, our Earth has warmed roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century and it will continue to grow hotter with the result of the emissions and deforestation.
But other factors aside of the human-caused factors is the cyclical phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation causes year-to-year fluctuations by shifting heat in and out of deeper ocean layers. Global surface temperatures tend to be cooler during La Niña years and hotter during El Niño years. We are now transiting out of an unusual long three years of La Niña which suppressed temperatures, and enter into a strong El Niño. It will bring us more heat as El Niño is just getting underway and we don’t expect it to peak until December or January.
We will continue to see surges in temperatures in the months thereafter. This can mean that next year could be even hotter than this year.
Meteorologists claimed that last month was the hottest June on record and 2023 could be the hottest year ever if July’s record temperatures continue. It was found that several heat domes are trapping warmth around the globe for longer than usual.
Here are some of the reports we have gathered:
Severe heats caused wildfires in places like Canada, Southern California, Spain and even Panorama settlement near Agioi Theodori in Greece.
Phoenix, Arizona faced its 19th day in a row with temperatures above 110° F breaking the city’s previous record from 1974.
A heat dome trapped high temperature over Oklahoma and Texas for weeks and generated worst heat and humidity this summer.
El Paso, Texas has logged a record 33rd day in a row with triple-digit temperatures resulted the power grids with concerns that they couldn’t handle the demand surges.
In the north, parts of Michigan, New York and Vermont have broken daily temperature records.
The waters off Florida have been hotter than 90° F and this temperature is threatening the coral reefs. But we have heard that on July 25, the surface temperature of Florida had reached 101° F.
In Europe it is also under the heat wave that is covering much of the Mediterranean. Temperatures in Spain are between 108° F and 111° F resulted part of the Balkans are under alert.
The Italian island of Sardinia has forecasted to approach an all-time high temperature.
In Middle East, temperatures soar to about 100° F across Egypt and the government has cut off the power forcing ordinary Egyptians to go without air conditioning, fans and refrigeration during the hottest hours during the day. The country is in the middle of an economic crisis and the government is scrambling to bring in foreign currency to pay off staggering debts and to fight a currency collapse. Exporting the natural-gas resources is one way to get U.S. currency.
In China, a village in the northwestern region of Xinjiang hit a record high 126° F according to state media.
Citizens in Nanjing were found to cool off in an air-shelter.
It is already reported that more than 100 million Americans are being affected by the heatwave.
The picture below was taken from the northeastern part of Canada showing that it is suffering from the worst wildfire season.
In the recent days we read that for instance Phoenix broke a half century record and reached the city’s 26th consecutive day of temperature above 110° F. Today, at this writing, it is at 115° F.
The southern part of Europe where we read Rome hit a record of 107° F and Sicily set a record at 120° F. They have to open cooling centers to receive people.
Greece is suffering from uncontrollable wildfires incinerated forests and threaten to engulf seaside communities. This is the time where Greece has a lot of tourists.
We can find fires in France and Spain. France has to shut down nuclear reactors as the water use to cool the reactors can’t be discharged into the overheated rivers without killing the fish and other wildlife.
In Iran temperature reached 152° F this week and it is close to the maximum that our human body can withstand.
El Niño is Impacting the South America
With flooding and droughts the El Niño effect is forecasted to deliver a $300 billion hit to the growth for the region’s economies. The World Meteorological Organization has already advised governments in the region to save lives and also livelihoods.
South America has been depending on agricultural exports and it is already vulnerable to rising temperatures, and the extreme weather that the El Niño cycles can bring would be its biggest threat. This phenomenon is bringing heavy rains to the Pacific coastal countries such as Peru and Ecuador, and droughts to parts of Colombia and Chile. It also increases the likelihood of wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.
Corficolombiana, a Bogotá-based financial service company, has forecast the growth will contract 1.7% and 1.6% in Peru and Ecuador respectively, and 0.6% in Colombia. In case of food and energy shortages could cause further inflation and spur interest rate.
The El Niño will also affect the fishery of Peru and Ecuador, as it may warm up the cool and nutrient-rich Humboldt current that may cause the fish to migrate from the region. This is the world’s most productive fishery region and already it is projected that Peru will lost 19.3% of the catch this year. Lima, its capital has already cancelled this year’s first anchovy fishing season. Total fish production in May fell 70% from the same month last year.
Lima has announced emergency measures totaling $1.1 billion to tackle the effects of El Niño. The measures are on top a $2.1 billion package to boost economic recovery after the oust of its leftwing president, Pedro Castillo, earlier on when parts of the country were shut down by social unrest.
Ecuador faced agricultural disruption and banana planation reported that 50,000 hectares are at risk. Also the sugar harvest is delayed. The government has allocated $266 million to mitigate losses and damages.
In Colombia, the droughts are expected to expose the vulnerabilities in the energy grid as about 70% of which is served by the hydroelectric power. It is predicted that the reservoirs could fall from 65% capacity to 44% during the El Niño. This will force the use of fossil fuels and the rising of energy bill will be significant.
The recent drought hit Chile, after the recent heavy rain, the heaviest in 30 years, due to the El Niño effect and climate change. The authorities already declared the agricultural emergency in two central regions.
In Brazil, El Niño is expected to bring more rain to the south, but less rain to the north. The Amazon rainforest will be more susceptible to wildfires. El Niño will change the climate patterns during the dry season where the temperature is already 2.5 degrees hotter but 30% less precipitation. This can kindle the wildfires in the forest.
In Argentina, its soya bean harvest is depending on rainfall, but its 2022/23 harvest was less than half of the previous year. The drought has wiped out $18 billion in export earnings.
The academics predicted that this year’s El Niño could cost the global economy $3.5 trillion in lost growth by 2029, and South America will bear about $300 billion of the total figure. This can be culpable to the global warming as well as the natural climate variations like El Niño.
This falls into the old saying, “It doesn’t rain, but it pours.”
The Irreversible Global Warming
From the researchers at the University of Copenhagen we came to know that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) will shut down at some point between 2025 and 2095, with the 2050s to be most likely.
That means the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic will collapse sooner than expected due to the climate change. It will cause further upheaval in weather patterns worldwide.
This collapse of AMOC will cause the Gulf Stream, stretching from Florida to north-western Europe to produce the noticeable cooling effect across the northern hemisphere, leading to stormier winters and drier summers in Europe. In the opposite direction, the further south region will have to deal with intense heat.
This means significant changes in tropical rainfall and monsoons.
This view is in contrast with the view of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the AMOC is unlikely to collapse in this century.
This matter was brought up because of the geological evidence suggested that during our Earth’s last ice age, the drastic changes in Atlantic circulation took place within a decade or two, but some other climate models suggested that it might take a century or so for the AMOC to change completely under the present day circumstances.
There are concerns of global warming in the oceans including exceptionally high sea surface temperature recorded around temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, such as the 5° C above the average off the east coast of Canada. And the sea ice around Antarctica is at an all-time low in winter.
In my opinion that the AMOC is the reaction of the mother nature. During the last ice age, also known as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), occurred approximately 26,000 to 19,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch. It resulted the significant drop in global temperatures and large portions of Earth’s surface ended up under ice sheets and glaciers. It was all because of the nature call.
More on Ocean Temperature
In April, the average sea surface temperature reached a record high, and since then it has remained exceptionally warm since then. In July we have noticed some hot spots have reached to 38° C. The North Atlantic has consistently reaching 1.1° C higher than what is typical for this time of the year.
It has already been mentioned that the waters off the coast of the Florida Keys could at time feel like stepping into a hot bath. The reading was just over 38° C, a world record for the sea surface temperature.
This can be related to the El Niño, a recurring global climate pattern that is linked to warmer conditions in many regions and spiked in global sea surface temperatures. The warming of the waters off the coast of Florida will have a devastating effect on its coral reefs and can disrupt other marine ecosystems and the communities that are depending on them.
The ocean covers about 70% of the world’s surface, has absorbed more than 90% of the heat released by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities. In another word, for the majority of human-driven warming that has happened on Earth has accumulated in the ocean. The water has absorbed and store all the heats and we may say that the ocean has been servicing the Earth. But when the storage expands, the water expands, the sea level rises, and it also creates more tropical cyclones.
Finally, by the end of the century, the ocean warming could reach a point of weakening, and eventually shutdown. We know what the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) can bring us—stormier winters and drier summers in Europe. And in the opposite direction, the further south region will have to deal with intense heat.
Final Remark on El Niño
As mentioned about it earlier on that El Niño is a climatic phenomenon in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. It’s characterized by warmer-than-normal sea surface temperature in this region as mentioned. This gives significant impacts on weather patterns and ocean currents around the world. It is part of a larger climate phenomenon known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which also includes its counterpart, the La Niña.
El Niño is a part of a natural climate cycle, but its frequency, intensity and impacts can vary. Its counterpart, La Niña, involves an opposite phenomenon, where cooler-than-normal sea surface temperature develop in the cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures develop in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
El Niño events are closely monitored by meteorological and climatological organizations around the world. They can create significant socioeconomic impacts on agriculture, water resources, and even can affect public health. El Niño is unpredictable for its timing and intensity as they interact with other atmospheric and oceanic patterns.
El Niño doesn’t have a regular frequency. On average, they tend to occur every two to seven years. The duration can last from 9 to 12 months. Its counterpart, La Niña follows it and they are part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and they can alternate each other.
Through combination of historical data, oceanic and atmospheric observations, and using complex computer models to provide forecasts and monitor closely the development of El Niño activities can help us to react.
Already this year’s El Niño weather event is expected to compound the effects on global food prices of India’s ban of its rice export, and Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain arrangement. This is going to cause inflation across emerging markets.
In the coming September, we will see temperature fluctuation in Pacific Ocean, forecast of extreme heat to parts in South Asia and Central America. Torrential rain over the Andes.
This phenomenon will disrupt crop cycles and add further strain to global food output and added the price pressure. Russian’s bombing on Ukraine is halting its grain output. This will all bring a global inflation.
Situation in Australia is not better. The heavy rain in its western region is halting its export of iron ore which accounted for roughly 60% of its seaborne iron ore market.
Part of Central America is facing extreme heat from El Niño and the drought has affected the water system of the Panama Canal’s locks and reservoirs which are depending on the fresh water supply. Already it is affecting the daily number of crossings.
The tankers carrying the liquefied natural gas are waiting on both sides of the Panama Canal. This may delay the LNG to arrive in Europe during the winter time.
We have to admit the Russian invasion in Ukraine has added more human disruption whilst the world has entered into the time of the El Niño created events.
