Planet Week: UK bans new gas-powered vehicles by 2030
By: Brandon Pytel, Sam Liptak
Tags: Climate Change, Emissions, Electric Car, Arctic, Typhoon

Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.

Last week, Tesla joined the S&P 500. Hurricane Iota roared through Central America. And researchers found that climate change is increasing the spread of wildlife diseases.

In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:

Vietnam after Typhoon Ketsana in 2009. Photo credit: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Sunday, November 15

Typhoon Vamco brings record floods to the Philippines, Vietnam

Typhoon Vamco became the deadliest cyclone to hit the Philippines this year, after it claimed 67 lives and caused some of the worst flooding in decades, reports Reuters.

When the storm continued on to Vietnam, as many as 468,000 people were ordered to evacuate, and by Sunday, 21 people were injured and 12 were missing. Vamco is just the latest storm for these two countries in a very destructive season spurred on by climate change.

Monday, November 16

Trump opens Arctic to drilling

On Monday, the Trump Administration announced it would open bidding for leases on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, with final sales coming just before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, reports The New York Times.

The move has been long in the making: In 2017, Trump reversed decades of protections and opened the refuge’s coastal plain to oil and gas development. Now, the “call for nominations,” published by the Federal Register on Tuesday, essentially lets oil companies call dibs on specific tracts of land to drill on within 1.5 million acres of the refuge.

“This lease sale is one more box the Trump administration is trying to check off for its oil industry allies,” Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement. “But it is disappointing that this administration until the very end has maintained such low regard for America’s public lands, or the wildlife and Indigenous communities that depend on them.”

This week, we wrote about Trump’s last anti-science stand and how moves like this could harm our Planet for decades.

Bezos names first Earth Fund grantees

On Monday, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos formally announced the first recipients of Earth Fund, his $10 billion commitment to fight climate change. The first $791 million of that commitment is going to 16 organizations “working on innovative, ambitious, and needle-moving solutions,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post.

The announcement comes nearly two weeks after The Atlantic leaked some of the details. Among the larger recipients are the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund, which all received $100 million. Additionally, some environmental justice groups received grants. Read more at The Washington Post.

Tuesday, November 17

1% of people cause half the world’s flight emissions

Flying is so bad for the Planet that it spurred a now-popular Swedish word: flygstam, or literally “flight shame.” New research confirms that flying is also terribly unequal, with 1% of people responsible for half of global airline emissions.

In other words, a small group of elites are enjoying the benefits of flying while everyone suffers the climate impacts — the researchers estimated the climate damage of flights was $100 billion in 2018.

“The benefits of aviation are more inequitably shared across the world than probably any other major emission source,” Dan Rutherford, who works at the International Council on Clean Transportation and was not part of the research, told The Guardian. “So there’s a clear risk that the special treatment enjoyed by airlines just protects the economic interests of the globally wealthy.”

As climate disasters increase, vulnerable countries are left on their own

The world is failing to protect the most vulnerable countries, as climate change continues to drive more disasters. That’s according to the new report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The World Disasters Report finds that climate and weather disasters have increased 35% since the 1990s. The proportion of all disasters attributed to climate and extreme weather has also increased, from 76% of all disasters during the 2000s to 83% in the 2010s. Meanwhile, the countries hit hardest receive only a fraction of climate adaptation funding from the international community.

“[I]nternational solidarity is not only a moral responsibility, but also the smart thing to do,” said IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain in a statement. “Investing in resilience in the most vulnerable places is more cost-effective than to accept continued increases in the cost of humanitarian response, and contributes to a safer, more prosperous and sustainable world for everyone.” Read reporting by Al Jazeera.

Wednesday, November 18

UK bans sale of new gas-powered cars by 2030

Big news across the pond: On Wednesday, the United Kingdom announced a ban on new gas-powered cars by 2030, 10 years earlier than planned. To support this transition, the government announced over $2 billion in funding for charging ports, consumer incentives, and research and development.

The move is part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, which also aims to accelerate investments in nature-based solutions, carbon capture technologies, and offshore wind.

“Although this year has taken a very different path to the one we expected, I haven’t lost sight of our ambitious plans to level up across the country,” Johnson said in a statement. “My Ten Point Plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050.” Read more in The Independent.

Thursday, November 19

US emissions lowest in 30 years

New analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that U.S. emissions are on track to be 9.2% lower than in 2019 — our biggest drop on record. Emissions haven’t been this low since 1983, and the numbers next year could still be lower than any year since 1990, despite the rebound expected in 2021.

The decrease is largely due to a decline in transportation during the pandemic, but even still, the U.S. will have a difficult time meeting the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement (which Biden has pledged to rejoin).

Photo credit: Elizabeth Nicodemus

Bonus

Fly, owl, fly

Hiding in the branches of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, a sweet — oh, wait, Saw-whet — owl got its first glimpse of the big city. The adult male hitched a ride on a Norway spruce last Monday, which had been cut down 170 miles away, and is said to be in good health.

“I just want to make sure he’s well-fed before he goes,” Ellen Kalish, director of the Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in the Hudson Valley, told the Daily Freeman on Thursday. “He was a little on the thin side when he came in. He probably hadn’t eaten in a number of days. So I just want to make sure that he’s at his best weight and health, and then he goes.”

See you next week,

Brandon and Sam