Lessons from the World Cup: How a changing climate is changing sports

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Shortly before the English national team took the field in Qatar for its 2022 World Cup debut, its official Twitter account posted a video of players flocking to the sidelines of a training session, dripping in sweat and taking turns cooling down in front of a mist machine. “It was hard,” English defender Conor Coady told press after the practice. “It was something we needed as a team, to get used to [the heat], to feel it, to understand it.”

World Cups are usually held in early summer, but this year’s competition was delayed because of the Middle East’s searing heat. Even still, outdoor temperatures hovered in the low 90s as hopeful teams arrived in Qatar in early November.

FIFA’s decision to hold the event in Qatar has been controversial, from the host country’s treatment of migrant workers, thousands of which died of heat stroke building hotels and stadiums for the event, to its position on LGBTQ+ rights. The health risks associated with its extreme heat added to these other concerns. 

But it is not the only major sporting event grappling with extreme conditions: This fall, the women’s Alpine Ski World Cup was delayed for over a month and moved to another venue after unseasonable rain made the course unsafe to ski. Earlier this summer, a historic heat wave required organizers of the Tour du France to spray water to keep the roads from melting. 

From soccer to skiing, climate change is disrupting how and where sports can be played — from the most elite levels to neighborhood youth leagues. “If we do not change the nature of sport and these events to adapt,” said Walker Ross, a lecturer in sports management at the University of Edinburgh, “nature itself will move on without sport.”

A member of the Italian Paralympic snowboarding team rides a chairlift in Cervinia, Italy in 2020. COVID-19, a lack of snow, and high temperatures have made it hard for ski resorts to stay open and athletes to train. Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Rapidly changing conditions are already forcing teams to rethink how they prepare for competition. At a recent workshop at the Columbia Climate School, United States women’s national soccer player Samantha Mewis described the intensive preparations the team took to handle the heat in Tokyo prior to the 2020 summer Olympics (the event was held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). 

“We weighed ourselves pre- and post-training, to track our water loss,” she explained, including testing their urine for hydration levels. Immediately before traveling to Japan, the team also conditioned themselves for the heat, which she said included repetitively riding a bike in a really hot room, practice for keeping their core body temperature elevated for extended periods of time. “It was exhausting.”

“Generally, exercising in heat puts much greater demand on your body,” said Rebecca Stearns, chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, a research and advocacy organization founded to honor the legacy of the Minnesota Vikings lineman, who died from exertional heat stroke. To cool off, blood flow has to be diverted from muscles to places that help the body regulate heat, like the skin. But some conditions can make that process more difficult. 

“The body’s main mechanism to dissipate heat is sweating,” Stearns explained. In humid environments, sweat is slower to evaporate. Athletes get dehydrated, because they’re still sweating, losing electrolytes, but they aren’t effectively cooling off. “That’s when you hit the danger zone.” 

Soccer is one of many sports now paying close attention to something called the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which combines heat, humidity, and other variables like wind speed. When the wet bulb temperature breaks 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, FIFA now requires cooling breaks in both halves, and officials are allowed to suspend or cancel the match. The rules were first instituted before the 2014 Brazil World Cup, when cooling breaks were used for the first time during the Netherland v. Mexico game, as well as more recently during the Euro2020 competition. “Heat stroke is one of the top causes of death in sport,” Stearns said.  

But extreme heat and humidity also pose similar — if not worse — risks for amateur athletes. “At a youth level,” where the coach might be a parent or teacher, said Andrew Grundstein, a geographer and climatologist at the University of Georgia, whose research focuses on heat and human health. “You’re also unlikely to have medical staff like an athletic trainer available.” The consequences can be deadly: Between 1980 and 2009, 58 football players died from heat-related illnesses — the majority of them high school students. 

Grist / Clayton Aldern

Grundstein explains athletes need to acclimatize to heat over time, meaning ramping up practices, rather than jumping right in with daily doubles in hot weather. “Coaches should adjust practices based on weather conditions,” he said, modifying things like length and intensity. And if something does happen, it’s critical to have an emergency management plan. Exertional heat stroke is largely survivable if the person can be rapidly cooled. (Grundstein recommends having a tub that can be filled with ice or cold water.) Georgia once had some of the worst heat-related death rates among student athletes in the country. But in 2012, the Georgia High School Association implemented rules and safety measures to help protect student athletes; there have been no heat-related deaths in football players there since. 

The Korey Stringer Institute recently developed an assessment of states’ policies for high school athletes. These standards will become more important, Grundstein says, as regions that weren’t historically hot start to see more heat waves. “A lot of times, they’re really unprepared, because they’re not used to it,” he said. Coaches don’t know what warning signs to look for, and athletes are less used to exercising in extreme heat. 

While state sport associations can dictate safety measures for high school teams, those for younger athletes are often made on an ad-hoc basis. “It’s like the Wild West,” Stearns said. “There are just not a lot of protections in place.” Still, many youth leagues are voluntarily adapting to changing conditions: The Seattle Youth Soccer Association, for example, now has both a heat cancellation policy and a “bad air guidance,” developed because of the West’s worsening wildfire smoke. 

A trainer applies a cold towel to a student-athlete during a morning football practice at Father Ryan High School in Nashville, Tennessee in 2011.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

Real-world conditions are often a combination of factors, making it even harder to develop rigorous protections for athletes. During heat waves for instance, naturally occurring air pollution called ozone can be concentrated — something not as immediately noticeable as visible wildfire smoke, but capable of triggering asthma, another cause of sudden death. 

“If youth sport is the next generation of professional sport, then we are potentially not safeguarding that future,” Ross, of the University of Edinburgh, said. 

Looking ahead, some of the world’s largest sporting competitions are facing an uncertain fate. Qatar spent over $200 billion to prepare for the World Cup, including investing in technologies like air diffusers under seats that brought A.C. to the open-air fields and stadiums. Athletic venues are increasingly discussing these kinds of climate adaptations — but there’s only so much technology can do. Ross recently published a study finding that if greenhouse gas emissions continue as usual, by 2050, there will only be 10 locations capable of reliably hosting the winter Olympics. It offers a poignant example of what is at stake for the future of sport. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Lessons from the World Cup: How a changing climate is changing sports on Nov 30, 2022.

The fossil fuel origins of ‘gaslighting’

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Merriam-Webster declared “gaslighting” the word of the year this week, if you can believe it. The term, which describes a type of lie that leaves the target doubting their perception of reality, saw a 1,740 percent increase in searches on the dictionary’s site in 2022, with steady interest over the course of the year.

“In recent years, with the vast increase in channels and technologies used to mislead, gaslighting has become the favored word for the perception of deception,” Merriam-Webster’s editors wrote in an explanation for their selection.  

Even if you remember what a “gaslight” is, it doesn’t illuminate the word’s meaning. The mind-manipulating connotation came from a 1938 play called Gas Light, later turned into a movie. The plot: A husband tries to trick his wife into thinking she’s losing her mind — and thereby getting sent to an asylum — so he can steal the priceless jewels she’s inherited. His strategy involves sneaking around the house and making the gaslights flicker and dim, while insisting that the lights look totally normal to him.

The meaning of “gaslighting” in the social-media age is broader, referring to any situation where you wildly mislead someone for personal advantage. Climate advocates have increasingly been applying the term to the actions of the oil industry, which mastered the art of misdirection long before “gaslighting” became part of the vernacular. In the 1970s, Exxon’s own scientists warned executives that carbon emissions could lead to catastrophic warming — and then the oil giant proceeded to act as if climate change wasn’t real, sowing doubt about the science and working to block legislation to address rising emissions. 

Since then, studies have found that Big Oil’s actions (drilling for more oil) don’t match its public turnaround on climate change, indicating that companies are advertising an unrealistically green image. Oil companies portray themselves as problem solvers — BP’s motto is “reimagining energy” — while continuing to make the problem worse. At the same time, the fossil fuel industry has tried to shift the focus to individuals. In a recently uTwitter email, sent after Shell posted a widely criticized Twitter poll in 2020 asking people how they planned to address climate change, one of the company’s communications executives said that accusations of Shell “gaslighting” the public were “not totally without merit.”

An advertisement for the 1944 film “Gaslight.”
LMPC via Getty Images

Gaslighting doesn’t just describe the oil industry’s communications, though — the literal “gas lights” that the word refers to began as a fossil-fueled phenomenon. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, a fuel called “coal gas” swept through Europe and the United States, lighting up city streets as well as homes, factories, and theaters through vast networks of pipes. It left behind an important but largely forgotten legacy in our energy system, our polluted soil, and, of course, our language.

Before gaslights, people lit dark rooms with flickering candles and lanterns that burned fishy-smelling whale oil. What replaced them didn’t smell much better at first. The new technology was the result of chemists messing around with burning coal, wood, peat, animal bladders, and other substances, to see what gases they’d produce. At first, they put the fruits of their labor to use setting off fireworks and flying balloons, but soon found a more practical purpose for “manufactured” gas, sometimes called “town gas” or “artificial gas.” (The name “natural gas” later arose to help differentiate methane.)

Starting around 1800, the first gas lamps appeared in Paris, London, and Glasgow. They became coveted by factory owners who could now keep their employees toiling after dark, and by city planners looking to make their streets safer from crime. The technology had spread all over Britain by the end of the 1850s, when more than 1,000 gasworks plants had popped up to meet demand. 

Half a century later, streets all over Europe and America were gaslit. Unlike the candles and oil lamps that preceded them, networks of gas connected homes to a larger energy system — setting the stage for the next advancement in lighting.

In the late 1880s, the inventor Thomas Edison created the first lightbulb, much to the disappointment of those who had invested in stock of gas companies. His plan to electrify cities with underground cables was sold as clean, healthy, and modern. “Edison’s marketing played up an image of ancient ‘evil’ gaslight in contrast to a new, ‘good’ electric light, coming in as the knight in oh-so-gleaming amour to lift Manhattan from the dark ages,” Alice Bell writes in the book Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis. 

Gas lighting was known for making a mess. Factory owners found it hard to know what to do with coal tar, the sticky, toxic byproduct of coal gas production. They tried dumping the byproduct into rivers, but it ended up killing the fish. 

People play at Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington, after a snowstorm, February 9, 2019.
David Ryder / Getty Images

The technology gradually fell out of use in the 20th century, but gasworks plants left a legacy in the landscape. In Seattle, for instance, the iconic Gas Works Park along Lake Union was home to a major coal gasification plant that opened in 1906, filling the area with smelly, bubbling char for 50 years until it closed. In the 1960s, the landscape architect Richard Haag saw some strange beauty in the abandoned gasworks and worked to convince the city to turn it into a park, keeping some of the towering industrial structures standing. The first soil remediation process took about six years, and cleanup remains ongoing today, with arsenic and other contaminants still present in the lake.

Much like the industrial structures of Gas Works Park, the term “gaslighting” is a relic of its time— and a reminder of a dirty technology that’s best left in the past.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The fossil fuel origins of ‘gaslighting’ on Nov 29, 2022.

This California city needs housing. But is a new development destined to burn?

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Chico, California, needs housing. The booming city of just over 100,000 issues just a few hundred building permits every year, and it’s rare to see more than a few dozen homes on the market at any given time. Housing costs have risen by double digits since 2018, and homelessness has spiked.

A new development on the outskirts of town, however, promises 3,000 new homes:  single-family buildings, multifamily apartments, and “residential cottages,” plus a dense and walkable commercial district. Containing hundreds of acres of open meadows, oak forests, streams, and trails, it was designed with the belief that “places for people to live and work can exist in harmony with nature” — the very reason many people moved to Northern California in the first place.

There’s just one problem: Four years ago, a wildfire ignited in the Sierra Nevada foothills that shadow the meadow where the development will lie. The Camp Fire incinerated thousands of buildings, killed 85 people, and roared down the hills toward Chico. It stopped right in the middle of the meadow. Another wildfire almost reached the meadow ten years earlier, and another one a few years before that.

For two years, Chico’s leaders have been debating whether or not to let the housing development, which is called Valley’s Edge, move forward. On one side are the developer and a number of civic organizations, who claim the development will help grow the city’s economy and alleviate a dire housing crisis. On the other are a group of conservationists and anti-development advocates who say the risk of wildfire in the area is too great, and that new housing should be built elsewhere. It will be up to the Chico city council to decide between the two sides.

The wildfires that have raged across the U.S. West over the past decade have exposed new dangers in the area known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, the vulnerable territory that sits between developed residential areas and dense, flammable forests. These areas have long been considered some of the most desirable places to build, since they offer natural beauty and distance from urban congestion, plus land that is cheap relative to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But they are also the most vulnerable to wildfire.

City governments across the region are wrestling with questions about whether and how to shift new housing development away from these areas. At the same time, opponents of development are using fire risk as a justification to cancel even projects that are designed to be resilient to fire.

Bill Brouhard, the real estate developer behind Valley’s Edge, has been working on the project for more than 15 years, even before wildfires became a major political issue in Northern California. But even during the Camp Fire, as he watched flames race to the site, he didn’t waver in his resolve to get it done.

“I was out there standing at the edge with residents as the area was burning,” he told Grist. When Brouhard imagined the wildfire racing toward his finished subdivision, he envisioned a series of firebreaks stopping the blaze in its tracks before it reached any homes. “The condition that was happening would be a mile away from the homes, and they wouldn’t be threatened,” he said.

Brouhard added that the development itself would act as a natural firebreak for the rest of the city, thanks to ample parks and trails outfitted with fire-resistant vegetation and pavement. By building Valley’s Edge, he said, “we’re reducing the risk of wildfire to the existing residents of Chico, not increasing it.”

To be sure, Valley’s Edge is far from a cookie-cutter planned community. The east side of the development features rambling open space, and the highest-density housing will be farthest away from the fire-prone hills. The development will be built in compliance with the latest California fire construction regulations and will be an accredited member of the Firewise program, a nationwide initiative designed to promote fire-safe building practices. There will be wide roads to accommodate evacuating cars, plus reservoirs to provide fire trucks with water and trails to serve as firebreaks; Brouhard also plans to clear all the flammable pines from the area and leave only the hardy oaks.

In a notable concession to fire risk, Valley’s Edge scrapped an original plan for a residential neighborhood at the far eastern end of the project, which would have sat right next to the only road out of Paradise, the town destroyed by the 2018 Camp Fire. There were concerns that the added congestion might lead to backups on the road during evacuation events, with deadly results.

Conservation advocates and anti-development activists in the Chico area say that’s nowhere near enough to make the development safe.

“Any structures that are built there, they would serve as fuel for the fire to burn the existing developments to the west,” said Grace Mervin, an activist who organizes with the area’s Sierra Club chapter and a local group called Smart Growth Advocates that is advocating against Valley’s Edge. “In terms of the fire, I don’t know how much they can do about it.”

Indeed, the Valley’s Edge site occupies land that Cal Fire, the state fire agency, classifies as facing “moderate” fire risk, and it is surrounded by areas that the state deems part of the wildland-urban interface. Officials have periodically conducted prescribed burns in the area to clear away flammable vegetation. Other developments in the area have had close shaves with fire before: When the Camp Fire blew into the valley in 2018, it burned the very last house in a development just north of the Valley’s Edge site, then stopped short of spreading further.

Kevin Ciotta looks over the burned out community center at the Butte Creek Mobile Home Park in Chico, California, after the 2018 Camp Fire.
Mason Trinca / Washington Post via Getty Images

Megan Mowery, an urban planner who has consulted with cities on how to design for fire resilience, told Grist that it’s possible to build safe developments in a city like Chico, but everything depends on the details.

“It’s not to say we can’t live in these places, because so much of the West is wildfire-prone,” she said. “We can’t move out of the WUI — the WUI will be there. It’s just: How do we live in the WUI?” Mowery cited the need to clear flammable vegetation from around dense housing areas, bury power lines so they can’t spark up, and ensure that houses are built with fire-resistant walls and windows — all things that Brouhard plans to do in Valley’s Edge.

Brouhard and his opponents may disagree about the vulnerability of the development to wildfires, but they also disagree about a more fundamental question over what kind of housing Chico should build. Mervin thinks the city should prioritize dense, affordable construction on land in the city center, rather than large suburban-style projects such as Valley’s Edge.

“What we’d like to see is affordable infill development in the downtown area, as well as frequent public transportation,” said Mervin. “You’d need to have a certain amount of means in order to afford [Valley’s Edge], so I don’t see how it’s going to meet Chico’s housing needs. It would bring more people here, more congestion, more fire danger, and more traffic.”

“Honestly I think that what the city wants is for wealthy people from the Bay Area who can afford that housing to come here and pay more in taxes,” said Mervin. “They would really like that, and it would add to the bottom line of Chico, but I don’t think there’s many people in Chico who can afford it.” Brouhard said that the development will include hundreds of affordable units, but it isn’t yet clear what the entry-level price point for the development will be.

Brouhard told Grist that he supports center-city infill development as well, but he contends that Chico doesn’t have enough open space downtown to pursue the “grow up, not out” program that people like Mervin advocate. Decades ago, the city imposed a moratorium on all development in the expanse of farmland that borders it to the west, and many of the fire-prone hills to the east are on protected lands, which means there are few other directions where the city can expand. Much of Chico is zoned exclusively for single-family homes, and most buildings downtown are only a few stories tall. To build the number of housing units proposed for Valley’s Edge in the city center would require significant zoning changes that have long been controversial in California.

“You’d run out of infill very quick, even if you could develop it all — and the reality is, you can’t develop it all,” Brouhard said. “I don’t think it’s a serious plan to accommodate a community in a very sustainable manner. If you implemented that plan, what you would find is you can’t provide enough housing.” 

The city has been failing to provide enough housing for some time: The homeowner vacancy rate in Chico was already hovering between 1 and 2 percent even before the Camp Fire, on par with New York City. A report later found that the city added only 15 low-income housing units between 2014 and 2019, and 2,000 for wealthier income tiers. Home sale prices and rental rates increased by as much as 20 percent in the first few months after the fire — and never came all the way back down. New development since then has been minimal.

Chico is not the only city where developers are trying to build in the WUI: A recent study from the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that more than 6 million homes have been built in vulnerable areas nationwide over the past two decades, with much of the growth in eastern California. This pro-development mentality doesn’t seem to change in the aftermath of major fires, either: A U.S. Forest Service survey of California wildfires from 1970 through 2009 found that more than half of all buildings destroyed in wildfires were rebuilt within six years, and that there were “minimal trends toward lower risk areas” in where cities chose to place new buildings. The riskiness of new construction “either did not change significantly over time or increased.”

This casts doubt on the idea that traumatic events like the Camp Fire might jolt cities to diminish their zeal for WUI development. On the other hand, the California attorney general’s office released new guidelines last month that discourage local governments from approving developments on fire-prone slopes and other vulnerable places. 

It remains to be seen whether Chico will follow the trend of pushing forward with housing development even after big fires. Brouhard presented the Chico city council with a final environmental impact report for the project last month, but it will be a new crop of city council members elected earlier this month who will determine the development’s fate: The attorney general’s new guidelines aren’t black-and-white, and it will be up to the council to determine whether Valley’s Edge meets them. In the district that contains the Valley’s Edge site, two candidates staked out opposite sides of the issue — one called it a “terrific project,” while the other “strongly opposes [it] as it is not what Chico needs.” The pro-Valley’s Edge candidate won.

A evacuee encampment at a Walmart parking lot in Chico, California. The encampment emerged after the 2018 Camp Fire.
Josh Edelson / The Washington Post

If the council does approve the development, Mervin said that she and her fellow activists plan to sue under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, a 1970s-era law that is often used to challenge housing developments. CEQA is the reason why Brouhard’s environmental impact report for the project stretches to almost 700 pages, but the development’s opponents will likely try to poke holes in the review and allege that Brouhard hasn’t considered all the negative impacts of the development. Suing to stop development over concerns about fire risk has become more common in recent years: The California attorney general’s office has joined environmental organizations to file lawsuits against proposed developments in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Lake County, north of the Bay Area. All three challenges were successful.

Even if the CEQA lawsuit fails, Brouhard admits that it will take years to finish permitting for the development, which will also require him to secure approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to build on federal wetlands. It will be at least a decade beyond that before the whole project is completed.

It’s difficult to imagine now what Chico will look like in another 15 years, but fire danger is only going to keep rising. If Brouhard’s opponents are right, the developer’s pet project could someday become another Paradise. If the project isn’t built, however, the housing crisis in Chico may only get more painful.

“It’s very easy for a lot of people to say: Let’s just not build in these places,” said Mowery, the urban planner. “But is that really a long-term solution to all of the other realities that the West is going through with housing affordability? There are different ways that [risk] can be mitigated, and I think there is a lot of room to say: If it can be mitigated, then it can be built.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This California city needs housing. But is a new development destined to burn? on Nov 29, 2022.

Despite Biden’s promises, logging still threatens old forests and U.S. climate goals

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On Earth Day 2022, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to protect important but overlooked partners in the fight against climate change: mature and old-growth forests that sequester carbon, without charging a dime. 

It came as a major relief to advocates, after four years of conservation rollbacks and climate science manipulation under President Donald Trump, which encouraged aggressive logging. Mature and old-growth trees provide essential ecosystems for the many organisms living within and beneath them, and protect the water quality of nearby communities, lakes, and streams by preventing erosion. They also fix nitrogen, which improves soil quality and ensures the health of the whole forest. 

Due to centuries of logging, most of these older trees are now only found on federal lands. Executive Order 14072 directed the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to define and inventory mature and old-growth forests on federal lands — those having taken generations to develop — and then to craft new policies to protect them.

But in spite of Biden’s recent commitment, federal agencies continue to move dozens of logging projects forward in federal forests across the United States, putting over 300,000 acres at risk, according to a recent report by non-profit group, Climate Forests. Lauren Anderson, climate forest program manager for the conservation group Oregon Wild, said that’s in part due to a glaring omission in the Biden administration’s executive order. “It did not highlight logging as a threat,” Anderson said.

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Before (left) and after (right) photos from a Bureau of Land Management timber sale at Nails Creek near Cheshire, Oregon. Doug Heiken

As a result, chopping and hauling out mature and old-growth trees in critical ecosystems across the U.S. continues while the federal government works on counting what’s growing where. Swaths of bigleaf maples and Douglas firs in Oregon’s Rogue-Umpqua Divide, are among those recently axed, or marked to be logged any day now. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Poor Windy Project in southwest Oregon contains 4,573 acres of mature and old-growth stands held in public trust—that are now being sold to timber companies. They’re some of the most carbon rich forests in the world, home to black bears and northern spotted owls.

Joseph Vaile, climate program director at Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, says protecting these remaining elders couldn’t be more urgent. “In a lot of places, they’re [already] gone,” Vaile says.

BLM’s support for logging in these kinds of forests dates back to the 1930’s. The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act placed over two million acres under the agency’s control, with the aim of ensuring the perpetual flow of timber for wood products.

But Vaile says the law’s objective, and the agency culture it codified, is outdated. “Since then, our economy and our social structures have completely transitioned away from an old-growth logging economy to a more diversified economy,” he says. “Instead of going after old-growth trees, what we should be doing is protecting people from fire, adapting these forests to climate change, and protecting water sources.”

It’s a nationwide problem. Timber sales are also underway in a 12,000 acre patch of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest known as the Fourmile Vegetation Project, in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Here, lichen-draped upland hardwoods mingle with red pines and aspens, creating a rich habitat for moose and endangered gray wolves. Though much of the landscape is still recovering from continuous logging, over half of the trees are 80 years and older; and a third are centenarians.

These mature and old-growth trees store more carbon than younger trees, so it’s imperative that we protect them, says Carolyn Ramírez, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We can’t just cut them down and replant them and expect to have a net-zero carbon impact. It will take decades for that carbon to be restored in these forests, as well as all the myriad ecological benefits that leaving the trees provides,” Ramírez says. One mature tree can remove over 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the course of a year. The majority of that carbon-sequestering capacity occurs in the second half of a tree’s life, researchers have learned.

Ramírez visited Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in October, where further timber sales are currently underway. The difference in ecological diversity and surface temperature between areas where mature trees still grew, and others where the Forest Service had recently logged was “jarring,” Ramírez said. In addition to other ecosystem services, forests provide cooler microclimates for those nearby, which is significant in and of itself in a rapidly-warming world.

In response to a 2021 request by environmental groups to suspend and review operations at the Fourmile Vegetation Project on the grounds that continued logging there was at odds with national objectives on the climate crisis, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote that the project would: “maintain or enhance existing forest research studies; contribute toward fulfilling demand for wood products; provide a safe and effective road system; increase public safety related to wildfire potential; and maintain or enhance recreation experiences.”

But Andy Olsen, a senior policy advocate for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said those arguments don’t add up. For instance, the old trees harvested from the area are currently slated to be sold as pulpwood, for things like paper and plywood. In other words, mature and old-growth trees logged as part of this project will be ground down into a low-value timber product that could just as easily be produced by younger trees, grown on plantations that store less carbon and don’t serve as keystones to their ecosystems—which the Forest Service has plenty of, Olsen says. “They’re choosing to rush forward with these sales of very important lands. Why these forests, why now?” he said.

Other elements of the Forest Service’s justification are problematic as well. For example, older trees are actually more resistant to wildfires than younger ones. The ongoing timber sales are also at odds with the Biden administration’s global climate commitments, Olsen added, such as seeking to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

Federal agencies have until Earth Day 2023 to define mature and old-growth forests, and to complete their inventory. As of this writing, over 130,000 people have submitted public comments urging the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to set this definition at “80 years and older;” and a coalition of environmental groups is pushing for those agencies to propose what some advocates refer to as a “golden rule” for logging—one that would explicitly prohibit the logging of trees defined as mature and old-growth, given their unique carbon-capturing and biodiversity-protecting powers.

In the meantime, in an attempt to protect thousands of acres of majestic trees, groups including the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) are also urging the Biden administration to pause logging in areas of concern—many of which are on tribal lands—until the inventory is complete. As Michael J. Isham, executive administrator for the GLIFWC wrote to the Forest Service in August 2022, doing so would help “to ensure that future generations of Ojibwe people can continue their Treaty protected relationship with all natural beings.”

Earlier this year, academic researchers published the first study to comprehensively map mature and old-growth forests in the U.S. Advocates say these maps, in support of the government’s inventory could usher in a new approach to forestry—one where trees are treated as venerable colleagues in the fight against the climate crisis.

Anderson, of Oregon Wild, added that currently, there’s no technology capable of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere at the scale that mature and old-growth trees can. “Getting forest managers to really think about old-growth trees the same way that other states think about [renewable technologies like] solar panels and wind turbines is the culture shift that needs to happen,” she said.

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The Climate Forests Coalition works to protect mature and old-growth trees and forests from logging across America’s public lands as a cornerstone of U.S. climate policy.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Despite Biden’s promises, logging still threatens old forests and U.S. climate goals on Nov 28, 2022.

Herschel Walker, South Park, and the Prius: How loving gas-guzzlers became political

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On the campaign trail earlier this month, U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker from Georgia delivered a strange defense of vehicles that spew gobs of pollution, celebrating their inefficiency. Walker, a Republican who’s facing a runoff race against Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, told supporters at a rally in Peachtree, Georgia, that America isn’t “ready for the green agenda.”

“What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars,” Walker said. “We got the good emissions under those cars.” 

It was a moment when Walker’s absurd remarks actually squared with the party’s line (unlike, say, his comments about America’s “good air” deciding to float over to China). Republicans have said similar things over the years, displaying a worldview that fossil fuels have inherent virtue, once described as “carbonism.” It’s the belief system that drove former President Donald Trump to bar California from setting stricter emissions standards in 2019, and what led Republican congressmen to defend fossil fuels at the international climate negotiations in Egypt earlier this month.

This pro-pollution point of view can be partly explained by the GOP’s close connection to the oil industry, which funnels millions into Republican campaigns every election year. Walker’s celebration of gas guzzlers can also be understood as a reaction to the notion, quiet but widespread among many environmentally conscious people, that cleaner cars are morally superior.

In 2000, the United States was introduced to the Toyota Prius, marketed as a holier-than-thou, eco-friendly choice. The hybrid car set off a backlash so intense, you can still hear its echoes today. Prius owners were parodied in the cartoon South Park. On the road, hybrid drivers were sometimes blasted by clouds of thick black smoke, targeted by truck owners who had removed their emissions controls. A popular bumper sticker of the mid-2010s simply read “Prius Repellent.” Even Toyota embraced the image with ironic ads.

Today, gasoline-free vehicles are finally starting to go mainstream. When the all-electric version of the Ford F-150 pickup truck — America’s longtime bestselling vehicle, and a favorite among Republicans — was released this spring, its waitlist was three years long. Sales of electric vehicles were up nearly 70 percent in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year. And 36 percent of Americans reported that they were considering buying an electric vehicle for their next car, according to polling by Consumer Reports this summer, largely because of high gas prices and cost savings over the long term. For many, the environmental benefits may be just a bonus — or not even be a consideration.

“I don’t have the disposable income to throw $50,000 or $60,000 at a car just to help the environment,” Russell Grooms, a librarian in Virginia who bought a battery-powered Nissan Leaf, recently told the New York Times. “It really came down to numbers.”

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In a Prius commercial from 2008, a hitman drags a body out of his car in the middle of the night and dumps it in the river. “Well, at least he drives a Prius,” the ad says.

It was one of many advertisements that poked fun at the car’s environmental bona fides. The joke relies on understanding that driving a Prius is a form of moral “capital” that can be used to “offset life’s other sins,” wrote Sarah McFarland Taylor, a religion scholar, in the book Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue. 

Buying a Prius isn’t really that pious an act. After all, the vehicle takes a lot of fossil fuels to manufacture and runs mostly on gasoline. The most eco-friendly move: not buying a car at all. But that didn’t stop the hybrid from taking off as a righteous choice. Within two years of its release in America, the Prius had gathered a long list of celebrity owners, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, and Larry David. In 2002, the Washington Post called the Prius “Hollywood’s latest politically correct status symbol.” 

For conservative commentators, that symbol made for a ripe target. “The bottom line here is that people that are buying Priuses are doing it for glamor reasons,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show in 2005. “They wanted to appear virtuous. But they’re accomplishing nothing … These liberals think they’re ahead of the game on these things, and they’re just suckers.”

It wasn’t just Limbaugh. In 2006, South Park devoted an entire episode, called “Smug Alert,” to making fun of holier-than-thou Prius owners. It opens with Kyle’s dad, Gerald, showing off his new hybrid car, the “Toyonda Pious.” 

“I just couldn’t sit back and be a part of destroying the Earth anymore,” Gerald tells his neighbor with a condescending smile.

“Well, there goes the high and mighty Gerald Broflovski,” one onlooker comments. “Yeah, ever since he got that new hybrid he thinks he’s better than everyone else,” another says. Not long after the episode aired, a market research firm found that 57 percent of Prius owners said the main reason they bought one was that “it makes a statement about me,” versus 36 percent who said they bought it for the good gas mileage.

The car remained popular — hitting the mark of 1 million vehicles sold by 2011 — and so did parodying it. In 2012, the satirical news site The Onion made a commercial about a new, even greener Prius that “reduces its driver’s carbon footprint to zero by impaling them through the lungs with spikes as soon as they get in the car.” 

The air of moral superiority around the Prius led to real-life consequences. Certain pickup truck owners took joy in rebelling against it, rolling up in front of hybrids and engulfing the vehicles in plumes of tailpipe smoke. This testosterone-fueled practice of “rolling coal” — modifying diesel engines to spew clouds of sooty exhaust — became a health menace in the mid-2010s. Directed at electric car owners, pedestrians, bikers, or anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity, rolling coal became for these aficionados a defiant symbol of American freedom — signaling “don’t tell me what to do.”

When states moved to ban rolling coal, some drivers pushed back, the New York Times reported in 2016. “Why don’t you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country,” one diesel truck owner wrote to an Illinois state representative who proposed a $5,000 fine for removing emissions equipment. “I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars.”

One of the pitfalls of framing environmental concerns in moral terms is that it can provoke a counterreaction, especially when tied to individual behavior. One study found that listening to eco-friendly tips actually makes people less likely to do anything about climate change. Think about eating meat, often discussed as a moral issue among people concerned about animal rights or climate change. Fast-food chains like Taco Bell and Burger King have expanded their vegetarian menu items; meanwhile, Arby’s has leaned into the opposing “pro-meat” demographic. In 2018, Arby’s ran an ad with the tagline “Friends don’t let friends eat tofu.” The following year, the chain trolled vegans by introducing the “marrot,” a carrot made out of meat.

As America has grown more and more polarized, seemingly innocuous things have become associated with the other party, from pizza chains to sports leagues. One in five voters say that politics has hurt their friendships; there’s a growing aversion to dating people from the opposite party. With hybrids and electric vehicles owned most often by Democrats, Republicans like Walker might try to distance themselves from their perceived enemies by signaling their affection for fuel-hungry vehicles.

To be sure, the environment is still a major reason to buy a greener car for many Americans, especially among those on the political left. Almost three-quarters of those who would consider buying an electric vehicle said that helping the environment was a key consideration, according to polling from Pew Research. And in a survey released this month, 10 percent of Americans said it was “morally wrong” to drive a car that gets bad gas mileage. But even as they’re rolling out new electric models, car companies don’t seem to be chasing efficiency — instead, they’re making big trucks and SUVs. And they’re gaining popularity across party lines.

Aside from some lingering resentment against eco-friendly cars and what Walker called the “green agenda,” the United States seems to be moving beyond the hangups that surrounded the Prius. Over the last decade, the success of Tesla — which marketed its vehicles as cool and desirable, not a virtuous choice — paved the way for other carmakers to follow in hot pursuit. 

“The [Tesla] Model S completely delivered on its promise to change how the world thought about electric cars,” Jake Fisher, the senior director of Consumer Reports’ auto center, said earlier this year. “EVs were no longer the vegetables you should eat — they became the dessert you desired.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Herschel Walker, South Park, and the Prius: How loving gas-guzzlers became political on Nov 28, 2022.

Planning your 2023 travel? Skip these places in order to save them

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Fodor’s, the popular travel company that built its business on telling you where to go and where to stay, eat and drink once you’re there, has just released a list of places around the world you should skip in 2023. 

The company’s 2023 “No List” isn’t advising you to avoid these destinations because of bad food, lousy attractions, or risk of danger, but because the presence of large numbers of tourists in these places is causing unsustainable ecological, cultural, and social harm.

The “No List” focuses on global tourism’s impact on three key areas: unique and sensitive natural environments increasingly degraded by tourists, “cultural hotspots” facing overcrowding and strained housing and infrastructure, and destinations in the midst of water crises that already heavily burden local communities.

Lake Tahoe, California, and Antarctica made the list of natural wonders that deserve a respite from tourists due to their ecologically sensitive environments. As for cultural destinations on the list, Venice and the Amalfi Coast in Italy; Cornwall, England; Amsterdam, Netherlands; as well as Thailand, were noted as experiencing strained infrastructure and higher costs of living that are increasingly pushing out locals.   

Global tourism, through a combination of food consumption, accommodation, transportation, and the purchasing of souvenirs, contributes eight percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. After a brief respite in the first months of the pandemic, tourism numbers have exploded, exceeding even pre-pandemic numbers. 

But the pandemic-induced downtown in tourism gave locals, environmental activists, and government officials in places like Thailand the chance to witness something seemingly unimaginable: the revival of their local ecologies and communities that had been devastated by the social and environmental costs attributed to the industry. In April, the Southeast Asian country’s government banned styrofoam packaging and single-use plastics from national parks. The minister of natural resources and environment also ordered that all national parks in Thailand be closed for one month a year.

Amidst global droughts and depleting reserves, water is central to understanding some of the pushback from local communities against mass tourism. On the Hawaiian Island of Maui, which also made the “No List,” many Native Hawaiians have become increasingly vocal about how mass tourism is negatively impacting their access to increasingly scarce water resources. This past June, mandatory water restrictions were put in place in parts of Maui most visited by mainland and international tourists. The order prohibited non-essential use of water, including irrigation, lawn watering and washing vehicles. But as local households were forced to adjust or face hefty fines, hotels and other tourism facilities were exempt from these cutbacks.

“When they stay in a destination, tourists essentially become temporary residents,” said Justin Francis, the co-founder and CEO of travel company Responsible Travel, in an email. “That can place an additional strain on local services and facilities.” Francis advocates for more tourism taxes, which he says can boost funding for infrastructure development – roads, access to clean water, energy provision – that benefits local communities as well as tourists. 

Pushback against mass tourism has also extended to policies on housing availability and affordability. On Oahu, Hawaii’s most populous island, the mayor of Honolulu signed a bill in April restrictions on short-term rental properties and Airbnbs in an attempt to help alleviate the local housing crisis. The proliferation of these properties, particularly in densely populated cities like Amsterdam and Barcelona, has become one of the most controversial issues not only among housing advocates and travel experts, but also official marketing and tourism officials. “They’re literally decimating communities – pricing local people out of their homes and areas they’ve lived their whole lives in,” said Francis. Amsterdam’s left-wing city council attempted to ban Airbnb rentals in three central districts of the city, but it was overturned by local courts last year.  

The city of Honolulu’s policy includes limiting the number of Airbnbs and short-term rental properties as well as increasing the minimum length of stay required for visitors who use these services. The majority of homeless on the streets of the city are Native Hawaiians, who experience disproportionate levels of poverty throughout the state.     

Of course, many communities most vulnerable to the negative social and environmental impacts of mass tourism are also dependent on it for their livelihoods. Simply boycotting travel can also hurt groups that are most vulnerable, including women, migrants, and people of color.

Some destinations are seeking to make the most of the economic benefits of tourism while minimizing its cultural and environmental impacts simply by restricting travel to “high value” tourists – i.e, those with more disposable income. The Himalayan nation of Bhutan is a prime example. Visitors are charged a daily $200 fee, which doesn’t cover the cost of hotels or other services. Bhutan’s government says that the fee supports sustainable tourism development and training, as well as carbon offsetting.  

As for Antarctica, some experts argue that its inclusion on Fodor’s list is complicated, due to the fact that the landmass has no local population that would benefit from visitors. On the other hand, thoughtful and sustainable tourism could arguably protect more of the environment there, which could serve as a buffer against more destructive economic industries like mining. “Tourism here cannot be allowed to grow without limits and mandatory environmental measures,” said Francis from Responsible Travel. However, The Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits economic and military exploitation of the region, will likely continue to protect the area’s environment and resources.

The big takeaway from Fodor’s list is that travel can be a force for good – both for nature and for local communities. The key is not necessarily to stay away, said Francis, but to always make informed choices that minimize harm and maximize benefits to local communities first. 

“As an industry we need to do better than ‘leaving nothing but footprints’, and actively work towards creating positive impacts,” he said.  

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Planning your 2023 travel? Skip these places in order to save them on Nov 23, 2022.

Tanzania drops murder charges against 24 Maasai land defenders

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State prosecutors in the United Republic of Tanzania dropped murder charges this week against twenty-four Indigenous Maasai, accused of killing a police officer during a state-sponsored eviction campaign to remove Maasai from their land and create a protected game reserve.

The incident, which occurred in June, involved hundreds of security officers attempting to remove Maasai people from their homelands in Loliondo, in Northern Tanzania, and left dozens of Maasai injured or shot. In the aftermath, many Maasai fled across the border to Kenya for medical treatment while others were arrested or confined to their homes. During the conflict, a police officer died after reportedly being stabbed by a spear. In July, the Tanzanian government arrested twenty-five Maasai, charging them with the officer’s murder. One person was later released, but the remaining twenty-four men and women remained in prison until their release Tuesday.

“It is a good day for those who have been in prison for months now and their families, but at the same time it is outrageous that these innocent people have been in prison for this many months,” said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based human rights nonprofit. “It shows just how wrong the actions of the Tanzanian government are to criminalize the land defenders.”

But despite the legal victory, experts say the Maasai still have significant challenges to protecting their land and rights. The Tanzanian government is still pushing to create a protected game reserve in Loliondo, which would take approximately 1,500 square kilometers of the 4,000 square kilometer area currently inhabited by the Maasai. Tanzania plans to let Otterlo Business Company, a United Arab Emirates based company, manage the reserve. 

In June, a group of United Nations experts expressed concern at Tanzania’s plans to displace Maasai people without their free, prior and informed consent, as required under international human rights law and standards. “This will cause irreparable harm, and could amount to dispossession, forced eviction and arbitrary displacement prohibited under international law,” the U.N. said.

In the nearby Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, additional Maasai communities are also facing removal in order to protect and preserve the areas biodiversity and ecosystems – a practice many analysts describe as “fortress conservation,” a conservation model that relies on creating protected areas that function in isolation of human disturbance. Notably, fortress conservation relies on removing or barring communities that have traditionally relied on those areas from entering or living. If government efforts are successful, nearly 150,000 Maasai people in the Loliondo and Ngorongoro areas will be removed.

“It is no different from the old racist neocolonial top down conservation models, which are Western based,” Mittal said. “Unfortunately, despite the independence of countries, they continue to be shackled in this ideology, which believes that nature has to be protected from men.”

In October, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of indigenous peoples, Francisco Calí Tzay, called attention to the Maasai’s situation in a report to the General Assembly on protected areas. In response, a representative from Tanzania insisted that any relocations of Maasai are voluntary and Indigenous peoples are not legally recognized in Tanzania. Calí Tzay has requested to visit Tanzania to further investigate, but the Tanzanian government has yet to respond. 

Mittal says that until the world changes its conservation model, Indigenous peoples will continue to suffer from eviction, violence, and criminalization. “It’s a failure of the international community to deal with the climate crisis, but instead have the poor, Indigenous, and marginalized pay for it,” Mittal said. 

The Tanzanian government and representatives for the Maasai did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Tanzania drops murder charges against 24 Maasai land defenders on Nov 23, 2022.

Inside the COP27 fight to get wealthy nations to pay climate reparations

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For more than three decades, the developing world has demanded that wealthy countries pay up for the “loss and damage” that vulnerable nations are already experiencing due to climate change. Those calls were finally met early Sunday morning when the 27th United Nations climate change conference, or COP27, came to a close in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. 

A new global pact establishes a fund “for responding to loss and damage” and creates a transitional committee to work out who will contribute to the fund, which developing countries will be eligible to draw from it, and how it will be governed. Negotiators for developing countries and nonprofits cheered the decision, noting that it was long overdue. 

“It’s a historic moment,” Nabeel Munir, a Pakistani diplomat and chief negotiator for the G77 developing countries, told the Guardian. “[It’s the] culmination of 30 years of work and beginning of a new chapter in pursuit of climate justice.”

The loss and damage fund is just the sixth special fund to be created in the United Nations’ 30-year history of tackling climate change. Nations last agreed to set up the $100 billion Green Climate Fund in 2010.

Efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to a warming world — referred to as mitigation and adaptation, respectively, in climate talks — are two of the major pillars of the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 global pact to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Loss and damage is the third pillar. When efforts to mitigate and adapt fail or fall behind, the effects of climate change such as more frequent and intense extreme weather, sea-level rise, and forced migration are borne by the world’s most vulnerable. Loss and damage funding would offset the economic and non-economic costs of the climate crisis in countries that did little to contribute to the problem. 

Just two months ago, establishing a separate fund for loss and damage restitution was an ambitious — perhaps even elusive — goal. The United States, European Union, and other wealthy countries were adamantly opposed for fear that admitting to their historical role in the climate crisis would open them up to unlimited liability, putting them on the hook for billions, if not trillions, of dollars. Some estimates put the price tag on loss and damage between $290 billion and $580 billion per year by 2030. 

But that opposition melted away in Egypt. Developing countries put up a united front at COP27, pressure escalated from nongovernmental organizations, media attention grew, and a last-minute reversal from the European Union left the U.S. isolated in its opposition. 

“We can’t celebrate, because it’s already so late to have such a fund established,” said Harjeet Singh, a longtime follower of climate negotiations and the head of global political strategy at the Climate Action Network, an international coalition of more than 1,800 environmental groups. “People needed it years ago. However, it does speak to people’s power and all the pressure that came from the outside on both developing and developed countries. That made it happen, and that is something to be celebrated.” 

Record monsoon rains this year left a third of Pakistan, a country that has contributed less than 1 percent of global carbon emissions, underwater.
Aamir Qureshi / AFP via Getty Images

The first glimmers of progress in the loss and damage debate happened last year, at climate talks in Glasgow. Scotland became the first government in the developed world to recognize loss and damage and pledged about $2.3 million toward funding it. Activists were buoyed by what they called the “de-tabooing” of the issue, but ultimately, COP26 ended with disappointment for the Global South, with only a meager agreement for a “dialogue” on the issue.

The U.S. and other rich nations’ opposition remained so strong that they initially tried to prevent the topic from making it onto the official COP27 agenda. But escalating pressure from activists and developing countries, as well as devastating floods that left a third of Pakistan, a country that has contributed less than 1 percent of carbon emissions historically, under water this summer, brought renewed attention to the issue. 

After receiving assurances that the U.S., European Union, and other developed nations wouldn’t be held liable, the issue eventually made it onto the formal agenda for the first time ever. It was a historic move and one that resulted in “cautious optimism,” Michai Robertson, a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, told Grist.

To understand what followed over the next two weeks, it’s crucial to understand the various political factions and their positions in climate negotiations. Countries at COP27 largely fall into one of two groups: developed and developing, as defined in 1992, three years before the first COP conference. On one side are developed countries in the G7, which include the wealthiest nations and largest historical polluters. And on the other side are developing nations, which are further grouped into the G77, Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries, the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Alliance of Small Island States, among others.

But these divisions based on the economic stature of countries in the 1990s has become a growing source of tension in climate negotiations. Countries in the G7 are largely responsible for historical emissions, making up nearly 80 percent of the total carbon emissions between 1850 and 2015. In the last few decades though, growing economies in the developing world such as China and India have seen their emissions increase dramatically. China is now the largest annual emitter, followed by the U.S. and India. These shifts have led to finger pointing and blame games during climate negotiations, with the G7 trying to rope China and other wealthy countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia into paying for climate action.   

During the first week of COP27, the U.S. and other G7 nations seemed firmly entrenched in their opposition to a direct funding scheme for loss and damage. Instead, they emphasized the need for a broad array of “funding arrangements,” from considering the use of existing climate funds to early-warning systems for disaster risk reduction. They proposed setting a deadline for 2024 for discussing those arrangements, but didn’t promise any specific outcomes at the end. Meanwhile, the G77, China, and other developing countries, as well as nonprofits, called for a specific “mechanism” or “facility” or “fund” that would begin disbursing money in two years. 

By the middle of the second week, with each camp digging in its heels, tensions were running high. The outgoing chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, Molwyn Joseph, told the press that establishing a loss and damage fund at COP27 was a “red line” for the group and that they were discussing walking away from negotiations if their demands weren’t met. Meanwhile, advocacy groups began observing attempts to break up the unity between the various negotiating blocs representing the developing world. 

Developing nations and activists have been demanding funding for loss and damage for 30 years. Their pressure campaign this year is a key reason developed countries walked back their opposition to a separate fund.
Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Led by Germany, the G7 in partnership with a group of climate-vulnerable countries had proposed an insurance initiative as one way to address loss and damage. The countries committed more than $200 million toward subsidizing insurance programs for developing countries and setting up other social security schemes. It was a move that most advocates saw as a distraction from the call for a separate fund for loss and damage. The U.S. and European Union also began indicating that they wanted a broad pool of donors to contribute to loss and damage funding, not just developed countries. 

“They are looking for any possible way to break up the bloc,” Brandon Wu, head of policy and campaigns at the social justice advocacy group ActionAid USA, told Grist. “One of those tactics is trying to say countries like China and India are different from some of the most vulnerable countries and they need to be contributors to this fund.”

But the developing nations stayed unified. China, which already contributes to climate financing through a separate $3.1 billion South-South Climate Cooperation Fund and other channels, said it would be willing to contribute toward compensation for loss and damage on a voluntary basis. Then on Thursday, in what appeared to be an attempt to show a unified front just one day before the official close of COP27, leaders from the G77, Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean, Alliance of Small Island States, and Least Developed Countries held an “emergency press conference” to reiterate the need for a fund. “We are seeking to find common ground even at this late hour,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, on behalf of the G77 and China. “The clock is ticking.”

The turning point came just a few hours later. With little warning, at a late night meeting of negotiators, the Vice President of the European Union, Frans Timmermans, floated an “offer” in the “spirit of trying to find compromises.” The EU would support the demand for setting up a separate loss and damage fund “for the most vulnerable countries.” It would receive funding from a “broad donor base” and would be set up at COP27. The proposal mostly capitulated on the demand for a fund set up immediately, but expanded the contributor pool to include emerging economies and wealthier developing countries. Having held firm against any sort of fund, the U.S. was reportedly blindsided. 

“It actually just goes to show how blatant the U.S.’ obstruction is,” said Rachel Rose Jackson, director at the nonprofit Corporate Accountability. “[The EU and U.S.] work hand-in-hand to advance a shared strategy. When they get to the point when they’re ready to publicly distance themselves from the U.S., you know they’re doing dirty.”

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry was opposed to a separate fund for loss and damage just two months ago. After the European Union reversed course, the U.S. also changed its position.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The EU proposal broke the logjam. With the U.S. isolated in its opposition to the fund, it quickly reversed its position. In about 24 hours, the COP27 presidency, headed by Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, released text that explicitly called for a new, separate fund to support loss and damage costs in vulnerable countries.

The fund is a massive step forward, but the agreement in Egypt punted on many thorny issues. For one, the pact is neutral on whether countries like China, which are classified as “developing” but are now major carbon emitters, will pay into the fund. The text also opens up questions about which countries will be eligible for appropriations from the fund. There are no concrete dollar amounts for funding. As a result, the fund is essentially an empty bank account at the moment. The battle over fund donors and recipients will play out over the coming year once a transitional committee is appointed. 

“There’s hard work ahead to get this fund operational and ensure it serves the needs of communities hit hardest by climate extremes and slow-onset disasters,” Rachel Cleetus, a policy director and lead economist at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “But today, fittingly, at this ‘Africa COP,’ the most important and long-awaited first step on that path has been secured.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the COP27 fight to get wealthy nations to pay climate reparations on Nov 22, 2022.

Developing countries need trillions for climate action. Where will it come from?

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In 2009, when representatives from around the world gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss global action on climate change, wealthy countries pledged $100 billion a year to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures and curb carbon emissions. 

The number was arbitrary, tossed into the fray by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as tensions rose over rich countries’ responsibility to pay for the problem they had largely caused. But it stuck, and 2020 was set as a goal for delivering the funds.

This week, at the United Nations climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, or COP27, these payments were once again front and center. Wealthy nations have yet to meet their $100 billion a year promise, the costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change are only growing, and developing nations are now calling for reparations for the impacts they are already suffering.

A report released last week found developing countries, excluding China, will need $2 trillion a year to deal with the worsening impacts of global warming and transition their economies away from fossil fuels. Half of that money “can be reasonably expected” to come from domestic sources, the report said, but international finance — from wealthy countries to the World Bank — must make up the rest.

How that money will be raised and provided to developing nations has been a focus of negotiations in Egypt. Everything is on the table. 

“Over the last few months, the role of different institutions has come to the fore,” said Preety Bhandari, a senior advisor in global climate and finance at the World Resources Institute. 

Here is an overview of the major strategies being discussed to pay for the mounting costs of climate change:

Unlocking Private Sector Finance

Historically, the bulk of the money for climate finance has come from the public sector — national coffers as well as multilateral development banks like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or IMF. But with the costs of climate adaptation and mitigation rising, officials say there is simply not enough money in the public sector to meet climate finance goals for developing countries.

“There is only one place you find the money we need in the trillions of dollars,” U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in an interview with the Financial Times in May. “That’s the private sector.”

So far, however, it has been hard to get the private sector to fund projects in the countries that need it most. One report from a climate finance group found that the amount of private capital provided for public-private climate partnerships is actually shrinking. “Every public dollar spent is now mobilizing less than a quarter of private investment,” said Patrick Bigger, research director at the Climate and Community Project.

Last year, several wealthy governments joined forces with investment banks to launch a Just Energy Transition Partnership, or JETP, with South Africa to help the developing nation phase off coal; money has been slow to materialize and the program is expecting a $39 billion shortfall over the next five years. At COP27, another partnership was announced with Indonesia, one of the world’s top exporters of coal, and more are in the works with India and Senegal.

Calls to increase funding through such “blended finance” strategies are ongoing, but some countries, like Vietnam, have rejected initial JETP packages because they’re primarily composed of loans instead of grants. John Kerry’s proposal to shore up private investment in JETPs through carbon credits was met with pushback. And developing countries have been wary about relying too much on the private sector to meet the $100 billion goal, saying that rich countries are dodging their own responsibility to pay.

Of particular concern is relying on the private sector to fund adaptation projects. A restored mangrove swamp or an early storm warning system, for instance, doesn’t generate the financial returns that a solar farm does. Over two-thirds of the money raised toward the $100 billion goal to date has been for climate change mitigation. Developing countries are now asking for a more even split, with half of all climate finance flowing to adaptation. Language in the current draft text released Friday recalls a commitment from last year in Glasgow to double adaptation funding to $40 billion per year and develop a roadmap to get there by 2025.

In the final days of COP27, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on parties to deliver and expand on climate finance goals for developing countries. Mohamed Abdel Hamid/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

More Payouts from Multilateral Development Banks

Calls for the World Bank, IMF, and other multilateral development banks to open their coffers continue to grow louder. These banks, public institutions established with the goal of rebuilding war-torn nations after WWII, have massive sums of money at their disposal, but they are conservative and slow to spend it. Experts say they are over-concerned with their credit rating and too hesitant to take on financial risk.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has called for a reform of these banks in her Bridgetown Agenda, a proposal to change the global financial architecture to support climate action and sustainable development. The plan has been getting a lot of traction at COP27. It calls on the IMF to, among other things, issue $1 trillion in low-interest, long-term loans to climate-vulnerable countries and simplify fast access to funding. It also calls for a climate mitigation trust that would release $650 billion in special drawing rights, credits that can be exchanged for currency and don’t need to be paid back, or that can be borrowed from other countries at low interest rates. 

The call to overhaul international finance institutions has found support in the U.S. and Germany; French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to suggest changes with Mottley at the next meetings of the IMF and World Bank governors. And the second version of the COP27 draft retained language on multilateral development bank reform.

Beyond low-interest lending, developing countries are also calling for more grants from wealthy nations and multilateral development banks. Over 70 percent of climate funding for developing nations has been doled out in the form of loans, which add to already exorbitantly high debt burdens. 

Addressing the Debt Crisis

Because of the legacies of colonialism and slavery that funneled labor and resources away from the Global South, many developing countries have had to borrow money to meet basic needs. At the same time, these countries are perceived as riskier investments and have had to pay higher premiums and interest rates than rich countries. Current inflation is only making the whole situation worse. Two-thirds of low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress, and this crisis has made it harder for them to prioritize spending on climate change. 

“As we run into this economic climate, it’s very easy to go the austerity route,” said Sara Jane Ahmed, financial advisor for the V20, a group of finance ministers from 58 of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. “It’s so important — given the need to invest now and adapt and build resilient economies and communities — that we not go that route.” 

The section on finance in the COP27 draft text notes the increased indebtedness of developing countries and mentions the importance of scaling-up grants and “non-debt instruments.” Other solutions circling around include debt restructuring at lower interest rates, suspension of loan payments after natural disasters, debt-for-nature swaps, and outright debt cancellation, which public figures in Pakistan have called for after crippling debt restricted the country’s ability to respond to devastating floods this year.

The Nature Conservancy has orchestrated swaps in places like the Seychelles, Belize, and Barbados, where countries’ debt is refinanced at a lower interest rate and in exchange, the money saved goes to conservation. But as Kevin Bender, who runs these programs in African and Indian Ocean nations notes, it has been hard to get investors on board. 

“Some sort of debt restructure is an inevitability,” said Bigger, who co-authored a report with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on how debt restructuring and cancellation could be a first step toward climate reparations for climate-vulnerable countries. “The question is will there be a concerted push to do it well now, or will it be done through piecemeal initiatives like you had across the 80s and 90s until you get to ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative’?”

That program, which cleared IMF and World Bank debt for the poorest countries, showed that with enough political will, debt cancellation is possible. 

Pakistan faces over $40 billion of damages after floods this year put a third of the country underwater.
Muhammed Semih Ugurlu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Loss and Damage 

A concept known as “loss and damage” has become a major driver of discussions at this year’s COP. Separate from but related to adaptation, loss and damage refers to the destruction already being caused by climate change, and the future loss that will be inevitable. Funding for loss and damage has also been referred to as climate reparations.

Developing countries have been calling for loss and damage funding for years. They bear the brunt of climate impacts despite contributing the least to global warming. In Egypt, nations are demanding that industrialized countries commit to a dedicated funding mechanism for loss and damage, separate from adaptation. The details of how much money would go into the fund and where it would come from would be worked out later, but there have been some suggestions of sources, including taxes on oil and gas profits or on airlines, frequent fliers, and shipping companies. Developing nations have also been adamant that funding for loss and damage be grant-based. While the United States has resisted taking on liability for loss and damage, the idea of taxing private companies was received with openness by John Kerry.

Earlier this week, a group of some of the most industrialized countries, led by Germany, proposed a program called the Global Shield, which would include insurance, social security, and other financial assistance that could be deployed when disaster strikes. But loss and damage advocates have rejected the proposal on grounds that it is unfair to have people in developing countries pay for insurance, that it detracts from the call for a separate direct funding mechanism, and that payouts for similar schemes have been delayed, withheld, or insufficient. 

Discussions have hit a breaking point over loss and damage; on Friday morning, the European Union surprised negotiators by agreeing to a new fund. At stake is now whether countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, who were not considered developed countries when the terms were first defined in 1992 but are now some of the world’s leading economies, will be on the hook to contribute to the fund. 

Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, final decisions and commitments on how much additional money is needed and where it will come from are still a few years away. Bodies like the IMF and World Bank that decide things like debt forgiveness and special drawing rights operate outside of the UN climate convention, but “this COP can send a signal for changes that will happen over the next few years,” said Bhandari. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Developing countries need trillions for climate action. Where will it come from? on Nov 18, 2022.