The New York Times reports that, despite the rise of renewable energy and the pledges to reduce carbon emissions made by nations at the 2015 Paris Accord, the world is continuing on a path to calamitous warming. This is because increased global demand for energy is outpacing the extraordinary growth of renewable sources. Carbon Tracker estimates that current government policies and actions will allow the planet to warm by an average of 2.7 – 2.9°C by 2100. The enormous emissions reductions needed to keep global average temperatures to the 1.5°C threshold (the U.S., for example, would have to reduce emissions to 80% of the 2005 level by 2035) now seem so remote that many scientists are reluctantly concluding this ambitious goal is out of reach. Global emissions of carbon dioxide will likely reach 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, an increase of 0.8% over 2023. While emissions from the United States and Europe will likely decline in 2024, and fossil-fuel use continues to slow in China, there has been a surge in carbon-dioxide emissions from India and the rest of the world. Said one analyst: “Solar and wind are displacing fossil fuels in some countries, but then you have other countries where the economies are growing too strongly for renewables to keep up.”

The New York Times describes how China is leading the world’s transition to clean energy. China installed 425 gigawatts of new solar power in 2023, while the rest of the world installed only 162 gigawatts. This extraordinary acceleration extends beyond solar. “In 2023, China installed 74 gigawatts of new wind capacity; the rest of the world installed 43 gigawatts, and the United States just 6. In 2023, 8.1 million electric vehicles were sold in China, compared to 5.6 million everywhere else in the world and 1.4 million in America.” The global transition can be seen in the shift of manufacturing capacity. In 2023, more than 60% of the world’s wind turbines were manufactured in China. And the American share of global solar manufacturing was 13% in 2004 but less than 1% by 2023. Still, China today emits almost three times as much carbon as the United States.

The Guardian examines the denial of climate science by Trump’s cabinet picks — unfortunately a common thread among his appointees. One of those is Trump’s designate to be Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins. Despite her past claims that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, she’s going to have to deal with the fact that climate change is hammering American farmers. Just recently, the American Farm Bureau decided to stop denying climate science given the problems its members are facing. The sobering reality of climate change will also challenge the other Trump officials who deny climate science.

The New York Times describes Donald Trump’s goal to downsize or eliminate the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “That’s according to Project 2025, the policy framework put together by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The authors of the nearly 900 page document wrote that NOAA ‘should be broken up and downsized,’ calling the agency that employs 12,000 workers across the world ‘one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.’” The importance of weather and climate data is noted by author Michael Lewis: “Without that data and the Weather Service to make sense of it,” Lewis wrote, “no plane would fly, no bridge would be built and no war would be fought — at least not well.”

Just to stay grounded with how out-there some people are, The Guardian reports that the militia group, Veterans on Patrol, is convinced that Hurricane Helene was caused by “a government energy weapon” that has to be destroyed. At least some of the group’s members also believe that “the US military is spraying the American people with poisons, and that members should be willing to destroy government facilities in order to stop these activities.” Their Telegram account notes that the goal of the supposed government activity is to “secure” lithium mines to make sure “the planned Asheville Smart City comes to fruition.” And, just so you are in the know, the Covid-19 vaccine is apparently some sort of government “bioweapon.”

The Washington Post reports on drought conditions around the U.S. this fall. Despite Hurricanes Helene and Milton, 40 states experienced well-below-normal rainfall from August through October. More than 237 million Americans have been experiencing these drought conditions. New York City just had its driest month since records started in 1869, and has declared a drought warning. This is because of a high-pressure system that was parked over the northern states, a “blocking high” that is keeping low pressure (and associated precipitation) away from a large part of the continent. Such high-pressure systems are becoming more common (think of the “ridiculously resilient ridge” of high pressure over the northeastern Pacific Ocean that helped create California’s recent drought).

And in South America, The New York Times notes that “the world’s largest river system, the Amazon, which sustains some 30 million people across eight countries, is drying up.” Brazil is experiencing intense wildfires, economic disruption (due in part to loss of water-based transportation), declines in fisheries and loss of electricity production from hydropower plants. “Distant Indigenous villages have become isolated. Some face shortages of drinking water, medicine and food, with the authorities delivering aid by helicopter.” The Columbian government is cutting water to residential homes in Bogota at regular intervals, and the mayor has suggested that people reduce water consumption by bathing “as a couple.” Scientists tie these drought conditions to high temperatures in the North Atlantic and the strong El Niño in 2023-24.

The New York Times describes how water supplies in the highlands of Peru are dwindling as glaciers melt. Glaciers have shrunk by more than 40% since 1968. In some regions, the weathering of newly exposed rocks is triggering acid drainage that makes the water undrinkable. The acidic water is causing health problems, killing fish and reducing agricultural productivity. One resident of the Peruvian highlands said “she longed for the abundance of her youth, when trout could be plucked from the river, thick snow and ice covered the peaks, springs gushed from the mountainside and grasses for grazing livestock grew waist-high.”

Grist visits western North Carolina, where water is also in short supply. This is because of the damage Hurricane Helene caused to the infrastructure of more than two dozen water systems. In Asheville, the water taps have just started running again after being dry for three weeks. Wastewater systems have also been affected, and folks in Banner Elk could not flush their toilets for a month. The storm damage is on top of the problems from an aging infrastructure in communities with a declining tax base, and it is not clear where the resources will come from to fix many of these water systems. Fire officials worry if there would be enough water to deal with a wildfire in some of these communities.

An op-ed in The New York Times examines the red-flag fire warnings that have been issued this fall in New England. An unheard of condition 50 years ago, this fall over 500 wildfires have ignited just in New Jersey. “We are being reminded the hard way that we share this world. Smoke knows no boundaries, and neither does fire. It’s not a Southern problem or a Western problem; it’s our shared reality.” “In these November fires, I can’t not see an allegory for the forewarned scorching of our political norms: the detailed forecast, the abundant precedents, the myopic faith in (or outright disdain for) old laws and methods that might somehow contain this volatile new energy.”

The Washington Post describes how the island of Hokkaido, Japan, is moving towards meeting its electrical demand with renewables and battery storage. This includes the largest flow-battery installation in the world as of 2022. That record only lasted two months, as is common in the world of renewables these days, before a flow battery was brought online in China that can deliver as much energy as an average U.S. natural-gas power plant. The flow-battery’s name derives from the flow of a liquid vanadium solution that is at the heart of this technology. Flow batteries can be much larger, more durable and deliver electricity longer than standard lithium-ion batteries, making them well-suited for utility applications.

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