Broad global majorities support urgent climate action — especially if the messaging is right

Saul Elbein

The Hill

Tue, 5 December 2023 


Love for the future, not fear for oneself. A cleaner and more high-tech society, not a more limited one. And the responsibility of businesses and governments over individuals.

Those are the messages that drive more than three-quarters of people on earth to support rapid climate action, according to a survey published on Tuesday by advocacy group Potential Energy with support from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Global Strategic Communications Council.

The report found that 78 percent of people worldwide agreed with the statement that it was “essential that our government does whatever it takes to limit the effects of climate change” — while just 10 percent disagreed.

The most potent messages for respondents centered on replacing coal with clean energy, setting clean energy targets, limiting carbon emissions and subsidizing clean energy.

As this year’s United Nations climate change conference (COP28) takes place in Dubai, the report offered a positive view of global support for climate action — even as it conveyed a slightly more complicated one about decades of climate messaging.

For one thing, it found that the vast majority of people worldwide are not familiar with key benchmarks related to the issue.

In the U.S., for example, about half of the population had heard of the Paris Climate Agreement — but just 21 percent had heard of the goal it established of limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

While that number sets the limit beyond which the vast majority of climate scientists believe serious danger waits, most North Americans thought that the U.N. had set a safe level more than twice as high — at 3.7 Celsius.

That is a level that U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has compared to “the gates to hell.”

Respondents also tended to blame governments and corporations — not their fellow citizens — for the climate crisis, and to hold them responsible for fixing it.

Only 26 percent of respondents worldwide thought the onus was primarily on individuals — a number that was 20 percent in the United States.

The biggest share of Americans — about 35 percent — believed the government was most responsible, followed closely by about 32 percent that believed it was primarily up to business to fix the crisis.

One of the biggest findings, however, was that support for climate policies could swing by as much as 20 percentage points based on how the same proposition was framed.

People, it found, responded poorly to anything that suggested limitations. This included words like mandates, bans or phaseouts — the last of which has become the center of COP28, as the world decides whether to pursue a complete elimination of fossil fuels or just a phasedown of their use.

Messaging that framed measures in such terms “often led to 9 points lower support (and in extreme cases, up to 20 points lower support) than those that did not,” researchers wrote.

The study revealed one major caveat to the idea that limits were bad, however: People liked the idea of limits on pollution from fossil fuels.

About 76 percent of people agreed with the proposition that the world shared a “global responsibility to limit the amount of carbon pollution emitted” — a limit that respondents connected to the need ”to protect the communities that are most at risk.”

As a case study, researchers considered the idea of banning gas stoves — a contentious issue in state legislatures across the country.

While a majority of respondents backed such a ban however it was presented by the researchers, many more people were supportive when the idea was framed in general and positive terms.

Americans, for example, were 50 points more likely to accept the idea that technology could help them stay within environmental limits while maintaining the same standard of living than they were to accept a lower standard.

Around the world, three-quarters of respondents agreed that “as better technologies come onto the market, we should require their use in all new buildings and construction.”

A slimmer majority — 54 percent — agreed with the idea of banning gas stoves, and 70 percent supported mandating their replacement with electric stoves — although all three statements express roughly the same policy.

Positivity also colors the main motivation respondents gave for supporting urgent climate action: “to protect the planet for future generations.”

That motivation was 12 times more powerful than the desire to grow the economy.

It was also about twice as powerful as the desire to protect their health or themselves from extreme weather.

“The data says that fear versus hope is the wrong debate. The big motivator is protecting what we love,” the report’s authors wrote.

“It is the combination of people’s love for their children and their world, and their sense of impending loss, that drives their desire for a different and better future for the world. This is the bigger narrative that can lift support across countries and segments.”

There is one important outlier in these findings: the United States. The U.S. has the strongest political polarization of all countries surveyed, with left-leaning people 46 percent more likely to support climate action than those who are more conservative — a level of polarization four times that of the average country.

Other countries with big fossil fuel sectors share that dynamic, though to a lesser extent: In Norway, Canada and Germany there is 30 percent more support for climate action on the left, and in the U.K., Chile and Brazil there is 10 to 20 percent more support on the left.

In a few countries — like Indonesia, Nigeria, India and Turkey — it is the right wing that is more supportive of climate action, meanwhile.

In the case of the U.S., researchers also noted that support for climate action does not line up with the country’s contribution to the crisis. The U.S. has contributed 25 percent of historical carbon emissions and a similar amount of the current global GDP, which tends to track emissions.

But Americans were the least likely of any nation’s respondents to support the 18 climate policies the pollsters put before them.

Even here, however, a comfortable national majority of 59 percent supported even the least popular options for climate action.

And even on the U.S. right — where support for a fossil-fuel phaseout hovered around 20 percent — a majority of respondents backed subsidizing clean energy.

That’s something that more than two-thirds of U.S. independents back — along with replacing coal with clean energy and limits on carbon pollution.

— Updated Dec. 6 at 9:31 a.m.

Climate summit leader defends controversial comments that alarmed scientists and sent shockwaves through meeting

Laura Paddison, CNN
Tue, 5 December 2023

Sultan Al Jaber, the oil executive who is leading the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, sent shockwaves through the gathering by claiming in the days before the UN-backed talks that there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to keep global warming under a critical threshold — comments Al Jaber said were misinterpreted.

Al Jaber held a surprise news conference Monday where he fiercely defended his commitment to climate science, after an increasing number of scientists and advocates expressed alarm at the comments and concern for the direction of the talks.

The future role of fossil fuels is one of the most controversial issues countries are grappling with at the COP28 climate summit. While some are pushing for a “phase-out,” others are calling for the weaker language of a “phase-down.” Scientific reports have shown that fossil fuels must be rapidly slashed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius — the goal of the Paris climate agreement, and a threshold above which scientists warn it will be more difficult for humans and ecosystems to adapt.

Al Jaber made the remarks during the She Changes Climate panel event on November 21, which came to light on Sunday in a story published by the Guardian, and in video that CNN has reviewed. Al Jaber was asked by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and current chair of the Elders Group, an independent group of global leaders, if he would lead on phasing out fossil fuels.

In his response, Al Jaber told Robinson, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” He said he had expected to come to the She Changes Climate meeting to have a “sober and mature conversation” and was not “signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.”

He continued that the 1.5-degree goal was his “north star,” and a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuel was “inevitable” but “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.”

In an increasingly fractious series of responses to Robinson pushing him on the point, Al Jaber asked her “please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

Al Jaber’s presidency of the COP28 summit has been controversial. The Emirati businessman is the UAE’s climate envoy and chairs the board of directors of its renewables company, but he also heads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

Al Jaber told reporters Monday, “I have always been very clear on the fact that we are making sure that everything we do is centered around the science.”

“I honestly think there is some confusion out there, and misrepresentation and misinterpretation,” he said, adding, “I have said over and over that the phase down and the phase out of fossil fuel is inevitable. In fact, it is essential … it needs to be orderly, fair, just and responsible.”

A spokesperson for the COP28 team told CNN in a statement on Sunday “this story is just another attempt to undermine the Presidency’s agenda, which has been clear and transparent and backed by tangible achievements by the COP President and his team.”

“The COP President is clear that phasing down and out of fossil fuels is inevitable and that we must keep 1.5C within reach,” adding, “we are excited with the progress we have made so far and for the delivery of an ambitious (global stocktake) decision. Attempts to undermine this will not soften our resolve.”

Fossil fuels are the main driver of the climate crisis and as the world continues to burn oil, coal and gas, global temperatures are soaring to unprecedented levels. This year has seen record global heat, which has driven deadly extreme weather events.

Fossil fuel production in 2030 is expected to be more than double what would be necessary to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees, a recent report from several scientific institutions, including the UN Environment Programme, found. That report used scenarios laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to reach its conclusion.

“If the IPCC and IEA do not count as science then I don’t know what does,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, climate researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute and one of the authors on the report. She told CNN it concluded “that all fossil fuels have to be phased out especially if carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture and storage measures fail to scale.”

Carbon capture refers to a set of techniques that aim to remove carbon pollution from the the air and to capture what’s being produced from power plants and other polluting facilities. While some argue carbon capture will be an important tool for reducing planet-heating pollution, others argue these technologies are expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuel use.

Scientists and climate groups heavily criticized Al Jaber’s comments.

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at non-profit Oil Change International, said in a statement Al Jaber’s statements during the panel discussion were “alarming,” “science-denying” and “raise deep concerns about the Presidency’s capacity to lead the UN climate talks.”

Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London, said he strongly recommended Al Jaber revisit the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“That report, approved unanimously by 195 countries including the UAE, shows a variety of ways to limit warming to 1.5°C — all of which indicate a de facto phase out of fossil fuels in the first half of the century. Will that take the world back to the caves? Absolutely not,” he said in a statement.

Mohamed Adow, director of climate think tank Power Shift Africa, said Al Jaber’s remarks were a “wake up call” to the world and COP28 negotiators. “They are not going to get any help from the COP Presidency in delivering a strong outcome on a fossil fuel phase out,” he said in a statement.

This COP summit will conclude the first global stocktake, where countries will assess their progress on climate action progress and work out how to get the world on track to limiting catastrophic global warming.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Angela Dewan and Rachel Ramirez contributed reporting.

Opinion: What do you expect when an oil executive runs the climate talks?

Opinion by John D. Sutter
Tue, 5 December 2023 at 9:45 am GMT-7·4-min read

Editor’s Note: John D. Sutter is a climate journalist and nonfiction filmmaker. He is the Ted Turner Visiting Professor of Environmental Media at the George Washington University. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more CNN Opinion.

As someone who’s been reporting on the climate crisis for more than a decade, I can say that the most insidious threat to climate action isn’t denial or apathy.

John D. Sutter - Beth Mickalonis

It’s doubt and confusion.

That’s why the news from COP28 in Dubai is so infuriating.

The COP — an international peer-pressure meeting meant to avert disastrous global warming — is supposed to be a moment of resounding clarity, when world leaders come together to re-up their commitments to abandon fossil fuels and promote a future that’s, you know, livable.

The message should be clear: The world can and should abandon fossil fuels as quickly as possible in favor of cleaner energy sources like wind and solar.

We have the technology and the political levers we need to succeed.

Instead, the COP28 talks have been mired in controversy and confusion.

The United Arab Emirates, a petrostate, is hosting the talks. The COP president is Sultan Al Jaber, the head of a renewable energy company and also the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Appointing an oil exec to run global climate negotiations is not unlike letting the NRA facilitate a symposium on gun control.

No surprise, then, that Al Jaber made some, well, stupefying comments, including that abandoning fossil fuels — which, again, should be the point of these talks — risks putting us “back into caves.” He also claimed, falsely, that there is “no science” supporting a total phase-out of fossil fuels in order to meet temperature goals that are the center of the negotiations.

“Please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves,” he said on November 21, in the days leading up to the COP28 summit. The remarks were part of a conversation with Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and UN special climate envoy, and were first reported by The Guardian, which posted a video of the discussion.

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” he said, referencing a temperature target from the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

A report issued Sunday during COP28 by the UN Environment Programme and others states that “a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out is required” to meet global climate goals.

Al Jaber tried to walk back the comments at a press conference on Monday, saying that he respects science and that the comments were subject to “misrepresentation.” “I have said over and over that the phase-down and the phase-out of fossil fuels is inevitable,” he said.

By then, however, the damage had been done.

Observers are right to question Al Jaber’s intentions and the intent of this entire process. And the public could understandably be confused about whether these efforts are even worthwhile.

That’s tragic, especially in light of the long and frustrating history of fossil fuel interests injecting doubt into policy conversations about the climate crisis. The broad strokes of climate science have been well understood for several decades now.

But starting in the 1970s, fossil fuel companies took a page from the tobacco industry’s playbook and started injecting doubt and confusion into well-settled science. The fallout of that doubt still haunts political conversations about the climate crisis today. It leads to years and decades of stalled or flimsy action.

It’s also frustrating given that the public has few opportunities to focus on global warming — and the annual COP meeting tends to be one such moment when the world pays attention.

In the United States, only 35% of adults talk about the climate crisis at least occasionally, according to a 2021 survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Slightly less — 33% — hear about it at least once a week in the media.

Not quite what you’d expect given that the habitability of our planet is in jeopardy. We are living with the consequences of a world we’ve warmed today — in the form of wildfires, extreme weather, searing drought and a burgeoning extinction crisis in the natural world.

If there’s a silver lining to the fact that Al Jaber’s comments have been wildly distracting, and disruptive, it’s that there is some benefit to plainly observing the predicament we are in.

Heat-trapping pollution from fossil fuels continues to go up year after year.

There are plenty of people and companies who profit from it.

Perhaps calling for Al Jaber to resign is part of a short-term solution to restore the credibility of COP28 and all the COP meetings still to come. But there’s a bigger point on which there must be absolute clarity in the public mind: We must demand a total phase-out of fossil fuels.

World leaders at COP28 can and should deliver on that promise.

And the public must hold them to account.

SOUTH AFRCA

Eskom, Sasol Pollution Harms Children, Government Studies Find

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S PROFIT

Antony Sguazzin
Tue, 5 December 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Two studies ordered by South Africa’s government into the impact of air pollution on community and child health showed emission limits it imposed on companies that emit the toxins are insufficient.

The studies were undertaken in key industrial regions by academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, a state research agency, and were completed in 2016 and 2019, copies seen by Bloomberg show.

The government didn’t widely publicize the findings, a controversial decision given that it has faced lawsuits over pollution levels and is assessing whether to allow the state power utility to continue violating emission restrictions or enforce laws that could shut plants and worsen energy shortages.

Around the time of the second study’s completion, the government was sued by environmental activists for not enforcing its own laws in the so-called Highveld Priority Area and in 2022 South Africa’s High Court ruled that the government had breached citizens’ constitutional right to clean air. The government has appealed.

In August this year, activists filed another case against the government over pollution in the Vaal Triangle Air-shed Priority Area — which was examined in the first study. Both regions are close to South Africa’s biggest city, Johannesburg, and the capital, Pretoria.

The research adds to evidence of the harm caused by state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.’s 14 coal-fired power stations, petrochemical plants and oil refineries run by Sasol Ltd. and Africa’s largest steel mill, owned by a unit of ArcelorMittal SA. The use of coal for domestic cooking and heating adds to pollution levels.

The companies have all acknowledged that their emissions impact human health and said they have taken steps to reduce them, although they have in some instances also sought postponements to complying with new limits to be imposed from 2025.

“Adverse health outcomes do occur even below the pollutant standards,” the researchers wrote in the Highveld Study. “These necessitate further investigation and review of the safety of current air quality standards. There is a need for addressing air pollution more rigorously.”

In response to queries, South Africa’s environment department said the Vaal Triangle study area was published in 2016 and “printed copies disseminated to stakeholders.” However, a person familiar with the matter said only the printed copies were made available and no effort was made to circulate the findings more widely. The person asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.

The Highveld Priority Area study wasn’t published, although some of its conclusions appeared in the plaintiff’s arguments in the 2019 court case, the department said. That study refers to the Vaal paper as a reference, and says it remained unpublished.

Emission Standards

South Africa, which burns coal to generate more than 80% of its power, has considerably laxer emission standards than countries including China and India.

“The South African government allows its citizens to be exposed to air pollution levels that are up to four times higher than what the World Health Organization recommends,” said Jamie Kelly, an air quality analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, citing emission limits on particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. “If the South African government values the health of children and adults, they should impose stricter air pollution standards.”

Both studies conclude that pollution is adversely affecting children’s health, making them more susceptible to allergens, and many had inflamed respiratory tracts that resulted in more instances of asthma and other diseases.

Premature Deaths

An info-graphic based on the Highveld study showed the emission of particulate matter in excess of government limits was causing 4,881 premature deaths annually.

The Vaal study pinpointed Sharpeville, which lies close to Eskom’s Lethabo power plant, as the region’s most-affected settlement while the Highveld study said children in Embalenhle, the settlement adjacent to Sasol’s Secunda petrochemical plant, had some of the poorest respiratory health.

The environment department said it’s taking action to cut “the unacceptable levels of air pollution in the Highveld Priority Area and the potentially adverse impacts thereof,” which went beyond tightening emission limits.

The studies were carried out using household surveys and testing lung function of children at primary schools. The department said it doesn’t agree that they had conclusively “established that the death of any particular individual was caused by air pollution.”

In addition to respiratory disease, particulate matter can cause heart disease and birth defects. Other pollutants emitted by the industrial plants include sulfur dioxide, which can cause heart disease and strokes, as well as nitrogen dioxide.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

UAE invests in UK’s struggling wind farm market

WHILE TORIES OPPOSE UAE BUYING THEIR FAVORITE RAG THE TELEGRAPH

Jonathan Leake
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Offshore Wind

The United Arab Emirates has snapped up a 49pc stake in one of the UK’s largest wind farms despite soaring costs throwing the industry’s future into doubt.

Masdar, a company controlled by the Gulf state and chaired by the president of the Cop28 climate talks, has bought a minority stake in the East Anglia Three offshore wind farm from Spanish developer Iberdrola.

It is the second such deal struck by the UAE in as many weeks. State-backed Masdar bought 49pc of the £11bn Dogger Bank South project in the North Sea last week. That project is built by German-owned RWE.

Sales of UK wind farms are being propelled by the disastrous finances of many UK projects after they entered into historical deals to sell their electricity at prices that no longer make sense.

Companies accepted so-called strike prices of less than £40 per megawatt hour (MWh) in deals made a few years ago. Strike prices are the maximum price that the Government guarantees to pay for the power produced, meaning revenues are effectively capped.

Iberdrola, the largest utility in Europe and one of the two largest globally, agreed a strike price of £37.35 for East Anglia Three in early 2022.

However, the sector has since been hit by rampant inflation that has driven up costs by more than 40pc. Those who accepted the older, lower prices risk making big losses.

The Government has now been forced to offer new wind farm developers a strike price of £73, signifying the scale of the financial challenges for those locked into lower priced deals.

Masdar’s investment reinforces the growing overseas ownership of the UK’s key renewable energy assets. The UAE company’s investment dates back a decade when, with partners, it launched the 630MW London Array offshore wind farm, which was the world’s largest at the time.

Its Global Offshore Wind Division last year acquired London-based Arlington Energy, the battery energy storage system developer that has put over 170MW of assets into operation.

Off the coast of Scotland, Masdar has also developed the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, the 30MW Hywind project.

Masdar is chaired by Dr Sultan Al-Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, who is currently chairing the Cop28 talks in Dubai. Dr Al-Jabar is also the chairman of International Media Investments (IMI), the UAE investment vehicle financing a bid for The Telegraph.

Masdar’s owners include two Emirati oil companies – the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA). Both also operate oil and gas platforms in the North Sea.

Dr Jaber said: “Masdar and Iberdrola are advancing renewables in Europe and around the world.”

Iberdrola’s executive chairman, Ignacio Galán, said: “By combining our renewables experience and financial strength with those of Masdar, we can deliver more secure, competitive and clean energy, quicker.”

Iberdrola and Masdar to invest $16 billion in green energy

Tue, 5 December 2023 

Illustration shows Electric power transmission pylon miniatures and Iberdrola log

By Pietro Lombardi

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish renewable energy giant Iberdrola and UAE clean energy developer Masdar have formed a 15 billion euro ($16.2 billion) alliance to invest in offshore wind and green hydrogen in countries including Germany, Britain and the United States.

The agreement announced on Tuesday follows a pledge by 118 countries at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai to triple the world's renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade as they seek to wean themselves off fossil fuels.


"Reaching this goal will require immediate action from these governments and the private sector," said Iberdrola Executive Chairman Ignacio Galan.

The first step of the partnership will be for Masdar to take a stake of up to 49% in Iberdrola's 1.4 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind project off Britain's eastern coast, known as East Anglia 3, the Spanish company said.

"With an abundance of wind resources, the UK and Europe are prime markets for Masdar," said Masdar Chief Executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi.

The two companies have previously teamed up to develop an offshore wind farm in German waters in the Baltic Sea and announced separate multibillion-euro investment plans in Britain, the world’s second-largest offshore wind market behind China.

Last week Masdar and Germany's RWE said they would co-develop a 3 GW wind project off the coast of Britain. Masdar's 49% stake in the project is part of its roughly 13 billion euro investment in the country's renewables sector, it said.

Iberdrola has pledged to invest nearly 14 billion euros in Britain through 2028 in grids and renewable projects and is also planning a bid for British power distribution network Electricity North West (ENWL)

($1 = 0.9252 euros)

(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi and Jakub Olesiuk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and David Goodman)

OUTLAW DEEPSEA MINING
Norway parliament deal marks major step towards seabed mining

A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

Updated Tue, 5 December 2023
By Victoria Klesty

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway's minority government and two opposition parties have agreed to allow seabed mineral exploration in the Arctic region, they said on Tuesday, in a key step towards full-scale ocean mining.

The deal comes as Norway hopes to become the first country to make deep-sea mining happen on a commercial scale and secure critical minerals and jobs despite concerns over the environmental impact and international calls for a moratorium.


The amended version of the government's proposal, which parliament will formally debate on Jan. 4 followed by a vote, sets stricter environmental survey requirements during the exploration phase than originally planned.

The compromise also gives parliament the final say at a later date on whether to approve full-scale mining based on data gathered from the deep-sea environment during the initial exploration.

The deal was agreed between the two parties in the minority government - Labour and the Centre Party - and the opposition Conservatives and the Progress Party, securing a comfortable majority.

Baard Ludvig Thorheim, a member of parliament for the Conservatives, told Reuters the environmental bar for seabed mining had been set fairly high in the amended proposal.

"We believe, and hope, it will become the international standard for this activity," he said. "At the same time it is important that it is a framework that is predictable for commercial players, on which we rely on for these activities."

He said the parties had hotly debated how to balance the need for environmental requirements against commercial viability for companies seeking to start marine mining.

"If the demands are too steep and too complicated, there won't be any interest, but at the same time it is also in these companies' interest to partake in an activity that has a good reputation and adheres to demands on sustainability," he said.

Seabed mining start-up Loke Marine Minerals, which is backed by investors such as oil service company Technip FMC and Norwegian maritime group Wilhelmsen, welcomed the decision.

"Great day not only for Norway but for the world," Loke CEO Walter Sognnes Norway told Reuters. "We need to have a fact- based evaluation of deep sea minerals as a provider of critical minerals for the green energy transition."

Environmental group WWF, however, said the decision to move forward damaged Norway's reputation for ocean preservation but added it hoped parliament would eventually block any move to full-scale mining.

(Reporting by Victoria Klesty; additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Terje Solsvik, Sandra Maler and Jane Merriman)

A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows sponge aggregation at the Hovgaard ridge

A view shows active chimneys at the Favne Vent Field on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows a cross-section of a manganese crust at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea

A view shows Anemones at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows active chimney venting at the Loki's Castle Vent Field on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn


Ajit Niranjan European environment correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Photograph: Michael Shortt/AP

Many of the gravest threats to humanity are drawing closer, as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels, scientists have warned.

Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial temperatures.

Triggering these planetary shifts will not cause temperatures to spiral out of control in the coming centuries but will unleash dangerous and sweeping damage to people and nature that cannot be undone.


“Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,” said Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse.”

The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic.

Unlike other changes to the climate such as hotter heatwaves and heavier rainfall, these systems do not slowly shift in line with greenhouse gas emissions but can instead flip from one state to an entirely different one. When a climatic system tips – sometimes with a sudden shock – it may permanently alter the way the planet works.

Scientists warn that there are large uncertainties around when such systems will shift but the report found that three more may soon join the list. These include mangroves and seagrass meadows, which are expected to die off in some regions if the temperatures rise between 1.5C and 2C, and boreal forests, which may tip as early as 1.4C of heating or as late as 5C.

The warning comes as world leaders meet for the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai. On Tuesday, Climate Action Tracker estimated that their emissions targets for 2030 put the planet on track to heat 2.5C by the end of the century, despite promises from countries at a previous summit to try to limit it to 1.5C.

The tipping point report, produced by an international team of 200 researchers and funded by Bezos Earth Fund, is the latest in a series of warnings about the most extreme effects of climate change.

Scientists have warned that some of the shifts can create feedback loops that heat the planet further or alter weather patterns in a way that triggers other tipping points.

The researchers said the systems were so tightly linked they could not rule out “tipping cascades”. If the Greenland ice sheet disintegrates, for instance, it could lead to an abrupt shift in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important current that delivers most of the heat to the gulf stream. That, in turn, can intensify the El Niño southern oscillation, one of the most powerful weather patterns on the planet.

The co-author Sina Loriani, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said tipping-point risks could be disastrous and should be taken very seriously, despite the remaining uncertainties.

“Crossing these thresholds may trigger fundamental and sometimes abrupt changes that could irreversibly determine the fate of essential parts of our Earth system for the coming hundreds or thousands of years,” he said.

In its latest review of climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that tipping thresholds were unclear but the dangers would grow more likely as the planet heats up.

It said: “Risks associated with large-scale singular events or tipping points, such as ice-sheet instability or ecosystem loss from tropical forests, transition to high risk between 1.5C to 2.5C and to very high risk between 2.5C to 4C.”

The tipping point report also looked at what it called “positive tipping points”, such as the plummeting price of renewable energy and the growth in sales of electric vehicles. It found that such shifts do not happen by themselves but need to be enabled by stimulating innovation, shaping markets, regulating business, and educating and mobilising the public.

A study from the report’s co-author Manjana Milkoreit last year warned against overusing the label of social tipping points by promising solutions that did not exist at scale or could not be controlled.

“While scholarship benefits from hope, we need to exercise caution when offering social tipping points as potential solutions to the temporal squeeze of climate change,” she wrote.

Planet tipping points pose 'unprecedented' threat to humanity: report

Daniel Lawler
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Over the edge? The melting Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets are of Earth's two tipping points teetering on the point of no return, the report warned (Olivier MORIN)

Humanity faces an "unprecedented" risk from tipping points that could unleash a domino effect of irreversible catastrophes across the planet, researchers warned Wednesday.

The most comprehensive assessment ever conducted of Earth's invisible tripwires was released as leaders meet for UN climate talks in Dubai with 2023 set to smash all heat records.

While many of the 26 tipping points laid out in the report -- such as melting ice sheets -- are linked to global warming, other human activities like razing swathes of the Amazon rainforest could also push

 Earth's ecosystems to the brink.

Five of these are showing signs of tipping -- from melting ice sheets threatening catastrophic sea level rise, to mass die-off of tropical coral reefs -- the report warned.

Some may have already begun to irrecoverably transform.

Once the world crosses the threshold for just one tipping point, dealing with the immediate humanitarian disaster could distract attention away from stopping the others, creating a "vicious cycle" of mass hunger, displacement and conflict, the report warned.

Tim Lenton, an Earth system scientist at the University of Exeter and lead author of the report, told AFP that these tipping points pose a "threat of a magnitude that is unprecedented for humanity".

But it was not all bad news.

The report also highlighted a range of positive tipping points -- such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and changing to plant-based diets -- that have the potential to swiftly build momentum and tip things back the other way.

"Imagine leaning back on a chair to that balance point where a small nudge can make a big difference," Lenton said.

"You could end up sprawled on your back on the floor -- or if you're lucky, back upright."

- On the brink -

A key concern is if the melting West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets collapse.

That could raise sea levels two metres by 2100, exposing nearly half a billion people to frequent coastal flooding, the report said.

The Greenland ice sheet has been shrinking at such a rate that it might already be too late.

"Is it past the tipping point or could it stop shrinking? No one's quite sure," Lenton said.

The other three tipping points most at risk are dying tropical coral reefs, melting permafrost and an ocean current called the North Atlantic subpolar gyre circulation.

Another ocean tipping point is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a vast system that regulates the global transfer of heat from the tropics into the northern hemisphere.

The new report said it was plausible -- though unlikely -- that the AMOC would collapse this century.

This destabilising change could lead to vast regions getting far less rain, potentially halving the area worldwide where wheat and corn can be grown, it said.

"If that goes, suddenly there will be a global food security crisis and comparable water crisis as major monsoon systems in the tropics basically fail in India and West Africa. That will be a humanitarian catastrophe," Lenton said.

- 'Dire' -

Recent massive fires in the Amazon rainforest and Canada's boreal forests suggest they are also more immediately at risk of tipping than previously thought, he added.

Lenton compared the job of the more than 200 researchers who created the over-400 page Global Tipping Points Report to risk assessors analysing a new aeroplane.

AMOC collapsing was like spotting something that could cause that plane to "fall out of the sky", he said.

But there's no way to redesign the Earth to make it safer.

Co-author Manjana Milkoreit from the University of Oslo said that "our global governance system is inadequate to deal with the coming threats and implement the solutions urgently required."

The authors called for tipping points to be included in the global stocktake being debated at the COP28 talks, as well as in national targets to combat climate change.

They also urged more effort to push tipping points in the right direction, such as changing policies on energy, transport, food and green ammonia used for fertiliser.

Sarah Das, a scientist at the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the report, said the science was now "crystal clear".

"The risks for humanity in crossing tipping points into these unexplored states is dire, and the impact to human lives potentially horrific," she said.

dl/klm/fg

Climate tipping points are nearer than you think – our new report warns of catastrophic risk

James Dyke, Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter

 David Armstrong McKay, Researcher in Earth System Resilience, Stockholm University

Wed, 6 December 2023 
The Conversation

lugazzotti / shutterstock

It’s now almost inevitable that 2023 will be the warmest year ever recorded by humans, probably the warmest for at least 125,000 years.

Multiple temperature records were smashed with global average temperatures for some periods well above 1.5°C. Antarctic sea ice loss is accelerating at frightening rates along with many other indicators of rapid climate change. Does this mean 2023 is the year parts of the climate tip into a much more dangerous state?

Most people expect that if a system, like someone’s body, an ecosystem, or part of the climate system, becomes stressed, it’ll respond fairly predictably – double the pressure, double the impact, and so on. This holds in many cases, but is not always true. Sometimes a system under stress changes steadily (or “linearly”) up to a point, but beyond that far bigger or abrupt changes can be locked in.

An example of such “nonlinear” changes are “tipping points”, which happen when a system is pushed past a threshold beyond which change becomes self-sustaining. This means that even if the original pressure eased off the change would keep on going until the system reaches a sometimes completely different state.

Think of rolling a boulder up a hill. This takes a lot of energy. If that energy input is stopped then the ball will roll back down. But when the top of the hill is reached and the boulder is balanced right at the very top, a tiny push, perhaps even a gust of wind, can be enough to send it rolling down the other side.

The climate system has many potential tipping points, such as ice sheets disappearing or dense rainforests becoming significantly drier and more open. It would be very difficult, effectively impossible, to recover these systems once they go beyond a tipping point.

We along with 200 other scientists from around the world just published the new Global Tipping Points Report at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai. Our report sets out the science on the “negative” tipping points in the Earth system that could harm both nature and people, as well as the potential “positive” societal tipping points that could accelerate sustainability action. Here we look at the key messages from report sections on tipping points in the Earth system, their effects on people, and how to govern these changes.

Tipping points in air, land and sea

Having scoured scientific evidence of past and current changes, and factored in projections from computer models, we have identified over 25 tipping points in the Earth system.

Six of these are in the icebound parts of the planet (the “cryosphere”), including the collapse of massive ice sheets in Greenland and different parts of Antarctica, as well as localised tipping in glaciers and thawing permafrost. Sixteen are in the “biosphere” – the sum of all the world’s ecosystems – including trees dying on a massive scale in parts of the Amazon and northern boreal forests, degradation of savannas and drylands, nutrient overloading of lakes, coral reef mass mortality, and many mangroves and seagrass meadows dying off.

Finally, we identified four potential tipping points in the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, including collapse of deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and disruption of the West African monsoon.

Human activities are already pushing some of these close to tipping points. The exact thresholds are uncertain, but at today’s global warming of 1.2°C, the widespread loss of warm water coral reefs is already becoming likely, while tipping in another four vital climate systems is possible. These are Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, North Atlantic circulation collapse, and widespread localised thaw of permafrost.

Beyond 1.5°C several of these become likely, and other systems like mangroves, seagrass meadows, and parts of the boreal forest start to become vulnerable. Some systems can also tip or have their warming thresholds reduced due to other drivers, such as deforestation in the Amazon.

It can be hard to comprehend the consequences of crossing these tipping points. For example, if parts of the Amazon rainforest die, countless species would be lost, and warming would be further amplified as billions of tons of carbon currently locked up in trees and soils makes its way into the atmosphere. Within the region, this could cause trillions of dollars of economic impacts, and expose millions of people to extreme heat.

Given the sheer scale of risks from tipping points, you may assume that economic assessments of climate change include them. Alas, most assessments effectively ignore tipping point risks. This is perhaps the most frightening conclusion of the new report.
Human societies could tip into something much worse

There is also the potential for negative tipping in human societies, causing further financial instability, displacement, conflict or polarisation. These would hamper our efforts to limit further Earth system tipping points, and could even bring about a shift to a social system characterised by greater authoritarianism, hostility and alienation that could entirely derail sustainability transitions.

White coral with fish

A further risk is that most of Earth’s tipping systems interact in ways that destabilise one another. In the worst case, tipping one system makes connected systems more likely to tip too. This could produce a “tipping cascade” like falling dominoes.

The Global Tipping Points Report makes clear that climate change is a key driver for most of these tipping points, and the risk of crossing them can be reduced by urgently cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero (which “positive tipping points” could accelerate). To help prevent tipping points in the biosphere, we’ll also need to rapidly reduce habitat loss and pollution while supporting ecological restoration and sustainable livelihoods.

Ambitious new governance approaches are needed. Our report recommends international bodies like the UN’s climate talks urgently start taking tipping points into account. Their understanding of dangerous climate change needs a serious update.


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

James Dyke receives funding from the Open Society Foundations. He is an advisor to Faculty for a Future.

David Armstrong McKay is a Research Impact Fellow at the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute and an Associated Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is currently researching Earth system tipping points as part of the Global Tipping Points Report project (funded by the Bezos Earth Fund) and with the Earth Commission (hosted by non-profit research network Future Earth and is the science component of the Global Commons Alliance, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, with support from Oak Foundation, MAVA, Porticus, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Herlin Foundation, the Global Environment Facility, and Generation Foundation). He is also a freelance research consultant and science communicator.

The past decade was the hottest on record as climate change ‘surged alarmingly,’ WMO reports

THE WORLD INDUSTRIALIZED UNDER GLOBALIZATION

Laura Paddison and Brandon Miller, CNN
Tue, 5 December 2023 

The decade between 2011 and 2020 was the hottest on record for the planet’s land and oceans as the rate of climate change “surged alarmingly,” according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

The report, released Tuesday at the COP28 conference in Dubai, found rising concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the atmosphere fueled record land and ocean temperatures and “turbo charged” dramatic glacier loss and sea-level rise during this period.

This year is also expected to be the hottest year, after six straight months of record global temperatures.

Scientists have said this year’s exceptional warmth is the result of the combined effects of El Niño and human-caused climate change, which is driven by planet-warming fossil fuel pollution. A separate analysis released Monday by the Global Carbon Project found that carbon pollution from fossil fuels is on track to set a new record in 2023 – 1.1% higher than 2022 levels.

WMO’s findings on the hottest decade continue a 30-year trend. “Each decade since the 1990s has been warmer than the one before it, and we see no immediate sign of this trend reversing,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “We have to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a top and overriding priority for the planet in order to prevent climate change spiralling out of control.”

While the concentration of all planet-heating gases grew over this decade, the UN agency highlighted the increase in methane as particularly concerning.

“The alarming trend here is that the rate of the growth of methane almost doubled during this decade,” Elena Manaenkova, WMO’s Deputy Secretary General, said in a news conference Tuesday.

Climate pollution from all fossil fuel types — coal, oil, and natural gas — increased around the world, the Global Carbon Project found, but some proved to be more dominant than others. Coal and oil emissions, for instance, have increased significantly in India and China, while the US and the EU showed strong declines in coal. Emissions from natural gas are increasing in the US, China and India, but decreasing in the EU.

A cow tries to drink water from the bed of a dried rivulet at Mayong village east of Gauhati, Assam, India, in April 2014 amid drought and rising temperatures. - Anupam Nath/AP

An aerial view of an iceberg, almost the size of Greater London, that broke off from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica in January 2023. - European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2 Imagery/Processed by DG DEFIS/Reuters

At the rate at which emissions are rising, researchers estimate a 50% chance of global temperatures regularly breaching 1.5 degrees Celsius in about seven years. That temperature – the goal of the Paris climate agreement, and a threshold above which scientists warn it will be more difficult for humans and ecosystems to adapt – was crossed briefly this year as warming from El Niño merged with the climate crisis.

Climate shocks are threatening food security and displacing people around the world, the WMO report warned, and there is a “particularly profound transformation” taking place in the polar regions and high mountains. “We are losing the race to save our melting glaciers and ice sheets,” Taalas said.

There was one piece of good news: The report found the ozone layer is on track to recovery thanks to international efforts to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.

The WMO report comes partway through the UN-backed COP28 climate summit, on the day focused on energy and industry. The future role of fossil fuels — the main driver of the climate crisis — is one of the main sticking points at COP28.

“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive.”

CNN’s Amy Cassidy contributed reporting.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

You'll Be Astonished How Much Power It Takes to Generate a Single AI Image

Victor Tangermann

Futurism
Tue, 5 December 2023 


Power Hungry

It's an open secret that generative AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT eat up an astronomical amount of power.

Even generating images from a text prompts with a tool like Midjourney or OpenAI's DALL-E is immensely power-intensive.

As first spotted by The Register, a team of researchers from AI developer Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University recently shared a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper on how much power AI tools need to perform a variety of tasks.

Their results are — and highlight the very real carbon footprint of turning to AI instead of a human artist for imagery needs.

Strikingly, they found that the "least efficient generation model" they studied — Stable Diffusion's open source XL, which was released in July — used almost as much power per image as that required to fully charge a smartphone.

Coming up with 1,000 images using this model generates the carbon emission equivalent of "4.1 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle," according to the paper.

Hidden Costs

However, due to the "large variation between image generation models," that number can also be smaller. Overall, across all models the researchers tested, generating 1,000 images took an average of 2.907 kWh, roughly the equivalent of charging a phone's battery to 24 percent per image.

Generating text, however, is a seemingly far less power-hungry process and only used as much as the equivalent of three smartphone charges for 1,000 queries, the researchers found.

But extrapolating the data to a global scale reveals an even uglier truth. Companies like OpenAI and Google are already facing rapidly growing energy bills as they attempt to keep their generative AI tools online.

Recent estimations suggest AI servers on a global scale use the equivalent of what an entire country like Argentina uses in a year.

Just cooling these servers alone has an astonishing environmental footprint. According to Google's 2023 Environmental Report, the company used an astronomical 5.6 billion gallons of water last year, a 20 percent increase over its 2021 usage.

In short, the AI industry's carbon footprint will continue to be a big problem, especially as the world creeps ever closer to a climate catastrophe.

The latest research serves as a reminder that even on an image-by-image basis, the energy costs of using these generative AI tools can be considerable.

It's unclear, though, how these results compare to more commonly used AI image generators like Midjourney or OpenAI's DALL-E, which weren't part of the study

More on generative AI: AI's Electricity Use Is Spiking So Fast It'll Soon Use as Much Power as an Entire Country

Building blocks? Cutting pollution from steel, concrete and aluminium


Isabel MALSANG
Tue, 5 December 2023 

The world needs a buildings "revolution", according to the United Nations (LUDOVIC MARIN)

They hold modern life together in everything from airplane parts to apartment blocks, but steel, concrete and aluminium come with a hefty climate cost that the world could be paying for decades.

Heavily reliant on fossil fuels, they account for a significant chunk of greenhouse gas emissions -- pollution that is particularly hard to cut fast enough to meet global warming goals.

The three sectors say they aim to slash -- or even eliminate -- their CO2 emissions by 2050, despite growing demand in a rapidly urbanising world.


To do that will require a buildings "revolution", according to the United Nations, while the International Energy Agency wants greater recycling, cleaner energy and technological innovation.

- Cement and concrete -

"Concrete is the second most used substance on Earth after water, and vital for much of our modern infrastructure," said some of the industry’s biggest players including Cemex, Heidelberg and Holcim, Tuesday.

With demand expected to rise 50 percent by 2050, tackling the industry's emissions is becoming increasingly "urgent", they said.

Limestone and clay must be heated to 1,450 degrees Celsius to produce the rock-like residue known as "clinker" in cement. The fuel necessary to create such heat and the ensuing chemical reaction both produce CO2.

Switching to clinker substitutes, energy efficiency improvements, changing building design to cut down on the need for concrete, and using clean energy sources could substantially reduce emissions from the industry.

SCI-FI-TEK
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is also predicted to have a key role.

But observers fear that a planned reliance on solutions that are unproven at the scales required could distract from rapidly moving away from fossil fuels.

The Global Cement and Concrete Association said it expects the technology to account for 36 percent of the industry's global CO2 reductions by 2050.

- Steel -

Highly polluting coal makes up some 75 percent of the raw material and energy used by the steel and iron industry, according to the IEA.

The industry says it plans to replace coal-dependent blast furnaces with natural gas -- until that energy source can be swapped for "green hydrogen", produced by splitting water molecules using renewable electricity.

Green hydrogen paves the way for a gradual shutdown of polluting blast furnaces that could be replaced by the "direct reduction" of iron ore.

Steel firms are also betting on recycling scrap metals.

Europe is at the forefront of the green advances. The German industrial giant Thyssenkrupp -- singlehandedly responsible for 2.5 percent of the country's CO2 emissions -- plans to transform its historic plant in Duisburg to green steel.

But the scale of investment and rising energy prices have hampered the project.

The world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, acquired 80 percent of a Texas factory capable of producing steel without coal in 2022, and it is currently testing a pilot CCS system in Dunkirk, France.

Because of these difficulties, the IEA recognises that iron and steel manufacturing will remain "one of the last sectors in the Net Zero pathway that will still be using coal in 2050".

But it calls for carbon capture and hydrogen production to be "perfected and developed at scale" in the meantime.

- Aluminium -

Aluminium is a key for allowing for lighter cars and planes and in energy transition due to its ability to conduct electricity.

But it is also responsible for some of the highest emissions. One tonne of aluminium generates between five and 25 tonnes of CO2, depending on its source of electricity, according to Mineralinfo, a resource portal run by the French government.

Emissions depend above all on the type of fuel used -- often coal or heavy fuel oil -- to produce the vast quantities of energy necessary to make the metal.

The industry is hoping that recycling, CO2 capture, and emerging technology will bring down its emissions.

im/ico/lap/klm/dl/fg

PINK HYDROGEN

Nuclear backers pressure Biden to include industry in hydrogen tax break

Wed, 6 December 2023 
By Nicole Jao and Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power industry is pressuring the administration of President Joe Biden to include existing reactors in a subsidy program for hydrogen, arguing that U.S. goals to jumpstart a "clean hydrogen" economy could fail without them.

The lobbying push reflects the big stakes for the nuclear industry, which has been struggling for years amid an upswing in low-cost electricity from natural gas-fired power plants and rapidly expanding wind and solar.

The U.S. Treasury is expected to issue guidance later this month on a hydrogen tax credit known as 45V that was outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency declined to comment.

So-called "green hydrogen" is a fuel made from water using electrolyzers; industry and government officials say it can be considered “clean” if its production is powered by virtually carbon-free energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear.

Virtually no green hydrogen is produced now due to high costs. The Biden administration sees clean hydrogen as vital to tackling hard-to-decarbonize industries like aluminum and cement, and is offering production subsidies of $3 per kilogram through the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Treasury is weighing the details of the 45V credit, including a so-called "additionality" proposal backed by groups that support renewable energy that would make the perks available only to hydrogen producers that power their facilities with new, instead of existing, low-carbon energy sources.

A decision is expected later this month.

Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said at the COP28 summit in Dubai that agencies are split over the design of 45V. "It's a big tax credit. We have to get it right," Turk said.

RAISING THE STAKES

Proponents of additionality say diverting existing nuclear electricity from the power grid to produce hydrogen would leave a gap in power generation that would have to be made up by burning fossil fuels that cause climate change.

U.S. electricity grids will still need power if nuclear power is diverted to produce hydrogen, said Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based advocacy group.

With the renewable energy capacity still nascent, this "means that the only thing that has the capacity to ramp up when that nuclear power is diverted for electrolysis is coal plants and gas plants," she said.

But nuclear industry backers say a more flexible approach is needed to make a hydrogen economy work.

“Allowing existing nuclear reactors to qualify will help ensure that clean hydrogen is available and affordable enough to be used by customers across a wide range of industries," Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat, said in a recent letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

"It would be a huge unforced error to exclude existing nuclear from eligibility,” said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the environmental policy think tank the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Nuclear power is efficient at producing hydrogen as opposed to solar and wind power which is intermittent, Vine said.

Raising the stakes, the Department of Energy in October awarded $7 billion in grants to seven proposed clean hydrogen hubs as part of its strategy to jumpstart production. Three of the hubs plan to use existing nuclear.

Constellation, a nuclear power plant operator, says it plans to build a $900 million clean hydrogen facility at its LaSalle plant in Illinois with a portion of the $1 billion hydrogen hub award it received for the Midwest.

"The economics of the project are such that you really need... access to the tax credit in order to make it work," said Mason Emnett, Constellation's senior vice president of public policy.

Xcel Energy, a nuclear plant operator also set to receive money from the hub program, said in a recent letter to the Treasury that excluding existing facilities would limit the industry's ability to develop hydrogen. (Reporting by Nicole Jao and Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Aurora Ellis)