COP is coming, Climate Gate-s, Climate Optimism TV, and more!

Hey climate heroes! Welcome to The Climate Roundup, where we round up the change, er the news about climate and the environment. As part of the Gen E community, we thank you for making climate action part of everyday life. (Reading this newsletter counts!)

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Pop Culture:

😀 If you’re motivated by optimism, season 2 of “An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet” might be up your alley. It just kicked off on Bloomberg TV, Prime, and free on YouTube, and is hosted by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, of “Game of Thrones” fame, if that sweetens the deal. I’m encouraged that there is a season 2, indicating that people may actually be watching a show about communities around the world innovating and deploying solutions to the climate, pollution, and biodiversity crises. I recommend reading this uplifting interview with Nikolaj from Atmos about the second season and his views on climate optimism in a world that can often feel dark, angry, and divided. He reminds us that most people are good and want the same things in life – to have a sense of purpose and to do something meaningful. This show highlights people doing just that.

Philanthropy At Work:

👩‍💻 Take action with EDF and tell your senators to vote yes on a bill that aims to force the EPA to uphold an important methane rule meant to cut emissions.

🙋‍♂️ The first-ever International Plastic Pellet Count, co-led by 5 Gyres, uncovered nearly 50,000 plastic pellets polluting shorelines, rivers, and inland areas across the world.

🌊 The Ocean Cleanup reached 10,000 all-time successful trash offloads across their river operations last month. And in LA, they are scaling up their efforts to intercept trash flowing from rivers into the ocean, as their first deployment of their river vessel successfully stopped 25K lbs of trash from flowing into the ocean.

Environmental News:

🤝 In about a week, the world will descend upon Belém, Brazil in the Amazon for COP30, the 30th annual UN conference on climate change. The US will not be joining in official capacity. Ahead of this year’s COP30, countries were supposed to submit their new commitments for emissions reductions through 2035. Of the near 200 countries that agreed to the Paris Agreement, only around 60 countries representing 30% of global emissions have done so. Nevertheless, the UN has used this information to take stock of where the world is now on climate progress. The focus of this COP is to be more about the action and less about the negotiations.

📉 Here’s where the UN says we are, based on promises countries have made to reduce emissions in the near term. The good news is that for the first time ever, the UN reports a projected decline in global emissions. They estimate this decline to be 10% by 2035. This shows that yes, the Paris Agreement is working in that countries are following through on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to increase renewable energy. The bad news is that it’s not working fast enough. In order to hold temperature rise to 1.5°C, we need a 60% reduction in emissions by 2035. The 10% likelihood versus the 60% necessity highlights the gap between action and promises.

🚨 UN Secretary António Guterres is one of my favorite bold voices on climate. He has bravely embraced his role of sounding the very real, science-based alarms of urgency and is unafraid to call out anyone and any country full of sh*t. His latest message is that it’s time to concede to the reality that humanity has failed to limit warming to 1.5°C. We will pass that threshold and the consequences will be the triggering of planetary tipping points that nobody would choose to see. The hope now is to follow the experiment that is to overshoot the temperature target and then bring it back down once everyone is finally on board after seeing the catastrophic consequences. Then we see if that experiment reverses any of the damage we caused. A very modern-human thing to do, but the mission remains: reduce emissions as fast as possible.

🌀 Hurricane Melissa tied the record for strongest hurricane to hit land in the Atlantic and was made worse from warmer-than-usual ocean water caused by human-made climate change.

🐋 Let’s lighten the mood, shall we? Did you know that Bowhead Whales live to be over 260 years old?! It’s the longest lifespan of any mammal on Earth. A new study found that these creatures, who live exclusively in the cold Arctic Ocean, are exceptionally good at repairing their DNA and therefore much less prone to cancers. The researchers believe this ability is linked to large amounts of a certain protein that helps “protect against cold-triggered damage to cells”, built up by living in frigid ocean temps. So perhaps the cold-plungers are indeed onto something…

🗻 A unique collaboration between universities, scientists, and UNESCO has produced The Global Glacier Casualty List, an interactive visual database for glaciers that have disappeared due to human-caused climate change. It’s surprisingly a lot. The project intersects activism with science and storytelling in a beautiful display of love for that which has been lost. Explore the list to learn stories and history behind the many fallen glaciers, who will now be remembered. Hopefully the project inspires more action to protect what’s left.

The Bill Gates Climate Memo:

Let’s talk about The Bill Gates Memo. ICYMI, Bill Gates, strong advocate and funder of climate solutions (still true), put out a memo ahead of COP30, urging a shift in focus from emissions reductions to human welfare. The latter has always been his primary passion. It’s even clear in his book “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster”, which omits thought or care about plastic pollution and biodiversity loss (notably crises that are more difficult to monetize compared to climate tech innovation). And that’s fine. We all have our things that we are passionate about, which is a good thing so that overall, humanity tackles all the issues.

So why is Gates taking a chapter from the Effective Altruism playbook and telling the world what it should and should not prioritize? In my opinion, he did this to save face in the AI era, from which he will profit greatly. His memo is not about shifting focus from emissions to human welfare – that is the trojan horse. His memo is about shifting focus away from reducing emissions in the name of AI growth. This was calculated in its publicity and selfish in nature.

Big Tech’s AI-driven data center boom is blowing up the industry’s once-trailblazing climate targets. The emissions these companies now produce from data centers have increased by triple digits so far this decade. We are constantly seeing news about fossil fuel plants staying online and deals made to build new ones to power AI data centers. That means more, not less, dirty planet-warming emissions. For Big Tech and all its stakeholders, they choose short term AI growth over long-term planetary health, and Bill Gates is proclaiming his support for this. It’s disappointing mostly in how he communicated this position, knowing it would spark distracting debate that only adds fuel to the destructive practices of the two main human cohorts standing in the way of true progress: the climate deniers afraid of change, and those unwilling to abandon their fossil fueled profits, because again, they fear change.

Bill McKibbon wrote a good response to the memo saying that Gates has been wrong time and time again about climate change, and he’s ignoring the increasing evidence linking extreme heat to negative human health outcomes. In fact, a new study in The Lancet says rising temperatures now kill one person per minute around the world. The bottom line is that by reducing emissions to limit global warming, we do improve human lives. We reduce disease-causing pollution and avert deadly extreme weather, to start. Bill Gates will continue to fund climate solutions, but I hope he can admit he’s simultaneously encouraging the problems that got us here to persist.

Peak Fall:

🍁 I hope you are enjoying the lovely fall weather and colors. Tell me how you’re embracing fall or send me a fall-themed pic! I’m beginning to play with 35mm film, so that’s what this photo is about.